A Ghost at the Door Read Online Free PDF Page A

the death certificate, the man who had reported his father’s death. ‘I need to know where he is. Want to talk to him.’
    ‘How quickly?’
    ‘By the time I’ve finished my beer.’
    ‘You’re kidding.’
    ‘Never.’
    ‘You haven’t changed, Harry.’
    ‘I’m hoping you haven’t, either.’
    ‘Screw you.’ Tappersley hung up.
    Twenty minutes later the screen on Harry’s phone flashed into life.
    ‘What kept you, Taps? I’ve had to go get a second beer.’
    ‘Perhaps that’s because you called in the middle of my lunch.’
    ‘I owe you.’
    ‘You most certainly bloody do. Your Captain Crapulous. According to the records of the Greek Masters and Mates Union, he was born in some place called Mastichochoria in Chios in 1952.
Earned his Master’s Certificate in 1980. Left the service in 2004.’
    ‘You mean he retired?’
    ‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’
    ‘What sort of manner?’
    ‘He died, didn’t he? On his ship.’
    ‘In his sleep or on the sun deck?’
    ‘Neither. His propeller got snared in some old fishing net, so he went over the side to cut it away. Some idiot restarted the engine just as he’d finished and was still underwater.
Like a scene from
Jaws
, so the chap at the Masters and Mates said. Cleaved in two. I can think of better ways to go.’
    ‘So could my father,’ Harry muttered, before adding, ‘Thanks, Taps. I owe you that lunch.’
    Tappersley sighed in resignation. ‘In all honesty, it was nothing but a little lobster salad. I suspect it will have kept.’
    Harry’s lips twitched as he put his phone away. It was his father who had shown him how to dive for lobster in the Med, how to cook and shell them, too. Suddenly everything in his life
seemed to be coming back to the same point: Johnnie. That morning, as Harry had shaved, he’d wiped the mirror with a towel only to find the bloody man staring back at him through the porthole
of mist. He was everywhere. A man walks in his father’s footsteps knowing that at some point he will overtake the father and leave him behind, that was the given order. But even though
Johnnie was dead, Harry had never caught up with him.
    ‘Harry?’
    His eyes came back to her. Gentle lines of concern were scribbled above Jemma’s nose.
    ‘You seem angry,’ she said.
    He crushed the empty packet of nuts in his fist. ‘Just thinking that lobster salad sounds a hell of a lot better than a packet of dry-roasted for lunch.’
    ‘Yes, you sure know how to treat a girl.’
    ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you.’
    ‘How?’
    Before he could reply, his phone beeped again. A text message. Details of an address from the electoral register. Harry brushed the screen to examine it and began to smile in satisfaction.
    ‘Can I suggest a little trip?’
    ‘Where?’ she asked, intrigued.
    He checked the screen once more. ‘How about the Lake District?’ he said, gathering up the file and setting off once more.

    They found the cottage up a short, grass-tufted lane that cut off from the road leading into Braithwaite, an unpretentious Cumbrian village in the lee of Barrow fell. Harry
parked the Volvo beside an uncertain stone wall that seemed to be held together by little more than lichen and moss. They had found their man and it was clear why he wanted to live here: on a clear
day the view from this spot would stretch all the way to the peaks of Catbells. But this was the Lakes, and clear days came at a premium. Harry turned off the windscreen wipers and they clambered
out. The cottage was small, with a roof of old slate and faded whitewashed walls. The garden gate swung in the breeze, creaking on a lazy, unoiled hinge. The paintwork was peeling, the garden
unkempt; so was the ruddy-cheeked man in a crumpled shirt who answered the door. The rims of the eyes were of much the same hue as the cheeks, and he had a lick of thinning grey hair stuck to his
forehead.
    ‘Hello, Mr Smith? My name’s Harry Jones. I telephoned