A Ghost at the Door (38 page)

‘Stop here, Staunton, I need a closer look.’ The huddle of onlookers was already becoming a crowd and as he pushed through them he saw what had drawn them. At that same moment he saw
Harry stumbling from the church.

‘Christmas in July,’ he whispered to himself before calling for assistance.

Jemma heard the scream, saw the body falling from the tower, just a flash, almost a shadow, so quickly she couldn’t make out its shape. She heard the noise it made as it
hit the pavement. At first she thought it was Harry and screamed, silently, through frozen vocal cords, until she saw that it was clad in purple clerical garb. Then, as a crowd began to gather
around it, a different fear took hold. Another body, and as Harry had said, in rather more colourful language, coincidence was only for the feeble-minded. He was never going to dig his way out from
under this one.

She didn’t ask herself whether Harry was responsible. Part of her wouldn’t accept the notion, even as another part of her acknowledged it was entirely possible. Harry had form when
it came to corpses. But whatever had taken place inside the church, Harry was going to need help – and right now she was the only one who could supply it. She had to find him. Yet even as she
stepped out of the car she saw him, stumbling from the shadows, his body strangely twisted, in pain, clutching his shoulder as he walked straight into the arms of a waiting policeman.

‘Central Command, this is DCI Edwards from Charing Cross. Require assistance in Walbrook in the City. We have a suspicious death in the street,’ Edwards barked into
his radio.

‘What assistance do you need, Chief Inspector?’

‘The whole bloody army, love,’ he said. ‘You can get those layabouts from Snow Hill to put down their snooker cues and sarnies for a minute and get over here like it’s
open day at the brewery. We’ve got quite a little crowd gathering. Oh, and did I tell you? I’ve already got the blighter who did it.’

Don’t panic, don’t you dare panic, Jemma whispered to herself. Think!

She sat in the shadows of the street, away from the mêlée that was growing around where the body lay. More police had arrived in a collection of cars and vans, their flashing
cobalt-blue lights and the gathering press of onlookers turning the scene into an evening at a fairground, and turning her mind to mush. Think, Jemma! Think!

Everything she knew, or thought she knew, had been thrown into confusion, like a kaleidoscope that had been kicked down the street and landed in the gutter with all the pieces in a new,
confusing order. The photograph was crucial but it hadn’t been telling the whole story, and she’d only begun to realize that as she had driven past the cavorting tourists. A piece was
missing: the identity of whoever took the bloody snap.

She watched in misery as Harry was being led away. The police reinforcements were pushing back the crowd. An ambulance joined the fray, edging forward to stand beside that terrible spot where
two forensics officers in white suits and hoods were bent over their work. Think, woman! But she couldn’t, her mind and emotions in too much turmoil. Yet as tears of frustration gathered and
demanded that she give in to them she became aware of a man who could, someone who might be able to understand the images in this darkened mirror and make sense of the way in which the pieces had
fallen.

Once more she reached for her phone, pressed buttons, waited for an answer. When she got it, and had spoken briefly, she restarted the engine of the trusty Volvo, slipped it gratefully into
gear and left the pandemonium of Walbrook behind.

No one could have been more surprised, or equally more delighted to the point of ecstasy, than Hughie Edwards when he saw Harry stumbling directly into his arms only feet away
from where the body on the pavement was still leaking. More blood was trickling from gashes on Harry’s forearm and the manner in which he was buckled like Quasimodo said he’d clearly
been in a fight. Edwards was chapel, didn’t go in much for miracles, but right now he was changing his mind.

‘Hello, Harry.’

Weary, pain-stricken eyes were lifted, then spent some time hovering over the body before Harry once more returned his attention to the chief inspector. ‘Randall Wickham,’ Harry
muttered. ‘Used to be Bishop of Burton. Before you ask, I didn’t kill him.’

‘And, before you say another word, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder,’ the Welshman began, his lilting voice almost singing in enthusiasm. ‘You do not have to say
anything but it may harm your defence . . .’

Once again Harry was forced to listen to words that had become all too deeply embedded in his life and that were sucking hope from him. A police photographer was dancing around the body,
bending, searching for a better image. Wickham’s ornate crucifix lay by his side, the strands of the silver rosary snaking their way from his lifeless fingers. Poking out from beneath the
purple cassock was the wristwatch. Smashed to fragments. Covered in the bishop’s blood. Another nail in Harry’s coffin.

‘Put the cuffs on him, Staunton,’ Edwards instructed the sergeant. ‘I don’t want this bugger slipping away, again.’

The sergeant reached for Harry’s arm; Harry cried out in pain, dropping to his knees. ‘I think I may have busted something else.’

‘No matter. Cuff him all the same,’ Edwards insisted.

Yet regardless of the pain it proved impossible to secure Harry’s wrists behind him because of the cast, so they had to compromise, bind his wrists in front. They couldn’t doubt that
Harry had taken a beating: his face was like ash from a cold fire. The sergeant guided Harry’s head beneath the roof of the car as he put him in the rear seat, climbing into the
driver’s seat to keep an eye on him even though the locks were on the rear doors, while Edwards finished giving instructions over the body.

Slumped in the back seat of the car, Harry tried to focus his thoughts but found it impossible. His shoulder was still screaming in outrage but at least he could move it – perhaps nothing
was broken after all. Through the windscreen he could see Edwards holding up a plastic evidence bag. It contained his wristwatch. Edwards was smiling. As Harry closed his eyes in resignation he
became aware of the phone vibrating in his pocket once more, and suddenly he remembered Jemma. He needed her, more than ever. Slowly, gritting his teeth against the hurt, he twisted to allow the
fingers of his left hand to close around the phone.

‘No you bloody don’t,’ the sergeant growled, snatching the phone from Harry’s grasp. ‘Not having you messing with any evidence.’ Yet even as he claimed his
prize the screen lit up, trying to deliver its text message once again, and his nose twitched in curiosity. ‘Nothing for you to worry about, anyway.’

Harry could see the message was from Jemma. ‘What does it say?’

‘
Who took the bloody photo?
What does that mean?’

‘I’ve no idea. Any chance I can give her a call?’

‘You can’t be serious.’

‘You’re all heart.’

‘And you, Mr Jones, are in very, very deep trouble. About as deep as it gets.’

Harry sighed, exhausted, trying to clear his mind, to concentrate what energy remained on doing battle with his pain, but his thoughts kept snagging on things, wouldn’t let him rest,
tripping over the bishop, and Jemma, and Johnnie, and over what Hughie Edwards was about to do to him. And the photograph. Now they were all dead, every one of those faces, and that included the
unknown woman with the nervous eyes, had to. Once again, he went round the faces, one by one. Then he sat up so sharply he couldn’t hold back the cry of pain. ‘Get Edwards,’ he
gasped. ‘We need to talk!’

‘Oh, he’ll be wanting to talk to you, all right, and all night, too, I’ve no doubt, as soon as we get back to the station.’

‘No, now!’ Harry raised his voice, grabbed the handle of the rear door, tried to open it but the child lock refused to budge. ‘Now!’ He began kicking the front seat in
frustration.

‘And what the bloody hell’s going on here?’ Edwards demanded as suddenly he appeared, climbing into the front passenger seat, ripping off his latex gloves and dropping them
into the footwell.

‘Hughie, listen to me!’

‘It’s Chief Inspector Edwards so far as you’re concerned.’

‘I know you reckon I’m the greatest mass murderer since Caligula . . .’

‘Who?’

‘But you’ve got it all wrong. That photo I showed you, it holds all the clues to what really happened.’

‘I think you may have a point there. Know what I’m thinking? That your old man was involved in some dodgy dealings, you see, and when he fell off his perch with that heart attack of
his, I think he was cheated by his old chums, and you’ve been getting even with them ever since. Something like that. Shall we run that one up the flagpole and see how many jurors
salute?’

‘Hughie, you’ve got bollocks for brains.’

‘Nice start to the game, Harry. Fifteen–love to me.’

Harry bit his tongue in pain, in remorse. He’d have to handle things better than this. ‘Look, my fiancée, Jemma.’

‘Attractive girl, that. Seen the photos. I wonder if she’ll wait for you, Harry. By the time you get out she’ll be – what? Fifty? Sixty, maybe?’

‘She’s waiting down the road in my car. You need to speak to her.’

‘My next stop. We need that car as evidence and it’s parked just along the way, I’m thinking.’ But, as he consulted the screen of his mobile phone once again, he swore
softly. ‘What the hell’s going on here, Harry?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Forty minutes ago your car was parked at the bottom of Walbrook. Now it’s halfway to the bloody seaside.’

‘Where?’

Edwards tossed the question around for a second. What did it matter if he let Harry know? He might even learn something. ‘The A12 heading out into Essex. And going at a rate of knots by
the look of things.’

‘But . . .’ For a moment the pain was buried beneath a surge of anxiety. ‘She doesn’t know anyone in Essex, not anyone she’d go to right now.’

‘Maybe she’s decided not to wait for you after all.’

‘Stop her.’

‘Whatever she’s up to you can tell us all about it when you get back to where you belong, boyo, in my nick.’

‘Hughie, no . . . No, no, no, no!’ His eyes were dancing, seeing too many things. ‘Oh, you idiot, Jones! You, too, Hughie. Why didn’t we see it?’

‘See what?’

‘The bloody photograph! Seven. There were seven people.’

‘That’s right,’ the chief inspector groaned in boredom.

‘But who the hell has seven for dinner? There was an eighth person, of course there was. A gap at the table. A missing face.’

‘Who?’

‘Whoever was taking the photo. Jemma worked that out. Sent me the text.’

‘What flaming text?’ Edwards demanded, no longer bored.

The sergeant fished out the phone, showed it to his boss. Another curse, less soft.

‘Hughie, you’ve got to stop her,’ Harry pleaded.

‘You think I’m going to close down the entire A12 just for your girlfriend?’

‘I don’t know where she’s going but it’s got to be connected with all this. That puts her life on the line.’

‘Not a flaming chance. Closing down half of Essex is chief constable territory and there’s no way I’m going to—’