Walking in Darkness (8 page)

‘Yes, I’m doing it as a Christmas present for Sophie. I photocopied old photos she has of her family, going back a hundred years.’

‘The copies are very faint,’ he observed, peering at the face of an old man with a long grey beard. You could only just see his features, whereas another man, in a rather crumpled white shirt, open at the neck, could be seen quite clearly.

‘They are copies of copies of copies – Sophie had modern copies of old family photos. The originals are in the Czech Republic, in her family home. Before she went to London, Sophie borrowed them and had a photographer make copies. When I started my wheel I photocopied them, then I kept copying the copies, to make them even fainter if the person was dead.’ Lilli stood beside him and put her long, slightly grubby finger on another circle. ‘For instance, this is her sister, Anya, a little girl who died before Sophie was born.’

The childish face was wraithlike, fading, only just visible. ‘It’s extraordinary,’ Steve said, oddly very moved as he stared at the child. His mother had lost a child, a little girl, before he was born, he knew, although she never talked about it.

His parents had called her Marcie; she had been premature and had only survived a few days, was buried in the little churchyard half a mile from their home. His mother visited the grave now and then, and tended the tiny garden she had planted above it. It was that which had told Steve how much the dead child had meant to her.

‘You know, I’m sure my mother would be thrilled with something like this,’ he said slowly. ‘Do you accept commissions? If I brought some photocopies of my family photos, would you do one like this for me?’

Lilli put her head on one side and considered him thoughtfully. ‘I’d have to think about that. I need to know a lot about my subjects. What’s your background? Where do your people come from?’

He laughed. ‘Why do you need to know that?’

‘People are like trees, they have deep roots; they are fed by their roots, and if they’re uprooted to a new place they often die, if not in the body then in the soul.’

‘Unless they’re very strong, in themselves, like the people who came to the States from all over the world and found a new home here,’ said Steve soberly, and Lilli nodded.

‘Sure. Where they came from was so bad they would have died rather than go back. Sure. What about your people? How long they been in the States?’

‘My family are New Englanders on both sides, from way back in the eighteenth century. English on both sides. On my father’s side the first American was a sailor who jumped a ship bringing rum from the West Indies; on my mother’s side we come from a parson with Puritan leanings who emigrated to find freedom of conscience.’

She studied him with those dark pools of eyes, frowning a little in concentration, then after a moment said slowly, ‘Yes, I see both of them in your face; the courage and recklessness of your sea-going ancestor and the fanaticism and stubbornness of the Puritan parson. Interesting combination. Yes, I would like to do a study of you.’

‘A study of me?’ he muttered, taken aback. ‘But I thought it was my family you would be studying?’

‘Before I can create one of my wheels I have to know the person I’m making the wheel for, because in each of us a little of our ancestors lives, and the sum total of the wheel will be you. I shall use only pictures of your family that seem to me to explain you.’ She eyed him with faint mockery. ‘Do you still want one?’

‘Yes,’ he said, but with faint hesitation, because he wasn’t sure he wanted her probing and prying, asking questions, making guesses. On the other hand, he liked to please his mother and knew she would be fascinated by one of those wheels.

Staring at Sophie’s wheel, he asked, ‘Tell me, does the art nouveau border have a meaning, or is it just decoration?’

‘Art nouveau had a special meaning to the Czechs, it was a time of nationalist fervour, the turn of the century, and art and politics came together in a new way.’ She gave him a self-mocking little smile. ‘Also I love it, OK? I learnt to love it from my Czech father, I guess. And you didn’t ask how much, by the way. That’s the reckless sailor in you, ready to jump ship without knowing what he’s getting himself into!’

He had never thought of himself as reckless and wasn’t sure he liked the idea. ‘I was getting round to it! So, how much?’

‘Four hundred dollars.’

He was startled by the amount, but under her amused gaze he wouldn’t show it. ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ He held out his hand and she was about to take it when a telephone began to ring.

Lilli groaned. ‘You know, I hate that thing. Always sounds urgent, always turns out to be nothing at all.’ She walked over to the windowsill where the phone was perched on top of a book. She picked it up. ‘Yeah?’ Then her face changed, she went paler than ever. ‘Oh. When? But how . . . Is she going to be OK? Well, can I see her? What ward?’ There was a pause, then she said curtly, ‘Yes, she has Medicare, of course she does. You’ll get your blood money, don’t worry.’

She hung up and looked round at Steve. ‘God damn these people. All they care about is can she pay? Sophie can die in the street for all they care—’

‘Sophie?’ The name jerked out of him, shock making his voice shake.

‘There’s been an accident in the subway . . .’

‘That was Sophie?’ He thought how close he had come to finding out half an hour ago and could have kicked himself for driving away.

Lilli looked at him sharply. ‘What? You heard about the accident? You know what happened? Did you hear it on the radio, or something? What did they say? The hospital wouldn’t give me any details, or say how bad she was.’

He told her how he had seen the ambulance arriving. ‘They said someone had thrown herself under a train.’

He felt sick as his imagination began to paint pictures of what Sophie would look like if she had been hit by a train. God, he thought, that lovely face. That body. Even if she lived, what would be left of either? ‘But it never entered my head that it might be Sophie,’ he muttered, his stomach churning.

‘I can’t understand how it happened,’ Lilli said. ‘She’s always so careful.’

‘When I talked to her she obviously had something on her mind, she was angry about something.’ He glanced sideways at Lilli, wondering just how much she knew, and what there was to know. Maybe his guesswork about Sophie had been way off? After all, the gossip about Don Gowrie was vague; indeed he was sure it had started long ago, before Sophie Narodni came to America. Mrs Gowrie had been ill for a long, long time, of course – there could have been a succession of ‘other women’ in Gowrie’s life. Sophie might just be the latest. And if she was, was she the type to kiss and tell? He didn’t think she was, but women were a law unto themselves. Who knew what they would tell each other? They seemed to need to talk, to confide in each other; they were in an eternal conspiracy against the other sex. ‘But I hadn’t got her down as suicidal,’ he said.

‘Suicidal? I don’t believe it. Not Sophie. Look at those faces in her wheel – the peasant strength of people who have survived the worst life can chuck at them,’ Lilli said, her Oriental eyes shadow-ringed with anxiety. She sighed. ‘But then what do we ever know of each other?’

She was right, Steve thought, especially where women were concerned, Steve had never yet managed to understand a woman, even when he had known her most of his life, like Cathy Gowrie. He had honestly thought he knew her as well as he knew himself, they had known each other since childhood, but how wrong he had turned out to be!

Lilli vanished down the corridor, came back wearing a raincoat, carrying a purse into which she was pushing a blue plastic folder. ‘The hospital admin people want proof that Sophie has Medicare,’ she said. ‘Sorry, but I’ll have to rush.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ Steve said roughly. ‘We should pick up a cab easily enough at this hour.’

Lilli gave him a sharp but unsurprised look. ‘OK.’ She opened the front door, then stopped, groaning. ‘Oh, my stew, I nearly forgot, it would be ruined.’ She hurried into the kitchen to switch it off, and Steve waited impatiently, so tense he felt as if he might come apart at the seams if he didn’t get to Sophie soon. He had to know what had happened to her.

And why, he thought. Oh, yes, and why. The old joke came into his head . . . did she fall or was she pushed? Accident, suicide or . . . He shivered. My God, what was he thinking? That was crazy. Gowrie had been shaken to see her at the press conference, yes – but she couldn’t possibly be that much of a threat. Could she?

Don Gowrie was dressing for a very grand dinner which would be held downstairs in his hotel, in a private dining-room glittering with crystal and silver under enormous chandeliers. Among the guests would be his father-in-law, Eddie Ramsey, who had flown in by helicopter from his Easton estate and was now resting in another suite. There would also be a whole host of other East Coast politicians, good old boys from way back who as far as the general public were concerned had apparently retired from public life yet still managed to manipulate and grease the handles of power without ever being caught doing it. Don Gowrie needed their support, their money and their influence, if he was to get his campaign bandwagon rolling fast. He had other backers; industrialists with even more money, people who wanted to be on the inside track if he did manage to get the presidential nomination – but these old men tonight were still vital to him. He needed to balance the different forces backing him; he didn’t want to be in the power of any one lobby.

He stood back to look at himself in the dressing-table mirror, noting with satisfaction how good he still looked in evening dress. It suited him, the dark material, the smooth fit of that excellent tailoring. He really didn’t look his age, did he? He had to work at it, of course: diet and constant exercise kept his weight down and he had inherited a good constitution. Good genes, he thought, and his eyes darkened. A pity that . . .

No, he wouldn’t think about that. It was a talent he had worked on all his life – the ability to push aside what he did not find convenient to dwell upon. He shifted his feet, sighing. That tie simply didn’t look right. Why the hell did he find it so difficult to tie a bowtie after all these years of doing it so often? He pulled the tie loose again just as a phone began to ring in the room behind him.

His nerves jumped. At last! He had been waiting on tenterhooks for this call.

He let go of the ends of the tie, sprinted over to the bedside table and picked up the phone, the white tie hanging loose around his neck.

‘Yes?’

‘Dad?’ The voice was not the one he had been expecting to hear. For a second he was still, shaken, then his face lit with warmth.

‘Cathy. Hi, darling.’ Then anxiety came into his eyes, the old, familiar fear of one day losing her, the sense of a threat always hanging over this precious child. ‘Is anything wrong?’

She was quick to reassure him, Cathy had had years of hearing that note in his voice. ‘No, of course not, Dad – I’m fine. We’re both fine, and looking forward to seeing you soon. I just wanted to send my love to Grandee. You’re having dinner with him tonight, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Relaxing, he smiled. ‘I was just trying to tie my tie when you rang.’

‘Haven’t you learnt how to tie a bowtie yet, Dad?’

Her laughter sounded so clearly in his ear that it was like having her in the room. When she was a baby he had felt nothing much for her except relief that he had her, that the miracle had been pulled off, he and his wife had a child against all the odds, and if it was not a boy, as he had prayed, at least he had an heir to the Ramsey fortune.

What he had not expected was that she would turn into so beautiful a girl or that he would be so proud of her. She did everything so well, she had never put a foot wrong all her life: wore her clothes with classy style, rode horses as if she had been born in the saddle, was intelligent, could talk to people at all levels of society, like a true politician, and when she chose a man chose brilliantly, a man of his own kind, wealthy, powerful, obviously ambitious and meaning to climb to the very top in his own country.

He smiled, too. ‘Bowties have a life of their own! But I’ll do it, if it takes me all night,’ he assured her, the underlying obstinacy of his nature showing in his bony face for a second. He was a man who never gave up once he had set his mind on something.

‘Where’s Cope? Isn’t he with you?’

‘He had to have a tooth out yesterday so I sent him off to bed.’ His valet had been grey with pain. Cope was nearly sixty now. He had worked for Don Gowrie for ten years, doing all the little jobs a wife normally did, taking care that Don’s wardrobe was always in good shape, the suits and coats cleaned, the shirts immaculate, the shoes polished, ties pressed. He had made himself indispensable and Don had been shocked to see him look so old. If Cope retired it would disrupt his life, he would have to find someone to replace the man and he knew it would not be easy. Cope was one of a dying breed.

‘You old softie!’ Cathy’s voice was full of affection, and Don Gowrie smiled, his face smoothing out into boyish charm once more.

‘So, I’m to give your love to your grandfather? I will, but you could talk to him yourself, you know. He’s resting in his own suite.’

‘I don’t want to over-tire him. That trip out from Easton eats into his energy, and he has to sit through a long dinner tonight. Now, Dad, don’t let him drink too much or stay up too late. I know what you men are like when you get together and start talking politics. Has he got the Gorgon with him?’

‘Yes, Mrs Upcher flew here with him, and whisked him off to his suite as soon as they arrived.’

‘I don’t know how Grandee can stand her, she’s the ugliest woman I ever saw, but I have to say she does take care of him.’

‘She’s a good nurse,’ he chided. ‘And devoted to your grandfather. That he’s still alive is largely down to her.’

‘I know,’ Cathy said, and he knew she was serious now. ‘You know, I can’t imagine the world without him, Dad. Can you? He’s the totem pole we all live by, isn’t he?’

‘I’m sure he’d be thrilled to hear you say that.’ The dryness escaped before he could stop it, but Cathy didn’t seem to pick up on the ambivalence of his voice.