Dead Romantic (37 page)

“Good.” Business completed, Simon meanders to the window, beams at his reflection in the glass and smooths his hair. “Now where’s that evidence you promised me?”

“It’s at home.”

“At home? What was this wild goose chase in aid of then? I thought you had it here?” He looks at me with great irritation, straightens his tie and picks a bit of dill from between his teeth. “Go and get it then, and make sure you drop it in to me on the first working day back after Christmas.”

And with this parting shot Simon strides out of my office.

“Well, that went well,” I begin to say to Henry Wellby – but it seems that Simon isn’t the only one who’s left: my office is deserted. Even the dead have given up. Deflated, I switch off the light, lock the door and make my way back to the party. I’ve tried my hardest to fight Simon but he’s too cunning and his trap has well and truly sprung on me. The more I protest the crazier I’ll look.

Back in the museum café the party is in full swing, but I’m in no mood to celebrate. Collecting my coat and bag I leave the action just as “One Christmas Kiss”
begins to play. Couples peel away from the throng and begin to sway together as Alex’s unmistakable voice begins to sing and another little piece of my heart crumbles.

I push through the crowd and stumble outside into the cold air. I want nothing more than to be as far away from here as possible. I pull my phone from my pocket, frowning when I see three more missed calls from Rafe and a text from Simon demanding that I bring him the evidence I mentioned or he’ll have to speak to Paul. I feel sick with dread.

I’m still staring at the screen, trying to work out what on earth to do next, when the phone begins to ring, vibrating in my palm like an angry wasp.
Prof H
, says the caller display, and with a shaking finger I swipe it to the off setting. It didn’t take Simon long to go telling tales. The phone rings again instantly and this time I turn it off completely. Whatever it is the Prof has to say, it can wait.

It’s cold outside and I walk away from the museum, pulling my thin jacket tightly around my shoulders and trying to marshal my thoughts. The snow is starting to fall again, spiralling down in dizzying whirls and dusting the pavements and the railings. The windows of the shops twinkle with fairy lights and from the café on the corner “One Christmas Kiss” is playing on the radio. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alone in my life. What do I do? Where do I go? I wander aimlessly, my teeth chattering with both the cold and the realisation that for probably the first time in my life I have no plan at all. When a cab swishes along beside me I jump because I’ve been so lost in thought.

“Are you all right, love?” The window hisses down and the cabbie, a man in his mid fifties, bald and pink faced, leans across, giving me a concerned look. “It’s a bit parky to be out in your evening dress.”

He’s right. I’m freezing. I’ve been so lost in my misery that I’ve hardly noticed the cold. The sky is thick with ominous clouds. More snow is coming.

“I’m fine, thanks,” I say. “Honestly.”

“You’re blue, love! Come on, hop in,” he says. “You’ll catch your death wandering about like that and I can’t have that on my conscience.”

As though in a dream, I clamber in. The warm fug inside is almost shocking.

“Where to, love?” asks the cabbie. He has an elderly woman in the front seat beside him but is totally oblivious to her. Well, of course he is. She’s yet another ghost. They’re everywhere. I may have told Alex to leave me alone but the others are still there, superimposed on the real world like a clumsy Photoshop effect, and I have a nasty feeling they always will be.

“Hello, dear,” she says. “Could you tell my son he needs to drive more slowly? And why isn’t he wearing a vest in this weather? He needs a vest!”

The cabbie is waiting for my response. Where do I want to go? Back to a time before this whole mess began, that’s where.

In that case the answer’s obvious. I’ll go back to where it all began, my love of Egypt, Aamon, Mum and, most painfully of all, Rafe Thorne. Maybe there I can start to make sense of everything.

“Marylebone station, please,” I say. “As soon as possible.”

The cabbie lets the clutch up and the car glides back into the traffic.

“Going anywhere nice, love?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, and for the first time in ages I feel the tension begin to slide away. “I’m going home.”

Chapter 30

The station is dark and deserted, veiled by the falling snow and seeming to materialise from nowhere when the train rounds the final curve in the tracks. The carriage is empty and I’ve travelled in thoughtful silence ever since changing trains at High Wycombe.

My iPhone lies loosely in my palm. When I turn it on again there are two more missed calls from Rafe, logged since I left London, and a text from Susie telling me she’s staying with Dave tonight. There’s nothing more from Simon, thank goodness, although the Prof has tried again and appears to have left a voicemail. I stare at the screen for a few moments, toying with the idea of listening to it, before exhaling slowly. There’s plenty of time for this later on. I’ve had more than enough of Simon’s games for one evening and, anyway, the battery’s very low. I turn the phone off again, wanting to conserve what little power remains. My father’s at a school play and has promised to come and collect me as soon as he’s able, but his timekeeping has always been dreadful and I’ll probably need enough battery to call a taxi before I freeze to death.

The train slows and then shudders to a halt. I press the button to open the doors and step out onto the platform, which is every bit as snowy and as empty as it was all those years ago. The place is dark and utterly silent, the snow spiralling down onto the motionless world without a whisper. Behind me the doors hiss shut. The train accelerates with a growl, then rounds the track and vanishes into the darkness.

I pull my jacket tighter around my shoulders. In the orangey light of the lamps I watch the snowflakes tumbling to earth, dancing and waltzing before silently disappearing. The world beyond Riverside Halt is muffled, and as I walk along the platform I notice that my footsteps are left in the light dusting. The waiting room is in darkness. I rattle the door but it’s locked, so I hug myself against the cold and shiver. There’s no sign of my father. What do I do now?

Litter rustles on the tracks, whisked up by the wind, and the station clock ticks the minutes away. I wander further along the platform, exhaustion prickling my eyes. There’s the bench, hard metal with a curved back – the same bench where Rafe held me all those years ago. Tears make the scene swim. I wish so much that I could rewind the years. He’ll appear then, with his guitar slung across his back and his black hair falling over his face; he’ll brush it away as he smiles and holds out his hand.

“You’re sad and it’s Christmas,” he’ll say. “Nobody should be sad at Christmas.”

I sigh. I don’t think sad even comes close to how I’m feeling. Maybe the word for this biting sense of loss hasn’t even been invented yet. Regret, loneliness, confusion… These are the emotions that chase through me, and of all the things that have hurt me I know that Rafe seeing Natasha behind my back is the most painful. He’s been a part of me for so long, and for a few heady days I thought he was the future too. The future is wide open now in every possible way.

I lower myself onto the bench, flinching as the icy metal chills my skin even through my dress. The snow is thicker now, obliterating the world beyond. The station clock seems to tick slower and slower as though time, too, is freezing. Maybe it is. Perhaps only moments rather than years have passed since Rafe and I first met here? Or maybe I’ve slipped back in time and we haven’t even met yet? Imagine that. All the opportunities and chances are still out there for the taking, just waiting for me to reach for them.

That makes me smile. It’s a lovely fantasy but that’s all it will ever be. I know now that life doesn’t offer any second chances. Alex tried his best to make me believe otherwise, but Alex, if he ever existed at all, was wrong. We get one shot and if we mess it up, then tough. We have to learn to deal with our mistakes and live with them as best we can. My father knows this, Rafe knows this and, after the past couple of months, I know it too. All my certainties have melted away, just as the snow has dissolved in patches where the platform’s been gritted.

A tear slips down my cheek and I dash it away impatiently. It’s too cold to cry and my face feels raw with the clawing wind. Across the fields church bells sound as the ringers begin their practice, chimes echoing and trembling across the still world, taking me back to that long-ago Christmas Eve. Memories roll over me with each peal. Weary of fighting them, I close my eyes and dream that I’m nineteen again, just a girl alone on a railway platform waiting for life and love to write a footnote in her own history, an aside she’ll remember until the day she dies.

There’s growl of a car engine, followed by the slamming of a door. I gulp my misery back and wipe my eyes on my sleeve. This has to be my dad at last, miraculously on time for once. Footsteps crunch on snow, keys jangle and through the dancing flakes I see a man at the far end of the platform, striding towards me through the darkness.

Wait. He’s tall. Taller than my father and wide shouldered, lean hipped and with such presence that my every cell wants to cry out in recognition. I don’t need to see the crimson scarf, the stubble-shadowed jaw, the dark hair or the mouth set in a determined expression to know who this is. My heart is already telling me.

“You’re sad and it’s Christmas,” Rafe calls softly, holding out his hand. “Nobody should be sad at Christmas.”

Rafe is here. I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but none of that matters anymore. I leap up from my seat and now I’m running towards him, the snow stinging my face and the wind whipping any words from my lips. My feet in my heels slither and skid, but I feel as though I could fly. In my haste to reach Rafe I’m not bothered about practicalities – and when I catch my heel in my long skirt and pitch forwards I’m too taken by surprise to even cry out. I hear him shout a warning, but it’s way too late for me to stop. My hands claw helplessly at the thin air and then I’m slammed onto the platform, the snow a useless cushion as my head hits the concrete.

Blackness. Dark and velvet soft. Spinning, falling, floating. Hands touching my face, voices whispering, somebody smoothing hair away from my cheeks. Traffic rushing by? Or is that the roaring of my own blood I can hear? Traffic was before, wasn’t it? Or was that was another time?

“Cleo! Cleo! Wake up. Look at me.”

The voice is insistent. I try to open my eyes but the glaring light hurts and renders the face gazing down at me little more than a shadow. I put my hand over my eyes to shield them, but cool fingers peel my hand away again.

“Cleo, it’s me, Alex.”

I blink and, sure enough, there Alex is. Rafe is cradling my head in his lap, raining kisses onto my cheeks and my lips, and doesn’t see his brother crouched by my side. I groan and raise my fingers to my head; they come away sticky with blood. The sky is whirling like a roundabout. Rafe. Alex. Rafe. Alex. It’s hard to see which Thorne brother is which; they’re moving so fast.

“Rafe?” I whisper. “Alex?”

Alex brushes my face with icicle fingers. “Cleo, listen, I don’t have much time. I think my journey here is done. You need to get in touch with the Professor. He’s been desperate to speak to you. He wants to offer you the Assistant Director’s job.”

I’ve hit my head; no wonder this makes no sense. “No, no. He gave the job to Simon.”

“Not anymore. He knows everything and he heard it all from Simon. He won’t doubt you ever again.”

I struggle to sit up. “That’s impossible. Simon would never tell him.”

Alex grins. “Not on purpose, but imagine if the phone in your office had
somehow
managed to dial the Professor and he’d heard everything when he’d picked up? Do we know a little pharaoh who likes playing with telephones and an Egyptologist who’s incensed by Simon’s disgusting behaviour and the disrepute this might bring to the museum? Can you imagine how a phone call to the Professor might have happened just at the same time Simon was bragging about what he’s done?”

“Aamon and Henry Wellby? They did that? And the Professor knows that Simon stole my research? He believes me?”

Alex nods. “Simon can’t deny it either. The Professor heard him gloat about everything he’d done. He’s condemned himself out of his own mouth.”

“Aamon loves playing with that phone,” I recall.

“And he loves you too,” Alex says softly. “You’ve uncovered his story, Cleo, and set him free. He won’t forget that.”

I close my eyes again. The darkness is so restful…

“Cleo, sweetheart,” Rafe’s lips are only inches from mine. I feel his warm breath on my cheek. “Who are you talking to?”

I open my eyes again. Rafe’s face swims into focus, his violet eyes brimming with concern. I’m poised to tell him everything at last but Alex puts his finger on his lips and shakes his head. He’s starting to fade in front of my eyes.

“Where are you going?” I say. “Don’t go!”

“I’ll never leave you,” Rafe promises. “Never.”

But my attention is fixed on Alex, who’s becoming more and more translucent with every passing second.

“I don’t know,” he says. “But I do know that I’m done here. I’ve completed my journey and it feels good. It’s all going to be OK. Neither of you need me anymore.”

“That’s not true!” I whisper.

“It is, I swear,” says Rafe. “I’m never letting you out of my sight again, Cleo Rose Carpenter.”

Alex smiles. “See? You really don’t need me now. You’re going to be a huge success and I know you’ll both be happy. Cleo, trust me on this. I have to go now. It’s my time.”

“Don’t go!” I cry. I try to sit up but the world revolves in a sickening blur and only Rafe’s arms stop me from falling back onto the platform. I want to tell Alex I’m sorry we argued, that I don’t blame him for anything that happened, that I’m glad I had the chance to get to know him – but it’s already too late. Alex has gone. I close my eyes and there’s his face again, gazing down at me in amazement as I lie in my hospital bed, laughing at Lilac Delaney’s shenanigans, his green eyes furious when I ignored him. I see his cheeky grin when I made him put his fingers over his eyes in the changing room, and I hear his teasing voice. There’s an ache in my head, as though my skull is going to split. I open my mouth in a cry of pain but only silence rushes in. My heart begins to race and panic swamps me. Everything goes dark.