Read Online Forest Ghost by Graham Masterton - Free Book Online Page A

windows were covered with ivory lace drapes, although he could see a red-and-green table lamp alight in the second-floor window, and he guessed that was Mrs Koczerska’s living room.
    At last, when the rain showed no signs of relenting, he climbed out of his car and hurried up the concrete pathway to Mrs Koczerska’s front porch. He pressed the bell marked Apt #2 and waited. Eventually, Mrs Koczerska’s voice said, ‘Mr Wallace? Is that you?’
    ‘It’s me all right.’
    She pressed the buzzer and he stepped into a gloomy, marble-floored hallway that smelled of disinfectant and burned cheese. On the left-hand side stood a tall mahogany coat and umbrella stand with a small dark mirror in it. He saw his own face in the mirror as he passed it, and he thought he looked like a sepia photograph of somebody from the 1930s.
    ‘Up here, Mr Wallace!’ called Mrs Koczerska, leaning over the banister at the top of the stairs. ‘Is it still raining? I wanted to hang out my sheets!’
    ‘Yes, still raining, and I don’t think it’s going to be stopping any time soon.’
    Jack reached the landing and Mrs Koczerska held out her hands to him, as if he were an old friend she hadn’t seen in years. He gave her three pecks on the cheek, and said, ‘Pleasure to meet you.’
    His manager Tomasz had been right. Once upon a time Mrs Koczerska must have been very pretty. He would have guessed her age around mid- to late-seventies, with steel-gray hair cut into a sharp five-point bob. She had high cheekbones, with a short, straight nose, and a clearly defined chin. She was very small, not much more than five feet two, and her shoulders stooped slightly, but she was immaculately dressed in a long gray cardigan and a white blouse and a pleated gray skirt. Around her neck she wore a triple-stranded necklace of Polish amber beads.
    Jack recognized her perfume at once: the distinctive jasmine and orange-blossom fragrance of Chanel No. 5.
    ‘Come in,’ she said, and Jack followed her into her apartment.
    In many ways, it reminded him of his own apartment. The four armchairs and the couch were heavy and old-fashioned, with lion’s-claw feet, like those he had inherited from his grandparents. The drapes on either side of the window were thick brown velvet, with braided silk cords and tassels to tie them back. The side tables were covered with brown velveteen tablecloths, which themselves were covered with elaborate lace overlays. And on every wall, there was a collection of faded photographs of long-dead relatives, some in their wedding finery, some standing in groups in front of houses that had been probably been bombed, in gardens which must have gone to seed decades ago.
    ‘Please, sit down,’ said Mrs Koczerska. ‘And you must call me Maria, because our families knew each other very well, back in Poland before the war. For all I know, you and I could be related!’
    ‘I can’t say I ever heard my grandparents mention any Raczkowskis,’ said Jack, sitting down beside the window.
    ‘My family name is Kusoci ń ski. Originally from Lublin.’
    Jack said, ‘No. They never mentioned any Kusoci ń kis, either. But then they never liked to talk about the old days very much. It used to get my grandma too upset. She would start to cry and you could never get her to stop.’
    Maria went through to the kitchenette and came back with a plate of
pierniki
gingerbread cookies covered with dark bitter chocolate.
    ‘I can get you coffee, maybe?’ she asked him. ‘Is it too early in the day for vodka?’
    ‘I’m good, thanks,’ Jack told her. ‘I spent over an hour this morning tasting rum babas.’
    ‘Ah, yes,’ said Maria. ‘I have never tried your restaurant but I have heard good things about it. My neighbors have eaten there.’
    ‘Well, you’re welcome to come try it, any time, my treat. Just give me a call and I’ll reserve you a table.’
    Maria turned to the side table beside her and picked up a black metal box. It was scratched