Walking in Darkness

She already knew all that, but she pretended surprise. ‘Yes? That is sad. What’s wrong with her?’

‘God knows. She has never been strong, I gather.’

Still casual, she murmured, ‘How many children do they have?’

‘Just one. Cathy.’

She noted the intimacy of the shortened name with a pang of shock. Did he know Gowrie’s daughter well enough to call her that, or did the press all use her pet name?

‘What’s she like?’ she asked, keeping her eyes down on her linked hands on the polished bar table, struggling not to betray anything by her face, by her voice, but it wasn’t easy; emotion kept trying to break through.

‘Beautiful,’ he said with a bitter tang to his voice. She looked up then, startled, but this time it was Steve who avoided her stare, his eyes fixed on his empty glass. ‘She’s smart, too,’ he said as if talking to himself. ‘She’s clever and cool-headed, a political animal. Of course, it’s in her blood. She comes from a family who’ve been mixed up in politics for generations. She has travelled from coast to coast with her father many a time. He worships the ground she walks on, she has always been more of an asset to him than her mother, who almost never shows up. Cathy sat on platforms with him, worked on campaigns, talked to the press . . . she knew exactly how to talk to people, she could have had a career in politics any time she wanted it.’

‘But she didn’t?’ Sophie took in everything he had said, and thirsted to hear more. She needed to know everything about this other woman whose existence dominated Gowrie’s life.

He shrugged without answering. ‘She may once have done, but not any more.’

Why not? Sophie wondered. What had changed? ‘Does she have a career?’

He grimaced, his face sardonic. ‘Several, none of them very serious. She was an interior designer for a while, she’s an expert on eighteenth-century porcelain, she paints and writes articles for specialist magazines . . . she dabbles in a lot of things. I wouldn’t call any of them a career. Anyway, she’s married now.’

She nodded absently. ‘To an Englishman. I know.’

‘Why are you so interested in Gowrie?’ Steve asked abruptly, and her nerves jumped.

‘Well . . . obviously . . . if he should become president of the United States that would make him the most powerful man in the world.’ She knew she had stammered, sounded odd, but he had taken her by surprise. He kept coming far too close. She must get away from him before he guessed too much . . .

She got up unsteadily, very pale. ‘Thank you for the drink. I must go, I have copy to file,’ she said in a rush, beginning to move away just as his producer appeared in the doorway, looking agitated. He didn’t come over to them, but stared fixedly at Steve, held up his wrist, tapped his watch pointedly.

Steve nodded and began to walk towards him, in step with Sophie. ‘Looks as if I’ve got to go and do some more work, too, before Simon blows his stack. Time always flies by when you’re enjoying yourself. Look, could we have dinner together tonight?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and meant it. For once she wanted to, she really did, but she couldn’t. It would be far too dangerous. He was one of the most attractive men she’d ever met, and if he wasn’t so shrewd and perceptive she might have taken the risk, but this was not a man it was easy to fool – she knew she would find it hard to go on lying, deceiving him, for long, if they saw each other again.

‘Come on, for God’s sake,’ Simon grunted as they reached him, ‘We’re all set up outside, we’ve been waiting for you for ten minutes. If we miss the evening news you can explain it – I’m not taking the can for you.’

‘No need to panic, we have plenty of time.’

Steve Colbourne sounded so calm and unflappable – was he always like that? Sophie envied him; she wished she could stand up to pressure that well. She tried to look and sound as cool as a cucumber, but her nerves made her stomach cramp into agony at times.

As they walked towards the swing doors leading out of the hotel, the lift doors opened and out came a massed body of men who began moving at speed in their direction, cutting a swath through the hotel guests, who fell back, parting like the Red Sea in the face of that unstoppable force. Sophie’s breath caught as she saw it was Don Gowrie, flanked by security men on all sides.

Steve and his producer had already gone through the swing doors, but Sophie was too slow in following. A second later the little army of men was on her, but they didn’t march past because Don Gowrie stopped, and they all stopped with him.

‘Miss Narodni,’ Don Gowrie said, giving her that boyish smile of his. ‘Hello again. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to answer your question – another time, maybe?’

His cool nerve took her breath away. She would have loved to shout out the truth, wipe that smile off his face – but she couldn’t, not yet at least. She needed to meet Mrs Gowrie and Catherine, first. She didn’t want to destroy their lives just because Don Gowrie was a lying, cheating bastard. Why should they pay for what he had done? She felt an intense sympathy and pity for his wife; no doubt she had known the truth all along, but the poor woman had suffered. Sophie didn’t want to hurt her even more.

‘Maybe you’ll have time to talk to me while you’re in London?’ she told him, hoping she sounded as cool as he did.

She saw the flicker of shock in his eyes before he veiled them. ‘So you’ll be in London too?’ he said. ‘I’ll certainly look out for you.’

Then he was gone, his entourage hiding him from her; she followed through the swing doors a moment later and saw the long black limousines driving off at speed, while police held up the rest of the traffic until the limousines had got away.

While she stared, Don Gowrie’s face briefly showed at the back window of the second car. He looked towards her and then he was gone.

She heard Steve Colbourne’s voice from a hundred feet away; he was standing with his back to her, and the hotel behind her, recording a piece to camera, his voice confidential, smooth, accustomed.

Sophie didn’t hover to listen to what he was saying. She pulled her jacket closer, and began to walk towards the subway station nearest the hotel. She had to get back to her flat and file her story with Vlad, try to talk him into letting her fly to London.