In the Still of the Night

‘How do you feel, Annie? Can you sit up?’

‘Should we call a doctor?’ Harriet asked.

‘No,’ Annie said hurriedly.

‘No,’ agreed Sean. He was staring at the white cardboard box which he had just noticed under the table, where it had fallen.

‘I’ll be fine now, I’m …’ Annie broke off a

s she saw the bootee on the floor.

Sean saw the shudder of revulsion run through her, the way her skin seemed to lose even more colour, turn the white of ice and snow, bloodless and cold.

Sliding an arm under her legs, he got to his feet holding her and walked quickly into the sitting-room, laid her full length on a deeply sprung white couch and put several cushions behind her head.

Closing her eyes again, Annie lay still, trying to control the shivers running through her.

Sean sat down on the couch beside her and picked up her restless, chilly little hands.

‘Where did it come from, Annie?’

The quiet question made her stiffen. For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer him; he could tell she didn’t want to talk about it, but at last she whispered, ‘Derek gave it to me at the studio today.’

‘Derek?’ The name jerked out of Harriet; Sean frowned round at her, putting a finger on his lips to silence her.

‘What does it mean?’ Sean held Annie’s hands, rubbing them, trying to put some warmth back into them.

‘I … I can’t tell you …’

‘He’s blackmailing you, isn’t he?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Who had a baby, Annie? You?’

She groaned, bit her lower lip; he saw a spot of bright red blood seep through the colourless flesh.

‘There was a baby, and a death – or else why the blood? What’s he threatening? To talk to the press? When was this, Annie? Recently?’

‘I was at drama school, I was eighteen,’ Annie fiercely said, pulling her hands away from him.

‘And you got pregnant? Don’t tell me Derek was the father?’ Sean looked at her incredulously.

Annie’s face answered for her; the shiver of repulsion was unmistakable. ‘No!’

‘Where does Derek come into it, then?’ persisted Sean, and after a long pause she told him, her voice low and bleak.

‘My boyfriend vanished, I had no money, and Derek came along at just that moment to offer me a part on TV. My mother and Derek talked me into an abortion, and because we had no money Derek paid for it. I’ve paid him back over and over again in the last few years.’ She took a long, ragged breath. ‘And, God, I’ve bitterly regretted it ever since. I shouldn’t have listened to them, I didn’t want to kill my baby – but I’d been through a bad shock just before that, I was very low – and then my boyfriend walked out on me, and I was too unhappy to care what happened, I just sleepwalked into it.’ She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide and wet with tears that began then to slip down her face. ‘I wish to God I could undo what I did, sometimes I have dreams about being back there, having the baby, I dream it has been born and they put it in my arms and then I see it’s dead and I wake up crying.’

He brought out a clean white handkerchief and dried her face gently. ‘And how long has Derek Fenn been blackmailing you over it?’

‘Since the start of the series.’ She gave him a cynical little grimace. ‘Since I began to have money he could so-called borrow and not pay back.’

‘The bastard,’ muttered Harriet. ‘The dirty little bastard. Well, that’s it, I’m sacking him.’

‘No,’ Annie burst out and at the same moment Sean spoke, his voice riding over the top of Annie’s.

‘What do you imagine he’ll do then? The minute he’s fired, he’ll be on to the press with his story, and they’ll eat it with a knife and fork.’