Some Old Lover's Ghost (47 page)

The private detective confirmed that Daragh Canavan had not been seen in Southam on the evening of 10 April. He had not visited the pub, he had not called on any of his labourers. Mr Oddie, lacking the evidence of a body, concluded that Daragh, burdened by debts he could not possibly pay, had fled the country.

My conclusions were necessarily different. I knew that he had never left Southam. Where else would Daragh, dressed in his best, evidence of his drinking disguised by cologne, have been going if not to meet Tilda, his lover?

The report seemed to bear out everything Caitlin had told me. I put it aside, and went to the bathroom. When the little blue line in the test tube told me that I was expecting Patrick Franklin’s child, my legs shook so much I had to sit down on the loo seat, my head in my hands. I was overcome by such a mixture of emotions that I could not, for a while, think. The uneasy calm of the past week was utterly shattered. Yet through horror at the predicament I had so carelessly got myself into, I recognized, to my surprise, a small kernel of joy. My body was giving itself a second chance. I hugged my knees up to my chin, and clasped my bent legs.

I’m not sure how long I sat there. By the time I unfolded my stiff limbs I knew that I had to try, at least, to repair the breach with Patrick. The child was his, too. Whatever Tilda had done, whatever Patrick had tried to conceal, the past should not be permitted to hurt our child. I changed out of my travel-crumpled clothes, and then, cursing the garage for not yet having fixed my car, caught a bus to Richmond.

As I alighted from the bus, the grey roofs of the shops and houses gleamed pink and gold in the rays of the setting sun. Every so often, thick clouds blocked out the rays and cast dark patches on the pavement. As I walked, I planned what I would say to Patrick. I would tell him about my pregnancy, and I would explain to him that I had no wish to exploit Tilda’s unhappy past. I would point out to him that my previous book had been scholarly, not sensational, and that I intended this one to be no different. Lastly, I would remind him that Tilda herself had told
me that it was my task to distinguish the truth. That was all. The truth.

I turned the corner that led into the mews where Patrick lived. I saw the gleaming red sports car parked outside his house, and I saw the front door open as Patrick stepped from the house to greet the tall, dark-haired woman who was climbing out of the car. And when I saw them embrace, I turned on my heel and ran away.

I just missed a bus, of course. I began to walk home, thinking I’d pick up another bus from a further stop. I could not bear to wait there, knowing that just a few hundred yards away Patrick Franklin was kissing his beautiful wife. I could almost taste my jealousy in my mouth: bitter and acid, it sparked anger, not tears. I dug my nails into my palms and half ran, half walked through the maze of streets between Richmond Road and Twickenham Road.

More quickly than I had anticipated, it became dark. The first raindrops struck the dry road, blackening it with drops the size of pennies. Light from the headlamps of the cars gleamed on the wet tarmac. I was wearing only a short dress and a linen jacket, and both were soon soaked, and my wet hair clung in rat’s tails to my head. I glanced up and down the road, but could see neither a bus nor a taxi. I headed up a narrow alleyway, intending to cut a few yards from my journey. My speed made me breathless, and exorcised my anger. Then I heard the footsteps.

Running, this time. The alleyway was deserted and unlit. The drumroll of rain and the distant rumble of traffic echoed in my ears. I saw how foolish I had been, walking alone through dark city streets. I remembered the child in my womb – tiny as yet, a little curled-up question mark, but I owed it better care than this. The pursuing footsteps grew louder and faster, and I, too, began to run, clutching the bag that contained my purse and credit cards. My feet stumbled in the potholed asphalt. I glanced back over my shoulder and thought I saw a flicker of movement in the darkness, a fleeting glimpse of a face, ghostly-white. My muscles were leaden and my breath sobbed in my throat. The
tall buildings seemed to close in on me, unknown and menacing. Every window was blank, every door shut. I turned a corner and crossed a road, searching for a familiar landmark. I recognized nothing: I was lost in the London I thought I knew well. Black shadows pooled in corners, and the rain cast a strange, glittering sheen over the roads and houses, gathering and swelling down the gutters, dragging with it a detritus of old cigarette ends and chewing-gum wrappers. I dashed down another alleyway, crossed another road. At last I had to stop, leaning against a wall, gasping for breath, looking back into the darkness. I could no longer hear the traffic; I was surrounded by a silence that was filled only by the rain and by the frantic beating of my heart. Though I looked back, certain that I would see a face, a shape, emerging out of the darkness, there was nothing. My skin crawled: the silence, the unfamiliarity of the city streets was unnatural. I waited, unable to move, expecting to see walking towards me the shade of Daragh Canavan, his insubstantial footsteps making no mark on the ground.

Fear propelled me along the alleyway, and pushed me through the narrow gap between two buildings, out into the main road. When I looked around, I wanted to laugh and then to cry. What had seemed strange was not so; I had just been seeing it from an unfamiliar angle. I realized that I was in Isleworth; I had walked along this road every day during the months that I had worked with Charles. In the distance I could see the building which housed Charles’s offices. I began to run towards it, hurling myself across the busy road, regardless of the hoots and howls of rage from the drivers. Then, praying that Charles was working late, I pressed the bell for Lighthouse Productions.

Charles’s voice, strangely disembodied, answered me. ‘Charles Lightman—’

‘Charles – it’s me, Rebecca,’ I said, between gasps for breath. ‘Can I come up?’

The entryphone buzzed, and I opened the door. I looked behind me but could see no-one. Each stair was an effort for my weary legs.

I hadn’t been to Charles’s offices since we’d made
Sisters of the Moon
. Now, when I pushed open the door, I was shocked at what I saw. Charles has never been a particularly organized person, but the level of chaos astonished me. Heaps of files, papers and video cartridges littered the small room. The waste basket was overflowing, and the desks were piled with letters and faxes. The window sills were crowded with plastic coffee cups and discarded sandwich wrappings.

‘Drink?’ Charles said, waving a whisky bottle at me. He was wearing dark trousers and a rather grubby white shirt, and his hair, which needed cutting, kept flopping over his eyes.

I shook my head. My lungs still hurt.

‘Bit of a mess. Clear yourself a seat, Rebecca.’ He glanced at me. ‘You all right?’

‘Fine,’ I said unconvincingly, as I hauled files and papers off a chair and sat down. ‘It’s raining,’ I added. I was beginning to feel rather foolish. ‘And I hadn’t an umbrella.’

‘Only you seem a little
distraite.’

‘I thought someone was following me.’ I didn’t mention ghosts; he would have thought I was mad. ‘I thought I heard footsteps. So silly. My imagination’s out of control these days. I’m hearing all sorts of bumps in the night …’ I laughed, and changed the subject. ‘How about you, Charles? You look … busy.’

‘Everything’s going really well. I’ve simply masses of new ideas on the go. I’ve stayed up the last few nights, trying to organize all my proposals, get things down. It’s funny, isn’t it, how sometimes you don’t have a decent idea for months and then you have one after the other.’ Charles was talking very fast, and he moved restlessly from desk to chair, chair to window sill. He reminded me of those clockwork toys one sometimes sees, dashing frenetically and aimlessly to and fro. As he began rapidly to describe the television programmes he intended to make, I wondered fleetingly whether he was drunk, or was keeping himself awake with amphetamines. But, masking my sudden concern for Charles, I saw, as if imprinted on my inner eyelid, Patrick and Jennifer embracing, and I wanted to howl my
grief aloud. Patrick and Jennifer were still in love; that much was obvious to me. I had been nothing to Patrick – or, worse, I was a threat. And yet I carried his child.

‘What on earth are you doing in this neck of the woods, Rebecca?’

Charles’s voice broke through my thoughts, catching me off guard. ‘Visiting Patrick,’ I said. ‘But he wasn’t in,’ I lied.

His back was to me as he picked an armful of files from the floor. ‘I was going to call you. I wanted to talk through an idea with you. But if you’ve still got a thing going with Patrick Franklin—’

‘I haven’t,’ I said bleakly. ‘I thought I might have for a while, but I haven’t.’

When he turned to me, I saw that his gooseberry-green eyes gleamed. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘In that case … D’you remember the last time I saw you, you said that you thought Tilda Franklin might have been involved in the death of her old lover?’

I nodded warily. ‘Something like that. Charles—’

‘Bear with me. The series I was telling you about just now—’

I looked blank. I hadn’t been listening.

‘Through a Glass Darkly,’
he said impatiently. ‘Showing that Christopher Marlowe wasn’t quite the Elizabethan James Bond we’d all like to think he was, and that Florence Nightingale was a pain in the neck. Debunking popular history, in other words.’

‘The skull beneath the skin.’ I thought of Daragh.

‘Exactly.’ Charles smiled widely, and began inaccurately to stuff files into a drawer that was already overflowing. ‘And I thought, how simply marvellous, to do someone more contemporary.’

I could hardly bear to watch him. Papers were floating to the floor like falling snow. I crossed the room and took them out of his hands. ‘Let me.’ I suddenly understood what he was suggesting to me. ‘You don’t mean to expose
Tilda
, do you, Charles?’

‘Transmission could coincide with the publication of your book. Terrific publicity for you – imagine the sales. It’d be
stunning, wouldn’t it? That is, if you’re of the same mind that you were last time. If you still think that Tilda Franklin isn’t exactly the angel she’s supposed to be.’

I shook my head vehemently. ‘No, Charles. Forget it. It’s a horrible idea.’

When I gathered up the ragged jottings that had fallen to the floor, it took me a while to realize that they were ideas for programmes. Some were just a single word – ‘Madness’, or ‘Jealousy’. Others were long, rambling sentences without punctuation or capital letters. Glancing at them, my earlier concern for Charles resurfaced.

He went on as though I hadn’t spoken, ‘Just think. Footage of misty waterways. Gloomy skyscapes. The dike where they found the body – we could film in winter, when it’s snowing, perhaps. Interviews with the man who found the body – and the police. It could work, I know it could. And I’d need a researcher, of course.’

I shoved all the scraps of paper into a large envelope. ‘I told you, Charles – forget it.’

‘We work well together, don’t we, Becca?’ He looked across at me. ‘Or are you afraid of the consequences?’

He was smiling now. I shut the filing cabinet drawer firmly. ‘What on earth do you mean, Charles?’

‘Well.’ He poured himself another slug of whisky. ‘Patrick Franklin’s got a lot to lose, hasn’t he? How far would he go to hold on to his reputation?’

‘Libel laws, you mean?’

‘One can only libel the living.’

I glanced up at him sharply. Tilda was eighty-one years old, and just now in hospital following a heart attack. I understood what he was saying: that Tilda might die before the programme went on air.

‘Actually’ – and with a single sweep of his hand, he cleared his desk of a heap of papers – ‘actually, I wondered whether you felt physically threatened. I mean … footsteps … noises in the night …’

‘By Patrick?’ I glared at him. ‘Don’t be silly, Charles,’ I said, but his insinuations lingered, and could not quite be brushed aside.

When I finally went home that night, there was a message on my answerphone. When I began to replay it, and Patrick’s voice filled my living room, I switched off the tape, and wiped it clean. Anger and adrenalin pumped through my veins; I saw everything with bitter clarity. I could abandon the biography, somehow repay the advance, look for other work. The after-effects of the recession remained – I might be unemployed for months, and neither my sister nor my father had money to lend me. Who would chose to employ a pregnant, out-of-work biographer? If I abandoned my publisher’s commission, then I must also abandon my child. Everything in me rebelled against that route.

Or I could accept Charles’s offer, and work for him. I’d earn more money and Tilda’s book would have every chance of success. I’d be able to keep my baby, move to a bigger flat, find more work, have a decent life. But in doing so I should betray both Tilda and Patrick. Whatever they had done – whatever betrayals they still practised – they were both blood relatives to my child. Tilda’s story was teaching me the importance, the intransigency of that bond. Even before its birth, the infant would be the inheritor of treason. If I worked for Charles, all Patrick’s most wounding accusations would be born out.

Though my feelings for Patrick had become closer to hatred than to love, I began to see what I must do. Daragh Canavan had been murdered on a clear spring night, tied hand and foot and buried alive in the earthworks of the half-built dike. The crime had remained undiscovered for forty-eight years. I must find out who had killed him. I must unpick the skeins of history and reveal the truth, because my fate – and my child’s – had become entangled in the secrets of the past.

I took out the list that I had begun weeks ago, of people with the motive and means to kill Daragh Canavan. I had already crossed off Max’s name, and I now seriously doubted whether
Daragh’s creditors would have found it profitable to murder him. I glanced at the next name on my list. Jossy had had every reason to kill Daragh. I felt a flicker of hope when I thought of her: Mr Oddie, of course, had not felt able to question Jossy’s movements. Tilda had told me that Daragh was a destroyer – had Jossy, too, finally recognized that? Had she seen the hopelessness of her love and annihilated its object?