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Chapters (45)
  1. The Man With No Face
  2. Also by
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. Contents
  8. INTRODUCTION
  9. CHAPTER ONE
  10. CHAPTER TWO
  11. CHAPTER THREE
  12. CHAPTER FOUR
  13. CHAPTER FIVE
  14. CHAPTER SIX
  15. CHAPTER SEVEN
  16. CHAPTER EIGHT
  17. CHAPTER NINE
  18. CHAPTER TEN
  19. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  20. CHAPTER TWELVE
  21. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  23. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  25. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  26. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  27. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

‘Still in the balance I’m afraid, Mademoiselle,’ du Maurier said. ‘I’m expecting a call at any time.’

She nodded. ‘I tried to phone Neil . . . Mr Bannerman . . . from the airport. He’s not at the apartment or his office. Do you know where he is?’

Du Maurier smiled sadly. ‘I’m afraid, Mademoiselle, that you have missed him. He took the ten o’clock flight to London this morning.’ The phone rang and he lifted it quickly. She watched him closely. The droop of his shoulders. ‘When?’ he said, his voice thick with emotion. And she feared the worst.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

London was blowy, a light rain carrying spots of city smut in the wind. A wind that gusted into Sally’s face as she hurried down Fleet Street from the tube station. Past the rising glass windows of the Daily Express.

There was a quiet desperation in her now, a disturbing sense of confusion and uncertainty. Perhaps, she thought, she was just compounding her original mistake. There was a sad hopelessness in her pursuit halfway across Europe of this man whom she might or might not love. How would he react? What if he did not want her? Why had she ever left him in the first place? And then there was Tania. She felt an ache inside her.

After leaving du Maurier’s office she had taken a taxi back to the airport in time to catch the two o’clock flight to London. Despite the months she had lived in Brussels, the city seemed strange to her, almost alien. She felt nothing in common with the people she passed in the street and they, in turn, barely seemed to notice her existence.

She found the Post’s London office at the bottom end of Fleet Street, a grey sandstone Victorian building rising into the late afternoon sky. Heads in the newsroom turned as she came in. She looked helplessly about her for a familiar face.

‘Can I help you?’ a young man at the nearest desk said.

‘I . . .’ She broke off to catch her breath. ‘I was looking for Neil Bannerman.’

‘You’ve just missed him, love. He left about an hour ago to get the Glasgow train from Euston.’ A pause. ‘Stood you up, has he?’ But she was gone, the door swinging behind her.

In the street below she had to wait nearly five minutes for a taxi. ‘Euston station,’ she told the driver. ‘Please hurry.’

‘I’ll do me best, Miss. But you picked the wrong time to get through London in a hurry. Traffic’s bloody diabolical at this time of day.’

It took over half an hour to get to the station, and she ran up the steps from the covered rank and across the concourse towards the barriers, searching frantically for the Glasgow train on the departure board. She grasped a porter’s arm. ‘The train to Glasgow,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Has it gone yet?’