by Peter May
She tried very hard to raise herself out of the mist. The glass was in her hand and he was bringing it up gently to her lips. Its hot milkiness washed away the bad taste in her mouth and she felt it going down, warm and soothing. Its warmth spread inside her and she felt the cold receding. For the first time in many hours she shivered. The gnawing in her stomach retreated, and she grew acutely aware of her hunger. At last the mist was clearing. She looked up to find Bannerman watching her with concern.
‘That better?’ His voice was close and soft. She nodded. He held up a bundle of clothes and she recognized her dressing gown. ‘I’ve had these warming in front of the fire. If you feel able, you should change out of the clothes you’re wearing. They’re damp.’ He paused, waiting for a reaction. She managed a feeble smile and nodded. ‘I’ve put the water heater on. The water should be hot enough for a bath in about fifteen minutes. I think probably a hot bath would do you good, don’t you? Then we can eat.’
*
They sat eating in silence in front of the fire. The bread and cheese was dry, but the wine was good. He’d heated up more milk for Tania and she was gulping it over after wolfing down several slices of bread. Now Bannerman’s own fatigue was catching up with him. In all his concern for the child, he had forgotten his own weariness, his own desperate need for food and sleep. His bath would have to wait until tomorrow.
When he’d finished eating he drank more wine, watching her over the rim of his glass. She was searching in the pockets of her dressing gown. Finally she drew out a paper handkerchief and stood up to draw it softly across his forehead and mop away the fine beads of perspiration.
He caught her hand. ‘I’ll have to tell them you’re here.’
Almost immediately there was fear in her eyes and she shook her head vigorously.
He said, ‘It’s all right, little one. Just so they can stop searching. It’s only fair. No one’s going to take you away tonight. I won’t let them.’
He did not wait for a reaction, but stood up and crossed to the phone. He began to dial.
‘Police Judiciaire.’ A woman’s voice.
‘Inspecteur du Maurier.’
‘Ne quittez pas.’
A phone lifted. ‘Du Maurier.’
‘You’re still there. I didn’t really expect to get you at this time. Have you no home to go to?’
‘What do you want?’ Du Maurier sounded irritable.
‘The child is here. At the Rue de Commerce. God knows how or why. She was waiting on the landing when I got back.’
Tania watched Bannerman darkly. She would not let anyone take her away again. She wanted to be with Bannerman always. She examined him closely as he spoke. She saw his weariness, the perspiration that had broken out again across his forehead, the lacerations on his face. A hard face, something a little frightening about it. But she knew that behind the façade lay an unexpected gentleness.
‘And next time I want one of your men at the clinic night and day till she leaves,’ she heard him saying, and became aware of her heart pounding.
He hung up and smiled at her. ‘It’s all right,’ he said and he returned to the table. She detected his hesitation. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Sometime tomorrow . . . you’ll have to return to the clinic. It’ll only be for a day or so and then we can go back to Scotland together.’
She had known this would happen. That she couldn’t have him to herself. That they would take her away again. But knowing did not stop the flood of anger and hurt. It was always what they wanted. Never what she wanted.
She flew at him, clenched fists beating against his chest, a cry of anguish on her lips. Bannerman had not been prepared for it. The fists hurt him, tiny blows raining across his chest and shoulders and face.
He tried to catch her arms, but fear of hurting her made it hard. Finally he got his arms around her so that hers were pinned to her sides, and he hugged her, feeling the sobs that racked her body. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ he heard himself saying. Then felt sick as he remembered hearing her father utter the selfsame words.
She was still struggling, but her strength was waning rapidly.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said breathlessly, ‘we’ll talk about it. We’ll work it out.’
The struggling subsided with a whimper and her head fell on to his shoulder, her face turned away from his. He rocked her gently to and fro.
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he whispered. ‘God knows, I don’t want to hurt you.’
Something inside him broke. A kind of iron self-control that had made him invulnerable for so long. But it had grown brittle with the years. His own voice sounded odd to him.
‘Somewhere,’ he said, ‘there’s a little girl . . . Just three or four years older than you. My . . .’ He couldn’t even bring himself to say it. ‘I’m her father. Never even seen her. I’d pass her in the street and not know it. She probably thinks someone else is her daddy. I don’t know. All I know is that somehow she’s the part of me that’s missing.’ He turned his head a little and saw that she was asleep. She hadn’t heard any of it. As no one else had, or ever would. And probably that was best.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The morning had almost gone when Bannerman turned over and opened his eyes to the sunlight that filled his room. He craned his neck around to see Tania standing by the window staring out across the rooftops. She turned and smiled.
‘Good morning,’ Bannerman said, returning her smile.
She looked vastly improved from the previous evening. He checked his watch. It was nearly midday.
‘Jesus! I’ve been asleep for hours!’ He sat upright. ‘Have you been awake long?’ She shook her head and held up one finger. ‘An hour?’
She nodded. She was dressed and there was a little colour in her cheeks.
‘You must be starving.’ She grinned and walked, almost ran, to the door, then stopped and beckoned him to follow. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ he said. ‘I need to get dressed.’ But she just shrugged and stood her ground. He felt the pleasure of unaccustomed laughter. ‘On you go. I’m not a pretty sight first thing in the morning.’ She smiled and nodded her agreement. He threw his pillow at her and it hit the door with a thud as she closed it quickly behind her.
There was still a stiffness in his limbs as he climbed out of bed and felt the cold air brush his skin. When he had dressed he went through to the living room and saw a lump of bread and a piece of crumbling cheese set out for him on the coffee table, with the last half-litre of wine and a glass. A plate of crumbs next to it betrayed her hunger. She had been unable to wait for him.
‘Well, thank you, Tania.’ He stooped to tear off a hunk of bread with his fingers and pop it in his mouth. He looked at the wine and smiled reproachfully. ‘The wine was a nice thought, but not first thing in the morning. Would you like coffee?’ She nodded and followed him eagerly into the kitchen.
There was milk enough to make coffee half and half. He spooned sugar and instant coffee into two mugs and watched the milk and water come to the boil in a pan over the gas. Despite the aches and pains he felt good. He couldn’t remember having slept so well in a long time. It was the first morning in many that he had risen with a lightness of heart, and without his usual ambivalence about the day ahead. But beyond the next hours, he knew, the future still lay brooding ominously on the horizon. The good things in life never lasted. This was the false peace, the calm before the storm. Or perhaps the eye of tranquillity at its centre. An ephemeral thing. He shook his head to clear the thought. He did not want its impermanence to spoil it while it lasted.
‘Here.’ He handed her a mug and they drank in silence, enjoying its hot sweetness. He said, ‘Later we’ll have to talk about the future.’ He saw her face cloud. ‘But right now we’re not even going to think about it. We can just spend the next few hours finding out a little bit more about each other. What do you say?�
� She tilted the mug back to hide her face and he could not detect her response. When she lowered it again she smiled, as though he had not spoken, and he wondered what on earth was in that little head of hers.
The doorbell rang and brought a sudden tension crashing into their world. They exchanged glances and her eyes said, Don’t answer. He sighed and turned away so that he did not have to see them. He placed his mug on the work surface and went out into the hall.
He felt something like relief when he opened the door to find Sally standing smiling uncertainly. But there remained a residue of annoyance at the intrusion. ‘What is it?’
The smile left her face and it coloured with anger. ‘I came to apologize,’ she said coldly. ‘For being short with you on the phone last night. But now I don’t think I’ll bother.’ She turned quickly and Bannerman grabbed her arm.
‘I’m sorry. I’ve got company.’
Her eyes flashed with a strange dark emotion. ‘I see. I’ll not disturb you then.’
Bannerman held on to her arm. ‘Not that kind of company.’ He opened the door wide for her. ‘Tania’s here. She was waiting on the landing when I got back last night.’
All of Sally’s antagonism dissolved. ‘Is she all right?’
‘Come and see.’
When they went into the living room Tania was standing at the kitchen door cradling her mug.
‘Hello,’ Sally said. ‘I see you two have made friends.’
Tania stared at her impassively and Bannerman wondered if she resented Sally’s presence. He took the mug from her hands and laid it on the table, then he crouched down and took her hand in his.
‘Listen, little one. The whole world isn’t against you. Even if sometimes it seems that way. We all need a bit of courage to deal with the things life throws at us. But you have to start by trusting the people who love you.’ She stared back at him, her face a blank mask. Impossible to know what was going on behind it. Bannerman stood up. He glanced at Sally and wondered if she’d thought his words were meant for her, too. ‘How about we all go for a walk?’
*
It was a day full of promise, the sun pale and round in the washed-out blue of the sky above the city. The air was crisp and so cold it stung your eyes and made them water.
The three of them walked briskly to keep warm, wrapped in coats and scarves. Along the Rue de Commerce and into the Rue Belliard. They crossed the Boulevard du Régent where the road shone wet with the salt, and the traffic threw up a spray of black slush. Down Lambermont and into the Parc de Bruxelles. The seeds of happiness lay in them all. But lost in the darkness, where they would have trouble germinating.
Sally suggested they build a snowman, but the snow was too crisp and dry. It was Bannerman who gathered a handful of wet snow where the sun had lain for some hours and threw the first snowball. Sally was still trying in vain to build her snowman while Tania stood watching uncertainly. She saw Bannerman put his fingers to his lips before throwing his snowball to catch Sally on the shoulder. It burst in a spray of fine snow over her face and she wheeled around angrily. Bannerman was grinning, and Tania unable to stop the smile from creeping across her face.
‘All right,’ Sally said. ‘If that’s the way you want it. Come on, Tania, we’re not going to let him get away with that, are we?’
She stooped quickly to grab a handful of snow that broke into a white cloud as she threw it.
Bannerman laughed. ‘You need to get it where the sun’s been shining.’ He scooped up another handful and threw as Sally ducked to see it fly over her head. She grabbed Tania’s hand and they ran to where the sun slanted down between the trees on virgin snow.
‘Like this,’ she said, showing Tania how to cup it between her hands and compress it into a ball. Then she yelled as another burst on her back. She stood up quickly and hurled her snowball at Bannerman. He sidestepped easily, slipped and fell heavily on his side. He felt snow in his shoes and burning the side of his face. The black railings of the park, the outline of biscuit-coloured buildings against the sky. Trees overhead and the sound of laughter. Sally’s fine clear voice, and Tania’s. He rolled over to see the child’s face reddened by the cold and bright with the laughter that came tumbling from her lips like music, joyous and unrestrained. He thought he had never heard anything more beautiful in his life.
A snowball burst on his forehead, stinging his skin and bringing tears to his eyes. He heard footsteps crunching across the snow and Tania was there, standing over him, her laughter very nearly hysterical. She raised a hand and threw her snowball. It broke on his chest and he yelled as she dropped on her knees, her arms around his neck, life and laughter pulsing through her small, clumsy body. He hugged her and got to his feet, lifting her clear of the ground and spinning her round and round until the world swam and he had to stop.
They both fell into the snow and Tania lay on her back breathing hard and laughing at the sky. Bannerman saw Sally crouched a few yards away in the snow. She grinned at him and tilted her head to one side. He scrambled to his feet, brushing snow from his coat and trousers. ‘I’m soaked. What do you say we eat?’
Tania had stopped laughing and he saw that she was gazing up at him with a clear, bright light in her eyes. And his own happiness muddied a little as he wondered if he was capable of condemning her to life in an institution.
*
Two hundred yards away, across the snow and the gravel path beyond the trees, the figure of Kale, clad in a dark coat, stood watching. The skin of his face was taut and shiny in the cold, touched by yellow and blue, thin lips compressed in a hard line. It was a face without expression. Only the eyes betrayed his melancholy. The same dark eyes which had watched life pass them by, concealing more than they ever revealed. All the regrets of a life less lived.
At first Kale had shrunk away from his new reality, like a man coming out of a dark place into the light. He had been temporarily blinded. But awareness was returning, slow and painful. Things were clearer now, resentment replaced by sadness.
Everything had changed with those three words on a scrap of paper.
Through the trees he stood watching the figures in the snow. He heard them laughing, their voices raised in the still of the winter morning. He felt drawn to them, wanted to share their laughter. But he had long since passed out of their world into his own dark place. He could look back, but never return. A single tear ran from the corner of his eye.
He would not, could not, kill the child.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I
Platt battered out the final page of his copy, checked it, and called for a copy boy. A spotty youngster with a shock of red hair snatched it from his tray and headed for the news desk. Had there been a hint of contempt in the boy’s cold, green eyes?
The newsroom was buzzing with activity in the last minutes before copy deadlines for the final edition.
Platt lit a cigarette and puffed on it nervously. He was through for the day and felt badly in need of a drink. But there were still things to be done. He was both excited and a little edgy. It worried him that Bannerman should simply have disappeared for two days. Then last night there had been the phone call from Mademoiselle Ricain. Bannerman would phone him today. The call had not come. It had crossed his mind more than once that Bannerman would not keep his word, that when it came to the bit he would not share the story. Why should he? After all, Platt had contributed little or nothing so far. He also knew that his guilty fears about Bannerman’s intentions derived from the hatching of his own shabby plots. Still, he smiled at the thought of putting one over on the bastard.
Bannerman had asked him for background on Jansen and Lapointe. But Platt had gone further than that. The hours he’d spent searching through records at the Tribunal de Commerce had repaid him handsomely. At last he had something to trade with Bannerman. He had bargaining power.
He felt the first grumblings of h
is ulcer. With fumbling fingers he opened a bottle of antacid tablets and shoved two past his lips. And in a gesture that had become second nature, he took out the red handkerchief to mop his brow.
Hesitantly he reached for the phone and dialled.
II
Tania kept her eyes fixed on Bannerman’s face as he flicked through her drawings, averting them only when he looked up. It had been Sally’s idea to show him the drawings. Slater had omitted to pack them and she had found them still in the folder beneath her bed.
They all sat around a small desk by her bedroom window where the late afternoon sun streamed in, warm and soft, to suffuse the room with gentle light. She could not remember ever having felt such inner calm.
She noticed the way that Bannerman and Sally looked at each other. Something in their eyes. She was not jealous, even though she realized that they had feelings for each other. But with the extraordinary perception that was her gift, she was aware that neither was ready to admit it.
Today had been the best day of her life. None of that frustration that grew and grew inside her until it exploded from the inside out, stealing away control. It was wonderful. She glowed within.
They had lunched at a bistro not far from the park in the Boulevard de l’Empereur, where they had been served cold chicken salad. Tania had watched the adults drink dry white wine. All their faces glowed red from the cold and the exertions of the snow fight, and they ate in silence, pleased just to look at one another and smile. Afterwards, they walked back through the park to the apartment.
Bannerman gathered all the drawings together. ‘They’re just amazing,’ he said. He looked at Tania, waiting until she lifted her eyes to meet his. ‘You have a marvellous talent,’ he told her. ‘Maybe we can get these published when we get back to Scotland. Would you like that?’
If that meant showing them to other people she wasn’t sure. They were such private things. She only wanted those she loved to see them.
Bannerman sensed her uncertainty. He said softly, ‘They say everything that you cannot say with words, little one. They can tell the whole world about you, all the things that you see and feel and need, just like everyone else.’ She smiled and reached for his hand. He took it and squeezed it and tensed inside as he made a difficult decision.