A Ghost at the Door by Michael Dobbs Read Free Book Online Page A

other benefits.
    Top end of the usual scale meant the best part of a hundred thou. He read on: ‘I am anxious to move forward quickly on this matter, and must ask for an early indication of your interest .
. .’
    Harry fell back into the soft cushions, clutching the letter. He stared into space, into his past, into what this might mean for his future. The plight of many former MPs is extreme: they wake
up one cold, colourless morning to a world in which they have neither place nor profession. Sure, the system provides a comfort blanket in the form of a winding-up allowance and a limited pension,
but it’s rather like a guy’s manhood after he’s spent the night in a cold ditch: it’s never quite what it once seemed. How do you compensate for the loss of self-confidence
and the sense of humiliation that can gnaw away like a cancer? Some discarded politicians find it all unbearable. Harry knew of broken marriages, of former colleagues who were drowning in a sea of
alcohol or drugs or depression, one colleague who’d been driven to suicide, parked his car in the middle of his former constituency with a bottle of whisky in one hand, a hosepipe from his
exhaust in the other and a pathetic note on the dashboard that simply said ‘Sorry. Forgive’. Not much of an epitaph to cover twenty-eight years. Yesterday’s man.
    My direct line and mobile numbers are at the top of this page. Since this is a matter of considerable urgency to us, please feel free to contact me at any time to
     discuss.
    There are turning points in lives when a switch is thrown, the tracks changed, a new direction found. This could be one of them. A chance to crush the doubts. Get things back together. Give
Jemma what she deserved.
    The front door slammed and she was standing in the doorway, a bag of groceries in her hand, staring at him collapsed into the sofa. ‘You look as if someone’s just given you a damned
good shagging. I hope you’re not cheating on me already, Jones.’
    In feeble response he waved the letter at her. She dropped the shopping and sat down beside him. He could feel her excitement rising as she read.
    ‘Who are these people?’ she asked.
    ‘Good question. I’m not entirely sure.’
    ‘The address looks like one of those holding companies in Mayfair, all front and not much furniture. Just round the corner from your old place.’
    ‘Has links with the aircraft and defence industries, I think.’
    ‘We’ll have to find out.’ And already she was interrogating her laptop. Typical. She was a research queen. Perhaps it was because of the endless questions she was asked by the
children in the primary school where she taught that she was always driven to unearth the answers; she was relentless.
    As Jemma tapped away at the keyboard, throwing out frequent exclamations of surprise along with nuggets of information, Harry remembered the other letter. It had almost got lost down the side of
a cushion and peered at him like a cat in the dark. He retrieved it, inserted the spoon handle once more and struck. The flimsy envelope burst apart, tipping its contents into his lap.
    It was a handwritten letter from Euripides Smith. ‘Sorry if I seemed a bit off-colour,’ he apologized,
    but I don’t get many visitors nowadays. Truth is, I got shafted by the FCO, don’t care to be reminded of those days, but that wasn’t your fault and I
     shouldn’t have taken it out on you and your lovely friend. Anyway, after you left I thought more about the incident of your father and went into the loft to look through my old papers.
     Eventually I found a couple of boxes from my time as consul. Not much, I’m afraid, nothing that I haven’t already told you, but I did discover this photograph. One of my hobbies at
     the time. I see I scribbled some details on the back. I enclose it, in case it helps.
    For a moment Harry almost panicked – he couldn’t find the photograph; he scrabbled around and found it lurking even further down the