A Ghost at the Door (19 page)

‘Whatever you’re having.’

‘Don’t call me chicken if I grab some tea. Jetlag sure dries me out. But you—’

‘No. Tea will be fine.’

‘Then would you mind calling for a tray? Give me time to jump in the shower. God knows what you Brits do to sunshine to make it stick like glue.’

As she disappeared into a separate part of the room hidden behind a half-wall, he picked up the phone, jabbed buttons and tried to scratch at the skin beneath the cast that was beginning to itch
like an army of fire ants. Six weeks of healing, they’d said at the hospital in Bermuda. Six weeks of purgatory, fighting an enemy he couldn’t even see.

The tray of tea arrived and Harry set about it. ‘You take sugar?’ he called out as he rattled the cups. No reply. She couldn’t hear him through the shower and behind the door.
He tried again, but nothing, so Harry went to the corner of the room where she had disappeared, preparing to press his question more forcefully. That was the point when he discovered there was no
door. The bathroom area was not only
en suite
but also
alfresco
and behind the half-wall the shower was in full view. So was Delicious. Only the curtain of water that was
cascading down the glass wall concealed her finer details. He prepared to turn from the embarrassment but before he could drag himself away she stepped from the shower and was standing in full and
glorious view.

‘I . . . I . . .’ What the hell was he supposed to say? ‘I was wondering whether you took sugar in your tea.’

‘How very English.’

His mouth suddenly felt like the bottom of a parrot’s cage. ‘I’m sorry, I never meant . . .’

Water was dripping down her skin, little streams that moved around the contours of her body. She didn’t move; time ceased to exist.

Harry stood rooted. He suspected his lower jaw had sagged and was making a fool of him. A million years of evolution was being crushed into a fragment of time – this time – and
against that the veneer of conventional morality that stretched back not even as far as his father seemed to count for nothing. What was he supposed to think? Men in such circumstances are rarely
given to intensive analytical processes, yet he couldn’t fail to remember Terri, and their affair, and the hurt it had done to Julia. Instinct was taking over, firmly pressing its point.
Delicious was perfection on a plate, every man’s lingering dream. Harry took an enormous breath, preparing to both speak and act, although he still wasn’t certain how.

Then his phone began burbling in his pocket. The moment was broken.

‘Are you going to answer that, Harry?’

He smiled sheepishly. ‘Not right now. I need . . . a moment to myself. I’ll just go and sit quietly next door.’

Their eyes wrestled in disappointment and sympathy and understanding and all the things that told her Harry belonged to another woman. ‘By the way, the answer is two.’

‘What?’

‘Sugars.’

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.

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 roofscape 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.’