‘Where is the coffee?’ Both women jumped at the sound of Beckman’s voice booming along the passage from the sitting room.
Nurse Bryant looked at Claire and gasped. ‘Oh my God.’ She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Lucien told me to check the basement and I haven’t.’ She ran across the kitchen, grabbed the key from the hook, opened the basement door, and froze. Turning on the spot and breathing heavily, she held onto the doorframe, Claire watched the colour drain from the nurse’s face. She looked in the direction of the passage and grimaced at the sound of Beckman’s heavy footfall on the wood floor.
As he entered the room Claire turned her attention to making the coffee. She gripped the edge of the worktop to steady herself. Pouring coffee into four cups she added milk and stirred.
‘Are the hostages comfortable?’ Beckman asked, laughing.
Nurse Bryant didn’t answer but laughed with him. Her laughter sounded forced, Claire thought, still stirring the coffee. She heard the nurse pull the door shut, lock it, and put the key back on the hook. Then there was silence. ‘I’ll take the coffee through to the sitting room, shall I?’ Claire said, turning and seeing Nurse Bryant with the knife still in her hand. ‘Nurse?’ Claire called, bringing the broken-hearted woman out of whatever labyrinth of unhappy thoughts she was lost in.
Her reply - a quick nod. ‘I’ll make the sandwiches,’ she said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Had the penny dropped at last? Had Nurse Bryant finally realised that Beckman had set her up to take the fall for murdering his secretary? If she hadn’t, Claire reasoned, she would have told Beckman that Mitch’s parents weren’t in the basement. Balancing four cups of steaming hot coffee on her mother-in-law’s best silver tray she left the kitchen and walked along the passage praying Nurse Bryant didn’t try to use the knife she was holding on Beckman. He would turn it on her and stick it into her as easily as he had his secretary.
As she approached the sitting room door, she became aware that Beckman and the nurse were behind her. ‘Were they all right down there?’ she heard Beckman say.
‘I, err,’ The nurse stuttered. Claire held her breath. ‘Yes,’ she said, at last, ‘they were all right.’
Claire entered the sitting room and pressed her lips together. Mitch raised his eyebrows as if to ask if there was a problem. Claire responded by lifting her shoulders and shaking her head very slowly, which told him she wasn’t sure. She put the tray on the sideboard, took Mitch a cup of coffee and, doing her best not to look worried, helped herself to a cup.
Nurse Bryant came into the room ahead of Beckman and put a plate of sandwiches on the sideboard next to the coffee tray. Taking one of the two remaining cups, she sat on the settee. Beckman appeared. He didn’t come into the room, he stood in the doorway staring at Nurse Bryant. He made no attempt to cross the room to retrieve his coffee, the only cup left on the tray. Instead, he kept his cold steel grey eyes on the nurse. Waiting for her to jump up and get his drink for him, Claire thought - and she wished the nurse would. Claire needed the nurse to behave normally towards him. She didn’t want Beckman to suspect the poor besotted woman had at last seen him for what he was.
Beckman was many things, stupid he was not. So, suspecting he had noticed the change in Nurse Bryant, Claire put her coffee back on the tray, picked up Beckman’s cup and took it to him. He dismissed her with a flick of his hand. She needed to distract him somehow - but how? By the hard stare he was giving the nurse he no longer suspected, he knew something had changed since the two women had been alone in the kitchen.
Nurse Bryant must have sensed Beckman was staring at her. She looked up and met his eyes with a stare as hard and as cold as his. She was no longer the gullible fool Beckman had once taken her for. She was a ticking bomb and Claire couldn’t risk her exploding.
With Beckman’s eyes still trained on the nurse, Claire returned his cup to the tray and picked up the coffee pot. ‘More coffee, Nurse Bryant?’ The nurse shook her head. ‘A sandwich then?’ Before the nurse had time to say no, Claire had lifted the plate of sandwiches. She pushed it towards her with a shaky hand. When the nurse held the edge of the plate to steady it, Claire let it go and turned to Mitch. ‘More coffee?’
‘Thank you.’ To the nurse, he said, ‘I’d like a sandwich if you wouldn’t mind?’ The nurse put down her coffee and got to her feet.
‘What are you idiots playing at?’ Beckman roared. ‘Do you think I am stupid? That I do not know what you are trying to do?’ He looked at Claire and grinned. ‘You are trying to turn the woman I love against me.’
Claire shook her head in disbelief. Beckman hadn’t shown Nurse Bryant one ounce of respect, let alone love, since they’d been there. She glanced at the nurse. Her face was as resolute now as it had been when she returned from the kitchen. Claire’s heart was pounding. Had she pushed the situation too far?
Out of the corner of her eye Claire saw Mitch put his cup on the floor at the side of his chair. He gripped the arms. She smiled inwardly.
