Read The Other Side of Midnight for Free Online Page A

Liverpool accent when she wasn’t working and only appeared during the intermittent times she could pay her back rent—had no idea that two floors above her was the great Gloria Sutter, who quietly let everyone from priests to politicians up the winding back stairs to her garret.
    Gloria could have afforded better, of course. Her clientele was of the highest level, and her fees reflected it. But she liked the eccentricity of Soho, the strange collection of fringe people who never askedquestions and took most things in stride. And she found the discreet back stairs of the building too useful to give up.
    I had no key to Gloria’s apartment. I did not need one. I climbed the front stairs, passed the shuttered rooms belonging to the Liverpool medium, and knocked on the door to the first-floor flat.
    I knew the occupant wouldn’t answer, so I didn’t bother waiting. “Davies, it’s me. Ellie Winter.”
    A shuffle, and a sullen thump. Then silence.
    I knocked again. “Davies, please.”
    The lock clicked and the door opened just wide enough to reveal the homely face of a woman. She was twenty-five, and her reddish bobbed and marcelled hair stood up in an unkempt mess. Her eyes were red from weeping.
    “Oh, God,” she drawled. “It’s you.”
    This was Davies—her first name was Violetta, but no one ever called her anything but Davies. She had been Gloria’s personal secretary, living in the flat beneath hers, managing her mail, scheduling her appointments, and, most important, screening her clients. Anyone who wanted to see Gloria went through Davies first. She was homely, intelligent, rootless, and mostly without feeling except for her fierce dedication to her job and to Gloria Sutter.
    “I need to come in,” I said to her.
    Even though she looked a mess, she was admirably managing to sound bored and superior. “I’ve talked to the police about everything already,” she said. “Go away.”
    “I’m not the police.”
    Davies rolled her eyes. “Do tell.”
    “Davies, please. Just—please.”
    “I said go away.” She made to close the door.
    “A ghost hunt, for God’s sake?” I said. “In an outside location? You let her go alone? And how in the world did you let Fitzroy Todd get involved?”
    She blinked at me, then tossed the door open and turned her back, walking into the room. She was wearing a housedress of hideous plaid and a pair of heeled mules with bows on the tops. The mules clacked hollowly on the floor.
    “I told her not to go,” she said.
    “That’s not good enough.” I shut the door behind me. “There should have been no séance in the first place. She should never have even heard about it, never been given the choice. You should have stopped it.”
    She flopped heavily on a sofa, her feet in their mules jutting out onto the scratched wood floor. Misery flinched across her face.
    Anyone who had been in the spirit medium profession for any length of time had a set of rules. First, never agree to a séance with a group of unknown people; the dynamics were too risky, and the medium never knew whether a reporter or a skeptic was hiding undercover. Second, never do a session—of any kind—on client property. Every psychic needed to work within her own controlled environment.
    And third, never go into such a situation alone, because most men saw us as easy women. Psychics and palm readers were everyday targets for robberies, passes, and worse. The setup in which Gloria died had been one only the most desperate amateur would agree to.
    “I don’t know why you care,” Davies said sullenly. “How long has it been? Three years since you decided you were too good to associate with the likes of us?”
    “I’d think it was the other way around,” I replied. I walked into the messy sitting room and looked down at her. “I wasn’t good enough, and neither was my mother. I think Gloria proved that rather conclusively, didn’t she?”
    Davies rolled her eyes. “You always did take things