I'll Keep You Safe

Chapter Eight

Awareness came slowly. As if through a thick fog. The light seemed distant at first, then grew brighter, tinted red through the blood in her eyelids. Until they flickered open and sunlight falling through the window nearly blinded her. She screwed her eyes tight shut again and rolled on to her back, reaching across the bed to touch him as she always did first thing. But he wasn’t there, and the memory of events that sleep had stolen from consciousness returned like the pain of a raw, open wound.

She sat bolt upright, sleep banished in a moment, and wondered how she could have slept at all. She was on the bed, not in it. Had lain down sometime not long before dawn, still fully dressed, just to close her eyes. And sleep had taken her. To a place where Ruairidh still lived. In her dream they had been walking hand in hand together along the shore, wind tugging at their hair and their clothes, and he had been telling her about some new pattern, something unique, a blend of colours never seen before. And she wished with all her heart that she could simply have stayed there, in her dream, and never woken up.

And then the phone rang. A series of single, penetrating trills that dragged her, reluctantly, back to reality. She checked the time. It was almost midday. Which day? For a moment she was lost in confusion about the passage of days and time. Donald was coming. Was that him already? She focused. No, Donald was coming tomorrow. She rolled over and swung her legs down to the floor, sweeping her hair back out of her eyes and lifting the receiver.

‘Yes?’

‘Bonjour Madame. This is Aurélie in reception. I’m sorry for disturbing you. There is someone here to see you.’

Niamh wondered who that could possibly be. The police? ‘Who?’

‘A Monsieur Blunt.’

Blunt’s name struck Niamh like a slap in the face. Neither she nor Ruairidh had seen Lee since the falling-out. Cut out of his life as if they had never existed. While he had gone on from celebrity to superstardom. The great young guru of British fashion, who had both made and very nearly destroyed Ranish Tweed.

She stood up, her mind filled with confusion, and caught sight of herself in the mirror. She needed to get out of these clothes, to shower. She said, ‘Tell him to give me fifteen minutes then send him up to the room.’