He did, and she ran to the bathroom and slammed the door in his face, threw the bolt on the inside.
He thought about breaking the door down, then relented and stood there helpless with his head hanging. Maybe he needed to back off a little.
Perhaps Brooke was right – he couldn’t handle this alone.
Feeling suddenly a hundred years old, as if every last drop of strength had been drained out of him, he left his quarters and locked the door. She couldn’t escape from in there. Even if she broke through the shutters, it was a long drop to the concrete below, and there was no way she could climb down.
He trudged wearily down the stairs, snatched a bottle of whisky from the kitchen, carried it back through to the dark hall and sat with it on the bottom stair. He could hear the sounds coming from the landing above. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out she was locked in. As he cracked open the whisky, she was already pounding furiously on the door, screaming to be let out.
Then, as he was into his second gulp, the smashing began.
He could only imagine what was happening up there. He sat there staring into the darkness and sipping the whisky, and after a while the sound of his possessions being hurled and broken into pieces just washed over him. He closed his eyes, felt his head nod. And gave in to it.
When he awoke, slumped uncomfortably on the stairs with just the half-empty bottle for company, the house was silent and sunlight was streaming through the hallway from the fan light above the door. He got to his feet, stretching and rubbing his back, and staggered through to the kitchen hoping that a strong coffee would drive away the sharp ache that had set up camp in his temple.
Someone else was awake, too. As he made his way down the hall the pounding and screaming started again upstairs. The sound of glass shattering. Another lamp, or maybe the mirror.
He was sitting at the kitchen table five minutes later, burning his tongue on scalding black coffee, when he heard the diesel chatter of a taxi pull up outside. The front door opening, familiar footsteps in the hall. He turned to see Brooke walk into the room.
‘I told you you didn’t have to come,’ he said. ‘But it’s good to see you.’
‘You look terrible. Where is she?’
He pointed upwards. ‘Can’t you hear?’
‘What’s she doing?’
‘Smashing the place up. She’s been doing it on and off since last night.’
‘I need a coffee,’ Brooke said, rubbing her eyes. ‘I was up at five to catch the plane.’
Ben got up and poured her a cup. ‘She says her name’s Luna, and she’s Steiner’s daughter,’ he told her.
‘As in Maximilian Steiner, the guy she was trying to kidnap?’
He nodded. Another crash came from upstairs. More screaming.
‘Why would she do that?’ Brooke asked, puzzled. ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ he said. ‘I’m going up there to talk to her.’
‘I’ll come too.’
‘No way, Ben. You’re staying here. Don’t interfere with this.’
‘She’s wild. She could hurt you.’
‘I know what I’m doing.’ Brooke gulped down her coffee and left. Ben heard her climbing the stairs. Her soft knock and her voice saying, ‘Luna? Can I come in?’ before unlocking the door. Then it clicked shut and he heard no more.
The two women were alone up there a long time. After ten minutes the smashing and yelling had become much less frequent, and after twenty it had stopped altogether. Ben knocked back cup after cup of coffee, pacing up and down in the kitchen and fighting the urge to go creeping up the stairs and listen at the door.
What the hell was happening? That was his sister up there – no doubt about that. And yet, she was – or said she was – Steiner’s daughter. Steiner’s adopted child? It was feasible, but the possibility was dizzying.
Questions poured through Ben’s mind. Had Steiner known of the connection all along, and somehow contrived to hire him for that reason? But that seemed impossible. Shannon would have had to be in on it too. Deliberately provoking Ben into hurting him, one unlikely event tripping the next like a line of dominoes. Absurd. So what was the answer?
Consumed with frustration and impatience, he just had to do something. He still had a card in his wallet with the main office number of the Steiner residence. He snatched up the phone and punched the keys, and asked for Heinrich Dorenkamp.
When the man came to the phone, Ben came right to the point. ‘You told me the Steiners didn’t have any children. Were you lying to me?’
A pause. ‘I – ah…’
‘Did the Steiners adopt a child? A girl of nine, more than twenty years ago? Yes or no, Heinrich? It’s simple.’
‘I’m afraid I cannot help with your enquiry,’ Dorenkamp said in a stiff tone. ‘I am very busy at the moment. Goodbye.’ And hung up.
Ben was about to redial the number and get nasty when he heard the door open behind him and turned for the second time that morning to see Brooke walk in.
He glanced at his watch. She’d been up there for nearly two hours. She looked tired as she pulled up a chair and sat down.
He looked at her. ‘Well?’
Brooke sighed. ‘Well, we talked. She listened to what I had to say. And… ’
‘And?’
‘And you were right all along, Ben. She’s who you said, and she knows it. I think she knew it before I got here. Things you said to her last night, things that only her brother could have known.’
‘So now I’m going to talk to her,’ he said. ‘There’s something else, Ben. The situation’s stranger than you think.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘She was convinced that her brother was dead.’
Ben pushed open the door to his quarters and kicked aside the debris that littered the floor. Everything that could be broken, overturned or torn down, had been. Brickwork showed through the plaster where a chair had slammed into the wall. The chair itself lay in splintered pieces on the carpet. The place looked as though a tank had driven through it.
‘I’m sorry about the room,’ said Ruth quietly from behind him. He turned and saw her sitting in the corner, hugging her knees. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face drawn.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I’d have done a lot worse. Not a stone left standing.’
‘You and I,’ she said. ‘We’re Hopes.’
‘I’m glad you’ve come round to thinking so.’
She paused. ‘I can’t believe this is real. My brother’s supposed to be dead.’
‘It’s been tried,’ he said. ‘But it hasn’t happened yet.’
‘I don’t know anything about you.’
He nodded. ‘We have a lot to talk about. And I think we’d better start at the beginning.’
‘I could use some air,’ she replied.
‘You want to take a walk?’
* * *
The sun was shining brightly, just a whisper of a breeze stirring the treetops, as Ben took his sister into the forest that surrounded the Le Val facility. They barely spoke as they walked. He knew the paths through the woods better than anyone, better even than the wild boar and deer that had created many of them, and he led her deep
