Guilty Love

‘I’ll never drink like that again, never,’ he said, and she wished she could believe him. Oh, he meant it, right now, at this minute—he had meant it many times before when he made this same promise, although never before had he been so violent.

At least he was sober enough to listen now, so she repeated, ‘Barty, there is nothing going on between me and Ritchie Calhoun, I swear that to you—but, all the same, I will give notice on Monday.’

‘No, don’t,’ he said, and she looked at him in disbelief, her eyes wide. ‘I believe you, Linzi, of course there’s nothing going on between you and your boss. It’s just my crazy jealousy, but I’m going to be different from now on. I won’t ever let that happen again.’

When she saw herself in the mirror in the bathroom later she was shocked. Her face was badly bruised, along the cheekbone, above the eye, around the mouth—she looked terrible. Last night, she hadn’t realised just how badly Barty had beaten her. No wonder he had looked shaken when he came in with the tea and toast.

Maybe it would finally snap him out of this dangerous cycle of mood swings? Linzi closed her eyes and prayed. Oh, please, let him stop drinking, let him be the Barty I knew and loved and married. Take away this dangerous stranger, who sometimes seems to hate me; and give me back my love.

When she went into work the following Monday everyone stared. ‘Linzi, your face! What on earth happened?’

She had a story ready. ‘I tripped coming downstairs, I was lucky not to break any bones.’

She sounded so casual, laughing, that they all seemed to believe her. Ritchie Calhoun wasn’t there, he was working out of the office that morning, but he walked in later, just before she was due to leave for home.

She had forgotten her bruises and looked up in surprise as her office door opened and he appeared.

He was smiling, but the smile died as he saw her face. ‘Good God!’ he broke out, his brows dragging together.

She remembered then, and put a defensive hand up to her cheek, bit her lip. ‘Oh...I...’ For a second she couldn’t remember the lie she had invented for everyone else who had asked. Stammering, she finally managed to say, ‘I fell downstairs. It isn’t as bad as it looks.’

Ritchie strode over to her desk and she flinched as if he might hit her, and saw the flash of his grey eyes as he observed the betraying little movement.

‘Well, it looks terrible!’ he said and pushed her hand down, touching her cheek with his own hand.

She began to tremble, her body pulsating fiercely. His skin was cool against her hot face; he gently touched the bruise and seemed to draw the pain out of it, then his fingertips slid down her cheek to explore her bruised and swollen mouth.

She drew a long, deep, shaky breath. He touched her so lightly, like the brush of a moth in the night; her skin tingled afterwards. It was hard to believe that so tough a man could be so gentle.

‘Have you seen a doctor?’ Ritchie brusquely demanded, as if accusing her of something, and she was snapped out of her trance-like mood.

‘No, of course not, it isn’t that serious.’

‘I think it is,’ he snapped.

‘It happened two days ago! If I had anything seriously wrong with me I’d have noticed by now!’

‘Two days ago?’ he repeated. ‘On Friday night?’

‘Yes,’ she said, wishing he wouldn’t stare. It was like being under a searchlight; there was nowhere for her to hide, no way of disguising from him what she was feeling.

‘When you got home, after we worked late?’

The question hit her like a bolt from the blue and she went white then red as she realised he had guessed what had really happened.

She invented rapidly, feverishly. ‘On the way home,’ she said. ‘As I got out of the car. I tripped and hit my head on a wall.’

Drily he reminded her, ‘You said you fell over coming downstairs—which was it?’

‘What is this? An interrogation?’ she threw back at him resentfully.

He sat down on the edge of her desk and watched her closely. ‘Isn’t it time you talked about it, Linzi? What’s going on? And don’t insult my intelligence by telling me nothing is...we both know that isn’t true. You aren’t happy, something is very wrong with your marriage, and now you start coming in to work with bruises on your face? It would help to talk about it, you know.’

‘No, it wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t help at all. Please drop the subject, Mr Calhoun. My private life is none of your business.’

‘Maybe I’m making it my business!’ he retorted, his face grim.

‘In that case I’ll have to resign,’ she said in a quiet, cool tone.

The grey eyes flashed; for a second she was afraid he wasn’t going to accept the warning, but then he got up and walked away without another word.

That evening, when she got home, Barty told her that his firm were sending him on a training course to Manchester for a week, and the stimulation of a break in his routine was good for him. He was more cheerful for the rest of the week. He left on Sunday night and Linzi slept well for the first time in months.

The next few days were the most peaceful Linzi had had since the accident. She felt oddly younger, lighter, a sense of freedom in everything she did while she didn’t have to look over her shoulder all the time in case Barty should suddenly turn nasty. It helped that Ritchie was out of the office, too, that week, working on the site of his latest project.

On the Thursday, however, a very hot day in late July, she answered the phone to hear Ritchie’s voice, ‘Linzi, would you check my office and see if I’ve left my black briefcase there? I’ll hang on, but hurry.’

She laid the phone down and hurried into his adjoining office. She knew the briefcase he meant; he carried it everywhere when he was touring his sites or having a business meeting out of the office. It wasn’t on his desk or on the floor, she she checked the wall cupboard where he kept his large maps, site plans, tripods and cameras, and other construction impedimenta, and that was where she found the briefcase, open as if he had been filling it with maps and forgotten to take it with him.

She ran back to the phone with it and told Ritchie, who groaned. ‘Damnation take it! Well, I have to have it, and it would take up too much time for me to come back—you’ll have to bring it to me. You have your own car, don’t you, Linzi?’

‘Yes, but what about the office?’

‘Get Petal in to man the phones while you’re gone, then drive out here, with the briefcase. I’m at the Green Man roundabout, that’s Junction 43 off the motorway—take the Hillheath road; that brings you straight here. I’m here with Ted; he’s going to fly me over the course of the new road in the afternoon, in the helicopter, but I must have those air maps here or Ted and I will just be wasting our time. You can get here by one if you leave straight away.’

He hung up and she did, too, sighing. She had a pile of work to do and she knew Petal wouldn’t be up to coping with any of it.

She turned off her computer and put the confidential documents into a filing cabinet, which she locked, then, picking up the briefcase, she went into an office across the hallway where personnel matters were handled. There was a staff of three, but this morning only one of them was visible; the others were no doubt visiting other offices.

Petal was the one left; she was making coffee while she printed out a sheaf of letters to construction staff on some union matter. Petal ran the personnel office daily routine. She was a large woman in her forties; a brunette who wore too much rouge and had a passion for pink frilly blouses. Her real name was Rose, but she thought it was old-fashioned, and, since her husband, a Yorkshireman with a droll sense of humour, always called her Petal, everyone else did too. ‘Hi, Linzi—want a cup of coffee?’ she cheerfully asked when Linzi came into the room. ‘I’ve got your favourite chocolate biscuits today.’

‘I haven’t got time,’ Linzi regretfully said, and explained that Petal was going to be left in charge of the phones in Ritchie Calhoun’s office.

‘Oh, glory!’ Petal looked aghast. She was helpful and willing, but not exactly quick-witted, and Ritchie Calhoun made her nervous. He expected too much. ‘Must I? I’m bound to get into a muddle, and then he’ll tear me limb from limb,’ she wailed. ‘Couldn’t someone else take over?’

‘Sorry, Petal,’ Linzi said, shaking her head. There were younger girls working in other offices, but Ritchie Calhoun had specified Petal, so that was that.

‘When will you be back?’

‘I’ve no idea, at least a couple of hours, I expect. Just take messages and say I’ll ring back anyone who needs an urgent response.’

Ten minutes later she was heading towards the motorway, Ritchie’s briefcase locked safely in the boot of her car. She was glad to be out of the office: it was such a hot day that it was hard to work indoors. She drove with her window wide open and a cooling breeze blowing her silvery hair around her sunflushed face.

There was quite a bit of traffic, so it took her longer to reach the Green Man roundabout than she had expected.

She only drew into the car park of the public house at ten past one and there was no sign of Ritchie, although she spotted his red Jaguar parked near by. He was presumably in the restaurant, at the back of the building, eating his lunch with Ted, the pilot of the company helicopter.

Linzi found the cloakroom first, looked at herself ruefully in the mirror, and set about making herself look more presentable. She was wearing a neat white shirt and straight navy skirt, her usual office uniform.