How to Seduce a Ghost

by Hope McIntyre

  I listened with half an ear. Noreen could talk the hind leg off a donkey and it didn’t look like a little thing like cancer would stop her. She had voted Labour her entire life but she made no secret of the fact that she had no faith in Tony Blair. “His eyes are too close together,” she’d complained when I’d asked her what was wrong with him. “You can tell a lot about a person from their eyes.”

  “Noreen,” I said firmly, “you’re very sick and I have to tell you, I’m pretty angry with you for keeping us in the dark about your cancer.”

  “I thought about it,” she admitted. She slumped against the pillows for a second, fiddling anxiously with her bed jacket. I hated to see her looking so frail. She was a tiny woman with a shock of curly white hair cropped short. Her features were small and even and she must have been incredibly pretty as a young woman. Her once porcelain skin was now dry and flaky with age and marked with a mass of fine lines around the mouth, but her dark blue eyes, that Tommy had inherited, were as lively as ever. She was looking at me intently. “It’s funny, Lee. You were one of the first people I wanted to tell but then I thought to myself, what right do I have to burden her with my troubles? It’s not as if she and Tommy are even engaged.”

  “Don’t start, Noreen,” I warned her.

  She leaned forward and lowered her voice.

  “I didn’t come in here yesterday like I told Tommy. I’ve been in over Christmas. I didn’t tell him because I knew he’d cancel his trip to France and I know how much he was looking forward to it. He had the time of his life by the sound of it.”

  “While you had to spend Christmas in hospital and we never knew.” I felt so awful for her I burst into audible sobbing.

  “You’re not much good at this hospital visiting, are you?” Noreen said gently. “What’s up, love? You had a gloomy look on your face when you arrived even before I’d told you my news. Tell me, what’s bothering you? Is it your parents’ breaking up? Tommy told me all about it. I’m so sorry.”

  “There’s that and then I came home and it all started to go from bad to worse.”

  She listened to my story about the fire, patting my hand every now and then and reaching out her arms toward me when I told her about Fred.

  “At least I’ve had most of my life,” she said. “I’m seventy-four. My, my, I’m lying here wondering if I’m close to dying but you seem to be having a worse time of it being alive. Go on, give us a smile. That was meant to be a joke.”

  “I just wish I could go home. One of the reasons I couldn’t live with your precious son, Noreen, is that he turns rooms into pigsties within seconds. Why won’t they let me into my house? What do they mean, forensicate it?”

  “They’ll be after DNA,” said Noreen cheerfully. “They’ll be wanting to know everything there is to know about anyone who’s been in that house.”

  “But they’re acting like I’m a suspect.”

  “Well, you are in their eyes. They can’t discount anyone till they can prove that they weren’t there, that they have an alibi. I mean, you could have caught an earlier plane back from France, rushed home and set fire to the summerhouse then gone back to Paddington and hailed a cab.”

  I looked at her in total amazement. “But Tommy would have told them I didn’t do any such thing.”

  “Yes, but he’s not a reliable witness. He loves you. He’d cover up for you, pretend you traveled back from France with him. And who’s to say you didn’t hire someone to carry out the murder for you? Your detective will have to take all that into consideration. I expect you’re wondering how an old lady like me knows all this stuff. Tommy’s father’s best friend Pete was a detective like your Max Austin. He once told me that at the beginning of each case he suspected absolutely everyone until he had very good reason not to.”

  “He’s not my Max Austin,” I said rather crossly.

  “Pete once took me through every stage of a case he was working on. He probably shouldn’t have, I don’t think they’re meant to talk about their work but they do. I think he was sweet on me, to tell you the truth, and it was a sure way of getting my attention. Max Austin is going to be looking to find out absolutely everything about anyone who was in your house or your garden or anywhere near it at the time of the crime. They’ll all be interviewed, you’ll see. There’ll be hundreds of witnesses who’ll come forward with all sorts of stories.”

  “Do you suppose he’s working on the Astrid McKenzie case too?”

  “Oh no, he’ll only have one case at a time but I expect he’ll have got all the details from HOMES—”

  “What?”

  “Home Office Murder Enquiry System,” said Noreen. By now she was quite puffed up and excited at being able to expound her knowledge. “He’ll have got on the computer and cross-referenced all the details. Of course, it might all be different now. Everything’s changing so much these days—”

  I made an aplogetic must be going signal, kissed her on the top of the head, and made my getaway. Once Noreen got started on the state of Tony Blair’s police force, there’d be no stopping her. I’ll be back soon, I mouthed, running down the ward, feeling rather guilty that I’d revved her up so much when she was supposed to be resting after her surgery.

  Without the aid of a police car racing through the traffic it took me hours to get back to Tommy’s and he wasn’t even there to greet me with a comforting bowl of soup. Feeling disgustingly sorry for myself, I staggered upstairs in search of some painkillers for my aching head. The mist pot cit for cystitis was no longer in the medicine cabinet. Maybe I had imagined it. I crawled into bed at eight o’clock and began to cry for Noreen and, surprisingly, since I’d barely known him, for poor Fred. For some reason I felt an unmitigated sadness at the thought of his death.

  I knew it had to happen sooner or later but I was so tired, I really did think I would drift easily into a long and rewarding sleep. I had closed my eyes and I was just about to nod off when all the trauma of the last twenty-four hours began to rise to the surface in my consciousness. I wasn’t fully awake but on the other hand I knew I wouldn’t fall asleep until I had dragged myself through every grisly detail of the fire. I wasn’t there so there was no way of knowing if it was accurate or not, but somehow my imagination took hold and began to conjure up what might have happened.

  I saw Fred turning out of Blenheim Crescent into the alleyway where he paused to fumble in his pockets for cigarettes. I watched him stick a fag in his mouth, bow his head and strike a match to light it, shielding it from the wind in hands cupped inside his anorak. Then he chucked the match away into a bush.

  I paused in my fantasy. Did the fire start then and engulf him? No, he wasn’t in the summerhouse yet and that was where they found his body.

  The curtains were drawn when he reached the summerhouse. He knocked on the door and when there was no answer, he let himself in with his key. He lay down on the futon to wait for her. He was tired, hungover maybe. He fell asleep.

  Then came the bit I wasn’t sure about. Either he’d lit another cigarette and left it burning or someone opened the door and threw in a burning torch of some kind.

  Fred woke up and leapt to his feet to be confronted by a wall of fire as high as his knees and climbing. In panic he made a fatal mistake. He opened the door and tried to jump over the flames. Air rushed into the room inciting the fire and in an instant his jeans were alight. He grabbed a blanket off the bed, wrapped it around his legs, and subdued the flames but now he was trapped. To go forward and escape he would have to literally wade through fire. And behind him was the brick wall that formed the rear of the summerhouse. The blanket wrapped around his legs caught fire. The rug beneath his feet was blazing. He couldn’t see outside through the smoke. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t call for help.

  He couldn’t survive.

  It was the worst nightmare I’d ever had and I wasn’t even asleep.

  CHAPTER 11

  THEY LET ME GO BACK HOME AFTER TWO DAYS. JUST AS well. I couldn’t settle do
wn in Tommy’s house. I spent the first day huddled under the bedclothes after my visit to Noreen. I think I was experiencing some kind of delayed aftershock. On the morning of the day after they’d sent me to Tommy’s, I had to go back and answer more questions, which as far as I could make out were identical to those I’d answered before. Who had access to the house? Who had keys? Had I been expecting anyone to go there? Who would have been likely to go into which room? Was there anyone who was likely to be there at the time the fire started? I found myself getting a little paranoid. What if there was someone to whom I’d given a key and I’d forgotten?

  If they’d actually come right out and asked me if I’d entertained any gentlemen callers other than Tommy in my bedroom, I’d have told them of course. But they didn’t. I’d tried to call Buzz to tell him what had happened. I needed to tell him I was going to have to come clean about him being in my bedroom, so he’d be prepared when the police questioned him but each time I had got the answering machine and the message We’re not home right now. If I left a message, Selma would hear it.

  Tommy had accompanied me because of course they wanted to talk to him too. I’d told him about running into Cath and asked him what he made of her unwillingness to talk to me.

  “It’s sad,” he said after a moment when I sensed he was as shaken as I had been. “You two should get back together. I feel bad about the whole thing.”

  “You feel bad.”

  “Well, it’s because of how she says she felt about me—” He didn’t seem to know what to say next.

  “Have you seen her at all?” Maybe he’d run into her and hadn’t wanted to tell me.

  “Why would I do that?” he said and that was it. I hated it when Tommy answered my questions with one of his own.

  “So what did they ask you?” I demanded to know on the journey back to his house.

  “What did they ask you?”

  “I asked first.”

  “Oh, usual stuff,” he said maddeningly.

  “What usual stuff? Do the police haul you in for questioning a lot, Tommy?”

  “No, of course not,” he admitted. “I meant they just asked what you’d expect. Did I know Fred? How long had I known you? How much time did I spend there? Did I know Angel? What did I think of her? What did I know about the relationship between you and Angel? Did you get along well? When exactly had we come back from France? Why wasn’t I with you when you arrived home? Where did I go once we split up?”

  Of course I wanted to know what answers he’d given them but he closed his mouth very tightly for several seconds in an irritating way he has and finally said: “Give me a break, Lee. What do you think I told them? You can work it out for yourself. I’m not going through it all again. You’re worse than they are.” And I knew I wouldn’t get any more out of him. He can behave like a stubborn elephant when he feels like it.

  But then he added, “Thanks for going to see Mum,” in such a forlorn voice that I forgave him instantly.

  “What do you think is going to happen with her?” I asked him.

  “We’ll just have to wait and see,” he said. “She’s a tiny little bird but she’s surprisingly strong. She might well pull through but whatever happens, it’s going to take a lot out of her. She really ought not to go on living on her own. She won’t like it. She’s as independent as you are in many ways. I’ll have to think what to do.”

  “You know I’m here if there’s anything I can do to help,” I said and meant it. I was genuinely fond of Noreen and funnily enough it hadn’t dawned on me that we had our love of independence in common until Tommy had mentioned it.

  When we got back to Tommy’s, I spent the rest of the day clearing up his mess. Clearing up, not cleaning. I am hopeless at cleaning and my way of clearing up was to move things from one part of the room to another. But it kept me busy and when Tommy came home he seemed to appreciate my efforts. We were on our best behavior with each other, trying to be supportive of our respective dramas, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to take much more of him asking me You all right? You’re sure? every five minutes.

  They sent a police car to pick me up and I realized that was one thing I could get used to very easily: being driven about the place and never having to do battle with London Underground. As soon as I was back in the house I rushed to open all the windows. The lingering stench of the fire was still in the air and somehow it had permeated throughout the house. Then I slammed shut all the ones at the back that gave onto the garden because having them open only made it worse. The summerhouse was a good hundred feet away from the main house but it was still going to take me quite a while to get used to living with the smell of burned toast. I went around to Graham and Green and bought up their entire stock of scented candles and as I began lighting them all around the house, it occurred to me that at the rate I was going, I’d probably start another fire.

  To begin with it seemed I had found the house more or less as I had left it, no mess except a film of silvery ash where they’d dusted for fingerprints. But then I noticed they’d taken the tape out of the answering machine and I began to panic. I am completely hopeless at erasing messages once I’ve listened to them. I am always convinced I will have written a number down wrong and will need to play the message again. But the most worrying thing was that I had no idea who had called me while I had been away.

  Had Buzz called? Had he said his name?

  But then I calmed down and reminded myself, not for the first time, that there was a perfectly legitimate reason for him to call. I was ghosting Selma’s book and he was her manager. Presumably he wouldn’t be so dumb as to leave a message saying something like Did you find the briefs I left on your bed?

  The first thing I did was to call PC Mary Mehta and give her the third degree.

  “So what’s happened? Did they find anything in my house? Was it arson? Who killed Fred?” I was literally pummeling her with questions down the line but I couldn’t stop. “When am I going to get my answering machine tape back? Who called me?”

  “Not pumping me for information by any chance?” PC Mehta laughed. “It’s a waste of time. We’ll be letting you know as soon as we’ve got something to tell you. Trust me on that one.”

  I hated it when people said that. It immediately made me distrust them.

  “But can’t you even tell me who called?”

  “There were a few hang-ups, I’m afraid.” Buzz? “And someone called Genevieve wanted you to ring her when you got back.”

  “That’s my agent,” I said quickly. “I’m a writer.”

  “Yes, we know that,” she said. “You’ll keep in touch, won’t you?”

  Of course I’d keep in touch. It was clearly the only way I was going to find out what was going on.

  While I had been talking to her, I had registered the sound of a cab stopping outside, someone running up the front steps and the letterbox slamming shut as something was pushed through it. I went into the hall to retrieve whatever it was.

  It was a tiny Jiffy bag about eight by six inches. Inside was a tape and a note from Selma.

  I’ve been trying to deliver this ever since I came back but your house has been closed off as a crime scene! Today is the first day I’ve been able to get near your front door. What’s going on? Hope you had a good Christmas. Selma.

  I propped the tape up against the marmalade on the kitchen table and called Genevieve who said What about lunch? And that just this once she was prepared to cross town and come over my way. She said she wanted fish so I walked down Westbourne Grove to meet her at Livebait.

  “You look terrible, dear. Completely washed out. What’s the matter? I’ve already ordered by the way. The seafood platter, you can share it if you want.”

  I filled her in on what had been going on in my life in the relatively short period of time since I had last spoken to her. She emitted little squeaks of distress, the soft rolls of fat below her chin seeming to ripple in shock at each new detail.

  “This is dreadful, Lee
. Dreadful. Dreadful.” She repeated the word several times. I sensed that she was totally taken aback. Of course she’d never had to deal with anything troubling in my personal life. We’d always kept it professional. Maybe I shouldn’t have dumped my problems on her.

  She popped a prawn into her mouth without bothering to peel it first and I heard a crunch. She licked her fingers daintily. “I’m sorry, Lee. I just don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said a lot more cheerfully than I felt. “So anyway, why did you call me? You said you wanted to talk.”

  Genevieve looked relieved. “I wanted to discuss what kind of book you’re going to write. Selma’s got a following here but she’s an American and this is her first British TV show and we don’t yet know how juicy the material will be. The offer’s still on the table, of course, but now they’re demanding to know the contents. Whatever her story throws up, at the moment, if we look at her audience, we’re talking pretty downmarket. A juicy bit of gossip would be good but keep it at street level. We don’t want her going all high and mighty, ‘I’m a serious actress,’ on us, do we now? I watched the Christmas omnibus episode and Selma Walker’s character now has a stalker. Well, that’s the sort of thing we want in the book.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said dryly. “I’ll phone rent-a-stalker. By the way, she’s given me the first tape so when I’ve listened to it I’ll have a better idea of what’s going to go into the book.”

  “I found out something else about Buzz, by the way. Besides the fact that he’s her husband as well as her manager.”

  “Really?” Act cool, I told myself, don’t be too eager to hear what she has to say.

  “Guess whose boyfriend he was a while back?”

  “Genevieve, I have no idea. Tell me.” I didn’t like the sound of this.

  “Go on. Guess.”

  I held my palms up in a gesture of defeat. “Don’t know. Give in.”