Walking in Darkness

Steve went to help Paul carry her, but Paul knocked him out of the way, shaking his head, snarling.

‘Leave her. Don’t touch her. I don’t want you touching her, get away from us.’

He sounded crazy. His eyes were wild.

‘Get a doctor,’ Steve said to Sophie as Paul staggered past them into the house, his strong body beginning to buckle under the strain of carrying Cathy’s dead weight.

She’s dead, thought Sophie incredulously, not wanting to believe it. She’s dead. Anya was dead, and came back to life. Her mind was whirling like a kaleidoscope. Death, life, death, life, they merged into each other, and which was real? She no longer knew.

‘No doctor,’ Paul snapped. ‘There’s no point now. She’s dead, her neck’s broken, she’s dead, no heartbeat, no pulse, dead, dead, dead.’

Steve watched him warily. The man looked insane. He might turn dangerous, violent, any minute.

Softly he said, ‘I think a doctor should see her, though. You never know. She may just be in a coma.’

Please God, let her be in a coma, thought Sophie, but she knew in her heart that her sister was dead. Life did not look like that. Eyes open, staring, but so blank, no expression in them at all. The sunlight glittered on those wide, glazed surfaces and Anya didn’t even blink. She was blind to the sun, it could not wake her now, or penetrate those open staring eyes.

She was dead. Dead, her hands hanging loosely, palms down, fingers loose. A trickle of blood at one corner of her mouth, her neck at a strange angle. Her neck was broken, Paul had said, and you could see it. Her head looked like a flower on a snapped stem, the black hair streaming in soft petals down over Paul’s hand as he sank down, breathless, legs shaking, on to the couch in the drawing-room, holding her over his lap, kissing her on the temples, the cheeks, the eyes.

He was mumbling incoherently, his voice breaking every few words. ‘Cathy, Cathy . . . Oh, God, what have you done? What have I done to you? My poor little love, this wasn’t how I wanted it to end. I’d have died rather than hurt you. Why did you do it? God, why?’

Steve turned to whisper to Vladimir, ‘Despite what he says, we have to get a doctor and the police. There’ll have to be an investigation and the police will need to talk to all of us. I’ll go and ring them. Keep an eye on Sophie for me.’

As he turned to go he almost collided with Gowrie, who had been watching Paul and Cathy, his face the colour of melting cheese, a waxy yellow.

He had obviously heard what Steve said to Vladimir. He caught at his sleeve, urgently said, ‘No, wait! Before you ring anyone I have to get out of here. I can’t be here, I can’t get involved with the British police. You mustn’t even tell them I was here. Keep me out of it. Especially . . . especially the past . . . Don’t tell the police anything about me. Now she’s dead there’s no story. You see that, don’t you? No point in telling anyone all that stuff from thirty years ago. What’s the point of raking up history? It’s all over now. This draws a line under it.’ He gave Sophie a glance, flinched from the bitter contempt in her face, then said hurriedly to Steve, ‘My helicopter’s waiting to get me away. I told them I was leaving shortly. Don’t forget, we have a deal, Colbourne? You won’t regret it.’

Paul made a sound deep in his throat, a fierce snarl of fury. He laid Cathy gently down on the couch and stood up, glaring at Gowrie, his eyes those of a wild animal in bloodlust, the whites red-f

lecked, the pupils huge, glittering.

‘You aren’t getting out of anything, you bastard – you did this to her! If you hadn’t passed her off as your daughter I’d never have met her and married her. You ruined our lives. This was all your fault, and you aren’t getting away scot-free, so don’t think it. You needn’t start planning how to do some damage-limitation – your political career is finished. And so are you.’

Gowrie was afraid of him, but he had some sort of animal courage, or was desperate enough to outface Paul. He backed, his lip curling in an answering snarl.

‘Do you think I don’t feel responsible? Of course I do, for God’s sake, man! I have feelings, too. Do you think you’re the only one who loved her? She may have been adopted, but I loved her as my daughter for most of her life. This has shattered me. I can’t believe she meant to do it, she wasn’t the suicide type, she was so full of life, this was just a tragic accident. I’ll never get over it, and God knows how I’m going to break the news to my wife and her father – this has been the worst day of my life. But if I stayed, what good would it do? I’d just get embroiled in a big scandal, the newspapers are going to have a field-day over this – God knows what they’ll invent, or guess. I can’t be here when the shit hits the fan. Where would be the point of chucking away my own future, my own life? That won’t bring her back, will it? And I’m sure Cathy wouldn’t want that. She was always right behind me. I can do so much good, don’t you see? If I get elected I could do so much good.’

Paul took him by the throat and shook him like a dog, glaring into his face.

‘You lying bastard – all you’re thinking about, all you’ve ever thought about, is yourself! You don’t care about Cathy, you never have. I’m going to kill you.’

‘Please don’t!’ Sophie cried out. She hated Gowrie too, she would like to kill him herself, but Cathy’s death had used up all her emotions. She wanted no more death, no more grief, no more violence.

Paul looked at her for a long moment in silence, then said gently, ‘Sophie, we never got a chance to know each other, and I think I would have loved you very much . . . you look just like my mother when I was a little boy . . . He destroyed that chance too. It’s all too late, time just ran out. And why should he get away with that? She’s dead. He ought to die.’

‘He doesn’t deserve that much luck,’ Steve said very quietly, and Paul’s head swung his way, staring into his eyes. Steve smiled ironically. ‘Leave him to me. I’ll make sure Cathy gets justice. When I’ve finished telling the world the whole story, Gowrie will be finished, believe me.’

‘You’ll break the story?’ Paul asked, and Steve nodded.

Gowrie went white. ‘You can’t do that. You made a deal with me. Are you crazy? You don’t think the network will let you put this out? Have you forgotten how much influence I have? My friends won’t let you do it.’

‘What friends? What influence?’ Steve mocked him. ‘Now Cathy is dead, so are you, Gowrie. Your wife’s father will be the first to hear the whole story, and after that you’re finished. Nobody will lift a finger to save you once the Ramsey family turn against you.’

Desperately, Gowrie caught at his arm, gabbling. ‘Listen, Steve, don’t be a fool, I can do a lot for you, name your price, the sky’s the limit, you can’t do this –’

‘Watch me. You’re a dead man, Gowrie,’ Steve said, shaking him off.

‘Why don’t I just shoot him?’ suggested Paul. ‘It would be easier. It would make me feel better, too.’