Walking in Darkness

She couldn’t refuse to take it, although it made her shudder to feel the hairs brushing against her skin.

‘Sophie Narodni,’ Steve reluctantly introduced. ‘One of our researchers. Sophie, this is Bross. How do you describe yourself now, Bross? Private eye? Detective?’

‘Investigator, I’m an investigator,’ Bross said shortly, his face resenting something in Steve’s tone. He turned his gaze back to Sophie. ‘Nice to meet you, Miss Narodni. What’s that . . . a Polish name? Russian?’

‘Czech.’ Sophie did not like him; there was something reptilian about him, for all his burly size and neat grey suit. His skin had a scaly texture to it, grey and large-pored, unhealthy; his eyes had a cold bloodless stare, and his bony jaw looked as if it could flap right back to allow him to swallow his prey whole.

‘Czech, huh?’ he said. ‘Do you know the senator?’

She kept a blank expression pinned on her face.

‘No, huh? Never met him?’ Bross did not seem too certain he believed her. ‘Been in the States long?’

‘Hey, hey,’ Steve interrupted, scowling. ‘You don’t work for the Bureau now, Bross. Lay off her.’

‘Just making polite conversation.’ Bross kept his snake eyes on her, smiling in a way that made the skin on her neck prickle. ‘I did hear that you worked for some Czech press agency, Miss Narodni. When did you switch to working for this guy’s outfit?’

Sophie was taken aback – so he already knew who she was before Steve introduced her? Again she felt that quiver of vertigo which was becoming so familiar to her – she was walking in the darkness on a taut, high wire, and every time she looked down she felt her head swim.

Smoothly Steve told him, ‘She just did, OK? We needed a researcher and she’s worked in Europe for a few years, she could help us out.’ He stopped to listen to an announcement on the Tannoy above them, then gave the other man a cold smile. ‘You heard the captain – you should be sitting down with your seatbelt fastened, Bross. We’ll be landing soon.’

Bross gave them both a nod. ‘Nice to meet you, Miss Narodni. I’ll be seeing you.’

She shivered watching him walk away. ‘I didn’t like the way he said that.’

‘You weren’t meant to. He was just letting us know that he was on our case, hoping to surprise us into telling him something he didn’t already know.’ Steve seemed unbothered, though. He smiled at her. ‘Don’t let him get to you. Bross is harmless. It’s Gowrie and his people you have to watch out for, isn’t it?’

She didn’t answer, turning her head to look down on grey, wintry London’s familiar outlines.

‘Look, there’s the Thames,’ she said, staring at the silvery gleam bending like a snake among the fields and houses below them.

Two hours later Cathy Brougham stood on the grand staircase at Arbory House, watching a chandelier being lowered with the utmost care into a soft nest of piled sheets. The prisms chimed and glittered in wintry sunlight as they moved. The cha

ndelier had already been cleaned once, but that morning Paul Brougham, normally so calm and controlled, was almost jumpy with nerves over this visit, and, constantly going around the house checking that it shone with perfection, had noticed a spider’s web among the long, crystal drops, and, he swore, a film of dust there too. Over breakfast he had said, ‘Get it done properly this morning. We’re having some very important people here over the next few days. I don’t want them thinking they’ve come to stay with Miss Havisham.’

She had laughed. ‘Well, I do still have some of our wedding-cake left – the bottom layer, darling. You’re supposed to keep it for the christening of your first baby – but it isn’t covered in cobwebs, it’s safely wrapped in foil and put away. Of course, I could wear Grandmama’s wedding dress – except that I gave it to Grandee after the wedding, and it’s back at Easton now.’

‘I see you’re in a playful mood,’ Paul said, watching her with sensual amusement, making her pulses beat fast. ‘I hope you feel the same tonight.’

She put a finger to her lips, kissed it, brushed it along his mouth in a lingering caress, her eyes smouldering. ‘I will,’ she promised.

The sexual excitement between them showed no signs of fading or dying down. Paul put his hand under the table and slid it over her silk-clad thigh, his fingers exploring the warmth between her legs. She closed her eyes, quivering.

Paul sighed. ‘No time, got to go, darling. Hold that mood.’ He stood up and kissed the top of her head before striding out.

Coming out of her sensual trance, Cathy had sighed before going upstairs to get dressed. She knew she had no time for her usual morning ride. Mr Tiffany would be petulant next time she went out to the stables, but she would take him an extra apple and maybe even a piece of the forbidden sugar he loved so much. Before she got dressed, however, she rang the housekeeper and gave the order to have the chandelier let down and cleaned.

‘And this time make sure it is utterly spotless. Mr Brougham has eagle eyes, remember, he notices every detail.’ And expected his orders to be followed to the letter, as every member of his staff both at home and work knew only too well.

Glancing at her watch now, Cathy smiled. Her father would have landed at Heathrow, might already be on his way into London to his hotel. As soon as he had checked in he had promised to ring her.

The servants gathered on their knees around the landed chandelier began to work with softest chamois leather, heads bent in concentration.

Cathy went back to her private sitting-room and sat down at an elegant little walnut bureau to write letters; one to her best friend from school, Bella, who was now married to a Swiss hotelier and living in Geneva, and one to her grandfather, who liked to hear from her as often as possible, even if it was only a few lines on a postcard. Whenever Cathy visited interesting places she bought postcards to send him at some future time – postcards of Brighton Pavilion, postcards of Salisbury Cathedral, Edinburgh Castle, views of the Highlands with deer grazing, views of Paris by night, of Big Ben by day. She wouldn’t get much time to herself over the next week. She could manage just half an hour now.

‘Darling Grandee,’ she began, and was soon deep in a detailed description of the preparations for her father’s visit, aiming to make her grandfather feel he could see through her eyes. When she had addressed the envelope she reached for another sheet of headed paper but before she had taken it the phone rang, and she sighed and reached for that instead, knowing that her housekeeper would be busy with the chandelier. ‘Yes?’

‘Hello? I want to . . . could I please speak to . . . Mrs Brougham, please?’ The voice was unfamiliar, husky, a little breathless.