Then there was the food problem. I went overboard to begin with, preparing freshly squeezed orange juice followed by coffee and croissants every morning. Angel ignored them and made herself a pot of tea, heaping sugar into every cup she poured. And in the evening she brought home fish and chips and sat at the kitchen table, eating them out of the newspaper. The smell permeated the entire house and when I tried to remonstrate with her about her unhealthy diet, she just laughed in my face and said, “You want some, don’t you? You’re just jealous. Nothing beats fish ’n chips.” So I shut up because of course she was absolutely right.
But I made a point of being there in the evening to share a meal with her, even if we both ate totally different food. Angel was putting a brave face on things but I could see she was jittery. For the first couple of evenings we skirted around the fire and Fred until finally, on her third night there, she suddenly burst into tears in the middle of squeezing an upturned ketchup bottle over her cod and chips. Her sobbing coincided with the ketchup finally emerging from the bottle in a disgusting noisy splurge that sent drops of bloodlike goo flying onto her triple-D cups straining against her pristine white T-shirt.
“It used to drive Fred mad when he couldn’t get it out. He could never understand why they couldn’t make ketchup that poured easily.”
I tried to picture the docile, pimpled Fred getting mad with the ketchup and failed. I didn’t say anything, sensing this might be the moment when she would release her pent-up misery.
“I mean who would want to kill him? Fred was such a gentle boy. Tell you the truth, Lee, that was one of the reasons we broke up. He was sweet but he just wasn’t that exciting. I dumped him and when I told him it was over, do you know what? He cried. And now he’s dead because of me.”
“It’s not your fault, Angel. You have to understand that. You can’t blame yourself. You really can’t. You didn’t ask him to come round and see you on New Year’s Eve, did you?”
“No,” she said, “no, I didn’t. But it didn’t surprise me. He was always turning up. He couldn’t accept it was over between us.”
“I expect it was hard for him. Was he jealous of the new boyfriend?”
“New boyfriend?” She gave me an odd look.
“Scott. You told me about him in the car, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, I suppose he was upset about Scott. You know what the police thought? They reckoned it was someone after me, not Fred. They kept asking me if there was anyone I’d had a falling out with. If I had any enemies. Lee, do you think someone wanted to kill me and they got Fred instead? Do you think they’ll try again? Do you think they’ll break in here? Like tonight?”
It was terrible to hear those words coming out of her mouth as she sat there at my kitchen table with blood all over her chest. I knew it was ketchup but it looked as convincing as it does in the movies.
“Well, we’ll be safe as houses.” I tried to sound reassuring. “Tommy’s coming tonight. He’ll protect us.”
But I had no idea if I was speaking the truth. Tommy might be a great big reassuring presence but his abilities as a bodyguard had never been put to the test.
He walked through the door half an hour later, mysteriously bearing his wok before him.
“Your Christmas present, remember?” he said proudly. I’d given it to him the year before thinking stir-fry would be a way of getting him to eat vegetables. He was worse than Angel in the junk food department.
“This is only temporary,” I hissed at him, true to form, “while this whole investigation is going on. You do understand that, don’t you?”
Yet I had to confess I was extremely glad to have him there.
But as if having Angel and Tommy in the house wasn’t enough, the next day I came home from a routine visit to the dentist and found my mother sitting at the kitchen table with the two of them. When I saw her all I could think of was that the damp people had never showed up and I had forgotten to call Cath. The two things that had been of paramount importance to me a couple of days ago had gone clean out of my mind. Trust my mother to make me feel guilty before she’d even opened her mouth.
Despite the by now familiar smell of fish and chips, they were tucking into plates of grilled vegetables. All of them. Angel waved a charred parsnip at me by way of greeting.
“Your mum’s turned me on to this whole new way of eating,” she informed me. “You’re going to love it, Lee.”
“Oh, it was terrible,” said my mother, talking with her mouth full. “I walked in and she was eating fish and chips. Fish and chips! And that was all she was going to eat. No roughage. No greens. Just a load of fat and grease and salt. And there were all these lovely fresh vegetables just sitting here. Carrots, sprouts, parsnips. I showed her what to do. Peel them, put them all in a baking dish, sprinkle them with a smidgen of oil and sea salt, add some chopped up parsley, and pop them in the oven with a baked potato. And of course she thinks they’re delicious. So much better for her. Darling, I’m sorry I didn’t give you any warning but here I am. We were questioned by the police, you know? Via Interpol or something. Had to tell them what time you left. It felt like you were a suspect.”
I thought of all the rich food my mother had served us in France and wondered how that compared with fish and chips in the healthy diet department. Tommy, I noticed, wasn’t eating anything.
“Sit down and join us,” said my mother. “We were just talking about your murder.”
“My murder,” I repeated flatly. “Why does it have to be my murder? He was Angel’s boyfriend.”
“Was he really?” My mother turned to Angel in dismay. “You never said. I am so sorry. Oh my God, that really is terrible.”
She was genuinely shaken.
“He was an old boyfriend,” said Angel. As if that made it any better. “Before Christmas.”
I noticed Mum didn’t get into that one.
“Well, there’s something fishy going on,” said my mother. “Two fires on the same road within six weeks. We must get an iron gate put up across the alleyway. We’ve got to cut off any access to the garden at the back of the house. We should have done it years ago. This area just isn’t safe anymore.”
“Was it ever?” I said gloomily. Any minute now she was going to want to see how I’d got on with the repair work on the house.
“There’s nothing we can do,” said Tommy quietly, squeezing the back of my neck as if he knew exactly how edgy I was feeling, which he probably did since he was working on easing the tension in my muscles. “If there’s anything to discover the police will find it. That’s their job, not ours.” He gave my skin a little pinch and I yelped.
“The roast vegetables were just an appetizer,” said my mother as if she sensed the subject needed changing. “So what’s for dinner, Lee?”
Tommy felt my panic. You never told me you were coming. There’s nothing in the house. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m going to cook you all a meal in my wok. You will be amazed. Lee’s going to chop everything up for me, right, Lee?” Another sharp pinch.
He was backing me up in the only way he knew how. We were all in a nightmare situation. My mother’s marriage had broken up. Angel had lost all her belongings and was a potential murder victim. Tommy’s mother had pancreatic cancer.
“Right,” I said, hesitating a little, “but there’s nothing in the fridge. Where did those vegetables come from, by the way?”
“That bloke in the market brought them round from his stall,” said Angel. “Said he wanted to do something to help as you was having a bad time.”
“Chris?” I said, smiling. “How kind of him. What an incredibly sweet guy he is.” Angel made a face. “You don’t think so, Angel?”
She shrugged. “Well, he may be underneath but he’s not much to look at, is he? He was ever such a pest recently, kept hanging about at his stall waiting for me when I come out Tesco in me dinner hour. Hope he’s not going to keep showing up here and all.”
“I’ll see him off if he’s a nuis
ance,” said Tommy. “Now, we’ve got to get to work. We’re going to make my special dish. It’s called the Caught on the Hop stir-fry. I do it all the time. Just get everything out of the fridge, chop it up and throw it in.”
He cleared a space on the kitchen table and we all went into action, arms reaching into the refrigerator. Soon we had accumulated a nice little pile of ingredients. My mother acted as editor, removing no-go items like a wedge of brie and a slice of chocolate cake. Finally we were left with four carrots, two onions, a stick of celery, three zucchinis, the remains of a cold roast chicken, a bunch of rather tired parsley, some boiled rice, a couple of slices of ham, and several miserable-looking mushrooms.
“Okay, get to work.” Tommy handed Angel the chicken. “Pull all the white meat off that. Vanessa, open some wine and then maybe you could lay the table. Lee, over here with me.” He handed me a paring knife and a chopping board and began to amass the onions, the carrots, the celery, and the zucchinis in front of me.
We didn’t exactly work fast because we kept stopping to sip our wine and check on what everyone else was doing. My mother injected an air of ceremony into the proceedings by bringing out the best silver, the candelabra, and the linen napkins we kept for special occasions. She placed not one but two wineglasses beside each place and added a water glass. She made a show of presenting first a white wine and then a red to Tommy for his inspection. I had never seen her like this and it was fun. Her final masterstroke was to remove all the silver except for the serving spoons and replace it with chopsticks, laying them lightly across the bone china plates.
Angel happened to be wearing black. She took a white dishcloth and adjusted it about her person so that it resembled a waitress’s apron. She ran around asking each of us, “May I take your order now?”
It was all totally mad but I loved it. God knows we needed a bit of levity and how long had it been since I had heard giggling in my kitchen? I imagined we’d all feel guilty later on about having some fun so soon after Fred’s death, but as long as Angel’s spirits were being lifted, I was all for carrying on.
Tommy had just tossed in a little oil to heat up in the wok when the doorbell rang.
“Be right back,” I said, padding barefoot into the hall. Lord knows why but I had felt the need to take my shoes off to chop up vegetables.
Buzz stood before me when I opened the door. I had trouble breathing because he appeared even more handsome than I remembered. He had grown a little designer stubble and it made him look rough and sexy and—
Matching sets of prints in my bedroom and on the can of kerosene in the shed. Why didn’t Max Austin have him locked up?
I slammed the door in his face.
The bell rang again and Tommy stuck his head out into the hall.
“What’s going on?”
I offered no explanation and smiled reassuringly at him till he retreated into the kitchen.
I opened the front door again. “Go away!” I hissed at Buzz. I raised the paring knife without thinking.
“Why?” he said. “I heard about your fire. I just wanted to see if you were okay.” He licked the two index fingers of his right hand and brought them to my lips. I nearly screamed out loud.
“Go away!” I said again. “What are you doing here? I have people . . .” I gestured behind me with the paring knife.
“What’s-his-name?” He looked amused. “The boyfriend? Put that thing down, will you?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Why didn’t he leave? Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a small FedEx package propped up against the doorstep. I stooped down to pick it up and saw it was from Selma. I thrust it behind my back before he could see the label and made as if to shut the door.
He looked at me quizzically. “Okay, okay. I get it. But you asked what was I doing here? Aren’t I allowed to want to see you? I haven’t spoken to you since before Christmas.”
I shrugged. “But it’s—”
“Dangerous? I know. Look, don’t I even get a kiss?”
“Lee. It’s almost ready,” Tommy yelled from the kitchen. I shut the door on Buzz. Let him make of that whatever he wanted.
“Who was that?” asked my mother as we began eating.
My heart was hammering away and my hands were shaking. On top of everything else, chopsticks were not exactly my instrument of choice for conveying my food to my mouth. I was doing okay until Angel said, “It was Buzz,” and everything slithered back onto my plate.
Angel had seen him.
“You know Buzz?” I decided feigning ignorance was the best way to play it.
“Yeah, ’course. He come into the garden that day I was painting the summerhouse with Fred.” She frowned a little as she said his name. “He introduced himself, said he was working with you because you were writing her book. I was ever so excited.”
“Who on earth is Buzz?” said my mother.
“He’s the manager of the actress whose book I’m about to start ghosting. He’s—”
“He’s wicked,” Angel interrupted. “He’s got floppy hair, dark, and he’s tall and a bit skinny to tell you the truth, but it doesn’t stop him being sexy. He’s got these dreamy dark eyes. They’re like them black pools you see at the bottom of very high mountains. You know, they’re so deep the water probably keeps going down forever and his eyes are the same. When he looks at you for more than a minute you feel like you might drown in them.”
I’d never imagined Angel could be so poetic. And I knew exactly what she meant. Buzz’s eyes had just immersed me almost to the point of panic.
“Where have you seen these mountains with their bottomless pools, Angel?” I asked her.
“Me mum’s got this calendar. It’s been hanging up on the back of the kitchen door since about 1997. I won’t let her take it down because I love the pictures. I’ve never seen real mountains. I keep meaning to pop back home and get it to put in my room here.”
“So who’s the actress?” said my mother.
“Selma Walker.” Too late I remembered Selma didn’t want me telling anyone I was ghosting her book.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, she called,” said Angel. “Said she’d sent you another tape by FedEx.”
“You spoke to her?”
“No, I never answer your phone. We agreed I’d use my mobile. I heard her voice on the answering machine.” On the new tape I’d had to buy since the police still had my old one.
And she’d probably listened to anyone else who called. Just as well Buzz hadn’t.
“Who is Selma Walker? I’ve never heard of her,” asked my mother.
“You’ve never watched Fraternity?” I could hear the astonishment in Angel’s voice.
“What’s Fraternity?”
“Britain’s number-one soap opera, Mum.”
“Oh, a soap opera actress.” I could hear the disdain in her voice. Not a story worth bothering with.
“It’s an art just like any other form of acting,” I said, suddenly feeling the need to defend poor Selma. She’d set out to conquer Broadway but she’d wound up on the soaps. Well, she was a success and she should be proud of herself.
“I take it you watch Fraternity?” My mother looked at Angel. “What’s your real name, by the way? I can’t call you Angel.”
“Don’t blame you,” said Angel, now sounding remarkably cheerful, “especially as I’m a little devil. It’s Angelina. Yes, I watch it but I don’t like her at all.”
“Why ever not?” I was intrigued.
“She’s such a cow. The way she bosses her husband around and all her sisters-in-law.”
“But that’s Sally McEwan, the character she plays. It’s not Selma Walker,” I protested.
“Whatever.” Angel didn’t look convinced. “But I don’t know what she’s doing married to someone as cool as Buzz. She’s old enough to be his mother.”
“Tommy, put that down,” I said. He was brandishing the percolator far too vigorously for my liking and if he dropped it we’d have to spend ho
urs making drip-drip individual coffee through a plastic filter. “Do we all want coffee?” I didn’t sound encouraging because I didn’t want everyone to sit up late discussing Selma Walker.
“I’m ready to go upstairs,” said my mother. “I’ve come all the way from France and I haven’t even unpacked.”
“I’ll come and make up the bed for you, Mum.” As good an excuse as any to leave the room.
Of course I wound up watching as she made the bed up herself. She always relegated me to the sidelines when anything needed doing, and I always let her, partly out of sheer apathy and my natural tendency to procrastinate and let someone else take care of business if they were willing. And partly because I knew that however much she might exhort me to bestir myself, she got a kick out of taking charge of a situation herself. Besides she appeared to be making no fuss about the fact that she wasn’t in her old bedroom and would be sharing a bathroom with Angel. Normally I vacated the master bedroom for her but this time I’d had no warning. Maybe she was just too tired and I’d be given hell in the morning.
By the time she had everything she needed half an hour had gone by. I had vaguely registered first Tommy and then Angel coming up the stairs on their way to bed. As I was about to close the door and retire myself, my mother came toward me. She stood so close, we could have been embracing.
“Sleep well, Mum,” I said, resisting the urge to kiss her good night.
“Good night, Lee. I just wanted to tell you how much it means to me to be here.”
“It’s your house, Mum.”
“No”—she actually touched my arm and held on to it—“I mean here . . .” And after a beat, “With you.”
I shut the door and burst into silent sobbing on the landing. She had done something I had always wanted her to do and yet now I couldn’t handle it. My face was wet with tears when I walked into my bedroom and Tommy sat up in bed.
How to Seduce a Ghost Page 19
