Vampire Lover

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‘Who do you think?’ enquired their father wryly, and Lucy gave Clare a guilty look.

‘I’m sorry, Clare, I honestly forgot! It went clean out of my head! I’ll do it next time it’s your turn; when’s that?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Right, I won’t forget.’ Lucy looked down at her food. ‘There wasn’t a letter from Mike again today. That’s nearly ten days. I hope he isn’t sick.’

‘It’s probably the post,’ Clare said quickly, watching her sister anxiously.

Lucy was delicate and sensitive, and easily hurt, and it had been a relief to her family when she met Mike Duncan a year ago, while she was still at college. Mike had been doing postgraduate research at the same college; he was four years older than Lucy, and had had some work experience before returning to do his postgraduate work.

Quiet, steady, friendly—the whole family had liked Mike at once, and been delighted when Lucy got engaged to him, but then Mike had taken a job in Africa for a year in a teacher-training college there. He had insisted that he and Lucy postpone their marriage until he returned, and again the whole family had agreed with him, although from time to time Clare had her doubts. It had been the sensible decision. Lucy was very young, and a year wasn’t an eternity, but Clare realised that Mike’s absence was making Lucy restless.

He had been away now for six months; he would be back in the spring, for their wedding. He wrote all the time, and sent recorded audio tapes of messages too; but it wasn’t the same as having him there and Lucy was lonely and often bored.

‘As long as he hasn’t met someone else!’ Lucy said, pretending to laugh, but not acting very well.

Clare and her father exchanged glances, but neither said anything. They knew what the other one was thinking. What if Lucy’s fears proved true? The tremor of her lips told them how badly she would be hurt.

‘Can I have some more chocolate mousse? Oh, did I tell you what I want for Christmas? I made a list, to help you, save you time trying to guess what I want,’ Jamie said, only interested in his own concerns.

‘Don’t even mention Christmas!’ Clare thought of all the work the festive season entailed and groaned aloud. She would have to make some lists of her own any day, but for the moment she was putting off all idea of Christmas until she felt strong enough to cope with it.

‘Eat your mousse and then you can help clear the table,’ George Summer told his younger son. ‘And after that you can finish your homework.’

Clare watched Jamie take another huge helping of mousse without even thinking about him. She had Denzil Black on her mind. It would take months for him to have Dark Tarn modernised—would he stay in America meanwhile? Now that he had won this big award, maybe he would be offered other jobs? She remembered him saying that he was leaving America because he hadn’t been asked to make another film. What if he was? Maybe he wouldn’t be moving back here at all. Maybe he would sell Dark Tarn again, once he had had it renovated?

She felt her pulse take that odd, disturbing skip again, and bit her lip. She didn’t like the man. Why should she care?

December started badly: icy winds blew sleet and snow through the town from the sea, which had a chill grey look as it heaved and surged under a sky banked with dull, heavy clouds pregnant with yet more snow.

Lucy finally heard from Mike. Three letters came at once; the post was erratic from Africa, especially at this time of year. Lucy was flushed with excitement and relief, but Clare still worried. Her sister’s wild mood swings bothered her. Lucy was far too volatile. Clare wished Mike were coming home sooner.

Early in the month, Dark Tarn became the property of Denzil Black, causing a flurry of interest from London newspapers and the local TV station. A camera team invaded Clare’s agency and tried to interview her, but she coldly asked them to leave, and refused to answer questions. They still did an item on the news that night.

‘Why didn’t you talk to them? It would have been great seeing you on TV,’ her brothers complained.

‘Professional etiquette. I can’t talk about my clients,’ she said, and her father agreed.

Her brothers looked disgusted.

Clare was able to bank a sizeable share of the price. The agency had done rather better this year than she had expected, in fact; their bank statements were looking very healthy.

‘I think we could afford to pay someone to help me in the office, at least part-time, now,’ she told her father, who agreed.

‘Then maybe you can take some time off occasionally! I hate to see you look so tired!’

‘Oh, I’m fine!’ shrugged Clare.

‘You don’t want to end up like poor Helen Sherrard.’

Clare’s blue eyes smouldered. ‘I won’t, don’t worry.’ She had more sense than to let a man do that to her, especially a man like Denzil Black.

That week she saw an article in a magazine about the actress who had starred in Denzil Black’s last film. The photo above the print showed her on a stretcher being rushed into a Los Angeles clinic. She had overdosed on heroin and almost died. But a ‘close friend’ was quoted as saying that the actress had never been the same since making Denzil’s film.

‘It isn’t drugs, it’s love,’ the ‘friend’ said. ‘She hasn’t seen much of him these last months. Now that he’s finished the film, he’s finished with her, and he’s broken her heart.’

Clare stared at the blurred photo, just able to make out the other girl’s haunting dark eyes and tragic expression. Wasn’t that just how Helen had looked lately? What did that man do to the women who fell for him?

That weekend, Clare got the video of the film out of the local video shop and watched it several times, fascinated both by the film itself and by the beauty of the actress. She had to admire Denzil’s skill as a film-maker; the film was beautifully shot, mesmerising and very different from any film she had ever seen before. The erotic content made it too adult for her to want her brothers to see it—she watched it late at night, alone. The subtlety with which the sex scenes were shot somehow made them even sexier; a glimpse of a white thigh, the tensed muscles in a man’s back, the sound of a groan did far more than all the naked writhing flesh most such films used to make their impact.

After she had gone to bed she lay in the dark thinking about the film—and about Denzil Black. Seeing the film again had made her realise that he was a clever, complex, dangerous man.

When she took the video back she asked if they had any other Denzil Black films, and was given an earlier one he had made, which she watched the next night. Again, she watched it several times, and after that she saw all his films in quick succession, trying to work out more about him from the way he made them. She had never taken so much interest in a director before or realised how much you could learn about someone from the sort of work they did. All his films had clues scattered through them, she realised, picking up on some of them over and over again.

On Christmas Eve she shut up early, just after four, and hurried through the crowded, darkening winter streets looking for last-minute presents.

She was staring into the window of an expensive lingerie shop when she felt someone halt behind her. Automatically she looked at the reflection of the street which she could see in the plate-glass shop window, but she couldn’t see anyone.

‘Hello,’ said a voice, and she stiffened, glancing round.

An icy shiver ran down her spine as she recognised that face—the widow’s peak, the sleek black hair, the piercing grey eyes, the ruthless mouth.

For a second she was unable to move, paralysed like someone in a nightmare, facing something more terrible than words could express and frozen by sheer terror. She just stood there, staring into those eyes, feeling the insistence of his will burning into her.

‘You haven’t forgotten me, have you?’ he asked in that deep, dark voice, and she wished she could nod and say that yes, she had forgotten him—but it would be a lie and, anyway, she knew he was well aware that she hadn’t.

He didn’t wait for her to answer, anyhow. He went on coolly, ‘What are you thinking of buying? The demure white slip, or the Victorian nightgown that buttons up to the neck and goes right down to the feet? I saw you looking at them. Why not go crazy for once and buy something sexy—like that black négligé? I can imagine you in that—wearing nothing else underneath it, of course.’ His smile teased, held mockery.

Hot, burning colour rushed up her face. She blinked, breaking free of the spell holding her, her heartbeat accelerating, her breathing rough. It was like waking up from hibernation. Her whole body seemed to have been stopped for that brief time, and now it began working again. Clare was overwhelmed by a feeling so strong that it made her giddy, and then she got angry. She snapped back at him, ‘I’m not buying for myself, I’m shopping for Christmas presents!’

She couldn’t trust herself to talk politely. She had to get away from the overpowering effect of being near him. She almost ran towards the shop doorway.

He came with her, his long legs easily keeping pace without hurrying. ‘For your beautiful little sister?’

She was sorry to hear he remembered Lucy. Grimly, she realised that somehow she had to stop him meeting Lucy again. She did not want him pursuing her sister. Lucy was vulnerable at the moment; she might lose her head over this man and get badly hurt, the way Helen and that film star had been hurt.

Clare would kill him if he hurt her sister.

‘You aren’t living up at Dark Tarn, are you?’ she asked him, pausing just before the shop door. ‘I heard that the builders weren’t starting work on it before the New Year.’

‘Your information is very accurate,’ he said drily. ‘Small-town gossip is amazing. Talking about gossip, thank you for refusing to talk about me to the Press.’

Surprised, she asked, ‘How do you know that?’

‘One of them told me. Their interest seems to have died down now, but if it starts up again I’d be grateful if you would go on being discreet. I shall be working hard over the next few months; I don’t want to waste time on the media.’