The Love Letter (60 page)

He stepped forwards, crossing more dusty sunbeams, inching into her space.

The sea was so calm they could barely hear it, just distant sighs through the trees, the gulls cawing.

Legs regarded Byrne warily as he walked right up to her, halting just a couple of feet away, furnace eyes blazing.

‘Allegra.’

‘I’m a ghost,’ she croaked in panic, her broken voice sinister even to her own ears.

She felt very silly as his brows creased down crossly. But then he seemed to change his mind and decided to humour her for now, a spark of bravura in those dark eyes, like hot coals jumping out: ‘A ghost, you say?’

She nodded and he tilted his head the other way, more coals flaring as he regarded her face in detail. ‘I must say, you do look pretty ghostly.’

She flicked a nervous smile.

‘And real-life Allegra would never be this quiet.’

The smile flicked on and off again.

‘Jesus, this is weird.’ Byrne laughed huskily and raised a hand to his black forelock, pulling his fingers through it so that it stood up. ‘This week just keeps getting crazier. I half believe you are a ghost.’

Legs felt as though she was having old-fashioned palpitations; she was far too hyped up to speak. His hair had grown, she
realised. And he had a week’s beard. He looked dishevelled and absurdly sexy, like a hunk in a Davidoff advert going native.

Gazing at her intently again, he pursed his lips in thought. They curled like perfect scrolls. Legs found she couldn’t stop staring at his mouth.

‘Are you haunting anything in particular?’ he asked.

‘I haunt this tree.’ She sounded like an emphysemic old man, a death rattle in her chest.

‘It’s a good tree.’

‘Isn’t it?’ She tried to inject a little femininity into her voice, but it was still Tom Waits after a bender at best. She watched his lips pursing in thought.

He looked away, tapping the bark of the trunk beside him. ‘I take it this is you? AN?’

‘AN Other lifetime,’ she sighed hoarsely, then cast him a wise look. ‘How’s your friend Ann O’Nymity?’

‘Fading fast.’ He reached up a hand to one of the oak’s tuning fork branches, using it to keep balance as he leaned forwards so his face was inches from hers.

At last she lifted her gaze to his eyes which glittered between amusement and concern, head tilting the other way again, watching her so closely she was certain he was counting each fleck of grey in her eyes. Suddenly her insides were hollowed out and packed with incendiary devices.

‘You’re not a ghost, Heavenly Pony,’ he said, but there was just a thread of a question mark at the end of the statement, and she knew he still didn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

She could hardly blame him. She’d just appeared from nowhere in private woodland looking deranged. The outfit was gothic; the weight-loss was dramatic; the skin was marble pale and spotty; the hair was wild and must smell of decay if not ectoplasm.

She sucked her lips nervously, noticing that he was watching her mouth now. They were taking turns. Her belly squirmed. A match was being lowered to the explosives packed in her shrunken stomach.

‘Do you know how to tell a real ghost?’ she found herself asking in a voice that could have been mistaken for Darth Vader threatening Obi-Wan Kenobi with total annihilation. It certainly scared her because she had no idea what she was saying until it was out there, hanging in the woodland air between them like a dare.

‘How?’

‘You try to touch them. If they’re real, your hand goes right through.’

A smile touched his lips. ‘Is that a fact?’

She nodded emphatically. Being a ghost was incredibly empowering, she realised with relief. She felt as though she could say anything she liked. She tested the theory: ‘Kissing counts as touching.’

As soon as she said it, she felt faint with embarrassment and then, seeing the expression on his face, she felt equally faint with the desire to be kissed.

Now they were both looking at each other’s mouths.

He tipped closer, his lips almost touching hers and, just as she almost exploded with excitement at the thought that he was going to kiss her, he whispered in her ear, ‘Isn’t it easier to simply admit you’re real?’

‘But not nearly as much fun.’

‘Jesus,’ he laughed, still not moving away. ‘You’re the flirtiest woman I’ve ever met.’

‘Ghost. Flirtiest ghost,’ Legs corrected, still watching his mouth, aware of his warm breath on her skin. He was definitely going to kiss her and test the theory, she realised giddily. But she could feel a cough welling in her chest now. As Byrne’s lips touched hers, she fought her damndest stop the cough happening, only for it to crash open in her throat like a wave over a breakwater, hacking out with phlegmy heavy-smoker pensioner sound effects.

‘Jesus!’ Byrne was back on his heels in an instant.

Coughing even more violently, Legs watched in horror as two spools of snot flew from her nostrils like green party poppers.

‘Bother.’ She turned her head away, fishing in the tailcoat pockets, past raffle tickets, lighter and cash. There were no tissues there at all.

As she was about to unroll a wad of lire, Byrne held out a spotted handkerchief, the sort she imagined one knotted around sandwiches and tied to sticks when running away.

She blew her nose loudly.

Having plundered his pockets again, he now handed her a Fisherman’s Friend, which she sucked up gratefully. Over a week of intense analgesia, and all it took was a high grade lozenge, she realised as the hoarseness started melting away. She was amazed.

‘Any better?’ he asked.

‘Much, thanks,’ she nodded, her voice already softened from evil baddie to butch hero.

A dark cloud moved in overhead, suddenly wiping out the sunshine birdcage bars around them. It instantly broke the spell. There was nothing very normal about the situation, but it no longer felt paranormal.

‘Ghosts don’t need to suck throat tablets,’ Byrne said pragmatically.

‘Headless ones might.’ Embarrassed, she gazed down at her oversized boots. Then, realising she was giving him a face full of her filthy hair, she looked up again.

‘You look different,’ he studied her again, eyes intent with worry for a moment.

‘I’m trying out a new look.’

‘I liked the old one better.’ He lifted his hand to rake his hair and looked away to glare at AN and FP in the crudely carved heart. ‘What are you doing here, Allegra?’

She was tempted to blurt that she’d been held prisoner for a fortnight and had just escaped, but stopped herself. The ghost line had already over-stretched his credulity. And the truth was she could have left the hall at any time. Being ill had stopped her thinking straight.

Instead, she mumbled: ‘I came to see my mother, but she’s out.’

He gave her a look which made it clear that she might as well have said she was taking a basket of goodies to grandma and trying to avoid the big bad wolf.

‘Do you usually dress like this to see your mum?’

‘No, I usually accessorise with better shoes and a hat, preferably a fascinator.’

He was watching her face, and she felt self-conscious knowing he was taking in her pale face and sunken cheeks. The green dress did nothing for her complexion, she knew, and she must have become pretty gaunt. ‘You’ve been ill.’

‘Touch of girl flu,’ she joked to fill the long silence that followed. ‘Just dieting with a fever basically.’ Knowing she looked deathly, she ducked behind one of the tuning fork branches, reluctant to be examined in any more detail. Then she eyed him through the greenery, remembering Poppy mentioning that he was under canvas. ‘Are you living rough out here?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Researching a survival book?’

When he didn’t answer, she pulled a branch of thick leaves aside to peer at him. It was hard to marry eccentric Gordon whose neediness she had looked after for so long with practical, rugged Byrne doing his best Bear Grylls impersonation. He certainly looked very healthy and well.

‘So you’re feeling OK?’

‘Perfectly.’ He was leaning against the trunk of the Tree of Secrets now, looking up at its canopy as though seeking illumination. ‘Has Conrad sent you deep undercover to determine this?’

She let the branch swish back, almost taking her nose off. No!’

On the far side of the tree, he let out a long sigh. ‘Allegra, I don’t know what you’re really doing here, but it’s not safe to hang around long. Trust me. You can report back to Conrad that I am perfectly well. I won’t let him down. Now go home.’

She loomed over the tree’s tuning fork V and glared at him,
crunching up the last of her Fisherman’s Friend. ‘I am
not
spying on you for Conrad! I no longer work for him.’

He stared at her for a long time.

‘It’s over between us,’ she said shakily.

He nodded, face guarded.

The notebook was burning a hole in her pocket, her heart burning a hole in her chest. But there was something about his defensive expression that tied her tongue in knots. She wanted to scream I came back to find you! I am Julie Ocean! You’re Byrne and Gordon and Jimmy Jimee, and I would run here from London on my bare feet for all three of you.

He sucked his top teeth uneasily. ‘Go home. It’s not safe here.’

‘Why ever not?’

His eyes blazed more than ever. ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know. I’m not good for you, Allegra. You don’t want to come where I’m going next. You’re better off not knowing me.’

‘You sound just like Ptolemy Finch.’

‘Funny that.’ He held up his hands and turned away, suddenly listening like a hare hearing a lurcher coursing towards him. A puttering car engine juddered along the pot-holed track on the far side of the woods. From the open driver’s side window they could distinctly hear Jenni Murray talking about breastfeeding.

Legs let out a little cry of relief. It was her mother listening to Woman’s Hour as she returned to Spywood. She turned to Byrne urgently. Not pausing for thought, she came out with a blithering, urgent muddle in a breathless croak: ‘I know why you insisted that Farcombe has to be the place Gordon reveals his identity, I mean
your
identity, I mean you reveal yourself. No – that sounds wrong. Oh hell, Byrne. Nobody would blame you for wanting to get your own back on your mother, and I know you’ve just had a big argument so probably feel even more aggrieved, but I can’t let this happen without saying something. You’re so right that it’s not safe. The house is falling down, and Poppy’s in a terrible state. I heard there have been death threats. I can’t just stand back and watch you
or anyone else getting hurt. And I know that your father’s accident happened because of the race-fixing racket that was going on at the time, which was truly awful, but if you think Hector was behind it in some way, he really wasn’t I can prove it – here!’ She groped in her pocket for the little papery rectangle and thrust it at him.

He stared at the spilling roll of cash she’d pressed into his hand. ‘Italian lire?’

‘No! Not that! Hang on …’ She felt deeper in the pockets, scrabbling past the bassoon reeds and the lighter which clicked open as she fumbled. The next moment there was a hissing whoosh and her pocket combusted, mothballs igniting like little tinder petrol bombs. ‘Agh!’

Byrne had lightning reactions. Before she could even take in what was going on, he’d dragged off the tailcoat, thrown it to the ground and was stamping on it.

As soon as the little blaze was out, he took her hand very gently in his to examine it. Apart from a red thumb and a broken nail, it was unharmed. The coat, meanwhile, was a smouldering wreck, its pocket totally burned out.

Legs looked down at it, suddenly wanting to cry. ‘I found Hector’s betting system. He wrote it all down in a little book, but I’ve just torched it, so now you have no reason to believe me when I say he had nothing to do with race fixing. He had money on your father to win on a horse called Thelonious Monk.’

‘I know,’ he said tersely.

Before she could question this, he held his fingers up to his lips again. Jenni Murray was interviewing a breast-is-best advocate at close range now as the little car bounced over the woodland track potholes just beyond the brash. They listened as she shared an anecdote about maternity bra clips.

‘It’s just my mother coming back,’ Legs whispered to Byrne.

‘Is Hector with her?’

‘I have no idea.’ She eyed him nervously, wondering what he might do to Hector if he
was
there. Was that why he was here out
in the woods, about to spring his revenge? Was there a booby trap already set? She sucked her burned thumb, which was starting to throb quite badly now.

‘How did you get his notebook?’ Byrne was craning to catch a sight of the car.

‘It was taped under his desk.’

His eyebrows shot up, but he kept his gaze trained on the track. ‘Did you drive here?’

‘My keys are locked inside my car. It’s a long story. Nobody followed me, if that’s what you’re worried about. And I don’t drive a red car any more,’ she added brightly, eager to reassure him that she wasn’t bad karma.