A Ghost at the Door by Michael Dobbs Page A

sweated encounters only to find her heart broken on every occasion, just as her mother had warned her it would. Revel and regret, until eventually her life had
been devoted simply to regret.
    Except for one man. He had been a constant part of her life ever since they’d met at Oxford, along with Johnnie Maltravers-Jones and the others. She’d slept with him all too
fleetingly, and only in those early days, but theirs had been the one relationship that she’d convinced herself might succeed. She’d held to that through all the ensuing years, through
all the other men, even after Oxford, even after he had married. Marriage didn’t always last for ever, even her pious mother had been forced to admit that, and so Susannah had waited.
Patience had become her faith.
    And, as she walked through Heathrow’s Terminal Five dragging her small suitcase, there he was, waiting. She was in her sixties yet still she felt herself flustering, the colour beginning
to rise and stain her pale cheeks. Why, he could have sent a driver, or met her at the station, but no, he had insisted! ‘I’ll be there for you, Susie,’ he’d said.
‘You always have been,’ she’d whispered in reply. Now he stepped forward from the crowd and she thought she would trip over the tangle of her emotions that surrounded her. Ever
since she’d found Johnnie’s son on her doorstep her fears had been pursuing her like a headless horseman, but here he was to take her in his arms and sweep all the terrors away. He held
a large bunch of fresh roses in his hand and, if they were of assorted colours rather than the blood red of devotion, what did it matter? And what did it matter if, in the process of throwing
herself too eagerly into his arms, just like all those years ago, she crushed them? She was never going to leave him again, not till the day she died.

    Harry’s welcome at Heathrow two days later turned out to be considerably less enthusiastic. Jemma was waiting. She’d rushed, got there early, driven by excitement
and his early return, was jumping from sneaker to sneaker to catch first sight of him, but when he emerged through the throng she was appalled. He was hobbling, his body bent, his right arm in a
cast and sling. The skin on his forehead was scorched and raw while his right cheek had a revolting bruise that had spread to his eyes to a degree that even the sunglasses couldn’t hide. She
gave a yelp of dismay and rushed towards him, only to discover that getting up close was even less reassuring.
    ‘Damn you, Jones!’
    ‘Sorry, Jem. Didn’t want to upset you by telling you on the phone. Fell off my bike.’
    She swore once again, unsure whether she should try to hug him or break his neck. Despite his reassurances, there was no way she could be casual about it and during the next hour she discovered
that he was anything but relaxed either. It wasn’t just the pain that was still making him wince or the after-effects of the anaesthetic: he seemed distant, distracted, elsewhere. He told her
little except to say that he had met Susannah Ranelagh, pushed away all her other questions until she came to the conclusion he was avoiding her.
    ‘I don’t believe you, Harry,’ she said when at last she had settled him at home on the sofa.
    ‘Believe what?’
    ‘That you fell off your bike.’
    He didn’t dispute the point.
    ‘I deserve more than bullshit, Harry.’
    ‘Fair enough,’ he sighed in exhaustion, and sank back into the pillows.
    ‘And if you ever want to sleep in the same bed as me you’d better get on with it.’
    ‘Don’t think I can sleep with you, not with this.’ He stared at his plastered arm, which was resting on a pile of pillows, in an attempt to deflect her, but Jemma was having
none of it. She stared with a mixture of torment and fear that was so ferocious it could be rooted in nothing but love. It was why she was so blind with anger. He sighed and surrendered, and for
the next few minutes took her on a