A Ghost at the Door (25 page)

Suddenly and with considerable violence, he launched himself from his chair and clattered backwards down the narrow steps from the sundeck in so much haste that he almost lost his footing. Even
before he’d taken breath he was rifling through his bag, pulling out his father’s battered file and tipping the contents onto the bed. There it was, the passport. Filled with a chaos of
stamps from border-control points around the globe that marked Johnnie’s journey through the last dozen or so years of his life. The trading capitals of the world, the powerhouses of global
prosperity, set out alongside a clutch of sandy islands that did excellent trade in turtle soup and tax havens. There were no immigration stamps to disclose when he’d come back to Britain
– for a British passport holder that wasn’t necessary – but Harry remembered the intermittent contact he’d had with his father in those last years, an occasional telephone
call to say he was back in the country, a hastily scribbled postcard, a letter on the notepaper of some London hotel, all discarded into the nearest bin. And every one of them, he seemed now to
remember, during the dismal months of autumn. Between the stiff covers of the passport he found the evidence – stamps from other jurisdictions that gave date and location for his wandering.
His thumbs fumbled in their haste as they picked out visas marking immigration and exit from Belize, Morocco, the United States, Vietnam, Singapore, the Cayman Islands, Norway, Cyprus, Panama,
Malaysia, Canada, Russia. Never seeming to settle. And, as he held open the pages and tried to reconcile the markings, he found a hole in every year of the record that could only be explained by
one thing. He had come home. In October.

Whatever Susannah Ranelagh had been up to, Johnnie had been there, too.

‘What bloody secret are you hiding?’ Harry shouted, throwing the passport down in anger. He glared in pain out of the window. The sun was glowering in the evening sky; the waters
turned a shade of volcanic red. That was the trouble with rivers like the Thames. No sooner had they shifted all the crap in your life downstream than the tide turned and shoved it straight back at
you.

A backstreet in Tottenham, north London. An old Victorian pub with dark tiles and sticky varnish and pies that protested, perhaps too vehemently, that they were a hundred per
cent beef. Not a pub that attracted passing trade. Hughie Edwards was sitting in a booth nursing a large whisky, turning the rim of the glass slowly with the tips of his fingers, inspecting it
carefully as though hoping to find a part of the glass that held more alcohol than another. He was alone. He stayed staring at his glass until the pub door opened and four men sauntered in; it was
darts night. Edwards looked up, nodded. One of the men, a small black guy with nervous eyes and greying curly hair, scowled and muttered to his friends before making his way over.

‘Evening, Billy.’

‘Hello, Mr Edwards. What a surprise.’ The other man’s voice with its Trinidadian roots was stripped of any trace of enthusiasm.

‘Mine’s a whisky. Get yourself whatever you want.’

The scowl came back. ‘You can get yourself all sorts of things on a dark night in these parts, Chief Inspector. Like totally fucked. You should be careful.’

‘Even on a dark night I would know it was you, Billy-boy, from the smell of all that black bullshit. Make sure mine’s a large one.’

Billy swallowed his contempt and trundled across to the bar, returning with a whisky and a pint of lager with the head already taken off. ‘As I was saying, it’s a great pleasure to
see you again, Mr Edwards,’ he declared, setting himself down on the opposite bench of the booth. ‘What brings you to these parts?’

‘Old times.’

Billy sniffed and stared at his glass.

Many years before, when Edwards had been no more than a trainee detective constable at the start of his career, he had nicked Billy under the old sus laws for door handling – being found
trying car doors with intent to steal either the contents or the car itself. Billy served only a short period of ‘bird’, a couple of months, but when, a little later, he’d been
discovered to be a minor part of a high-value car-ringing scam and faced a much longer stretch inside, Edwards had given him a break. The policeman’s sights had been set on those much higher
up the food chain and he’d decided Billy would be more useful to him outside than in. As Billy had discovered on repeated occasions in the years since, ambitious policemen have a need for the
sort of support team that never appears on the payroll. He had also discovered that Edwards had a very long memory.

So they sat and they chatted, of times past and times that were to come, both for themselves and for Harry Jones. Totally screwed up Billy’s game of darts.

It was late, almost touching midnight. The insistent burble of the phone cut through the peace of the hour, echoing through the elegant rooms and tiled corridors of the old
house.

‘Yes?’ an irritated voice responded, although the strains of a Beethoven piano sonata in the background betrayed that he hadn’t been asleep.

‘It’s me.’

There was no need for any further introduction: the caller’s voice had always adopted a pronounced sibilance when he was drunk, even when he was young.

The other man didn’t respond immediately, wanting to collect his wits, making it clear that the interruption was unwelcome. ‘What do you want?’ he said eventually.

‘Johnnie’s son. He’s written. Wants to meet.’

‘So?’

‘But I can’t. What do I tell him?’ Alarm battled with alcohol for mastery of the caller’s voice.

‘You tell him nothing. You and Johnnie were university friends and it was all a long time ago. You can manage that, can’t you?’

The sound of slurping trickled down the line. College port. He’d never got out of the habit. ‘But what if he asks questions?’

‘Of
course
he will ask questions. He will ask questions because he doesn’t know. Keep it that way.’

‘But—’

‘You have to meet with him. Otherwise he will become suspicious. Don’t do that. Harry Jones is a hunter, he will track you down like a wolf.’

‘I don’t think I can do it.’

‘You must do it. You have no choice. And there is one other thing you have to do.’

‘Tell me,’ the caller pleaded.

‘You will do it sober. We all know that when you drink it brings out the more . . .
vulnerable
side of you.’ The word came loaded with meaning they both understood but had
never discussed, not in all the years. It was the nature of groups such as theirs that they didn’t waste their time discussing the finer points of morality. ‘Anyway, Harry’s doing
you a favour, giving you warning. It means he doesn’t suspect.’

‘I’m just not sure what to say.’

‘Praise the Lord and quote some scripture – you can manage that, can’t you? For pity’s sake, you’ve had enough practice dodging questions. After all, that’s
what’s kept you one step ahead of your accusers all these years,’ he said, not bothering to hide his contempt as he put the phone down.

Harry stumbled through the night sleepless on a diet of headache and hangover. At around two he had tried to call Jemma but experience had cut through the alcohol and at the
last second he had hit the cancel button. He waited until he thought he was sober enough, and she was about to leave for school. His throat felt as if it had been scrubbed with raw chillies.

‘Jem.’

‘I’m rushing, Harry.’

‘They arrested me again yesterday.’

That stopped her in her tracks.

‘Are you . . .?’

‘No, they let me go.’

‘What do you need?’

‘First thing, to know that you still care. That’s very important to me right now.’

‘I care. Of course I bloody care, otherwise this wouldn’t all be hurting so much. And you sound like crap. Have you been drowning your sorrows?’

‘And second—’

‘Somehow I knew it wasn’t going to be as simple as they arrested you on suspicion of murder. Why should it be simple, just because it’s the last week of term?’

‘I’m trying to find a woman.’

‘Never needed my help for that before.’

‘No, a special woman, a specific woman.’ Damn, he was making a mess of this. Perhaps he wasn’t as sober as he’d thought. ‘Don’t know her name but she’s
the daughter of a chap called Findlay Francis. You heard of him?’

‘No.’

‘I need to find her. Or him.’

‘How am I supposed to help?’

‘Social media, Facebook, that sort of thing. You’re the expert.’

‘Any other clues?’

‘He’s gone missing.’

She sighed, weary. ‘No, don’t tell me, Harry, I’m going to find him dangling from your wretched family tree.’

‘He was a friend of my father. Another one from the photo. Disappeared. That’s five out of the seven. This doesn’t smell like coincidence, Jem: this stinks like an old
abattoir.’

She had to make a decision, and it would be an important one. Harry was asking for help, practically pleading, and that was a first. And she still smelled of Steve, no matter how long
she’d stood soaking in the shower.

The ground was shifting; she no longer felt sure of her footing. She had allowed their relationship to restart because it was so superficial that it counted for nothing, nothing more than
totally transient sex. Or that was how it had been, but something had changed. Steve had changed. His roving eye now seemed fixed on her, she found it more difficult to brush away the compliments,
they sounded sincere, they stuck. Steve – sincere? She’d even stopped finding strange hairs embedded in his brush. He could never be Harry, of course. She loved Harry but – could
she live with him? Steve was so predictable, great body, no holes, no scars, no previous, no ambition other than to be a good teacher while Harry . . . Steve and she had spent a couple of evenings
using the pool and gym, finished off with a game of mixed basketball, nothing serious, only enough to work up a thirst, and the previous evening they’d both gone up for a high ball together
and ended up in each other’s arms. Sweat, scent, raw sexual tension. ‘Love you,’ he’d whispered in her ear before chasing off after the game, but the look he threw behind
him said he meant it. Damn him! It wasn’t supposed to get like this, to confuse her.

Now Harry was on the phone confusing her all the more. One day she’d come to her senses and give up bloody men. One day.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said.

A missing elderly author. A daughter with no name. Not much to go on, as puzzles went, but Jemma had solved much of it in her lunch break between helpings of homemade pasta. In fact, it took
less than the time taken to finish a mouthful. She typed the name Findlay Francis into her Facebook account and no sooner had she done so than the screen filled with possibilities. There were more
than a hundred hits but only one that was tagged with the word ‘MISSING’. A page set up by his family seeking information about a missing father and grandfather. The details were
decidedly frugal. A photo of a man in middle age rather than a seventy year old. An acknowledgement that he travelled to many parts of the world for his job but it was believed he had gone missing
while back in Britain. ‘The police can’t help, so can you?’ the page pleaded. It was all pretty bald so far as these things went, lacking the passion and emotional incontinence of
the genre, which was perhaps why it had been hit by only a relatively small number of ‘likes’. And the contact details were restricted to a specially constructed
‘findlayfrancis-missing’ address. Vague to the point of mystery, yet nevertheless Jemma typed in a message about her partner Harry having information that he thought might be helpful
and asking for a reply. The bell for afternoon classes was ringing. She punched the button. There was nothing more to be done, except wait.