A Ghost at the Door

  She read every scrap of paper in it, the bits she had seen before and those that were new to her, particularly the small bundle of letters of condolence. There weren’t many of them, fewer than a dozen, bound up with a rubber band, and some so perfunctory and formal that they were addressed only to ‘The Family of Mr Johnson E. Maltravers-Jones’. Professional advisers, in the main. A pathetic epitaph for any man’s life. Yet there was one letter that was different and took her interest. It was addressed directly to Harry and began,

  I hope you will remember me. As an old friend and business associate of your father’s, our paths have crossed on a few occasions when you were younger and your mother was alive. Although I haven’t seen you for many years, your father kept me abreast of your progress on a regular basis. He took great pride in your achievements. You must miss him terribly.

  Jemma noticed that the letter bore the marks of so many creases that it must at some point have been screwed up and thrown away, only later to be retrieved and smoothed, not entirely successfully.

  Now he is gone [the letter continued], I can do little other than to offer my profound sympathies. The passing of a father is a moment of huge significance in any man’s life, and my thoughts are with you.

  If I can be of assistance or support to you at any point, I hope you will feel free to get in touch. In the meantime, my renewed condolences.

  The letter was written in a bold if occasionally illegible hand wielding a thick, expensive nib. The name at the top of the letter was Alexander McQuarrel. It had no postal address or phone number but at the bottom of the page, in small type, there was an e-mail address.

  Jemma reached for her computer and began typing.

  Harry woke early to the sound of birdsong being carried through the open window on a warm salt breeze. He lay for a while, struggling to disentangle his thoughts, before they were disturbed by the gentle clattering of preparations in the kitchen, soon followed by the sweet rush of brewing coffee. He rolled out of bed to check his e-mails – nothing from Jemma, she was still mad with him – then he stood with his back against the wall to begin his stretching exercises. The abuse he’d given his body over the years was beginning to take its toll – ‘A little morning stiffness?’ Jemma had once joked as he’d woken with a back tied in knots. The seven-hour flight in economy hadn’t much helped. Neither did the heavy pancakes and solid eggs that appeared for breakfast. He pushed them aside and got stuck into the fruit bowl.

  A little later he was waiting outside the tiny garage that offered moped rentals even before the owner opened the shutters. Car hire was forbidden to visitors in Bermuda, so they jumped onto small Japanese bikes that buzzed like sewing machines and travelled around the island’s narrow roads at the top speed limit of 22 m.p.h. Even at a crawl and with nothing more to guide him than a tourist map, it took Harry only twenty minutes until he found himself on the road that hugged the northern shoreline and turning along the inland bay of Harrington Sound at a place called Flatt’s Village. As he slowed, knowing he must be somewhere near his goal, up ahead he spotted a group of black kids playing football in a wayside park. He switched off the engine and coasted to a stop just as the ball attempted earth orbit and bounced into his arms.

  ‘Sorry, mister.’ A bright face smiled and two hands stretched out to reclaim the ball. The boy seemed no more than eight or nine and had jewels of sweat on his brow.

  ‘I could confiscate it,’ Harry said, returning the smile but holding onto the ball.

  ‘And your bike vanish while you wasn’t looking.’

  ‘What, you’d steal it?’

  ‘Steal? No, not me. But this here’s the Bermuda Triangle, right? You hear ’bout that thing? Everything disappears.’ The boy’s eyes grew huge with exaggeration.

  Harry burst into laughter. ‘What’s your name, kid?’

  ‘Kenny, maybe. Depends.’

  ‘Tell you what, Kenny. Maybe, I have to visit someone who lives somewhere around here. Why don’t I pay you a couple of dollars so you can look after my bike for a while. Make sure it doesn’t disappear. Sound like a deal?’

  ‘Couple of dollars? But there is five of us, mister.’ Kenny waved in the direction of his friends.

  ‘OK, five dollars.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Well, I’m going to see Miss Ranelagh. You know where she lives?’

  ‘Sure do.’

  ‘You show me.’

  ‘Directions? Better make it ten.’

  ‘I ought to give you a bloody good hiding for extortion.’

  ‘But then you end up wandering around lost all day,’ Kenny chirruped.

  ‘Hah! Know something, young Kenny, you remind me of myself.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ the kid asked, his nose wrinkling in suspicion.

  ‘It means you win.’ Harry reached inside his wallet and pulled out two notes. ‘Here we are. Five now when you tell me her address. Five more when I pick up my bike.’

  ‘That’s fair,’ the boy declared, reaching for the note and inspecting it as though he might be dealing with a high-class money launderer. ‘And my ball, mister.’

  ‘So where is Miss Ranelagh?’

  ‘Miss Ranelagh? Why, that’s right there, ain’t it?’ Kenny exclaimed as though he were dealing with a dimwit. He pointed. They were standing almost directly outside the house. The boy grabbed his ball back from Harry and scampered off to join his playmates.

  The clapboard house was probably a four-bedroom, Harry reckoned, scrupulously neat and pastel pink with shutters on its sash windows and an elegant porch above its front door. The roof was startlingly white, the front garden small but manicured with just enough room for a couple of graceful palm trees. The property was approached from the road by a short semicircular drive. Far from ostentatious but impressive. As his hand wrapped around the brass cloverleaf knocker he still had no clear idea of what he should say. In the event it proved not to be a problem. Susannah Ranelagh opened the front door, took one long look at Harry, went several shades of grey and fainted into his arms.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Susannah Ranelagh recovered her senses but had yet to recover her wits. Harry had taken her through to her sitting room and fetched a glass of water. ‘Come on, take a sip,’ he encouraged, kneeling beside her. She opened her eyes and stared; they were still swollen with torment.

  ‘I’m sorry if I startled you, Miss Ranelagh.’ He drew back to give her some space.

  ‘No, no,’ she protested, brushing strands of grey hair back from her forehead, ‘it’s not your fault. At my age you get moments like this. Should’ve had a proper breakfast.’ Her voice retained an Irish lilt, the words rushing forth like waves brushing against the sandstone rocks of the Kerry shoreline where she had been raised.

  ‘My name is Harry Jones,’ he announced.

  And who else could he be? she thought, with those deep eyes, the broad forehead and that mouth with its downturned, determined corners? There was an inner energy, too, like his father had possessed and which this younger version exuded with every breath.

  ‘I’m sorry. What did you say your name was?’ she said, finishing the glass of water and sitting back into her armchair, trying to affect the look of a woman once more at her ease despite the trembling in her hand.

  ‘Harry Jones. I think you knew my father.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ she replied.

  ‘Johnnie Maltravers-Jones. I think you were on the yacht when he died in Greece. Two thousand and one.’

  Dear God, he knew – but how much? She felt the flood of panic rising inside her once again and trying to drown her senses. She willed herself to be strong, not to let everyone down.

  ‘Ah, yes, of course. He was your father, you say. Such a tragedy. My condolences, Mr Jones.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s kind. I wonder, did you know my father well?’

  As well as your mother did, she screamed silently. The panic was beginning to gain ground. Was this a trick question? But there was a stead
iness in his eye and an openness in his face that suggested nothing but genuine concern.

  ‘I was simply a fellow passenger,’ she replied, spreading her hands in apology.

  ‘I know so little about the circumstances of his death, even why he was on board.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Jones, I don’t think I can help you. I was little more than a hitchhiker cadging a lift.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I mean, who offered you the lift? Who else was on board?’

  ‘But it was such a long time ago.’

  ‘Please, anything you can remember. Names, descriptions. There was a younger woman on board, wasn’t there? Where was the boat sailing from, going to? Can you tell me that?’

  He leaned forward, eager, but in Miss Ranelagh’s eyes he was like a mugger preparing to pounce.

  ‘I’m an old lady,’ she wailed.

  ‘What can you remember of my father? Anything. Any recollection, no matter how small. You must surely remember something,’ he pressed.

  By this point the flutter of despair she placed on parade was entirely genuine. ‘Stop! We must stop. I feel . . .’ She waved a forlorn hand in front of her face that was flushing more deeply with every breath. ‘I need to rest.’

  ‘Miss Ranelagh, I’ve come such a long way to see you. Please.’

  ‘No!’

  Her sudden forcefulness startled them both. He dragged his eyes away from her and gazed around the room in frustration. It was meticulously tidy with expensive prints and oils hung on the wall, a collection of fine Irish crystal glass in a corner cabinet, the bookcases filled with hardbacks of some of the finest novels of the last fifty years, many of which Harry recognized as collectors’ items, and a long and intricately carved piece of whalebone portraying the world of ancient sailors rested on a stand of polished cedar. Everything about this woman was old-fashioned but tasteful and expensive. It was also more than a little lonely. Every corner, every cranny of free space, was filled with old photos and mementoes, every inch of this place was hers yet hers alone, rarely shown and never shared with anyone else. It suggested stubbornness, that she did things her way, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to shift her. And, as he stared back into her darting, anxious eyes, he knew she was lying.

  She, too, knew that she couldn’t simply dismiss him, send him away empty-handed, for he was his father’s son and he would only return. Anyway, a curt dismissal would do nothing but antagonize him and raise his suspicions. Play for time, Susannah, play for time! And get some help.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Jones, truly I am,’ she began again in a far more emollient tone. ‘I would like to help you, of course I would, but . . .’ – she shook her head, the grey hair falling across her face once again – ‘now isn’t the time. I’ll tell you everything I know about your father’ – there was more! – ‘so why not come back around this same time tomorrow? I’ll collect my thoughts. And make sure I have a proper breakfast.’ A little joke. She was regaining control. The thin bones of her fingers brushed at the stray fronds of hair, putting everything back in order. ‘You will come back tomorrow, won’t you?’

  ‘I promise I will.’

  She smiled weakly as he got up. This man had come crawling through her past and now threatened everything she had set out for her future. His bloody father, he’d been a nightmare, too. Tell the son all she knew about Johnnie? Never. Anything but that.

  Alexander McQuarrel had responded immediately, if a little stuffily, to Jemma’s e-mail. ‘It would be an honour to meet the fiancée of Harry Jones,’ he had replied. ‘As it happens, I shall be in London tomorrow with a diary that is not overly full and is flexible. I would be delighted to meet with you . . .’

  Jemma was allowed an hour’s lunch break from the primary school where she taught. There was no wiggle room, so they agreed to meet on a bench overlooking the Thames in Battersea Park. When she arrived the river was low, leaving banks of glistening mud. A common shag perched on a navigation sign and preened itself while hooligan pigeons scuttled around her feet and hopped in impatience. McQuarrel, when he arrived shortly after her, was tall, upright, elegant, his stride long and confident despite the fact that by her reckoning he was well the other side of seventy. He wore an expensively tailored blue suit that clung to his lean frame and his complexion talked of fresh air and country living. The eyes were blue and bright, the hair like a blanket of snow and parted carefully with a comb. He seemed to recognize her and extended a hand in greeting.

  ‘How did you know it was me?’ she asked, curious, as he sat beside her.

  ‘If you’ll allow me the indiscretion of age,’ he said, and paused as though not to take her for granted, ‘you’re the most naturally beautiful woman I’ve seen all morning.’

  ‘I’m in a tracksuit,’ she protested.

  ‘There’s also the dab of bright-green paint on the side of your cheek.’ Her fingers flew instinctively to her face and began rubbing. ‘And you said you were a teacher of very young children.’

  Jemma laughed in congratulation. Far from being stuffy, he seemed charming.

  ‘Please don’t let me keep you from your lunch.’ He nodded towards the plastic bowl of homemade salad sitting on the bench beside her.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she stumbled as yet again he caught her off guard. ‘I’d offer to share it but . . . somehow I just know you’ve got a far more splendid lunch waiting for you.’

  ‘And you’ve only one fork.’

  She smiled. She was going to find it easy to talk to a man like this. ‘So,’ she began, chewing a mouthful of rocket as more pigeons hovered at her feet, ‘you knew Harry’s father.’

  ‘Most certainly. At one time he was a man of some importance in my life.’

  ‘Harry wants to know a little more about him. I wonder whether you might help us.’

  An unmistakable shadow passed behind the old man’s eyes. ‘You must understand, Miss Laing—’

  ‘Please. Call me Jemma.’

  ‘Johnnie was a turbulent sort.’ He pursed his lips, choosing his words with care. ‘I don’t want to be unkind, but I have to warn you – Jemma – you’re likely to discover things about Harry’s father you will both find uncomfortable. Distasteful, even.’

  ‘I understand. But Harry can be painfully persistent.’

  ‘Oh, as was his father.’ His silver head seemed to be weighed down with the memory.

  Suddenly the sun disappeared; the shadow of a man fell across their path. He was standing in front of them, dressed in a long overcoat despite the weather. He stank of sweet-stale urine and cheap alcohol and held out a filthy hand. ‘Spare some change,’ he blurted through cracked lips. Jemma flustered, did nothing. ‘Change,’ the tramp demanded in a more hectoring tone. He swayed, his hand moved from Jemma to McQuarrel, who said not a word, did nothing but stare, yet something was exchanged between the two men, something in the eyes that Jemma couldn’t see but had the same effect on the tramp as a stick shoved up his backside.

  ‘Yeah, you, too!’ the tramp shouted as he leapt back, glaring. He wiped his mucus-crusted nose on the back of his coat sleeve and roared incoherently at them both before turning and shuffling away, kicking out at the pigeons as he went.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ McQuarrel said quietly.

  ‘It’s scarcely your fault.’

  He sighed. ‘When you get to my age somehow everything seems your fault.’ He seemed elsewhere for a moment before turning back to Jemma. ‘I was rather hoping Harry would be with you.’

  ‘He’s abroad.’

  ‘Somewhere nice?’

  ‘Bermuda. But it’s no holiday. He’s gone there to talk to someone else about his father. A Miss Ranelagh. You don’t happen to know her, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s not a name that means anything to me. But, when he gets back, can I suggest we all meet up?’

  ‘That would be kind, Mr McQuarrel.’

  ‘Alexander, please. And I hope you’ll allow me to fin
d somewhere a little more comfortable than a park bench. After all, I’m an old friend of the family – you’re about to become a member of that family; we should celebrate. You know I haven’t seen Harry since he was . . . oh, no more than a boy. He wouldn’t remember me, I dare say, but I’ve followed his career. You’re marrying an extraordinary man.’

  ‘I know.’

  He smiled and placed his hand on hers. ‘I’m afraid I must ask you to forgive me. You’ve almost finished your lunch and I must attend to mine. Will you give me a call as soon as Harry gets back?’

  ‘Of course. You’ve been very kind, Alexander.’

  ‘I haven’t been the slightest bit of help.’

  ‘I know you will be.’

  Her hand was warm within his; he squeezed it, held it firmly. ‘Jemma, will you take a little advice from an old man? All too often in my experience the past comes back to haunt you. So you and Harry look forward to your future. Don’t waste too much time raking over bad times that have long since been buried. Be happy. And be careful.’

  Harry tossed around his bed like a ferret in a sack, wrapping his sheet into impossible knots. Something was chasing him through the shallows of the night, screaming at him so loud he could barely hear, let alone sleep. It wasn’t simply that Susannah Ranelagh was lying, nor that his presence alone had been enough to make her swoon with fright. There was something else, something nagging at him with ferocious persistence, something about her, or about her house, he couldn’t be sure which, yet it was setting him on edge like the sound of a dentist’s drill. His intelligence training in Northern Ireland had taught him how to observe, to soak up images and information even when there wasn’t time to analyse it all, to make sense of it later. He had half seen something and he pursued it until sweat was running down his back.