A Ghost at the Door

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Dying happy. It’s a rare privilege. Harry, I’m not in much of a position to preach but as a friend . . .’

  ‘Tell me, Alex.’

  ‘You should think of Jemma. A remarkable girl. I got the impression – how can I put it? – she was . . .’

  ‘Deeply and most sincerely pissed off with me.’

  ‘As you say.’

  Harry’s shoulders sagged. He was having trouble carrying all this weight.

  ‘I hope the two of you will be spectacularly happy together,’ McQuarrel said.

  ‘Do you have a wife, Alex?’

  The older man smiled forlornly. ‘She died.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  A brush of summer breeze ruffled his hair, causing a silver lock to fall across his forehead, and his eyes seemed damp. ‘Some would say it was a blessing.’ The words came softly and were filled with hurt.

  ‘But not you.’

  ‘She committed suicide. Been frail for many years. Not mentally feeble, you understand, far from it. Agnetta was the most determined woman I’ve ever met, but she found no joy in life. There’s a certain type who draws the curtains on a Sunday in case Death walks by, but for her Death wasn’t a distant rumour: he was a constant companion. Like I suspect he has been for you, for much of your life.’

  Harry nodded.

  ‘And eventually he became her friend. Her closest friend.’

  ‘It must have been difficult for you.’

  ‘She was a scientist, Harry, like me. When the time came for her, Death was an adventure, something to explore. She met him face to face and embraced him.’

  ‘I’ve always preferred to kick the bastard in the balls and run like hell.’

  McQuarrel’s tone and eyes suddenly hardened. ‘Then do the same again, Harry. Don’t go trying to dig up Johnnie. He’s dead, well buried. Get back to the better things in life. To Jemma.’

  Harry had to admit that McQuarrel had a point. He’d found it difficult to sleep, and not just because of the excess of port. Jemma kept dancing through his dreams, enticing him, then running away as he reached for her, disappearing. Perhaps it was time to get back to the happy stuff. As he thought about what McQuarrel had said, he was distracted by the vibrating of his phone. He clamped it to his ear.

  ‘Hi, there, Harry Hero,’ a familiar voice warbled.

  ‘Inspector Hope. I guess that just has to be you.’

  ‘Anyone else think you’re a hero?’

  ‘Come to think of it, right now I don’t believe there’s another soul on the planet.’

  ‘I thought you’d like to know that I’m still chasing our girl.’

  ‘Susannah Ranelagh? Me, too.’

  ‘And I’m getting nowhere. No trace of her in Bermuda. So I thought I’d come and give my colleagues in the Metropolitan Police a gentle kicking. See if they’ll get off their pampered rumps and take a look-see for themselves. Just like you suggested.’

  ‘Great idea.’

  ‘And while I’m about it I believe you and I need a conversation.’

  ‘Over drinks or breakfast?’

  ‘Across an interview desk. You got trashed in Bermuda and it’s about time you told me the details. All of them, Harry.’

  ‘I owe you that, I guess. When are you arriving?’

  ‘I’m here. Just landed at Heathrow.’

  Harry could hear the buzz of the arrivals lounge in the background.

  ‘I’m staying at the Soho Hotel. Meet me there.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Six o’clock.’

  ‘For an interrogation?’

  ‘Let’s make it a drink. The thumbscrews come later.’

  ‘Soho Hotel. Six o’clock. Do I need to bring a lawyer?’

  ‘Only if you forget to pay for the drinks,’ she declared, ringing off with laughter in her voice.

  Harry looked up at the clock on Tom Tower; as he did so it began to strike nine. He turned to his companion. ‘I must be going. Summoned by the Bermuda Police.’

  McQuarrel’s brow creased with concern.

  ‘No, nothing too harsh. A couple of drinks. I think I can handle that.’

  ‘Your father’s son.’

  ‘Thank you, Alex.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For . . . being here. You’re about the only link I’ve got.’

  ‘Call me any time. Let me know how it all goes.’

  ‘I will. Don’t have much choice. Right now you’re the only one who wants to listen.’

  When he got back to Jemma’s, she was scrubbing saucepans, her hands covered in suds. She turned to greet him but the combination of her damp arms and his stiff cast seemed to get in the way and the welcoming kiss was perfunctory. The attempt at a warm homecoming fell flat.

  ‘Just fixing something special for supper,’ she said. It had been intended as a peace offering.

  ‘Thanks, Jem. But, er, I’ve got to go out.’

  Her face flushed in dismay.

  ‘I can be back by eight, though,’ he added hurriedly. ‘Latest.’

  She was chewing at the inside of her cheek.

  ‘How was yesterday evening?’ he asked, looking to change the subject.

  ‘I’m more interested in yours.’

  ‘I met Alex McQuarrel.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Something you forgot to mention.’ He hadn’t intended it as an accusation but somehow, as they crossed the kitchen, the words found sharp edges.

  She turned back to the sink, seeking distraction. ‘Sorry. Nothing deliberate. It’s just that . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, we haven’t been communicating much recently. Never get to finish what we’ve started.’

  ‘Even the arguments.’

  ‘I think we can do better than that.’ She threw the dishcloth aside and turned to face him once more. She was wearing a thin T-shirt with a motto across it that said GIRLS DO IT IN THE KITCHEN. No bra, and she was glad he’d noticed. It was time to make up. And cover her guilt. ‘Hey, Jones, before you rush out, how about some really sordid, spontaneous, bend-over-backwards, up-against-the-wall, across-the-kitchen-table, any-way-you-want-it, window-rattling sex?’ Before he could answer she was in his arms once again and this time she stayed, letting him feel the softness of her body until she could feel the firmness of his.

  He was breathing hard when at last their lips parted. ‘Stay here, Jem. Give me a nanosecond to get a rubber.’

  But she held him with surprising determination, refused to let him go. ‘There’s no need,’ she whispered, ‘not any more, not if we’re getting married. Let’s start now.’

  ‘Kids?’

  ‘You bet.’ And she was kissing him, but this time his mind was elsewhere. ‘What’s the matter, Harry?’

  ‘It’s just . . . You mentioned kids.’

  ‘You have a problem with that? It’s simple. We have insane sex, I get pregnant, nine months later we have a kid and for the next twenty years we pay through the nose. Correction, I guess it’s nearer thirty years nowadays.’

  ‘It’s just that—’

  ‘And I want a whole troop of them.’

  He pulled back from her. ‘Jem, I’ve got to tell you. I already have a son.’

  She stopped panting, all but stopped breathing, her face frozen in astonishment. Then she took one faltering step backwards until she hit the sink and couldn’t back away any further. ‘But . . .’ she whispered in protest. She couldn’t finish the thought, her mind was frozen, too.

  Harry scowled as he concentrated. How the hell could he get this all so wrong? His first wife, Julia, had been killed when she was pregnant; he’d lost his wife and child in a single beat of fate. Then his second wife, Mel, had trashed their relationship with an abortion. With Jemma it should have been so much easier.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘His name is Ruari. Almost twenty now, lives with his mother and her husband in the States. Great kid, great family.’

&nb
sp; ‘I’m so pleased for them.’

  ‘I didn’t even know of his existence until a couple of years ago. He didn’t know about me, either, still doesn’t. We decided to tell him when he was twenty-one.’

  ‘Why twenty-one? What’s so bloody special about twenty-one?’

  ‘They’ll be back in this country, we can tell him all together. Something like that. It’s what his mother wanted.’

  ‘His mother?’

  ‘Terri. Her name’s Terri.’

  ‘And what about what I want, Harry?’

  ‘When you mentioned kids I felt I needed to tell you—’

  ‘And, if I hadn’t mentioned kids, when precisely were you planning to produce this little nugget?’

  ‘You said yourself we haven’t been talking much—’

  ‘Let me get this straight. You complain about me forgetting to tell you about some old man, yet your own son seems to slip completely from your memory.’

  ‘Jem, this is silly. It doesn’t make any difference.’

  But Jemma wasn’t listening. She was drowning in her own guilt. She pushed past him. ‘I’m going out. I might be a hell of a while.’ She gathered her coat, her bag, pausing only at the door to turn and say, ‘Fuck you, Harry.’

  When the door slammed behind her it rattled not only the windows but shook the entire floor.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Soho Hotel was a remarkable place, built in the heart of one of London’s most crowded and creative quarters from the remnants of an old multistorey car park – quirky, colourful and nestling alongside the Italian restaurants and advertising outlets of Dean Street, where Karl Marx had lived while writing Das Kapital in what had then been described as one of the worst and therefore one of the cheapest quarters of London. The place had come a long way since those days, and the restaurant above which he had lived now bore a Michelin star and a price tag to suit. Harry made his way along the bustling street, forced to step into the gutter to avoid the happy-hour crowds that were spilling onto the pavements. The gentle pleasures of the early Oxford morning were now a forgotten memory; this was central London, sweltering, an armpit of an evening.

  When Harry walked through the doorway of the hotel he found Delicious already in the book-lined lobby, chatting with a young receptionist in a brightly coloured waistcoat. She was leaning over his desk, her back end in tailored trousers and parked prominently. For a woman in her mid-thirties such delights weren’t down to the casual good fortune of youth. She clearly worked hard at it. Harry couldn’t help but take note.

  ‘Hello, Delicious.’

  She turned. ‘Harry! Meet Pablo. Pablo, as you can tell, is the cutest and most helpful concierge I think I’ve ever met. And Pablo’ – she turned to the young man who flashed a smile full of naturally white teeth – ‘this is Harry who’s a good cop, assault victim and criminal suspect all rolled into one. Hell of a guy.’

  She was firing live shot and already Harry’s dark mood was being tickled into submission. They made their way to the drawing room, which was full of colour and wooden furniture with oversized butterfly joints, settled on a sofa in a quiet corner and ordered beers.

  ‘It’s great to see you,’ he said, taking the head off the glass. ‘Really great, Delicious. I could do with some good news.’

  ‘Then I guess I’m not your girl, Harry. I come empty-handed. Our Miss Ranelagh’s disappeared, nowhere to be found, like a taxi in the rain. That’s why I’m here: got a meeting with the Met tomorrow morning to see if they can pick up her trail from Heathrow. But so far as we can tell she’s not spent a cent or made a single call since she arrived.’

  ‘My old man’s friends seem to have an unfortunate habit of disappearing,’ Harry said, producing his iPhone and bringing up the photograph of the young diners. He went along the row of smiling faces. ‘My father’s dead, Susannah Ranelagh’s missing, that one got murdered in a car bomb and she was killed in a plane crash. Four out of seven. Bloody awful odds, even for people in their seventies.’

  ‘The other three?’

  ‘One’s a bishop. The other two unknown.’

  ‘Let me have a copy, Harry.’

  With a touch of the screen it was done. They both sat bent over their phones, staring at the image, seeking inspiration.

  ‘I’ve been doing a little digging into Miss Ranelagh’s background,’ Delicious announced.

  ‘She played croquet.’

  She threw a glance full of fire at him. ‘How d’you know? Damn, you holding out on me, Harry?’

  ‘I guess I have an eye for these things.’

  ‘I’ve seen what you have an eye for, Harry,’ she said provocatively.

  ‘No, seriously. Our Miss Ranelagh, she has the ankles of a croquet player.’

  ‘You’re winding me up.’

  ‘And it’s a photo of an Oxford Junior Croquet Club dinner.’

  ‘Harry, you’re an idiot. But you’re right. She was a keen member of the Bermuda croquet crowd down at Somerset.’

  ‘Any good?’

  ‘Lucky. Very lucky, apparently. Had a good eye, and not just on the grass. Our Miss Ranelagh had a charmed life, it seems.’

  ‘Had?’

  ‘Past tense. My instinct says her luck’s run out. But while it lasted it was truly remarkable. Luck of the Irish – and then some. Her family had no great wealth but she came to Bermuda thirty years ago and seems to have done little else except play croquet, join charities and move her money around. She plays with her money like Tiger Woods plays with his balls.’

  ‘And how did she do that? Was it respectable money?’

  ‘Harry, it’s Bermuda. Who cares if it’s respectable? You want respectable, you buy it. And Miss Ranelagh bought a good deal of respect. At least twelve million dollars’ worth and still counting.’

  Harry went back to staring at the photo. ‘No one knew where my father got his money, but he had a small mountain of it, too. As did he, as did she,’ he added, pointing once more to the faces of al-Masri and Leclerc. ‘Now that’s something else they have in common. Rich. And dead.’

  ‘Not so lucky after all.’

  ‘You thinking what I’m thinking, Delicious?’

  ‘You’re a man: I always know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘If it wasn’t for the bloody bishop who is still alive and preaching we might even have a full house.’

  ‘And there was me feeling deeply pissed that I’ve never had the time to take up croquet.’ She drained her beer and set the glass back down. ‘So how the hell did they all make their money?’

  The room was filling, the noise level rising. A couple came to sit uncomfortably close on an adjoining sofa and began to rehearse the details of a forthcoming client pitch.

  Delicious shook her head. ‘Come on, Harry, let’s seek a little peace and go raid my minibar.’ She scribbled a signature on the bill and led the way.

  Her room on the second floor was light, designer-clad and expensive. ‘A bit like Bermuda,’ she quipped as she led him in. It had a bed the size of a tennis court clad in cushions and contemporary fabric, but there was plenty of other furniture in the room, mirrors scattered across the walls and a designer mannequin in the corner. She dropped her bag onto the sofa and headed for the minibar. ‘What’s your poison, Harry?’

  ‘Whatever you’re having.’

  ‘Don’t call me chicken if I grab some tea. Jetlag sure dries me out. But you—’

  ‘No. Tea will be fine.’

  ‘Then would you mind calling for a tray? Give me time to jump in the shower. God knows what you Brits do to sunshine to make it stick like glue.’

  As she disappeared into a separate part of the room hidden behind a half-wall, he picked up the phone, jabbed buttons and tried to scratch at the skin beneath the cast that was beginning to itch like an army of fire ants. Six weeks of healing, they’d said at the hospital in Bermuda. Six weeks of purgatory, fighting an enemy he couldn’t even see.

  The tray of tea arrived and Harry s
et about it. ‘You take sugar?’ he called out as he rattled the cups. No reply. She couldn’t hear him through the shower and behind the door. He tried again, but nothing, so Harry went to the corner of the room where she had disappeared, preparing to press his question more forcefully. That was the point when he discovered there was no door. The bathroom area was not only en suite but also alfresco and behind the half-wall the shower was in full view. So was Delicious. Only the curtain of water that was cascading down the glass wall concealed her finer details. He prepared to turn from the embarrassment but before he could drag himself away she stepped from the shower and was standing in full and glorious view.

  ‘I . . . I . . .’ What the hell was he supposed to say? ‘I was wondering whether you took sugar in your tea.’

  ‘How very English.’

  His mouth suddenly felt like the bottom of a parrot’s cage. ‘I’m sorry, I never meant . . .’

  Water was dripping down her skin, little streams that moved around the contours of her body. She didn’t move; time ceased to exist.

  Harry stood rooted. He suspected his lower jaw had sagged and was making a fool of him. A million years of evolution was being crushed into a fragment of time – this time – and against that the veneer of conventional morality that stretched back not even as far as his father seemed to count for nothing. What was he supposed to think? Men in such circumstances are rarely given to intensive analytical processes, yet he couldn’t fail to remember Terri, and their affair, and the hurt it had done to Julia. Instinct was taking over, firmly pressing its point. Delicious was perfection on a plate, every man’s lingering dream. Harry took an enormous breath, preparing to both speak and act, although he still wasn’t certain how.

  Then his phone began burbling in his pocket. The moment was broken.

  ‘Are you going to answer that, Harry?’

  He smiled sheepishly. ‘Not right now. I need . . . a moment to myself. I’ll just go and sit quietly next door.’

  Their eyes wrestled in disappointment and sympathy and understanding and all the things that told her Harry belonged to another woman. ‘By the way, the answer is two.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sugars.’