The Ghost of Helen Addison

by Charles E. McGarry

  Another thing he loved about the apartment was the fact that he owned it. Outright. One hundred per cent. No rent, no mortgage. This was the investment he had made after he had been rewarded by a wealthy family for a humanitarian task which he would have gladly done for nothing. But, as it happens, that task had proved so arduous and dangerous that he had earned such a reward. So the flat was his; not the bank’s, not the building society’s, not the council’s, not some bloodsucking landlord’s.

  The windfall had also enabled Leo to furnish and adorn the property to his tastes. He took one of his little tours of the various rooms, an indulgent exercise he allowed himself from time to time, noting the treasures he had amassed over the years. The space in the dining room was dominated by a ten-foot William IV mahogany table upon which sat two sterling silver Queen Anne candlesticks, and a Georgian maple sideboard. The bookcase contained the cream of Leo’s collection, including Boethius’s Consolation, Cassius Dio’s Historia Romana and Gibbon’s Rise and Fall.

  An archway communicated with the drawing room, with its elaborate ceiling cornicing, and bowed dormer with stained glass to the upper window panes. The impression of this room was of grandeur, antiquity and depth of colour. It was centred on the fireplace, which incorporated abstract floral-patterned tiles in three shades of green enamel. The surround was constructed from tooled hardwood, as was the mantelpiece, upon which rested a pair of French Empire urns, a Winterhalder & Hoffmeir pearl-dialled clock, an alabaster bust of Beethoven, a Qing dynasty ginger jar and a statue of the Sacred Heart. A large gilded overmantle mirror hung above. The suite was a pair of oxblood leather sofas, and an Egyptian rattan chair and a little octagonal bone-and-ebony inlaid shisham table occupied the west-facing oriel window. To pause there on a summer’s evening was like occupying a bathyscaphe immersed in an ocean of liquid sunshine as one gazed downwards at the majestic pink granite bridge which spanned the Kelvin. Burnished walnut side tables bookended the sofas, two of which bore Tiffany lamps, one of which supported a nautical sextant, while the other bore a statue of Minerva. A walnut Regency table sat in the centre of the room. The floorboards were stained dark, and mostly covered by a spiral-patterned carpet from Damascus. The wallpaper was a heavy, green-dominated Morris & Co. design. On the walls hung two superb Hebridean landscapes by William McTaggart, a wooded scene by John MacWhirter and a print of Raphael’s Madonna and Child. A standard lamp stood in one corner, across from a cream-upholstered chaise longue. In another corner was Leo’s stereo and music collection.

  Block-printed linoleum ran over the polished boards of the hallway, which contained a head of a Greek man by Orazio Marinali in marble, a hatstand, a Victorian sea chest and a French console table, the surface of which was crammed with splendid trinkets and objets d’art. The walls were decorated in a patterned gold satin, and there hung two framed originals by Hannah Frank: whimsical black and white drawings of woodland nymphs at midnight. There was an arched window of leaded glass, which admitted refracted natural light from the next room, and a mid-nineteenth-century oval Florentine mirror with elaborate cartouches.

  The master bedroom was sparely attired; Leo believed neat order was conducive to sound slumber. There was a sleigh bed, a bow-fronted Edwardian wardrobe, a George III tallboy and a companion dressing table, all constructed from mahogany. The only adornments were a crucifix above the bed and a framed wedding photograph of his parents upon the nightstand. The little dressing room was now a study, housing a writing table by Gillows of Lancaster, upon which was a coromandel wood stationery box; it contained his holy of holies – perfumed letters from his long-lost love Maddi.

  The bathroom contained a grand, claw-footed cast-iron slipper tub. The morning sun would gush through the window and ivy tumbled from atop the high cistern. Wright’s Coal Tar Soap lay on the Burlington washstand.

  The cheerful kitchen, with its ancient baby-blue refrigerator and Belfast sink, was at the rear of the property, next to the guest bedroom.

  Later, Leo had stretched himself out upon one of the sofas in the drawing room, looking decidedly urbane in his silk Paisley dressing gown, his Turkish slippers and his plum velvet smoking cap, which was embroidered with little primroses of different colours and worn rakishly to one side. He breathed deeply through his nose, enjoying the room’s default background scent: a comforting blend of old wood, dusty books, varnish, Silvo and beeswax, further infused tonight with the sweet fragrances of burning coal, candle grease and Cuban tobacco smoke. Bach’s Partita No. 4 in D major drifted soothingly from the cherrywood speakers, almost drowning out the sound of the grisly weather outside. Such was the altitude of Leo’s rooms that in high winds the doors and windows creaked and groaned in their frames, like the rigging of a tall ship. He lounged listlessly as he surveyed the evidence of his various vices and wondered what to give up for Lent. A bottle of red wine, almost drained, sat upon the table, alongside a crystal goblet, his snuff box, an opened box of Orange Creams and a smouldering cigarillo from which blue smoke curled upwards.

  Leo thought of Fordyce, sick at heart that they hadn’t been in touch with each other again. Yet some undisclosed emotion stopped him from picking up the telephone. He placed a purple ribbon to mark his place and closed his book with a snap.

  One aspect of the case in particular pestered him like a gadfly: the text sent from Robbie’s phone to alert Craig that the ‘killer’ was on his way to St Fillan’s Kirk that freezing night. Leo considered it for the hundredth time, now preferring his original theory that the sender was the real murderer trying to incriminate Lex or Robbie. Who had easy access to Robbie’s phone? George Rattray was the obvious answer, as they lived in close proximity to each other. But Leo had seen Rattray on foot just before the Land Rover had been driven at him on the Kildavannan–Loch Dhonn road – surely by the killer, which would apparently rule him out.

  Sighing with exasperation, Leo got to his feet and unhooked the poker from its berth. He pretended he was fencing with Helen’s murderer.

  ‘Take that, you vile blackguard,’ he declared as he plunged the poker into his invisible foe.

  The intercom buzzed rudely from the next room. Leo replaced the poker, excitedly swished through to the hallway and engaged the microphone: ‘Hello?’

  ‘Stephanie’ came the glacial response.

  After what seemed an age of listening to his friend’s stomping footsteps echoing up the gloomy stairwell towards him, Leo relieved her of her dripping umbrella and raincoat, and installed her by the fire.

  ‘Still wet out?’

  ‘No, I emptied a chanty over myself,’ she said mordantly.

  ‘I love the rain.’

  ‘That’s because you’re a complete weirdo.’

  ‘I fail to see why one weather type is inherently inferior and less bonny than another. They all bring with them their particular aesthetic joys.’

  ‘Pish! You prefer the rain ’cause you’re a melancholic bastard. And anyway, the last time I was up here you were moaning about the dreich weather too. Now would you turn that racket off – it sounds like the kind of music Hannibal Lecter would dismember policemen to.’

  Leo got the distinct impression that Stephanie wasn’t in a sociable mood, so he obeyed and lifted the needle from the Bach.

  ‘Can I get you something? Some wine, perhaps? I’m about to open another Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. I laid it down some time ago; a rather eminent year, I must say,’ he said, gesturing towards the bottle.

  ‘No, I don’t want anything. I’m not staying. I just want to know how you managed to piss off DI Lang so much.’

  Leo sat down solemnly on the opposite sofa to her, his elation at a rare visitor dissipating rapidly. ‘I suspect that you are already aware of the reason.’

  ‘I am, but I want to hear it from you.’

  ‘He requested that I did not visit the Addison family. Unfortunately, it soon became evident that it was a wish with which I could not comply. I needed to meet them, in order to help stimulate my
feeling for the case.’

  ‘Did you warn Lang beforehand that you were going to visit them?’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘To be truthful it didn’t occur to me. Because he would only have said no.’

  ‘So you went ahead anyway, despite all the trouble I had gone to on your behalf. And then – and then – you threaten him with going to his superiors! Do you have any idea how important these professional relationships are to me? How much effort I have gone to in nurturing them? Lang and his pals won’t ever do me a favour again. And it’s not just that: I’ve been made to look ridiculous to all of these people. Recommending an oddity such as you.’

  ‘Stephanie, I am beginning to take umbrage at your words.’

  ‘I don’t fucking care!’ she snapped, growing more agitated. ‘What’s more, you were about as much use as Anne Frank’s drum kit up there. So much for your magic powers.’

  ‘Stephanie, I beg of you, please adjust your tone.’

  She ignored his protestation. ‘To think I had gone to the effort of arranging a date for you with Angela.’

  ‘Angela of the wide jowls?’

  ‘You cheeky bastard – she’s beautiful!’

  ‘On the contrary, she looks as though she’s constantly trying to swallow a stick of Rothesay rock which has been inserted into her mouth sideways. I’ve seen hamsters with better-proportioned faces. That’s something I’ve hitherto noticed about your gender: you are quick to describe a plain woman as beautiful because you don’t feel threatened by her. Yet you seldom comment when true beauty walks into a room.’

  Stephanie took a deep breath as she struggled to ride out her friend’s chutzpah. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Mais oui.’

  ‘Why do you dislike my darling husband so?’

  Leo felt somehow crushed by Stephanie’s sudden loyalty towards her man. She was right, of course; he didn’t like Jamie. But the feeling was mutual. They were very different people: Leo, cerebral, eccentric and moody; Jamie, alpha male, outgoing, sickeningly attractive and with an ego that required – and received – gratification from more than one female at any one time. They did share in common their Irish-Catholic provenance, but Jamie was lapsed, ‘with the dreary predictability of his type’, a drunken Leo had once caustically remarked to Stephanie, concluding: ‘How else would he fit in at all your West End dinner parties, where it is a given that all present are far too clever to hold with religious faith?’

  She and Jamie had been hailed as the perfect couple: handsome, successful and popular. Indeed, it had been deemed inevitable that a man as indecently good-looking as he should win a catch such as the beautiful fiscal. Jamie was an accomplished stage actor who had recently broken into television drama with a supporting role. Occasionally, he had tried to trip Leo up in company, and on one such occasion, at an evening soirée at his and Stephanie’s first flat, Leo had followed Jamie into the kitchen and threatened to forcefully ram a lignum vitae pestle (probably purchased by an evening guest from the couple’s John Lewis wedding list), which was caked in ground cayenne pepper, up an unmentionable orifice, should he repeat the offence. Leo had noted that things were never quite the same between them after that.

  ‘I find his moral certitude oppressive,’ he replied, after a moment. It was at times such as this that being a perennial singleton made Leo feel isolated. So, characteristically, he opted upon attack as the best form of defence.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘He lacks . . . agnosticism. For example, he insists on possessing an opinion upon everything, and an unassailable, pre-rehearsed, pugnaciously delivered one at that.’

  ‘You bloody hypocrite!’ Stephanie exclaimed.

  Yet Leo pressed on, unable to stop the terrible momentum that he had unfettered. ‘He can defeat any argument because he claims to believe in absolutely nothing, apart from himself, and a vague, conveniently mutable set of live-and-let-live utilitarian principles; ergo he takes no position that can, in turn, be assailed. One can scarcely land a glove on him. He thinks his cynical view of life and the cosmos confers upon him a deep, weatherbeaten aspect. Furthermore, he looks upon politics and intellect as a fierce race, and is dreadfully afraid of being perceived as not being sufficiently informed or advanced.’

  Stephanie glared at him, then stood up, turned and began striding towards the door.

  But something malevolent had stirred within Leo and urged him to proceed, to wreck, to say things he only half meant. ‘He is vain, sexist, aggressive, vulgar and self-absorbed,’ he shouted at his retreating friend. His soul groaned in dread.

  Stephanie slammed the front door.

  ‘Well, you did ask,’ he said after a moment, to the empty room.

  Leo moved on to Scotch rather than more wine, and melancholically performed his weekly manicure – his least favourite ablution. And as he languished by the fire a startling notion dawned upon him: that this friendship, enduring and enriching as it had been, was starting to disintegrate. And he felt quite powerless to do anything about it.

  He padded over to the rattan chair, trying to ignore the sense of vulnerability and fatalism that was mushrooming within him. He sat down at the shisham table and surveyed his beautiful room, crammed with the adornments he had carefully collected over the years, but felt empty, like Midas alone in his palace. He examined the chess problem he had constructed (which was based on the 1894 Lasker versus Steinitz game) with exquisite hand-carved chess pieces he had bought in St Petersburg, but couldn’t rekindle his interest. He gazed out of the window. From the street below he could hear a staggering drunk lurch into the opening bars of a sad old mountain song. There was such an unnaturally thick, murky texture to the gloom outside that it was made brown-tinged by the electric lights; it was unspeakably enclosing and oppressive. Leo stood up and drew the heavy crimson damask curtains. He could hear the dull siren from a shipyard a mile or two to the south-west, grudgingly moaning at the back shift to take their supper.

  Depression always made Leo feel wretched, weak and a little frightened, and he hated feeling weak or frightened, such was his hubris. What is this strange thing, consciousness? What is it for? For an instant, Leo couldn’t discern a scintilla of meaning in the universe. All of his faith seemed so trite and contrived. The pointlessness of it all, of existence. The lack of any enduring, overarching moral structure, the cheapness of life, the random injustice of fate, the relentless, shaming tyranny of the inner voice, the apparent impossibility of conquering one’s demons and insecurities, the banality of everything. All he wanted was to sleep; perchance not to dream.

  Sighing, he checked his mobile phone for the fifth time that hour in the vague hope that Fordyce or anyone else had been trying to get in touch with him. He went back to his chess replication, quickly lost patience and then angrily tipped the board over, casting the ebony and burr walnut pieces everywhere.

  He turned round and yelled at the impassive statue on the mantelpiece: ‘Lord, it’s never enough – You always want more!’

  38

  LEO’S hangover was dismal. He checked the bottle, rather alarmed that he had downed almost a litre of spirit, to say nothing of the wine that had preceded it. He had awoken indecently late for breakfast, so he boiled some cabbage and potatoes – enjoying the honest, earthy odour of the noble root as it cooked – and fried three link sausages in a pan.

  As he cooked, he listened to Radio 4 and tried to ignore the black dog that had now fully taken up residence within his consciousness. A spokesman for the British Retail Consortium was speaking about the target for sustainability by 2050, and it occurred to Leo that his default mode was not to believe a single word fellows such as this spoke. But what if he, and not the capitalist, was wrong? What if he was simply irrevocably prejudiced against all things free-market thanks to his socialist indoctrination? What if this spokesman was just a decent bloke, a family man perhaps, doing his job, living his life, speaking the truth as he saw it? Was it re
ally necessary that one always perceived the world through a political prism, that one must always qualify the views of others within some structural context? Who could say for certain that capitalism can’t be tamed, that sincere, clever people can’t bring their will to bear for the general good? And how much had his cynicism impinged upon his enjoyment of life, of the way the world is, over the years? Leo sighed. Sometimes he truly felt as though the world had left him behind, politically and religiously. But what was the alternative? To believe in nothing? He’d rather jump in the Clyde. In a way, he marvelled at the burgeoning multitude of New Atheists, at their courageous ability to shrug off any notions of deeper meaning to their lives.

  The kettle whistled shrilly. He switched off the wireless and brewed a pot of strong tea. He mashed the spuds with a knob of butter and noticed that the sausages were beginning to smoke, so he opened the window before the detectors could start shrieking. He shivered with the new air and poured a drop of brandy into his teacup, just a stiffener to take the morning chill from his bones.

  As he climbed the Sixty Steps Leo felt glad of the obstinate drizzle; it, along with the oppressive, battleship-grey sky, provided the perfect atmosphere for a cheerless pub crawl. Bereft of further visions since arriving home, his relentless analysis of the case had proved fruitless and left his faculties cloudy and inert, and his spirits low. He considered what his erstwhile therapist, Brother Francesco, would extol about the importance of men reaching out and communicating when they felt under pressure, but some hoary old instinct kicked in and he resolved to keep a stiff upper lip. At least, he mused, he had resisted the temptation to indulge in corrosive romantic fantasies about Eva, effortlessly transmogrifying a nice Home Counties lass into a Madonna. He ordered half-and-a-halfs in a series of old-fashioned hostelries, Celtic ones mostly, where they still kept the floors bare and the gantries polished. He started west: the Smiddy, the Dolphin, Tennent’s, the Star and Garter, the Carnarvon, the Avalon, Orwells; then moved into town for the Griffin; then over the river to Kelly’s, Heraghty’s and the Queen’s Park Café. Occasionally, he would nip into a dripping, filthy lavatory to relieve himself, gazing at the rude slogans scrawled on the ancient Anaglypta and dreading the germs doubtlessly multiplying on the tap handles, or huddle outside to smoke a forbidden cigarette. His only detour was for egg and chips in a cheap diner, outside which he placed a ten-pound note into the supine palm of a poor soul who was sitting sodden on the pavement amid fag ends and streaks of spittle. Later, he sat in the bandstand in a gothic park, by the pond, where melancholy swans contemplated the rain. The tree trunks were slimy, the crooked branches black and skeletal against the foreboding sky. Every edge seemed gilded in a strange silver light. Did everyone else perceive this end-of-the-world weirdness? Much to his dismay, the war memorial, a rather beautiful creation with a wreath-bearing angel set upon a tall plinth of pink marble, had been sprayed with graffiti. ‘Mark-M’, whoever he was, obviously deemed it of critical importance that the neighbourhood know of his name. Leo hoped that Mark-M was simply too young and misguided to realise the incredible crassness of his choice of canvas.