The Hollow Heart (The Heartfelt Series)

by Adrienne Vaughan

  Paul and Marianne smiled graciously at the crowds as they stepped from the limousine onto the crimson strip of runway stretched before them. She dug her fingernails into his hand, as various stage whispers of, “Who’s that?” “What are they in?” flew about them. Flashbulbs popped, as they sashayed onwards, just fast enough to keep onlookers and photographers guessing, before Paul broke into an undignified canter, waving his arms madly.

  “Hey sis, look it’s me, we’re here!” he called out.

  Marianne, now stranded on the carpet, maintained her regal swish until she reached the little group and, then joining in the laughter, shared embraces and kisses all round.

  Marianne liked Paul’s older sister, Zara, she was warm and friendly, if a little protective of her idealistic younger brother. When they first met, Zara often hinted, despite the age difference, and the fact that Marianne was technically Paul’s boss, that she hoped their relationship would develop beyond friendship. When Marianne became engaged to George, Zara graciously put that ambition aside and had telephoned Marianne personally to congratulate her. She had also been genuinely upset when George died. In fact the last time Marianne had seen Zara, was at George’s funeral, although she could barely remember if they had spoken.

  Zara wrapped her arms around her.

  “You look fabulous, you look amazing. How are you, really?” She took Marianne’s hands and looked into her eyes.

  “I’m alright,” Marianne held her gaze, “honestly, I’m doing okay.” Zara beamed. She could not deny she was again hopeful, that once a certain amount of time had passed, Paul and Marianne might become an item. They seemed so good together.

  But to Marianne, Paul was, well, just Paul. The young, cub reporter, she laughed and joked with. The typical younger brother she never had, who still got smashed, went on disastrous dates and seemed to maintain a wide-eyed wonder on the world, no matter how hideous the assignments Jack Buchannon managed to fling at him. She was his mentor. He was part of her job. It would never even cross her mind that he might be someone she would have a proper, grown up relationship with, and anyway, Marianne knew her last chance of ‘happy ever after’ had died with George. She had her career, she had Monty, she had a lot to be grateful for.

  Unlike the effervescent Osborne siblings, Mike was a quiet, thoughtful soul; the type Marianne considered saw everything and commented on very little. On the occasions they had met, Marianne felt a connection through their shared Irishness and they would gently tease each other for becoming ‘Englified’, a word she recalled her Head Nun used for anything she found too Anglican for her taste.

  Mike hugged Marianne in welcome. As he released her, she caught her heel, losing her balance, to topple backwards into the arms of the man standing behind her. It was Mike’s father, the surprisingly youthful American TV star. He grasped her elbow swiftly and propped her back on her heels. She caught his scent, a delicious blend of wood and amber. It was Zara who took her arm, turning her fully to face him.

  “Marianne, this is Ryan…” Marianne beamed upwards. Flinty eyes glinted down at her. He was tall, tanned and smiling. Marianne caught her breath, only just managing to prevent herself wobbling off her heels again. The fabulous creature beside him was equally statuesque. Marianne’s gaze swept upwards. The couple were stunning, luminous and just beautiful.

  “The pleasure is mine.” He smiled, eyes crinkling. “But I think we should have met before. I was scheduled to present the National Media Awards and couldn’t make it. I’m sorry I let you down and I’m sorry I didn’t show, because I heard it was a great night.”

  Marianne was taken aback. She looked across at Paul, delighted but surprised he had briefed her fellow guests so thoroughly. Paul was oblivious, totally awestruck as a gaggle of soap stars hoved into view.

  “It was indeed a great night.” Marianne smiled, glancing at Mike. “You two look more like brothers. I can’t believe you’re Mike’s father.”

  “I was a child bride.” Ryan laughed and then turned to introduce the goddess at his side. “Angelique, this is Marianne Coltrane.”

  “Delighted, you’re a journalist; award-winning too I’m told,” the actress said in a sultry, Texan drawl. Marianne beamed back at them both, all apprehension dispersed, she was looking forward to a truly memorable evening. They took their seats in the middle of the auditorium, right in front of the stage.

  Marianne checked the place names, Paul to her left and Ryan on her right. Ryan held out her chair, doing the same for Angelique. He took his seat when the ladies were settled. He poured wine and water, handing her a menu, passing her the order of events. He was attentive, he was easy. Marianne felt her heart miss a beat, for half a millisecond, he reminded her of…

  “George said you were a very special lady and he wasn’t wrong. Brains and beauty.” Ryan was reading the list of nominations. He raised his glass, “Here’s to him, God bless him, a great bloke.”

  Marianne left her glass untouched.

  “You knew George?”

  Ryan was immediately apologetic; he had taken her by surprise.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you knew. George and I go way back. We were in a band together in the early days, just after he left University and I landed here from Ireland. We both thought we’d be rock stars one day, as you do.”

  “No, he never said. Well if he did, I didn’t register. You seem an unlikely alliance.” She smiled and so did he.

  “Not at all, he was the suave English gent and I was the wild Irish rogue, a fatal combination when it came to pulling girls back in the day, I can tell you.”

  She burst out laughing. She could just imagine them, so different, so charming, so incorrigible.

  “What happened to the band?”

  “Oh, a huge success, did you never hear of us? Gave some of the big names a few sleepless nights I reckon.” He was teasing, his State-side twang becoming less obvious as he talked. “We did a sell-out tour of two village halls in South Devon, then fell out with our manager when the drummer was recalled to London to join the family firm, taking most of the equipment with him. George and I bummed around for the summer until we ran out of money and had to find a proper job.” He grinned at the memory. “With me working in the States I hadn’t seen him for ages, so when I found out he was an MP and in Chesterford, which is where my son and his wife live, it made sense to visit and do a gig while I was there. Sadly I couldn’t make the Awards Ceremony in the end and asked him to stand in for me. I hope George was a good enough substitute?”

  “Oh, he was! It was how we met really, but I wasn’t aware of the connection.” Marianne gulped back a huge slurp of wine.

  “I did make it to the funeral, there were so many people there, people I hadn’t seen for years,” He looked into her eyes, the flintiness softened. “You were very brave that day. I’m sure you and George were great together.”

  “Thank you,” she said quietly, then brightly, “I never knew George was in a band.”

  “Hey, come on you two, it’s about to start,” Paul interrupted.

  Ryan nodded at Paul and, touching Marianne’s hand briefly, laughed.

  “We were rubbish. Thank goodness we both changed careers.” He turned and placed his arm lightly across Angelique’s shoulders. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she replied, “why shouldn’t I be?”

  Marianne noticed Angelique refill her empty wine glass abruptly.

  The beginning of the attack was almost silent. A faint eerie hiss complemented the band’s opening riff, followed by a vague rumble, gently vibrating the stage. It tripped along the catwalk, as a floor-to-ceiling streak of light lit the auditorium. The audience gasped; the effect was obviously pyrotechnic, a flash of firework genius. The lead singer turned to check the musicians were still with him and as he nodded back to the orchestra pit the explosion erupted; a loud crack, followed by an enormous boom. Then stillness, as the sound hung in the air; a malevolent hum, like a swarm of locusts. Flames burst from the sta
ge, followed by immediate, intense heat, then swirling smoke and screaming.

  Someone turned the sound off as Marianne, watching in slow motion, saw the stage implode and the Royal Box and its contents slide, arms flailing, to the floor. Instantly people were crashing against her, charging for exits as clouds of smoke mushroomed around them and the fumes intensified growing into a dense, black, suffocating smog. Someone grabbed her hand, she was spun round harshly.

  It was Ryan. He put Angelique’s hand in hers, squeezing them together. Paul had been pushed to the floor. Ryan hauled him up and put his hand in Zara’s, who was holding onto Mike. Ryan signalled them to hang onto each other, demonstrating by clamping his arms together. He tied a napkin over his mouth and nose, urgently indicating they all do the same. He pinched his nose and put a finger to his mouth, shaking his head, signalling them not to breathe. No point speaking, people and alarms were shrieking and they were all bomb-deaf anyway.

  He did all this in mere seconds. Then taking the lead, he began to move swiftly towards the exit. People were panicking and pushing, some were shouting, trying to barge through the crowd, others had fallen to the floor and were being trampled. The smoke kept building, blacker and thicker, people were coughing and spluttering, some were collapsing as others pushed them aside.

  The area around the main entrance was a mass of bodies pressed together, the crowd banked back into the auditorium. Violent struggles were breaking out; teams of security guards in oxygen masks were trying to maintain order. A man with a camera snatched a mask off one of the guards. A colleague hit him with a truncheon, he fell to the floor. The guard tugged his mask back on.

  Ryan led his crocodile of survivors towards the main entrance and then turned, pushing against the crowd. Marianne was struggling to hold onto Paul, they were being buffeted and bashed as they battled through. Paul’s hand fell away and as she turned to find him, she could just make out his head as a black patent shoe crushed into his face. She yanked Angelique’s hand. Angelique tugged Ryan. He slipped back and helped Mike drag Paul to his feet. Paul’s left arm swung uselessly away from his body, his elbow smashed, his nose flattened in a pulp of blood. Ryan indicated to Zara to hold onto Paul’s shoulder and they pushed on.

  There was a large group of people at a doorway, they seemed to be passing through, not quickly but steadily when another explosion erupted deep in the bowels of the structure. Directly above them, the walls and ceiling of the marquee burst into flames, melting away to expose the night sky. The influx of air exacerbated the inferno, the smoke intensified, Marianne could hold her breath no longer, her throat was burning, eyes stinging and streaming water. She started to cough. Angelique’s fingers were oily, they were slipping away. They pushed on. She cracked her knee against what appeared to be a large metal object, she was sliding as she groped ahead, sliding on water, or was it foam? She could see metal shapes around her; they were in the catering area.

  Ryan must have guessed there would be exits here to the outside world. It was becoming brighter. The crush of bodies was easing; they seemed to be peeling away. She looked down at her right hand, Paul’s fingers were no longer there. When had she let go of Paul? She felt a wave of panic rising in her chest and then a rush of air, fresh, clean air flooded her nostrils, gushing into her face. She blinked against the light.

  Marianne realised she was outside. Through blurred eyes, she saw a woman in uniform, who put her face close to Marianne, feeling down her arms, touching her head. Smiling grimly, she urged Marianne into a vehicle. Marianne could make out Angelique ahead. They were wearing the same shiny, silver blankets. The vehicle lurched. Through the window of the ambulance, she saw Ryan helping Paul onto a stretcher.

  Her skin hurt. No-one even tried to talk. She and Angelique bumped along beside each other in silence. Marianne’s shoulders throbbed where the roof structure had caught her as it fell to the floor. She could see Angelique’s blackened legs, burned where her evening gown had melted onto her skin. They rattled through the streets in a daze, deposited with the rest of the ambulance’s bloodied passengers at a hospital on the outskirts of the city.

  Once inside the building, bursting with trolleys and wheelchairs, Marianne and Angelique were separated and Marianne found herself sitting alone in a makeshift emergency bay for what seemed like hours. She remembered a smiling, yellow-skinned man in a pale blue shirt, asking her to count to ten beneath her oxygen mask, before she faded into the luxuriant blackness of anaesthesia.

  Luckily, her collarbone was only dislocated, but the gashes to her shoulders and back were dangerously deep and needed surgery to remove pieces of metal and debris from her wounds. Once cleaned, patches of skin were grafted onto the largest wounds, the remainder pulled together with a variety of stitches and small metal clamps.

  When she came too, she felt fantastic for about thirty seconds and then waves of nausea caused her stomach to tighten and she vomited copiously into the dressing on her left shoulder. Struggling to sit up, she began to panic as the nausea returned, terrified she would choke and die where she lay. She was just losing consciousness again when a woman’s face appeared, hovering over her. She was wearing white. She looked like an angel, a beautiful, black angel.

  “Up ya come me darlin’. Dere ya go. Dearie me, ya makin’ a mess. Not to worry, we’ll soon have you cleaned up and resting nicely.” The nurse set to work. Marianne was cleaned, drugged and as comfortable as possible in less than ten minutes. Marianne stretched out her blistered fingers to touch the nurse’s hand.

  “It was bad, wasn’t it?” she hissed through a cracked mouth.

  “De worst it could be.” The nurse’s eyes filled, and she blinked. “Dere’s evil in de world. But dere’s good people too. We need more good people.” She patted the coverlet and bustled away. Marianne was vaguely aware of another wave of activity across the corridor; the noise was dull but constant. She drifted in and out of sleep.

  Three weeks had passed since the worst terrorist attack London had ever encountered had blown the ‘Power 2 The People’ extravaganza apart. Marianne had witnessed and escaped the main explosion at the every epicentre of the event. Forensics discovered the device had been secreted in a drum kit, centre stage, the kit had had been checked by sniffer dogs and cleared, it had to have been an inside job. The explosion triggered ten more incendiary devices to simultaneously ignite across the city; the bombs were placed in abandoned vehicles, shop doorways and churchyards.

  As the numbers of the dead continued to rise, the five fatalities in the church were among the most shocking; so too were the disturbing details of the death of the Baroness, who had masterminded the whole evening. It was reported she had been found in what remained of her dressing room, without a mark on her, in the arms of her loyal aide, whose handsome face had been blown away. She had never even made it onto the stage that fatal night.

  With the emergency services stretched to breaking point, teams of volunteers, hurriedly trained in rescue and recovery by experienced disaster workers, had been flown in from all over the world. It took some time to confirm the final death toll, but the impact of the catastrophe was made all the more startling by the revelation that 2,996 people had perished in the attack, exactly the same number as had died in the 9/11 atrocity in the USA.

  The tales of carnage, heroism and sheer bloody mindedness were endless, the media coverage relentless. Pages of reports, photographs, interviews, facts and figures combined with hours of TV coverage. The aftermath was both despairing and inspiring. Thousands had lost their lives pointlessly and a handful had lost their lives rescuing others. The bitter irony being the whole point of the event had been to save people, not massacre them. And every day a different story, another faction to blame, hero to applaud. Yet still the recurring question, why? Still the same answer. No answer.

  The impact of the painkillers meant that, to begin with, Marianne felt as if the whole thing had happened to someone else. She was distant and removed, as if she had seen it on a screen s
omewhere. It was not until, aimlessly sorting through a pile of magazines and newspapers beside her hospital bed, she came across a photograph of a young Asian female police officer lying beside a large chestnut horse, the conker coloured mane mixed with the ebony gloss of the woman’s ponytail. The headline read ‘Beauty and the Beast; slain in the line of duty’. So the final death toll was 2,996 people and one horse; she had read somewhere a dog had died in 9/11. Grief flooded through her, seeping up from her toes as if she were blotting paper, absorbing her whole body in one continuous sweep.

  She had never felt so lost, so desolate. It was visiting time, the ward was full of people, friends and relatives coming to see how their loved ones were doing, willing them to get better, showing them they were loved, letting them know it was all going to be alright. Who was coming to see her? Where was her loved one? Where was George? She climbed back into bed and burrowing into the pillows, pulled the covers over her head.

  She must have sobbed for hours until she finally slept; the picture of the policewoman and the horse clamped tightly in her raw-skinned fist.

  It was around midnight and the ward was uncommonly quiet, when the nurse whom Marianne had come to know as Sister Jackson, made a rare appearance.

  “Dere you are Marianne, how are ya doin? Ya lookin’ a bit peaky to me. Soon be time for you to go home. Dis place is not good for your health.”