Walking in Darkness

by Charlotte Lamb

Genres: Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

Your father's or the truth. Whose side would you be on? Beautiful heiress Catherine Gowrie has spent her life protected by one of America's wealthiest families. Now Don Gowrie, her all-powerful father, is close to his greatest ambition - nomination as Presidential candidate. And nothing must be allowed to stand in his way. But Sophie Narodni, a young journalist from Prague carries a secret that could destroy everything Don Gowrie has dreamed of - if he doesn't silence her first. What the readers are saying 'Wonderful . . . it had me hanging off my seat' 'A roller coaster. Surprising and shocking twists'

Release date: March 28, 2013

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 384

Sample

Steve Colbourne first saw her on a chilly November day in a New York hotel bar; she walked in and stood just inside the door, her blue eyes carefully not lingering on anyone as she looked around, very obviously not wishing to catch the eye of any of the men jostling elbow to elbow in the room. He didn’t blame her. From a girl like this the briefest meeting of eyes might be taken as a come-on – no doubt she had learnt that the hard way. Was she there to meet any of them? He looked around curiously, from face to familiar face. A number of them had also noticed her but he couldn’t see recognition in any of their staring eyes. Just lust.

The Washington circus had come to New York by invitation from Senator Don Gowrie. Those of them with good expense accounts were staying here, in this hotel, which was one of the more expensive hotels in the city, and, as was their habit, had looked at once for the most congenial watering hole and taken over this dark-oak panelled bar, with its deep leather seating and polished tables, the gleaming brass along the back of the bar, as their own. Any other guests wanting a drink soon learnt to use one of the other two bars in the hotel, but the blonde, he sensed, had not wandered in here by mistake. She was looking for one of them – lucky devil.

She was quite something: hair smooth, pale gold, tall, slim, with better breasts than model girls had and terrific legs, long and shapely, but above all with skin so smooth and such a luscious texture you felt it would taste like cream, and he wouldn’t mind tasting it, no, he wouldn’t mind at all.

Just when he was about to go over and offer to buy her a drink, she turned and walked out. He would have gone after her, but if she was meeting some other guy it could lead to trouble and he had had enough trouble for the moment. Enough emotion, too, come to that. It interfered with your work, and left scar tissue. A year ago he had been dealt a blow that still had not healed – how could it when there were so many memories everywhere in Washington?

That was why he was glad to get out of Washington, happy to see the run-up to the primaries starting, because that was what this was all about. Don Gowrie had called a press conference two days before he was due to fly to London to begin a tour of Europe. He was going as part of a Senate commission looking into restrictive market practices which might damage the US but it was an open secret that he was using this opportunity to renew his friendships and strengthen his ties with influential people in Europe. Gowrie was throwing his hat in the ring without actually announcing the fact and he had called a press conference to deny that that was what he was doing. The political pundits had not been fooled but their votes were not what he was looking for; he was appealing to the electorate over their heads, and the voters out there in Heartland America would probably take him at his word because Don Gowrie was a charmer, a man with fireside warmth, a man who breathed sincerity.

Steve enjoyed electioneering, tramping state to state, following the politicians out into the real world, where the voters lived, where life was not as cocooned, as cosy and incestuous as it was back home in the capital. The smell of battle put a brighter light into the eyes of politicians and journalists alike.

They were all in the bar that afternoon, waiting for two o’clock when the ballroom doors would be opened for the press to rush in. Like the Gadarene swine, thought Steve, looking at their faces in the hard electric light, faces that knew everything and valued nothing, eyes that were bright and shiny and blank as if they had not yet been switched on.

They were drinking and talking, telling dirty jokes to each other, boasting about their latest lay or their handicap at golf, complaining about their wives or the alimony they paid their ex-wives, and the ones with the dreamy expressions were talking about cars. Nobody was listening to anyone else. A few were just drinking steadily, silently, almost relentlessly; they were the old hands, the soaks, remnants of years of drinking in bars while they waited for something to happen, men who didn’t care anymore, just did the job and then went home to an empty apartment and drank until they passed out.

‘What d’ya think, Stevie?’ one of his crew shouted, leaning forward to peer at him along the bar. ‘You know the guy – d’ya think he’s got a bimbo stashed away somewhere, or not?’

Steve shrugged. ‘I don’t know him that well, Jack. He doesn’t tell me his bedroom secrets, if he has any.’

‘Didn’t I read somewhere that you once dated his daughter?’ another reporter along the bar called out.

Steve ignored him. Jack finished his beer then looked regretfully at the foam-flecked, empty glass. Steve hoped Jack wasn’t going to have another drink; he had had quite a few already and in that huddle in the ballroom the cameraman was going to need a steady hand. Jack was a big guy with broad shoulders and muscles like whipcord, he could carry weights that would make most men’s knees buckle, but he had a weak head where drink was concerned and Steve didn’t want their picture wavering all over the place; he was hoping to get a good slot in the night news running order. You were only as good as your last story and to keep your reputation you had to keep getting your piece into the front of the news.

The TV people had all their equipment set up already in the ballroom. They always got the prime position, right up in front of the platform. TV had more influence than the rest of the media; one picture on the news at night was worth any number of articles in the press. They had left their cameras and mikes and lights under the watchful eyes of the security men. No need to be afraid someone might get at their stuff here, steal it or wreck it, in the local headquarters of the Republican Party. There were enough security men around to stop a full-scale riot. This must be costing Don Gowrie a fortune. Steve’s mouth twisted sardonically. Not Gowrie, of course, no; he was wealthy, but this campaign must be costing millions and Gowrie wasn’t that rich.

No, Gowrie’s father-in-law was paying for all this, old Honest John, John Eddie Ramsey, one of the most influential men along the Eastern Seaboard, whose wealth was fabulous and who came from a family which had been up to its neck in Republican politics since the early nineteenth century, one of those who still called it the Grand Old Party, and meant it.

Honest John had been bred to be a president by an ambitious father, yet he had never quite made it, somehow. He had come close several times but his chance had slipped away each time. Hard to say why. Maybe he hadn’t really wanted it enough, or maybe he had had bad luck. He had certainly had no luck with his family. He had had three sons who all died, one of them fighting in Korea as a young conscript of eighteen, one of them on the hunting field when he broke his neck taking a jump too high for his horse, and Eddie Junior who had died of liver disease when he was only forty, having drunk his way steadily towards death since he was in his teens. None of them had married or had children. Old Ramsey must have thought he had made certain of having grandchildren by getting himself three sons. How could he have predicted the disasters that had overtaken them all? A funny business, life.

Honest John’s one daughter, Eleanor, a pale, fragile, jumpy woman, had looked as if she was going to die a spinster. There had never been any bees around that honeypot, for all her family’s money. She never learnt how to talk to people and if young men tried to chat her up she had fled, trembling. She was kept out of the political limelight, living quietly at home with her mother on the Ramsey estate at Easton, Maryland, the acknowledged social bastion along that seaboard. At thirty-three she had amazed them all by marrying Don Gowrie, a diplomat eight years her junior, good-looking and ambitious, but with very little money and no powerful family connections. The whisper around town was that her father had decided young Gowrie would make a reliable son-in-law, had put the marriage together, like a political deal, promised Gowrie his backing in the future in return for marrying Eleanor. How Eleanor felt about it nobody could guess and in those days the press did not dare ask, had never, anyway, been given an opportunity to question her. She had given no interviews. She had simply sat for photographers. In her ivory satin, lace and pearls, she had made a delicate bride, judging by the fading sepia photographs in the newspaper files Steve had seen. Whatever the truth, the two of them had finally, a couple of years later, given the old man his first and only grandchild, a girl, Catherine.

No doubt Honest John had prayed she would not take after her mother, but he must have been afraid she would. He needn’t have worried.

Catherine was lovely, even as a child, when she was painted by the most fashionable portrait painter of the day, in a simple white dress. The painting had caused a sensation that year; everyone had been enchanted by the slender, black-haired little creature standing in a woodland setting with a tame deer feeding from her hand; a modern Snow White, with big dark eyes and skin like cream. She was much photographed by the press, too, at the same time: Catherine aged eight, in immaculate jodhpurs and black hat, riding her palomino pony at the Ramsey family country house; Catherine winning cups for jumping at local gymkhanas, later; Catherine in a one-piece swimsuit, her black hair tied up in a knot behind her head, down on Chesapeake Bay, with her grandfather, catching crabs at low tide and taking a bucketful back to be cooked for lunch that morning, the press story said. By the time she reached eighteen she was always in the gossip columns, tipped as debutante of the year, hotly expected to marry young because she was surrounded from the start by eligible young bachelors. It was an open secret that Honest John Ramsey doted on her, and so did her father, and as heiress to one of the biggest fortunes on the East Coast she was a prize men would fight for. But she showed no interest in marrying young, indeed as she grew up she increasingly played hostess at Don Gowrie’s famous Washington dinner parties where the food was nouvelle cuisine, the talk was scintillating and the guests hand-picked. Catherine was not only beautiful, she had a shining intelligence and a sense of humour that gave her that far more elusive quality, charm.

In that, too, she took after her father. Her mother was almost never present on these evenings, or if she did appear she rarely stayed long. It was accepted that she was not strong; she had to spend most of her time in her own suite of rooms and she did not share in her husband’s political life.

‘Did you ever date Cathy Gowrie, Colbourne?’ someone else called out, one of a group of press men who resented anyone who worked for TV, resented and were jealous of them. The other men along the bar watched Steve, some of them grinning, hoping they would needle him into showing temper, some of them just curious, not having heard the gossip before.

‘Get off my back!’ Steve coolly said without rising to the bait, although there was a tense line to his mouth and his jaw was tight.

‘Isn’t it true that his wife is a few cents short of a dollar?’ Jack muttered, still trying to catch the eye of the barman.

Steve had already had this conversation with Harry Doberman, the editor-in-chief of the network, at their headquarters in New York, not a stone’s throw from this hotel. Not that he would dream of telling Jack about it. Jack was a good cameraman but you didn’t tell him anything sensitive, anything you did not want repeated to all and sundry the minute Jack had had a few.

‘Any truth in this rumour about Gowrie’s wife?’ Harry had asked, and Steve had looked at him wryly, knowing that Harry knew far more about Gowrie than he did and was just throwing out feelers to see how much Steve had heard.

‘Well, she seems to spend a lot of time out of sight, back home in Maryland, with her parents, and there is something a bit . . . blank . . . about her, as if she isn’t listening, isn’t even aware of what’s going on around her, but since the election started hotting up, she’s been with Gowrie all the time, and she smiles and nods, and says yes and no and maybe, so it may just be that she’s bored by politics. After all, she comes from a political family – she must have had it stuffed into her all her life. Maybe she’s just sick of it, but now Honest John has put it to her that it’s time to do her duty and stand by her man.’

Harry had been chewing the end of his pen the way he did when he was trying to give up smoking for the umpteenth time. It made him bad-tempered and liable to blow up over nothing and he always started to put on weight if he kept it up for long.

When he was smoking he was as thin as a greyhound and twice as nervy, inclined to bite your head off if you said anything out of turn, so on the whole everyone preferred him to smoke.

Screwing up his eyes to stare at Steve, he asked, ‘And what about this other dame? Is there one? Or is it just dirty minds and wishful thinking?’

Even more on the alert, Steve carefully said, ‘If there is, Gowrie has done a brilliant job so far in keeping her hidden away. You know what Washington is like. You can’t keep a secret for five minutes. Eyes and ears everywhere. A lot of people would pay a fortune to get the goods on Gowrie, but he seems to be as clean as a whistle.’ And while he talked he was wondering if Harry knew something he could not openly pass on, was dropping him a hint to dig it out for himself.

Harry chewed on his pen some more. ‘Is that a “Don’t know” or a “Could be but hard to prove”?’

‘Both,’ hedged Steve, then, watching Harry even more closely, said, ‘But I have to admit Gowrie has never struck me as having a poor libido. He’s getting on for sixty, of course, but he’s got a lot of buzz, and some of that energy has to be sexual. It wouldn’t amaze me to find out that he had a woman somewhere, but it isn’t his wife. She’s older than him, for a start, and she’s as plain as a horse. I don’t see her being hot stuff in bed.’

Harry met his eyes, said softly, ‘What about his secretary? In my experience it’s often the secretary. The single ones are the most dangerous – they get possessive if the guy is the only man in their life.’ His eyes glinted and he smirked. ‘I’ve had one or two who got that way.’

Steve knew all about them; everyone had known, you couldn’t hide anything in an office, any more than you could in Washington. Harry had a wife and two expensive kids at good schools but that hadn’t stopped him having the occasional office affair. They always ended the same way: he had to get rid of his secretary when she turned tearful and demanding.

‘Gowrie’s secretary is certainly devoted, runs his office like clockwork, and I wouldn’t find it hard to believe she worshipped the ground he walks on – but she’s no femme fatale. She wears mannish suits and shirts with ties, has horn-rimmed glasses – I don’t see him having a mad affair with her.’

Harry looked disappointed. ‘Well, there’s someone, I’m sure of it.’

Yes, he had been told Gowrie had a woman – but was his source a good one?

‘I’ll keep my eyes open,’ Steve had promised, but he didn’t think for a second that he would catch Don Gowrie out, even if there was a woman somewhere. Gowrie was smart, and careful.

Glancing around the bar now, Steve wondered if anyone else was on to a rumour that Gowrie had a woman.

‘Ready, Steve?’ his producer said, appearing at his shoulder. ‘I had a word with Gowrie’s people, and explained we had a problem getting the tape to the studio in time for the night news, and they’ve shifted your interview tomorrow forward by two hours, which should be just fine.’

‘I’ll look forward to it,’ Steve said, and meant it. He had interviewed Don Gowrie many times before, but not since Gowrie began to get his nose in front in the race for the presidency. There were other leading contenders on the Republican side, but some very big money was going on Gowrie.

By the time Gowrie showed up, the ballroom was packed to the doors and the air was rank with perspiration, bad breath, the smell of beer and whisky and the machine-oil smell of the cameras and sound equipment.

Gowrie took questions from the press in an order laid down in advance by his media people. There was no spontaneity on these occasions: too much was at stake. Any shouted, unagreed questions were ignored. There was an agreement between the sides: play ball with us, we’ll play ball with you. Refuse to play the game our way and you won’t get any time with the candidate, you won’t get an invitation to any of the social events with which the lobby was sweethearted by the party during election year.

In his late fifties, his hair once dark, now powdered with an ashy shade, his expensive suit grey too today, his white shirt striped with a very pale blue, everything about Gowrie was discreet, elegant. There was even something faintly boyish about him – his features had a faintly haggard spareness, but they were chiselled and attractive, his eyes – a pale blue, washed out to grey – had great charm whenever he smiled that boyish smile. He was a good speaker, that came with the territory; he never made the mistake of being too clever, he talked directly, frankly, disarmingly to his audience, looking into their eyes.

Women flipped over him. Men felt they could trust him. A decent guy, they said. Not tough, maybe, but under the elegance there was a steely strength.

This was his honeymoon period with the media; he was new to this level of attention although he had been around for years, a face in the background, a useful man in his party, knowing everybody but not a leader. Now, he was suddenly hot and the press hadn’t yet got around to sharpening their claws. For the moment they loved him because he was new, because he gave them something different to write about, although how long that would last was anybody’s guess.

Steve was one of the first to ask a question. It had been decided on by his producer, Simon, in advance, in discussion with Gowrie’s people, who liked to sow the audience with friendly questions. What would the senator do about street crime in the cities? Did he favour tougher punishment or more police on the streets? Or did he think society was at fault and what could be done about that?

Gowrie went into hyperdrive on that one, talked angrily about crime and its threat to the peace of the decent people of America, said it was time America got the policing it deserved, talked of ways and means by which that could be achieved. You didn’t need to be a genius to work out that that was going to be one of his campaign platforms, but then all the candidates jockeying to be picked to run as president came out with the same promises on crime. Half an hour later Gowrie’s people were signalling him to leave. They all looked very satisfied, the press conference had gone well, he had answered every question ably, fluently.

As he turned to go, a voice came out of nowhere. ‘Senator Gowrie, what do you believe will be the long-time effects in Central Europe of the war in the former Yugoslavia?’

Gowrie stopped in his tracks and turned back. This was one of his specialist interests; he had worked in East Europe while he was in the diplomatic as a young man and was rumoured to speak a number of East European languages. Cleverer than he looked, but good at hiding his brains, thought Steve, which made him even cleverer, because if there was one thing the voters did not like it was a clever politician. They didn’t trust them.

His press officers were hurriedly searching their clipboards of agreed questions. The most senior of them leaned over the battery of mikes and said curtly, ‘That question was not submitted, Miss . . .?’

‘Narodni, Sophie Narodni, of the Central European Press Agency,’ the blonde said, and her voice was as sexy as the rest of her, low and husky, with the faintest foreign lisp to it.

Every man in the room was staring at her by now, and they weren’t thinking about politics. That was not what men thought about when they looked at this girl.

The only man in the room who wasn’t goggling at her was Steve Colbourne. He had happened to be looking at Don Gowrie when he turned and had seen Gowrie’s face turn stiff and white as if he was fighting with shock, frozen on the spot like someone whose worst nightmare has begun. He hadn’t moved or spoken since, he was just staring at the blonde girl, and she was staring back at him.

It wasn’t often that Steve Colbourne was surprised by anything. He had been a reporter for far too long in a corrupt and complex world where almost nothing was what it seemed or what people perceived it to be. He had thought himself shock-proof, but it seemed he wasn’t. Jesus, it couldn’t be. Could it? The air seemed to him to be charged, lightning almost visibly flashed between the two of them. His reporter’s mind crawled with curiosity. Don Gowrie and this girl? It was indecent even to think it: she was young enough to be his daughter, and had that lovely, untouched wide-eyed innocence that went with blue eyes and blonde hair and a certain shape of face in the young. He could not believe she was Gowrie’s mistress.

But there was something. That was for sure. Every instinct warned about that.

Then Gowrie visibly forced himself to break off from her, tore himself out of his trance, turned on his heel and was on his way, surrounded by his entourage, without answering her question. But Steve saw him turn his head to speak to a security man moving at his shoulder.

The other man nodded, spoke in turn to a couple of others, and Steve saw them spin off, and, without running or seeming in a hurry, push their way back towards the blonde girl. Steve was closer; without stopping to think about the wisdom of intervening, he moved like greased lightning to get to her before they could.

He took her elbow and began walking her out, talking rapidly, urgently, while she looked up at him in startled surprise.

‘My name’s Steve Colbourne, I do a weekly round-up of political news on NWTV, you may have seen me, if not I assure you I’m very respectable and trustworthy. Can I buy you a drink, or do you want those very ugly guys behind us to put an armlock on you?’

She stiffened and instinctively started to turn, but he went on softly, ‘No, don’t look back at them, pretend you don’t even know they’re there. It’s called the survival instinct, animals practise it all the time. Haven’t you ever seen a bird freeze and pretend to be a statue? It works, too; the psychology is shrewd. It throws a possible predator off. They aren’t sure what’s going on or what to do so they wait and watch, and that gives the bird time to plan its escape.’

She turned her head to look up at him, and he smiled at her. By then they were engulfed in the departing tide of media flowing through the exit; Steve held on to her arm to make sure she didn’t get away. He was picking up her scent by then, a cool, light fragrance that reminded him of a spring morning. It went with blonde hair and blue eyes and long, long legs. What the hell was going on between her and Gowrie? She had something on the guy, that was certain – and she wouldn’t be the first beautiful young woman to sell herself to a powerful old man. History was littered with them. Steve surprised himself by not wanting her to be one of them.

He could hear her breathing next to him. They were shoved close together by the crush of bodies moving out of the great ballroom, with its chandeliers and high, wide windows framed by heavy red velvet drapes, into the luxurious lobby of the hotel, and Steve felt the warmth of her skin under the cream silk dress she wore, almost felt he heard an over-rapid beating of her heart.

She was scared, he thought, but when he shot a sideways look her profile seemed calm, unflurried. Was she always this tranquil – or did she lose her cool in bed? He frowned, imagining her with Gowrie. Did that sleek blonde hair get rumpled and tousled? Was she hot? She didn’t look as if she was highly sexed, but then with women appearances were always deceptive.

In the hotel lobby the blonde pulled free, glancing back at the same time. Steve looked back, too, and found the two security men right behind them. Their lizard eyes slithered over him, recognized his face, and then ignored him. They were only interested in the girl.

‘Miss, can we have a word? You aren’t wearing an official press badge, Miss . . . what did you say your name was?’

‘Narodni, Sophie Narodni.’ She looked at one, then the other. ‘Who are you?’

‘We work for Senator Gowrie, Miss Narodni. Did you say you worked for a press agency?’

‘Yes, the Central European Press Agency. Have you got any identification on you? I like to know who is asking me questions.’ She smiled sweetly.

‘Certainly, Miss Narodni.’ The taller of the two, a man with very bronzed skin, flipped back his suit collar to show a badge. She leaned forward slightly to read it. He would be getting a nostril full of her delicious scent, thought Steve, watching with amusement.

‘Thank you.’

A little flushed suddenly, the guy lifted the clipboard he held, consulted the sheaf of paper clipped to it, running a finger down a list.

‘Oh, yes, the agency is listed, but we have a Theo Strahov down as their representative.’

‘He couldn’t make it, he was taken ill, so he sent me.’ She pulled out of the small cream leather purse she held in one hand a plastic-enclosed security card and showed it to them. The shorter man took it from her; both stared at it.

‘You’re supposed to wear this, Miss Narodni.’

‘I couldn’t pin it on my dress, it would have ruined the material and it is expensive.’

Her accent was a little stronger now, perhaps she was more nervous than she seemed? She gestured to her dress and the security men stared at her silk-covered breasts.

Steve had never liked private security guys; they always ended up trying to hijack police powers, believing themselves to be above the law; they were arrogant, crude-minded sons of bitches. These two were prize specimens.

Absently, without taking his eyes off her breasts, his lizard tongue flicking out to wet his lips, the taller one said, ‘We should have been notified of the change. Did you show your identification to the man on the door?’

‘Of course.’

They frowned; somebody was going to get into trouble for letting her in without checking her.

‘We will have to have proof of your identity, Miss Narodni, and proof of your address, perhaps a letter addressed to you there? Or your driving licence?’

She went back into the purse and came up with an airmail envelope, which she handed them. They both studied the address, one of them scribbled it into a pad he took from his pocket, murmuring it aloud as he did so. Steve memorised it.

‘So you live on the Lower East Side? How long have you been there?’ they asked her as she took the envelope back.

‘Not long. I am staying with a friend; she is the tenant of the apartment.’

‘Friend’s name?’

‘Lilli Janacek.’

They wrote that down too. Steve was trying to work out exactly what was going on – if she was involved with Gowrie he would know all this stuff, so why were his men asking her these pretty obvious questions?

‘What does she do?’ they asked.

Simon, the producer, had come up, was hovering, curious and at the same time impatient. He asked through his teeth, ‘What’s going on? We’ve been waiting for you. Shall we pack up or do you want to do an intro to camera while we still have the same background?’

Speaking out of the corner of his mouth, and trying at the same time to hear what was being said by the others, Steve muttered, ‘We could do a piece outside later, with the hotel façade behind me – change of background always makes a piece feel denser, gives it more variety. We might get a couple of talking heads to go with it, get some input on what New York thinks.’

Sulkily Simon nodded. He was only twenty-five, smooth-skinned, still faintly naive. He had only made producer a few months ago and was still unsure of himself, but he was touchy about his new status. He wanted to be the one who decided when they shot what, but he didn’t dare argue with Steve, who had far more pull with the network.

‘See you in the bar,’ Steve told him, and Simon went back into the ballroom.

‘You American?’ the taller security guy asked the girl, who shook her head.

‘I’m Czech.’

That excited him. A foreigner, that was something he could get her for. ‘Have you got your visa and passport on you? How long you been in the States?’

She was still outwardly calm. Her face, her voice, had not altered under the pressure of their questions, their hard, suspicious faces. She showed them her passport, the visa in it. ‘As you see, there is no time-limit on my stay here. I have very good references. The agency will give you my details. You’ll see their address on this envelope. It’s a letter from the head of the agency. Can I have it back, please?’

The short guy reluctantly handed it back.

‘Your friend, this Janacek woman – she here on a visa too?’