A Ghost at the Door Read Free Page B

counsellors urged on the bereaved, but Jemma knew that a little cod psychotherapy would never
be enough with Harry. So she stared at him, not letting him escape. ‘Because, Harry,’ she whispered in a way that seemed to ring an entire peal of bells, ‘our children will want
to know.’

    A manila documents folder. Neglected, blue, scruffy, its corners battered, its second-hand status betrayed by the felt-tipped scrawling across its cover that declared it had
once been used for Harry’s old tax papers. That was it, all he had left to record the death of his father, and it wasn’t even half full. A passport, its corner clipped. A copy of a
death certificate, in Greek. A brief and tautly formal note from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office expressing regret, alongside a handful of notes of condolence, mostly from people Harry had
never met. His father always had peculiar friends – no, not friends, wrong word, but colleagues, associates in business, whatever damned business that was. Not true friends.
    And a single photograph, of Harry when he was perhaps thirteen, smiling coyly, in swimming trunks, with his father’s arm around his shoulders. They were on a beach of a distant shore, the
photo probably taken by some unsuitable female friend of his father’s, though Harry couldn’t remember for sure. It was wrapped in a single folded sheet of notepaper from his
father’s lawyer and executor, Robert Tallon, a senior partner in an exclusive London legal firm. The letter was dated August 2001. It summarized previous correspondence and recorded the fact
that, due to the complexity of his father’s estate, it would take considerable time and in all probability several years before matters regarding the estate could be finalized and that, in
the meantime, he was transferring the sum of £8,376,482.04 to Harry’s account as an initial instalment. Tallon was a punctilious ferret of a man, right down to the last four pence.
    It was in the riverside offices of the same Robert Tallon that Harry and Jemma were now sitting, the file and its contents spilling uncomfortably onto the glass-topped conference table. Tallon,
elderly, experienced, probably close to retirement, sat peering down a red and slightly damp nose on which were perched his rimless glasses. His hands were clasped in front of him, his silk tie
spilling above the waistcoat of his tailored chalk-stripe suit, his overcombed hair was greying, his complexion pale, but the eyes were sharp.
    ‘Mr Jones,’ the lawyer began – even after all these years and so many millions, he still clung to the formalities – ‘you ask about your father.’ There was a
hint of Edinburgh in the slow vowels. ‘I’m afraid there’s not much I can give you. I met him only rarely – he spent so little time in this country in his last years. Your
father always told me, with some pride, I should add, that he was a citizen of the world.’
    ‘No wonder he was never home,’ Harry muttered.
    The lawyer dabbed at his nose with a handkerchief he kept tucked up the sleeve of his suit. ‘He was cautious about his affairs. Which were, as you know, complicated.’
    Harry’s fingers brushed across the manila folder. ‘This is all I have. A ridiculously simple file for such a complicated man, isn’t it?’ Jemma thought she noticed an edge
of both regret and self-rebuke in his voice. He turned to her. ‘Seems he didn’t own a home anywhere, just postboxes in various dusty places and a financial operation so impenetrable
that it’s kept Mr Tallon here busy ever since.’
    ‘Well, not busy, not any longer. We wait patiently. For developments.’
    Outside the window the Thames wound reluctantly through the piers of Waterloo Bridge. In the distance the towers of the City stood beneath a glowering ozone sky of purples and browns like
skittles waiting for the clout of the next financial onslaught.
    ‘Developments? I’m sorry, what developments?’ Jemma asked.
    Tallon turned