The Shadow Project

Chapter Forty-Six

It was as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. Ben found it hard to speak.

‘The Steiners don’t have any children,’ he said weakly.

Her face reddened. ‘Who told you that?’ she demanded. ‘That lick-spittle Dorenkamp? Or my bastard pig of a father? Of course they’d say that, wouldn’t they? I’m the dark little secret they want to keep quiet. Easier to pretend I don’t exist.’

Ben reeled with confusion. ‘Listen to me. You are my sister. When you were nine years old—’

But she didn’t let him finish. Her arm flashed out. On the windowsill behind her was the old naval paraffin lamp he still used sometimes when the storms took out the power. She grabbed it and hurled it at him. It was a heavy lump of brass, and it could have put a dent in his skull if he hadn’t ducked out of the way. It smashed into the chest of drawers behind him, splintering the wood.

‘You let me out of here right now!’ she shouted.

‘Not until we talk and straighten this whole thing out. If you’re Steiner’s daughter, then why were you trying to kidnap him?’

‘I need to go to the bathroom.’

‘After. What about Adam O’Connor and his son?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me go.’

‘Why did you want the Kammler papers?’

She stared at him, her rage suddenly giving way to suspicion. ‘What did that bastard tell you about Kammler?’

‘Steiner? I think he told me a pack of lies.’

She snorted. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

‘And you’re going to tell me the truth. I want to know what’s going on.’

‘Why the fuck should I tell you anything? Let me go to the bathroom, unless you want me to piss all over this pretty rug you have here.’

‘All right. You go. But the door stays open.’

‘So you can watch?’

‘I don’t want to watch my sister taking a piss.’

‘I’m not your sister, buddy.’

He grabbed her arm as she strode towards the bathroom, and jerked her round to face him. She tried to get away, but he held her tight.

‘That scar on your arm,’ he said. ‘You want me to tell you how you got it? You were seven years old. We were burning leaves. You, me and our father. Not Maximilian Steiner. Our father, I’m talking about, Alistair Hope. You tripped and fell against the incinerator. Do you remember?’

She said nothing. Her whole body was tense.

‘Maybe you remember Polly? She was your horse. A Welsh mountain pony, twelve hands, grey. And then there was your fluffy toy dog. You called him Ringle-the-Wee and you wouldn’t be parted from him. I still have him.’ He pointed. ‘I have a whole box of your things, there under my bed. Things I’ve kept all these years. Do you want to see them? Will that make you believe me?’ He ripped his wallet out of his back pocket, opened it and took out a passport-sized picture. ‘Look at this. It’s you, about a week before you disappeared. I’ve carried it with me everywhere since.’

Ruth glanced at the picture, then stared at him defiantly. ‘Stick it up your ass. Go tell it to your boss.’

Anger seized him then, and he shook her violently. ‘Steiner didn’t send me. He’s not here. We’re not in Switzerland, we’re in France. Normandy, at my place. Steiner doesn’t know you’re here.’

‘Let go of my arm. You’re hurting me.’

He held her tighter. ‘I came looking for you because I wanted to save you, Ruth.’

‘Save me!’

‘From yourself, you stupid little idiot. I don’t know what crazy stuff you’re into. I just know that it’s going to end with you getting arrested or killed, all right? But if you want, if you really want, I only have to call Steiner and he’ll send someone right over to pick you up. I’m sure he’d be very interested to meet the woman who’s been trying to kidnap him. I might even take you there myself.’

Her eyes were full of alarm at his words. She twisted furiously against his grip. ‘Let go of me!’ she screamed at him.

He did, and she ran to the bathroom and slammed the door in his face, threw the bolt on the inside.

He thought about breaking the door down, then relented and stood there helpless with his head hanging. Maybe he needed to back off a little.

Perhaps Brooke was right – he couldn’t handle this alone.

Feeling suddenly a hundred years old, as if every last drop of strength had been drained out of him, he left his quarters and locked the door. She couldn’t escape from in there. Even if she broke through the shutters, it was a long drop to the concrete below, and there was no way she could climb down.

He trudged wearily down the stairs, snatched a bottle of whisky from the kitchen, carried it back through to the dark hall and sat with it on the bottom stair. He could hear the sounds coming from the landing above. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out she was locked in. As he cracked open the whisky, she was already pounding furiously on the door, screaming to be let out.

Then, as he was into his second gulp, the smashing began.

He could only imagine what was happening up there. He sat there staring into the darkness and sipping the whisky, and after a while the sound of his possessions being hurled and broken into pieces just washed over him. He closed his eyes, felt his head nod. And gave in to it.

When he awoke, slumped uncomfortably on the stairs with just the half-empty bottle for company, the house was silent and sunlight was streaming through the hallway from the fan light above the door. He got to his feet, stretching and rubbing his back, and staggered through to the kitchen hoping that a strong coffee would drive away the sharp ache that had set up camp in his temple.

Someone else was awake, too. As he made his way down the hall the pounding and screaming started again upstairs. The sound of glass shattering. Another lamp, or maybe the mirror.

Let her get on with it. There couldn’t be much left up there that wasn’t already broken, anyway.

He was sitting at the kitchen table five minutes later, burning his tongue on scalding black coffee, when he heard the diesel chatter of a taxi pull up outside. The front door opening, familiar footsteps in the hall. He turned to see Brooke walk into the room.

‘I told you you didn’t have to come,’ he said. ‘But it’s good to see you.’

‘You look terrible. Where is she?’

He pointed upwards. ‘Can’t you hear?’

‘What’s she doing?’

‘Smashing the place up. She’s been doing it on and off since last night.’

‘I need a coffee,’ Brooke said, rubbing her eyes. ‘I was up at five to catch the plane.’

Ben got up and poured her a cup. ‘She says her name’s Luna, and she’s Steiner’s daughter,’ he told her.

‘As in Maximilian Steiner, the guy she was trying to kidnap?’

He nodded. Another crash came from upstairs. More screaming.

‘Why would she do that?’ Brooke asked, puzzled. ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ he said. ‘I’m going up there to talk to her.’

‘I’ll come too.’

‘No way, Ben. You’re staying here. Don’t interfere with this.’

‘She’s wild. She could hurt you.’

‘I know what I’m doing.’ Brooke gulped down her coffee and left. Ben heard her climbing the stairs. Her soft knock and her voice saying, ‘Luna? Can I come in?’ before unlocking the door. Then it clicked shut and he heard no more.

The two women were alone up there a long time. After ten minutes the smashing and yelling had become much less frequent, and after twenty it had stopped altogether. Ben knocked back cup after cup of coffee, pacing up and down in the kitchen and fighting the urge to go creeping up the stairs and listen at the door.

What the hell was happening? That was his sister up there – no doubt about that. And yet, she was – or said she was – Steiner’s daughter. Steiner’s adopted child? It was feasible, but the possibility was dizzying.

Questions poured through Ben’s mind. Had Steiner known of the connection all along, and somehow contrived to hire him for that reason? But that seemed impossible. Shannon would have had to be in on it too. Deliberately provoking Ben into hurting him, one unlikely event tripping the next like a line of dominoes. Absurd. So what was the answer?

Consumed with frustration and impatience, he just had to do something. He still had a card in his wallet with the main office number of the Steiner residence. He snatched up the phone and punched the keys, and asked for Heinrich Dorenkamp.

When the man came to the phone, Ben came right to the point. ‘You told me the Steiners didn’t have any children. Were you lying to me?’

A pause. ‘I – ah…’

‘Did the Steiners adopt a child? A girl of nine, more than twenty years ago? Yes or no, Heinrich? It’s simple.’

‘I’m afraid I cannot help with your enquiry,’ Dorenkamp said in a stiff tone. ‘I am very busy at the moment. Goodbye.’ And hung up.

Ben was about to redial the number and get nasty when he heard the door open behind him and turned for the second time that morning to see Brooke walk in.

He glanced at his watch. She’d been up there for nearly two hours. She looked tired as she pulled up a chair and sat down.

He looked at her. ‘Well?’

Brooke sighed. ‘Well, we talked. She listened to what I had to say. And… ’

‘And?’

‘And you were right all along, Ben. She’s who you said, and she knows it. I think she knew it before I got here. Things you said to her last night, things that only her brother could have known.’

‘So now I’m going to talk to her,’ he said. ‘There’s something else, Ben. The situation’s stranger than you think.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘She was convinced that her brother was dead.’