Walking in Darkness (32 page)

One of them, a thin sandy-haired man with a bony face, pulled a box out of his overcoat and began moving quietly around the room, testing each corner of it for bugs. He had finished in a moment and walked back, shaking his head at Paul.

‘Clean.’

He left, and Paul closed the door, turning to watch his wife who was bending over Sophie, pulling a tartan rug over her shivering body.

‘Is she OK?’ he asked her.

‘Physically . . . I think so. But she’s badly shocked. She ought to go to bed.’

‘She’s not staying here, is she?’

‘She booked in at the Green Man.’ Cathy came over to him and Paul put his arm round her, protective, possessive, dropping a kiss on the top of her dark head. She leaned on him, sighing. Their bodies instinctively moved together, seeking each other’s warmth and reassurance.

‘Oh, I’m so glad you got here, I needed you – I was scared stiff when those men broke in here.’ She lifted her face and he kissed her curved pink mouth lingeringly. She put a hand to his cheek and stroked the hard angles of it, loving the faint prickling of his stubbled skin against her own. The way he looked always made her heart move with passion; he was so distinguished, every woman she knew fancied him and he was hers. Sometimes she couldn’t believe it.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you needed me, but I’m here now, darling, you can stop worrying,’ he said, smiling tenderly down at her. ‘Tell me what’s been going on.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper again, ‘And who on earth is she?’ He gestured with his head. Sophie was lying with closed eyes under the rug. Her too-rapid breathing had slowed; she seemed half-asleep.

‘Her name is Sophie Narodni. She claims she’s my sister.’

‘What? What are you talking about?’ Paul looked as if she had hit him with a brick and she knew how he felt because when Sophie first talked to her Cathy had felt just the same.

‘She isn’t, obviously, she has to be either mad or deluded, but I don’t believe she’s part of a dirty-tricks gang, although that is what Dad’s men said she was. I think she really believes her story. Maybe somebody has primed her, she’s being used by somebody a lot cleverer than she is, but, whatever the truth, someone has convinced Sophie that my father bought me from her mother, that I am her older sister, who was supposed to be dead, a girl called Anya.’

‘Anya?’ Paul repeated, hoarsely as if his throat was suddenly ash-dry.

Cathy looked anxiously at him. Surely he wasn’t going to believe any of this fairy story! ‘Darling, it isn’t true, it can’t be! I’m only worried because Dad’s reaction to her was so over the top. Sending those men down here to get her, and the car crash . . . I’d swear the driver tried to run her down, someone is trying to kill her, I saw that with my own eyes, and . . . well, that does make you wonder how much else is true . . . but it can’t be, the idea’s crazy.’

She stopped, realizing that Paul wasn’t listening to her. His arms had dropped. He moved away, walked to the couch. ‘Her name – what did you say her name was?’

‘Sophie. Sophie Narodni.’

‘Narodni,’ he repeated in a voice she did not recognize, a deep, thick voice which frightened her.

Cathy looked up at him, fear in her eyes. ‘Yes, she’s Czech, she says she comes from a village near Prague. Her mother worked for my mother years and years ago, when my parents were living there. My father was in the diplomatic, remember? It all happened in 1968 – remember, that was when the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia. Maybe that’s what gave her the idea? When people started talking about Dad as a future president she may have dreamt up this story about my parents losing their own baby, and giving my mother money to let them take her little girl away with them as their own.’

‘They bought you?’

‘No, of course not – Dad wouldn’t do a thing like that! For God’s sake, Paul! Think about it! OK, she tells a good story. The dates all fit, and she makes it sound plausible because she believes it herself, I don’t dispute she believes it. She isn’t a liar, but she has to be wrong. It must be a lie, Paul. Dad wouldn’t have cheated Grandee that way, and my mother wouldn’t have wanted somebody else’s child. I mean, she wasn’t sick then, she got sick later.’

Cathy hated to admit, even to herself, that her mother was not just sick, but on the verge of senility and getting worse all the time, that there was no hope of a recovery, only a slow slide into the dark.

Paul was still standing by the couch, staring down fixedly at Sophie, his back to Cathy. She saw his face in profile; every bone in it clenched, his skin ashen, his body as tense as a coiled spring.

She had expected reassurance and comfort from him, but she wasn’t getting it. Paul wasn’t taking it the way she had thought he would. What was he thinking?

She was suddenly afraid. She had been so sure he loved her for herself. Before she met him she had known a lot of men who were really only interested in the family she came from, the money she would one day inherit. She had learnt to pick them out on sight; the fortune-hunters, the creeps, the liars. Paul had been so different – he had his own money, he came from another, older culture, he knew very little about her family and what they meant in New England’s history. They had fallen in love at the same time, in the same place, for the same reasons.

Pure lust, he had said, once, laughing, and she had laughed, too, knowing he was joking. They had wanted each other on sight, it was true, but they had shared far more than that. They had simply known each other with total intimacy on first sight: body, heart and soul, they belonged together.

That was what she had believed. Now for the first time she wondered . . . did he really love her? What if she lost it all – the family background, the money, the social status.

What then? Would she lose Paul too?

Steve and Vladimir lost their way on unlit, winding English roads between the motorway and the village they were looking for, following signposts which took them round and round, it seemed to them, in ever-decreasing circles. When they finally, and quite by accident, found the right road and drove into the village, it was quiet and still. The police, the fire brigade, the people had all gone, the street was dark and the villagers had either gone to the pub or gone home. Only the burnt-out, blackened metal of the car remained to give evidence of what had happened; it still lay under the tree, the branches of which had been turned into charcoal. As Steve parked on the forecourt of the Green Man both men leaned forward to stare.

‘Somebody had a nasty accident,’ Vladimir murmured. ‘I guess they don’t survive. Nobody got out of that alive, huh?’

Steve didn’t answer. Pale and suddenly haggard, he leapt out of the car and ran towards the pub. He had left the car-keys in the ignition, so before following him Vladimir removed them and locked the car. It might only be a hire car but there was no point in leaving it unlocked right outside a bar where some drunk might find it.

The brightly lit pub made Vladimir laugh aloud. ‘I have seen this place on an English Christmas card!’ he muttered to himself. ‘All it needs is some snow, and maybe Santa Claus and his reindeer on the roof. Is real, I wonder? Or another bit of Disneyland?’

He found Steve in the oak-panelled bar, which was crowded with people drinking, the air rich with a strong smell of malt and hops, bitter English beer, which Vladimir inhaled with interest – he must try their beer while he was here although he didn’t expect it to be as good as his home-brewed local beer or lager. Until Steve appeared the room had been rocking with noise, shouting, the click of darts hitting a round board, glasses clinking – Vladimir had heard all that as he got out of the car, and heard the hush that fell as Steve walked in through the door.

Now everyone was listening as the landlady answered some question Steve had asked.

‘The accident? Oh, you saw the car . . . yes, terrible, it was.’ She looked round the bar. ‘Wasn’t it?’

There was a chorus of agreement, heads nodded.

Steve said huskily, ‘It certainly looks horrific – did the driver survive?’

‘You must be kidding, dear – no, no, she was killed.’

‘She?’ Steve’s voice sounded as if he was being strangled.

The landlady gave him a sharp look but answered with a shrug. ‘Seems the driver was a woman. Someone saw her before she crashed.’

Very pale, Steve asked, ‘Do they know who she was?’

‘Not yet. The police are trying to find out. There was . . .’ She paused, grimacing with a faintly sick expression because she had rarely seen anything so terrible happen in this tiny place. Most days went by without stirring the air around them, it was hard to tell one day from the next, but it would be a long time before she forgot tonight. ‘There was nothing left, you know? To tell by, I mean. But they did find the car number plate, it flew off and wasn’t badly burnt, they’re trying to trace her from that. She was driving like a lunatic, I know that – a hundred miles an hour, I reckon. Nearly killed a young woman who’s staying here in one of my bedrooms.’

Steve’s haggard face sharpened into intensity, he caught her by the arm, his fingers digging into her. ‘What young woman?’

The landlady unhooked his fingers with a frown, but was not unsympathetic. ‘Are you looking for someone, dear? I can’t remember her name just now – it will be in the guest book, she signed it. A lovely-looking girl, blonde, with a funny accent.’

‘Blonde . . .’ The word sighed out of Steve in deep relief. His whole body seemed to sag.

‘That’s right, dear.’ The landlady watched him uneasily, with uncertain sympathy. ‘Friend of yours, is she?’

‘Is she in her room?’

‘Not just now. She was knocked unconscious –’

‘Is she badly hurt?’ he interrupted, leaning towards her in tense anxiety.

‘Oh, nothing serious, love, don’t worry. She’s in Arbory House, that’s across the street there, on the other side of the village green. She was here visiting them, the Broughams, so they kept her there for the night. They rang to let me know. That was good of Mrs Brougham, very thoughtful. She’s a lady, even if she
is
an American.’

Steve gave a bark of angry laughter. ‘I’m an American too.’

She winked at her customers and smiled at him. ‘Well, I did notice, dear. Get a lot of Americans here in the summer, we do. They like our olde-worlde look; we’ve an old church for them to visit, and a fair number of old houses. Can I get you two gentlemen a drink?’

Vladimir’s eyes brightened and he leaned on the bar counter, staring along the bottles as if wondering where he might start. He beamed as he saw a row of familiar labels.

‘We’ll take a couple of your Budweisers,’ he said. ‘Did you know the original Budweisers came from Czechoslovakia?’

‘Get away.’ The landlady produced two bottles for them, smiling. ‘And I thought they were American. You aren’t an American, are you? Got an accent just like the young lady; she was Czech, she said.’

Vladimir nodded. ‘Uh-huh, she works for me.’

‘Does she now? What sort of job does she do? I thought she looked like a model. Is she?’

Vladimir laughed. ‘No, no. She is a journalist. I run a news agency, covering world news for Eastern Europe.’

‘Well, I’d never have guessed that, she doesn’t look the type. I suppose you’re here about Mrs Brougham’s dad? Been reading all about him in the papers, haven’t we? American politician, over here making speeches, as if we haven’t got enough of that already. D’you think he’s going to be president next time? That would really put the village on the map; we’d have tourists pouring in to see where his daughter lives, I reckon. I’d have some more rooms built on at the back, and maybe put in a café at the side of the pub.’

Steve forced a smile. ‘I don’t have a crystal ball, I’m afraid, but good luck anyway. Could you let us have two rooms for the night? We need to talk to Miss Narodni and maybe we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.’

She beamed. ‘Well, I am having a busy night, aren’t I? Haven’t had this many overnight guests since the end of August. Sure I can let you have a couple of rooms. When you’ve drunk your lagers I’ll take you up.’

Sophie had been given the sedative left by the doctor, and was now tucked up in bed in a room at the top of the stairs. Cathy had lent her a nightie and dressing-gown, a pair of sheepskin slippers; they were very similar in size, which gave Cathy an odd feeling. She had stayed until Sophie was clearly drifting off to sleep, and then quietly went out, leaving one lamp lit by the door, with a very low wattage bulb in it, so that it would not disturb Sophie but if she woke in the night would give her enough light to see the room and remember where she was.

‘Shall we have dinner?’ she asked from the door, looking at Paul, sitting in his favourite chair, by the fireside, a large glass of brandy in his hand. She hoped he wasn’t going to drink too much; he rarely did but when he did it seemed to plunge him into dark brooding, a heavy gloom that didn’t lift until the effect of the alcohol wore off.

He didn’t look round at her. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Sandwiches?’

‘Later, maybe.’ She watched him swirl the golden liquid in his glass, saw the firelight glinting in it; Paul wasn’t looking at her, he was staring into the fire, his face still very pale and his mouth a straight, bloodless line.

‘Come and sit down. Go through it again. I still haven’t got it straight in my head.’

‘Do we have to?’ Cathy was heart-sick; wanted to cry. She had been so sure he loved her; how could that love go so quickly? Did money matter that much to him?

She wished she had never set eyes on Sophie Narodni; she had turned the world upside-down. The last couple of hours had been pure nightmare.

‘It’s all so far-fetched, it can’t be true,’ she said despairingly.

Sophie’s story reminded her of fairy stories she had read as a child; tales about stolen babies, wicked magicians who wanted to be king, a quest for a long-lost princess. What was that phrase the troubadours in Provence had loved so much . . .?
La princesse lointaine
. . . The distant, long-lost princess the poets dreamed about and sang about.

‘Cathy?’ Paul asked sharply and she started, looked at him in confusion.