Walking in Darkness by Charlotte Lamb Page B

think about it, she already knew he was right. She was in danger. But she had promised not to tell a living soul and she could not break that promise, not until she had talked to Don Gowrie, made him understand she did not want to threaten him – he needn’t be afraid of what she might do, unless he refused to give her what she wanted.
    She was given another sedative later that night, a more powerful one that almost knocked her out. Her sleep was heavy, troubled; she was back home again, seven years old, it was her first communion and she wore a long white dress, but there was blood on it, she screamed, then saw it was not blood, it was a red flower. Sophie picked it up and laid it reverently on her dead sister’s grave, but a bony white hand came up out of the earth and grabbed her wrist.
    She woke up screaming. The little hospital room was dimly lit; a nurse hurried in. ‘Are you in pain?’ she asked, bending over Sophie.
    For a second Sophie didn’t seem able to talk at all, then she managed to mutter, ‘Sorry, I had a nightmare.’
    The nurse seemed unsurprised. ‘That would be the drugs,’ she casually nodded. ‘They can cause bad dreams if you aren’t used to taking them. Would you like some warm milk? That might help. Calm you down a little, more naturally than the drugs.’
    ‘You’re very kind,’ Sophie said gratefully.
    In the cab driving away from the hospital, Lilli turned on Steve, eyes blazing. ‘You lied to me – you aren’t a friend of hers, you’re just a reporter after a story and you haven’t any scruples about getting it, have you? You saw the state she was in – but you still kept on at her, you bastard!’
    ‘I wasn’t after a story, I was trying to save her life,’ Steve said, biting the words out between tight teeth. ‘You don’t understand what’s going on here, Lilli. Believe me, she’s in danger.’
    She tried to read his tense, angry face, but how could you be sure he wasn’t lying? ‘I wish I knew what was going on. Is she mixed up in something? This isn’t spying, is it? Her country isn’t in that business any more, I thought – or is it? Is this politics? The international kind? She isn’t being used to get at Don Gowrie? I remember she asked me a lot of questions about him when she first arrived but I hardly knew a thing about the man. He’s another guy who wants to be president, isn’t he? Is that what this is about?’
    ‘I wish I knew – you saw her reaction, there’s something she isn’t saying, and it scares the living daylights out of her. She’s got to tell someone what she knows. Until she does there could be another attack on her at any minute, and next time they might get her.’
    ‘Who are
they?
’ cried Lilli, angry and distressed.
    ‘Ask Sophie. You know as much as I do.’
    She didn’t look convinced. The cab pulled up. Lilli looked out of the window, surprised. ‘Oh, we’re back at my place. Well, goodnight. I’ll pay the fare to here; you can take the cab on to your own place.’
    ‘The fare is on me. I’ll put it on expenses.’
    ‘Oh, well, in that case – thanks,’ Lilli said drily.
    ‘I’m staying at the New Normandy Hotel for the night. Call me if you have any problems.’
    Don Gowrie watched his father-in-law light a forbidden cigar, his eyes screwed up against the smoke but a beatific smile on his face. He was the oldest man Don knew, a living fossil, with skin like grey parchment, eyes buried in wrinkles like a tortoise, a few white strands of hair brushed across the pulsing pink dome of his bald head. Yet for all his age he was still very much all there; a shrewd old man with no illusions, an old man who held tightly to the reins of his ancient power, to his wealth and his influence in the world he was in no hurry to leave.
    ‘Haven’t had one of these for . . . oh, a year at least. Don’t often get off my chain these days,’ Eddie Ramsey told the other old men seated across the table from him, and they all