A Ghost at the Door (9 page)

Jemma laughed in congratulation. Far from being stuffy, he seemed charming.

‘Please don’t let me keep you from your lunch.’ He nodded towards the plastic bowl of homemade salad sitting on the bench beside her.

‘Oh, yes,’ she stumbled as yet again he caught her off guard. ‘I’d offer to share it but . . . somehow I just know you’ve got a far more splendid lunch waiting for
you.’

‘And you’ve only one fork.’

She smiled. She was going to find it easy to talk to a man like this. ‘So,’ she began, chewing a mouthful of rocket as more pigeons hovered at her feet, ‘you knew Harry’s
father.’

‘Most certainly. At one time he was a man of some importance in my life.’

‘Harry wants to know a little more about him. I wonder whether you might help us.’

An unmistakable shadow passed behind the old man’s eyes. ‘You must understand, Miss Laing—’

‘Please. Call me Jemma.’

‘Johnnie was a
turbulent
sort.’ He pursed his lips, choosing his words with care. ‘I don’t want to be unkind, but I have to warn you – Jemma –
you’re likely to discover things about Harry’s father you will both find uncomfortable. Distasteful, even.’

‘I understand. But Harry can be painfully persistent.’

‘Oh, as was his father.’ His silver head seemed to be weighed down with the memory.

Suddenly the sun disappeared; the shadow of a man fell across their path. He was standing in front of them, dressed in a long overcoat despite the weather. He stank of sweet-stale urine and
cheap alcohol and held out a filthy hand. ‘Spare some change,’ he blurted through cracked lips. Jemma flustered, did nothing. ‘Change,’ the tramp demanded in a more
hectoring tone. He swayed, his hand moved from Jemma to McQuarrel, who said not a word, did nothing but stare, yet something was exchanged between the two men, something in the eyes that Jemma
couldn’t see but had the same effect on the tramp as a stick shoved up his backside.

‘Yeah, you, too!’ the tramp shouted as he leapt back, glaring. He wiped his mucus-crusted nose on the back of his coat sleeve and roared incoherently at them both before turning and
shuffling away, kicking out at the pigeons as he went.

‘I’m so sorry,’ McQuarrel said quietly.

‘It’s scarcely your fault.’

He sighed. ‘When you get to my age somehow everything seems your fault.’ He seemed elsewhere for a moment before turning back to Jemma. ‘I was rather hoping Harry would be with
you.’

‘He’s abroad.’

‘Somewhere nice?’

‘Bermuda. But it’s no holiday. He’s gone there to talk to someone else about his father. A Miss Ranelagh. You don’t happen to know her, I suppose.’

‘It’s not a name that means anything to me. But, when he gets back, can I suggest we all meet up?’

‘That would be kind, Mr McQuarrel.’

‘Alexander, please. And I hope you’ll allow me to find somewhere a little more comfortable than a park bench. After all, I’m an old friend of the family – you’re
about to become a member of that family; we should celebrate. You know I haven’t seen Harry since he was . . . oh, no more than a boy. He wouldn’t remember me, I dare say, but
I’ve followed his career. You’re marrying an extraordinary man.’

‘I know.’

He smiled and placed his hand on hers. ‘I’m afraid I must ask you to forgive me. You’ve almost finished your lunch and I must attend to mine. Will you give me a call as soon as
Harry gets back?’

‘Of course. You’ve been very kind, Alexander.’

‘I haven’t been the slightest bit of help.’

‘I know you will be.’

Her hand was warm within his; he squeezed it, held it firmly. ‘Jemma, will you take a little advice from an old man? All too often in my experience the past comes back to haunt you. So you
and Harry look forward to your future. Don’t waste too much time raking over bad times that have long since been buried. Be happy. And be careful.’

Harry tossed around his bed like a ferret in a sack, wrapping his sheet into impossible knots. Something was chasing him through the shallows of the night, screaming at him so
loud he could barely hear, let alone sleep. It wasn’t simply that Susannah Ranelagh was lying, nor that his presence alone had been enough to make her swoon with fright. There was something
else, something nagging at him with ferocious persistence, something about her, or about her house, he couldn’t be sure which, yet it was setting him on edge like the sound of a
dentist’s drill. His intelligence training in Northern Ireland had taught him how to observe, to soak up images and information even when there wasn’t time to analyse it all, to make
sense of it later. He had half seen something and he pursued it until sweat was running down his back.

Then he knew. Hit him so hard that he sat up in bed as though a grenade had been thrown through the window. In her house of many memories the old girl had many photos. Relatives, perhaps, or
close friends, those who had clearly left a mark in her life. It was one of those photos that had been screaming at Harry, in a silver frame among the crowd that filled the top of the bookcase. Of
a young Susannah Ranelagh, before her hair had lost its life and her features had been stretched by disappointment, at a time in her life when her smile suggested not simply the pleasures of the
moment but also the expectation of more ahead. She was at a dinner table at which sat six others, four men and two other young women, in formal evening wear. A student ball, Harry guessed.
Black-and-white, a little grainy. And perhaps it was the utter impossibility of what he now saw that had delayed his understanding and fought so hard with his wits, because one of the men at the
table was Harry himself. No, not Harry, that was absurd: it was years before he’d been born. But, if not Harry, then someone who looked so like him that it left Harry gasping in
amazement.

His father. It was Johnnie.

Harry didn’t wait for the smell of coffee or the clattering of breakfast bowls. He dragged himself down the hotel stairs three at a time, lashing out at doors and charging past the
astonished receptionist. Soon he was gunning his bike past the upmarket haunts of Pitts Bay Road and way past the local speed limit. A few early-morning walkers shook their heads in disgust. Harry
bent low over the handlebars to squeeze out the last breath of speed. It was only minutes before he was on the coast road, heading east, the sun playing games with him, bouncing off the water and
into his eyes as he took the gentle curves and low rises of the North Shore Road. He held his head down, the sea wind whipping tears from his eyes. It was as he came to the junction that led to the
Sound, barely a few hundred yards from Susannah Ranelagh’s house, that he was forced to pause as other traffic crossed his path. He raised his eyes, looked both ways, then ahead. That was
when he caught a sight that made him scream loud with frustration and fear. Up ahead he could see a spiral of evil, insistent smoke punching through the clear morning air.

By the time Harry’s moped had slithered to a halt, the tyres sliding out on the sand-strewn tarmac, dumping the bike to the ground, the front of the house was already disappearing behind a
curtain of smoke and fire. The front door was a sheet of flame, the porch beginning to scatter droplets of burning confetti that were scorching the grass. The lower windows were gone and already
smoke was gathering behind the windows on the first floor and seeping out through the eaves. A group of neighbours had gathered across the street, powerless, pathetic; Kenny was there, too, his
football held protectively under his arm. Harry ran to the rear of the house, where he found a swimming pool and beyond that another garden. He was alarmed to see that the garage at the side of the
house was already throwing out quantities of vile, acrid smoke; an explosion sent an arrow of brilliant orange flame bursting through the window – a can of petrol, he suspected, and nothing
to what would happen very shortly if there were a car inside.

He rattled at the back door and the French windows that led to the patio; both were locked. It took three of his best shoulder shots before one of the locks gave way and he was sent sprawling
onto the floor of the kitchen amid splinters of glass and wood. He picked himself up and shouted for Miss Ranelagh; there was no reply, nothing but the flames that crackled like gunfire. The rear
of the house was as yet relatively undisturbed, but as he found his way to the stairs he could see nothing but arms of fire and suffocating smoke waiting for him at the top. He screamed out her
name once more. Nothing. In the kitchen he found a housecoat and thrust it beneath a tap to soak it, wrapped two wet kitchen towels around his hands, and, with the housecoat over his head and
shoulders dripping water down him, he stood at the bottom of the stairs, afraid. Christ, he was well beyond forty; the years of youthful ignorance were way behind him; he knew exactly what he could
expect.

Even as he returned from the kitchen he could see that the flames had already taken hold more firmly of the top floor and were waiting for him. ‘Oh, shit!’ he cried. He’d
always hoped he might find something more inspiring as his epitaph, final words to carve on his gravestone, but the last time he’d been caught in a fire he’d watched a friend burn to
death. He still saw the man’s face in his dreams. He hated fires. But still he ran up the stairs.

The heat soared with every step. He knew the fire was reaching the temperature at which it would take control and explode, grabbing everything in its path. From a front room he heard windows
exploding, feeding more oxygen to the flames. He didn’t have much time. He fell to his knees and crawled.

She wasn’t in the first two bedrooms he checked, nor the bathroom. The third bedroom had been converted to a study; the ceiling was already burning, setting the tops of the bookshelves
alight, the floor rug already smouldering from cascading embers. Even as he watched, it burst into flame. Then there was only one bedroom left, at the front, where the fire was most fierce. Smoke
was ripping at his throat, blinding him, screaming at him to go back, but he crawled forward, cowering beneath his damp rags until he had reached the door. Smoke was already squeezing beneath it,
searching for him. He reached up for the handle. Even through soaking towels it was so hot it scorched through to his fingers. A volley of what sounded like rifle fire exploded on the other side of
the door. He knew what was waiting for him; he very much wished he didn’t.

Lying on his back, covering his face, he kicked at the door. Once, twice. It flew open. The noise and menace of the flame that rushed to fill the space above his head was like the passing of an
express train. Then, for the moment, it was gone. He couldn’t call out for her: he no longer had breath and he daren’t fill his lungs. His brain was befuddled and his wits drowning in
fear. With the last of his strength he forced his way inside.

Every part of the room was breathing fire. The windows were gone, the curtains billowing in the onrush of wind sucked in by the fire and burning like Roman candles. The carpet beneath his hands
was smouldering, melting. And there, at the far end of the room, was the bed with its brass ends, its covers like a funeral pyre. But she wasn’t there. The bed was made. The bloody house was
empty.

Miss Ranelagh’s home was built of wood and offered no resistance. The fire dragon that had taken hold of it groaned, twisted, belched; part of the roof collapsed, filling the room with a
swarm of super-heated fireflies. Harry had to retreat, while he could. The stairs he’d climbed were now a river of flame. He crawled to the rear of the house, his mind filled with the
darkness of smoke, the blanket of heat trying to force him down. Often it is easier to accept than to struggle, but Harry had the genes of a mule. It was little more than brutish anger that kept
him going until he found himself beneath a window at the rear of the house. With what seemed like the last of his strength, he opened it, crawled onto its ledge and threw himself onto the lawn. He
landed heavily, cried out in pain, then rejoiced: the pain meant he was still alive. He lay on his back, gasping for air, gagging, trying to clear his lungs of treacle. Through the fog of confusion
and starved senses he could hear the siren of a fire engine. Someone was at his side, trying to help him. Harry struggled to his feet, looked around, took a breath of clean air. Then he dashed back
into the house once again.

Every corner of the ground floor was now dancing in the flames, but Harry knew his purpose. He staggered and skipped over burning timbers as he forced his way into the sitting room, where on the
previous day he had talked with the old woman. He saw what he wanted. He stumbled over the chair in which Miss Ranelagh had sat, sent himself sprawling, but he refused to be deflected. He grabbed
the photo. Then he was gone, back out through the kitchen door that was spitting smoke like a chimney.

There were more people out on the lawn now, firemen taking control of the situation but not the fire. It was too late for that.

‘Are you hurt, sir?’ a fire officer asked, his voice muffled by his helmet. He was black, huge across the shoulders and belly, and dragged Harry almost nonchalantly a safer distance
from the fire.