How to Seduce a Ghost

by Hope McIntyre

  I told him and asked if he knew about Cath’s drinking.

  “I did actually,” he said, not looking at me. “Richie told me when he first met her. Asked me if I thought it’d be a problem.”

  “What did you say?”

  “What could I say? Of course it could be a problem. It always is unless they do something about it. But the bloke was falling in love with her. He didn’t need to hear that. He was too far gone. I must say, she could have picked a better time to fall off the wagon.”

  I didn’t regale him with the details about my mother and Sonny Cross, although I did want to discuss it with someone. Instead I told him, “It’s very sad. Noreen’s pretty sick.”

  “Who’s Noreen?”

  “Tommy’s mother. She has pancreatic cancer. Weren’t you there when he came back from seeing her that night? Didn’t you hear—?”

  Didn’t you hear our flaming row? Didn’t you witness me throwing him out of the house?

  Max looked at me now and I waited for him to say What do you mean? I left when he arrived. But he didn’t say anything like that. He just asked, “So what’s the deal with Tommy?”

  “The deal?”

  “You and him?”

  “What about me and him?” I could feel myself bristling.

  “Well, you know—if you had that number with Buzz Kempinski?”

  That number? Why did he keep going back to me and Buzz?

  “I don’t see that it’s any of your business,” I began.

  “Well, yes, it is,” he cut in.

  “As part of your investigation?”

  “As part of my investigation—into you.”

  He left it dangling. I could pick it up and run with it or I could ignore it.

  “Oh not you as well,” I said before I could stop myself.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” He looked a bit offended. I’d have to be careful. I explained what had happened with Chris, how he’d left in a huff when Tommy had shown up, tried to make light of it.

  “Yes,” said Max, “I got the impression he was a bit chippy.”

  “Chippy?”

  “Chip on his shoulder. I was talking to another guy like Chris the other day, someone who’s grown up in this area, seen a lot of changes. It’s a very affluent neighborhood but there’s a lot of riffraff mixed in and that’s part of the problem. Chris sees these fancy stores and businesses springing up all around him, he witnesses extremely rich people moving in and turning his old neighborhood into an area of multimillion-pound houses. On top of that, he has daily access to women way out of his league when he sells them a pound of carrots and then he has to go home to whatever poxy accommodation he’s always lived in. He starts to think it’s not fair and who can blame him? And speaking of Chris”—he looked at me intently—“the person I really want to find is the man he says he saw in your alley. He’s the one who was there the closest to the time the fire was started.”

  “How would you go about finding him if he doesn’t come forward?”

  “All we can do is run the CCTV over and over. It shows everyone who entered and left Blenheim Crescent from both Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Park Road but can you imagine how many people there were coming and going on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve?”

  “But it’ll help that he limps?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Chris told me the man had a bad leg. Walked funny.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Max was thoroughly exasperated. “What is it with these people? Can’t they remember to tell me anything? I’ll have to talk to him again. He never mentioned anything about a bad leg. He and Mrs. O’Malley are a right pair. So,” he said, sipping his coffee, “what about my other investigation—?”

  Uh-oh, we were back to that.

  It wasn’t another Chris situation by any means. I had to admit that I liked Max Austin and I enjoyed talking to him. But I felt sorry for him. I thought of him as a sad suit, not as exciting romantic potential. He had a vulnerable air to him, which wasn’t surprising given what he’d been through with his wife’s murder. Plus, I could imagine how I would feel if I’d had the courage to make a tentative approach to someone and they turned me down flat. If I was going to deflect his “investigation” into me, the least I could do was let him down easy.

  So what did I do? I sent him such a mixed message that he probably didn’t know if he was coming or going.

  I leaned over and kissed him very gently near his left ear and whispered, “I love my Tommy very much.”

  And then I picked up the bill and said, “This is on me. Walk me back to the house and I’ll give you something Selma’s fingered.”

  It was agony walking back along Blenheim Crescent. He didn’t say a word, gave me full on moody Max all the way home, and when I rushed inside and returned to press one of the tapes Selma had given me into his hand, he took it and just kept on going. I went back into the house, wishing I’d put him in his place instead of kissing him, especially when I saw Selma standing at the bay window. She must have seen me hand him the tape cover because the look she gave me made me feel quite uneasy.

  But I’d meant what I’d said to Max. The truth was I’d fallen in love with Tommy all over again when he’d come around earlier in the week, and when he rang the doorbell and said, “I’ve got Mum outside in the car. Sorry I didn’t give you much notice but it’d be great if you could come up to Islington with us now,” I grabbed my coat and rushed outside with him, suddenly knowing without a doubt that helping Tommy was what I wanted to do more than anything else.

  CHAPTER 21

  POOR NOREEN WAS DESPERATELY FRAIL AND COULD barely manage more than a weak smile at me when I climbed into the car. She fell asleep as we became stuck in traffic on the way up to Islington and when we arrived at her little house in Bewdly Street, Tommy lifted her out of the car and carried her inside as if she were a baby.

  What he would have done if I hadn’t been there, I have no idea. He had not prepared the house for her homecoming in any way. He hadn’t gone shopping for provisions or even made up a bed. All he had succeeded in doing was to dump his belongings in a heap on the floor in the spare room. We settled Noreen on the sofa tucked under a rug and I wandered about the house making a list of things that needed to be done. Finally, I turned to Tommy.

  “You know, it would make a lot more sense if she stayed down here on the ground floor,” I said. The house was tiny—in a row of what I think were once artisans’ cottages—and the only bathroom was on the ground floor with two bedrooms upstairs. “Otherwise she’s going to have to contend with the stairs every time she needs the loo.”

  So we moved her narrow single bed downstairs to the L-shaped living room and placed it by the window so she could keep an eye on what was happening. Tommy went back to work and I went shopping. I spent the afternoon cooking, making meals that could be stored in the freezer and easily defrosted by Tommy—and indeed by Noreen when she felt up to it later on.

  For supper that night I made moussaka, one of Tommy’s favorites. Noreen picked at it for a minute or two and fell asleep almost immediately. Tommy and I retreated to the kitchen. I watched him pouring dishwashing liquid into the dishwasher and decided maybe the time had come to start thinking about moving in with him, if only to stop him ruining Noreen’s appliances. I was contemplating how to bring up the subject out of the blue when he suddenly said, “Damn!” very loudly and started dabbing himself in the chest area.

  He turned to face me, looking very Tommy with his hair all rumpled, and I saw that his sweater displayed a moussaka stain that would no doubt prove impossible to remove.

  “How did that happen?” he said. “This is my favorite sweater.”

  It looked familiar and suddenly I knew where I’d seen it.

  “Take it off, Tommy,” I said sharply. “It’s ruined. Throw it away.”

  “Oh, no, they’ll be able to deal with it at the cleaners. Probably cost me a fortune but they’ve sorted out worse stains than
this for me.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t chucked it out before now.” My voice was really on edge now.

  “Oh, you’ve recognized it.” He had the nerve to grin at me. “This is a very fine cashmere sweater. Just because Marie-Chantal gave it to me, I don’t see why—”

  “Well I do,” I snapped. “Get rid of it.” And then, although I should have let it go at that, I asked what I had been dying to know. “Is she going to stay at the BBC?”

  I held my breath. I had dealt with the existence of Marie-Chantal in my usual way by behaving like an ostrich. If I never mentioned her then she would go away and I could pretend Tommy had never had anything to do with her.

  “Actually, she isn’t.” Tommy pulled the sweater over his head and scrunched it into a plastic bag he fished out from under the sink. “She’s going back to Lyons in a couple of weeks.” He was facing me, bare-chested, and I resisted the urge to stroke the fine hair between his nipples. He’d lost a little weight, I noticed with surprise. He looked extremely edible. “Satisfied?”

  “Are you still— do you still see her? Have you slept with her again?”

  What was the matter with me? She was going. Why couldn’t I leave it alone?

  I knew why. I knew exactly what I was doing.

  “I haven’t had sex with her since before Christmas.” He was frowning at me now. “We’ve had lunch a few times, there’s no harm in that, we’ve become friends—but no sex.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  I believed him implicitly, but I had to twist the knife in a little deeper. I wasn’t done yet.

  “Because I expect you to trust me, Lee, like I trust you.” He was looking very serious now and his arms were crossed protectively across his bare chest.

  “You shouldn’t trust me, Tommy.” Now it was my turn to get serious. “Haven’t you ever wondered why I haven’t made more of a fuss about Marie-Chantal?”

  “You made plenty of fuss about it the night you found out.”

  “But I haven’t gone on about it. I didn’t mention it the other day when you came round.”

  He shrugged. He was looking very nervous now.

  “I didn’t drag it out because you weren’t the only one having an affair.”

  He started shaking his head and waving his hand as if to push me away along with whatever I had to tell him. No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear.

  “No, Tommy, listen. I have to tell you. I’ve been trying to work up the courage to tell you. I slept with someone, more than once. It was at the end of last year, probably right around the time you and Marie-Chantal were—”

  “Don’t tell me.” Tommy had found his voice at last. “Don’t tell me who it was, don’t tell me all the details. I couldn’t stand it. Just promise me you’re not seeing him anymore.”

  I chickened out of telling him it was Buzz because how could I explain that I had slept with the man who had come around and almost beaten me up? All I said was, “So now you see you can’t trust me.”

  I don’t know how I had expected him to react. Anger, maybe. Tommy rarely lost his temper and then it was usually because he felt patronized or that I was being particularly snotty. It was a form of self-defense. He sometimes lashed out when he didn’t quite understand what I was talking about but didn’t want to reveal his ignorance. I had thought he might distance himself and wallow in an extended hurt sulk. What I never imagined in my wildest fantasies was that he would come over and hug me.

  “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?” he whispered.

  I couldn’t believe this. “You’re not angry? You’re not hurt? You don’t care that I had sex with someone else?”

  “I care desperately,” he said and when I looked up I could see it in his eyes. “But I’m not that surprised. Right before Christmas our relationship was about as bad as it could ever be. If you want to know the honest truth, I sometimes wondered if we’d make it through the New Year. If you’re telling me that’s when you had your affair, then all I can say is that, inasmuch as it ever could, it makes sense for it to have happened then. If you’d said you’d had sex with someone since Christmas, I’d feel a whole lot worse. I felt we grew close again, that time at your parents, didn’t you? I felt we had a chance”—he looked down at me—“I feel we still do.”

  He made it all so simple. Somehow he had managed to shoulder everything I had thrown at him, acknowledge that it hurt him and exonerate me at the same time. As I clung to him, I marveled that I could be so stupid as to come so close to letting this guy go. He was a wonderful, generous man and I really didn’t deserve him. And he was absolutely right. There was nothing to be gained in sharing the details of our respective infidelities. Now was the time to move on.

  Of course I stayed the night, having first called my mother to establish that Selma wouldn’t be on her own.

  “Oh no, Bianca’s with her,” explained my mother. “It seems Selma called her and asked her to come over and in fact it’s worked out perfectly because Bianca’s cleaning the house as we speak. She’s going to stay here with Selma. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “Well, if you don’t mind,” I said.

  “Oh, I won’t be here. I’m going to spend the night with Sonny and then, guess what, your father’s in town—without the wretched Josiane, imagine that!—and he wants to meet me for lunch tomorrow so Bianca being here is perfect timing.”

  I left a message for Max Austin to call me. I wanted him to be aware of the situation and to be sure to have someone watching my house in case Buzz turned up.

  But he didn’t call back until the next day and then he seemed more interested in telling me about how he’d had another chat with Chris who had confirmed that the man he saw had had a limp.

  “But I can’t find anyone under eighty-four on the CCTV with a limp and certainly no one coming in or out of Blenheim Crescent round about the time of the fire,” said Max, sounding rather desperate.

  “So maybe he’s still there,” I pointed out. “Maybe he lives in Blenheim Crescent.”

  As I said it, I closed my eyes. The killer could be living right beside me.

  “That’s a good point,” said Max, a little too gleefully for my liking. “Or maybe he just had a limp the day of the fire and now he’s recovered and is walking normally. But if the lab comes back and says Selma’s prints aren’t a match for the ones on the kerosene cans then right now he seems to be my most likely suspect. Now, I want to update you on this woman I’ve just seen. Buzz’s old girlfriend.”

  I suppressed a sigh. I didn’t want to have to think about Buzz now. I wanted to devote the day to Noreen.

  “What was she like?”

  “Beautiful,” he said without hesitation and I was intrigued by the vehemence in his voice, “and ruined.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, she can barely walk. She’s in a wheelchair most of the time. Her face is smashed to bits but the weird thing is she’s not at all bitter. That bastard Buzz beat her up all the time she was with him and yet she’s determined to put it behind her, even said the reason she’s in a wheelchair was an accident and partly her fault. They were having an argument in the car and she claims she provoked him, made him hit her so he took his hand off the wheel and that’s why the car crashed leaving her a semicripple. There were photos all over the place of her before it happened. He certainly has a type, that Buzz. He likes the Latin look. Your looks have always seemed more Italian than English to me.”

  “And Selma’s got all that jet-black hair,” I said. “But how do you explain Astrid McKenzie? She was a real Scandinavian type.”

  “Yeah, well,” Max sounded put out, “she didn’t last long. Anyway, I see how this woman got to Richie. It was weird, the person she was really worried about was her sister.”

  “Her sister?”

  “Yes, she says she wants to move on but her sister won’t let it go, even after all this time. She said it had turned into some kind of obsession with
her sister. She was worried she was on the verge of a major breakdown. I was driven mad. There I was trying to warn her that there was some lunatic who seemed to be going after Buzz’s old girlfriends and all she would talk about was her sister. I gave up in the end. Told her to call us if Buzz came anywhere near her.”

  “What was the sister’s name?” A bizarre scenario was beginning to unfold in my mind and its sheer plausibility was sending shivers of dread through me.

  “I can’t remember. It’s here somewhere in my notes. Why do you want to know?”

  “Well, what was her name, the beauty in the wheelchair?”

  I didn’t really need to ask. I knew what he would say.

  “Maria,” he said, “Maria Morales.”

  “Max,” I shouted down the phone. “I’ve got it! I know who the sister is. It’s Bianca.”

  “Bianca?” He sounded confused.

  “She’s Selma Walker’s housekeeper. And she’s very short and she has very small hands and feet.”

  “You’re trying to suggest she might have started the fire?” He sounded very skeptical.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. It all fits. They could be her prints on the cans of gasoline, the ones you thought were a child’s. And she has a coat with a hood. A duffel coat. I’ve seen her in it. I’m telling you, if you saw her running down the garden in the dark, you could easily mistake her for a child.”

  There was a silence, as if he was considering it.

  “No,” he said finally, “it doesn’t work. There’s no motive. I could see her going after Buzz in revenge for what he’s done to her sister and to Selma Walker—in fact I think that’s what Maria seems to be afraid of, that she’s going to wreak some kind of awful vengeance.”

  “But if it turns out they are her prints on the cans?”

  “There’s a perfectly good reason why they should be there. Buzz brought those cans over to Angel on New Year’s Eve from Selma Walker’s house. If Bianca was the housekeeper she might well have handled them too before they left the house. But if it makes you feel better, okay, I’ll swing by sometime and check out this Bianca.”