A Ghost at the Door (30 page)

In the two centuries since, the residents’ behaviour may have been toned down and the rules relaxed a little, but Albany is still a socially exclusive enclave tucked away behind the urban
bustle of Piccadilly from which children, pets and unwanted visitors are banned. Which presented Harry with a problem. He knew this was where Randall Wickham lived – thirty seconds
interrogating Helen’s computer had told him as much – and he also knew the bishop had just arrived home because he’d seen him climbing out from his taxi. But, by the time Harry
had tumbled from his seat in the window of the coffee house from where he was keeping watch, the bishop had disappeared inside. The pillared entrance was guarded by two porters in uniform whose
jobs depended on maintaining the sanctity of the place. Harry strode hastily up the steps. A porter stood at the top, barring his way.

‘Afternoon, sir,’ he said. ‘Can I help you?’

Harry produced his wallet from his inside pocket and brandished it at the porter. ‘I’ve just been having lunch with Bishop Randall,’ he explained, ‘been trying to catch
up with him. He left his wallet behind.’

‘Thank you, sir, I’ll make sure he gets it,’ the porter replied, stretching out his hand.

‘If you don’t mind, I think I ought to hand it over in person. I know he’s only just beaten me here. Would you mind calling up and telling him I’m on my way?’

Without waiting for an answer and with an air of social authority, Harry passed by, grateful that despite the heat he’d chosen to put on a well-tailored jacket that morning. He could sense
the porter’s indecision but Harry was already heading up the stairs. As he reached the top he could hear the porter muttering into his internal phone.

The bishop lived in the main block of Albany, its oldest part, and Harry was surprised how simple and almost institutional the common parts were, with a few doors coming off the landings around
a large and rather dark central stairwell. He knew which one was the bishop’s because, even as Harry approached, it was already open. The bishop was standing in the doorway, clad in a smoking
jacket. From several yards away Harry could see the storm of surprise and apprehension that was sweeping across his face. The thin fingers were white upon the door, moist pink lips moved, then
froze, as Wickham debated whether to open the door wider or slam it in Harry’s face.

‘Harry, my dear friend, what a surprise. What brings you here?’ The lips split in a tight smile while the eyes danced with caution. ‘The porter was suggesting something about a
lost wallet?’

And slowly, as if on rusted hinges, the door was opened a few further inches.

‘Wallet? I’ve no idea what he was talking about. I just saw you in the street and chased after you. I hope you don’t mind, just wanted to say hello. I’ve got some more
news about your friends from Oxford. I wonder, do you have time for a cup of tea?’

The cleric’s certainties in life tended to be of an eternal nature; he didn’t have much practice at inventing excuses on the spot. ‘Do come in,’ he found himself
saying.

Harry found himself in a high-ceilinged hall. The contrast with the bland hallway outside couldn’t have been more stark. The walls were dressed in rich silk wallpaper and an ornate bureau
stood against one wall. Across from it, in a gilded frame, a Pre-Raphaelite scene of the Crucifixion stared down at him. A staircase led up to a further floor; other paintings lined its walls.
Harry didn’t have time to take in more as he was ushered into an inner room that seemed womblike. It had no windows and was lined with bookcases while every spare section of wall was covered
in oils and water-colours. A desk faced the door; behind it was a white marble fireplace with its mantelpiece so crowded with elegant objects and invitations they threatened to push each other off
the top.

‘Er, tea, you said. Wait here. I’ll fetch some.’

Harry guessed that Wickham had no desire to leave him alone but equally the man needed time to collect his thoughts. The bishop disappeared through a doorway that was hidden behind a crimson
crushed-velvet curtain and soon Harry could hear clattering from a nearby kitchen. He didn’t have long. He made a rapid inspection.

His eyes wandered to the bookshelves with the keenness of a man who had once collected first editions before he had been dragged to the brink of financial despair. He pulled one out at random,
attracted by its intricately tooled spine, ran his finger slowly down the ancient leather. The Book of Common Prayer, a 1650s edition. On the shelf above were beautifully bound biographies of
Pugin, several popes, Martin Luther, Cranmer, Ridley, and at the end, to his astonishment, an edition of
Mein Kampf
. Judging by the grubby state of its binding, it was prewar. An
original.

Now his eyes raced around the room. On one wall was an oil showing several youths on a rock above a swimming hole, superbly executed, probably American, and above the fireplace in a simple
gilded frame was a large charcoal sketch of another youth, limbs stretched, chin high, seated on a beach, soaking up sun. This youth, like all the others, was beautifully conceived. They were also
all completely naked.

On the wall opposite the entrance to the kitchen hung another velvet curtain. Listening to make sure Wickham was still clattering around the kitchen, he pulled the curtain back to reveal a door,
and on its other side he found a dining room so filled with
objets d’avarice
it took his breath away. Nothing was less than Victorian: the lustrous dining table was Georgian and the
two classical busts on columns in the corners of the large window were battered enough to be at least two thousand years old. An entire corner was devoted to a display of Orthodox icons and a
painted wooden altar triptych whose age was so great it was preserved behind glass. Yet even as he tried to understand what he was seeing, Harry stiffened. The kitchen noises had stopped. He rushed
back to his chair, just in time to see the bishop brushing aside the curtain and bearing a tray with two mugs and a bowl of sugar. Mugs seemed entirely out of place in these surroundings; the
bishop wasn’t extending himself for Harry’s benefit.

‘All this,’ Harry said, waving his unbroken arm around the room, ‘is stunning.’

Wickham was clearing a space for the tray among the paperwork that was spread across his desk, moving an old green glass gourd that still had soil from its excavation inside it and that Harry
suspected was Roman.

‘A lifetime of careful collecting,’ Wickham acknowledged, ‘and with no children to support.’

‘I thought a bishop’s salary was disgracefully modest.’

‘Indeed it is, as it should be, which is why almost everything here is a copy. Well crafted, handsome, but not the real thing.’

‘Fake, you mean.’

‘If you will.’

Harry cast his eye across the bookcase. Bugger-all fake about that lot, but already the bishop was hastening on.

‘I’m so sorry not to have been in touch, Harry, but I’ve been having a little eye trouble. Age, you know. And my entire computer system crashed. I’ve only just picked up
your messages.’

Two excuses. One too many, Harry thought.

‘Please forgive me,’ the bishop said, settling behind his desk and throwing Harry a timid smile.

‘I’m not sure I can.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ the bishop snapped, alarmed, spilling his tea across his paperwork.

‘You weren’t truthful with me.’

Wickham said nothing, stared in anger, then in a fluster began to rescue his damp papers.

‘You said you didn’t know Susannah Ranelagh,’ Harry continued, ‘yet you arranged dinners at Christ Church which she attended.’

‘I . . . I . . .’ Wickham stopped fussing over his paperwork and confronted his guest. ‘It’s possible. I was asked to make arrangements with the college for a few old
friends. I didn’t attend them all. Perhaps she was there when I was not.’ The words were defiant but suddenly he broke into an avuncular chuckle. ‘Harry, please, I know
you’re upset about your father but don’t badger me. You have to understand that I’m old, the grey cells sometimes slide by each other nowadays, don’t connect like they used
to.’

‘But it wasn’t just Susannah, was it? The others were there, too. My father. Findlay Francis. Leclerc. Al-Masri.’

‘That may be so, but the dinners took place at the request of others. You can imagine what my life is like, my duties are heavy, my diary all but overwhelmed. Just because I did a favour
and helped with the organization doesn’t mean I attended them all. Anyone could have been there without my knowing—’

Harry cut him off. He knew it was a lie, a whole series of lies. He wanted to keep the other man under pressure. ‘Strange, isn’t it? You remember so much about a student named
Richards, even down to the tape on his little box of tricks, and yet you can’t even remember your close friends.’

‘Scarcely friends—’

‘Members of the Croquet Club. What were you all up to?’

‘I’m sorry, Harry, I simply don’t know what you’re talking about. You must understand, show a little pity. When you get to my age you, you . . .’ He trailed off,
his eyes flooded with distress and anger.

‘Your memory becomes partial, convenient. Like your explanations, Bishop Randall. ‘

‘Enough!’ Wickham growled. ‘I will not be insulted in my own home.’

‘What happened to Findlay Francis?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘So you admit you knew him.’

‘I admit nothing.’ The bishop spat out every word. A crimson tide of outrage was spreading up from his collar of hair across his shining scalp.

‘That’s strange, since he was at all your reunion dinners. Even if you didn’t attend them all you would have met him frequently.’ This was no more than an assumption
– the Christ Church files had given Harry no more than the name of the old member who had been responsible for making the arrangements – but the increasingly florid sheen that had taken
hold on the bishop’s face told Harry it was true.

‘Why are you persecuting an old man?’

‘I’m not persecuting you, Bishop Randall, I’m just doing a little prodding.’ Harry’s eye rose to the sketch of the naked youth behind the bishop’s head.
‘That’s an Augustus John, isn’t it?’

‘I told you, a copy. By one of his followers.’

‘A very good copy. I see they’ve even copied his signature.’

‘Out!’ The bishop sprang to his feet with remarkable agility for an elderly man professing all types of infirmity. ‘Out now!’ His finger shook wildly as it pointed
towards the door.

‘But I haven’t finished my tea.’

‘I only have to press a button on this phone and within seconds three men will be here to throw you out!’

‘A panic button? You should press it. You need to panic. I will find out, you know.’

‘Go!’ Spittle cascaded from the damp lips.

‘I thought you were a friend of my father.’

The bishop’s eyes flared. ‘Oh, and in every detestable detail I see you are his son.’ His hand was still shaking as it reached for the phone.

‘Don’t bother. I’m going.’ At last Harry rose to his feet, slowly, in contempt. ‘Five of them gone, Bishop Randall, and you’re the only one still left so far
as I can see. You know what that means?’

‘What?’ the bishop all but screamed.

‘I’m coming back.’

Harry took one last look around the room, brimming with so much elegance and opulence, and left. As he closed the door he thought he could hear the sounds of sobbing.

When Jemma had woken that morning she had realized that the thrill of playing out of bounds with Steve had begun to fade. She had slept listlessly, lying awake, feeling the rise
and fall of his body, and worrying what the hell she should do. She’d confided in a girlfriend whose advice had been simple: ‘Make your mind up, silly.’ But, lying next to Steve,
she knew it wasn’t a matter of mind, you couldn’t do this with a list of pros and cons scribbled down on the back of an envelope, although to her shame she’d tried that several
times. In the end she’d realized it wasn’t about Harry or Steve, it was about herself.

Steve had begun making his feelings more obvious, and in public. The previous evening he’d tried to drag her into the showers of the gym once again but this time their friends had been
outside, whispering, giggling. It was a display of ownership; it wasn’t helping. It was all very well Steve pounding her brains out but, when he’d finished and rolled over and fallen
asleep, when the bells had stopped ringing and she could hear nothing but his gentle snoring, it was time for her to gather up her scrambled senses. She was young, full of passion and loved giving
up her body, but she was also Scottish, a little stubborn, insisted it was on loan, and on getting possession back. For Steve that was no longer enough. He insisted she decide. Her time was running
out.

She had left Steve’s apartment early, made some excuse, hadn’t stayed for breakfast, needed space. She hadn’t bothered with the bus but had walked, making her way past the
shopkeepers who were setting out their pavement stalls, avoiding the piles of accumulated night-time rubbish, dodging cyclists, her head down as she tried to drain it of confusion. Her head was
still down some time later as she turned the corner into her own street. As a result she almost walked into the huddle of men and a few women that had gathered outside the communal door leading to
her top-floor flat. They had cameras, microphones, notebooks. Jemma jumped in alarm. Journalists, packed so tight on the pavement that a young mother with a pushchair was forced into the busy road
to pass them by. The media had arrived. She hadn’t a moment’s doubt what they were after. Harry.