Walking in Darkness (16 page)

The other speechwriter, Jeff, grinned. Allgood didn’t.

‘Don’t get clever, Greg,’ Allgood said. ‘Unless you’re tired of writing for us and want to go back to writing novels that don’t sell?’

‘I’ve got too used to eating,’ Greg Blake said mournfully. ‘Sad, isn’t it? And I don’t think I’m ready to go back to sleeping in the park, either.’

‘Zip it, then,’ Allgood said.

Greg Blake silently mimed pulling a zip across his mouth. Jeff, beside him, zipped, too, his eyes full of amusement.

‘You guys slay me,’ Allgood said with no amusement whatever.

Next door Elly Gowrie was eating rainbow jelly; sunshine from the window made it flash and glisten as she carefully spooned it into her mouth with the serious concentration of a four-year-old. She watched the shimmer of it and laughed.

‘Jelly,’ she said.

‘You love jelly, don’t you?’ her nurse said.

She was in one of her happy moods for the moment; she beamed. ‘Elly loves jelly,’ she said, and began to giggle. ‘Elly loves jelly, Elly loves jelly,’ she chanted, banging her spoon on the side of her bowl.

The nurse gave her a wary look, recognizing the symptoms of over-excitement which could turn into a violent rage any minute. She had had an emotional day; that always made her volatile.

She had cried earlier when her father visited her, clinging to him sobbing, ‘Daddy, Daddy . . . take me home, I want to go home, I don’t like it here, don’t leave me with them, take me home.’

The old man had been very upset. They had had to pull her away from him; she was surprisingly strong, her arms like tentacles winding round him.

‘Look, let me take her home with me. Why not let me take her home?’ Eddie Ramsey had said shakily, almost in tears himself, when she had been taken away.

Don Gowrie had soothed him down. ‘She’ll be fine, Eddie. She was just upset, seeing you again. She’ll enjoy the trip, she badly wants to see Cathy and I promised Cathy she would come with me. Cathy hasn’t seen her mother for months.’

Pale and distressed, Eddie Ramsey had said, ‘I know, I know, but she’s always happiest at Easton. She doesn’t look at all well to me. She has deteriorated since I last saw her.’

‘She’s sixty-five next birthday, Eddie! She’s always been delicate, you know that, but I look after her and I always will.’

They had stared at each other, then Eddie had sighed. ‘I’m too old to get into a fight with you, Don, but when you get back I want her to come and stay with me for a while.’

‘Sure, of course,’ Don had said, in quick relief, but knowing that he did not dare leave her behind or let her stay with her father once they got back to the States. He wouldn’t want Eddie Ramsey to realise his daughter was very close to the edge of sanity, if she wasn’t already way over it. Drugs and constant supervision kept her within limits, for the moment, but it was turning into a race between her last flicker of sanity and her father’s last flicker of life. Don hoped the old man would go first; it would be unbearable for him if his last living child had to be shut away for ever in a mental hospital, for one thing, and for another Don would be safe from any prospect of Eddie Ramsey changing his will.

Steve had to attend a budget meeting that afternoon, to listen to the latest gloomy prognostications of the head accountant on the perennial problem of advertising revenue versus costs, but managed to snatch a few minutes first to take a cab to the photography shop where they had blown up individual sections of Lilli’s wheel for him.

‘They’re very grainy, a bit scratchy, but you can see the faces a lot clearer, Steve,’ the guy said, watching him peering at the glossy sheets. ‘Is that OK? I can’t blow them up any bigger, they’d go completely out of focus if I tried.’

‘They’re fine,’ Steve said, shuffling them together. ‘How much do I owe you?’

He paid cash and left. In the cab taking him back to the network headquarters he had another look at the blown-up copies; the faces were certainly clearer, yet even more mysterious and alien now that they were three or four times as large. Looking at them more closely, he wasn’t even sure why he had had them blown up, what he had thought he might get out of them. There was nothing terribly interesting here.

They were poignant and rather pathetic, these faces – the old man in some sort of crumpled uniform, his hair oiled down, parted in the middle, a bushy moustache above his lip, a rifle propped against his shoulder – he must have lived around the turn of the century. But when had they lived, this young couple on their wedding-day? The bride looking as if she was barely out of childhood, a little girl dressing up, thick dark hair piled up behind her head, looking plump and yet childish in an old-fashioned wedding dress which might have been her mother’s, it was so shapeless and yellowed, carrying a bouquet of lilies and smiling solemnly at the camera, her groom a mere boy, taller than her by a foot, dark, very thin, looking slightly dazed, in a suit which fitted him so badly it must surely have been borrowed or hired? Were these Sophie’s parents – or her grandparents? He couldn’t guess from the clothes.

The one face he was certain about was that of Sophie’s dead sister. He briefly looked at it, oddly moved by the thought that this lovely child was dead. Well, from the age of these photos, many of these people must be dead or very old by now – yet somehow that was not as heart-wrenching.

They had lived out their span, these old people, but the baby had died before it had had a chance to live. Steve felt his throat move roughly and pushed all the photos back into the envelope.

Well, that hadn’t told him anything. He had wasted his money. Or had he? Hadn’t all those faces told him something about Sophie? These were her people. Part of them lived on in her. Discovering something about them was to find out more about her.

Suddenly remembering that she had not yet talked to Vladimir, Sophie rang him in Prague, got his answerphone and left a message telling him where she was staying and that she would be flying back to London next day.

‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to pay,’ she added, explaining that her trip was being paid for by the TV network. ‘I’m officially going as a researcher and I’ll be working for their team while I’m there, but I’ll still file you stories about the political angle of the Gowrie visit.’

After she’d hung up she rang Theo’s flat and got Lilli.

‘Are you OK?’ she was asked anxiously. ‘Where are you?’

‘At Steve Colbourne’s hotel –’

‘I hope he got you a room of your own! If he makes a pass, flatten him.’

‘So far he’s been a perfect gentleman. He brought me here this morning and I haven’t even seen him since,’ Sophie said, not adding that she had several times wished he had not left her alone like that. She needed to talk to someone.

‘He’s lulling you into a false sense of security, that’s all!’ Lilli said darkly.

Sophie laughed. ‘Oh, come on, Lilli, all men aren’t like that! I think he has more class than to make a cheap pass. And I thought you liked him!’

‘What made you think that?’

‘He did. The way he tells it you trust him completely – or why did you give him my suitcase and let him pick me up at the hospital?’

Lilli laughed. ‘Well, OK, sure, I let him collect you from the hospital. He convinced me it was the safest idea, that nobody would try anything with him beside you. That’s just the trouble. The guy is plausible. He can talk a good story.’

Sophie grimaced. ‘Can’t he just? Well, don’t worry about me, Lilli, I’ll be fine. I shall be off to London tomorrow. I’ve rung Vladimir and left a message on his answerphone. Could you do me a favour? Ask Theo to cover for me while I’m away? I’ll be filing from Europe, but if anything interesting comes up here meanwhile, could he send Vlad something on it?’

‘Sure. He’s out shopping right now. Do you want him to ring you at the hotel?’

‘If he has time, thanks, Lilli.’

‘What’s it like, the hotel? As luxurious as it looks from the outside? I’ve never been able to afford to go inside.’

‘It’s a palace,’ Sophie told her, then started sharply as someone knocked on her door. ‘Sorry . . . somebody just arrived, I’ll have to go.’

‘Be careful!’ Lilli said, immediately anxious.

‘Yes, I will, don’t worry. I can see who’s outside through a spyhole. I won’t open the door if I have any doubts. Bye, Lilli.’

She hung up and went to the door, peered through the spyhole first. Her whole body jerked in shock as she recognized Don Gowrie standing outside.

He was alone; that astonished her just as much as the fact that he had come. Don Gowrie rarely made a move without being surrounded by people, but there was no sign of anyone else in the corridor. Sophie hesitated about letting him in – what if he tried to kill her again? But he wouldn’t dare. It would be too much of a risk.

She took off the chain, her hands trembling a little, and opened the door. For a few seconds he didn’t move or look at her; he looked past her into the room, his eyes flicking round it, checking that she was alone.

That made her smile. So he was nervous too! ‘Don’t worry, Mr Gowrie. There’s nobody else here!’

He walked inside, their bodies almost brushing, her nostrils picking up his scent; a mix of whisky and some sort of aftershave. Had he taken a couple of drinks before he came, to get up his courage? That made him seem more vulnerable and more human, and reassured her a little. Sophie closed the door and plunged straight in to the words she had been rehearsing to say to him ever since she left Prague all those weeks ago.

‘I want to see my sister, Mr Gowrie.’

‘Sssh!’ he muttered, and walked quickly across the room to the bathroom, glanced in there, then turned and pulled something out of his pocket, holding it up in one hand at waist level.

Sophie’s heart stopped. A gun!

‘No! Please . . . don’t . . .’ she cried in a voice that didn’t seem to come from her, shrinking back against the door.

A long thin aerial, like a witch’s finger, slid out of the black metal object, and Don Gowrie slowly swung round, pointing into each corner of both bedroom and bathroom. A low humming sound began and Sophie’s heart beat slowed.

It wasn’t a gun; it was some sort of electronic gadget. ‘What . . . what are you doing?’

‘Checking the place isn’t bugged.’

‘Bugged?’ That idea had never occurred to her until that second. Her stomach clenched in sickness. What sort of world had she got herself into? Back home, as she was growing up, everyone knew they were living in an atmosphere of secrecy, spying, betrayal, but she hadn’t expected to find the same fog poisoning American air.

‘Colbourne is up to every trick in the book. I wouldn’t put it past him to have this room bugged. This may look like a little toy but it’s guaranteed to pick up the most sophisticated bug.’ Sliding the gadget back into his jacket pocket, he coolly ordered, ‘Close the curtains, will you?’

She stiffened. ‘What?’ Her skin went cold.

‘Don’t get ideas. I’ve no intention of harming you. It’s another security measure. There could be someone in the building opposite with a camera with a telephoto lens trained on that window. They have equipment now which can pick up everything from half a mile away.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Wonderful world we live in, isn’t it?’ he added, oddly echoing her own thought a moment earlier.

‘I’m beginning to think I hate it,’ Sophie said soberly as she walked over to the window to pull the cord that drew the curtains together. The room behind her fell into shadow. She went back to the door and switched on the central light, feeling weird to be doing that in the middle of the day.

Don Gowrie sat down in the one armchair, beside the little table on which you could eat a meal sent up by Room Service. ‘I’ve only got five minutes free. We must talk quickly.’

‘I want to see my sister.’ She hoped she sounded calm; in fact she was still very nervous because of what she knew about this man. He had a lot to lose and was totally without scruple. Sophie knew she would have to watch him like a hawk.

Crossing one leg over the other, he contemplated the polished black cap of a swinging shoe. ‘Your mother is still in the Czech Republic. I checked.’

That was when Sophie felt a flicker of alarm for her mother. Why had he checked on her? Her mouth went dry.

‘If you hurt my mother, I’ll kill you myself!’

‘Don’t threaten me. Your mother and I had a deal. Part of the deal was that she swore never to tell a living soul. She had no right to tell you, especially now, after all these years.’

‘You have a nerve! How dare you talk about her that way? You took advantage of her! You knew she was almost out of her mind over my father’s death that day, that she was ill and worried, and didn’t know what she was doing. She would never have let you steal her baby if she hadn’t been so upset.’

His face turned dark red. ‘I didn’t steal Cathy!’

Sophie bristled, hating to hear him use that name. ‘Don’t call her that. Her name’s Anya.’

‘She’s Cathy to me! And I did not steal her. Your mother has obviously forgotten how she felt back then. It’s a long time ago. But she was desperate – the Russians had just invaded, your father had been killed, your mother was expecting any minute, she had no money, she was terrified, didn’t know what to do. She begged me for help.’

‘And you saw your opportunity! Your own child had died, you needed a child to take her place, so you talked my mother into letting you take Anya. She’s never forgiven herself for being so weak.’

Sophie remembered her mother’s face as she confessed that Anya was not dead, was alive and living in America. Mamma had blamed herself, but Sophie didn’t, she blamed Don Gowrie. The sister she had mourned as dead all these years, had loved without ever knowing, who had been her comfort when she was lonely, her one real friend all her life was not dead after all. It had been like hearing the grave open.

Sophie hadn’t been able to take it in at first. If she had had a sister during her childhood everything would have been so different. She would not have been so lonely, she wouldn’t have felt left out of the family circle of her mother and stepfather and their boys. She would have had her sister for support. How many times as a child had she wished that Anya had not died? Having her wish come true after all those years, in such a strange way, had left her dazed.