The Black Sun Conspiracy

Chapter Forty-Four

“Nina,” Purdue half-whispered as he escorted her along the corridor and went through the stages of unlocking her door, “I realize your frustration, but please — beware of Renata. You would be best not to antagonize or disobey her. Be careful what you say, even when you think you are amongst friends. Please.” He brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I can’t stay, but I will come back as soon as I can and make sure you are alright.”

She caught hold of his hand, preventing him from leaving. “Just one thing, before you go. Something I’ve wanted to ask you for a while now.”

“Anything.”

“Why me?” Nina asked softly. “I understand you feel the need for all these thrill-seeking things that you do. You enjoy putting yourself in danger. But me? And Sam? We don’t. You just dragged me into all of this. Why? Why would you do that? What did I ever do to you that would make you want to do this to me?”

She had never seen an expression like this on Purdue’s face before. His customary intense, analytical stare had given way to a gentle look of regret. He closed his eyes and sighed, reaching out for her hand. Wrong-footed, Nina automatically took it. She had been expecting anger, hatred, anything but this.

“I had hoped it would be self-evident,” he said, a rueful half-smile on his lips. “I love you, Nina.”

For a moment she stared at him, speechless, then began to shake her head almost involuntarily. “No,” she whispered, “no, don’t say that. You don’t. You can’t. How many times have you put me in danger over and over again? If you loved me… I don’t believe you would have done that. This is just another manipulation. Just another one of your weird little games.”

Purdue flinched as if she had physically struck him. “It must be difficult to believe that I ever do anything that is not part of some game,” he said, “but I can only ask you to trust me. You remember the night we met, surely?”

Nina did. She had never forgotten the evening she had spent at that fundraiser at the National Library of Scotland, well aware of Purdue’s gaze fixed upon her, uncomfortably intense. She had hoped that he would be content just to watch her from a distance and had tried to concentrate on chatting with other benefactors and her colleagues from the department, but even then she had known that he would ask to speak to her eventually. Sure enough, just as the evening started winding down and she had begun to relax, her Head of Department had pulled her aside and pointed Purdue out. “He’s very interested in your work,” Matlock had hissed in her ear. “He’s even waded through your god-awful thesis, so one can only assume that he’s a little strange. Go and do the department some good.”

Caught between Matlock’s eyes and Purdue’s, Nina had forced herself to hold her head up and smile as she made her wretched journey across the room. She remembered being surprised by his forceful grip as he wrapped his thin fingers around her hand, how the handshake had lasted just a fraction of a second too long, and how she had suddenly felt acutely aware of the exposed flesh across her neck and shoulders. Purdue’s eyes had never strayed from her face, not for so much as a second, but nevertheless she had felt intensely scrutinized.

She remembered how, after a brief and perfunctory conversation about her work and his supposed interest in it, he had propositioned her. It had been the most matter of fact declaration of interest she had ever had. He had informed her that she seemed to be “a perfect combination of erotic and intellectual fascinations” and invited her to his hotel room. She had declined politely. He had shown no sign of anger or even disappointment. It seemed as minor a matter to him as it would have been if Nina had refused another glass of champagne.

“If I did not show greater anguish at your refusal that night,” he said, as if reading the timeline of her thoughts, “it was because I was certain that sooner or later you would come to me. I had piqued your interest. It was only a matter of time.”

Nina wanted to make an indignant retort, to tell Purdue that he was wrong and there hadn’t been the slightest flicker of interest that night. All that had come later, during the turbulent moments she had experienced following their return from Antarctica. Yet as she cast her mind back, she realized that she had never quite stopped thinking about his proposition. She had always wondered what might have happened if she had said yes…

‘If I’d said yes he would probably have got me killed by now,’ she told herself firmly. But while she had no doubt that accepting his invitation would have been a bad idea, the more she thought about it the less she could deny that it had been tempting. So tempting, in fact, that at the next fundraiser she had felt the need to take a date — ostensibly to keep Purdue at a distance from her, but perhaps, in retrospect, also to prevent herself from going home with her eccentric admirer. ‘And look where that got me,’ she thought. ‘I pulled Sam into all of this along with me — and we both ended up back at Purdue’s that night.’

“I remember it,” Nina hauled her mind back into the present. “What are you trying to tell me? That it was love at first sight?”

“Precisely that.”

She shook her head again, furiously. “No. I don’t believe it. And I don’t know what you think of me, if you think I’m going to fall for all this fairytale bullshit.”

“I wish that you didn’t see it that way, Nina. I will admit that I went to that event to find out more about you. I was already planning the expedition to Antarctica, and I believed that you might be the specialist I was looking for. By the end of that evening I was not only convinced that you were — I was also certain that wherever I went, I wanted you to be there with me. By the time we spoke again I was prepared to offer you whatever it took to persuade you to join me.”

“But while we were together… we both agreed that it wasn’t going to be anything…” Nina searched desperately for the right word. “I don’t know. Anything significant? Anything serious? We were just going to see how it went.”

Purdue shrugged. “That was what you wanted. I would have agreed to whatever arrangement you preferred, from seeing one another casually to lifelong commitment. Surely you have realized this by now, Nina. I am not a demonstrative man, but I am a dedicated one. When I decide that I want something, I will move the earth itself in order to have it.”

Nina’s eyes narrowed. “So do I get a say in any of this? Or am I just going to be relentlessly manipulated until you get this something you want?”

Purdue realized his mistake seconds too late. He tried to catch hold of her hand as she wrenched it from his grip, but she was too fast, too angry.

“So what about the night we got together?” Nina yelled, backing away from him until they were separated by the table. “Was that all a set-up? Did I actually have a choice, or was that all part of the plan? Wait until I was sufficiently traumatized, get me talking about it and let me fall into your arms? I can’t believe I was so—”

“If truth be told, that was not part of my plan,” Purdue’s flat statement cut across Nina’s flow of fury, stopping her short. “There was a great deal that did not go the way I had intended during that expedition. If you must know, it was my intention that we would return after a successful mission and it would be the thrill of victory that brought us together. As a matter of fact I was concerned that our failure and subsequent trauma might drive you away from me altogether. Towards our dear friend Mr. Cleave, perhaps.”

At the mention of Sam’s name, Nina flushed. She remembered their one desperate kiss aboard the U-boat, when no-one had known whether they would survive. Did Purdue know about that? Or had there been other signs of their brief attraction? More flashes pierced her clandestine memory vaults where she had engaged Sam in Purdue’s absence, even recently where she had felt the need to abandon it all to be with him — just him and his cat. “I didn’t see Sam after all of that,” she said. “Not until America. And I didn’t even know he was going to be there — though I think you did. Is that why he was there? It is, isn’t it? You talked Jefferson into hiring him so he’d be there, so that he could see us together. Didn’t you? Go on, tell me I’m wrong.”

Purdue said nothing. Nina snorted. “That’s what I thought. That’s the kind of love I can do without.”

For a few long moments there was silence in the room. Purdue’s face was deathly white. With absolute precision and economy of movement he removed his glasses, polished them and placed them back on his nose. The image of him aboard the boat that had rescued them in Antarctica formed in Nina’s mind. Purdue had demanded that their rescuers abandon the crew of the sinking destroyer, and when the captain had refused she had seen a similar look of fury upon him.

There was more; more to be concerned about. Purdue’s dismissive and almost antagonistic behavior on Deep Sea One was more than questionable. The fact that he abandoned her to Sam, to hell — to whatever may come to make his clean getaway as the oil platform collapsed, overrun by enemy agents of the Black Sun. No, his loyalties had never been with her, at least not in the way of real love, right love. Instinctively she scanned the room for exits and cursed herself for letting Purdue get between her and the door.

“Nina.” Purdue’s tone was as matter of fact as always, but even he could not completely repress the hint of anger that sharpened the edge of his voice. “I have not broached the subject of our relationship until now. I wanted to leave it in your hands, to let you come back to me when you were ready, when you had recovered from the strains of our time in America.”

“You neglected the part where you disappeared for two years, Purdue. The part where I was not significant enough for you to even let me know if you were alive! I lived in your house, slept in our bed and yet no word from you to set me at ease. I’m not coming back,” Nina said with more courage than she felt.

“No?”

“No.”

Purdue’s eyes bored into hers. “Very well. I cannot force you to do anything you do not choose to do. I shall simply wait for you to change your mind. When you do, I shall be waiting.”

He opened his mouth to say more, but thought better of it. He turned and stalked out of the room, leaving Nina by herself. As she heard his footsteps retreating her hands began to relax, unclenching her fists and leaving deep pink semi-circular marks of her nails in her palms.