Bartholomew 02 - How to Marry a Ghost

by Hope McIntyre

  “I was the one who popped it in the first place,” I said.

  “Well, it’s his turn then. Now take off your top at least and come and help me try and wash Marcus’s filthy little feet.”

  Watching her with Marcus—a scrappy little toddler with Cath’s carrot-colored hair—I saw how having a baby had soft-

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  ened her, just as being around Eliza seemed to take the edge off Franny Cook’s bravado.

  “By the way,” she said, winking at me and squeezing the water from a sponge over Marcus’s head, causing him to squeal in glee and beg for more, “we’re trying for another.”

  “What about your teaching?” I said and realized immediately it was the wrong thing to ask. But Cath had been obsessive about her work before she got pregnant.

  “Well, I’m not going back, am I?” she said, smiling at me. “It’ll be a bit of a scrape making ends meet but Richie seems prepared to have a go. Having Marcus changed everything for us. That’s why I’m telling you, Lee. You and Tommy should get started.

  You’re going to be forty next birthday, if I’m not mistaken?”

  I was about to start fretting about when I would be able to have a baby when the front door banged and Richie’s voice shouted up the stairs.

  “I’m home! Max is just parking the car. He and Paula’ll be here in a jiff.”

  I looked at Cath and she made an Oh dear! face.

  “Sorry, should have told you straight away. I invited Max Austin to join us for dinner. Did I tell you about Paula?”

  “No,” I said, feeling suddenly numb, “you did not.”

  “His new girlfriend,” she said, winking again, “not that he ever had an old one.” She paused. “Except you, I suppose.”

  “I was never his girlfriend,” I said. “There’s this bloke called Tommy Kennedy, remember? Been hanging round my neck for nine years like an overweight knapsack until he fell off of his own accord and now I can’t seem to straighten up without him.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in Max’s mind you were his potential girlfriend. He had the mother of all crushes on you. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”

  I hadn’t forgotten. Far from it. In fact I couldn’t understand

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  why I was experiencing this sudden feeling of outrage that he had found someone new. I should be pleased for him. His wife—

  by all accounts a colorful character and not just because her Jamaican skin had been café au lait—had been murdered. The ultimate irony for Det. Insp. Max Austin in charge of the arson/

  murder investigation that had swept through the Notting Hill area barely two years ago. Until he fell for me, he had not looked at another woman for five years.

  It was a case of unrequited love, I hasten to add. He was a moody piece of work, probably understandable under the circumstances, sometimes downright caustic and dismissive.Yet he was pretty interesting in the looks department, very much the type I went for—dark, deep-set brown eyes, straight nose. Brooding, tendency to give you mocking looks and then disarm you with a flash of wit or unexpected flattery. It was the unpre-dictability that I liked. You never knew where you stood so it woke you up, kept you on your toes.

  Tommy, by contrast, was a big blond bear by whom I had always been able to set my clock—until it came to the most important thing of all, our wedding.

  So why was I so irritated that Max Austin had found someone?

  Because I was complacent enough to still think of him as mine and I was no good at being competitive. I was already dreading holding my own with Paula because she had to be smart and challenging to keep him interested.

  She wasn’t.

  She was a silly little creature with a tinny high-pitched giggle and somehow that made it even worse. It brought out the snotty side of me and I could see Cath beginning to look very worried as we heaped taramasalata onto our pita bread and sipped our Soave.

  Max Austin looked daggers at me when he walked into Cath’s

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  living room and picked his way around a pile of building blocks, a giant stuffed panda, and a plastic crate of assorted toys that signified Marcus’s total rule of the apartment. If I hadn’t known him better I’d have been worried, but a glare from Max could easily mean Fuck! I’d forgotten how much I’m attracted to you and how much you mean to me. He did nothing to introduce Paula but it didn’t matter because she introduced herself and didn’t stop talking.

  “You and Maxie know each other, do you? Funny, he’s never mentioned you but Cath and Richie, they talk about you nonstop.

  So what’s it like living in the Hamptons? Do you see movie stars all the time like they say? Have you been to any of those parties we read about? The girl who did my pedicure last week, she was working out in the Hamptons at one of those spas on the ocean last summer, said it was chockablock with celebrities. I keep saying to Maxie that he needs a holiday. Maybe we could come and stay?”

  I was still trying to get my head round the “Maxie.” The amazing thing was he didn’t appear to mind. I had to admit she was engaging with her streaked blond hair tied back in a ponytail that seemed to bob with excitement as she chattered. She had wide apart gray eyes and a cute little turned-up nose covered in freckles. But the best thing about her was her smile, because I could tell it was genuine. She was a good-natured airhead and I was a miserable old has-been.

  Stop it! I told myself. You never wanted Max when he wanted you so why should you deny him Paula? In any case it wasn’t as if there was even room in the cabin for me to have them to stay.

  “Jesus!” I whispered to Cath when I followed her into the kitchen to help serve the fish pie. “How do you put up with it?”

  “Oh, she’s harmless enough,” said Cath, “and it’s all about sex, isn’t it? Poor old Max didn’t get any for five years after his wife

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  died and now he’s getting shagged senseless every night, probably every fifteen minutes for all we know. He doesn’t know what’s hit him.”

  Richie, bless him, eased me into the conversation over the coffee.

  “So, I told you about Lee working with Shotgun Marriott, sir.”

  “How many times have I told you not to call me sir when we’re off duty,” said Max.

  “Call him Maxie like I do,” Paula giggled. I derived a small amount of satisfaction from seeing Max look at Richie in alarm and shake his head.

  “Hell of a thing his son getting killed,” said Max, looking directly at me for the first time. “You were there when that happened?”

  I nodded. “And Bettina Pleshette. Her body was found in the woods, on Shotgun Marriott’s land.”

  “You don’t mean the Shotgun Marriott? And you’re involved in a murder in the Hamptons?” Paula’s eyes had opened very wide. “Maxie’s been holding out on me.Tell us everything. Don’t leave nothing out.” She reached across the table and patted my arm. “Go on.”

  And then Max surprised me. “Not now, Paula. She’s working on a book. It’s like my investigations, she can’t talk about it.” His voice was gruff and a flicker of hurt crossed Paula’s face. I felt sorry for her. In my experience Max had never bothered much with tact or sensitivity and it was clear that he shut her out of his professional life. I saw Richie and Cath exchange glances and then Cath asked Paula if she’d tried the new Safeway that had opened up in her area. Richie asked me if I was still in touch with Selma Walker, the soap opera star whose autobiography I was working on when Max had been investigating the arson murders in the Notting Hill area, one of which had taken place at the bot-

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  tom of our garden. Max was silent while I filled Richie in until Paula picked up on what I was talking about and wanted to know all about Selma.

  �
��Why don’t you just read her bloody book like everyone else?” Max snapped at her.

  Why did he do it? I wondered. He was a tough detective, his heart long since hardened to granite against the murderers he hounded. But outside of his job I recalled touching glimpses of a rather vulnerable person, a helpless widower trying to cope with his laundry and preparing solitary meals without his wife to look after him. I’d braced myself once or twice against the aftereffects of his sharp tongue but more than anything I had felt sorry for him.

  Because of this I had been unable to think of him as anything other than a sad suit when he’d tentatively voiced his feelings for me.

  “So you’re a writer then?” said Paula. “You must be so clever.”

  I saw a harmless way to keep her enthralled and launched into a series of behind-the-scenes anecdotes of some of the celebrities whose books I’d ghosted. After all, I was only repeating what was already in the books, which clearly she was never likely to read.

  But when the evening broke up I was in for another surprise.

  Max said his good-byes, ushered Paula out the door ahead of him, and then turned back to me.

  “I’d like to hear about the Shotgun Marriott case,” he said to me almost under his breath. “Fancy getting together in the next day or so?”

  He was looking right into my eyes, and I looked right back at him and nodded.

  “Right then,” he said loudly. “Good to see you again, Lee.” And then he mouthed “I’ll call you tomorrow” and was gone.

  “I saw that.” Cath was standing right behind me. “Looks to me as if his torch is still burning.”

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  I went home and dreamed about Max and woke up with violent feelings of guilt that prompted me to call Tommy as soon as I’d made myself some coffee.

  “Know what I’ve been doing to keep me busy in the evenings and stop me from feeling a bit lonesome? I’ve been cooking,” said Tommy cheerfully, “practicing for when you come back. I’ve decided I’m going to take care of you while you write.Your idea of cooking is to open a can of tuna and that’s not good enough, Lee.

  I’m going to nourish you properly,” he was literally savoring the word “nourish,” “so I’m trying out some recipes while you’re away.”

  I’ve got nothing to write, I’m probably not coming back, and I’ve been cooking perfectly well for you on and off for the past nine years, I mouthed silently down the phone. And if you’re eating the fruits of those recipes all by yourself then you need to stop right now, Tommy, you’re too bloody fat as it is.

  “So when are you coming back?” His voice was a little more tentative now. “Because I miss you. I thought I’d let you know that.”

  I thought I’d let you know that.What was that supposed to mean?

  You didn’t spend time sitting around thinking you were going to tell someone you missed them.You came right out and said it—

  spontaneously.

  But I recognized the tone of his voice. He was unsure of his ground. He wanted me back where he could look into my eyes and see just what state I was in. If I was neurotic and crabby and standing right in front of him, it was a piece of cake as far as he was concerned. He knew just how to handle me. But he was no good at dealing with me over the phone.

  “Tommy,” I said, “just don’t make too much of a mess. Please! ”

  I hung up on the sound of him spluttering at the other end of

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  the line. It sounded like he’d just stuffed something into his mouth and was trying to speak at the same time.

  Max called me about an hour later and suggested we meet for lunch at a Thai restaurant I’d never heard of. It was called Number One Café and turned out to be a stone’s throw from Worm-wood Scrubs prison. When I asked him why he had dragged me up to that neck of the woods, he didn’t answer and it dawned on me that he must be conducting a murder investigation nearby.

  It took us a moment or two to settle down at the table he selected by the window. He sat down opposite me and stretched his legs but there just wasn’t room under the table to accommodate them. Max is a beanpole. His feet shot into my shins, causing me to yelp in pain.We both shifted instinctively to another chair and the same thing happened again. Finally, in desperation, I got up and went around the table to sit beside him but when he decided to take off his jacket, his long arms flailed and he narrowly avoided digging his elbow into me.

  I returned to my original position and placed myself at an angle. He had hung his jacket over the chair and I saw the label: Ralph Lauren’s Polo.A designer label but this jacket was seriously dated. He’d probably bought it at a cancer research charity shop in 1988. He saw me looking at his tie, a garish lapping tongue of maroon and white against his gray shirt. Undoubtedly a gift from Paula. It was a warm day for London and he removed the tie, un-did the top button of his collar, and rolled up his shirtsleeves, exposing unusually hairy forearms.

  They had an unsettling effect on me, along with his brown eyes, soft and liquid one minute and boring into me like an eagle’s the next.

  “Nice evening last night,” I commented, hiding from his gaze behind the menu.

  “What do they think of Paula? Have they said?” He leaned

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  across the table and I signaled the waitress for a beer while I tried to think what to say. “They don’t like her much, do they?”

  “Actually,” I said carefully, “I think they do. More important, do you like her?”

  “I have no idea,” he said and I looked at him in astonishment.

  “I mean, I just haven’t really stopped to think. I got so fed up with people trying to fix me up with bitter middle-aged divorcées, I told myself the minute a youngish, single, reasonably attractive female presented herself, I’d go for it just to knock the bloody matchmaking on the head. There’s a bonus,” he fingered his shirt and gave me a sheepish look, “she takes care of my laundry.”

  I laughed. There had been a time when I had felt so sorry for him, I’d done his laundry at Blenheim Crescent.

  “Anyway,” he said quietly, “you were spoken for. I thought I’d just better get on with it. Can’t hang around being a moody old misery all my life waiting for you to notice me. Although Richie said you didn’t get married after all, ran away to America instead.”

  It wasn’t a question. He’d done his usual trick of leading me down one path— no point pinning my hopes on you—and then abruptly switching tracks— but you didn’t get married after all—

  and catching me unawares.

  I took a swig of my beer and eyed him down the side of the bottle.

  “Tommy canceled the wedding, not me.”

  “Why on earth did he do that?”

  “I have absolutely no idea,” I said.

  “Well,” he said slowly, “let me know when you do. Or don’t.”

  He’d never actually come out and told me that he liked me, fancied me. Never flattered me, bought me a gift, or romanced me in any way. His behavior, as befitted the professional relationship that we had—he was investigating a murder and I was one of

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  the people helping him with his inquiries—had been impeccable at all times.Yet it was clear to Cath—and ultimately to me—that he was besotted with me.

  I wanted to tell him that if he were to have any hope of success with me he would have to be much more assertive. I was too shy to take the initiative myself. I needed him to be the first to make physical contact, to clasp my hand across the table, to flick an imaginary crumb away from the side of my mouth. In the past, apart from a quick peck on the cheek I’d given him without thinking, we’d barely touched.

  And that was when I realized that if he ever did reach out for me, I might not be responsible fo
r my actions. He had done absolutely nothing a man normally did when he was attracted to a woman. He had merely offered a few half-baked intimations that he was interested in me and seemed to expect that that would do the trick.

  Yet my reaction to Paula’s presence in his life had shown me that I was a little more interested in him than I had bargained for.

  I forced my thoughts to turn to food before I gave myself away. I ordered what I always ordered in Thai restaurants—

  chicken satay and pad thai—and then left them congealing on my plate as I talked him through the events surrounding the murders of Sean Marriott and Bettina. I talked for a long time, taking care to include every single detail. I was aware of him finishing the contents of his own plate and reaching across the table to pluck a few mouthfuls from mine.

  “I don’t like Shotgun Marriott for those murders, not at all,”

  he said finally, when we had ordered coffee.

  This gave me a jolt. “You don’t? Why not?”

  “Well, do you?”

  “Well, no. Not really.”

  “Why is that then?”

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  I looked at him. “If I tell you, promise not to tell me I’m pathetic?” He didn’t say anything. “It’s just that—I liked him,” I continued. “I can’t see him killing someone.”

  “Well, there you are,” said Max. “That’s my instinct too. I met him, don’t forget. Long time ago but I remember him pretty well. I liked him too. Not what I was expecting.”

  “But surely in your”—I paused, wondering how best to describe hunting down cold-blooded killers—“in your line of work you must come across loads of people who seem really charming.

  And then they turn out to have—I don’t know—cut someone up and buried them in the garden.”

  “Oh yes,” said Max, smiling at me in the rather patronizing way I remembered so well, “at least two or three before lunch every day. No, the thing is that they might be charming as hell but I’ve never liked a killer, personally I mean. It’s one of the hunches I try to stick to. Arrogant maybe, complacent, but you have to have something. And I think if you liked Shotgun Marriott too, for what it’s worth, that doubles the odds in his favor in my book.