Angel of Death
‘And you’re not getting rid of me, Sean. You’re going to have to break off your engagement and marry me. Or I’ll talk to the press. I don’t think your fiancée’s father will be very happy to hear about your little bastard, do you? Your engagement isn’t going to last long, once he hears about me and the baby.’
Miranda hated the ugly sound of their screaming at each other. She got up and ran to the window, then froze in shock.
The girl was still screaming, but now her voice was muffled. There were other, uglier noises now – flailing arms beating the water, a rhythmic banging as if hands were beating on the side of the bath.
She knew those gulping, choking sounds. Somebody was drowning.
The nightmare played again in her head. Those familiar, terrifying noises going on and on.
She was dragged backwards in time.
Tom was drowning. Tom was dying. She could not see him, could not reach him, but she heard him and felt sick and faint.
When everything was still again, when silence fell, Miranda didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Just stood there, trembling, white as snow, icy cold.
Had she imagined what she just heard? Had it really happened? There had been so many nights when she had dreamt those sounds, woken to hear them in her room, only to be forced to admit she had imagined it.
She stood listening, waiting, staring at the bathroom opposite.
Sean reappeared at the open window. He was tying the belt of a black towelling robe as he reached forward to close the window. Behind him the steam had cleared, the room was horribly quiet.
This time he looked across and saw Miranda.
They stared at each other. His face filled with visible shock. He turned ashen.
Miranda’s mind clouded. She had not imagined it. Someone had just drowned. A girl had died in that bathroom.
From the minute she saw that man at the party yesterday she had known a death would follow.
She slowly slipped to the floor in a dead faint.
Chapter Two
Miranda opened her eyes and stared up blankly at the plain white office ceiling. For a few seconds she could not understand where she was, or why she was lying on the floor. It was like a strange dream, except that she knew she was awake and wasn’t in her flat.
She began to scramble to her feet unsteadily but as she stood up memory returned and she staggered, clutching at the desk.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Someone had drowned. Over there, across the courtyard, in the bathroom of Terry’s flat, someone had drowned.
She lurched forward, pulled up the blinds. The window of the bathroom was closed and she could see nothing through the bubbled glass, not even the shadow of anyone in the room beyond. There wasn’t a sound. The summer afternoon was languid and still. In the distance she heard the drone of London traffic, like bees fumbling among flowers.
Had it really happened? It was dreamlike. Had she heard someone drowning? Or had she imagined it?
Confused, she stared across the courtyard. Suddenly out of the fog of memory and doubt she had a clear vision of Sean’s face staring at her through that window, just before she fainted, and she knew she had not imagined anything. It had really happened.
First, she had heard them shouting at each other, and she winced at the memory of what they had said, then those awful, terrifyingly familiar noises had begun.
Panic welled up inside her. What was going on over there now? Was Sean still there, or had he left? What if he was coming round here, to confront her?
Her hands shook with nerves at the idea of seeing him after what she had overheard. What could she say? What would he do?
She wanted to run, but wouldn’t give in to it. She had to do everything she always did before leaving the office. Ever since the shipwreck, she found life safer if she stuck to a careful routine. Habit was the hedge that kept out chaos. Leave out something you usually did and the boundaries burst and a deluge rushed in on you. That was what she had learnt in hospital. Get up at the same time, go to bed at the same time, eat at the same times, every day. Safety was a small oasis in the middle of a jungle. You had to stay inside those parameters or you would be lost.
So she lowered the blinds again, picked up the work she had been doing, put it into the safe, locked it, shut down her computer and locked the drawers of her desk. Only then did she pick up her handbag and leave.
As soon as she was out of the office, though, her iron control broke and she began to hurry, to run, her breath coming quickly. Must get away before Sean arrived, she thought. Must get away.