Season of Shadows (3 page)

'No, but…' Sally paused and tightened her arms
about Laura. 'You're always such fun to be with, and—and when
I'm with you I know I—I shan't feel as though Mummy is so far
from me.'

Her childish logic was touching, and Laura stared beyond
Sally at the patch of sunlight on the floor, vowing to herself that she
would bring the sparkle back into her niece's eyes, and the laughter to
that drooping little mouth.

'I'll go and tell Jemima you're awake so that she can make
your breakfast, then I'll come back to show you the way to the
breakfast-room,' Sally announced eagerly as she extricated herself from
Laura's arms and made for the door.

'Sally, wait!' Laura called after her. 'I don't want much
to eat. Just a slice of toast and a cup of coffee will do.'

'Okay,' Sally nodded, slamming the door behind her in her
haste.

Laura washed and dressed quickly before she brushed and
coiled her hair into its usual knot. Shadows still lurked in her
usually clear blue eyes, and there was an unusual tightness about the
soft, generous mouth when she applied a touch of lipstick to it. Her
mind had conjured up a remembered vision of a man and a woman, their
happy laughter drifting towards her on the breeze as she watched them
standing with their arms wrapped about each other. Robert and Elizabeth
had been crazy about each other, almost to the exclusion of their
daughter, Sally, but the child had somehow never been made to feel in
the way. Their love for each other had been something unique; a
once-in-a-lifetime thing. The one would have been totally lost without
the other, and it was almost a blessing that fate had decreed they
should die together.

She shivered and shed her morbid thoughts with a hasty
effort when Sally burst into the room, and then she was following the
child through the house with its priceless collection of antiques.

The breakfast-room was spacious and sunny, and Laura had
barely seated herself at the large table when a Coloured woman pushed a
laden trolley into the room. Her spotless white apron almost crackled
as she moved, and her dark eyes summed Laura up in a friendly,
interested fashion, then white teeth flashed in a smile.

'Good morning, Miss Laura,' she said politely.

'Good morning… er… Jemima?'

'That's right, miss.'

'Did
you
unpack my suitcase for me
last night?' Laura enquired curiously.

'Yes, Miss Laura.'

'That was very kind of you,' Laura thanked her, but when
she observed the contents of the dishes being transferred from the
trolley on to the table, her eyes widened in dismay. There seemed to be
enough there to feed half a dozen hungry men, she thought with a touch
of humour as she eyed the amount of eggs, bacon, fried tomatoes and
steak. 'Good heavens, Jemima,' she exclaimed at last, 'I'll never be
able to eat all that!'

'It's Mr Anton's orders, Miss Laura,' Jemima announced
emphatically. 'He said, "See that Miss Laura has a good breakfast. She
can't live on sandwiches alone." That's what he said.'

'You'll have to eat it, Aunty Laura,' Sally warned,
seating herself on the chair beside Laura and resting her elbows on the
table. 'Uncle Anton gets awfully furious if his orders aren't carried
out.'

Uncle Anton could go hopping for all she cared, Laura
thought irritably, but it was the thought of Jemima being caught in the
backwash of his anger that brought her swiftly to her senses.

'It seems I have no choice, then, so I'll just have to do
the best I can,' she replied, eyeing the food dubiously. 'Thank you,
Jemima, for all your trouble.'

'No trouble, Miss Laura,' the Coloured woman assured her
with that flashing smile that lit up her dark eyes. 'But there
will
be trouble if Mr Anton finds out that I had to take it all back to the
kitchen.'

Some minutes later Laura discovered, to her amazement,
that she was actually hungry, and with a certain amount of assistance
from Sally, the serving dishes were practically empty when they were
eventually wheeled back to the kitchen by a beaming Jemima.

Bellavista lay high up in the curve of the mountain, and
when Laura went for a walk with Sally through the grounds among the
cedar, beech, and olive trees, she could almost forget what had brought
her so unexpectedly from the concrete jungle of Johannesburg to the
peace and tranquillity of the Constantia valley. Sparrows and buntings
fluttered noisily in the trees, while a turtle dove called from
somewhere to its mate in the branches overhead. Butterflies flitted
back and forth among the bright yellow chrysanthemums while the sun
climbed higher in the clear blue sky and, as they approached the
ornamental well, they disturbed the lazy, early-morning siesta of a
small, sleek lizard, and it scurried off the stone wall to disappear
into the undergrowth.

Laura channelled the conversation with her young niece
into avenues free from grief, but they inevitably led back to the
events of the day before.

'Uncle Anton fetched me out of boarding school early
yesterday morning, and the headmistress gave permission for me not to
attend school these two days before the weekend.' Sally kicked
listlessly at a pebble while she spoke. 'I have to go back to school on
Monday, but for the rest of the term, until the March holidays, I'll be
a day scholar.'

'And after the holidays?' Laura prompted curiously.

Sally shrugged in a surprisingly adult fashion. 'Uncle
Anton said that, when the holidays were over, he would decide what to
do about me.'

So Sally's future was not as decided as Anton DeVere had
wanted her to believe, Laura reflected wryly. She would have to speak
to him again about the child, and soon it seemed, in order to make the
necessary arrangements for their flight back to Johannesburg. She
wanted Sally with her; as her aunt she had that right, and Anton DeVere
was not in a position to prevent it.

A small hand gripped her fingers tightly. 'Don't leave me,
Aunty Laura.'

Laura smiled confidently down into those anxious brown
eyes, and made a promise she was to regret bitterly in the not too
distant future. 'I shan't ever leave you, Sally, and that's a promise.'

A look of relief flashed across the child's face, and she
smiled for the first time as she released Laura's hand and ran towards
the kidney-shaped pool with her plaits bobbing down her back. The water
looked cool and inviting on that humid summer morning and, when Sally
suggested a swim, Laura blessed the fact that she had remembered to
pack her swimsuit almost at the last moment.

They went indoors to change, but when they emerged some
minutes later Laura saw a slight young man approaching the house.
Tightening the belt of her towelling robe about her waist, she sent
Sally on ahead to the pool while she herself remained on the terrace to
await the arrival of their unexpected visitor.

'Good morning,' the man smiled as he leapt eagerly up the
steps towards Laura, his keen, alert eyes taking in her slenderness,
and the length of her tanned, shapely legs beneath the hem of her short
robe. 'Miss Laura Hoffmeyer?' he asked at last, meeting her steady blue
gaze with a hint of familiarity in his glance that made her stiffen
with distaste.

'That's right,' she said abruptly, wondering how he knew
her name, and when he made no effort to introduce himself, she asked,
'Have we met before?'

'I don't think so,' he smiled ruefully, casting another
swift glance down the length of her before he explained 'I'm from the
press, Miss Hoffmeyer, and—'

'Are you here with Mr DeVere's knowledge?' she interrupted
hastily, not quite certain how to handle a situation such as this.

'Not with Mr DeVere's knowledge, no,' the man admitted
unashamedly, 'but I don't imagine he will object to my asking you a few
questions in connection with the accident which involved your sister
and brother-in-law.'

'I suggest you approach Mr DeVere for the information you
require, but, as he isn't here at the moment, I think it would be
advisable if you left the way you came.'

Ignoring her remark, he flicked open his notebook and held
his pen in readiness. 'Miss Hoffmeyer, is there any truth in the rumour
that Robert Dean was on a secret mission for the government?'

'Secret mission?' Startled, Laura stared at him, not quite
certain whether to laugh, or be angry. 'What are you talking about?'

'Come now, Miss Hoffmeyer, you must have known something
about it?'

'I assure you, I—'

'There are also rumours that it was an explosion on board
the
Bluebird
which caused the deaths of Robert
Dean and his wife,' the infuriating man continued blandly, and Laura
felt as though she had been dealt a shattering blow to her midriff. 'Is
there any truth in this rumour?' he persisted uncaringly.

'None whatsoever,' a deep-throated, autocratic voice
replied coldly, and Laura turned blindly towards the man who had joined
them on the terrace. 'Anton!'

The
world tilted and swivelled at a sickening pace about Laura as she
swayed towards Anton, and a hard, steadying arm was instantly placed
about her slim shoulders during the frightening silence which followed
his arrival.

The cocky young reporter seemed unperturbed, however, by
the imperious presence of the master of Bellavista. 'Mr DeVere, I'm
from the press, and I wonder if you would—'

'You can stop wondering and get off my property,' Anton
ordered harshly.

'I'm only doing my duty, Mr DeVere. Robert Dean's death is
news, and I—'

'Find your news elsewhere,' Anton interrupted in an icy
voice that made Laura feel thankful that she was not at the receiving
end of it. 'You're here without my authorised permission, and I call
that a blatant invasion of my privacy. Now, get off my property, and
make it snappy before I order my man to see you off the premises.' The
young man stood his ground with a fearlessness Laura could not help
admiring until Anton glanced back over his shoulder and rapped out,
'Eddie!'

A bulky, well-muscled Coloured man appeared in the doorway
behind them, and, as he advanced, the young reporter retreated hastily.

'All right, I'm going,' he said resignedly, hurrying down
the steps and heading towards the driveway, but Anton was taking no
chances and he gestured Eddie to follow him to make certain of his
departure.

'Anton, what was all that about?' she asked after a
moment, moving selfconsciously from the solid circle of his arm.

'Nothing you need concern yourself with.'

'But he insinuated that Robert had been on a secret
mission, and that there'd been an explosion on board—'

'Forget it,' he cut in harshly, but Laura felt driven to
get to the bottom of the reporter's odd remarks.

'Was he merely seeking sensationalism where there was
none, or was there some truth in his insinuating questions?'

'I said forget it!'

'I
can't
forget it!' she cried
chokingly, her hands clenched at her sides as she tried to control the
shudders that rippled through her body, and her glance was imploring as
she added shakily, 'Anton, I have a right to know the truth.'

The air was tense between them and, for a moment, she
thought he was going to refuse, then he gestured grimly towards the
wooden bench against the whitewashed wall. 'Let's sit down over there.'

He offered her a cigarette and, when she refused, he lit
one for himself and drew on it deeply. She sat there stiffly beside
him, her hands clasped tightly in her lap as she waited to hear what he
had to say, but she knew, with a deadly certainty, that he would merely
be giving her a more detailed version of what she already knew.

'Robert
was
on a secret mission,'
Anton admitted finally in clipped, decisive tones. 'Not to South
America as I led you to believe, but to a country I'm not at liberty to
mention. The information leaked out somehow, and made its way into the
wrong hands. An anonymous caller telephoned Defence Headquarters early
yesterday morning, tipping them off about the bomb which had been
placed on board the
Bluebird
, and a bomb disposal
team was flown out in a helicopter.' He drew hard on his cigarette and
blew the smoke forcibly into the air, but his action relayed a
suppressed violence she felt certain he would not hesitate to unleash
if he could get his hands on the culprits. 'They arrived seconds too
late,' he added harshly.

'Why was this information not transmitted through to Robert on the radio?' she wanted to know, helpless anger
rising within her at what she suspected was gross negligence on the
part of the proper authorities. 'It would have given them time to
abandon the yacht, and—'

'They couldn't contact them,' Anton interrupted. 'The bomb
was connected to the radio, and whoever planted it there knew that
Robert would maintain radio silence until seven yesterday morning when
he was well out to sea from Walvis Bay. The moment the radio was
activated with incoming or outgoing calls, the bomb would be detonated,
and that left us with no choice but to try to reach them in time.' He
rose suddenly and flicked his cigarette angrily over the low wall. 'The
whole operation was futile from the start, and I warned Robert against
it, but he insisted on going.'

'Why did Elizabeth accompany him on this mission?' she
asked, her unreasonable anger subsiding and leaving her feeling a
little ashamed of herself.

'You know as well as I do that Robert never went anywhere
without his wife,' he explained, thrusting his hands into the pockets
of his impeccably tailored dark suit as he stood with his back turned
towards her. 'There seemed to be no reason why she should stay behind
on this occasion, and no one, not even I, suspected that there would be
any real danger involved in what he was about to do.'