The Book Ghost

by Lorna Gray

  His eyes had dropped to my new level. He said, ‘I’m suggesting to you that someone is steering this business of tearing about the countryside after failing publishing firms, and to me it just doesn’t quite bear the hallmarks of your uncle’s usual indecisive style.’

  I stared. The doctor meant this to be a stark warning, only I didn’t quite know where he thought the danger lay.

  After a moment, I observed carefully, ‘You seem very angry about this, Doctor.’

  I must have released the feeling in him. Doctor Bates was suddenly telling me quite tersely, ‘In my opinion, Mr Underhill is a man who has developed a very unreliable idea of how to undertake normal business. He learned through years of striking horrific bargains with the prison guards over a few prohibited medicines for the suffering inmates, and all without, I might add, having any of the necessary qualifications.’

  We were both standing in this little pool of light cast from the nearest wall lamp, and it was having a similar effect on him as it had on me. It was emphasising his features so that he was almost too vivid against the plain backdrop of the shop as he continued, ‘Underhill is perfectly capable of striking underhand deals. But not so keen on facing the consequences that come afterwards, wouldn’t you say?’

  He asked, ‘Have you noticed how Underhill tends to retreat just as soon as things get a little tense?’

  He didn’t even leave me the room to draw breath for an answer before he added, ‘Apparently, he found the strain of going back to his medical college too much after the guilt of what happened to those boys who’d followed him to war.’

  ‘Is that what your tutor said?’

  ‘Near enough.’ He swept on. ‘Then Underhill came here instead, and now the pattern is repeating itself all over again with your aunt and uncle … And with you – because you’ve only just found out what he’s got your uncle involved in, haven't you, and now you and I have to decide whether to tell the necessary people before he runs away again.’

  ‘You mean to report us?’ I asked while my mind stumbled.

  ‘Not you. Him.’

  In a way, this bruise ran deeper than the nightmare of the trespass into a darkened office because this was being said in daytime and it was clear that every mention of Robert’s name was personal.

  I heard myself saying carefully, ‘Just to be clear, Doctor, you do understand that you’re talking about the acquisition of a little surplus paper for the sake of printing a few books, don’t you? You aren’t imagining that you’ve uncovered something truly horrific?’

  Doctor Bates flinched. I suppose it was a little unexpected to hear me voice for the first time the truth of his discovery about that paper.

  He tried to contain the feeling by telling me to be free with his name – Terry.

  Then he must have grown calmer, because suddenly he was telling me on quite a plaintive note, ‘Do you know that my study of that man only began as a small matter of curiosity?’

  He reached out a hand to fiddle with the clasp to his medical bag. With his eyes on it, he told me, ‘I like order. I like to make things better. That is my job after all – I’m good at it. Then I mentioned Underhill’s name in passing to my old lecturer for the sake of understanding the path the man took between that place and here.’

  ‘And got in return an awful lot of nonsense and gossip?’ I supplied.

  He nodded. ‘Afterwards, the question of what the man was up to ran on into a bigger and bigger complication, until, somehow, I’ve finished by standing here, cursed with the job of acting as judge and justice.’

  He stared bleakly at nothing while he drew an unsteady breath. Then he told me helplessly, ‘It’s got to the point that I’m actually growing a little afraid of my own power as a witness. I have no idea what I’ll be made to do next.’

  There was a sense that Robert was to blame for that too.

  It hurt me when I had to say firmly, ‘It is only one small van-load of paper. If you’d seen our stock room, you’d know it isn’t exactly on the scale that people go to prison for.’

  Doctor Bates jerked his head at that.

  Then he set both his hands to the task of fastening his bag because the clasp was stiff. ‘You’re saying that Underhill was acting for your uncle’s business?’

  ‘I am.’

  I watched him nod over his bag as he accepted my decision. I was confirming that I was part of my uncle’s business too.

  Then he asked almost idly, ‘So what would happen if you were to be exposed?’

  I told him quickly, ‘If our purchase of the paper were to be exposed, I imagine the company would have its allowance of paper revoked and my uncle would have to pay a hefty fine.’

  I caught his glance and shrugged. ‘Ultimately,’ I said, ‘this is Uncle George’s business, and my aunt’s.’

  ‘Your uncle’s,’ he repeated flatly.

  I felt again his strange determination to force me to consider the possibility that Robert had been driving this rather than my uncle. And wondered how it was that neither of the editors had thought fit to let me know much about this, and yet here I was, fighting to negotiate a safe path for us all through this idiotic debate of right and wrong.

  As it happened, there was only wrong here anyway, and it led me to tell the doctor, ‘We bought enough paper for one job, perhaps the Willerson archive. I’m sure that’s what my uncle had in mind when he decided to take the risk – and Robert really did say that he was acting for my uncle, I’m sure he did.’

  The doctor’s head lifted at that. He made me very conscious of every small movement as I added sympathetically, ‘You see, we think the Willerson book is likely to sell, just so long as we can print a large enough number to meet the first rush of demand.’

  I drew breath to add something else, something about the issues facing small publishing houses these days. Then I let it out again. Because it was only one short step from there into speaking about our other titles, and I wasn’t about to start sliding in references to Miss Prichard’s manuscript as if I intended to offer up his landlady’s name as a bribe.

  My uncle couldn’t afford it and, besides, I wasn’t yet that desperate.

  That last realisation came harshly, in the midst of knowing that I’d never been so calculating in my life before. I knew the doctor was watching me when I finally asked, ‘Well then, Doctor, what do you want to do?’

  For a moment, Doctor Bates didn’t have a reply. Other than to reaffirm that I ought to use his name.

  I told him, ‘You aren’t at fault here, you know. You really aren’t. And we needn’t spend all morning debating the likely consequences for my uncle. You probably ought to be getting on with your morning round of visits to your patients as it is.’

  I was cheating there. I kept reasserting that the danger here was to my uncle.

  Then something about the doctor’s expression jarred in my mind. It was the complacency of his nod after I’d referred to his list of morning visits.

  He made me consider again the timing of his arrival here, and the way he had immediately noticed the bandage on my wrist, even when it had been concealed behind me.

  I thought he was here because he had known before he had even stepped in this morning that he needed, for the sake of his peace of mind, to check the bones of my hand for a break.

  He was here because I was one of his patients too.

  So, with that in mind, it occurred to me that he’d been entirely honest when he’d said just now that he was afraid of what he might be led to do by his interest in Robert.

  I had to wonder how he had felt last night, crouching silently in that space behind the doorframe in the dark of the stairwell, when he had eased the door by those few crucial inches to let my hand go.

  Chapter 10

  Doctor Bates wasn’t aware of the shift in my concentration. He still believed we were speaking about Robert.

  That confident mouth was answering my question by telling me rather doggedly, ‘I don’t want to do anything
about this. I want Underhill himself to decide what’s right. It’s in his nature to move on after all.’

  ‘He’ll move on?’ I repeated flatly.

  The doctor didn’t notice the way my posture changed. ‘Of course. He left his former scene of disgrace just as soon as the shame grew too much. So I want him to give way to the same urge now. I imagine he’ll realise what he’s done, he’ll quietly take himself off, and that’ll be all the rest of us will need to think about it. He’ll leave.’

  The doctor’s certainty flooded my skin. I wasn’t sure I would have spoken if he hadn’t jarred me into it.

  I barely recognised my voice when I asked, ‘How did you get yourself shut in last night at the office? Was it when Mr Lock left after they unloaded the hired van?’

  I might have imagined I’d struck Doctor Bates in the throat from the sound he made.

  I suppose that after everything, we were all finding our darker limits here. This counterattack was at last the proof of how fiercely my own mind could behave in the face of a perceived threat.

  I felt its stain. As I say, I hadn’t truly decided to confront this man at all.

  Then the faint tremor beneath my skin stopped. His mouth was moving without forming sound. His shock grew from the sheer nakedness of perceiving that I knew.

  When he still didn’t speak, I remarked quietly, ‘You must have had an uncomfortable few hours until two o’clock came and you felt brave enough to creep upstairs to take my key. I suppose this is why you’ve been so determined to teach me that Robert has a history of leading people astray. If he’s a corrupting influence, it allows you to hate the man for bringing you to this.’

  I stood there while the man who had trapped my hand in a door swallowed and worked to find his voice. He stammered, ‘N—no. I didn’t even mean to talk about Mr Underhill just now, until you shocked me into it by calling him Robert. I thought I might need to show you who he really was – and quickly, because we’re alike, you and I, aren’t we? We’re both victims here.’

  ‘Victims?’

  ‘Of course. I’ve been led to this brutal place purely because I was curious about that man’s criminal act, and now he’s thrust you into the path of harm. I’m sorry.’

  Now that Doctor Bates had found his voice, he couldn’t be stopped. He rushed on to tell me plaintively, ‘I saw the print room man come back with the van at five o’clock. I was watching for about an hour before they came.’

  ‘They?’ I prompted. ‘And don’t say Mr Underhill.’

  ‘Mr Lock and the boy who helps him. I followed them in through the big carriage doors. Your uncle had already gone home so no one saw me slip from the workshop into the back door of this shop, or from here upstairs to your office.’

  He hesitated before adding, ‘I had to wait up there until they’d finished clearing the van.’

  ‘Were you down in the print room when I came in?’

  He winced. Shame made him add very reluctantly, ‘I was having a second look for a spare key. I’d already exhausted your desk, so I was in Underhill’s office when you climbed the stairs to your bed.’

  It chilled me to realise he had been so close. The doctor was watching me carefully as he told me, ‘That was how I knew you and Underhill had come home together on the same bus. I watched you from his window. I was afraid you’d noticed my mistake when I mentioned that.’

  I hadn’t noticed. It went some way to explaining the sweep of the man’s emotions at the time, which, naively, I’d taken as a kind of compliment.

  I saw his mouth dip when I didn’t give a retort. He was more relaxed than he had been when he had to tell me, ‘You locked the front door when you went up to bed so I took your key from your handbag – it was either that or wait until morning and politely tell you all about it by knocking on your door as you poured your morning cup of tea. I was only trying to do what was right.’

  ‘I can see that.’ It was said dryly.

  Somehow he’d cured my temper. He had been, after all, a very accidental burglar. And he really had thought he might come here this morning, the well-intentioned gentleman, to assure himself that I was unharmed before slipping away with his integrity intact, to brood endlessly upon the criminality of my uncle’s new editor.

  I asked, ‘Were you ever intending to publicly expose our new store of paper? Would you have reported Robert if I hadn’t stumbled into discussing him with you this morning?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Probably not.’

  He drew a breath. ‘I certainly didn’t expect to end up feeling like the wretched villain of this piece. And,’ he added, ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

  Doctor Bates was telling the full truth at last.

  His mouth had formed a rueful line. And I could really see the real difficulty ahead for me and this man, because there was a trap here, and this one was a snare for my peace of mind.

  It grew from knowing that everything hinged now upon how I proceeded from this moment. I was the real judge of these deeds. Now that the doctor had shed his disguise, no one else could decide how far his suspicions should justify the way he had first followed me to the bus, then spied on this place and finally stalked about my house after dark. And no one except me could decide how much responsibility Robert should bear for this, or even how much he should know.

  If this was my chance to bury this, I should capitalise upon the doctor’s guilt now.

  I lifted my head and met his eye plainly. It was another of those moments when I was very conscious of every small movement of my body. I repeated frankly, ‘What do you want to do?’

  He was stunned into speechlessness.

  I added, ‘This isn’t one of those moments of threat and counter threat, you know, it really isn’t. I don’t want Mr Underhill or my uncle to be dragged into a deeper mess, but I don’t intend to bully you into silence either.’

  I saw him wet his lips before he asked numbly, ‘You’re giving me the advantage?’

  I gave a nod which eased to a slight smile as I turned my head aside. I told the gloomy space of the shop, ‘Take this as one of those serious gestures which are not exactly considered good tactics, but are meant as a mark of truce.’

  There was no scheme here, no ploy. I wasn’t expecting the doctor to react to the undemanding nature of my offer in the way that he did.

  I turned back to him in time to catch the faintest of twists upon that mouth, like the uncoiling of strong emotion. His gaze on me was suddenly wide and unwavering. He looked utterly thrown by the discovery that I would not blame him.

  Then he took a small step towards me.

  He told me hastily, ‘I’ve never felt anything as confusing as this. We’ve both been thrust into something utterly revealing, haven’t we? I know you feel it too, because you’ve been left as unbalanced as I have by everything you’ve had to face here. You never asked to be put in this position, any more than I did. And yet all the while you’re standing there wearing that same ethereal look you always have, and you’re mesmerising.’

  Unexpectedly, I saw bewilderment blaze upon his face.

  I believe I may have recoiled slightly as he swept on, ‘This is just like that moment when you travelled on the bus with me, when I think I might have asked you to dinner. I never seriously expected anything to come of it. But these past days have been a whirlwind with you as the only clear point. Finally, I think I understand why. You care for me, don’t you? And what man would say no?’

  I froze when I felt the brush of his fingers as they ran across my cheek and into my hair. He had stepped again and now he leaned in. He meant, impossibly, to find a kiss.

  I will state here and now that I did not for a moment believe his reach for me was an insidious bribe. This wasn’t the act of a sinister male taking his idea of redemption from a woman in the form of a certain fee.

  This must have been as he had said – the instinctive conclusion to the intimacy that had already been forged between us by our proximity to someone els
e’s mistake.

  Only, even as I felt the whisper of his touch against my cheek, I was already pulling back. Because I hadn’t meant this. I hadn’t even foreseen it.

  He must have misread my sympathy. He must have been swept into this, when I hadn’t imagined that I might need to be more guarded. I was finding it disorientating enough these days to be suddenly reconsidering my idea of who I was as a woman after all the years of quietly thinking of little beyond my work. I hadn’t realised that he had even noticed my newfound determination, or the self-consciousness which for me was coursing like a fever through this entire wretched morning.

  Now the misunderstanding tugged drunkenly on almost every nerve. Because the doctor thought I had been battling for his sake. But he wasn’t the man who had been foremost in my thoughts during that dead-of-night rousing, and I wasn’t even sure my husband had been that man either.

  A distant voice was heard in the passage beneath the stairs that led from the printworks. We were suddenly yards apart because Amy Briar was calling out her parting words to Mr Lock.

  I couldn’t face her as well. Not when Doctor Bates was her friend and, until this moment, Amy had always been the person he had visited here. I was the coward who slid away to my desk.

  I was sitting there when Robert walked in at about eleven o’clock.

  Chapter 11

  On Robert’s face, there was the sort of irritation a man wears when he feels he’s spent hours chasing about after some vital piece of missing information, such as why I had left him to catch a bus this morning on his own. It was mingling with concern, and there was also a remnant of the steadiness of our farewell last night, where his remark about being my assistant had seemed to be a signpost for beginning to be my friend.

  He said by way of a greeting, ‘Did you oversleep? I’ve just been to Stow and back. I nearly pressed on without you, but then I remembered your uncle’s workload, so it seemed sensible to turn back at the first available town. Inevitably, I managed to pick the time of day when there was a long wait between buses for the return trip.’