A Ghost at the Door

by Michael Dobbs

  Only then did Harry retreat, released from the spell. He went back to the tea, ripped open a packet of sugar, sent it scattering everywhere but into the cup. Delicious appeared, clad in a towelling robe of brilliant white, and settled in a chair with her feet curled up beneath her. He couldn’t stop the cup rattling in its saucer as he handed it to her.

  ‘To our meeting in the next life, Harry,’ she said, raising the tea to her lips in salute. ‘And I wish you and your lady good luck in this.’ The eyes said she meant it. Then she threw her head back and let forth a laugh that sounded like a peal of church bells on an Easter morning.

  Harry, his dignity retrieved but tattered, proceeded to tell her what he had discovered about his father’s money.

  ‘Insider trading?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. Nothing that could be proved, perhaps. Just good gossip.’

  ‘And useful friends.’

  ‘In Bermuda, Brussels. The Middle East.’

  ‘Stretching all the way back to Oxford.’

  ‘And worth killing for, maybe?’

  ‘In which case those remaining three are right there in the frame.’

  ‘The bloody bishop?’

  ‘When you have excluded what is probable, then what is merely possible . . .’

  Suddenly he glanced at his watch. ‘Bugger, I’m late.’

  ‘Hot date?’

  ‘I doubt it. Jem – that’s her name, Jemma – just walked out on me. I need to go see if she’s come back. I have this dull male instinct that it wouldn’t be the brightest move since the Creation to keep her waiting.’

  He got to his feet; so did she. ‘Harry, we’re not finished. I need to know more of what went on in Bermuda.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘And we’re not quite finished with today. Can’t leave things as they are, not with a cup of tea.’ And like an evangelical preacher she looped one arm over his shoulder and the other around his waist and held him close, in friendship. ‘I’ll call you. After I’ve been to the Met.’

  He was at the door when she touched his arm, held him back once more. ‘Harry, if you’re right about things there are corpses scattered everywhere. Someone out there sure won’t take too kindly to you kicking over their kennel. Don’t be a hero. Just be careful.’

  ‘Careful? Like a nun. Nothing but cold showers from now on.’

  ‘Stay safe, Harry. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  As the lift doors opened and he stepped into the lobby, Harry glanced again at his watch. He would have difficulty getting back by eight, as he’d promised Jemma. He scurried down the steps and out into the street. He didn’t look back, didn’t spot the figure tucked away in the corner hiding behind a copy of the Evening Standard. The man watched Harry disappear in the distance. Then he reached for his phone.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It was eight thirty-two as Harry stepped into the apartment, and it took him only a breath to know something was wrong. It stank of burned food. ‘Bugger!’ His dinner was charcoal. It also meant Jemma hadn’t returned. He spent the best part of an hour distractedly scraping at the casserole. Then he waited some more. Ten. Eleven. Jemma didn’t come home, not all night.

  It took Delicious little more than ten minutes the following day to walk to St James’s Park once her meeting at Charing Cross police station on Agar Street had finished. Her British colleagues had been welcoming but cautious: there was only so much time and manpower they could give to a missing-person case from another jurisdiction, no matter how attractively the request was packaged. Cuts. Priorities. Paperwork, they explained. But they would do their damnedest, for her – she had that sort of effect on people, and particularly on middle-aged coppers. It was as good as she could hope for, but no sooner had the promises been issued than the cost-saving computer system they relied on had crashed. Promises had given way to pandemonium. Without eyes, without screens, they couldn’t catch a cat. She agreed to come back the following morning.

  Trafalgar Square was abustle with tourists and tour leaders with flags raised high above their heads as they led their flock of foreign ducklings. Delicious listened as one of them described how the smallest police station in the country had once been housed in the base of one of the square’s corner lanterns, but no longer. Closed decades ago, of course. Cuts, even in those days, even though it was barely large enough for the swing of a truncheon. She dodged through the crawl of traffic that struggled around the square and found herself in the Mall pointing towards the squat outline of Buckingham Palace in the distance. It took only a few more steps before she was in the park and walking through the avenue of ancient plane trees, past carefully tended flower beds and to the lake that had originally been dug out by Charles II for his revelries and duck meat. She hurried on, not wanting to be late, uncertain of what lay in store for her.

  The phone call that had summoned her here had been made to her hotel room shortly after Harry had left.

  ‘Inspector Hope?’ a man’s voice had said.

  ‘That’s correct. And who’s this?’

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to introduce myself properly when we meet. I believe you’re looking for Susannah Ranelagh.’

  ‘Yes, but how do you—’

  ‘Please, I must ask you to bear with me. I’m in a somewhat delicate position, you see, and I need your word that you’ll treat anything I have to tell you in the strictest confidence. That includes my identity.’

  ‘An anonymous informant?’

  ‘Only until tomorrow. Can we meet? There’s a restaurant and coffee shop just behind Downing Street called Inn the Park. That’s two N’s. Would that be convenient?’

  ‘How will I recognize you?’

  ‘Oh, no need. I’ll find you.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘The Bermuda Police Force website. Very fetching photo, if you’ll allow me to say so.’

  She paused, made up her mind. ‘Two thirty?’

  ‘I’ll be there. Tell you everything you need to know.’

  She was formulating more questions, wanting to know how he had found out she was staying at the Soho, what was his connection with Susannah Ranelagh, but he had already rung off.

  She found the restaurant with its views over the lake. It had a grass roof, a glass frontage and a long, curving terrace at its front. She stepped tentatively inside, peered around the busy interior, but no one caught her eye. She moved to the terrace, glancing in both directions, and there at the very end, at the table nearest the lake, a man was sitting on his own. As she stared he raised his head from the book he was reading and nodded, then stood. ‘Inspector Hope,’ he declared as she approached. He held out his hand in greeting. ‘It’s good of you to make the time.’

  ‘It was an invitation I couldn’t easily refuse.’

  ‘I suppose so. Susannah must be something of a mystery for you.’

  ‘So are you. Who are you?’

  But he held up the palms of his hands to deflect her question. ‘All in good time, Inspector. I’ve a lot to tell you. But, first, have you had lunch?’

  ‘A sandwich. A cheese-and-lettuce sandwich. A very stale cheese-and-lettuce sandwich.’

  ‘Then a drink of some sort. In honour of the heat, how about a glass of Pimm’s? It’s our version of a rum fruit cocktail but without the rum.’

  She nodded her head. ‘Love one.’

  ‘Two minutes.’

  While he was fetching the drinks she looked around her. The book he had been reading was Dickens with a bookmark from something called the Folio Society protruding from its pages. Much thumbed, not the first time of reading, and well chosen, as was the table he had commandeered, as private as any on the crowded terrace. It was at the end of the row with a view over the tranquil lake with its wildlife and fountains. On the pathway beneath the terrace, tourists ignored the signs that warned them not to feed the waterfowl and were besieged by an army of squirrels and several flotillas of ducks. Beyond the precincts of the park she could see the roo
fscape of Whitehall with its towers and cupolas, and beyond it the London Eye peered down like a multi-eyed mechanical Hydra. She began to relax: her mystery man had taste.

  When he returned, clutching two glasses, he placed her drink on the table in front of her and raised his own. ‘To your good health and successful visit, Inspector.’

  ‘Thanks but—’

  There seemed to be so many unanswered questions in their dialogue. She was growing impatient and he tried to reassure her.

  ‘I’ve known Susannah for many years, since long before she came to Bermuda. Since she was a student. Always a very private woman.’

  His stare was bold, direct, so much so that she felt it slightly disconcerting, as though he was studying her. She pushed around the cucumber in her drink.

  ‘She had few friends,’ he continued. ‘I was one of them. We, a small group of us from university, would meet once a year to catch up, to exchange news.’

  They were interrupted as her phone buzzed. She apologized and pulled the phone from her bag. It was a text from Harry, confirming their arrangement to meet a little later in Westminster, telling her he was on his way.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, looking up, ‘where were we?’

  ‘I was telling you how Susannah made her money.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Yes. The news we exchanged. Because of our positions, much of it was commercially sensitive. Over the years it’s turned out to be worth a small fortune – several small fortunes, in fact.’

  ‘The Oxford University Junior Croquet Club!’ she exclaimed in surprise.

  ‘Precisely. Although that sounds a little too formal. We used to call ourselves the Aunt Emmas. It’s a technical term suggesting that we took the game rather less seriously than some others.’

  ‘Croquet has technical terms?’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  So Harry had been right. Good cop, Harry, right down to the scar on his left buttock she’d seen peering out at her from beneath his hospital gown. But in the same flash of understanding she grew confused: no way was this man anyone in the photograph, not for all the fifty years that had passed since it had been taken.

  ‘So the members of the Aunt Emmas were in some sort of insider-trading ring? A cartel?’

  ‘It was an intellectual cartel, if you want to give it a label. It’s important that you understand the nature of elites, Inspector, for these people were undoubtedly an elite, the very best and brightest whose parents had betrayed the world, then condemned it to stultifying postwar mediocrity. They knew things could be different and set out to prove it. They met to exchange views and opinions, as old friends would, but they were also highly competitive. And in a competitive world money seems always to become the final arbiter, the measure of success. They were all in positions where they were recipients of confidences – that’s the nature of elites – but it got to the point where those confidences were broken by being shared with each other.’

  ‘Even Susannah Ranelagh?’ she asked in surprise.

  ‘Even Susannah Ranelagh. Oh, yes, a tiny shrew of a woman in so many ways but quite exceptionally bright. People underestimated her. She arrived in Bermuda with a respectable tranche of money, passed around a little of that money to establish herself as a paragon of all the maidenly virtues, then confirmed her saintliness by helping raise money for high-profile charities. In the course of all those good works she would meet most of the biggest players on the island. It was a favourite saying of hers that the biggest dicks always like to expose themselves. So she tripped over an enormous amount of useful information.’

  ‘Inside information,’ Delicious insisted.

  ‘Well, I suppose some might call it that, but nothing you’d ever be able to prosecute in a court of law. I don’t have to tell you that Bermuda is a place of quiet money. Nobody likes to make a fuss. But listen carefully and you could hear the whispers, the bragging, who’s on the way up and who’s heading for the fall. She was like the Miss Marple of the money game and in her own quiet way would see things more clearly than almost anyone. She had a close friend who worked in a senior position in one of the banks and who advised her on likely charitable targets, clients who were about to receive a windfall of some sort. And she’d be invited to the governor’s mansion, take tea with the island’s high and mighty. There are always those who want some sort of medal, some trinket or other in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, and she had a reputation for having the ear of the governor on such nonsense. So they would confide in her. Tell her things they’d never tell another soul. She said there was more horseshit deposited around the governor’s roses than in any other garden in the kingdom.’

  Delicious sat in the afternoon sunshine transfixed. She was a police officer, she dealt with car crashes and drug dealers and the occasional gang fight. She’d never had tea with the governor.

  ‘What she and her old university friends did didn’t seem illegal, not at first. It was nothing more than a game of intellectual arrogance. But almost without their knowing a line was crossed and by then it was too late to turn back. Anyway, elites don’t turn back. You press the logic of success to its conclusion and don’t give a damn for the morality of the masses.’

  ‘Susannah Ranelagh?’ she whispered in astonishment.

  He sighed. ‘There was a price to be paid, of course. You don’t understand that when you’re young, you think you’re immortal. But none of us are.’

  ‘So she’s dead.’ There was something in his tone as well as his words that made Delicious certain.

  ‘It all started with one of the group – her name was Christine Leclerc. A stellar woman, there was nothing she couldn’t have achieved in life, anything from president of Renault to president of the French Republic, but she was brought up in the French bureaucratic tradition and ended up in the European Commission. Now, there’s an insider-trading deal if ever there was. Not since the Triumvirate in Ancient Rome divided the spoils after Caesar’s murder have so few made so much from so many. But when she was killed – entirely accidentally, I should add – the rest of the group panicked. Realized they were vulnerable. Had she left behind anything that might incriminate them? They needn’t have worried, of course: Brussels doesn’t wash its underwear in public. But it raised the question. Who would be next? What might they leave behind? Old age is odd, particularly for elites. Makes them impatient, with rules and, in this case, with each other. And Susannah became a liability.’

  Delicious sat, her mind reeling, breathless as the world floated past. A curious sparrow hopped onto the table in search of crumbs. She tried to brush it away but somehow all her energies were focused on what he was saying and what it all could mean.

  ‘An endangered species, the sparrow,’ he said, observing. ‘More than half of London’s sparrows have disappeared. But so are we all, all endangered.’

  There was hidden meaning wrapped up in his words that she was struggling to decode.

  ‘That’s why Susannah was killed. She was weak, couldn’t take the pressure, the questions. Would have let everyone down. And perhaps you’ve already worked out that’s why her house was burned, in case she’d left anything behind.’

  Delicious felt almost overwhelmed by what was being thrown at her. She struggled to form the words, knowing she was about to understand everything. ‘How? How was she killed?’

  He paused, held her stare, for what seemed like forever. The words, when they came, were delivered individually, with precision, like the sound of distant cannons. ‘In the same way I have killed you.’

  She jumped as she heard his words but only inside. Nothing moved, she tried to shout but produced no more than a croak, she screamed but it echoed endlessly inside.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come here, Inspector, stirring things up. No good was to come of it.’

  She fought, with all the strength she had, in fury, in fear.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s entirely painless,’ he said softly.

  Painless?
You motherfucker! I’m drowning in here!

  He was talking but she was no longer paying much heed, catching only snippets. He was leaning forward, staring, examining her, like a doctor, but her mind was elsewhere, reacting to the signals that were flashing in alarm from her body. She was paralysed, sitting in the chair, her hand on her phone, her back towards anyone who might help her. As she returned his stare she found she could no longer even blink. And slowly her eyes were drying in the heat, the shapes they saw growing confused, the colours cracking, the world breaking into fragments of searing sunlight. The tear ducts were drying. She could feel one final teardrop trickling down the flesh of her cheek.

  That was the point when she knew, for certain, that she was dying. Her first reaction was one of desperate anger. No, this wasn’t right! Not yet! There was still too much left for her. She was only thirty-four. She fought, as she had done all her life, tried to kick out in fury, but nothing moved, tried to focus all her strength and coordination into her hands, but it produced only the smallest tremor that faded as soon as it emerged. Then she grew afraid.

  She began to beg for help, for a chance of life. She still had a twelve-year-old son to raise, Marley, by herself. He came first, as he had done ever since his father had walked out and left them on their own. Please, whoever you are, whatever I’ve done to offend you, change your mind, take pity. Please, take pity on me . . .

  He was no longer staring at her. His attentions were focused on wiping her glass to remove all traces of his fingerprints, just as he would take his own glass away with him to destroy every trace of his presence. He seemed calm, methodical, like a butler cleaning up after a successful dinner party. Then the sun destroyed the last fragments of her eyesight. She could take in only sounds, final moments: the last trickle of breath escaping her body, the frantic yammering of her panicking heart, the imploding of lungs drowning in fear, the laughter of children at play in the park and the scraping of a chair as he got up and left.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN