CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Robert Carter stood at the broken window and watched Jane Talbot disappear. There was nothing he could do; no way he could turn back the clock. He gave a howl of anguish and sank to his knees. The only woman he had ever truly loved was gone and the man she had just killed was lying dead just a few yards away from him. First Sian, now this. A hand rested on his shoulder.
‘There was nothing you could have done.’ John McKinley’s words echoed his thoughts.
He looked up at McKinley’s handsome black face. There was compassion in the other man’s eyes; compassion and sadness.
‘I watched it on the computer,’ McKinley said. ‘It all happened so fast.’
‘Did you see what happened to Jane?’ Carter said. Had it all been recorded?
‘Gone. If it was Jane. I’m beginning to doubt that it was. Come on, let’s get back inside.’ He helped Carter to his feet and together they walked back to the front door.
Kirby and Bayliss were sitting on the floor. Bayliss’s hands were covering his face; Kirby was weeping, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. She made no effort to wipe them away.
‘Have you tried the door again?’ McKinley said, as they stood outside the library.
Bayliss shook his head. The laptop was on the floor beside him, the picture on the screen a moment frozen in time. Raj lying dead on the floor of the devastated library. He looked peaceful in death, as if he was merely sleeping. Only the red gash at his throat tainting the image. Carter bent down and closed the screen, then went to the door and turned the handle. The door opened easily.
Crouching down beside Raj’s body he reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from his face. As he stared down at the serene face his heart wrenched and a choking sob broke from his throat. Awful as he felt about not being able to save Raj, he couldn’t help but feel more grief at losing Jane. He closed his eyes and let the memories of her come flooding back into his mind; memories he’d repressed since the end of their affair.
Jane, eyes wide with awe as she stood, staring out over the city from the top of the London Eye. Jane, laughing with abandon at the Marx Brothers when he’d taken her to a National Film Theatre screening of Horse Feathers. Jane, her face illuminated with soft candlelight, gazing at him lovingly across the table in their favorite restaurant in Soho. His fingers tracing the line of her cheek as she lay beneath him the first time they’d made love. The petulant tilt of her chin when he’d said something that displeased her.
So many memories jostling for space in his mind. How could he have let her go? Why did he let the work they shared come between them? He realized suddenly that he had wasted much of his life. It was a crushing thought, but a true one. Priorities. He’d always made them, shuffling the elements of his life into a certain running order. As their relationship continued, and he started to feel comfortable and secure in it, he’d let her slip down that list of priorities and allowed other elements to take her place. And as he let her slip through his fingers, she’d been easily seduced by the attention of someone else—her husband.
The others stood back in the doorway, allowing him this private moment.
It was McKinley who took charge. He instructed Kirby to copy what ever images and sounds were on the laptop so they had backup records. It gave him great pleasure to tell Bayliss to make coffee for them all, and after what had happened he wasn’t surprised he got no resistance.
In the library McKinley helped Carter move Raj’s body. For want of any better ideas they rolled it in a Persian rug and laid it as gently as they could on a couch.
‘Let’s go get that coffee,’ McKinley said.
‘I’m not sure…’
McKinley clasped a large hand on Carter’s shoulder. ‘It wasn’t an idle suggestion. You need to be with the others.’
Carter half nodded, half shrugged and followed the big man out, through the hallway, and into the bar area.
Bayliss had four mugs of coffee lined up on the bar counter. Kirby was warming her hands on one of them.
Carter walked across to her. ‘How’s your face?’ There were a few cuts and scratches on her cheeks and her forehead was coated in blood.
Kirby attempted a smile but it looked more like a grinning Halloween mask. ‘How could Jane kill Raj?’
He walked behind the bar, wet a clean cloth with cold water, and then began to wipe the blood from her face. ‘It wasn’t Jane…not consciously.’
Kirby leaned her face to one side so he could finish cleaning her up. ‘Is she dead?’
Carter laid the cloth down on the counter and picked up one of the coffees. ‘There, that’s as good as new.’
Bayliss was seated at one of the tables, spinning his finger in a warm wet circle made by his mug. ‘He can’t answer your question because he doesn’t know.’
Carter led Kirby across to a chair near Bayliss and motioned for McKinley to join them.
When all four were seated Carter said, ‘We’ve heard your story, Bayliss. Now it’s my turn to tell you what I know.’