A Ghost at the Door (31 page)

Her first instinct was to turn and run, back to Steve, but suddenly a bolt of awareness shot through her. No, not Steve. That wasn’t what she wanted. And, even as that realization dawned,
she remembered that her forefathers had fought at Culloden and had never had enough bloody sense to turn back. Almost before she realized what she was doing she was using her shoulder to push her
way through to her front door. They turned, as one, as packs do, a TV light was shining in her eyes and questions were being thrown at her from all sides. They didn’t appear to know who she
was; it was enough she lived in the same building as Harry Jones. Do you know him? How long has he lived here? Have you seen him recently? Did you know he’s been arrested in connection with a
murder?

Jemma held her key out in front of her, forced her way to her front step, put her key in the lock, opened the door a couple of inches, had said not a word. Then she found a young woman at her
side, tugging at her sleeve. ‘Are you having sex with him?’ The young woman was a ‘shouter’, a junior at some television company who was paid to hurl insinuations and
accusations at those, mostly politicians, from whom her bosses wanted to capture some sort of reaction. ‘Are you going to resign, Minister?’ ‘How can you face your wife after
those headlines?’ ‘Did you really employ your secretary for her filing skills?’ But it was summer, the politicians had all disappeared.

Jemma turned slowly to face her. The others crowded round.

‘Are you having sex with Harry Jones?’ the young woman demanded once again, though less forcefully now she was looking into Jemma’s eyes.

Jemma’s eyes dropped, inspected the young woman. The reporters grew silent, waiting.

‘Sex? You want to know about sex?’ Jemma said as the young woman pressed forward in expectation. ‘First thing is, I’d change that bra. It’s not doing a thing for
you.’

As Jemma closed the door behind her she could hear the pack of journalists still mocking their colleague, but suddenly she was trembling so much she could scarcely move. The keys clattered from
her hand; she leaned against the wall for support, slid by inches to the floor. Only when she heard the reporters drawing back from her doorstep did she allow herself tears.

Harry stepped out of the shower, still sweating. The heat was persistent, intrusive, even on the river with all the windows thrown open. As he towelled himself he heard his
phone vibrating on the dining table. He didn’t catch it in time, even though he’d left a trail of dripping footprints across the wooden floor, and was surprised to see he had seventeen
missed calls and almost as many messages. Not bad for a short soak in the shower.

Journalists. Hunting as a pack. Tasting blood. Someone had told them he’d been arrested in connection with a murder and Harry had no doubts who that had been. The police – or one
policeman in particular. Edwards. As he flicked through the messages they became depressingly consistent. What was his relationship with the deceased? Would her murder affect any political
comeback? Surely he would like to give his version of events? Even sell his story? Or comment on rumours that he first had sex with Delicious in a hospital bed?

One was a friend. ‘Sorry, Harry, old chum, I hate to do this but my editor’s insisted and, well, you know what a bottomless pit of venom she can be. Look, I’m so sorry
you’re in the shit again, truly. You know my colleagues in the press will turn you slowly on a spit but – Harry, face it, you know they can’t ignore a murder rap. Look, any chance
of meeting up? I’ll do the story as gently as I can. Over a drink, perhaps? Just name the place and I’ll be there for you, Harry.’ That was followed by a short pause. ‘And,
er, any chance of a photo?’

Thank the Almighty they didn’t know where he was, that Edwards still thought he was with Jemma. Oh, screw you, Hughie, I’ll rip your tongue out through your butt, for what you must
be putting her through. He tried to call, warn her, hoping it wasn’t too late, but it went straight to her voicemail.

He sat, naked, bent, sweating, dripping onto the polished floor, ashamed for what he had inflicted on her. This was his fault.

Yet he might have known that Jemma was not simply a child of Culloden but also of Bannockburn, a proud woman who could meet both disaster and triumph with a straight eye. She hadn’t
switched her phone off as Harry had surmised but was talking on it. To Steve. Trying to let him down gently, even as the door buzzer was hissing at her relentlessly.

Findlay Francis had taken the train to Weymouth, by his beloved sea. His postcards had been purchased at places along the stretch of coast road that ran like a lazy ribbon from
the town to West Bay. So that was where they went, early the following morning, Friday, in Harry’s trusty Volvo, with Jemma sneaking out of a back door, trying to leave the baying of the pack
behind them. It was precisely what Edwards had wanted, of course. Action. When the rabbit decides to make a run for it.

Harry, Jemma and Abby started early, sharing the driving, taking the road southwest until they ran out of motorway and were left with cluttered A-roads. It took them more than three hours and in
some discomfort: the air-con wasn’t up to it.

‘What, precisely, is the plan?’ Jemma asked from the passenger seat, throwing aside the last of the newspapers. Harry had made them all, and, although they had been careful not to
suggest he was guilty and get their libel lawyers in a froth, terms like ‘disgrace’, ‘humiliation’ and ‘shamed’ wound through the copy like a noose around his
neck.

‘Nothing precise,’ Harry said in reply to Jemma’s question. ‘Nothing you’d call a plan, really. Just a day by the sea.’

‘I forgot to bring my bucket.’

They were all sleepless and more than a little apprehensive.

‘Abby, do you think your father might have stayed in Weymouth itself?’ Harry asked, throwing the question over his shoulder to Abby, who was sitting clad in a floppy straw hat in the
back seat.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said eventually. ‘I’m pretty sure of that. He always wanted total peace for his writing, isolation, not crowds.’

So that was where they decided to start, on the coast road west out of Weymouth that wasn’t even up to being an A road. They passed through the small town of Chickerell without pausing
until they hit the open countryside beyond, and it didn’t take them long to become aware of the flaw in their nonexistent plan. It was all very well for Abby to suggest her father would have
sought somewhere isolated, but so much of this part of the Jurassic coast stood up to that description. If Findlay had been looking for a place to hide away from prying eyes he would have been
spoiled for choice. Between the gentle green folds of the hills and back from the stark cliffs that faced the sea there were kinks and crevasses in the countryside that could have hidden several
armies. For centuries this coast had been the place of fishermen, pirates, smugglers, shepherds, those who valued their invisibility. Away from the coast road ran any number of lanes, farm tracks,
bridleways, footpaths, walkways and meandering badger runs that had never been marked on any map, many of them too small for a vehicle and now overgrown with sum mer’s abundance. They tried
each in turn yet found nothing. For a few minutes their hopes rose along one lane where the grass showed signs of ancient vehicle tracks, but at its end they found only a tumbledown cottage whose
roof had disappeared decades earlier and whose empty windows stared blindly back at them. They pressed on. They had no choice.

It was well into the afternoon and Jemma was driving down a lane between steep banks, topped by thick hedgerow and overflowing with fronds of bracken and bramble, which began to narrow with
every new yard. Soon the thorn bushes were attacking both sides of the car and the pavement had completely disappeared. Nothing had passed this way in many moons. Another dead end. There was no
turning place and Jemma had no choice but to push the gearstick into reverse and thread her way backwards. She gained speed as the brambles retreated and the road widened. She was a good driver,
confident. She twisted in her seat, and the engine whined while Abby ducked her head to give Jemma a clear view. Harry had his eyes closed, his shoulder weary from the day’s drive. Suddenly
there was a chilling crack from the back of the Volvo and Jemma cried out as she slammed on the brakes. They’d hit something, hard.

As they spilled out of the car they could see what that something was. It was lying in the road. A young buck fallow deer, its antlers not fully grown, its chestnut flanks mottled and its
foreleg broken through the skin.

‘I didn’t see it,’ Jemma gasped. ‘It just jumped out . . .’

They could see the gaps in the hedge that the deer used as their crossing point. No deer born in the last five years would have expected a car to be passing here.

Abby began to moan in distress and Jemma put an arm around her to console her, and to comfort herself. The animal was twitching in pain and terror. Harry moved forward and bent to inspect it.
The dark eyes stared wide and swollen, filled with shock, its eyelashes almost human while its dark-rimmed nostrils flared as it tried to suck fresh oxygen into its lungs. A dry, hoarse cough came
from its throat, past the tongue that hung listlessly from its gaping mouth. It was in its death throes, but for how long would it linger?

Harry left the deer and walked back to the women. ‘Take Abby down the way a little, will you?’ he asked Jemma.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Nothing you’ll want to see. Please.’

The two women retreated down the track until they found the shade of an old tree where Abby stood, crying softly. Jemma put her arms around her once more, shielding her from any sight or sound
but all the while staring back down the way to Harry. He was looking at the whimpering deer. It was far too large to throttle and he had no faith that with his left arm he could hit the deer hard
enough or accurately enough, with the car jack perhaps, to dispatch it swiftly. He reached inside the car and retrieved his jacket, walking back to the deer and laying it gently across its head.
Whatever he was about to do, the deer should know nothing of it. Then he climbed back into the driver’s seat and put the car in reverse once again, and on a summer’s day with the light
dappling through the swaying trees, their branches laden with fruit, their roots surrounded by sweet-smelling wild garlic and the eyes of red campion, with as little sound and as much care as he
could muster, he backed the car over the neck of the deer, then quickly repeated it, again and again, until he was sure. When he went back to lift his mangled coat, the soft eye stared back at him
sightless.

The death of the deer stripped them of any sense of adventure they might have had. They kept to the task for several more hours until even the most optimistic of souls would
have had to declare their mission fruitless. There were simply too many grassy tracks, too many overgrown lanes to have any chance of making a thorough search of the near twenty miles of road that
led to West Bay and its neighbouring town of Bridport. They fell silent as the sun hid behind a bank of clouds, taking their hopes with it. Harry was driving, tapping his fingers on the old leather
steering wheel, when he turned to Abby. ‘Did your father drink?’

‘You suggesting he was an alcoholic?’

‘No, not at all, but I was wondering whether he liked a pint occasionally.’

‘No, not occasionally. Dad was more of a four-pints-a-night man.’

‘So he would have known the pubs near where he was staying. And they would have known him.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘We stop driving blindly around the countryside and go to the pub.’

So they stopped off at every pub they came to, showing photos, asking their questions. But the men and women of Dorset are not like the Greeks, they don’t throw open their souls at the
first sight of a stranger, and all they gave up was a distracted shake of the head. The day grew more depressing and soon it was gone eight.

‘OK, decision time. Do we carry on with this and stay over or head back to London? Try another day?’ Harry asked.