Walking in Darkness (13 page)

‘Safest place for you, right under his nose; as my mother always used to say, a dog never shits on his own blanket. He won’t dare touch you while you’re that close to him. When we go to Europe, you’re coming too. I’ve squared it with my boss. You’re coming on salary as a researcher for a week – we’re paying your airfare and hotel bills. Maybe now you’ll trust me enough to tell me exactly what you’ve got on Don Gowrie?’

‘I’m not stupid. I know why you’re doing all this – you just want to get a story out of me. So why should I trust you?’

Drily, he said, ‘Who else do you have to trust?’

‘Lilli –’ she began, and he interrupted brusquely.

‘If you like Lilli you’ll leave her right out of it. No point in risking her life too, is there?’

Pale, she stared at him, shivering. It hadn’t occurred to her until then that Lilli might be in danger too. She should have realised that. He was right, she couldn’t risk Lilli’s life.

‘Lilli has learnt to trust me,’ Steve said, and Sophie wondered how he had managed that. She gave him a smouldering, resentful look. He was too clever by half – she was beginning to find him a menace.

‘You may have pulled the wool over her eyes, but you don’t fool me that easily! I’m not going anywhere with you.’

‘Oh, yes, you are, Sophie. Lilli gave me a case of things she thought you’d need for the next week or so. Now stop arguing. I haven’t got all day to spend hanging around here.’

He took hold of her arm and propelled her firmly towards the door. For a moment Sophie meant to fight, but then she thought again and gave in, realising that it solved her immediate problems, even if it created a few more for the future. Steve Colbourne was a human steamroller. She had the feeling he was becoming a real problem for her.

They got a taxi to his hotel, where Steve had already booked a room for her, just across the corridor from his own. ‘It would be safer if you stayed in here until we got the plane tomorrow morning,’ he told her, depositing her suitcase on the luggage rack. ‘If there’s anything you want let me know and I’ll get it for you.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, reluctant to be grateful but forced to it. She opened the case and looked at the neatly packed contents. ‘I can’t think of anything Lilli hasn’t already thought of – she’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. Lucky for me that Theo introduced me to her.’

‘She’s a one-off,’ agreed Steve. He hadn’t yet given her any details of the burglary. There was something far too intimate and disturbing about someone taking out their rage on her clothes, some of which had been torn to shreds. Lilli had sent what was left. ‘She says she’ll ring you. She packed warm winter clothes for London; sweaters and warm skirts and trousers, she said.’ He looked at his watch and sighed. ‘Sorry, I’m afraid I have to go to my office. But you have TV, and you can order anything you want from Room Service.’ He gave her a look of concern. She was deathly pale, dark circles under her eyes. ‘Try to rest. Go back to bed.’

She was standing by the window looking out at the New York skyline, the jagged battlements of grey roofs stretching into the distance. Below them were the leafless trees of Central Park, and she could see the Dakota building’s eerie outline. She had visited it soon after she arrived, wanting to see where John Lennon had been shot and the Roman Polanski film ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ filmed. Seeing the film in her early teens, Sophie had not been able to sleep, and when she did had had weird dreams. It made her shiver now. There was something deeply sinister under New York’s glamorous skin.

Steve wandered over to the window to look out too, without finding the vista as enthralling as she seemed to; he had known this city most of his life and preferred Washington, his chosen adopted city.

She turned her blonde head to smile at him and he felt his pulse pick up. Close to, she was even lovelier. ‘You’re very kind, but I’ll be OK, don’t worry,’ she said.

He gave her an incredulous, furious look. ‘Yesterday somebody tried to kill you and then wrecked your apartment – if you aren’t worrying, then you should be!’

‘Don’t shout at me!’ she burst out, her voice trembling, and he groaned.

‘Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’ Putting out a gentle finger, he stroked her cheek tentatively, then frowned. ‘You’re cold. Shock takes a while to wear off, you know. As soon as I’ve gone, go back to bed and try to sleep.’

The lingering warmth of his skin against hers comforted, was human and reassuring. When she was a little girl her mother had been very affectionate, and Sophie had often been cuddled and kissed, but after Johanna married Franz she had lost interest in Sophie and focused all her affection on the new babies that began arriving. She was the sort of woman who adored small children, especially if they were boys. Sophie had been just another pair of hands, an unpaid nursemaid, excluded from the new family circle – her mother, Franz and their two sons. The family of which Sophie had been a part was buried in the churchyard, with her dead father and dead sister.

She shivered violently and Steve watched, wondering what she was thinking about that made her eyes look so sad. Don Gowrie? What had the man done to her?

‘Tell me,’ he said urgently. ‘Can’t you see that you’d be much safer if you talked?’

She started violently at the sound of his voice. ‘What? Oh . . .’ She became aware of him again, picking up the scent of his aftershave, fresh, astringent, very male. It disturbed her. She didn’t want to be aware of him; she had enough problems at the moment without adding a man to them. Steve Colbourne was attractive, she couldn’t deny it, but she knew she couldn’t trust him, it wasn’t safe.

He smelt a story, and he was determined to get it out of her. The man was far too plausible, far too shrewd. She was a journalist, too; she knew how they operated, how far they would go to get a story.

The only thing she could be sure about was that he wanted to wheedle out of her whatever she knew about Don Gowrie. Everything else about him – his charm, his looks, the fact that he seemed to find her attractive – could be totally phoney. She had learnt in a bitter school that nothing was what it seemed, that even those who said they loved you could lie, that you could not trust anyone but yourself.

She looked at him, her eyes filmed with ice, and said in a chilly voice, ‘I’m not telling you anything, Mr Colbourne, so stop badgering me!’

‘You’re a fool,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t you realize? You’re playing Russian Roulette with your own life.’

That was so true that she flinched. The stark realities of what she was doing had only just begun to dawn on her. She had not really expected her life to be in danger until the moment on the subway station. Turning away, she looked out of the window again.

‘New York is breathtaking, isn’t it? I still can’t believe I’m really here. You said you lived in Washington, didn’t you? I’m dying to see that.’

He nodded. ‘That’s where the centre of power is. If you want to report on government you have to be there, and it is a fascinating place, especially for a journalist. It’s a city with hidden depths. The architecture is on the grand scale – public architecture, I mean. You get the feeling at times you’re back in ancient Rome or Greece. The Lincoln Memorial, all white marble columns . . . the Washington Monument too . . . not to mention the White House itself. The guy who designed the city, Pierre L’Enfant, wanted to awe people, impress the hell out of them, and it succeeds. But the domestic architecture is something else; you must visit Georgetown and see the restored town houses, especially in the spring, when the magnolias are out. It’s like being on the set of “Gone with the Wind”.’ He paused, one eyebrow lifting. ‘Did you ever see that film?’

‘Of course I did! We do get Hollywood films in Prague, you know! It isn’t the back of beyond.’

He laughed. ‘Sorry, of course you do. I don’t know much about life in your country. Keep filling me in, won’t you?’

She softened, smiling back. ‘So long as you keep telling me stuff I don’t know about America, and that is a lot! I hardly know a thing yet.’

‘Glad to help out,’ he agreed, offering his hand.

She stared, bewildered, and he grinned at her.

‘Deal?’

She understood the gesture then, and took his hand, smiling back. ‘Deal.’

He didn’t let go of her hand immediately; his skin was warm and firm. She liked the feel of that strength and confidence.

‘Mind you, there are some spots in the States that I would feel lost in,’ he said. ‘I’m a New Englander, we’re a different breed. We never forget that we were here first, apart from the Indian nations. You must visit my part of the country. Having spent time in England, you’ll recognise something familiar. Our first towns were built by people from over there; the names, the architecture, the traditions are all very English.’

‘It sounds lovely.’ She pulled her hand out of his grip. ‘Do your family still live there?’

‘Certainly do – nothing would get my mother to leave the place, and Dad always lets her have her own way about the home and everything to do with it. Mind you, he has never shown signs of wanting to leave, although if he had got into Congress he would have had to move to Washington, of course, but she would have gone along with him in that case.’

‘She’s interested in politics too?’

‘No, it’s just that they both have old-fashioned ideas about the way marriage should work.’

Soberly Sophie said, ‘If you get married you have to be together, don’t you? You couldn’t live in different places and expect marriage to work.’

He nodded. ‘I think so, yes. Long-distance marriage is a recipe for disaster. It seems we agree on something! That’s a start.’

Warily she asked, ‘A start on what?’

With bland amusement he told her, ‘Getting to know each other.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘Well, I have to get going. While I’m gone, stay here, don’t go out, ring anybody, do anything. You’ll be safe so long as you stay here – and don’t open the door until you’ve had a good look through the spy hole.’

She burst out then, ‘They wouldn’t dare . . . in a public place like a hotel!’

But they had dared attack her in a subway, which was just as public, hadn’t they?

‘Who wouldn’t?’ Steve asked very softly and she shot him a quick, tense look. Just how much did he know? How involved with Don Gowrie was he? What did she know about this man, anyway? For all she knew it could have been him behind her in the subway station, his hand that had thrust her to the edge of the platform.

No, she couldn’t believe that. He wasn’t the type to kill. I’m getting paranoid, she thought – seeing dark shadows behind every face, hearing double meanings in everything anyone says to me.

At that instant there was a loud crash somewhere down the corridor and Sophie jumped about a foot in the air, gasping in fear.

‘OK, OK, it’s just the maids pushing a linen cart through some swing doors, I’ve heard them do it before,’ Steve quickly said, but she couldn’t stop shaking. He put his arm round her and pulled her close. ‘Your nerves are shot to hell, aren’t they?’ he said, just above her head, one hand stroking her smooth, silky hair. He grew deeply conscious of the body he held, and his own body stirred with arousal, heat burned under his skin.

Sophie felt it, taken aback to pick up the tension of his muscles, the beating awareness inside him, and even more disturbed by an answering heat deep inside herself.

Alarmed, she pulled away, relieved when he let go of her at once and stepped back, his face flushed, his eyes restless, picked up the hotel telephone book and scribbled a number on top of it.

Without looking at her now he said, ‘If you need me urgently you’ll get me at this number – network headquarters. Ask for extension 650. My secretary will know where to find me in a hurry.’

He glanced at his watch. ‘Now I really must get moving. I can’t be late for this meeting.’

At the door he gave her one swift backwards glance from those grey eyes. ‘Come and put the chain on! And remember, don’t open the door until you’ve checked out who’s outside!’ Then the door closed and he was gone, leaving her wishing he would come back, because in going he left her alone, and she was afraid of being alone.

Oh, don’t be so pathetic! she told herself as she obediently crossed to the door to slip the chain through. Only a few minutes ago she had been bothered by having him touch her hair, hold her, because she couldn’t cope with the way he made her feel. Now she didn’t want him to go. Why couldn’t she make up her mind?

She was still suspicious of him, he was far too quick to ask questions, probe, watch her every move – but the more she got to know him the more she wished she could trust him enough to confide in him. She couldn’t, though. If he was being kind and sympathetic it was only because he wanted to get her to open up to him. But her natural instinct was still, disturbingly, to trust him and like him. Listening to him talking about his home and family had made her envy him. He must have had a happy childhood.

She walked back and sat down on the bed, staring around the impersonal hotel room; comfortable, pastel-painted in pale peach, with a warmer shade of apricot for curtains and bedcovers, an even darker shade for the carpet and a matching set of four rose prints, one on each wall. It could be any room anywhere in any hotel in the Western world, and normally she would have dismissed it as boring, but the very impersonality was somehow comforting at this moment.

As his secretary came into the suite, Don Gowrie was speed-reading a thick wad of documents, wintry sunlight glinting on his silver-flecked hair. Glancing up over the edge of his gold-rimmed spectacles, he smiled at her.

‘Fascinating stuff, this, Miss Sanderson, especially the private backgrounds of all the British politicians I’ll be meeting. I hope I shall remember it all.’

‘Don’t worry, sir, I’ll be there to remind you of anything you forget.’

‘I know you will. I rely on it.’ There was a touch of glibness in his immediate response. That was what he always said and it had once been true, he had trusted her completely, but lately he was having to be careful what he said to her. He was holding back, hiding some of his thoughts; there were some things he could not risk saying to her now. To anyone, he thought, his eyes bleak. A month ago he had thought he was a happy man; he had everything, well, almost everything, he wanted in life, including ambition, an excitement at the thought of how much higher he might climb.