No, he had to show up and give his speech, and somehow pretend everything was just fine. He wouldn’t think about Emily. His skin shrivelled at the very thought of her death. No, he had no time to dwell on all that. Emily had let him down. He should never have asked her to deal with the problem. Jack was right, he should have confided in him. Well, now he had. Jack would deal with Sophie Narodni. Gowrie knew how few scruples Jack had; he was a man for whom killing was a job and he would do that job without a qualm.
Steve had been sitting in the bar with Vladimir for over an hour before he thought of trying to get hold of Sophie again. His head was ringing with the story the old Czech had told him. He felt as if he had been beaten endlessly with a brass gong, the echoes reverberating round and round his skull making him almost deaf. He couldn’t think clearly about what he had heard; he just sat staring at the bristling moustache, flecked with grey ash as Vladimir drew slowly on yet another of his heavily perfumed cigars.
‘Gowrie must have been crazy to take such a risk,’ Steve said again, having said it a dozen times over the past hour. ‘How on earth did he think he could get away with it? I mean, his wife might have blurted it out to her parents, or Sophie’s mother might have told her new husband, they might have tried to blackmail Gowrie, demanding money, or wanted him to get them into the States.’
‘She had begged him to do that, in the beginning, but he convinced her he couldn’t get her out. I’m sure he was right – the Russians wouldn’t have let Pavel Narodni’s family leave at that time. He had just been killed but they probably intended to make his wife talk, give them names, tell them everything she knew. They interrogated her, on and off, for weeks; they didn’t give up on her until they were finally convinced that she knew nothing at all about student politics, that she was just a peasant girl. She was very young, remember; only twenty-one herself then; she’d stayed at home in her tiny village, while her husband went to university. That year he had hardly been home at all.’
‘I suppose Gowrie made a dead set at him? He would have been very useful. American diplomats, like our journalists, always try to get a line in to any local rebels.’
‘No, Johanna claims he never met Pavel. Pavel was too busy with his political meetings to come home that summer, for one thing, and for another she never told Pavel she was working as a maid because he would have been angry if he found out. He was very proud; he wouldn’t want his wife working as a servant. They desperately needed more money, but Pavel would have been furious, he would have thought it humiliating.’
‘It’s amazing Gowrie managed to talk her into giving up her child!’
Wryly, Vladimir said, ‘Don’t forget, all this happened the week the Russians invaded; the country was in turmoil, nobody knew what was going to happen next, people were confused, terrified, and Johanna was pregnant, about to give birth to Sophie. She was in shock, too, having just heard that Pavel was dead. She was afraid for herself, too, in case the Russians came for her. And what would happen to little Anya if they did? She might end up in some state home for orphans. No, Gowrie was very lucky in his timing. He got her right at the perfect moment psychologically. She was at his mercy.’
‘Poor woman. And now she’s dying? Isn’t there a chance she could be cured? I mean, we have very good treatments for leukaemia these days in the States.’
Vladimir shook his head soberly. ‘I’ve seen her. She’s past treatment, fading fast. She left it too late to go to the doctor. I think she’s only hanging on in the hope that Sophie will find Anya and bring her home.’
Steve sighed, glanced at his watch. ‘Talking of Sophie, I must talk to her. And I have to get ready. I’m going to a banquet in the City of London tonight where Gowrie is the main speaker. We’ll see you tomorrow, shall we? You’ve got a room here?’
‘I’ll get one,’ Vladimir said.
‘We could have breakfast together.’
Steve collected his key from the desk and was handed a small yellow envelope. He ripped it open and read Sophie’s message. As the words sank in, he felt as if his stomach had dropped out of him.
He ran towards the reception desk where Vladimir was handing over his credit card to the receptionist checking him into a room at the hotel.
9
The doctor finished his examination of Sophie, but gave his views to Cathy as if Sophie, being foreign, wouldn’t understand him. ‘Nothing too serious – a few bruises and minor abrasions; that’s where the blood comes from. Amazing how much blood you can get from the tiniest cut. She doesn’t have any broken bones or head injuries, her eyes are focused; no sign of concussion. Unless something shows up during the next few days, I think she’s come off pretty lightly.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘She’s obviously a bit accident-prone, of course.’
‘Accident-prone?’ Cathy repeated blankly.
‘You didn’t notice the faded bruises on the face?’ He put a hand under Sophie’s chin and turned her face sideways so that the light fell directly on to one side of her cheek. ‘Under the eye, see that? And here . . .’ He touched the edge of her jaw with one light finger; he had cold skin and Sophie did not enjoy being touched by him. ‘And here, too.’ He flicked back her neckline and showed a shadowy bruise on her neck. ‘Others on her arms and legs. They’re recent – in the last few days, I’d say.’ He raised an eyebrow at Sophie. ‘Not the boyfriend, I hope?’
She didn’t bother to laugh at his joke, nor did she answer his question frankly. ‘I fell down.’ Her eyes did not meet his. She did not want to talk about what had happened in the subway; it would lead to more questions and more curiosity.
‘As I said, accident-prone,’ he drawled, and she knew he did not believe her but really did not care. She did not live here, she was only a temporary patient; it didn’t matter to him what happened to her. He might be attractive to look at but he had cold eyes. ‘Lucky young woman both times, then,’ he said, opening the large black briefcase he had brought with him. ‘Did you know the driver of the car, by the way?’ And he shot her a quick, sideways glance as he asked, hoping, she saw, to surprise a reaction out of her.
She couldn’t hide her shiver, her frown of dismay at the memory, but was able to answer honestly. ‘No.’ She did not know who had been driving that car, but she had her suspicions – at the back of her mind she had had a faint, fugitive impression without having time to think about it; that feeling had grown ever since. Could it have been Gowrie’s secretary in that car? The idea appalled her, that Gowrie was the man behind this latest attempt to kill her; she couldn’t talk about it, though, not in front of Cathy.
‘Is the fire out yet?’ Cathy asked him and he nodded.
‘Yes, but the firemen are still working on the car.’ He didn’t expand on what they were doing, for which Sophie was grateful. Taking a small box out of his case, he wrote on it rapidly in an unreadable hand and held it out to Cathy. ‘Give her one of these capsules with water now. It’s a sedative, not a sleeping pill, but it should calm her down and help her sleep. If she needs it she can take another one in six hours; I’m only giving you enough for twenty-four hours. She must consult her own doctor or call me again if she needs any more.’
‘Thank you, doctor, it was very good of you to come.’
He nodded and looked down at Sophie. ‘Try to stay out of accidents, hmm?’
She felt a flare of irritation and sharply said, ‘I don’t enjoy having accidents, doctor!’
He raised his brows again, but said no more. Cathy saw him to the door, Sophie heard her talking quietly to him before the door closed and Cathy came back.
‘He thinks you are up to talking to our local policeman before I give you the sedative. Can I let him come in now? He needs to ask you some questions about the accident.’
A pulse of panic beat in Sophie’s neck. ‘Must I?’ She knew she sounded childish but she couldn’t help it, she was afraid of talking to the police. She always found the sight of police uniforms alarming. Right from her childhood, when Mamma had first told
her about the way Papa died, giving her that vivid little picture of men in uniform appearing out of the dark, shouting to the driver of the car Papa was in to stop and then the bang, bang, bang of machine guns when the car drove on.
It must have happened just the way it did tonight; the car out of control, zig-zagging all over the place before it crashed and burst into flames.
Sophie as a little girl had listened, wide-eyed and terrified. She had taken on board then that if you didn’t do what the men in uniforms ordered you were killed. All her life since she had heard similar stories from people back home: stories of police brutality, the helplessness of people confronted by the knock in the night, the disappearance of loved ones. Everyone had a story to tell. It was the commonplace of their daily lives for so many years, as she had said to Steve the other day. You had to learn to live with it.
Steve! she thought with a jab of shock – she had forgotten Steve. She must let him know what’s happened, where she was.
‘Don’t look so scared!’ Cathy knelt down beside the couch and took her hand. ‘Do you want me to stay with you while Constable Hawkins interviews you?’
‘Yes, please.’ Sophie clutched her fingers and smiled gratefully at her. ‘Oh, yes, stay, I’ll find it easier if you’re here. But first . . . can I make a phone call?’
The gatekeeper of Arbory House was sitting in front of his TV when, even above the noise of the chat show he was watching, he heard a loud prolonged hooting from a car outside. He reluctantly got up and went out.
A long American-style car had pulled up, headlights blazing, outside the gates.
‘Hey, excuse me!’ the driver called, having wound down his window electronically. ‘Hey, sir! Can you open up for us, please?’
‘Sorry, my instructions are not to open up for anyone but the police,’ the gatekeeper yelled, from his doorstep.
He lived alone in the small stone cottage just inside the gates and with his front door open you could hear his television blaring and glimpse grainy pictures of a chat show with a permanently smiling host and a guest who was chattering inanely and gesturing far too much. The audience in the background laughed in gales; they seemed to be all teeth and big, clapping hands.
‘Could you come to the gate? Don’t want to shout.’ The driver flapped a leather object which held a large, shiny badge. ‘This is official business, sir. We’re security people working for Mrs Brougham’s father. We’re here to check out this accident and the young lady who was involved. If Mrs Brougham wants to make sure we’re who we say we are, she can ring Senator Gowrie’s hotel in London, ask for Mr Beverley, the head of his security team, and he’ll explain what this is all about.’
The gatekeeper lingered, giving a yearning look at his TV, then back at the waiting car; it was big and expensive and looked important. He remembered the American security men who had come a while back and gone over every inch of the grounds with a toothcomb. They had hustled him, pushed him around, with an infuriating blank courtesy that these men had, too.
Gloomily he said, ‘Well, wait there. I’ll have to talk to Mrs Brougham before I let you in; hold on.’
He vanished into the cottage, they caught a glimpse of him through the open door, talking on a phone. After a minute he came back. ‘Mrs Brougham would rather you waited until her husband arrives,’ he yelled, and closed the front door on them with an open grin, delighted to have that message to pass on.
The engine idling, the men in the car sat staring at the locked gates, then the one in the back leaned forward and got a mobile phone out of a leather box on the floor between the front seats.
‘Better pass this news on to Beverley and get new instructions. He said we had to get in there before the police, that it was urgent to snatch the girl and get away. The local cop’s over there talking to the firemen, but he could go up to the house any minute.’
‘We should have shot our way in!’
‘Don’t be dumb. In front of a limey cop? Now that would really make Gowrie happy, having two of his men shoot up an English village.’
Cathy politely left the room while Sophie made her phone call, but her discretion was not needed, because when Sophie got through to the hotel in London she was told that Steve had left an hour earlier. The switchboard operator had no idea where he had gone, offered indifferently to take a message.
Sophie left her name. ‘I’m at Arbory House.’ She spelt the name. ‘Arbory. This is their number.’ She read it off the telephone. ‘Have you got that? Ask him to ring me. Please, make sure he gets it the minute he comes back to the hotel.’
She put the phone down and lay back against the couch cushions, biting her lip. Had Steve already gone to the Guildhall dinner? A big banquet with speeches would take hours, she knew those endless public functions – Steve might not get back to the hotel until very late at night. Hadn’t he got the message she left earlier? That would mean he didn’t know where she was, and yet had still gone off to his dinner. Maybe he had forgotten all about her, was far too busy to care what she was doing or what was happening to her?
‘What’s wrong? You look very unhappy,’ Cathy said, coming back into the room. ‘Didn’t you get through? Were you ringing your boyfriend?’
‘No, just a colleague.’ Sophie forced a smile she did not feel, but the truth was she was hurt because Steve had apparently got on with his life although she had disappeared. It was childish to be resentful; after all, what did she expect? They had only met a few days ago. They hardly knew each other. Why should he drop everything and run after her?
Watching her, Cathy said softly, ‘Is that all? Are you sure? You look as if you’ve lost a dollar and found a cent.’
Sophie half-laughed, very pink. ‘It’s just that I needed . . . wanted . . . to talk to him, badly. I left a message for him earlier, I thought he might come after me but he hasn’t, he has gone to this dinner at the Guildhall.’
‘The one my father’s speaking at?’ Cathy frowned. ‘Why is your colleague going to that? He isn’t in politics, is he?’
‘He’s a journalist.’
Cathy stiffened, her eyes chilling. ‘My God, is that what this is – a media conspiracy against my father?’
‘Of course not! I only met Steve a few days ago. He –’
‘Steve?’ Cathy broke in, her face running with hot colour and then as rapidly turning pale again. ‘Steve who? What’s his last name?’
‘Steve Colbourne,’ Sophie said, then suddenly remembered Steve telling her that he knew the Gowrie family well, and eagerly said, ‘You know him, don’t you? He told me he knew your family.’
Cathy walked across the room and back again, like an offended cat swishing its tail with resentment. Her body was stiff, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. She stopped beside the couch and looked angrily at Sophie.
‘I can’t believe he’d do anything so sneaky and vicious. OK, maybe I hurt him, but I didn’t think he was deep-down serious any more than I was, and I didn’t mean to hurt him, I couldn’t help falling in love with another man. For him to wait all these months and then attack my father with a campaign of wicked lies and –’
‘What are you talking about?’ Sophie felt cold and weary. ‘You and Steve . . . you were . . . lovers once?’
‘He didn’t tell you about us?’ Cathy stared into her eyes. ‘Why do you think he’s doing this? Just to hammer together a story for his programme? Or did you think his motives were purely political?’
Bleakly Sophie said, ‘Never mind Steve – he’s nothing to do with you and me. I’m telling you the honest truth; I came looking for your father in New York because of what my mother had told me. I didn’t even know Steve until I went to a press conference your father was giving in a hotel.’
‘You expect me to believe that?’ Cathy laughed cynically. ‘I’m not that stupid.’
‘It’s true. That was the first time I ever met Steve, or even heard his name. I asked a question, and as soon as I said my name I saw your father’s fa
ce, I looked into his eyes, and I knew my mother hadn’t lied. Your father looked as if he had had a huge shock. Steve noticed your father’s reaction, too, and he came over to talk to me, he asked me to have a drink with him, he was curious and asked a lot of questions.’
‘And you told him?’ Cathy’s voice rose, shaking. ‘You told him about me? You told Steve my father bought me from some Czech peasant? That I wasn’t a Ramsey at all? Oh, my God.’ She ran her hands through her hair. ‘He’ll put it on his programme. He’ll broadcast your lies coast to coast and destroy my father.’
‘No, I didn’t tell him! Steve knows nothing, Anya.’
‘Stop calling me that!’ Cathy automatically said, staring at her. ‘Are you telling me the truth?’
‘I swear I am. I haven’t told Steve anything about you. He kept asking questions but I never answered them.’ Sophie stared fixedly at the familiar, bewildering face which was her sister’s and yet so like the mother Sophie remembered from her childhood. Had Steve been deeply in love with her? Thinking back over everything he had said about Cathy, she realized how much emotion had charged his attitudes from the start. She had guessed when he talked about some guy he knew who had been in love with Cathy – his voice had given him away. And he had made so many odd, bitter, cynical remarks about the Gowrie family. She had assumed he was against their politics, but it had been personal all along. When Cathy married Paul Brougham, Steve had got hurt. Was he still in love with her? Looking away, Sophie stared into the fire, watching sparks flying upward, flames curling round the log. Her chest hurt. Was this strange, jabbing pain jealousy?
‘He really doesn’t know?’ Cathy whispered.
Sophie put out her hand, seeing her sister in the glow of the fire, her dark hair aureoled in gold and her hazel eyes big and glittering with the strain of everything that had happened that evening.
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