'Isn't there anything one can do to speed up the search?' Sean questioned the man behind the desk. 'Apex has a helicopter which could be of use.'
'I assure you, Mr O'Connor, that everything possible is being done at this moment to find the yacht as well as the people on board,' the Sergeant replied. 'To interfere might lengthen the procedure, so my suggestion is that you leave the matter in the hands of the proper authorities.'
'You will let us know the moment you have any news?' Sarika interrupted the tense little silence which had followed the Sergeant's statement, and the man nodded emphatically.
'I will see to it that you are notified immediately.'
Sean thanked the man abruptly and, taking Sarika by the arm, he ushered her out of the office, down the gloomy passage, and out of the building to where he had parked his Land Rover.
'What do we do now?' asked Sarika when Sean got in beside her.
'We wait!' came the terse reply, and, when he saw the expression that flitted across her face, he added harshly, 'Dammit, Sarika, there's nothing else we can do!'
They waited throughout that Sunday for news. Sean slept in the study that night in order to hear the telephone, and he did not go to the office on the Monday morning. They were having tea out on the terrace when the telephone rang shrilly in the hall, and both Sarika and Sean leapt to their feet to answer it, but Sean reached it first.
'Sean O'Connor,' he said abruptly into the mouthpiece.
His dark eyes met Sarika's while he listened to the voice at the other end, and Sarika could feel the perspiration breaking out on her forehead. She stood like a statue except for the twitching of a nerve at the corner of her generous mouth, and it seemed like an eternity before Sean replaced the receiver on its cradle.
'What have you heard? Have they found them?' Her voice sounded shrill in the spacious hall. 'For God's sake, tell me!'
'Control yourself, Sarika!' She stood quiveringly tense beneath the hands that gripped her shoulders, and she was vaguely aware of Ayah hovering somewhere in the background while Sean spoke to her in a lowered voice. 'They've located the yacht. It was wrecked on the rocks, and they've picked up the occupants along the coast about ten miles south of Karachi.'
'They're dead, aren't they!' she said through stiff lips.
'I'm afraid so.'
Sarika was aware of an overpowering dizziness, and she collapsed against Sean's wide chest as that dark curtain shifted over her mind.
It was some time later that Sarika regained consciousness. She was lying on her bed with Ayah seated beside her, and she had no idea how she had got there, or why she was lying there.
'You gave us such a fright, Sarika,' Ayah frowned at her worriedly. 'Sean carried you up here, and the doctor has just left after seeing you.'
The stark reality of what had occurred down in the hall suddenly washed over her, and Sarika felt a numb pain take hold of her as if her chest had been clamped in a vice.
'Sean?' she queried in a whisper, and Ayah explained in a hushed voice.
'Sean has taken the company helicopter and is at this moment flying to Karachi with Sergeant Singh to make a positive identification of the bodies.'
Sarika winced visibly. It sounded horrible! Her parents had been robbed of their identities, and now they were simply bodies. She had had a premonition that something was going to happen. When the news of the yacht's disappearance came through she had known somehow that she would never see them again, but the knowledge that they were dead was so frighteningly final that it left her numb and dazed with the horror of it.
'If you don't mind, Ayah, I would like to be left alone for a while.'
Ayah nodded understandingly. 'If you need me, pyaari, you know you only have to call.'
The silence and the emptiness in the room after Ayah had left was symbolic of the silent void left by the death of her parents, and Sarika felt herself shrinking mentally beneath a red mist of pain. She got up and walked across to the window to stare blindly down into the sunlit garden, then her very heartbeat seemed to stop as a strange calmness engulfed her. It was as if she had gone into a place of seclusion where nothing could touch her. There was no pain, only a deadly calmness which seemed to leave no room for thought.
Sarika went through the motions of living during the next few days, but she did so in a trance-like state. She knew that her parents' bodies had been flown back to Bombay, she was aware of Sean discussing the funeral arrangements with her, and she knew she had answered him, but nothing seemed to strike a chord of emotion inside her. The funeral had been arranged for the Thursday and, flanked by Sean and Ayah, Sarika had stood dry-eyed and pale beside the graves. Sean had driven them home afterwards in his Land Rover, and Sarika had gone up to her room immediately afterwards to sit in front of the window with eyes that saw nothing, and a heart that felt even less.
Ayah brought a light lunch on a tray up to Sarika's room, but she did not touch it, and Ayah shook her head despairingly when she removed the tray an hour later.
'Sarika,' Ayah spoke her name quietly when she entered her room again much later that afternoon, 'Jaishree is here to see you.'
The mention of her friend's name failed to bring so much as a flicker of interest to Sarika's eyes. 'I don't want to see anyone at the moment.'
'But, Sarika—' Ayah broke off abruptly and gestured helplessly with her hands before she walked out of the room and closed the door softly behind her.
The hours passed, but it could have been days, for Sarika had no conception of time while she sat there staring straight ahead of her with a blank expression in her eyes. Her dinner that evening was once again brought to her room on a tray, and Ayah sternly ordered her to eat it. Sarika obeyed her like a child with no will of its own, but the tastefully prepared meal refused to go down, and she left it practically untouched.
'Sarika, pyaari, you cannot shut us out like this,' Ayah complained gently when she came up later that evening to fetch the tray. 'You cannot lock yourself away somewhere in a world where no one can reach you. The death of your parents has touched us all very deeply, but if we stand together it is something we will overcome.'
Ayah's words seemed to penetrate that invisible wall behind which Sarika had sought refuge, and she flinched visibly. 'Please, Ayah, I don't wish to discuss it!'
'Beti,' the woman shook her head gravely, 'you are making a terrible mistake.'
She picked up the tray and walked out of the room without saying another word, and when the door closed behind her, Sarika shrank back into that self-made world of conscious oblivion.
Sarika was not aware of how much time had elapsed before she became aware of someone else in the room with her. Something akin to fear intruded into her world of calm, and she turned her head sharply. Sean, grim and dark, was leaning with his back against her closed door, and his arms were crossed over his wide chest. His black shirt was unbuttoned almost to his waist, and a silver medallion on a chain nestled among the dark chest hair. The raw masculinity of his appearance seemed to trigger off something inside her which she could not control, and she rose abruptly from her chair to face him.
'I didn't hear you knocking!' she accused sharply.
'I didn't knock.'
His effrontery kindled a flame of anger inside her. 'You may behave as if this entire house belongs to you, but this happens to be my room, so will you please get out!'
'Not until we've talked,' he said, pushing himself away from the door and dropping his arms to his sides as he approached her.
'I don't want to talk to you!' she almost shouted at him as she backed against the chair, and she clutched at it to steady herself.
'Pull yourself together, Sarika!' he ordered harshly. 'It's time you faced up to the reality that your parents are dead. They're never coming back, but you're still alive, and you have to go on living!'
'Shut up, do you hear me!' she hissed up at him with a fury that had erupted from some hidden part of her. 'Shut up!'
'I suggest you ca
lm yourself.'
'I am calm!' The note of hysteria in her voice belied that statement. 'Just get out of my room and leave me alone! I don't want to talk to you, or to anyone else!'
'Sarika!'
'Get out!'
His dark gaze flicked over her disparagingly. 'Well, I came here hoping to get some sort of reaction from you, and I guess this is better than nothing.'
'Oh. why can't you leave me alone!' she cried, her insides starting to shake as if the foundations were beginning to shudder beneath her feet.
'I can't leave you alone because someone has to drum some sense into your silly little head,' came the terse reply. 'Ayah has attempted to do so with kindness and she's failed, but I don't intend to be kind, and I don't intend to fail.'
His arrogant, self-assured manner was like putting a match to an inflammable object, and her fury erupted with a violence that stormed through her. 'I hate you, Sean O'Connor!' she shouted at him. 'I hate you!'
'You can't kick against fate, and you're going to hate me a whole lot more before I'm finished with you,' he laughed, and his laughter seemed to shatter the last fragment of her control.
Sarika leapt at him, her hands raised and her fingers curled to rake his face with her nails, but fingers of steel were clamped about her wrists, and her arms were pinned helplessly behind her back. She fought like a tigress, but every movement simply made her increasingly aware of his hard male body against her own, and tears of frustration finally filled her eyes. It was as if someone had suddenly turned the key in a rusted lock, and there was nothing she could do to stop the tears that flowed down her pale cheeks. She slumped against Sean's big, strong body, and he released her wrists to cradle her in his arms with her face buried against his broad chest.
'That's it, honey,' he murmured, his hand stroking her hair gently. 'Crying is the best therapy for you at this moment.'
His unexpected gentleness and understanding was her undoing, and she wept in his arms until she was drained almost of all emotion. She was lifted in his strong arms when her tears subsided, and he carried her across the room to lower her on to her bed.
'Don't leave me!' Her voice was hoarse and frightened, and she clutched at his arms when it seemed as if he was going to move away from her. 'Please, Sean, don't leave me yet!'
'I'll stay for as long as you need me, honey,' he said gravely as he seated himself on the bed beside her and, reassured, she relaxed against the pillows.
'Why do you call me honey?' she asked, wiping the last traces of her tears from her red, puffy eyes with a damp, lacy handkerchief.
'I don't know,' he smiled faintly, stretching out a hand to run his fingers through her silky hair where it trailed across her shoulder. 'Perhaps it's the colour of your hair. It reminds me of the honey I used to steal as a child in the forest near my home.'
He seemed so incredibly human and so very approachable at that moment that she risked questioning him about himself. 'Your surname is Irish, but you don't have the looks of the Irish. Why is that?'
'My father was an Irishman who emigrated to America, but my mother was Mexican.'
'That explains it, then,' she murmured, taking in his dark, brooding appearance.
'Explains what?' he demanded mockingly.
'Your eyes,' she said without hesitation, and with a certain amount of bravado. 'They're so dark they're almost black, and they seem to have a perpetual fire smouldering in them. Does your mother have a fiery Latin nature?'
'I believe she did,' he smiled briefly, curling his fingers deeper into her lustrous hair. 'She died when I was eight.'
'I'm sorry,' she whispered, his face becoming a blur through the tears that sprang so readily now to her eyes.
'Don't cry for me, Sarika,' he said, that gravelly note in his voice deepening. 'I was too young at the time to really understand what had happened, and I subsequently adapted easily to my loss.'
'Your father?' she continued to question him while she did her best to blink away her tears. 'Is he still alive?'
'No,' he answered gravely. 'He suffered a severe stroke four years ago.'
'Oh!' she croaked, and now she could not check the tears that spilled on to her cheeks.
'You'd better use this,' instructed Sean, removing her sodden handkerchief from her fingers and giving her his own.
'I don't know what's the matter with me,' she said at length when she had succeeded in controlling herself. 'I haven't cried like this in ages.'
'It's never good to bottle up one's emotions, Sarika.'
'I suppose you're right,' she sighed, blowing her nose into the expensive white cotton handkerchief, and mopping up the last of her tears.
'Feeling better?' he smiled at her without his usual mockery, and an answering smile plucked at the corners of her wide, quivering mouth.
'Yes, thank you,' she said. 'I'll be all right now.' His fingers brushed lightly against her cheek and, for a moment, his smouldering eyes burned down into hers in a way that made her heart skip a beat. His mood changed abruptly, and he stood up and walked away from her. 'I suggest you get undressed and get into bed.'
'Sean…' He stood with his hand resting on the brass handle of the door, and his features had settled back into its usual harsh mask. 'Would you ask Ayah to come up here, please?'
He nodded, and then she was alone and left to wonder what had brought about the sudden change in him. He had come very close to showing her a little kindness, but his manner and his expression had altered so swiftly that she could almost believe she had imagined it. His handkerchief was real, however, and she was still clutching it to her trembling lips when Ayah entered her room and walked towards the bed.
'You wanted me, Sarika?' she smiled despite the concern still mirrored in her dark eyes.
'Oh, Ayah!' Lapsing into a renewed bout of tears, she held out her arms to this woman who had always been more than a nanny to her. 'I want to apologise for being so awful to you.'
'An apology is not necessary, pyaari,' Ayah assured her while they embraced. 'I know how you are suffering, and I understand better than anyone else the reason for it.'
'I'm so glad I still have you,' Sarika managed to smile through her tears when they held each other at arm's length.
'Get undressed and go to sleep, Sarika,' Ayah instructed gently, taking Sean's handkerchief and wiping away Sarika's tears. 'Tomorrow might be a day with problems of its own, and you will need the strength to cope with it.'
Sarika did not think to question Ayah's statement, but she had cause to remember it the following afternoon.
CHAPTER FIVE
On the Friday morning Sarika and Ayah received a summons from the attorney's office. They had to see a Mr Webster at two-thirty that afternoon for the reading of her father's will. Sarika had no intention of going into mourning, but Ayah insisted that she wear a sombre grey linen suit for the occasion, while Ayah herself was dressed in her usual white sari with a touch of grey in it.
'I'm not looking forward to this,' Sarika confessed, seated behind the wheel of her Mercedes sports for the first time since her return to Bombay.
'It is not always pleasant,' Ayah agreed, 'but it is necessary.'
Necessary! The word ricocheted through Sarika's mind. The death of her parents had not been necessary. If they had still been alive, then none of this would have been necessary!
Sarika drove past the shrine to three faiths which was in the middle of a traffic island in the city. On the one side was a white plaster cross of Christ; on another, a small stone image of the elephant-trunked Ganesh, the Hindu god of good fortune; and on a third, a small concrete altar on which worshippers placed the Koran when they prayed to Allah. It was one of Sarika's favourite places, and so symbolic of the India of today, but on this occasion she gave it no more than a casual glance. Her mind was filled with sombre, angry thoughts of the blow fate had dealt her, and she wondered why she had this nagging suspicion that fate had not yet finished with her.
Sean was leaning against his Land
Rover smoking a cheroot when they arrived at the building which housed the offices of Webster and Bramley, Attorneys at Law. His presence did not somehow surprise Sarika, but her heart did seem to negotiate an uncomfortable somersault when she saw him crush his cheroot beneath the heel of his expensive shoe. There was something quite savage about the action, and she sensed that same savagery in his manner when he came striding towards them.
Flanked once again by Sean and Ayah, Sarika entered the modern, air-conditioned building. They took the lift up to the third floor and were ushered, without delay, into the attorney's modernly furnished office. Mr Webster, a slender man with greying hair, stepped from behind his desk to welcome them.
'I'm sorry we have to meet under these unfortunate circumstances,' he said when he clasped Sarika's hand briefly, then he gestured towards the chairs which had been arranged around his desk. 'Won't you all please take a seat.'
Sarika seated herself between Ayah and Sean, and locked her hands tightly in her lap. A sealed envelope was taken from the safe, and only then did the attorney seat himself behind his desk. The genuine leather-upholstered chair creaked loudly in the silent room, and the attorney's watery grey eyes once again settled on Sarika's white face.
'Miss Maynesfield, I have here your parents' last will and testament, which was drawn up six months ago in this office,' he explained, his bony fingers tapping the large brown envelope on the blotter in front of him. 'With your permission I would like to disclose its contents.'
With your permission! What would happen if she withheld her permission? For one frightening moment she actually toyed with the idea before she said: 'Please go ahead, Mr Webster.'
The attorney put on his horn-rimmed spectacles and broke the seal on the envelope. It was too late now to change her mind, Sarika thought crazily, then the attorney's emotionless voice shut out every other thought from her mind.
Ayah would inherit a substantial amount from the estate with which she could live comfortably for the rest of her life, and Sarika was very happy about this, but, as the attorney continued speaking, she found herself becoming increasingly confused.
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