Ranald was feeling far less woozy on his medication. His previous experience told him that the first few weeks might be difficult, and he was relieved that he was at last approaching something close to normality.
Sure, his emotions were being held at a distance by the drugs, and his libido had returned to a somnolent state, but at least he could process thought. Which helped when considering everything he’d learned and experienced recently, and the new details that Alexander’s letters had just dumped on him.
Foremost in his mind was that she was real and her name was Jennie. He wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t a cocktail of drugs that was causing vivid dreams and experiences. Jennie was there and she was a ghost.
The house was haunted. It was a thrilling and terrifying thought.
But ultimately he’d found her presence a positive one. He enjoyed the dreams, the sex felt real, and reading to her in the lift was completely absorbing.
Another question occurred to him: was he sure he hadn’t simply been experiencing a delusion – another symptom of his illness on top of everything else? How could he possibly rationalise the irrational otherwise?
It was like having two minds in one head. He stood up. Do something. Go somewhere. Talk to a real human being.
Only then did it occur to him – with a crush of guilt – that besides Jennie, he and Alexander held something else in common: both of their actions had resulted in the death of an innocent woman.
The Hacketts’ cottage was at the far end of the property. It was built of red sandstone, had a red door and was set over two floors. As Ranald approached he thought what a shame it was that, under Marcus’s plans, it would be destroyed. It was picture-box pretty, with a planter by the door filled with red and yellow blooms and window boxes on the lower-ground windows holding the same.
The door held a shiny, brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. Worried that he was about to spoil it with his dirty fingers, he wiped his hand on his jeans before lifting it.
The door was answered almost instantly.
‘Danny,’ Ranald said in greeting, and took in the dark-brown cords and red-and-blue checked shirt. This was the first time Ranald had seen Danny wearing anything other than his working dungarees.
‘Mr McGhie,’ Danny replied, his eyes barely lighting on Ranald’s face.
‘Mind if I come in?’
Without a word, Danny stood back and allowed Ranald entry. The hall was a small, bright space, with a staircase and four doors leading off it. The walls were half covered in wood panelling, which should have made the space feel smaller, but it was painted in a light tan. One door was open; Danny pointed towards it.
‘If you…’ he said. ‘I’ll have to…’
‘I need to speak to you, Danny,’ Ranald said, aware from Danny’s stance that he was about to leave. Ranald took a step closer and lowered his voice. ‘I need to talk to you about that…’
Ranald heard footsteps behind him.
‘Ranald,’ said Mrs Hackett. ‘Can we offer you a wee cuppa?’ She was also almost unrecognisable in her ordinary clothes. She was wearing a light-blue twin-set and a matching knee-length skirt. For the first time Ranald really thought of her as an individual, not just a woman who worked for him. He shook his head at how easily his mind had become closed.
‘Tea would be lovely,’ he answered.
Mrs Hackett ushered him into a small kitchen, with dark wood cupboards and a small pine table with three seats in the far corner.
‘Have a seat. The kettle is just off the boil.’ She smiled and set about making the tea. Before long he was taking a careful sip.
‘It’s not like you to come up here,’ Mrs Hackett said, as she sat down beside him.
‘Where’s Danny gone?’ Ranald asked, looking through the kitchen door into the hall.
‘He was just off on some errands,’ she explained and made a face. ‘At least that’s what he tells me. You men need your time off on your own, don’t you?’
Now that Danny had left, Ranald didn’t know what to say. On the way over from the big house he’d thought about Alexander’s letters: the story about his love affair with Jennie; going off to war and coming back to find out his love was dead. How he’d then devoted his life to protecting her spirit and keeping her company.
And how he wanted Ranald to do the same.
Ranald couldn’t deny that he relished the job. Jennie fended off his loneliness. But surely she was stopping him from forming a relationship with a real, flesh-and-blood woman. Was Jennie worth that sacrifice?
He took a sip of his tea, fighting for time. Now that he was here, could he ask Mrs Hackett about Jennie? Could he broach that subject and expect a sensible response?
‘This is lovely,’ he said, finding safe ground in the banal. He was struck by how this place felt like a home – such a contrast to all of that space and grandeur just beyond the trees.
‘My family has lived here for a long time, Ranald.’
The way she said it made Ranald start. He looked into her eyes. Was that a challenge of some sort? Something shifted in her expression and the congenial servant was back.
‘Yes,’ said Ranald, thinking he would park that and come back to it later. ‘Mrs Winters was your mother, I believe?’
Mrs Hackett sat back in her chair, taken by surprise. ‘You know about my mother?’
‘My uncle left some diaries and notebooks around the house. I found her name in them.’ He paused. ‘He mentioned you, too. He said you were great comfort to him in his later years.’
‘Why, thank you, Ranald,’ she said, placing her hand over her heart. ‘You don’t know how lovely it is to hear that.’
‘I’d really like to talk to Danny,’ Ranald said. ‘When will he be back?’ And he silently added, Is he avoiding me?
‘No idea, Ranald. He goes off on his wee trips and I see him whenever I see him.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘My husband is his own man. He likes his own space now and again. I’ve learned not to ask where he goes.’
Ranald couldn’t disguise a look of surprise.
‘Oh, he’s not doing anything dodgy,’ she went on. ‘I know that. And he always comes back in time for his tea, so where’s the harm?’
Where’s the harm? He could be off hiding more dead bodies for all she knew, Ranald thought.
‘That afternoon,’ he began. ‘What happened? How come Marcus and Danny were there?’
‘Now, now, son,’ Mrs Hackett said, reaching across the table. She placed her hand over his. ‘Now, let’s not upset ourselves. What’s done is done.’ She pursed her lips. ‘And everything is sorted.’
Something wasn’t quite right here.
‘How can you be like that? Someone – a woman – died in my pool and you’re saying, what’s done is done?’ He stood up. ‘Why aren’t you terrified of me? It could well have been me. I could have killed that poor woman.’
She looked up at him as if he was nothing more than a recalcitrant child.
‘Ranald, if there’s one thing I know it’s people. And you are not a killer.’ She looked at his chair pointedly; it was a look that said, Please, sit back down. He did.
‘Besides. It’s all taken care of. Marcus Fitzpatrick is one of the finest lawyers in the country; if this is an outcome he is happy with, then I’m happy with it, too.’
‘Your loyalty to the family goes that deeply?’ Ranald asked, wondering as he said it what she knew about William’s relationship with his mother. If she suspected even a little about that, surely it would stretch her loyalty very thin?
‘Why, yes,’ she answered, as if he was insane to think anything else.
‘I don’t understand how you can be like that. Don’t you know they take your existence for granted? Don’t you know they plan to demolish your house?’
‘Yes, well.’ She crossed her arms, her look accusatory. ‘That part of the plan has been shelved. Marcus has come up with something else. Something more suitable for all parties concerned.’
Ranald thought of the plans back on his desk. They’d been changed? Why hadn’t Marcus informed him? This was all very strange. He felt that he was missing something vital and for the life of him he couldn’t think what it might be.
‘Marcus said something that troubled me…’ He scratched at this side of his head as he considered the best way to get the information out of her. ‘About my mother and his father, William.’
‘Really? What?’ Mrs Hackett looked mystified.
Ranald studied her. He would have been surprised if anything got past her nowadays, but she had only been a young woman back then. Had she missed what was going purely through naivety?
‘Something…’ He could barely bring himself to say it. ‘Something untoward.’
She snorted and crossed her arms. ‘Why on earth would Marcus say something like that? Surely you misheard him.’
‘I heard him very clearly, Mrs Hackett.’
She looked at him as if assessing his state of mind, and he knew she was wondering if he’d only imagined Marcus saying that while he was ill. ‘Your mother and William argued a lot, like siblings often do, but I remember nothing untoward.’ She reared back in her chair as if to get away from such a strange topic and took a quick sip of her tea.
‘What else has the old fella been saying in his notebooks?’ Mrs Hackett asked, as if it was her turn to move the subject onto less contentious issues.
‘He told me about Jennie.’
‘Ah,’ she said after a long pause.
‘You don’t seem surprised.’
‘She was a big part of his life, Ranald. Even though she was only in it for a short time.’ Her face pinked a little as a thought moved across the screen of her eyes.
‘Have you met her, too?’ he asked.
‘Met her?’ she asked. Then, as if realising he was speaking in the present tense. ‘Met her? Good Lord, no. Your uncle was a sick man, Ranald. He imagined all sorts. If you read any more of those notebooks, please ignore them. Alexander punished himself for many, many years. Retreated from life for an absurd ideal.’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry. It’s not my place to talk about these things, but I would hate to see you influenced by your uncle’s words.’
‘What do you know about her?’ Ranald asked.
‘Please don’t ask me this, Ranald.’
‘Did Uncle Alex fall asleep in the lift as well?’
She said nothing, placing her hand over her mouth as if to keep it shut. But almost involuntarily, she gave a tiny nod. Her eyes widened, as if that small action was a huge betrayal of a confidence.
‘Isn’t it strange that I’m doing the same things as him? I look like him. I dress like him. Doesn’t this all strike you as very, very odd?’
‘Ranald, please.’
‘These letters.’ He looked up from studying the back of his hands and stared into her eyes. ‘He told me everything about Jennie. About how he wanted to marry her. How his parents refused. And how your mother accused her of eating her own baby. How messed up is that, for God’s sake?’
Mrs Hackett studied the surface of the table.
‘What the hell is going on?’ he asked.
She opened her mouth. Closed it again as if she was afraid of the words that might spill out.
Finally, she raised her eyes and studied his. It looked as if she couldn’t make up her mind whether she wanted to hug him or harm him.
She stood up. ‘Time you were away home, Mr McGhie. While you still have the place, eh?’
‘What about the mirror?’ he asked.
She paled. Her eyes large.
‘Tell me about the mirror.’
She shook her head turning away.
‘Please, Mrs H, I need to know.’
‘I told him to get rid of it, all right?’ Her voice was suddenly raised. ‘I told him. But he refused. Told me I was imagining things.’ She tutted. ‘Me, imagining things? Every now and then I’d go in the lift and give everything a dust, you know?’ She shivered. ‘Gave me the creeps. I used to hear whispers coming from it. From the mirror. Thought I was going nuts.’ She took a curious double breath as if one had got stuck in her throat. ‘One weekend, when Mr Fitzpatrick was away on business I moved it, as a kind of trial. Carried it out to the garage.’ Her eyes grew large. ‘I couldn’t believe it. I was sure Danny was playing pranks on me, but when I asked him, he looked at me like I was a crazy woman.’ She paused, her hand held over her heart as if to slow its rapid beat.
‘Next morning the mirror was back in the lift.’