She looked at Steve miserably. ‘They won’t send him to prison, will they?’
Cathy broke out in a shaken voice, ‘What charge could they bring? I mean . . . he’s done nothing illegal.’
‘Only committed fraud,’ said Steve in that cool, contemptuous voice she hated. ‘He passed you off as the heir to the Ramsey fortune, remember? He passed you off as his child, used his real, dead child’s passport to smuggle a Czech girl into America as an American. That’s two very serious counts, to start with, and I can’t see him getting out of either of them.’
Cathy put a trembling hand to her mouth. If all this was true . . . she wasn’t even an American. She was Czech. The implications of Sophie’s story were only just beginning to dawn on her.
‘If it’s true!’ she threw back at Steve. ‘I don’t believe it, any of it!’
12
Up in his bedroom, Paul Brougham was just dressing when he heard the chopper engines, the whirr of the blades. He crossed softly to the window, pulled the curtains back and looked up into the sky, watched the machine slowly descending, the down-draft blowing the grass back and forth.
Gowrie had arrived. Paul’s eyes burnt with hatred. He had never quite trusted the man, but he had liked him well enough once, perhaps because he wanted to like him. Cathy’s family had become his family; he had been careful to weave himself into them and some of them he liked a hell of a lot. Old Ramsey, for instance, he was quite a guy; tough, yes, as old shoe-leather, but a man you respected all the same. He had principles, he believed in something; you knew that once his word was given you could trust him.
Paul had never really respected Gowrie. The man was a typical diplomat, all surface and no depth. He was smooth, far too agreeable to be true; an oily, deceptive, devious man, and Paul had always suspected he had no heart. Now he was sure of it.
But Cathy loved her father. She had been close to him all her life; he had taken care to keep her close, and Paul had taken that to prove the man loved her, but now he could see how she had been used, manipulated. Gowrie had used her to buy himself golden opinions – as a good father, a good family man, a man you could rely on. Now it would reap him dividends. How could she turn against the man she had loved all her life? However angry she might be, however disillusioned, hurt, bewildered . . . he was still the man she thought of as her father, wasn’t he? You couldn’t just discard the feelings of years like a shed snake-skin.
He heard the muted voices below him as they also stood by the window on the floor below, watching the helicopter descending. Paul recognized Cathy’s husky tones, picked up the familiar notes of Steve Colbourne’s voice, jealously resenting his presence here at Arbory.
Colbourne had never been here before, had not been welcome in Paul’s home. He wasn’t welcome now. Paul wished he could go down and throw him out, but he had too many other things to worry about. He couldn’t waste his time on minor irritations.
The third voice was Sophie’s, but sounded as at ease with the others as if they had known each other all their lives. The intimacy between them hurt him, made him feel excluded.
Gowrie had ruined all their lives with his self-seeking ambition, his total lack of scruples, and now he had been found out the bastard was trying to wriggle out of the consequences, ready to kill to save himself. It was pure luck that he hadn’t already killed Sophie.
Gowrie had to be stopped before he did more harm. He had done Cathy a terrible injury; she didn’t know yet just how much harm Gowrie had done her, done both of them. Paul closed his eyes, shuddering at the thought of how she would feel if she ever found out the truth. He couldn’t tell her. He would do anything to make sure she never found out.
He walked soft-footed down the stairs to his study without anyone hearing him, opened a drawer in his desk, pushed aside a false bottom and got out the hidden contents: a handgun and some ammunition in a box.
He loaded the gun with deft competence; he had learnt years ago how to do it quickly although he had never yet used the gun against a human being. Slipping it into his inside jacket pocket, he felt it, heavy and cold, against his heart, but that was nothing new – his heart had been cold and heavy all night.
He had felt like this before, he knew the bitter chill of grief and loss, the ache of the inevitable, the pain of unbearable choice. He had had to leave them behind once before, those he loved, his family, wife and children – leave them not knowing if he would ever return. It had been one of those life-or-death choices; well, he hadn’t really had much choice at all, unless he was ready to die, and he hadn’t been.
He had been young then, though, a man at the very beginning of his life with hope and possibility inside him.
God! He wished he were that age now; could still run and start again somewhere else, but last night something had broken inside him, some vital spring without which he could not move.
They met Gowrie as he arrived at the front door, surrounded by security men who fanned out with watchful, skimming eyes, their jackets unbuttoned and their fingers splayed across their waistcoats, ready to draw at the first hint of danger.
Cathy was white, drawn. ‘I don’t want those men in my house! They pushed me around enough last night – in my own home! They aren’t doing that again.’
Jack Beverley coolly answered before Gowrie could open his mouth. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Brougham, but I’ve had to advise the senator not to enter your house until we’ve had an opportunity to check it out for listening devices.’
‘You aren’t checking my house for anything!’ Cathy snapped at him. ‘You and your men can stay out!’
Gowrie said, ‘We have to talk though, Cathy. Look, why don’t we go for a walk around the grounds? Get your coat on, it’s cold out here.’
‘Not until these men have all been withdrawn. And I mean all, Mr Beverley. You included. Get yourselves back in that chopper and get out of here.’
Beverley gave one of his cold sneers. ‘I’m here to protect the senator! And I’m going to do my job. Your husband no doubt has his security men here! How do we know we can trust them?’
It was stalemate. They stood there staring angrily at each other. Steve said curtly, ‘You either trust us or you don’t, Senator. Cathy wouldn’t bug her own house, for God’s sake.’
Gowrie quietly said, ‘Look, why don’t we take a walk, Cathy? I’d like to see your stables. I can have a look at Mr Tiffany.’ He glanced at Beverley. ‘The stables are a safe, enclosed spot, Jack. No hidden surveillance out there. Your men can withdraw to the helicopter while we have our chat, OK?’
Steve frowned. ‘She isn’t going anywhere alone with you.’