A Haunting Compulsion Read online

  ‘No. I’m not hungry.’ Liz forced a smile, and shook her head. ‘I’m only sorry this had to happen while you and Robin are here. I so much wanted to keep this a happy occasion.’

  ‘It’s been marvellous, honestly,’ Rachel said sincerely. ‘We’ve all had a wonderful time.’

  ‘Even you? Even Jaime?’ Liz looked sceptical. ‘Oh, if only he hadn’t had to leave like that! There hasn’t been nearly enough time.’

  ‘He’ll be back.’ Rachel tried to sound optimistic, but Liz wouldn’t have it.

  ‘He won’t—I know it. He’s going to America today, and goodness knows when we’ll see him again.’ She sniffed miserably, and Rachel saw to her surprise that she was fighting back her tears. ‘Oh, Rachel, this was just a wonderful opportunity, and now—now I’ve funked it!’

  Rachel’s wide brow creased. ‘Funked what? Oh, Liz, if this has anything to do with Jaime and me—’

  ‘It hasn’t,’ said Liz tightly.

  ‘Then what?’ Rachel was confused. ‘Liz, am I being obtuse? I don’t understand.’

  Liz put both her hands over one of Rachel’s and held on to it tightly. ‘Darling, I need your help.’

  ‘My help?’

  ‘Yes.’ Liz’s fingers tightened. ‘There—there’s something I should have told Jaime, and—and I didn’t. You’ll be in London when he gets back to England, and I—I want you to tell him.’

  ‘Oh, Liz—’ Rachel moved her head vigorously from side to side. ‘Liz, I’ll do anything for you, you know that, but—but see Jaime! That’s something else.’

  ‘Why is it?’ Liz looked up at her entreatingly. ‘I thought you two were friends. You—you seemed—well, amicable enough towards one another.’ Her fingers went slack. ‘Was that all pretence?’

  Rachel could feel her face going red, but fortunately, as the curtains were half drawn it was not so noticeable. ‘Well—in a manner of speaking,’ she murmured now, feeling mean and horribly deceitful. ‘Liz, if there’s anything you want to tell Jaime, why don’t you ring him and speak to him when he gets back to town? You might even be able to persuade him to come up for the weekend—’

  ‘No.’ Liz pressed her lips together. ‘No, it will be too late then.’

  ‘Too late?’ Rachel stared at her. ‘Liz, what do you mean? What is all this? Why have you sent for me?’

  Liz sniffed again. ‘I suppose I should confess everything, shouldn’t I—’

  ‘Confess—everything?’

  ‘Yes.’ Liz seemed unable to meet her eyes. ‘Rachel, much as Rob and I care for you, we didn’t ask you here for Christmas just because we think a lot about you.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ Rachel felt a faint chill inside. What was Liz trying to say? That she had brought her here because she had known Jaime was coming home? But no! That was impossible. They could not have anticipated his being shot, and invalided back to England!

  ‘No.’ Liz grasped her hand again now with renewed strength. ‘We wanted to see you, of course we did. You know that. But—well, it was because of Jaime I invited you.’

  Rachel gasped. ‘But you couldn’t have known—’

  ‘—about his injury? Heavens, no!’ Liz made a gesture of dismissal. ‘No, darling, I asked you here, because I wanted you to speak to Jaime for me. I was going to ask you to see him after you got back to town.’

  Rachel was thoroughly bewildered now. ‘But why?’ She shook her head. ‘You—you must have known Jaime and I hadn’t seen one another since—’

  ‘Oh, I know all about that,’ replied Liz, sighing. ‘I know you’ve split up, and everything is over between you, but—’ She broke off uncertainly, striving for control. ‘But,’ she said again, ‘I know my son, Rachel. I know he still—well, let’s say, he wouldn’t turn you away, not if you had something to say to him.’

  ‘Meaning you think I turned him away, when he had something to say to me?’ Rachel was stung into retorting, but Liz only shook her head.

  ‘No, darling. No. I’m not criticising you.’ She looked up at Rachel gently. ‘It’s not my concern. I can’t influence you, one way or the other. You—you and Jaime must sort out your own differences. No—this is something personal. Personal to me, that is.’ She paused, and then said bravely: ‘Rachel, I think I’ve got cancer.’ And as the girl gazed at her in sudden anguish, she added: ‘No, don’t look like that. I—I’m not dying—at least, not yet. But I do have to have an operation, and I wanted to tell Jaime, before—well, before they operate.’

  Rachel was appalled. ‘Oh, Liz—’

  ‘It’s a common enough thing, my dear. Lots of women of my age suffer from it. And who knows? The growth may be harmless. They won’t know for sure, until they can examine it.’

  Rachel shook her head. ‘Oh, Liz, you should have told me.’

  ‘When?’ Liz was practical. ‘When you arrived? Or on Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day? Which? Darling, I didn’t want to spoil the party. I wanted so much for this to be a good Christmas, for all of us. I—I planned to tell Jaime this morning.’

  Rachel put her other hand over both of Liz’s. ‘Is that what’s really wrong with you now? Not your head at all?’

  Liz sighed again. ‘Oh, I have a slight headache, but I think all the preparations have been just a little too much for me. I feel absolutely fatigued and—and Jaime leaving like that—’

  ‘It upset you?’

  Liz nodded.

  ‘He wouldn’t have gone, you know. If you’d told him.’

  ‘I know that.’ Liz shifted restlessly. ‘But I couldn’t come between him and his work. And in any case, I couldn’t have told him then, just like that.’ She paused. ‘He looked so tired himself—exhausted, almost. Did you and he have words the other night?’

  Rachel couldn’t look Liz in the face, so she bent her head. ‘Sort of,’ she murmured, unwilling to elaborate. Then: ‘But what about Robin? And Nancy?’

  ‘Oh, Robert will tell Robin,’ said Liz tiredly. ‘I’m not so concerned about him. He has Nancy, you see, and baby Lisa.’

  Rachel hesitated for a moment, but it had to be said. ‘Well, Jaime has Betsy, doesn’t he?’ she shrugged, and winced when Liz’s nails scraped her wrist.

  ‘Jaime has no one,’ she exclaimed fiercely. ‘He—he and Betsy were divorced over a year ago. Didn’t you know about that?’

  ‘No.’ Rachel quivered. ‘In—in any case, it doesn’t make any difference to us.’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’ Liz looked defeated. ‘I suppose I was hoping for too much. And I did think you knew.’

  Rachel pressed her lips tightly together. ‘Liz—’

  ‘Will you tell him?’

  Liz was not taking excuses any longer. She just wanted an answer, yes or no, and Rachel knew herself trapped.

  ‘When—when is he due back?’

  ‘I think he said he’d be away for ten days,’ said Liz tiredly. ‘That’s why I want you to see him. I—I have the operation a week on Thursday. I—I think that’s the day he flies home.’

  Rachel drew an unsteady breath. ‘What do you want me to tell him?’

  Liz’s shoulders sagged with relief. ‘Just—the truth. That—they found a growth inside me, and—and it has to be removed.’

  Rachel shook her head. ‘Where will you be? I mean, where can he get in touch with you?’

  ‘Rob will give him all the details.’ Liz sniffed again. ‘Oh, Rachel, I’m so grateful to you.’

  Rachel wished she felt as convinced Jaime would hear it best from her. After the way they had parted, she was unlikely to be a welcome bearer of news, and she suspected his father would do a better job.

  ‘Liz—’ she began again, seeking for words to express herself, but the older woman looked so weary, she didn’t have the heart to continue.

  ‘I know you won’t let me down, Rachel,’ she murmured, her eyes closing. ‘You’ve got compassion, I know you have. I know you won’t break it to him carelessly.’

  Rachel released herself and got to her feet. She wi
shed she felt as sure of herself and her capabilities. As it was, she felt fearful and apprehensive, and terribly afraid that for all her bland assertions she was as near to losing her self-respect as she had ever been. The prospect of seeing Jaime again should have meant nothing to her. But it did. It did!

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT WAS GOOD to be back at the flat again.

  After turning up the heating and making herself a cup of tea, Rachel spent some time re-acquainting herself with its compact familiarity, adjusting once more to only two rooms and a pint-sized kitchen, after the spaciousness of a large house.

  But it was a relief to be her own mistress again, to do what she liked, when she liked, and not have to consider anyone but herself. Staying at Clere Heights had been pleasant enough, and she was grateful to the Shards for their kindness, but Jaime’s presence had destroyed any sense of normality, and his departure had, in its way, precipitated an even greater insecurity.

  Learning about Liz, discovering the secret she had been trying so hard to conceal, had left Rachel with a great feeling of compassion for the older woman. Liz had always seemed so much in control, so competent; to find out she was as susceptible, and as vulnerable, as everyone else was somehow shocking. It made one doubt one’s own convictions, created doubts where they had never been before, and alerted one to the awareness of one’s own mortality. Life was so short, its happinesses so fleeting, did anyone have the right to deny the chance of happiness to anyone else?

  After Jaime’s departure Rachel had wanted to leave, too, but even that would have seemed a betrayal. After all, she had been invited to stay for the week, and now that Jaime had gone, what possible motive did she have for leaving too? Besides, with Liz just recovering from being unwell, and Nancy too engrossed in her own affairs to take over, Rachel found herself involved in the actual running of the house, relieving Robert of this duty and therefore giving him more time to spend with his wife.

  Robin was told about his mother, of course, but he took the news with characteristic optimism. ‘If they’re operating, they must think there’s a good chance,’ he remarked to Rachel, as she was clearing the table after lunch one day. ‘They can do marvellous things these days, what with radium treatment and therapy, and so on. I was reading just the other day—’

  ‘Well, let’s hope you’re right,’ Rachel interrupted him dryly, unwilling to enter into speculative discussions of that sort. ‘Now, could you carry those glasses into the kitchen for me? I think Mrs Armstrong’s waiting to wash up.’

  Robin grimaced, but he picked up the glasses and made his way to the door. ‘I hear you’ve got the job of telling Jaime,’ he added. ‘Hell, Ma won’t leave well alone, will she?’

  Rachel sighed. ‘Robin—’

  ‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it? I mean, Jaime won’t thank you for interfering again, will he?’

  Rachel subjected him to a cool appraisal. ‘Won’t he?’

  ‘Not if what I hear is true.’

  Rachel picked up the tray. ‘You’re imagining things.’

  ‘Am I?’ Robin made no move to go. ‘And I suppose I imagined that call he made Sunday morning.’

  ‘Sunday morning?’ Rachel frowned. ‘You mean—Boxing Day? The day he left?’

  ‘Yes.’ Robin looked pleased to have aroused her interest at last. ‘The studios didn’t ring him, you know, no matter what he said. He rang them!’

  Rachel moistened her lips. ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘You tell me.’ Robin was over-confident now.

  Rachel flushed. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘No?’ Robin studied her hot face for a few moments, then shrugged. ‘Oh, well. Maybe he wanted a get-out.’

  ‘He had a job to do,’ declared Rachel stiffly, as the full implications of what Jaime’s brother was saying became apparent, but Robin only gave her an old-fashioned look.

  ‘He took a job,’ he agreed. ‘I doubt if it was offered.’

  Rachel made a determined effort to get past him, and realising she was carrying a heavy tray, he moved aside. But the damage was done, and although Rachel told herself that she didn’t care why Jaime had chosen to leave so abruptly, it made the task Liz had given her that much harder.

  Rachel resumed work at the television studios on Monday. It was a relief to get back into a normal routine after her ten days’ holiday, and she was glad that the amount of work that had accumulated excused her from any lengthy discussion as to how she had spent the festive season. Her immediate boss, Geoffrey Zimmerman, knew of her association with Jaime, and where she had intended to spend the holiday, but apart from commenting on the news reports of Jaime’s being wounded in Masota, he refrained from asking the inevitable question.

  Jaime was due back on Thursday, according to Liz’s information, and the first three days of the week alternately flew or dragged, depending on what Rachel was doing. When she was at work, she managed to forget for whole periods at a time what was facing her, but at home in the flat it was impossible to avoid. In consequence, she ate little and slept badly, and by the time Thursday came around she was sure she looked a hag. There were dark rings around her eyes, her cheekbones protruded sharply, and there was a tightness about her lips that accentuated their vulnerability.

  She guessed that Jaime would probably take a morning flight from New York, which would mean him arriving at Heathrow somewhere around nine o’clock. The prospect of arriving at his apartment at ten o’clock or later, depending on his schedule, was not appealing to her, therefore she decided to phone the studios and find out for herself exactly when he was expected there. Liz was having her operation that afternoon, Robert had telephoned to confirm the arrangements, and for all her misgivings Rachel knew he would have liked his son to be at his mother’s bedside when she awakened. If that was not possible, and it didn’t seem likely, the least she could do was arrange for him to be told immediately, and if that meant braving his apartment caretaker at midnight, what reasonable choice did she have?

  It was strange dialling the number of the studios where she used to work, and she was relieved to discover the receptionist did not sound familiar to her. It was easier to speak to someone who knew nothing about her, and she gave her name and asked to be put through to Jaime Shard’s producer.

  ‘You want to speak to Mr Shard?’ asked the girl, and Rachel tapped her fingers on her desk, prepared to enter into a long explanation as to why she wanted to speak to Max Gilchrist.

  ‘No. He’s not there,’ she explained patiently. ‘But I have some—personal information for him, and I’d like to find out when he’s due back.’

  There was silence for a while after that, and Rachel guessed the girl was relaying her message to Max Gilchrist’s secretary. She wondered if either the producer or his secretary would recognise her name, then realised uneasily how unlikely it would be if they didn’t.

  However, when a vaguely familiar masculine voice came on the line, she heaved an impatient sigh. Somehow, she didn’t know how, she had been put through to Jack Morrison’s office, and she heard him asking how she was through an overwhelming wave of exasperation.

  ‘It is Rachel Williams, isn’t it?’ Mr Morrison enquired doubtfully, when she made no immediate response, and Rachel forced herself to reply to him, keeping the tension out of her voice.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Morrison,’ she said, in an apologetic tone. ‘I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. I—well, I wanted to speak to Mr Gilchrist. The telephonist called you in error.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Mr Morrison sounded confused. ‘But I thought she said you wanted to speak to Jaime.’ He paused. ‘He was here a few moments ago, but he’s just stepped out for a while.’

  Rachel was glad she was sitting down, glad too that her position as Geoffrey Zimmerman’s assistant provided her with an office of her own. She could hardly believe what Mr Morrison was saying, and she could feel her limbs responding to the trembling mass inside her.

  ‘Rachel? Rachel, are you still there?’ Mr Morr
ison was sounding concerned now, and with an enormous effort Rachel endeavoured to respond.

  ‘You—you said Jaime is—was—there?’ she echoed.

  ‘That’s right. I can get him for you, if you like. I believe he’s just along the corridor—’

  ‘No! Wait!’ Rachel had to stop him. This was not something she could tell Jaime over the phone. If it was, his mother could have done it herself. And Rachel had promised Liz to break it to him gently. ‘I—well—’ she sought for words, ‘I thought he was still in New York?’

  ‘New York?’ Mr Morrison sounded bewildered. ‘But you must know he hasn’t been to New York. Pardon me, but didn’t you spend Christmas with him, at his parents’ home in Northumberland?’

  Rachel put an unsteady hand to her head. ‘I—we—he came back to London ten days ago, to—to cover an assignment in the United States.’

  ‘No.’ Mr Morrison was very definite. ‘Unless he’s working for another television company,’ he added, with a dry chuckle. Then he sobered: ‘Seriously, Rachel, he hasn’t been away, not since he came back to London last week. If he had, I’d have known about it.’

  ‘Would you?’ Rachel felt slightly faint.

  ‘I think so.’ Mr Morrison was serious now. ‘Look, Rachel, if there’s anything I can do—’

  ‘There’s not. Thank you.’ All Rachel wanted to do now was put the phone down and think about what she had learned. But somehow she had to allay Mr Morrison’s suspicions, without him betraying her call to Jaime. ‘I—well, I wish you’d forget I rang.’

  ‘Forget you rang?’ Mr Morrison sounded perplexed. ‘You mean you’d rather I didn’t mention it to Jaime?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you like me to arrange to have this call transferred to Max Gilchrist?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Rachel was hasty, ‘that won’t be necessary now.’

  ‘Very well.’ Mr Morrison hesitated. ‘Rachel, what is it? What’s wrong? You can tell me. Jaime and I are—well, friends as well as in-laws.’

  ‘In-laws?’

  Rachel repeated the word dazedly, and Mr Morrison gave an impatient ejaculation. ‘Surely you knew?’