Season of Shadows (20 page)

'When he came out of the mist towards me I thought for one
terrible moment that it was Friedrich's ghost,' she confessed.

'You've been paying too much attention to Jemima's
fanciful stories of old Friedrich's restless spirit roaming the
mountain at night,' Graham laughed, his grey eyes dancing, then he shot
a question at her that plunged her back into reality with sickening
speed. 'Did you know you're pregnant?'

'I suspected it,' she whispered, then a terrible thought
came to mind, and she glanced anxiously at the lean, grey-haired man
while he closed his medical bag and pocketed his stethoscope. 'Graham,
you haven't told Anton, have you?'

'No,' he laughed, seating himself on the bed. 'Women
usually prefer telling their husbands in their own good time.'

'He must never know, Graham.'

'But, my dear girl—'

'I mean it,' she interrupted urgently.

'But
why
, for heaven's sake?' Graham
demanded incredulously, observing her with a clinical eye as if he
suspected that she might have become deranged.

'I had quite an interesting discussion with Camilla this
afternoon. It seems—' Laura felt choked suddenly, but she had
to go on. 'It seems as though it won't be long before Anton asks for
his freedom.'

'What nonsense!'

'Oh, Graham,' she sighed, suddenly feeling incredibly
tired, 'you read the newspapers just as I do, and you know what they're
saying about Anton and Camilla.'

He gestured angrily. 'It's all pure conjecture.'

'Is it?' Her soft mouth quivered and twisted bitterly.
'Are the photographs that were taken of them together over the past two
weeks also a projected image of some reporter's imagination?'

'It could have something to do with Camilla buying Avron
Enterprises,' he suggested. 'Have you thought of that?'

She nodded, but a sharp pain made her wince and grab her
head. 'I've thought of that,' she groaned, 'but I don't think I can
believe that any more.'

'Laura…' Graham shook his head a little
helplessly, 'I don't know what to say to you.'

She clutched anxiously at the hand nearest to her. 'All I
want is your word that you won't tell Anton about— about the
baby.'

'If that's what you want, yes,' he nodded thoughtfully.
'Would you like me to talk to him about this business with Camilla?'

'I'll talk to him myself. I think I—'

The sound of the bedroom door opening made her break off
in mid-sentence, and Anton's voice asked in an oddly hushed way, 'How
is she?'

'Ask her yourself,' said Graham, getting to his feet and
placing a small phial of capsules on the bedside table. 'Don't get up
tomorrow unless you feel up to it,' he told Laura. 'And take one of
these capsules every three hours for the pain, if necessary.'

'Thank you, Graham,' she smiled up at him. 'I'm sorry my
foolishness kept you out so late.'

'All in a day's work,' he assured her, squeezing her
shoulder lightly. 'I'll see myself out,' he said to Anton as he passed
him on his way to the door.

Laura's heart was beating heavily against her ribs when
she found herself alone with Anton a few seconds later. He approached
the bed slowly and sat down beside her, but she avoided the probing
intensity of his glance.

'How do you feel?' he asked at last, breaking the peculiar
silence between them.

'My head aches, but otherwise I'm fine.' Those
heavy-lidded eyes glittered strangely as they travelled over her,
seeking their own reassurance, and her hands fluttered nervously as she
straightened the sheets about her, almost as if she were afraid he
would guess her secret. 'I'm sorry to have caused you so much trouble,'
she apologised unsteadily.

'My God, what were you trying to do?' he exploded
unexpectedly with a violence that made her jump. 'Kill yourself?' he
added harshly.

'What happened wasn't intentional, and I've said I'm
sorry,' she reminded him agitatedly.

He stared hard at her for long, tense seconds, the line of
his jaw taut, then he got to his feet and walked some distance away
from her as if he could not bear to be near her. 'I'll get you
something to eat,' he said, turning towards the door.

'Please, I—I couldn't eat anything now.'

He nodded slowly. 'I'd better leave you, then, to get some
rest.'

'Before you go, Anton, there's something I—I
have to say to you.'

'You're tired, Laura,' he said roughly, his hand resting
on the polished brass handle of the door. 'Won't it keep until morning?'

'No, it won't,' she insisted, and her mouth went dry as he
moved away from the door to stand just beyond the circle of light
coming from the bedside lamp. She passed . the tip of her tongue
nervously across her lips, and swallowed. 'Please, Anton, I—I
want you to know that I—I'll give you your freedom whenever
you want it.'

A deathly silence settled in the room, and, just for one
fleeting moment, she wondered if it had not been a mistake to let him
know that she was aware of his desire to end their marriage, but the
next moment he set her mind, if not her heart, at rest by saying
coldly, 'That's very generous of you, Laura. I shall keep that in mind.'

Laura felt peculiarly drained of emotion when the door
closed behind him seconds later, and not even when she heard the Jaguar
being driven at speed from the house did she feel anything other than
the dull pain in her injured head. Anton was going to Camilla, of
course, and he was understandably in a hurry to tell her that his wife
had announced herself willing to free him. How thrilled Camilla would
be at the news of her easy victory—how triumphant! But what
did it matter? Laura thought dully. Nothing mattered now any
more—nothing at all!

Sally and Jemima greeted Laura with concern when she came
down to breakfast the following morning, but fortunately she was able
to assure them that, apart from a slight headache, she ailed nothing
more. She told Gina the same when she telephoned minutes after Sally
had been driven off to school, and an hour later Laura was driving
herself to Sea Point for her usual session with Alex.

Laura was coming down Bellavista's wide staircase late the
following afternoon when she heard raised voices in the hall below, and
she hurried down the rest of the way to find Eddie involved in a verbal
altercation with a young man who looked vaguely familiar. She stepped
warily into the hall and asked, 'What's the problem, Eddie?'

'This gentleman is from the newspapers, madam, and Mr
Anton said—'

'We've met before, Mrs DeVere. On the day after your
sister and brother-in-law died, to be exact,' the young man
interrupted, and when her brow cleared on recognition, he added
cheekily, 'On that occasion I was ordered off the property, but this
time I have information you would be well advised to listen to.'

'Shall I see him off the premises, madam?' Eddie asked,
his manner threatening.

'No, Eddie,' Laura said at once. 'I'll see Mr…'

'Farrell,' the young man supplied his name. 'Tim Farrell.'

'Come this way, Mr Farrell,' Laura gestured towards the
living-room, and the reporter smiled triumphantly at the glowering
Eddie as he stepped into the hall and followed Laura. 'You said you had
information. What information are you referring to?' she questioned
once they were seated.

'Robert Dean had been on a friendly mission for one of our
oil companies to an oil-producing state in North Africa. He stopped
over at Walvis Bay, and on that same night a Russian trawler made an
unscheduled stop at that
same
harbour,' Tim Farrell explained without hesitation. 'One of the crew
was taken off the trawler with suspected appendicitis, but it was a
false alarm, and the trawler left again before dawn.'

Laura hid her surprise admirably behind her controlled
features. 'What are you trying to say, Mr Farrell?'

'The trawler had docked next to the
Bluebird
,
and, according to my informant, your sister and brother-in-law spent
the evening with friends, leaving the
Bluebird
unguarded.'

'I still don't understand what you're getting at.' Tim
Farrell smiled that cheeky, triumphant smile as he delivered the
conclusion to his story. 'If my theories are correct, then the
trawler's unscheduled stop was planned and, as fate would have it, they
had an ideal opportunity to plant that bomb on board the yacht.'

'You're merely supposing, Mr Farrell,' she said with a
coldness that matched the chill in her veins.

'Not everything I've told you is supposition, Mrs DeVere,
and unless you can prove me wrong, this story is going into print
tomorrow.'

Was this some form of moral blackmail? Laura wondered,
suppressing her anger and her fears with difficulty as she said: 'I'm
afraid I can't confirm or deny your theories, but I—'

'Then my story goes into print as it is,' he announced
flatly, preparing to leave.

'Mr Farrell, I must ask you to reconsider,' Laura pleaded
desperately now as she leapt to her feet to confront him. 'If not for
my sake, then for the sake of their child… don't publicise
your theories.'

'My theories are based on certain facts, Mrs DeVere, and
it's my job to make my findings public,' he stated adamantly, but he
lost a considerable amount of his cockiness when Anton walked into the
living-room, but Laura sighed inwardly with relief. She did not know
how or why he had come home so early, but the main thing was that he
was there.

'If you print any of that drivel, I shall personally sue
you
and
your newspaper, but if it's a story you
want, then I'll give it to you,' Anton said in a calm, deadly voice
that sent an involuntary shiver up Laura's spine as he continued.
'Robert Dean and his wife were on a pleasure cruise, nothing more, and
the explosion on board their yacht was caused by an electrical fault
which started a fire near the petrol supply tanks. That's all.'

'If that's all, Mr DeVere, then why has this entire
incident been shrouded in such secrecy?' Tim Farrell demanded,
obviously not in the least convinced.

'There's never been any need for secrecy,' Anton
explained. 'It's merely been my intention to shield their daughter from
the horror of what actually happened. A violent storm is a hazard to
every yachtsman at sea. Their daughter knew this, and I decided that
the knowledge that they were shipwrecked in one such storm would be a
more acceptable explanation for someone of her age.'

'Is this the truth, Mr DeVere?' Tim Farrell questioned
daringly.

'Do you doubt my word?' Anton demanded autocratically, the
height and size of him dwarfing the young man considerably.

'How do you explain that Russian trawler docking beside
them in Walvis Bay on such a flimsy excuse, and why did the explosion
occur at the exact time Robert Dean was to break radio silence?' the
reporter continued a little sceptically, and with a boldness Laura had
to admire.

'The time of the explosion was a coincidence, nothing
more, and the trawler…' Anton shrugged his broad shoulders
beneath the superbly tailored jacket of his dark grey suit and said
authoritatively, 'its unscheduled stop was quite innocent. They thought
they had a sick man on board, but it turned out they were wrong, and
they left at once.'

'It seems I'm not the only one who's been investigating
the accident,' the reporter remarked suspiciously.

'No, Farrell, you're not, and I've heard several other
improbable theories from various sensation-seekers such as yourself,'
Anton assured him harshly. 'There was no mystery involved in their
deaths, as the official investigation proved, so drop the subject, and
find yourself a sensational story elsewhere.'

Tim Farrell's face fell. 'There's been an official
investigation, then?'

'Naturally,' Anton smiled, but his eyes remained hard and
cold. 'If you stop to have a chat to your editor you'll discover that
an official report is being prepared for tomorrow's edition of your
newspaper, and the contents will be exactly as I told you, except that
your editor, along with several others, has kindly agreed not to dwell
on the explosion on board the yacht.'

The young man went white, then red as he glanced from
Anton to Laura and back again, but anger and defeat was mirrored in his
eyes when he said abruptly, 'I'm sorry I wasted your time.'

Anton and Laura faced each other in silence until the
outer door closed behind him, then Laura asked jerkily, 'What's the
truth, Anton?'

His mouth tightened ominously, then his explanation fell
harshly on her ears. 'The Russian trawler and the bomb on board the
Bluebird
is fact, but there's no proof to lay accusations at anyone's door.
We're pretty sure, though, that someone must have known that Robert had
it in his power to alleviate the oil crisis in South Africa. He had
influential friends in the right places who might have sold oil to us
at a not so exorbitant price, and this was what our enemies wanted to
prevent.'

Laura's aching head was spinning with the effort to
assimilate these new facts and, turning from him, she said weakly, 'I
think I'll go upstairs, if you don't mind.'

'Before you go,' he said abruptly, reaching the door
before her and closing it in a manner that placed her on her guard for
some unknown reason, but she understood why the next instant when he
asked, 'Who's your friend in Sea Point?'

Laura knew at once that no one but Camilla could have
passed this information on to him, and her pulse hammered nervously in
her throat as she said with forced casualness, 'It's no one you would
know.'

'Is it a man?' he demanded harshly, his eyes glittering
hard as they flicked over her.

She shrugged tiredly. 'What difference does it make? I'm
entitled to have friends of my own, aren't I?'