A Ghost at the Door (37 page)

‘But we scarcely talked. Almost never met.’

‘He followed your career in the Army as best he could. You kept getting mentions in despatches, promotions, medals, accolades. Then you became a politician.’

‘The year before he died . . .’

‘By then you were scarcely ever out of the news. And Johnnie brought every scrap of it to us.’

‘But he never had any time for me.’

‘He wrote to you, that’s what he said. It was you who turned your back on him.’

‘No, no, he . . .’ But the half-formed excuse disappeared within a fog of confusion. Suddenly Harry began to understand how skilful the bishop was in spotting and exploiting
vulnerabilities, in creating distractions in a way that had kept him out of reach all these years. Harry had hoped that unravelling the truth about his father would settle things, flush out the
pain that had been lurking deep inside ever since he was a boy. He’d thought it would enable him to purge the memory of his father’s ghost, to move on. Instead, Johnnie was coming back
to haunt him.

Friday night. No parking restrictions. Jemma stopped a little way down Walbrook, keeping the front of St Stephen’s in view, and waited, windows open, the heat of the city
trickling down the nape of her neck. As she sat behind the wheel of the old Volvo she wondered at the ridiculous way in which women made up their minds. A few nights earlier she’d been
driving around in Steve’s car. It was almost new, bright red, air-conditioned, fun – and, yes, even a little flash, and smelled of an air freshener that claimed it was natural pine and
dangled from the driver’s mirror. Harry’s old Volvo, on the other hand, was an entirely different world. Old leather, the slightest tang of oil and a heavy, complex sweetness that
reminded her of freshly cracked walnuts. There were other contrasts, of course. He was more than a dozen years older and her mother definitely didn’t approve of that, or him, or the fact that
he was sharing a bed with her daughter. Perfect.

‘Who killed Findlay Francis?’ Harry asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Wickham replied.

‘And Susannah Ranelagh?’

‘Is she dead? I suppose she is. Sweet, lonely Susannah.’

‘And the others? Why did they all die?’

The shadows hid the bishop’s eyes, made his face appear shrunken, skull-like. His voice had an air of resignation. ‘I can’t say. Sometimes God appears to sleep. I hope he does,
for my sake.’

The last words came out as a sigh, so soft that Harry scarcely caught them. It sounded like an admission of guilt. In his pocket he was vaguely aware of a tingling sensation from his phone that
told him he had a new message. He ignored it.

‘Downstairs, Harry, at the altar, I was praying for us both.’

‘I don’t need your prayers, Bishop, just the truth. Tell me. What happened to my father? Did he really die of a heart attack?’

‘Why do you doubt it?’

‘Because I’m beginning to doubt everything I’ve ever been told about him.’

Chief Inspector Edwards stared at the tracker icon, making certain. There was no doubt. It had come to a halt, marking a spot in the heart of the City. He felt a flush of
excitement. The bait had been taken; the float at the end of the line tugged beneath the surface. Time to strike.

‘Staunton?’

‘Yes, Guv?’ the sergeant responded from his desk a few feet away.

‘Drop whatever it is you’re wasting your time on and bring round the car. You and me, we’re going to take ourselves for a little drive.’

Wickham had stepped out from the shadows of the church tower and was leaning on the low parapet, looking out across the spectacular skyscape. Harry came to join him, to make
sure he heard every word.

‘I know nothing of your father’s death, Harry,’ the bishop said. ‘I can only tell you how he lived. Most men have a time in their lives when they struggle with their
conscience, but Johnnie . . .’ Wickham waved his hand towards the forest of towers that surrounded them. ‘You talk about that gap between God and greed, but Johnnie never had any doubts
about which side he pitched his tent. He wasn’t like the rest of the Aunt Emmas. While we got together to share, not just what we knew but what was important to each of us, as friends, as
we’d always done, Johnnie somehow changed. He seemed only to want to use us, to grab every plate that was put upon the table. Finn put it bluntly, in that way he had with words. Johnnie was
raping our minds. We were supposed to be his friends.’

Harry flinched, his hands scraping in shame along the rough stonework.

‘In our different ways the rest of us gave, to each other and often to those beyond. I’m proud of what I’ve done for the Church and for many other causes, but Johnnie –
he only took. Left nothing of value behind. And yet you come here with your cheap morality, a man whose life has been built on what his father took from others. How dare you?’ The words were
spoken softly and in accusation.

The bishop took a step or two backwards, as though he found Harry’s company repellent. Harry was left leaning on the balustrade, breathing heavily as confusion and guilt tumbled through
his mind. God, it hurt. He knew now that he’d always wanted to find something in his father he could admire, some spark of love he could revive, but that was all gone. He’d been such a
fool. He’d kicked the lid off the coffin, shaken the dead, and now his father’s ghost had come back to torment him.

Far down below in the street, out of reach, was a world of ordinary people. The wail of a Friday-evening siren floated up; to Harry it was the sound of his father’s mockery. Damn you,
Johnnie, in whatever corner of hell you’re hiding.

It was at that moment, lost in misery, that he heard a scuffling noise behind him. Harry turned, but by then it was too late.

Harry had only half-turned when the bishop hit him. Wickham had thrown himself at Harry using the full weight of his elderly body. Taken unawares, off-balance, Harry could feel
himself toppling over the balustrade. There was no time for fear, only instinct. As on other occasions in his turbulent life when he’d been about to die, time slowed, every fraction stretched
out so that he knew he was falling, his senses tumbling, screaming at him to save himself, but he couldn’t. As he looked down he could see only pavement, a hundred feet below, where he was
going to die.

His good hand clawed at the darkness, desperate for something to hold, but found only the bishop’s cassock. His fingers closed around it, for dear life but too late. He succeeded in doing
no more than dragging Wickham after him.

The bishop’s momentum spun Harry around and together they toppled over the weathered stone rail. That was when the cast on Harry’s broken arm snagged on the top of the balustrade,
like a grappling iron. Suddenly both his own weight and that of the falling bishop were ripping at Harry’s shoulder. He could feel something tearing inside it; a fire exploded that instantly
caught hold in the elbow joint, too. Harry cried out in pain. Without the rigid, unyielding cast he would have been forced to let go but instead he was left dangling, in darkness, in agony. Beneath
him he could feel the bishop scrabbling for purchase on his other arm yet his fingers were old and frail; it was only Harry’s reflex grip that prevented him from falling.

The shoulder joint was being torn from its socket as though he were being racked by some medieval inquisition. He bent his neck, found Wickham, face twisted in horror.

‘Help me! For God’s sake, help me!’ the bishop cried. His fingers were slipping on Harry’s arm, his feet kicking frenziedly at thin air. One of his shoes went spiralling
down to the street below. It seemed a long time in falling.

‘I beg you, Harry,’ the bishop whimpered.

Every tendon and muscle, every corner in every joint of Harry’s arm was screaming. The cast was slipping, losing its purchase on the stonework as the bishop fought. Wickham reached up, in
despair, clawing, his nails leaving dreadful gouge marks in Harry’s skin as they slipped further down his arm. At the last they closed around the watchstrap. Harry’s own grip was
failing, the cloth of the bishop’s cassock too fine, too smooth. A button burst, then another; the bishop gave a jerk, dropped a few further terrifying inches.

Dread had frozen every sense in Randall Wickham. He stopped thrashing, hung helplessly in the air. Every ounce of willpower was directed towards Harry. Their eyes locked, reading each
other’s thoughts, their fears.

‘In the name of God,’ the bishop begged.

‘I think,’ Harry whispered slowly, ‘we’ll let your God sort this one out, shall we?’

Then he opened his hand.

Randall Wickham screamed as he fell, his fear echoing back from every wall, until the moment he hit the pavement.

Edwards never made it as far as the Volvo. As Sergeant Staunton turned their car from the ancient thoroughfare of Poultry into Walbrook they discovered a disturbance. A group of
passers-by was gathered in a huddle at the base of the church tower. As they drew closer they could see one woman turn away and begin to scream, while a man was bent double while throwing up in the
gutter. Others were taking photos, the flashes of their camera phones giving a garish, disconcerting light to the scene. A vivid purple stain was stretched out on the pavement.