‘Of course I want to see,’ she answered. ‘But not before I get my hug.’
With a grin
that could knock her eyes out he came towards her, a tall boy for his seven years. Melanie squatted down and opened her arms to receive him. As she hugged him close she felt another wave of emotion threaten. She must have sniffed, because Robbie jerked his head back.
Eyes as dark as his father’s looked into hers, only they weren’t the same, because this pair of eyes were darkened by love and warmth and concern whereas that other pair…
‘Are you sure you’re not catching a cold?’ he demanded.
‘Robbie,’ she said firmly, ‘I am not catching a cold, all right?’
It was a mother’s voice, the I-know-everything voice. He continued to study her for a moment, then nodded his head. ‘I’ll go and get my bag.’
End of small developing crisis, Melanie thought with a sigh. Since William had died Robbie had lived in fear that she was going to follow him. Every sneeze, every twitch, every minor ouch could shake him to the core with fear.
They played with the leaves, drew some more, ate supper, watched some television then eventually went upstairs to play games in his bath before curling up on his bed to read stories. By eight o’clock he was fast asleep and Melanie had given up on expecting Randal to call.
For the next hour she tried to keep herself busy doing the usual mundane chores. They’d used to employ a housekeeper, but she’d decided to retire when William had died and there seemed no point in employing another when there was only two of them to be looked after now. But the house was big—too big for both of them. A large Edwardian terraced home, with five bedrooms and four main reception rooms, it deserved a large noisy family to fill it, not two people who seemed to rattle around in it these days.
Melanie missed William, she missed Lucy the housekeeper, and she missed having only to open a couple of doors to find someone else there when she felt in need of company. As she felt now, she admitted, when she found herself standing in the front living room just staring into space.
Diversions, diversions, she told herself forcefully, and had just decided to go upstairs and indulge in a long hot bath in the hopes that it would ease some of the stress from her aching body when the sound of a car drawing up outside caught her ear. On legs that had suddenly turned very heavy she walked to the window and twitched back the edge of a curtain. As soon as she saw the low black monster crouching by the front gate she knew the long anxious wait was over.
Rafiq climbed out of his car and set the central locking system, then turned to view Melanie’s home. It stood in the middle of an Edwardian terrace, brick-faced and solid-looking, with an iron gate leading to a small garden and a narrow porch with a half-stained-glass front door. One big bay window sat on each side of the porch and three flat windows faced the upper floor.
Did one of those windows belong to his son’s bedroom?
Even thinking the word son threatened to lock him up inside. He saw a curtain twitch in a downstairs window, felt a cold winter gust of wind wipe what was left of the colour from his face.
An omen? he wondered, and had to accept that it probably was. This was not going to be easy. He was still in a deep state of shock and Randal had advised him to stay away until he had given himself time to recover. But Randal was not him. The other man could have no conception what was it was like to be him at this present moment. For how was he supposed to balance logic on the top of raging emotion? It was impossible. He was just swinging from one dark place to another with no respite in between. He had spent the whole afternoon with Randal Soames, swinging like that between a raging fury aimed entirely at Melanie and a heart-clutching sense of dismay at what he had almost tossed away today.
The curtain in a downstairs window gave a second twitch. Just before it fell back into place he caught a glimpse of Melanie’s face. She had seen him. He must go in now. Had he actually been considering going away without doing so?
He didn’t know, was no longer sure of anything. Half an hour ago he had been pacing his apartment; now he was here without recalling what had happened in between. He was the most controlled man he knew—prided himself on it—but control of any kind had completely deserted him. Pride, they said, usually came before a fall. Well, he was falling, had not stopped falling since he’d glanced at a piece of paper in his office and had seen the name Robert Joseph Alan Portreath typed in bold print in the middle of a blur of legal jargon.
Robert had been Melanie’s father’s name, but Joseph Alan belonged to him—Rafiq ben Jusef Al Alain Al-Qadim.
His throat moved on an attempt to swallow, his eyes growing glassy as he reached for the gate. It swung inwards with a creak of ageing wrought iron. As he stepped through it he caught sight of a figure through the stained-glass door and knew that Melanie was coming to open the door for him.
Don’t touch the bell! Melanie prayed feverishly as she made a last dash to get the door open before the shrill ring could fill the house and wake up Robbie.
It was like one of those nightmares where you opened the door to find yourself staring at the darkest force you could ever imagine. Big and broad and dressed entirely in black, Rafiq filled the narrow porch like a huge black shadow, blocking the light from the street behind him and taking the air from her lungs.
He believed. It was written there in every sharply angled feature, in the clench of his jaw and the muscle-locked stiffness of his big frame.
‘Invite me in.’
His voice sounded like sawdust. Melanie tried to get a grip on her pounding heartbeat. ‘It’s late.’ Like a coward she went for the easy route. ‘I w-was just going to bed. W-why don’t you come back tomorrow and we we’ll—?’
‘Invite me in, Melanie,’ he repeated grimly.
‘So that you can insult me again?’
‘Probably.’ He grimaced. ‘I cannot be sure what I am going to do. I’m in shock,’ he admitted.
Melanie could see it. ‘All the more reason for you to come back tomorrow, when—’
His eyes gave a sudden flash. It was the only warning she got before she was being picked up by a pair of tough arms and bodily carried into the hall then into the living room.