Poised to print headlines so scandalous they would have rocked the entire nation…now the front page of every newspaper starkly proclaims only one word: MURDER

John Quinn, an investigative journalist on England’s biggest-selling and most notorious tabloid newspaper, is about to write the story of his life – a scandalous exposé of one of the country’s most powerful men. But the story dies when Lorna Thomas, the kiss in his kiss-and-tell, kills herself on a quiet country road.

For six months Laurie Thomas’ twin sister had been the Deputy Prime Minister’s secret mistress – and following sister’s footsteps to London, and to the heart of government, Laurie grows more convinced that Lorna did not take her own life.

But if Lorna didn’t kill herself, who did? There’s only one person who can help Laurie - the very man who’s bed her sister had illicitly been sharing

Prime Deception

Carys Jones

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014

Copyright © Carys Jones 2014

Carys Jones asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781472094728

Version date: 2018-09-20

CARYS JONES loves nothing more than to write and create stories which ignite the reader's imagination. Based in Shropshire, England, Carys lives with her husband, two guinea pigs and her adored canine companion Rollo. When she's not writing, Carys likes to indulge her inner geek by watching science-fiction films or playing video games. She lists John Green, Jodi Picoult and Virginia Andrews as her favorite authors and draws inspiration for her own work from anything and everything. To Carys, there is no greater feeling than when you lose yourself in a great story and it is that feeling of ultimate escapism which she tries to bring to her books.

For my number one fan; my Dad

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Endpages

About the Publisher

Prologue

The Shadow newspaper offices, London

Dawn had not yet broken over the capital and yet the offices of The Shadow newspaper were already a hive of activity. Eager and ambitious journalists were bent over their computers, furiously typing away, some not having left from the night before.

The Shadow was England’s biggest selling tabloid newspaper and, as its name suggested, it was ever present amongst society, exposing every ounce of scandal and corruption as it occurred around the country. The paper had grown in notoriety over the last decade, being linked to practically every sin committed by a member of the elite. If someone had behaved badly, The Shadow knew about it and exposed it, casting the delinquent into darkness.

Part of the paper’s success was easily attributed to the doggish determination of the staff who listed eating and sleeping as a low priority compared with work. In such a fiercely competitive field, they were each trying to make a name for themselves by catching that one big story which would set the country on fire.

John Quinn had that story. He almost trembled with excitement when he thought about it. He ran his hands through his thinning black hair as he sat slumped over his desk, going over the questions he needed to ask for what felt like the hundredth time. He had been up all night since he had received the call. It was a young girl wanting to make money on a kiss and tell story, standard stuff really, except the man involved was no ordinary man. John had run into her at a party a few months back, and she had been really drunk, and talkative. He’d held back on revealing his occupation until she completely divulged her extra-curricular activities to him. She had seemed genuinely horrified when he offered her his card, professing how she most certainly did not want to sell her story. But he knew she would. The money was too good to pass up; dignity always had a price.

So, as John had predicted, she had called. Now all he had to do was capture her side of the story and run with it. It would be front page news and he would instantly have made a career for himself. Having spent four years at university, followed by three as an unpaid intern, five being the office gopher then three as a struggling journalist, John felt he was long overdue some success in his field. He needed to go home, shower and make himself presentable, but he was afraid to even leave his desk; afraid someone might snap the story up from right under his nose.

He remembered how desperate the girl had sounded when she called and almost felt guilty. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought she had been crying. John had seen so many young women, naively lured in to bed by rich and powerful men, selling their story out of spite or desperation. He failed to empathise with their plight – after all, they had willingly engaged in events. But this time something felt different. Perhaps it was because the man in question appeared whiter than white to the rest of the country and exposing this girl and their sordid affair would tarnish and possibly destroy his reputation.

John Quinn was rarely shocked, but her story had genuinely caught him off guard. He did wonder if perhaps it had just been drunken ramblings, but then she had called, confirming everything she had said and insisting she wanted to take him up on the offer of writing a piece. He’d named a price to her which few people would be strong enough to turn down, because he knew just how valuable a story of that calibre was.

Aware that time was pressing on, John took one last glance at his notes and put on his jacket, intending to return quickly to his flat and then meet the girl. He had just pushed his arm down in to the second sleeve when the internal phone on his desk began to ring. Sighing, he leant forward and picked up the receiver, tersely announcing himself to the caller.

‘John, its Maria,’ came a soft female voice. Maria worked in the news department, unlike John who was in features. She was one of the few people within the tangled structure of The Shadow who he trusted. They had slept together a few times, and continued to do so on the rare occasions that he wasn’t too exhausted or was feeling particularly lonely. Maria was nothing special; you could easily pass her by on the street without feeling the need to take a second glance, but she was kind and trustworthy. They were qualities which John figured he might one day be looking for in a woman and so he attempted to keep her relatively close.

‘I’m just on my way out.’

‘I know, to meet with that girl, right? What was her name, Lorna Thomas?’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’ John inwardly grimaced at the accuracy of Maria’s memory. During their last night together, pillow talk had wandered across into work territory and John had disclosed that he potentially had an amazing story in his hands regarding a kiss and tell but he’d managed to stop himself before he revealed any further details. Whilst he was close to Maria, she was still ultimately the competition and he didn’t want to risk her stealing the story out from under him.

‘I’ve just had a police report come through about her.’

‘Oh?’

‘Apparently she committed suicide last night. Want me to email the report to you? I figured you’d probably want to run with the story yourself. Chief says no more than a hundred words on it.’

‘Right…okay, yeah.’

In a daze, John took off his coat and repositioned himself in his chair. He suddenly felt a pang of remorse run through him that he had not been more responsive to the girl’s sadness over the phone. He had propositioned her to sell her story; he hoped he had not driven her to take her own life. John shook his head in disbelief. The story that would have made his career was now gone, never to be confirmed. He read the report with dull eyes as it arrived in his inbox.

It made for sombre reading. There was nothing about the girl Lorna had been, nothing about the prestigious internship she’d had in London, nothing about her history. Her death had no relevance within the paper, there was seemingly no story there and so she was resigned to a mere hundred words to mark the finite end of her young life.

Sadness slipped over him as he placed his fingertips to his keyboard and began to write a brief obituary for the girl he was supposed to be interviewing. His heart felt heavy with each letter he pressed. John finished the piece and got up and walked away from his desk, but not before calling Maria and asking her to come round to his flat that night. He didn’t feel like being alone.

22-year-old Lorna Thomas of Kent was found dead in her car in the early hours of this morning. Police have ruled that she committed suicide.

Chapter One

A tabloid tale

Charles Lloyd awoke as he did every morning, after a fitful night’s rest where he barely managed to sleep at all. He stretched his arms out, yawning, before rubbing his tired eyes. Beside him, his wife continued to sleep soundly, her auburn hair swept across the white pillow case like a consuming fire. Charles went to wake her and then thought better of it, deciding to let her continue to rest.

With all the stealth his weary body could manage, Charles removed himself from his marital bed and tiptoed over to his impressive ensuite bathroom, to wash and prepare himself for the inevitably manic day ahead.

The ritual was always the same: shower, shave and dress. Charles enjoyed these moments alone in the mornings; it was the calm before the storm. He relished the monotony of getting ready; it gave him comfort in a world which was growing increasingly chaotic.

For some reason, on that morning, he paused before placing the shaving foam upon his dampened cheeks and really absorbed his reflection; something he rarely felt he had the time to do. Charles Lloyd was forty-five and worn out. The bags beneath his eyes and the lines etched into his forehead declared to the world that he was a man sinking beneath an immeasurable weight. He sighed as he squinted and scrutinized the blue of his eyes which had once been so piercing but now had dulled. His wife, Elaine, always insisted that it was his eyes which had first attracted her to him. But his eyes, like the rest of him, had changed. He was no longer the man she had married twenty years ago. He cracked the door to the en-suite ever so slightly and glanced affectionately at his sleeping wife. She was happy, he knew that. He just hoped that she was happy enough for both of them.

Charles returned his attention to the task at hand; of shaving away the shadow which had formed overnight. As a young man he had found shaving a chore. He’d longed to grow some stubble, even a beard, in his desire to be ‘edgy’, but he had always been warned against it. It wasn’t befitting of a man in his line of work. Now, he found shaving therapeutic. The act was familiar and predictable and he liked that about it. So few things in his life were familiar anymore that he cherished those that were.

Dressed in one of his finest suits and his signature blue tie, Charles was at last ready to start the day. He fingered the tie dubiously as he regarded his reflection once more. He found it a rather crass addition to his ensemble, but his aides continued to assure him that it was vital. He missed being able to dress how he wanted to. Charles would have loved nothing more than to put on a pair of jeans and an old jumper but that would never do. He had an image to maintain, as everyone kept insisting to him.

‘Darling, are you going?’ Elaine stirred from her peaceful slumber long enough to see her husband about to open their bedroom door. She gazed at him through half closed eyes, not yet fully awakened.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,’ Charles whispered guiltily.

‘Well it’s lucky you did,’ Elaine declared, raising herself up in the bed so that she was now sat upright.

‘It is?’ Charles questioned, surprised.

‘Yes, you were about to leave without kissing me goodbye and we can’t have that now, can we?’ she smiled at her husband, her eyes now wide and teasing.

‘How very careless of me,’ Charles joked as he walked over and promptly placed a brief kiss upon Elaine’s lips.

‘You know, I much prefer it when you don’t wear lipstick,’ he commented.

‘Yes, but the cameras don’t.’ Elaine replied sternly.

‘Any big plans for the day?’ Charles asked, quickly checking the watch sat upon his left wrist; another aspect of etiquette within his outfit. He would much prefer to wear his watch upon his right wrist, as he had done growing up. but formalities dictated that a gentleman must wear his watch upon his left wrist. Goddamn formalities.

‘I’m meeting with my book club today.’

‘And what will you ladies be discussing?’

‘Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov.’

‘Oh, how very controversial,’ Charles joked.

‘Indeed. It wasn’t my choice, it was Miranda’s I swear the woman would have us reading Mills and Boon if we’d allow it! Talk about repressed desires!’

‘Not everyone has such a stud for a husband,’ Charles said winking.

‘She should do, she’s already been through four!’ Elaine scoffed in disapproval.

‘Anyway darling, I must dash, my car will be here,’ Charles said, glancing at his watch once more.

‘Alright, alright, duty calls I suppose,’ Elaine smiled as she dramatically rolled her eyes. ‘Remember that we have that gala dinner tonight for the Children’s Benefit Foundation.’

‘Oh yes, where would I be without you reminding me of all my engagements?’ He smiled fondly at his wife before dashing out of the door, down the stairs, quickly grabbing his coat and entering the crisp morning air. Charles walked over quickly to the awaiting black Bentley, noticing the look of quiet awe from his neighbours who were attending to their own early morning duties of walking their dogs or putting out the bins.

‘Good morning, sir,’ the driver greeted Charles as he settled himself in the back seat, powering up his Blackberry® in anticipation of the flurry of messages he would have received throughout the night.

‘Morning Henry.’

‘Traffic is bad this morning, sir. Might take us at least thirty minutes to get into town.’

‘Don’t worry Henry, just do your best.’

‘You can count on that, sir.’

The Bentley slid away from Charles’ house and from suburbia, teleporting him away from normality and into his hectic, professional life. Charles attempted to gather his thoughts in the car as his Blackberry® beeped at him continuously, alerting him to urgent emails which required his attention. He loved his job, he did. But lately he felt like a fraud. All the posturing drove him mad. He knew what had changed in him; he’d not been the same since it had happened. Charles closed his eyes in frustration; he had sworn to himself that he would not think about it anymore. Yet here he was, performing the same dance with his mind that he did every morning. He rubbed his temple in desperation.

‘Headache sir? There are some ibuprofen in the cabinet back there,’ Henry said, glancing at his boss in his mirror.

‘Oh right, thanks.’ Charles leant forward and found the box of capsules and took two, knowing that they would be unable to alleviate the cause of his pain.

Charles began to scroll through his Blackberry® whilst gazing out of the car window, watching London begin to rise up all around him. The city was bustling, even at this early hour.

The Bentley weaved through the city streets, sharp and black like a bullet heading for its target. The traffic wasn’t as bad as Henry had anticipated and within twenty minutes they had paused at the black gates which were eagerly parting to grant the car and its important occupant passage.

The car door opened and Charles stepped out, immediately greeted by another man in a suit who shook his hand eagerly.

‘Good morning Deputy,’ Simon Pruit smiled enthusiastically.

Charles didn’t relish being addressed as Deputy. It made him sound like he belongedin an American sheriff’s office, rather than being the British Deputy Prime Minister. He was certain that Simon used the greeting just to get under his skin.

‘Morning, Simon,’ Charles smiled in response, finding the man, as always, irritatingly eager at such an ungodly hour. He envisioned Simon thrusting caffeine straight into his veins in an attempt to keep a permanently preppy demeanour. But Simon was loyal and hardworking, if overly hyper, which were qualities Charles valued highly in his Cabinet.

‘How was your commute this morning? I hear that the traffic was terrible. I suppose it’s the price you pay if you desire to live out of the city-centre,’ Simon rambled the words out quickly as they turned and passed through the most famous door in England; number 10 Downing Street. The door was as black as the Bentley which had bought Charles there and the suit he was wearing. The only dash of colour was the striking blue of his tie, a permanent symbol of his political allegiance.

‘You’ve got the meeting with the American Ambassador at ten,’ Simon began reeling off Charles’ itinerary for the day as the man walked further into the building, delivering brief ‘hellos’ and ‘good mornings’ as they went. It always surprised Charles how many people were present so early in the day, already hard at work. It almost made him feel guilty that he hadn’t dedicated as much time, but then he wasn’t willing to give up sleep altogether, as he assumed they must have.

‘Good morning sir.’ Faye Smith, Charles’ assistant, handed him a stack of pre-opened and date-stamped letters as he rounded a corner to his office. Simon instinctively ceased to walk with him, knowing that the next half hour was when Charles was alone in his office to catch up on correspondence.

‘See you at ten,’ Simon called after him as they parted ways.

‘Good morning, Faye,’ Charles smiled at his hardworking assistant, knowing in his heart that lately there was never a ‘good’ morning.

Charles Lloyd’s office was the epitome of opulent grandeur. The furniture was made from the finest mahogany wood and his chair, and the couches which lined the other two walls, of the softest, most exquisite leather. It was the same office which had hosted Deputy Prime Ministers for decades before him and little had changed.

Personally, Charles was not fond of his office. The décor was not to his taste but he knew better than to attempt to alter it or even vocalise his opinion. The office, and everything in it, was a part of British history; it was he who was interchangeable. The men in the chair came and went, none naïve enough to make the space their own.

In the grand scheme of things, Charles spent very little time in his office; even less time over recent months and that suited him just fine. He found the room almost oppressive. It reminded him too much of his grandfather’s old study; all that was missing was the constant cloud of cigar smoke misting the air. Charles had never been fond of his grandfather, finding the old man far too judgemental of those he was supposed to love and cherish, and sitting each day in a room more befitting to his tastes than his own made him feel uncomfortable and out of place. The office symbolised everything in Charles which he tried to forget; the history, the tradition. He had been born into the elite, and studied at Eton College. From a young age he had shown leadership skills and therefore had been groomed for his current role for many years. His grandfather did not live to see his grandson’s triumph, not that it mattered – he had already done enough during his lifetime to orchestrate the event.

The presence of Charles’ coffee, bagel and morning papers were a welcome distraction from the barrage of thoughts which had begun to penetrate his mind. They rarely stopped these days, with even sleep refusing to offer him the solace he so desperately needed. Faye, ever efficient, always ensured that he had a copy of each of the broadsheets on his desk almost the second after they had been pressed, along with a coffee – black, two sugars – and a bagel with a side helping of cream cheese. The bagel was a relatively new addition to Charles’ breakfast. He acquired a taste for them after a trip to meet with the new American President. He’d also grown particularly fond of pancakes, but he knew that he could not indulge that desire every morning if he intended to keep fitting into all of his suits.

One thing Charles did like about his office was the quiet. He welcomed the solitude he found in there. Outside of the office, people constantly had questions for him, urgent matters they simply had to discuss. Charles never shied away from his duties, always embracing them with dignified sincerity which made him popular amongst the people of England. But he liked that, for half an hour each morning, Faye would intercept his phone calls and he could be truly alone with only the newspapers for company.

Faye would usually highlight key pages which he should read. Whilst Charles was grateful for her zeal, he did sometimes worry that she had little semblance of a life beyond the duties of her job. He had once tried to make idle small talk about her plans for the weekend but the poor woman had appeared so uncomfortable that he chosenever to attempt it again. He would gently berate her if she worked late or emailed him on the weekends but it fell on deaf ears. Elaine would point out when he raised his concerns to her that it was not that she was working too hard, but rather that he lacked the required level of dedication.

In those moments, where Elaine would insinuate that Charles did not work hard enough, he would feel the anger rise up inside him to the point where he had to leave the room for fear of boiling over. Charles had all but forgotten who he was, so consuming was the role of Deputy Prime Minister. He barely had a moment to himself. His circle of friends had thinned to the point where it barely existed, as people tired of his lack of availability. Evenwhen he was available, his security always had to go and survey venues first and often accompany him on trips, which didn’t go down well when he was merely attending a friend’s child’s birthday party. If Charles worked any harder, he would completely fade away and he was determined not to lose himself. He clung on to the tiny shreds of his personality which remained with an intense ferocity.

Recently, things had been even more intense after there was a terrorist threat made on Downing Street. It turned out to be a hoax but now Charles was constantly monitored by his security. A part of him felt sickened to be a target. He valued his life as much as any man and felt foolish to have so openly put himself out there, to become a public figure. But this had never been his dream. His natural charisma and charm had just made him a perfect candidate and those around him who were supposed to love and nurture him had modelled him in their desire to satiate their own needs.

Sighing, Charles shook his head and tried to shake away the angry thoughts which were brewing like a storm. He took a bite from his bagel and began chewing on it as he shifted through the first of his papers. He hadn’t always felt this bitter. It was only recently that he had begun to think about things differently. He loved his job, he loved being a voice for the people, but his heart didn’t feel in it anymore. He felt numb. He was only too aware of the cause of his despondency but he refused to acknowledge it. He hoped that if he ignored the problem it would go away but each day felt a little bit harder than the one before, the lines around his eyes growing deeper, the shadow over his heart darkening.

The first paper offered nothing unexpected. There was a brief mention of the latest arguments brewing about changes to NHS funding which Faye had dutifully highlighted. Charles drank his coffee, the warm fluid as dark as his furniture giving him a welcomed increase in energy levels. Caffeine was his only vice these days. As a young man he had smoked and drank in frighteningly large quantities, but these were attributes which were not befitting a man in power and so he was forced to stamp them out to the point where it was never talked of, like some dirty illegitimate secret. He couldn’t even enjoy a whisky on a plane or at a gala event. Elaine handled his life with such military precision that he never even had the opportunity to be tempted. He remembered fondly how she had gone away for a spa weekend, and home alone he’d drank and smoked to his heart’s content, feeling like a naughty teenager which added to the excitement of it all. The day before her return Simon had helped him air his house and destroy all the evidence. Charles had really enjoyed that weekend.

The first tentative rays of morning sunlight snaked their way across the carpet lining Charles’ office. Aware that time, ever the inpatient mistress, was fading fast, he began to shift through his pile of papers with increased vigour. With his coffee cup now drained, Charles felt renewed and alert. He consumed the remainder of his bagel as he scanned the third paper in the pile before reaching down to pick up the fourth and usually final paper. To his surprise, a fifth paper was concealed beneath the last of the broadsheets, a paper he did not normally read. Bemused, Charles picked up the copy of The Shadow, a notorious tabloid which revelled in stories of smut and scandal. He wondered if perhaps Faye had accidentally placed it there; maybe it was the paper she normally read and had bought it with his own papers and merely forgotten to remove it from the pile. But that wasn’t like Faye; she rarely ever made a mistake. If she had put the paper on his desk there must be something in it she felt he should see.

Charles riffled through the pages of The Shadow but didn’t spot any articles highlighted for his attention. He furrowed his brow in both frustration and annoyance. It simply wouldn’t do for him to be seen reading a tabloid newspaper. He wondered what on earth Faye was playing at? Determined to believe that the presence of the paper was deliberate, he began reading through it once more, this time in more detail. He found himself blushing at the young woman topless on the opening pages; it was so brazen and un-ladylike. He felt that it cheapened sex when women would remove their clothes for money; Charles preferred the mystery of it all and the act of seduction itself.

The second read through still failed to offer any explanation for the paper being on Charles’ desk. Exasperated, he put it down, his hand hovering over the phone on his desk, wondering whether he should call Faye and ask her what, exactly, he was supposed to be looking at.

He cast his eyes over the page which was currently spread open across his desk and he felt his heart momentarily stop beating in his chest. There it was, small and seemingly insignificant, tucked up in the far corner. To everyone else it was barely newsworthy, but to Charles, it was everything. He re-read the same section of the paper over and over again, not quite believing the words which lay before him in stark black and white.

Tears began to gather behind his tired blue eyes and Charles felt his throat throb and ache with the exertion of suppressing a sob. He ran a shaking hand across his face in an attempt to calm himself before reading the words again; trying to absorb the information they held, trying to accept the reality of it.

22-year-old Lorna Thomas of Kent was found dead in her car in the early hours of this morning. Police have ruled that she committed suicide.

The statement was so clinical, so simple. To the world, Lorna Thomas was no-one, just another tragic young death. Her suicide was so inconsequential in the grand scheme of national news that her death didn’t even warrant the inclusion of a picture. Charles was grateful for the omission of her image. If she had been there, gazing up at him from beyond the grave, the news would have been all the harder to bear. Charles reached down and let his fingers rest over the words. They lingered there longingly, as if wishing the subject would somehow manifest herself right there in the office.

Charles closed his eyes and tried to forget where, and who he was. He tried to picture Lorna’s face, her delicate features ever the image of perfection. The thought of her gone was overwhelming, Charles began to feel as though he were drowning, like he couldn’t breathe. Desperately he pulled at the tie that hung around his neck like a noose, loosening it and alleviating some of his tension. There, in the privacy of his office he let his head fall in to his hands and released one solitary tear for the dead girl. It was all he could risk doing whilst at work, beneath the scrutiny of his staff. He needed to be alone; he needed time to think, to process his thoughts.

The benefit. Charles groaned as he recalled the event his wife had reminded him of earlier that very morning. Every night there was a different benefit or gala to attend, a constant parade of charities vying for his allegiance, all of them equally worthy in cause but he himself feeling like a shambled commodity. He attended so many, and with such frequency, that he wondered what integrity his presence even carried anymore. He couldn’t go. He knew that. He was in no mind to be around people, to smile politely and greet complete strangers with the same warmth he would extend to old friends. He needed to let Elaine know. She would be angry, he expected that, and ultimately she would attend without him, which meant that he could spend the evening alone, which was what he needed.

Charles had the receiver in his hand and was about to press the button which would link him to Faye’s desk when he paused. Normally, he would just ask Faye to connect him to his wife, and Faye would dutifully track her down. But Faye had left The Shadow in his office which meant that she knew about Lorna and suddenly Charles felt sheepish. He decided to bypass his assistant and called his home directly. After seven rings his wife answered, sounding clearly displeased to have done so.

‘Lloyd Residence,’ she said tersely down the line.

‘Darling, it’s me,’ Charles tried to keep his voice level and steady, attempting to mask his pain.

‘Charles! Why are you calling me? Is Faye off sick?’

‘No, no, Faye is fine just … busy,’ Charles lied.

‘Busy! Too busy to assist the Deputy Prime Minister?’ Elaine sounded genuinely outraged as she spoke. ‘That girl needs to sort her priorities out!’

‘Darling, its fine, I wanted to speak with you directly.’

‘Oh, I see, what a lovely surprise,’ Elaine’s anger momentarily thawed. ‘As much as I appreciate the call, dear, don’t you have a country to run?’ she said mockingly.

‘Oh, yes that’s right I do, thanks for the reminder!’ Charles joked back. ‘It is just a quick call darling, about the event tonight.’

‘Black tie as usual,’ Elaine answered, presuming the reasoning behind the call.

‘Actually I can’t make it.’ Charles braced himself for his wife’s response.

‘Charles, why ever not? I have promised the organisers that you will be there!’

‘I’m so sorry, darling, but something has come up.’

‘Something? What sort of something?’

‘You know that I can’t discuss those sorts of things with you.’ Charles didn’t enjoy hiding behind his job, but he had done it so many times before that the charade came naturally to him.

‘Right, well, fine. I will have to go though, to represent us,’ Elaine sighed into the receiver.

‘Thank you for understanding.’

‘Yes, well, being married to one of the most powerful men in the country can have its downsides you know, like having to deal with disappointments.’

‘As always, you conduct yourself with grace and poise my darling. I know that you will be an asset to the Lloyd dynasty tonight when you attend.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Elaine was smiling now as she spoke, Charles could tell. ‘I’d picked out the most wonderful Vera Wang dress to wear.’

‘I’m sorry but I must go, duty calls.’ As the conversation veered towards fashion Charles knew it was time to bail out.

‘Have fun tonight.’ He hung up, three last words sticking in his throat, refusing to be released. It had been years since he had signed off a phone call to his wife with the words, ‘I love you’.

Charles thought of the day which lay ahead of him, of the meetings he must attend, the smile he must fake for so many hours before he would be alone again. Until then, he had to push Lorna out of his mind but he knew that would be impossible. For months she had tormented his thoughts, lingered in all his dreams. He knew that even her death would not cease her from haunting him.

He read the tiny excerpt once more. Suicide. The word jumped out from the page, wretched and cruel. Charles failed to understand why a young woman so vivacious and brimming with youth and an insatiable lust for life could suddenly decide that she wanted to die. What could drive her to do something so drastic? Guilt suddenly pinched at the base of Charles’ neck. His own actions could have been responsible for this. He looked down at his hands and wondered if they were potentially drenched in her young blood?

A brisk knock upon his office door disturbed Charles’ thoughts. He shook his head, trying to dismiss the image of Lorna which had settled within his minds’ eye, and cleared his throat.

‘Come in.’

Faye entered his office. She always appeared alert and eager, like a kitten, constantly glancing around for something to do, seeking out any task or errand which needed her attention. But when she saw her boss her features saddened.

‘You saw the paper then,’ she said, bowing her head slightly in respect for the deceased.

‘Yes, thank you for bringing that to my attention.’ Charles tried to appear composed but inside he was starting to fall apart.

Faye Smith had worked for Charles Lloyd since he had first begun his political campaign. She had helped him progress to his current position and felt that she knew him well. She saw now that he was in pain, which was what she had expected would happen.

‘I’ve arranged for flowers to be sent to the family.’ she told him gently.

‘Thank you.’

Charles suddenly wished that he was a nobody. That way he could attend Lorna’s funeral and no one would care, his attendance would go unnoticed. But being somebody meant that if he went there, he would cause a sensation, and detract from the tragic girl within the coffin which would not be his intention at all.

‘Would you like another coffee?’ Faye asked. Charles merely shook his head, his eyes downcast, lost in thought.

Faye hesitated for a moment. She knew what she wanted to say, what Charles needed to hear, she was just unsure if in saying it she crossed a line which she should never stray over as his employee. But she saw his pain, and knew she had to ease it any way she could. Charles Lloyd was a good, kind man, which she knew from first-hand experience. She would not have him feeling any other way.

‘It’s not your fault, you know.’

Charles looked up at his assistant, grateful for her words even if he did not believe them himself.

‘The Ambassador has already arrived. Would you like me to stall the meeting?’ The moment between them had passed and Faye had resumed her role as assistant, effortlessly breaking away from counsellor and confidante.

‘No, no, I’ll be fine,’ Charles said, knowing that, outwardly at least, he would be presentable for his meeting.

‘Alright then.’ Faye removed herself from the office, wondering if she had made the right decision in placing the newspaper on his desk. Perhaps she could have softened the blow for him, but then she had no idea of protocol in these sorts of situations.

Charles closed the copy of The Shadow, sealing away the news of Lorna’s death. It pained him to see how little the media cared, the pittance of a piece she had been given. If they knew the truth, her suicide would have been sensationalized, so perhaps it was best that to them she was still a nobody. Now, only he and Faye knew the truth; that for six months, Lorna Thomas had been having an affair with the Deputy Prime Minister of England.

Chapter Two

An affair to remember

The day flew by in a blur of insincere handshakes with intermissions of coffee. Charles felt like a zombie as he attended his morning meetings, going through the motions but feeling detached from the events which were unfolding before him. He was grateful when he bid the American delegates goodbye and could retreat back to the comforting solitude of his office.

As promised, Faye had cancelled all his meetings that afternoon, leaving him with time, which Charles had discovered to be the most precious commodity. He wanted to sit in his antiquated bat cave and think of Lorna, but he didn’t dare to. To remember her there would make the pain too fresh, too raw. He would wait until he was home alone, choosing to spend the remainder of the day trawling through the mountain of emails which had built up for him since that morning.

Charles sat and hammered away at his keyboard, hoping that keeping up with his correspondence would help dull the throb of despair which was pulsating at the back of his mind. But with each word he typed he sank further into a mire of misery. He wanted to go home but he knew he could not face Elaine. He had no choice but to wait until a later hour when she would be at the gala event. It was either that or book into a hotel but he felt like he needed to be in familiar surroundings. A foreign place, especially a hotel room, would only pour salt onto an already gaping open wound.

As the sun began to set, Charles decided to take his leave. Faye had kept a respectful distance since that morning.

‘See you tomorrow, sir,’ she nodded at him as he passed by her desk, his Bentley waiting patiently outside for him.

‘Hope you sleep well,’ Faye added as an earnest afterthought, aware of her employer’s ongoing battle with insomnia.

‘Thank you,’ Charles smiled, knowing that if sleep had evaded him before, that now with this extra woe, it would surely forever be beyond his grasp. He felt tired just thinking about it all.

In the back seat of the Bentley, Charles could feel his emotions scrambling to the surface, excited by the prospect of at last being released.

‘Did my wife get to the benefit alright?’ Charles leant forward and asked Henry, wanting to ensure that his house was going to be empty when he arrived home.

‘Yes, sir, she did.’ Henry answered politely.

‘Good.’ Charles felt relieved. Alone, he could grieve.

Dusk had set in when Charles Lloyd arrived back in suburbia. He left his car and walked up to his front door, his free hand proffering the household key. He waited until the door was firmly shut behind him before leaning against it and sliding to the ground, his arms locked around himself in a solo embrace. Now was when he wanted the tears to come, the tears which he had fought against all day long, but there was nothing. He wailed out in the emptiness; a cry of anguish and pain. The house was silent in reply and he wailed again, louder this time.

‘She can’t be dead,’ he whispered to himself. ‘She just can’t be.’

Charles remained on the floor by his front door for what felt like hours before eventually hauling himself to his feet and walking in to his now darkened home. He put the lights on sparingly, preferring an atmosphere of gloom than one of radiant light. He wandered upstairs and removed his suit – the uniform he was forced to wear – and put on something more comfortable; some jeans and a pullover sweatshirt. It felt liberating to be wearing something so casual.

‘Lorna.’ He muttered the dead girl’s name, his lips forming the familiar letters with tenderness.

He leaned back, closing his eyes and allowed himself to think of Lorna. Not of her gone, but of when they first collided into one another’s lives. He forced the memory to the surface, welcoming the pain it would undoubtedly bring, because he wanted to remember her; he wanted to relive the excitement of when he first saw her. In his mind he could keep her with him, their love never ending.

Lorna Thomas had recently graduated from Cardiff University with a first-class honours degree in political history. She was a fiercely intelligent girl, her impressive mind matched only by her unwavering ambition. On leaving higher education, she quickly acquired a placement as an intern within Downing Street. For a girl who one day dreamed of being the second female Prime Minister, it was an ideal job.

Charles Lloyd had just completed his first year in the role of Deputy Prime Minister. He felt that he was beginning to find his feet and establish his authority over the Cabinet and the rest of the country. He’d implemented some major changes which, whilst met with a lukewarm reception initially, were now revealing positive outcomes. His political career had reached the biggest peak he had ever known.

Traditionally, interns within Downing Street would be assigned a junior member of staff to shadow for their time there, the goal being to learn as much from them about the role as possible and then to take their newly acquired talents on with them. Charles was a firm believer in the intern system as he felt that it gave an invaluable opportunity to those who were young and eager to learn. He wanted to play a part in helping to shape the minds of future leaders. The positions were highly sought after, with applicants having to go through numerous rounds of testing and interviews before the elite few were chosen to take up the internships for the next cycle.

Lorna Thomas was delighted when she was offered an internship, especially as it was to shadow Faye Smith, the Deputy Prime Minister’s personal assistant. Faye was not quite so thrilled by the prospect, feeling that an intern would merely be a hindrance to her work. She carefully broached the subject with Charles the morning before Lorna was due to commence her internship. Handing the Deputy Prime Minister his coffee, Faye cleared her throat and nervously made her feelings known.

‘As you know, I will have an intern working with me for the next six months.’

‘Yes,’ Charles said his attention now on his morning papers.

‘And as I work in such a … sensitive position, I just wondered if it would be appropriate? Perhaps they should be placed elsewhere?’ Faye held her breath when she finished speaking, awaiting her employer’s response.

Charles looked up from the paper and smiled at his assistant.

‘Do you know why I chose you to have an intern this year?’

‘No, I do not.’

‘Because you are the most diligent and noble member of all my staff. And those are qualities which I want others to learn. You should be honoured by the opportunity to pass on your knowledge to someone else, Faye, not annoyed.’

‘Yes, I suppose so, sir.’

‘And if they get under your feet too much, just say and I’ll have them reassigned. Deal?’

‘Deal, yes – thank you.’

Lorna was three weeks into her placement when Charles first noticed her. It shamed him to admit it, but he paid little mind to the interns who floated in and out of the building on rotation. He wasn’t even involved in the interview process. To him, they were just nameless young faces who would soon move on somewhere else; occasionally they retained a job there but it was unlikely. During his first few months, he endeavoured to seek out new interns and employees and greet them personally, but he soon found that his incredibly tight schedule did not permit him to do this. He had to choose which new additions to his workforce he should introduce himself to, and interns were just not important enough. Moreover, he was barely around. Charles would rush into his office in a mist of phone calls and papers, lock himself in as he dealt with a variety of issues and then leave amidst just as much chaos. The interns surveyed his goings on from afar in quiet awe.

On one ordinarily busy morning, Charles came bustling towards his office, holding out an expectant hand for Faye to drop his messages into, when he noticed the unfamiliar blonde hair shining from behind his assistant’s desk. He stopped abruptly in his tracks and took in this new face.

He instantly found Lorna beautiful but quickly dismissed those thoughts, knowing that he was old enough to be her father. He felt momentarily foolish to have even noticed her striking physique.

‘Is Faye not in?’ he asked quickly.

‘No, I’m afraid she’s off sick,’ Lorna answered, her voice soft and sweet, like birdsong.

‘Oh right, oh dear. So, you are standing in for her today?’

‘Yes sir, I’m an intern here. I’m Lorna Thomas,’ Lorna said eagerly, extending her delicate hand towards him by way of introduction. Bemused, Charles went to shake her hand, which was so small and white, like that of a china doll. He was afraid that his large, manly hands might break her. Her skin was soft and cool within his palm.

‘Nice to meet you, Lorna,’ he said sincerely.

‘You too.’ She looked up at him and her smile was so pure, yet tainted with nerves. Charles realised that he had held her hand a second too long. He hurriedly released it before instructing the pretty young intern to bring in his messages in a moment. It was only when he was in his office that he realised that he normally asked Faye to just leave them on his desk; he rarely invited her in. He groaned at his clumsy handling of an encounter with a beautiful woman. It was like being an awkward teenager all over again. Despite the extra years and the successful job, Charles was still as uncomfortable around certain women as his sixteen-year-old self.

Not that Charles had much experience with the fairer sex. He had met Elaine at college and she was his first and only girlfriend. She was from a good family; ‘well-bred’ his grandfather had said, as though he were referring to a race horse. The courtship was encouraged and Charles’ family dictated his behaviour, right down to when he should propose and where he should marry.

‘Here are your messages.’ Lorna came in with a handle of post-it notes, each neatly detailing the time of the call and the contents of the conversation which had transpired. She kept her gaze to the floor when she came in, visibly nervous. She wore a knee length grey skirt and a green cardigan; the outfit was fitted enough to hint at her modest curves concealed beneath. Charles watched her, mesmerised by her movements. Her every step was elegant as she crossed his office floor with the poise of a ballet dancer.

Lorna hesitated at Charles’ desk, unsure how to proceed, before dumping the notes down and hurriedly retracing her steps.

‘Lorna,’ Charles called out to her in spite of himself. He wanted her to look at him; he wanted to see her face.

‘Yes?’ She turned and their eyes locked, and for a split second Charles felt his heart cease to beat. Lorna’s eyes were dark and absorbing, like pools of melted onyx. The world seemed to stop turning, everything pausing for this moment.

‘Thank you.’ Charles forced the words out, aware that he was staring at the poor girl who now probably believed him to be a pervert. But, as she placed her hand on the door to leave, Lorna turned to look at him, blushing. There was nothing sexual or flirtatious in her gaze, it was more tender than that. She smiled, knocking back a strand of blonde hair which had fallen loose, before leaving the office.

Charles felt inexplicably drawn to the young intern. But at the same time he knew he was being naïve. Lorna was merely being polite, she did not look at him with the same desire as he did her. And he was a married man; he was not supposed to want other women. But then, he had never wanted the woman he had, not really. Their sex life was stoic and predictable; there was no fire, no passion. Elaine had never made his heart almost stop beating.

On the journey home, Charles found himself replaying his encounter with Lorna over and over in his mind. He tormented himself, trying to force meaning out of her smile. He tried to convince himself that it was nothing; that she was just being pleasant. But that night, as his head hit the pillow, she was all he could think of.

Charles sat in his lounge and continued to recall, with a bittersweet pleasure, his first encounters with Lorna. After their initial introductions in his office, they had danced furtively around their mutual attraction for one another, cautiously exchanging lingering glances. Still, Charles berated himself for being foolish, but took a childish joy from entering into the game of flirtation. Each time she caught his eye he felt his heart race; he had never felt so alive.

Lorna’s mere presence was distracting. Instead of focusing on the financial economy for the impending year, Charles would be wondering where she was, or recollecting how enticing she had looked that morning in whatever ensemble she had thrown together. He should have been paying more attention to matters at hand and worrying about igniting the flames of idle gossip with his behaviour, but Charles was too caught up in the heady ecstasy of a crush. Lorna dominated his thoughts.

In the evenings, Charles would sit and ponder over his interactions with Lorna that day, trawling over the finest detail to try and surmise if she too wanted him as much as he wanted her. When they exchanged morning pleasantries he would analyse her tonality to the point where he was driving himself to distraction. Even Elaine commented on his unusual behaviour one night over dinner.

‘Charles, dear, you’ve seemed most distracted this past week. Are things a little intense with work?’

Charles glanced up from his roast lamb dinner and seized the opportunity of deception, knowing that his role as Deputy Prime Minister was the perfect veil to hide potential indiscretions behind.

‘Yes, work is extremely busy lately. I’m going to be staying late indefinitely.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Charles felt a pang of guilt when Elaine appeared genuinely dismayed.

Another week of coy glances and shy smiles began. Charles found himself wishing the day away, just for those precious moments when he would walk past Lorna, sat diligently working at Faye’s desk. Faye herself seemed oblivious to the flirtation and appeared to be warming towards the young intern whose presence she had originally protested.

It was an evening in early spring when the situation intensified. Charles was working late, finishing off a manifesto he was due to present the following day. Sat now in his lounge, Charles could still smell the faint aroma of warm rain, carried in from the open window in his office. It was a characteristically wet April, and there had been a sudden downpour hammering against his window, yet the wet weather was accompanied by unseasonal heat. London had felt more like a rainforest than a city.

A gentle knock rapped against his office door, disturbing him from his work.

‘Come in,’ Charles instructed.

The door creaked open and Lorna appeared, soaked to the bone. Her golden hair lay wet and matted to her head, her neat outfit, so carefully put together, now dripped onto the carpet of the Deputy Prime Minister’s office. The young woman put on a brave face and lifted her frame into a more dignified stance.

‘I got caught in the rain,’ she said. ‘I was sent to deliver some urgent mail and didn’t predict the sudden downpour. Foolish really, to have left without an umbrella. I do have one, but I left it behind at my desk …’ Lorna was rambling. Charles realised that she was nervous. He chose to believe that this was evidence for her feeling the same way about him as he did about her. He rose to his feet, not quite knowing what he was doing.

‘Anyway, I came to tell you that I am working late tonight. Faye had a family party to attend so I offered to work here until you were finished.’ Lorna looked up at him when she finished speaking and gone was the timid young girl who fluttered her eyelashes at him each morning; she had been replaced by a woman whose eyes now burnt with need and desire.

‘Close the door,’ Charles told her, still unsure what he was doing, instead running purely on instinct rather than logic. Lorna obliged as Charles crossed the short threshold of his office and came and stood beside her. He cupped her damp face in one hand, and with the other produced a key from his pocket and locked his office door. His heart was racing and his blood sped through his veins with such intensity that he felt as though his skin were covered in flames. He wanted this fire within him to consume Lorna; for them both to be devoured by his heat and leave only ashes behind.

Charles gazed at Lorna; he had never been so close to her before. She smelt of fresh rain, but beneath that he could smell roses. He wanted to say something to her, something wonderfully romantic and poetic to capture the moment, but he knew that he did not possess the words. Instead, he let his actions communicate his feelings.

Leaning forward, Charles pressed his lips against Lorna’s and kissed her. She melted into the passionate embrace and as they stood, kissing, time seemed to melt into obscurity. Lorna pulled herself away from him for long enough to release the noose around his neck and to unbutton the suit he’d had tailor made. Her wet clothes were soon scattered around the floor of the office. Charles carried her over to his desk and there made love to her for the first time. It was the most exciting moment of his life. He was no longer Charles Lloyd, married Deputy Prime Minister of England, he was just a man, and Lorna was just a woman. Having sex with her felt so natural and so right that he could not believe for even a second that what he was doing was wrong.

And so the affair began. Charles tried to be as discreet as possible, leaving hotel bookings to Lorna so as not to rouse suspicion in Faye, always under the provision of working late. They would arrive at the hotel at different times and leave separately. But there, within the luxury of whatever room was the setting of their current love nest, they could be together and shut the rest of the world out.

At first it was the sex which blew Charles away. Lorna knew things, did things, which he had never encountered. She was vastly experienced for her age, and this dismayed him somewhat when he realised that he was falling for her. The thought of her being with another man began to make him feel wretched, which he knew made him a hypocrite as he himself was married to another woman.

It was the moments after the fire and the passion, when Lorna would lie in his arms and they would talk, that the affair began to take on a deeper meaning. She shared his love of classic Hollywood movies, and so together they would watch Casablanca and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Lorna would fall asleep in his arms; his own angel. During the first flushes of romance, Charles thought of nothing but Lorna. He would arrange for bouquets of roses to be delivered to her London flat, anonymously of course. He had never done anything like that before. He was in love and the sensation took him by surprise.

The couple tried to limit anything occurring at Downing Street again for fear of being caught. Hotels were their favourite location for romance but Charles found it increasingly difficult to be near Lorna in a professional sense and not be able to have her. He stole countless kisses behind closed doors, always feeling like it wasn’t enough. Charles Lloyd began to live in the present, something he had never been able to do. He was used to always planning ahead, always looking to his future. But with Lorna, the future was so uncertain; he had to exist in the here and now with her.

‘Eggs Benedict,’ Charles said the words aloud to his empty living room. It was Lorna’s favourite breakfast and she would order it each and every morning after they had spent the night together. She had tried it for the first time when they stayed at The Ritz and instantly loved it and would eat nothing else. Charles loved to watch her delight over the meal, savouring each bite. Lorna had a genuine love for life, from the food she ate to the movies she watched and the music she listened to. She was so passionate about everything and it was contagious. Charles was the happiest he had ever been, simply from having her in his life. But the reality of his situation was beginning to encroach upon their fantasy. One rare morning when he was at home, his wife got up and served him eggs Benedict, which promptly made Charles retch. The horror of who he was, of what he had become, was too much to bear. But Lorna was like a drug which he just could not get enough of. Away from her, he pined and longed for her; with her in his arms, he felt complete, content. He felt like he was home.

It was Faye who noticed. How could she not, with the affair being conducted right beneath her nose? She had remained silent for the best part of six months, turning the other cheek when Charles would request that Lorna work late for the fifth time that week. But as the months passed, she grew increasingly worried that her boss’ extra-curricular activities would cost him dearly if they were exposed, and that ultimately she too would be scalded when news of the affair boiled over. Her own reputation would become tarnished for having stood so close to a scandal. Faye couldn’t afford for that to happen; she had worked too hard for a rampant young intern to ruin things for her.

‘Your coffee.’ Faye placed the black coffee with a side of daily newspapers down and Charles looked up at her, surprised. Faye never entered his office uninvited, even to perform her usual duties.

‘I presume that Lorna will be working late for you this evening.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Charles answered, frowning in bemusement at the statement.

‘You work her very hard.’

‘Mmm, yes.’ Charles’ interest had already begun to wane as he started to peel back the front page of a newspaper.

‘Or is it the other way around, and she is the one who works you hard?’ It was a tacky comment, Faye was aware of that, and her crass approach was the culmination of months spent biting her tongue. Charles’ eyes grew wide with horrified understanding.

‘Thank you Faye, that is all,’ he said coldly, eager to dismiss his assistant.

Alone he contemplated the reality of his situation. People knew of his indiscretions, or if they didn’t they soon would. He could potentially lose everything, and more than that, he had let so many people down; Elaine to whom he had vowed to forsake all others and Lorna, who deserved more than a man who was already married. She was beautiful and vivacious; she should be treated like a princess not hidden in dark corners like a dirty whore.

Charles felt shame wash over his expensive suit and sink down to his skin. He felt filthy with it. He wanted to shower, to purge himself of his sins but he knew they would never wash away. He had been so consumed by his infatuation with Lorna that he had forgotten who he was. Charles Lloyd was the Deputy Prime Minister and he was married. The relationship with Lorna had to end, else the two things that defined him would be gone. He sighed in despair and felt his heart ache within his chest. Running his hands across his desk, he recalled how he had held Lorna there, naked and damp in his arms; how his entire body had pulsated with desire. He remembered the words his father had once uttered to him; ‘passion has no place in politics’. How right he had been.

The evening unfolded as it always did. Charles would steal away to a suite at a fancy London hotel; shortly after Lorna would join him, always girlish and giggling, enjoying the way their rendezvous felt akin to espionage. Normally, his lust would overwhelm him and they would be making love even before the door had fully closed, but not this night. Charles stood, watching his beautiful temptress with sad eyes. Lorna regarded his unusual behaviour with confusion, before her own angelic features dropped. She’d had this conversation before; she knew how it went.

‘Your internship is almost up,’ Charles noted solemnly.

‘Yes, yes it is.’ Lorna hovered near the door, still wearing her black trench coat, unsure whether or not she should make herself more comfortable.

‘And you’ll be moving on to new things.’ Charles had to force his words as his throat attempted to seal them in.

‘Yes.’

‘So I think …’ The Deputy Prime Minister failed to finish his sentence, probably because he didn’t want to. His feelings for Lorna had not changed, he cared for her now more than ever.

‘You don’t have to say it, I understand.’ Lorna’s eyes grew heavy as she spoke, as past pain began to surface. Charles realised how little he knew about the woman who had successfully stolen his heart. He wanted to take his words back; he didn’t like seeing Lorna like this, so subdued. She wanted her as she was; bubbly and effervescent.

‘I have a wife,’ Charles choked on his words now and pinched his eyes closed, willing his tears not to fall. He was anguished by his betrayal to Elaine but also to the handcuffs which his marriage had placed upon him. As a single man, he could have taken Lorna out to meals, to the theatre. They could have dated properly and one day … who knew? Instead, their courtship was resigned to hotel rooms and had worn an expiry date ever since their first kiss.

‘It really is okay.’ Lorna took a deep breath before placing a delicate hand on the door handle behind her, preparing to leave.

‘We both knew what this was, that we wouldn’t be walking off in to the sunset together.’ She hesitated before suddenly walking over to Charles and gently placing a kiss upon his cheek.

‘It’s been a great six months,’ she smiled at him sadly.

‘The best.’ Charles watched her leave the room, his cheek still warm from the touch of her soft lips.

In the confinements of his lounge, Charles raised his hand and touched the cheek where Lorna had placed her last kiss to him which was now wet from his own tears. Their goodbye had been bittersweet. Lorna was accepting and dignified, he had no reason to believe that she was hurting. Could his ending their affair have driven her to take her own life? Charles wouldn’t believe it. Lorna Thomas was a happy, stable young woman. Whatever made her so desperate that so no longer wanted to go on living, it couldn’t have been him.

Charles finished his glass of scotch and felt it drop down into the hole which had formed inside him. A hole so cavernous and empty that he knew he would never be able to fill it. He now lived in a world where Lorna did not exist and he felt inside that a part of himself had died with her.

Chapter Three

And these wounds won’t seem to heal

Charles awoke as he always did, hot and panting, staring sightlessly in to the empty darkness of his bedroom. The sheets around him were soaked from his sweat.

With his heart pounding frantically in his chest, he tried to remind himself that it was all just a nightmare, that everything was fine. But in his dreams he saw her, falling away from him and no matter how hard he tried, how far he stretched, he couldn’t catch her.

Six months had passed since Lorna’s tragic death. Charles Lloyd had watched the seasons change twice over with an indifferent eye. He felt detached from the world around him, lost. Not that anyone could notice; outwardly he appeared his usual charismatic self, smiling for the cameras, shaking hands and continuing to represent his country as best he could. Internally, he was a mess.

Physically, Lorna was gone, but she haunted Charles’ dreams as she had done since he decided to end their affair. However, she now plagued his sleep with more ferocity, meaning that Charles was robbed of the little rest he managed to get. The moment he closed his eyes and felt blissfully transported from the reality where he felt constant pain, she would come to him through the darkness. It was always the same dream; Charles forever trapped in the moment when she kissed him goodbye on the cheek in a hotel room. However, in his dream she then doubles over in pain and collapses to the floor, dying right before his eyes. Unable to witness her demise, he tries to force himself to wake. Just before Lorna gasps her last breath he awakens in his bed, the sheets sodden from his sweat.

Elaine had grown so tired of his ‘night terrors’ that she had relocated him to the spare bedroom, which suited Charles just fine. He felt like a fraud around his wife, mourning for another woman and struggling to even look her in the eye when they talked.

Charles assumed that his nightmares were just his way of exorcising any guilt he was harbouring about Lorna’s suicide. Surreptitiously, he had gotten hold of the police report from Lorna’s crash. She had driven her car into a tree and died immediately on impact. Charles wanted to believe that it was an accident, but the words were there for him to see in stark black and white, cold and devoid of emotion in their summary of the situation; verdict, death by deliberate means. Suicide. As Deputy Prime Minister, Charles wielded certain powers; he could alter the law, distribute the national budget as he and his Cabinet deemed fit, but he lacked the power he truly needed – the ability to turn back time. He wanted to return to that moment in the hotel room and not hide behind his cowardice. He wished he’d had the strength to be truthful with Lorna and to tell her that he loved her.

What troubled Charles more than Lorna’s passing was the fact that he had never uttered those three immortal words to her. Their love for one another was assumed but never vocalised and regret hung heavy around the Deputy Prime Minister’s neck. He felt as though he wore the missed opportunity like a scarlet letter and Lorna continued to visit him at night, reminding him, tormenting him, about what could have been.

‘Another bad night?’ Elaine asked over breakfast one typical Sunday morning. Despite the early hour, her hair was already tidied into a bun, a fresh coating of lipstick on her lips. Her question was delivered tersely from behind her artificially crimson lips.

‘Yes,’ Charles said wearily, rubbing his eyes with his hand.

‘We really need to do something about it, it simply can’t go on. Look at you, you look a fright! You need to be projecting a certain image and haggard isn’t it!’ Elaine berated him as she would a naughty child; there was no concern in her voice.

‘Perhaps I’ll call in a doctor.’ Charles didn’t even look up as he spoke, instead stabbing half-heartedly at the boiled egg his wife had prepared for him.

‘That sounds like a good idea; I’ll call and arrange for them to visit you first thing tomorrow.’

Charles’ relationship with Elaine reminded him of his relationship with Faye. Both were formal and restricted. His conversations with Elaine resembled those he had with his assistant at work, detailing things that needed to be done, events which required his attendance. They didn’t discuss their feelings as though it were forbidden to do so. Both Charles and Elaine came from families who frowned upon displays of affection as ‘frivolous’. To them, a marriage was very much a business partnership and should be approached as such. You did not marry for love, you married to better yourself, or so Charles had always been led to believe.

For many years, he assumed that love existed only in Hollywood movies. When an actor would declare to his on-screen love that he couldn’t live without her, Charles would look on, bemused by such passionate feelings. He had never felt like that towards Elaine. He cared for her, certainly, but not to such extremes that his very existence would end if she were to leave him. He had a platonic marriage, as his father and his father before him had. It was considered normal and Charles had never questioned it. Until Lorna.

‘Charles!’ Elaine exclaimed in shock when her husband suddenly smashed the egg upon his plate with his fist.

Charles looked at her, his face contorted with anger and droplets of yellow yolk falling from his hand which was still clenched in a fist.

‘I’m sorry darling,’ he suddenly shook his head as if clearing away the demon which had briefly consumed him, and began wiping his hand clean with a nearby napkin. He went through the motions, apologising, claiming that he didn’t know what had come over him, attributing it to his lack of sleep. But Charles knew what was wrong.

Charles Lloyd was angry. He was angry and he was hurt. The great love of his life was gone. Like the Shakespearian tragedies which existed in his school books, he had found true love and it had ended in tragedy. Left alone in a world without Lorna, he felt trapped and disillusioned.

‘Look at the mess,’ Elaine berated her husband and his sudden impulse to destroy his breakfast. ‘Honestly, Charles, these past few months I don’t know what has come over you but I do not like it.’

‘I’m sorry, darling, really I am. The stresses of the job, they can be most trying.’

‘I’m aware that with great power comes great responsibility. You forget that I was bred from a family where all the women marry great men. Though none as great as mine,’ Elaine smiled fondly at her husband, who, even with bags hanging beneath his eyes, was still handsome. She loved how when she hung on his arm at events she was the envy of most women and she enjoyed gloating to anyone who would listen about his job and all the trappings that came with it. His job became her calling card, to the point where most of her sentences began with, ‘Oh my husband, the Deputy Prime Minister.’ It was with a mixture of pride and arrogance that she so often divulged information about his position. But she hid behind his job, as did Charles.

‘No, we don’t have time for children,’ she would tell family and friends. ‘Charles is simply too busy, he’s the Deputy Prime Minister after all. And when he’s done ruling the country it will be too late to start a family of our own. It’s a price I’ve had to pay for being married to a man at the top.’ People would roll their eyes, not knowing that Elaine was actually barren and could not bare children. The revelation had nearly destroyed her at the start of her marriage to Charles. But, ever the gentleman, he told her that they would be enough for each other, that children did not matter. And they didn’t. Elaine was more than happy to be the godmother, the aunt, but she had a constant niggling feeling at the back of her mind which rose up every time she drank or spent too many moments alone that she had failed Charles. Her end of the bargain was to give him children whilst he went out into the world and made the money. Beside her famous husband Elaine felt like dead weight. Charles and his career were all she had.

‘I’ll be fine, I’m sure. Perhaps I’ll try those sleeping pills again,’ Charles said as he rose from the table.

‘Whatever is troubling you, I’m sure that we will get to the bottom of it,’ Elaine smiled reassuringly.

‘Indeed, dear.’ Charles took his plate and the remains of his egg into the kitchen and Elaine sat contemplating her husband’s odd behaviour, as she had taken to doing most mornings. Whatever the matter was with him, she vowed to discover the cause of his distress and solve the problem. She mentally ran through a list of people she knew who might help, from sleep therapists to tarot card readers. Elaine couldn’t stand seeing her husband so miserable. If sleep was what he needed, that it was her job to ensure that he slept. She would do anything she could to help him.

It was a myth that time healed all wounds. Half a dozen months had passed since Lorna’s suicide and Charles’ pain had only intensified. Everywhere he went he was reminded of her, bar his home, which was off limits because he was struggling to face Elaine, sure that she could see through his work façade and knew deep down of his deceit towards her.

But his work offered some solace. He threw himself in to his role as Deputy Prime Minister with more gusto than ever. He accepted every invitation, attended every meeting. His face had never been more seen by the people of Britain. Little did they know that behind the beaming smile lay a cracked and broken heart.

As he undertook his sacred morning ritual, Charles would pause and regard himself in the mirror and pull his face into the Cheshire cat grin he wore for the media. Whilst his smile appeared warm and friendly, his eyes belied his inner turmoil. They sat lifeless in his head, without their former sparkle. A few of the tabloid papers had commented, attributing his saddened eyes to his inability to cope with current political issues such as the potential collapse of the National Health Service. But Charles was dealing with those issues easily – they were nothing compared to the battle he faced each and every day when he had to sit in his office, alone, his palms on his desk, unable to think of nothing but Lorna’s naked body writhing upon it.

‘Remember you have that press conference at ten,’ Elaine poked her head around the bathroom door, ever the eager assistant. She perused his appearance with interest before entering the room and realigning the blue tie he had just been securing into place. Charles stood, lifeless and submissive, and let his wife alter his collar and tie.

‘There – much better,’ Elaine declared triumphantly, patting down the collar with her freshly painted nails.

‘Come on now, dear, try and look less tired. What did the doctor say?’

‘More tablets,’ Charles said absently. He had tried every medicine known to mankind in his attempt to sleep through the night but Lorna’s ghost was persistent, being able to penetrate through the thickest drug-induced fog to find him and torment him; forever placing her last kiss upon his cheek before collapsing to her untimely death.

‘What are your plans for today?’ Charles asked, wanting to divert the conversation away from his ongoing fatigue, wary that his wife might continue to pry. He would have enough awkward questions to answer at the press conference; he did not wish to answer them in his own home.

‘Today,’ Elaine said with a hint of grandeur, clearly excited by her impending plans, ‘today I shall be choosing colours for the dining room as we are redecorating it, remember?’

‘Didn’t we decorate the dining room last summer?’

‘And then I’ve been asked to chair a book club somewhere over in Mayfair, which is exciting,’ Elaine continued, ignoring Charles’ question.

‘You do love your books.’

‘Oh yes, today we are discussing Wuthering Heights. Ah, I used to love that book as a girl. It’s all so turbulent and dark. I hate how Heathcliff ends up being haunted by Catherine’s ghost. I remember reading that bit as a young girl and being terrified!’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Well, writers love to dramatise things, don’t they. Love, in most cases, is simple. Look at us. It’s when you don’t go for your own kind, which is what happened in the book, that you end up in trouble.’

Charles frowned at the implications of his wife’s comment, but she had left the room, calling to him as she left about various shades of beige. He pondered on what she had said. Was he possibly now being punished for loving someone he shouldn’t have? Did all those who commit adultery suffer similarly?

‘Good morning, sir,’ Faye handed Charles his messages as he strode past her, heading for his office.

‘Good morning,’ he managed to smile at his assistant before thankfully entering the solitude of his office. For a brief moment, he would enjoy the quiet, but then the memories of Lorna would begin to surface and he would long to be released from what had started to feel more like a prison than a retreat.

Charles tried to occupy his mind with the papers left on his desk but everything in them felt superfluous to him. He tried to engage himself in the news stories but it was hopeless. His mind was already sinking into the pit of despair it did every morning. Clearly, the papers were not a strong enough distraction, so he turned his attention to his handful of messages.

There was nothing of note; a few calls he had to return, nothing more. As he was about to return to the papers he noticed the final note Faye had wrote down for him in her tidy, cursive hand and his heart sunk. In his eagerness to be more proactive at work in an attempt to place a plaster over the wound Lorna’s death had left upon him, he had agreed to a meet and greet session with the latest intake of interns.

The Prime Minister was always far too busy for such meetings and so in his role as Deputy he had the responsibility of being the face of the ruling political party, to be available for hospital openings, charity balls and any other relevant events.

As he sat behind the desk, which had once nearly been burnt to the ground by the fires of his own passion, he knew that he could not do it. Not enough time had elapsed. He was not strong enough to face a room full of interns, because any of them could be Lorna, young and eager to make their mark upon the world, and he did not want any further reminders of the one woman he had loved and lost.

He considered cancelling the meeting, but Charles knew that Faye would be aware of his reasoning which made him feel ashamed. The meeting was not until three that afternoon; hopefully something would come up before then relieving him of his requirement to attend. Until then, he needed to focus on his press conference, which meant, more than anything, perfecting his smile. He didn’t want the people to look at him and his tired, sad eyes and believe that it was because their country was beyond hope. In reality, everything was fine, more than fine. He had some very clever men in his Cabinet that had reduced benefits to the unemployed to the bare minimum, which meant that there would be additional funding for the health service, leaving the country in an even greater position than it had been for many years. But Charles knew that he needed to represent these positive changes in himself. People would not believe his good words if he delivered them from a haggard face.

‘Heavy is the head which wears the crown,’ his mother had said to him warningly when he had told her of his decision to accept the position of Deputy Prime Minister. It was a rare moment when she had spoken her mind to him. Usually, she kept herself in the background when it came to these sorts of decisions, leaving the men to plan out the future of the family.

‘I’m not trying to be king, mother,’ Charles had joked.

‘You know what I mean,’ she had said stubbornly, her always quiet voice still barely above a whisper. ‘I just don’t want you to end up unhappy.’

‘What, like you?’ Charles’ comment was cruel and it was the adolescent who still dwelled in him who did not prevent it being vocalised. His mother physically shuddered from the infliction of his words and she wrapped her arms protectively around her tiny, frail frame.

‘Yes, like me,’ she said bitterly, pools of tears forming in her grey eyes. ‘Your father is not always right. If you continue to let him make all your choices, you will never be happy.’

‘Then why do you let him dictate to you the way he does?’

‘The same reason you do, Charles. Because for some sadistic reason we want nothing more than to please him, and in doing so, sacrifice so much of ourselves.’

‘But I want to be Deputy Prime Minister, I want to make a change in this country,’ Charles said, still filled with the optimistic hope which only the young possess.

‘Okay, my son. I have no doubt that you will be a wonderful Deputy Prime Minister. But just be careful, as it can be lonely at the top.’ The ice between them had thawed. She had embraced Charles and he remembered thinking how she felt like a skeleton in his arms. The cancer had taken her before he had been appointed, so she never lived to see him become the Deputy Prime Minister and it bothered Charles to know that deep down she disapproved of his decision, because it was born of his father’s agenda.

Charles practiced his smile once more, his facial muscles already aching. He was lonely at the top, but with Lorna in his life, he had not been. Like the literary character Heathcliff, he was tormented by the loss of the woman he loved and trapped in an empty marriage. Sighing, Charles read through his speech for the press conference, determined to instil hope in the people of Britain even though all hope within him had died with Lorna.

The morning sped by in a blur of questions faster than Charles would have liked. It was soon afternoon and his meet and greet with the interns was creeping ever closer. All Charles wanted to do was hide in his office. He could not bear to face his past mistakes; not yet, not like this with Lorna gone.

Alone in his office, Charles contemplated plausible excuses he could use; he could feign illness or pretend there was a sudden crisis at home. Yet his own reluctance to attend made him feel wracked with guilt. He did not like to let people down, even those who were strangers to him. It was this sense of commitment which made him so capable within his role of Deputy Prime Minister. His innate need to please others, no doubt born out of his childhood struggle to seek his father’s approval, meant that he worked every hour that he could to do the best job possible. His efforts, though in vain, instilled in him an incessant need for praise. He didn’t like to think of the interns being disappointed when he failed to materialize at the meeting, but then, he did not want to present a fractured image of himself. He wanted them to see the warm and smiling Charles Lloyd which they knew from the television, not the broken man he was behind closed doors.

‘Sir?’ Faye knocked lightly and entered the office, having sensed her employer’s apprehension about the impending meeting.

‘Yes, Faye?’ Charles asked, pleased for her presence as it offered a distraction from his ever-darkening thoughts.

‘I thought perhaps you might want to run through the agenda for the meet and greet?’

‘No, it’s alright,’ Charles said, aware that he visibly tensed at the mention of the interns.

‘I think it would be a good idea …’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’ It was unlike Charles to interrupt her but his anxiety was making him tense and impatient.

Faye turned to leave and hesitated. She had silently judged him throughout the affair, assuming he was another middle-aged man preying on a younger, weaker woman. She had found herself in a similar situation whilst a student at university with one of her professors, and it had ended badly for her. She had fallen in lov – he had chosen his wife. It was the age-old tale of silly young girl being used by older, bored man. But then Faye knew Charles, or at least she thought she did, and he wasn’t that malicious or calculating. And then he had been so crushed by the news of Lorna’s death. It had been months and yet still he appeared to mourn her. Faye did not believe that he deserved to suffer like this.

‘It’s not your fault,’ she said quietly. Charles looked at her in surprise, confused as to what she might be referring to.

‘Lorna,’ Faye explained softly, referring to the giant elephant which had taken up permanent residence in the office. ‘Her dying was not your fault.’

Taken aback, Charles could not find any words to form a response. The pain he carried from Lorna’s death was a burden he hauled alone. He had never talked to anyone about her passing, or about how it made him feel, and it felt surreal to have someone else refer to her. In his mind he had an entire world which had existed with Lorna which felt cut off from anything else, but hearing Faye speak of her reminded him that his reality and Lorna had once been interlinked.

‘I’m not comfortable …’ Charles did not want to talk about Lorna. Thinking about her was hard enough, talking would just be too much. He couldn’t finish his sentence; his throat was beginning to choke up as he struggled to discreetly suppress a sob.

‘I think that it will do you good to go and address the interns,’ Faye said sternly, feeling equally uncomfortable to see her boss crumble before her like a house made from paper.

‘How?’ Charles demanded.

‘Because she is dead and you are not. The dead die whilst we must go on living. You are not to blame. She killed herself. You cannot punish others, who are so eager to meet you, for your mistakes. You are better than that.’ Faye’s tone softened with fondness at the end. ‘I am sorry to speak out of turn like this, but for months I have watched you mope around and you are clearly beating yourself up about it all when you shouldn’t be.’

Again, Charles was lost for words, surprised to have been given a dressing down by his own assistant. It was unnerving just how similar Elaine and Faye’s behaviour towards him was; loving yet berating at the same time, a complete juxtaposition of emotions.

‘Faye, you are quite right, thank you. I shall prepare myself for the meeting,’ Charles suddenly came to his senses. Here, in his office, he was the Deputy Prime Minister. At home he could once more become Charles Lloyd and dwell on the loss of Lorna, but whilst at work he had to maintain the image he had worked so hard to build. ‘I appreciate the offer of some … perspective,’ Charles said a little uneasily.

‘Anytime, sir.’ Faye smiled and left the office. The moment had passed and she had succeeded in her quest to raise the Deputy Prime Minister’s mood, but knew better than to linger and risk pushing the boundaries between them further. She had already spoken to him inappropriately; she had no desire to make a habit of it.

Charles again practiced his smile and tried to completely banish Lorna from his mind. Obligingly, her memory retreated to the shadows of his thoughts, allowing him to resume his role of Deputy Prime Minister, if only temporarily. He knew she would return again that night as soon as he dared to close his eyes and lose himself to the darkness. She was always there waiting in his dreams, refusing to let him forget.

The main meeting room within Downing Street was the venue for the meet and greet with the interns. This suited Charles as it meant that his office, which had become his bolthole, was close by.

He gave a brief speech to the room full of fresh, eager faces, without lingering on any of them for too long, preferring to speak into empty space. Charles gave them the usual spiel of what a great opportunity this was and how it would hold them in good stead for their future career, and his ethos of work hard if you want to succeed. That was probably the best quality his own father had succeeded in instilling in him – his work ethic. Charles had been a devoutly conscientious student and was even more dedicated when he entered the working world. Arguably, it was born of his desire to please, but it was still an admirable quality which had earned him the respect of his peers.

Charles drew his speech to a close, willing the meeting to end, although he had to admit that it had been easier than he had thought it would be. When Faye suggested he take twenty minutes to mingle with some of the interns, he agreed – his old, social self beginning to resurface.

The interns who he spoke to were polite and hung on his every word, which always made Charles a little uncomfortable. Quiet awe he could tolerate but sycophants he could not. He was beginning to find the banter almost bearable. An intern would introduce themselves and he would show a cursory interest in them, asking where they were from and so forth.

He was mid-way through a conversation with a young man with short dark hair and trendy rimless glasses when he spotted a halo of blonde hair bobbing amongst the sea of interns just beyond his eye line.

Instantly his heart skipped a beat, his thoughts instinctively thinking of Lorna.

Discreetly, Charles glanced past the man he was engaged in conversation with. There again, he caught a glimpse of blonde hair which belonged to a petite young woman but her back was to him. Charles chastised himself for being ridiculous. Lorna was creeping back into his thoughts and playing tricks with his mind. There are millions of women with long blonde hair and small, slender frames, he thought to himself; he needed to gain some perspective.

But Charles could not tear his attention away from the blonde who was now talking to another intern on the other side of the room. If only she would turn around – if he could see her face, he could relax. Charles could feel his heart rate quickening with anticipation, the girl turned and … it was some nameless stranger. Charles felt his spirit sink but then realised just how foolish he was being. Lorna was gone, he needed to accept that.

Yet, from behind, there was every chance that she could have been Lorna. It was impossible, but like a child clinging to the myth of Santa Claus, he had willed it to be true with all his heart.

He dutifully continued his lap around the room, showing interest in each of the interns he spoke to. This was the part of his job that he enjoyed; meeting people and getting to know them. He liked it when he got to be out in the community, speaking with people about their lives and how he, in his position, could help to improve them. Some people were more polite than others. In the past, some women had been downright crude to him, commenting on how attractive he was in person and what they would like to do to him in the privacy of their own bedrooms. That sort of talk made Charles most uncomfortable and he struggled to identify with women of the ‘ladette’ persuasion. Perhaps he was old-fashioned in his views, but he liked women to be, well, women; well turned out, polite and feminine. So many women were trying to push those boundaries and he never understood why.

Charles was ready to leave the interns when he saw her, and this time he was not mistaken. His body trembled as he realised that there was a ghost in his midst. He looked on in disbelief, his mouth agape, as Lorna appeared and walked across to the other side of the room. It was utterly impossible. It couldn’t be! Yet there was no denying it was her – the blonde hair, the delicate features, and her gentle, almost dance-like gait.

Charles’ entire body went cold as though he had suddenly been plunged in to ice. It could not be Lorna, it was impossible. But he had just seen her, he was certain of it.

Vomit threatened to escape from Charles’ mouth as he absorbed the shock. Everything seemed to be running in slow motion as he contemplated what he should do; fear making his actions erratic and clumsy. He hastily made his excuses and almost ran back to his office, terror gripping him as he moved.

‘Impossible, impossible,’ he muttered to himself as he hurried past Faye’s desk and gratefully closed his office door behind him.

‘Impossible,’ he said again, breathless from his frantic rush through the building. There was no logical reason why he could have seen Lorna but he did not doubt his senses. She had been there, amongst the interns. Charles tried to will himself to think rationally, to try and make sense of the senseless. Looking down at his hands he realised that they were shaking.

Why was Lorna there? Was she haunting him, punishing him for her death? Or had he gone mad, his mind completely lost beyond salvation and driven to the brink of insanity?

Charles feared that it was the latter. He sat at his desk and tried to calm down but his heart continued to thump like a crazed drum within his chest. He wanted to believe that he had imagined her; that he missed her so terribly that he had started to hallucinate that she was there. But she had seemed so real, moving amongst the interns as though she belonged there.

Charles let his head fall into his heads. Clearly, he was more disturbed than he had originally thought. And if it wasn’t that and if Lorna’s spirit was haunting him, he wasn’t sure if he even believed in all that. Charles was an atheist – the notion of an afterlife was ludicrous to him. But Lorna had haunted his dreams for all these months. What if she had now leapt out into his life?

‘Lorna’s dead.’ Charles said the words aloud, knowing that he no longer believed them.

Chapter Four

These haunting memories refuse to fade

Alone in his office, Charles contemplated the very possible reality that he was going mad. The evidence was there; he had just seen Lorna, who was dead and had been for the past six months.

He sat and replayed the moment over and over in his mind, willing himself to find a flaw, to see that it wasn’t her, but it was hopeless. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became. The shock of seeing Lorna had numbed his senses slightly, leaving him sat frozen behind his desk with only his thoughts for company.

Rubbing his eyes he feared for his own mental state. He was dangerously sleep-deprived – lulled into any rest by a cocktail of prescribed drugs – so it was completely plausible that he’d stated to have daylight hallucinations. The thought terrified him, making even the marrow within his bones shake. Like Ebenezer Scrooge once had, he tried doggedly to dismiss what he had seen as coincidence and nothing more.

Surely, he reasoned, it was just an intern who looked very similar to Lorna. Charles wanted to believe that but he knew her face too well as he saw it each and every night in his dreams. It was Lorna who had been amongst the interns; what was uncertain was the reason for her being there.

Charles almost wished it was her ghost reaching out to him, as much as that prospect terrified him. At least that meant that he wasn’t going insane. Morbidly, he began to recall a documentary he had once watched, about a man who kept having vivid hallucinations which doctors discovered were attributed to a giant tumour growing inside his brain. The tumour was inoperable and the man ultimately died a slow, unpleasant death. On reflex, Charles tentatively touched his forehead. Was Lorna a manifestation of something sinister growing within him?

Perhaps the dreams had been a precursor and now the tumour had grown so much that his hallucinations were spilling out in to broad daylight, no longer confined to the darkness of his dreams.

To think that all this was just the mark of an illness made Charles despair. A part of him yearned for it to be Lorna’s spirit because that meant that, even in the afterlife, she still wanted to cling to him as much as he did to her.

He thought back to the documentary he had seen and remembered another chilling addition to the man’s symptoms; uncharacteristic behaviour. Before the tumour was discovered he began liking food he had always hated and being spiteful to those he loved after spending a lifetime being a kind, gentle man. Charles had never before acted on impulse until he met Lorna. The whole affair was grossly out of character for him. Sighing, Charles rubbed at his temple which was potentially housing the source of all his despair.

With hands still shaking, Charles picked up his phone and dialled home. He knew that the most decisive course of action would be to see his doctor as soon as possible. He hoped that he was wrong – that there was no tumour poisoning his mind. He couldn’t bear the thought that everything he had felt with Lorna was not real and was merely the symptom of an illness. The notion tainted the love he had felt and made him feel sick, as though he had been deceived by his own body.

‘Lloyd residence.’ Elaine sounded particularly cheerful as she answered the phone.

‘Honey, it’s me,’ Charles said, his voice hoarse.

‘Oh Charles, perfect timing! I have the decorator here with me now and we are going through samples for the dining room. Would you prefer magnolia or ivory?’

‘What?’ The fog of confusion produced by the shock of seeing Lorna made Charles struggle to decipher his wife’s question.

‘Colours, Charles. What would you like?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is something wrong, dear?’ Elaine suddenly focused on her husband, her intuition sensing that there was a problem.

‘I’m just not feeling very well.’ Charles said softly.

‘Oh no, are you coming home?’ his wife asked in a panic, perturbed to think that her daily plans might suddenly be compromised.

‘No, I think I can stick out the rest of the day, but can you call the doctor again for me?’

‘Yes, certainly,’ Elaine answered, relieved. ‘There are a lot of bugs going around at the moment, three of the ladies from the book club called off sick.’

‘Oh.’ Charles cared not for the trials and tribulations of his wife’s social circle. He was even less tolerant when potentially gravely ill.

‘Are you quite sure that you wouldn’t rather come home?’ It was an empty question but, bound by the code of wifely duties, one Elaine felt compelled to ask.

‘I can’t, I’ve too much work to do.’

‘Well, as Deputy Prime Minister you have more work to do than most!’ Elaine raised her voice ever so slightly as she spoke, no doubt to ensure that the decorator in the next room could hear that she was speaking with her ever-so-important husband.

‘If you can just call the doctor, please.’ Charles felt his temple begin to throb, either from the frustrations of speaking with his wife or a reaction to the fear he had placed within his mind of a tumour lurking there. He hung up without a formal goodbye, imaging how Elaine would still cling to the receiver and deliver a loving farewell to the dial tone, all in the name of maintaining the image she had so perfectly crafted over the years.

When Charles spoke with Lorna on the telephone she had always signed off the same way. He would say goodbye and Lorna, in her sweet, singsong voice would brightly reply, ‘Until next time’. He found it endearing and loved how it made him yearn for their next conversation, their next union. Charles imagined how, if their love had endured, they would have ended their conversations with undying declarations of love, each living for the moment when they next spoke again.

Lorna, and everything he felt for her, could not have just been the manifestation of a tumour slowing rotting his brain. He knew in his heart that it was real. But that meant that the vision he’d seen in the intern meeting was surely an apparition, and that Lorna must be haunting him. But she was so sweet and kind, how could her spirit be malicious enough to torment him? Unless he was the reason why she ended her life and now she despised him. Would she not cease to prowl around his sanity until he had scarified is own life also? The idea was preposterous and Charles quickly dismissed it.

In the quiet of his office, with his mind aching from attempting to make sense of what he had seen, Charles longed for a drink and the welcome release it would bring him from his tangle of thoughts. Elaine had ensured that there was no alcohol in his office, going to such lengths as having the fridge, which his predecessor had put in, removed. Charles resented how she behaved as though he were an alcoholic who couldn’t be near spirits. It was as though she only ever saw the very worst version of him, which antagonised him as he had only ever treated her well. He knew that Elaine’s father had struggled with a severe drinking problem which probably accounted for her often irrational behaviour towards drink. But Charles did not enjoy being treated like a child and having his toys of scotch and bourbon taken away from him.

Lorna enjoyed Malibu® and coke. She would always pour herself a small glass from the contents of the mini bar in the hotel rooms they stayed in. Charles detested the stuff, claiming that it smelt of suntan lotion. Lorna would smile and shake her head in disagreement.

‘It smells exotic,’ she would tell him, seductively inhaling from the glass, her eyes locked onto his.

‘When I drink it, I pretend I’m on some far flung beach, with white sand beneath my feet, the sun beating down from a clear blue sky and a gentle breeze whipping through my hair.’

‘You get all that from a drink? Heck, maybe I should try it sometime!’ Charles would tease her. But deep down he made a promise to himself that one day he would whisk her away to a white sand beach, and they would not have to hide away; they could be open in their love and affection for one another. That promise, and the countless others Charles had made towards Lorna in his mind, had been broken. Perhaps that was why she now pursued him relentlessly, refusing to rest in peace.

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