The Keeper of Lost Things(54)

“Bugger!”

Laura made a silent apology to Anthony. She got up and went downstairs to fetch a dustpan and brush, and to check what she knew already to be absolutely, unarguably, indubitably true. The Al Bowlly record was still in its faded paper cover, in the middle of the table in the study. She had put it there herself only yesterday, sick of hearing the tune which now haunted her, quite literally, day and night. She had hoped, rather foolishly now, it seemed, that if she physically removed the record from the vicinity of the gramophone player, it would stop. But Therese didn’t have to play by those rules; physical rules. Her death had seemingly dispensed with such prosaic constraints, and she was free to make mischief in many more imaginative ways. And who or what else could it be? Anthony had been unfailingly kind to her while he was alive, so it was unlikely that he would take up such petty persecutions now he was dead. After all, Laura had done or was trying to do everything that he had asked of her. She picked up the record and looked at the smiling face of the man on the cover, with his slick black hair and his sultry dark eyes.

“You have no idea,” she told him, shaking her head. She put the record in a drawer and leaned back against it with all her weight as though to emphasize its closing. As if that would make any difference. She had told Freddy about the door to Therese’s room and asked him to see if he could get it open. He had tried the handle and declared the door to be locked, but then said that he didn’t think that they should do anything about it.

“She’ll unlock it when she’s ready,” he had said, as though he was talking about a naughty child being left to exhaust a tantrum. Both Freddy and Sunshine seemed to accept Therese with an equanimity that Laura found infuriating. The troublesome presence of someone who was definitely dead and scattered in the garden should surely cause some consternation? Particularly as she should, by now, and thanks to their efforts, be existing somewhere in a state of postnuptial—although admittedly postmortem—bliss. It was damned ungrateful. Laura smiled to herself ruefully. But who else could it be except Therese? Where reason fails, chimera flourishes. Just as she was finishing sweeping up the shards of broken glass, she heard Freddy and Carrot coming in from their walk.

Downstairs in the kitchen over tea and toast, she told Freddy about the music.

“Oh, that,” he said, feeding bits of buttered toast to Carrot. “I’ve heard it too, but I never take much notice. I never know whether it’s Sunshine or not.”

“I took the record away, but it made no difference, so now I’ve put it in a drawer in the study.”

“Why?” said Freddy, stirring sugar into his tea.

“Why did I take it away, or why did I put it in the drawer?”

“Both.”

“Because it’s driving me mad. I took it away so that she couldn’t play it anymore.”

“Who? Sunshine?”

“No.” Laura paused for a moment, reluctant to say it out loud. “Therese.”

“Ah. Our resident ghost. So, you took it away, which didn’t work, and you thought that shutting it away in a drawer might?”

“Not really. But it made me feel better. I keep wondering what else she might do. Why is she being such a bloody prima donna? She’s got Anthony now, so what’s the problem with me having the house? It’s what he wanted.”

Freddy sipped his tea, frowning as he mulled over her question.

“Remember what Sunshine said. She said that Therese wasn’t cross with you, she was cross with everyone. Her ire is indiscriminate. So it isn’t about the house. Did anything like this ever happen while Anthony was still alive?”

“Not as far as I know. There’s always been that scent of roses in the house, and a vague sense that Therese was still about, but I never saw or heard anything definite. And Anthony didn’t mention anything.”

“So it’s only since Anthony died that Madam’s started playing up?”

“Yes. But that’s what’s so wrong about it. I always assumed that she’d been waiting for him somewhere in the ether or wherever for all these years, practicing her fox-trot or painting her nails . . .”

Freddy wagged his finger at her, gently admonishing the catty tone that had crept into her voice.

“I know, I know. I’m being horrid.” Laura laughed at herself. “But honestly, what more does she want? She should be happy now she’s got him back. Instead she’s hanging around here misbehaving, like a disgruntled diva; deceased.”

Freddy put his hand over hers and squeezed it.

“I know it’s unsettling. She’s certainly a bit of a live wire.”

“Especially for someone who’s supposed to be dead,” interrupted Laura.

Freddy grinned. “I think you two might have got on rather well. From what Anthony told me about her, I reckon you’re more alike than you realize.”

“He talked to you about Therese?”

“Sometimes, yes. Especially toward the end.”

He drained his mug and refilled it from the teapot.

“But maybe we’re missing something here. We’re assuming that, just because Anthony’s dead and we scattered him in the same place where he scattered Therese, they must be together. But are the ashes really what matters? Aren’t they just ‘remains’; what’s left behind when the person is gone? Anthony and Therese are both dead, but maybe they’re not together, and that’s the problem. If you and I both went to London separately and didn’t arrange a place to meet, what would be the likelihood of us ever finding one another? And let’s face it, wherever it is that they’ve gone has to be a whole hell of a lot bigger than London, bearing in mind all the dead people who will have pitched up there since . . . well, since people started dying.”