The sister’s bleeper sounded and she groaned. ‘Sorry, I have to answer that. Miss Narodni, you have to sign out before you leave. Good luck, and remember, if you have any headaches get in touch with your doctor, or come back here, to the emergency room.’
When she had vanished back into the ward, Sophie looked coldly at Steve. ‘Please go now, I’m waiting for Lilli.’
‘She sent me.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ She did a double-take, staring at him, suddenly anxious, her skin cold. ‘Has something happened to Lilli? I’ve been ringing her for ages, and there’s no reply.’
‘Quiet now, don’t get upset. Look, come into the waiting-room and sit down for a minute. I’ve got something to tell you.’
He put an arm round her and led her across the corridor to the waiting-room, and Sophie was too worried to argue.
There were a few people in the room, waiting, reading magazines or newspapers, breathing very quietly, shifting in their chairs. They all looked up and stared, then looked down again indifferently. Sophie sat down on a chair near the door and Steve sat down next to her. Lowering his voice, he said quietly, ‘Sophie, your apartment was burgled last night.’
Her intake of breath made the others in the room look up again.
For a second she couldn’t think straight then her mind leapt with panic. ‘Lilli? Was Lilli hurt? She wasn’t . . .’
‘She’s fine, she wasn’t there,’ he said in the same low, quiet voice, conscious of all the listening ears, the surreptitious glances.
Sophie closed her eyes for a second; she was very pale.
Steve went on softly, ‘She discovered what had happened when she got back from the hospital last night. She called me and I went over there.’
Her brain ran with questions, doubts, suspicions. She watched him and wished she knew exactly where he fitted into all this. He knew Don Gowrie well, had known him for years, he said; was he in Gowrie’s pocket? She hadn’t been in New York for long, but she already realized that it wasn’t just in Communist countries that some of the press were bought off, were kept on a secret retainer, to write to order, to put out what their masters wanted the public to be told. Maybe it was the same all over the world? Just the way the system worked, whatever you called it. Propaganda greased the wheels of politics and business, made the lives of the mighty easier, kept the people quiet.
‘Called you? Why did she do that? Why not the police?’ she asked Steve Colbourne flatly, her face hostile.
‘I’d told her to ring me if anything happened. She has rung the police. They haven’t been over yet. There’s nothing valuable missing, nobody important involved.’ His smile was cynical. ‘They’ll get round to it when they have time.’ He looked into her eyes, his own intent and watchful. ‘I’m afraid the whole place was wrecked, Sophie. They took your room apart. There wasn’t much left of it.’
Her lower lip trembled. She bit down on it to stop herself crying; she wouldn’t cry, she wouldn’t be scared off, he wasn’t going to win by tactics like these.
‘That’s why Lilli isn’t answering the phone. She’s gone to stay with her friend Theo until the apartment can be redecorated.’ Steve met her eyes and gently told her, ‘They covered the walls with graffiti, I’m afraid, really smashed the place up. It isn’t fit to be lived in at the moment.’
‘What am I going to do?’ she thought aloud. Theo Strahov’s apartment was tiny, barely big enough for one, let alone Lilli too. There certainly wouldn’t be room for a third person. Sophie tried to work out how much money she had in her bank account – enough to pay for a cheap lodging house for a few days? She could cable Vladimir and ask for help, for some extra money, a loan against salary.
‘I’ll have to find a cheap hotel,’ she said.
‘No, you won’t,’ he told her impatiently. ‘You can’t be left alone. Can’t you get it into your head that you’re in danger? They tried once. They’ll try again and next time they could succeed. You’re coming with me, first to stay at my hotel –’
‘Isn’t that where Don Gowrie is staying?’
‘Safest place for you, right under his nose; as my mother always used to say, a dog never shits on his own blanket. He won’t dare touch you while you’re that close to him. When we go to Europe, you’re coming too. I’ve squared it with my boss. You’re coming on salary as a researcher for a week – we’re paying your airfare and hotel bills. Maybe now you’ll trust me enough to tell me exactly what you’ve got on Don Gowrie?’
‘I’m not stupid. I know why you’re doing all this – you just want to get a story out of me. So why should I trust you?’
Drily, he said, ‘Who else do you have to trust?’
‘Lilli –’ she began, and he interrupted brusquely.
‘If you like Lilli you’ll leave her right out of it. No point in risking her life too, is there?’
Pale, she stared at him, shivering. It hadn’t occurred to her until then that Lilli might be in danger too. She should have realised that. He was right, she couldn’t risk Lilli’s life.
‘Lilli has learnt to trust me,’ Steve said, and Sophie wondered how he had managed that. She gave him a smouldering, resentful look. He was too clever by half – she was beginning to find him a menace.
‘You may have pulled the wool
over her eyes, but you don’t fool me that easily! I’m not going anywhere with you.’