Walking in Darkness

Gowrie gave him a wild look, then turned and began to run. Over his shoulder he screamed, ‘Don’t even think about telling anyone, Colbourne, or I’ll see you get yours!’

They heard the slam of the front door, his running feet on the gravel.

Paul began to laugh. ‘Well, I’ll leave him to you, then, Steve.’ He held out his hand and with a surprised look Steve slowly took it. ‘Sorry I didn’t get to know you better,’ Paul said with a friendly look. ‘Too late now, but thanks. Crucify the bastard, for Cathy’s sake.’

He walked back to the couch and picked up Cathy again, before moving towards the door at an unhurried pace. The others all stood and watched. Sophie put a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob. She had never had a real chance to get to know her sister. Now she never would.

‘Give me ten minutes alone with her,’ Paul said as he walked out of the room. ‘Then ring the police.’

Nobody moved or spoke as he went out into the hall, up the stairs. In the silence the creak of the floorboards upstairs sounded as loud as a shot.

Sophie jumped, opening her mouth to scream. Nothing came out. She felt as if her head was exploding. Nothing seemed real any more.

At last she managed to whisper, ‘We ought to go with him. He’s desperate, he might . . . do anything.’

‘He’s old enough to make his own decisions,’ Steve said gently, looking with compassion at her white, drawn face.

Vladimir said, ‘I need a stiff drink, I don’t know about you.’

‘I think we could all do with one this time,’ Steve grimaced.

Looking at Sophie intently, Steve said, ‘You’re not going to faint again, are you?’

She couldn’t even answer. He pushed her down on to a chair and held a glass of brandy to her white lips.

She pushed it away, shaking her head, but he put it up to her mouth again. ‘Drink some. No argument, Sophie. You need it.’

She reluctantly parted her lips and took a swallow. The spirits made her cough, her throat growing hot as the brandy went down.

Steve made her take another couple of swallows, then he sipped at his own glass. She saw from his face that he was as shocked as she was; he needed the brandy.

‘This isn’t really happening. I’m having a nightmare,’ Sophie murmured to herself.

‘I wish to God you were,’ said Steve heavily.

‘I wish I was, too,’ she whispered.

They heard the shot upstairs a moment later.

Epilogue

Eighteen months later, on a fine May morning, Sophie pushed open the gate of Arbory’s medieval church and paused to look across the grass which lapped the graves in a green sea, looking for the grave which, last time she saw it, had been a raw, weeping wound in the earth, without a headstone to mark it.

It had rained the day they were buried. The gargoyles on the ancient grey stone walls had spouted water from their mouths, rain dripped from holly and yew, the very paths became small streams running downhill towards the gate.

Today the weather was very different. Sunlight gilded the stained-glass windows along the sides of the church, making the haloes of medieval saints glitter, robins and blackbirds were busy feeding their young in the ivy which curtained the wall around the churchyard, carrying caterpillars and moths to stuff into the gaping mouths waiting for them. The trees were all in full, green, glorious leaf, rustling and sighing around the churchyard. The whole world was full of promise.

‘There it is, Anya, at the back,’ she said, looking down at the baby she was carrying in a wicker carrycot, and as if in answer the pink starfish hands waved back at her.

The grave lay in a pool of dense shadow cast by a great, spreading yew. Sophie walked slowly along the path to it and put her free hand on the scaly bark, looking back across the years, remembering another churchyard, another yew tree far away, and another grave.

She had been back to the Czech Republic a few months ago to put flowers on her mother’s grave. Johanna had died without ever knowing what had happened to Cathy. The joy of talking to her long-lost daughter on the phone had been too much for her. She had had a stroke a few hours later and been taken to hospital, where she lingered in a coma for several weeks before dying. To Sophie at that time it had seemed that death was all around her, she could not escape it wherever she went. It was months before she came out of that grim mood.

When she had visited her home again she wandered over to look at the grave which for so long had claimed to be the last resting place of Pavel and Anya Narodni. The stone had been removed, and so had the remains of little Cathy Gowrie. Her grandfather had had his only grandchild brought home to lie in the graveyard at Easton. The real Paul Brougham was still buried where he had lain since 1968, but no headstone proclaimed his identity. Sophie had knelt beside his grave and said a prayer for his soul, wondering if he would want to be moved. The little village was a peaceful place to sleep until eternity.

The real Anya and Pavel had been buried here, in England, a week or two after their deaths, once the local coroner had allowed the burial to take place. First there had been an inquest, held in a small hall locally, with a grey, stooped coroner listening to the evidence, asking polite, hushed questions with a sympathetic, appalled, incredulous expression on his wrinkled, tortoise-like face, while a great mob of reporters scribbled, whispered, stared.

They had waited outside to pounce on Sophie, Steve and Vlad when they left. Flashbulbs exploding, photographers jostling, reporters screaming questions. The story was already out in the States. Steve had done his weekly programme from London, via the satellite, and made sure with a few judicious leaks to major newspapers that the media were all watching that night. Next day every daily newspaper in America had carried the story as their lead.