‘Jeff!’ Adam replied. He was surprised at how calm he felt. ‘Welcome. Please don’t be afraid. You’ve had a heart attack, and now you’re over on the far side. Where we spirits hang out.’
‘Spirits!’ Jeff spluttered. He stared hard at Adam, then his eyes took in Leo as well. ‘I… I… I–’
‘You’ve died, yes,’ Adam interrupted. ‘The ambulance didn’t get to you in time. Sorry about that. To be honest, it was all so sudden I think you were beyond help. I might have been partly to blame, in that I visited you at home.’
Jeff swore. The memory of what had happened in his spare room was clearly coming back to him. ‘You accused me of killing you. Even – setting up your suicide.’
‘Did you, though?’ Adam asked. ‘It doesn’t matter now if you say yes. I won’t strangle you. I can’t strangle you. With these.’ He waved his spectral hands. ‘I just want to know.’
‘Of course I didn’t, mate.’ There was a silence. Jeff’s ghost was shaking his head, clearly still struggling to process what was going on, what had happened to him. ‘How would I have done all that?’ he continued eventually. ‘In your wife’s garage? In any case, why would I want to kill you?’
‘You wanted me out of the firm, so you’d be totally in charge, so you could put your name on the masthead and get on with pulling down the few remaining nice parts of London and making loads of money…’
‘Butcher’s Yard,’ Jeff muttered, under his breath. ‘We were supposed to be doing the public consultation… today.’
‘Yesterday,’ Adam corrected. ‘It’s Saturday now.’
‘Is it?’
‘You missed a day. Count yourself lucky. I was out for weeks.’
‘Out where?’
‘Good question.’
‘But what happened at the consultation? Did those Right to Remain buggers get anywhere?’ Jeff was reaching around frantically with his hands, clearly trying to find his phone.
Adam was laughing. ‘Jeff,’ he said. ‘Reality check. You don’t have a mobile anymore. You’re dead. It’s time to let all that earthly stuff go.’
‘But Butcher’s Yard – the Clerkenwell Tower – it’s a flagship project. Even if… I’m not able to be there…’
‘You’re actually dead, Jeff…’
‘It has to go ahead…’
‘As it happens, I was at the office yesterday morning.’
‘Albury & Atkinson?’
‘Albury, Atkinson, Trelawney,’ Adam corrected. ‘Keep up, mate. The delightful duo were also there. Savidge and Sugar.’
‘How could you be there? If you’re–’
‘Tim and Steve were obviously a bit disappointed that you weren’t around for the public consultation, but they headed off anyway.’
‘That’s a disaster. They have no idea how to manage those things. Particularly Tim. Shit!’
‘You’re right. I expect they screwed it up royally.’
‘Who went with them?’
‘Trevor.’
‘Trevor! He’s crap at interface stuff.’
‘Jeff, calm down. It’s time to accept what’s happened to you. Your life is over. Your involvement with your pet project is over. You may feel the same inside but–’
‘I do feel the same inside.’
Adam laughed. ‘So do I. It’s weird. But you need to start letting go. Of your life on earth. Ambitions. Projects. Your family. Move on. To this life. On the other side.’
Jeff stood stock-still. It seemed as if reality was finally sinking in.
‘You remember my son, Leo,’ Adam added.
‘Leo, shit, sorry, mate, I didn’t recognise you.’ As he so often was with unfamiliar people, Jeff was charm itself. ‘You had a car crash. I was very sorry to hear about–’
‘My loss,’ Leo cut in. ‘So was I. Though how or why it happened is still a bit of a mystery. The brakes on my new e-Golf seem to have failed.’
‘What d’you mean, “seem”? You think it was deliberate?’
Was Jeff protesting just a little too much?
‘I know it was deliberate,’ Leo said.
‘Okay.’ Jeff looked slowly round. ‘And your dad also seems to think he didn’t kill himself.’
‘There’s no think about it, Jeff,’ Adam said. ‘I know I didn’t kill myself.’
‘What are you saying, Jeff?’ Leo asked. ‘You thought that Dad was really a suicide?’
‘I’m afraid I did, yes.’
‘Did you have any thoughts about why?’
Jeff looked over towards Adam. Now his face was creased with sympathy. ‘I was shocked, to be honest. I didn’t understand it. Why it had happened, really. I knew things had been difficult for him at work. But this was taking things to a whole other level.’
Adam laughed scornfully. ‘You knew things had been difficult for me at work… I wonder why that was. So what did you think then? That I was so unhappy with what you were doing, trying to force me out of my own firm, that I’d taken the easy way out?’
‘Hang on, hang on,’ Jeff replied. ‘I think “forcing you out of your own firm” is a bit of an exaggeration.’ He was looking round to Leo for support, though why Adam’s son should take his side wasn’t at all clear. ‘You were in your late fifties. A lot of your expertise, with drawing boards and so on, was terrific, but way out of date. You had no idea about computer modelling. Some of your attitudes, also, were, how can I put this tactfully, not exactly in tune with today’s values–’
‘Fuck’s sake, Jeff!’ Adam cried. ‘My attitudes haven’t changed. My architectural philosophy hasn’t changed. I may not be such a whizz on computers, but let’s be frank, neither are you any more. That’s why we have younger colleagues. In any case, late fifties is hardly retirement age in our profession. Norman Foster is in his eighties and still cracking on. Richard Rogers was working, by all accounts, until his final illness. You know perfectly well I didn’t want to give up.’
‘No one was suggesting you stop completely–’
‘Just not continue to work for the firm that had my name on it, is that it?’
‘Guys!’ Leo cut in, holding up both hands. ‘Please. Let’s not get sidelined here. Mr Trelawney, why did you think my dad had taken his own life?’
‘Call me Jeff. We’re all friends here.’ Adam knew exactly what his unctuous partner was doing, playing for time as usual, while his weasel brain raced round trying to work out his best advantage. ‘No,’ he went on after a moment, ‘I did think your father had done it. But that maybe it had more to do with his personal life than any potential changes at the firm. His marriage, as I’m sure you know, was in trouble. He was having an inappropriate affair with a much younger colleague. I suppose I thought that his problems had all rather stacked up for him.’
‘Bullshit!’ Adam cut in. ‘There were no rules at our firm that I was aware of against seeing a colleague, even if they are a bit younger. Was that the next thing on your woke agenda? “Thou shalt not have relationships at work, even if completely consensual…”’
Jeff was shrugging and looking over at Leo. ‘See what I mean? “Your woke agenda”. How does fuddy-duddy claptrap like that play with our clients? Not to mention our younger staff and interns. That was just one of many instances.’
‘Whereas your totally bogus, right-on mantras, visibly transparent and insincere to anyone with half a brain, weren’t?’ Adam spat back.
‘Come on! Let’s just stick to the point,’ Leo cut in, glaring at his father. ‘You were seriously convinced, Jeff, that problems in Adam’s personal life had driven him to suicide?’
‘Among other things, yes. To be honest, I thought his consistently negative way of thinking was probably indicative of a deeper malaise, some unexpressed frustration with his life and how it had turned out…’
‘What utter cock!’ Adam cried. ‘You knew I was happy with Eva, work colleague or no. And she was happy with me. As for the rest of my life, Jesus, I’m not the one in therapy…’
‘Perhaps you should have been,’ Jeff snapped back. ‘Was she, though?’ he added.
‘Was… who… what?’
‘Was she that happy? Eva. Or was she just pretending?’
Adam stared at him. How offensive could you get? He imagined that Leo might be about to intervene again; but no, he seemed content to watch this one develop.
‘Pretending what, Jeff?’ Adam asked.
‘You’d have to ask her. If she was so into you, why’s she hooked up with Reuben after a mere seven weeks?’
That was a spiteful lie. And yet: ‘I did love you,’ she had said, this morning. Then: ‘I never gave a shit about the age gap.’ That, too, couched in terms of the past. But Reuben had been in the pub with her and there had been no obvious display of intimacy apart from the drunken goodbye kiss on the lips, which Simone had got too, and was in any case a bit of an Eva trademark. He had put her in a cab, for God’s sake! ‘I’m afraid that’s simply not true,’ Adam replied.
‘“I’m afraid” it is,’ Jeff countered. He made the quotes with his fingers in a way so annoying that Adam would have punched him if he’d been able.
‘I was with them both last night and I didn’t see any evidence of it,’ he said, trying hard to keep his cool.
‘They’ve still got to work together, so they’re keeping it below the radar for the time being.’
‘How do you know, then?’
‘I keep my ears to the ground.’
‘Not anymore,’ Adam mocked. Then: ‘Nice try, Jeff. But they didn’t even hold hands.’
‘Was anyone else with them?’
‘Simone.’
‘There you are. It’s still a secret.’
‘Even from Simone?’
‘Even from Simone.’
‘So how do you know?’
Jeff shrugged, smugly. ‘You don’t have to believe me, Adam. I’m just telling you how it is.’