A Ghost at the Door

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and followed meekly. Flagstones gave way to polished wood and soon she was sitting in a cracked leather armchair set by another hearth, surrounded by soaring overstuffed bookcases and the warm paraphernalia of an academic’s study.

  ‘You look as if you could do with a drink,’ McQuarrel said, his hand already on the decanter. ‘A little of our Scottish water?’ He raised an enquiring eyebrow, Jemma nodded, and he busied himself pouring measures into two crystal tumblers. Jemma couldn’t take her eyes off him. He handed one of the glasses to her and settled in a winged chair opposite, separated from her by a low table. Beyond his shoulder and through the garden windows she caught the reflection of the moon shimmering on the dark waters of a lake.

  He studied Jemma; she seemed disorientated, her eyes and thoughts unable to settle. ‘Slainte,’ he murmured, raising his glass. She followed his lead, and drank; he noticed her hand was trembling.

  ‘Jemma, whatever it is, please let me help you.’ His voice was warm, smoothed by the wisdom of many years. ‘When you called you mentioned that something had happened to Harry.’

  ‘He met with the bishop this evening.’

  ‘Bishop Randall?’

  She nodded. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Harry? May God have mercy,’ he blustered in alarm.

  ‘No, not Harry. The bishop.’

  He didn’t press for details. Instead, he sat cradling his whisky, and his thoughts. His mood grew sombre and Jemma had the impression that the walls and bookcases were drawing in on them, the atmosphere suddenly claustrophobic, heavy with misgiving. ‘What would you like me to do?’ he said eventually, his voice soft and painfully solemn.

  ‘Help me. Help Harry.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we leave all that to the police?’

  ‘They think he’s guilty.’

  ‘What is it, precisely, you would like me to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ask questions. Make a fuss.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘The photo of the Croquet Club. We’re sure the answer is in there somewhere.’

  ‘Ah, Oxford.’

  ‘You were there with them, weren’t you? Do you have a copy?’

  ‘Of the photo? I’ve seen it, of course. Harry showed it to me.’

  ‘But you have your own copy.’

  ‘What makes you think so?’

  ‘Because I think you took the photo. And because your wife was in it.’

  Harry no longer had any ability to fight. His physical pain had become so twisted up with his fears for Jemma that they had become one, leaving him exhausted, numbed, beyond the point where he could even groan to express his torment.

  He’d lost other women, other immense loves in his life. Lost? The wrong word, made it sound no more than clumsy but Julia, his first wife, had been killed in a skiing accident. His fault. And Martha the irrepressible, impossible American, on yet another mountainside, and again down to him. Now Jemma, too?

  And, of course, his mother. Like all children he had blamed himself for what had happened, carried the guilt for his parents, no matter how unreasoning such guilt was. That burden was in part why he’d wanted to find out more about his father, to settle old scores; instead he’d discovered altogether too much.

  ‘Please hurry,’ he pleaded once more.

  ‘How did you know it was my wife?’ McQuarrel asked, almost casually as he rose to refresh their drinks.

  ‘The photographs in the hallway. The biggest one, of your wedding. I got a good look at it. Unmistakable. The same sensitive eyes. Fragile face.’

  ‘Yes, she was fragile, that’s an excellent description. My poor Agnetta. Leukaemia. That was almost ten years ago, with many more years of suffering before that. For us both.’ The voice was dry, like the rustle of dead leaves in an autumn wind. With his back to her he poured two substantial whiskies, bigger than the first, and set them down on the table, but then retreated to his desk and began sifting through the contents of a drawer. He returned, clutching his own copy of the photograph and set it on the table before her.

  ‘The Aunt Emmas,’ she declared.

  ‘My dear, dear friends.’

  ‘And every one of them dead.’

  He gazed at the photo, inspecting every face, naming every one. ‘We should salute their memory.’

  He raised his glass, Jemma too, and they drank. Was it her imagination or did the whisky burn on her lips and throat?

  ‘I wasn’t surprised to get your call, Jemma,’ he began again, wiping his own lip with a forefinger. ‘I knew Harry and Randall were meeting but I have to admit I was expecting a rather different outcome. How much of all this do you know?’

  ‘Harry told me everything. So as much as him. And perhaps a little more.’

  ‘It wasn’t meant to be like this,’ McQuarrel whispered. ‘I’d like you to believe that. We all had our dreams. Ali would bring peace to his world, Finn wanted to win a Pulitzer, Randy would sit at the right hand of God, while Christine glittered throughout every chancellery in Europe.’

  ‘And Johnnie?’

  ‘Ah, Johnnie. I must admit he was a bit of a mystery. Skated deeply across the surface of things, that’s what he used to say about himself. At times he could seem extraordinarily superficial. He never quite convinced me of that. It was all diversion.’

  ‘And you, Alex. What about you?’

  ‘Me?’ The question took him aback. ‘I never wanted anything more than Agnetta. And this house.’

  ‘But it was already yours.’

  Yet even as she spoke he was already shaking his head. ‘It was our family seat for three hundred years. A place of safety throughout all the turmoil. How many Scottish families can say that? Until the time of my great-great-grandfather, Lachlann. A mighty useless specimen. A drunkard, a weakling, a numpty, all of that and more. But he was also a gambling man. It might even have been in this very room, at the cards, and he was losing badly, couldn’t find his way out. So the fool bet everything he had on the turn of a single card. And lost. Left with nothing but his name and he’d made that worthless. The story has it that when he realized he was ruined, the man he had lost everything to took him to the front door and cast the offending card into the wind. “Wherever it flies, McQuarrel, will be your home from now.” The card landed where the village grew. It was where my father was born, and I after him, living in the shadow of our family’s shame.’ He reached once more for his drink, trying to wash away the bitterness. ‘My father’s dying wish was that I would find some way to take this place back, restore it, along with our family name. That’s what I’ve spent my life doing. With Agnetta. Did that seem so wicked?’

  ‘That depends.’

  ‘We chased our dreams and we went too far. All of us. We shared everything, made merry, made love, made money, lots of it, and by the time we understood what we had done it was too late to go back. The Rubicon had been crossed, our feet were wet, our hands filthy.’ He shook his head in a manner that seemed to carry all the sorrows of the world. ‘None of us wanted that or ever intended it. When Christine was killed it seemed like some sort of divine retribution, but then the following year Ali arrived with the most extraordinary news, information that could make every one of us wealthy beyond any further need. One last throw of the dice, he said, and we could walk away from the casino for ever. But it seems others got to find out what he knew and killed him for it.’

  ‘Along with his entire family. Even the children.’

  ‘It was the end for us, the Aunt Emmas. It was no longer a game. From that day we began to fall apart.’

  ‘Do you have any children?’

  ‘No. Agnetta was, as you say, fragile.’ For a moment he stared into the bottom of his glass, swirling what was left of the whisky as if it held more secrets that needed to be set free. ‘There was a time when I thought Harry might be my son.’

  Jemma choked in astonishment.

  ‘We shared everything, and too much. Harry’s mother Jessie, too, was fragi
le, in her especially beautiful way.’

  ‘So how do you know you’re not?’

  ‘Not Harry’s father?’ McQuarrel laughed drily in dismissal. ‘You only had to watch the boy grow. Just like Johnnie.’

  ‘Johnnie knew about it?’

  ‘Perhaps. I wasn’t Jessie’s only distraction. She wandered far and wide but Johnnie loved her, always brought her back, rescued her from every rock on which she’d foundered. He was devastated when she died. Hid it, of course, tried to find comfort elsewhere, but in the end I think he died of a broken heart.’

  ‘Is that what killed Susannah Ranelagh?’

  ‘No, of course not. She was like Finn, got spooked, couldn’t be trusted.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So there was no choice. It was either Susannah or us.’

  ‘You mean Susannah or you. The rest of the Aunt Emmas were pretty much all gone by then.’

  ‘Except for Randy.’

  ‘And now . . .’

  They had come to the moment where there was no more point in pretence.

  ‘I watched Susannah, watched her as she died. In that chair where you’re sitting, Jemma. She was looking out over the lake.’

  ‘It’s dark, the moon’s gone. I can’t see the lake.’

  ‘You see the truth.’

  She stared into his cold, soulless eyes and knew what he had done.

  ‘It’s all Harry’s fault,’ McQuarrel said bitterly. ‘If he hadn’t chased around the world stirring things up, Susannah would still be alive. Randy, too, and the black Bermudan policewoman.’

  ‘And me?’ she whispered.

  ‘There will be no pain, Jemma, I promise you, just a gentle numbness, a shortness of breath. It’s what Agnetta chose.’

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘It’s a neuro-muscular drug. A company I was involved with spent years trying to develop it. Agnetta worked there, too, before she became ill. The sort of potion neurological surgeons need for the removal of a brain tumour, that sort of thing. It keeps the patient totally immobile yet still conscious, so the surgeon can test their reflexes. Based on the same chemical composition as snake venom. The early trials seem to suggest it was highly effective but, alas, it proved inflexible. No reliable reversal agent, and none at all in large doses.’

  ‘How . . .?’

  ‘When I topped up your drink. Oh, my, but we have been talking a very long time. I expect any moment now . . .’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The police car sent the gravel flying as it skidded to a halt beside the Volvo. There was no sign of life around the house. Edwards and Staunton jumped out of the car, pursued by Harry’s cry.

  ‘Hughie!’

  The chief inspector turned.

  ‘You daren’t leave me on my own,’ Harry shouted.

  Edwards stamped his foot in indecision, knowing Harry had a point, but knowing he daren’t take Harry with him, either.

  ‘Oh, you’d better be on your best bloody behaviour, boyo,’ he growled, heaving open the rear door of the car, ‘otherwise you’ll find me breaking something else of yours.’

  The sergeant was already pounding on the old oak door. Nothing stirred inside.

  ‘You come with me round the back,’ Edwards snapped at Harry.

  Edwards ran, trying windows, testing doors, while Harry, still handcuffed, stumbled on in the policeman’s wake. At the rear of the house they found a lake, with a ruined boathouse and a willow tree. They also found an unlocked door. Edwards rushed through it, Harry close behind, their voices raised, calling for Jemma.

  Then Harry found her. He saw a light beneath a door and burst into the library. He could see the back of her head above the cracked leather of an old armchair. Rich auburn hair, always tussled, as if it had come fresh from his pillow. And in the chair opposite was McQuarrel, staring at her.

  ‘No!’ Harry screamed.

  And as he cried out, Jemma turned her head and rose from her chair. ‘What are you complaining about this time, Jones?’ she said, sobbing, the tears cascading down her cheeks.

  Suddenly Edwards and Staunton were in the room with them, the chief inspector barking instructions that they were to touch nothing, the sergeant checking for a pulse on McQuarrel.

  ‘Well?’ Edwards roared at Staunton.

  ‘I’m not sure, Guv. Might be one, very faint.’

  ‘There’s no point, no way back,’ Jemma interjected. ‘He told me so himself.’

  ‘What the hell, Jem?’ Harry whispered in rebuke, even as he tried to staunch the flow of tears with his thumb.

  ‘There’s a photo in the hall of his wife,’ she began. ‘She’s the other woman in the croquet photo. So it had to be him, didn’t it? He was the only one left. He’d poisoned Delicious, I knew he’d try the same with me, so when he gave me a whisky and turned away to fetch the photo of the Aunt Emmas . . .’ She paused as she relived the moments, ‘I switched the glasses around.’

  ‘For pity’s sake, that was taking one mother of a chance, miss,’ Edwards scolded. ‘I mean, what if he’d known the game was up, poisoned his own drink? You know, some sort of grand farewell.’

  ‘He’d already killed so many I thought he’d rather kill me than kill himself. You know how selfish men can be, Chief Inspector.’

  But her simulation of defiance was done. She rested her head on Harry’s good shoulder and he felt the warmth of tears soaking through his shirt.

  ‘You took that risk, for me,’ he whispered.

  ‘No, not for you, Harry. For us.’

  ‘But why, Jem?’

  ‘Because you’d have done the same thing yourself stupid.’

  They left it until the calmer weeks and cooler winds of September when the earth had stopped baking before they sailed into the port of Patras. Johnnie’s grave was there. The last of the Aunt Emmas. It seemed the thing to do.

  Harry and Jemma had arrived by gently rusting ferry from Venice, their arrival delayed by several hours because of an unscheduled strike. They had tried to make rudimentary arrangements by phone, had promised to be at the cemetery by noon, but by the time they struggled up the hill from the port in an overworked taxi the shadows of the pine trees were already stretching out to greet them. The iron gate that led to the graveyard creaked with age as it swung back to let them enter, its hinge held together with wire. They gazed around. The place seemed deserted except for the flapping of crows in the trees. Then they saw the approaching figure of an old man, summoned by the complaining gate. He was grizzled, unshaven, his face like new-ploughed earth, his legs bowed from carrying so many years. A battered straw hat rested on top of two corrugated ears.

  ‘Kali Mera,’ Jemma greeted him, resurrecting a phrase she had picked up during the low months of a gap year.

  ‘Kali Mera. Otheos Mazisou. May God be with you,’ the old man replied, gazing at them with a quizzical frown that added more furrows to the face. His teeth were remarkably white and natural. ‘Mr Joh-nas?’

  ‘Nai, Jones,’ she repeated. ‘Sorry we’re late.’

  ‘Dhen Peirazi. No matter.’

  The ancient caretaker wiped his brow with a large handkerchief before turning and shuffling off, waving for them to follow. He led them further up the hill to a distant corner of the cemetery, past orderly lines of tombstones, some marble, others painted in whitewash and azure, adorned with lanterns, images of the dead, summer-blighted flowers and passages from biblical scripts. Not all the graves were Greek, or Orthodox. Up ahead, almost hidden among the trees, they could see a small collection of graves in a patch that was relatively neglected and unkempt, with Stars of David on the stones. In Patras, death didn’t discriminate. One tomb they passed was dedicated to an Englishman. ‘Fondly Remembered’, so its inscription claimed. ‘Not Johnnie, then,’ Harry muttered, walking on. He was sombre, hadn’t talked much all day.

  He and Jemma walked slowly, hand in hand as they climbed. Then the old man stopped, pointed to a stone in the lee of an ancient cedar whose spread
ing limbs were like arms reaching out to protect something. Johnnie’s grave.

  It was of dark-grey marble, not the colour of fresh cream like the others around. Harry’s pace became slower, heavier, as he drew close.

  It bore a simple inscription.

  J E MALTRAVERS-JONES. 1941–2002.

  Underneath was another short line.

  NO EXCUSES. NO REGRETS.

  ‘Typical. He always had to have the last word,’ Harry breathed. Jemma noticed he was biting his bottom lip as though something hurt. The wizened caretaker had drifted away, leaving them alone with their thoughts. As he disappeared an early-evening breeze began to shake the branches of the tree, casting dappled shadows across the grave. The scent of pine resin and cedar, as sweet as it was heavy, carried on the air. Harry squeezed Jemma’s hand, a fraction too tightly.

  The grave was in its own plot, covered in bleached pebbles and marked out by a narrow marble surround. Fresh flowers stood in a pot of water at the end of the grave but the elegance of the scene was spoiled by a cheap plastic toy that someone had left. It was of a dragon and dressed in a bright red rugby shirt that marked the famous Welsh victory in the Grand Slam of the previous year. The toy was propped up awkwardly, at an angle, embedded in the pebbles at the base of the headstone. It was no more than a trinket, a silly gesture for such a place, as though Johnnie were still laughing at the world from the other side.

  Harry said nothing for several minutes; Jemma could see his lips moving but it was a conversation he was having on the inside, alone with his father. She could see great sorrow in his eyes and also resentment. Eventually he turned, whispered one word: ‘Enough.’ Then he left.

  His stride was now purposeful, he wanted to leave, get out of this place, and Jemma was forced to hurry in order to catch up with him. He took her hand, held his head high to the setting sun, trying to hide the tears, his thumb stroking the new ring on her finger as though in search of reassurance and some meaning to it all.

  They had arrived back at the iron gate. Once again it complained as Harry stepped through it, but Jemma tarried, reluctant to leave. The tip of her nose was bobbing in the way that it did when she was puzzled, or thoughtful, or both.