Obsession (57 page)

It was only in the early hours of the morning when he was fast asleep and she was still lying awake in his arms that Corrie suddenly remembered his affair with Angelique Warne. Restlessly she turned away from him. So that was his raw nerve! It had to be, and she wanted to tear out her tongue for what she had said about leading ladies. Angelique Warne, she was convinced, had been the other woman he’d told he loved and now Angelique was dead. Corrie couldn’t even begin to imagine how Cristos must feel about that, since she had no idea about the truth of their relationship. All she knew was that he must still feel something to be shying away from it the way he was, and she, in her ignorance and despicable jealousy, had managed to reopen the wound. But she hadn’t intended to, it had been a genuine mistake on her part and because of it he had withdrawn from her. So much for loving her, she thought, angrily digging her fingers into her eyes to stop the tears. If he’d truly meant it he’d be honest with her and tell her what had really happened between him and Angelique. He was still in love with her, Corrie was certain of it, and realizing that she was right not to have told him the way she felt about him didn’t make her feel any better, if anything it made her feel a whole lot worse.

She had no idea what time she finally fell asleep, but when she woke in the morning it was to find that Cristos had already left. She looked at the clock and saw that it was still a quarter to five. She felt wretched, and rolling over to the spot where he had lain buried her face in the pillow. Everything had been going so well before she’d
started
to antagonize him, and now he’d gone without even leaving a note. She tried to reassure herself by remembering all the things he’d said and done – if his feelings were that strong, surely she couldn’t have killed them so easily. He would call, later today, she told herself vehemently, and everything would be all right again.

At nine o’clock Corrie and Annalise were once again sitting in the edit suite with Colin ready to start the laborious plough through to the end of the programme. As soon as Colin punched up the pictures Corrie could see that he and Annalise had accomplished very little after she’d left the night before, which didn’t really surprise Corrie, it just meant that she found it even more difficult to put her heart into what they were doing. All she wanted was for the phone to ring, to hear Cristos’s voice telling her nothing had changed. Of course he wouldn’t call, she told herself, he’d be filming, so there simply wouldn’t be time, but still she continued to hope.

It was probably because she was so distracted by her own dilemma that Corrie didn’t at first notice the strained atmosphere in the room. When at last she did she was more than a little baffled by it, since, she realized, it wasn’t just Annalise being awkward with her today, Colin was too. Not that he wasn’t doing his job, or answering her politely when she spoke to him, it was just that he didn’t seem able to meet Corrie’s eyes. Surely he couldn’t be angry that she’d gone off like that last night, that just wasn’t like Colin. Maybe Annalise had said something to him, but then, as Corrie started to watch Annalise a little more closely she noticed something distinctly odd in Annalise’s behaviour. Her movements were jerky, almost frantic, her eyes were glittering with a disturbing brilliance and if she laughed at all it was so high-pitched as to make Corrie wince. And she was laughing too much, far too much, at things that just weren’t funny. Not that Corrie was ever
included
in the joke, if anything it was generally at her expense.

At first Corrie thought that Annalise was putting on some kind of show to let her know that it didn’t matter a jot to her that things had worked out last night with Cristos, when they obviously hadn’t with Luke. But, as the morning wore on and Annalise became noticeably worse, Corrie began to realize that there was a lot more to this strange conduct than false bravado. It was as though Annalise was teetering perilously close to the edge of a precipice while the hand of hysteria crept ever closer, preparing to give her that final push.

‘Annalise, are you feeling all right?’ Corrie asked in the end, starting in gently.

‘Of course I am!’ Annalise snapped. ‘Why the hell shouldn’t I be?’

Corrie shrugged. ‘You just seem a bit tense, that’s all.’

‘Of course I’m tense, I’m trying to get this fucking programme finished, aren’t I? But don’t you concern yourself about me, I’m sure you’ve got far more important things on your mind.’

‘No I haven’t,’ Corrie said. ‘If something’s upsetting you …’

‘Shut up! Just shut up! Nothing’s upsetting me. Nothing that you need concern yourself about anyway. And why should you concern yourself about me? Well, don’t, do you hear me? Don’t bother about me! I don’t want you to. Now let’s get on with it!’

If ever Corrie had heard a cry for help that was it, but as Annalise turned back to the monitors Corrie could see that breaking down this barrier of guilt Annalise was shielding behind was going to be anything but easy. Something must have happened though to have brought things to a head like this, and whatever it was must have happened overnight – the question was how was she going to find out?

At last Corrie managed to catch Colin’s eye, but reading the question in her own he simply raised his eyebrows and shaking his head turned back to his controls. If he did know what had happened he obviously didn’t want to say.

A few minutes later Annalise slammed her hand violently on the desk for the fifth time declaring that Corrie was a fucking idiot and didn’t know what she was talking about. Corrie leaned across Annalise to point out something in the background of the picture, and suddenly Annalise’s clenched fist hit her full in the face.

‘Get away from me, you bitch!’ she screamed. ‘Just get away!’

‘For God’s sake!’ Corrie gasped, holding her cheek. ‘What is going on?’

‘Just get out of here! I don’t want you near me! It’s your fault! It’s all your fucking fault!’

‘What is? Annalise, wait!’ but Annalise was already running out of the door and Colin quickly got up to grab Corrie and pull her back.

‘Leave her,’ he said. ‘Just let her calm down.’

‘But what’s going on?’ Corrie demanded. ‘What’s my fault?’

‘You can probably answer that better than me,’ Colin told her, sitting her back into her chair. ‘All I know is what happened here after you’d gone last night.’

‘Well?’ Corrie prompted, as he sat down. ‘What did happen?’

After stopping the play-in tape he’d left running Colin turned his chair to face her. ‘Quite frankly, Corrie,’ he said, ‘this is none of my business and I don’t want to get involved, but I will tell you this: you’d better get yourself sorted out with Luke Fitzpatrick, and you’d better do it soon, or you’re going to send that girl round the bend.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Corrie cried. ‘What’s she been telling you?’

‘Nothing. She didn’t have to, I saw it, heard it for myself. He came in here like some fucking madman …’

‘Who?’

‘Fitzpatrick! Who do you think? He came in last night about five minutes after you’d gone. He was looking for you and when you weren’t here I thought he was going to tear the bloody place apart. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, and I don’t want to ever again. Then when Annalise told him you’d gone off with Bennati … Shit, Corrie, I thought he was going to kill her. I had to pull him off her or he would have.’

Corrie was shaking her head, stupefied. ‘Why was he looking for me?’

‘Why was he looking for you? You tell me.’

‘I can’t,’ Corrie answered, ‘I don’t know. Didn’t he say anything that might have given you a clue?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘Well why was he so angry that I wasn’t here?’ Corrie asked, this time more of herself than of Colin.

‘Like I said, it’s none of my business,’ Colin repeated. ‘I didn’t ask, and I don’t want to know. But that girl’s in a bad way, and it’s to do with you and whatever you’ve got going with Fitzpatrick.’

Corrie’s face hardened. ‘I haven’t got anything going with Fitzpatrick,’ she told him. ‘You should have seen that for yourself when Cristos was here last night. Anyway, what happened in the end? Did she go home with Luke …?’

‘Oh she went home with him all right. At least she followed him out of here sobbing like her heart would break and pleading with him to wait for her. He just kept yelling at her that he didn’t want her, he wanted you … And why the fuck had she allowed you to go off with Bennati when you were supposed to be editing here? She was hysterical and he was … Well, as I said, he was like a fucking
madman
! God knows what happened once they got home, but … Well, you’ve seen what she’s like this morning.’

‘I’m going to find her,’ Corrie said, and ignoring Colin’s protests got up and walked out to the main office.

Eventually Corrie found Annalise, hunched in a corner of the stationery cupboard, hugging her knees to her chest and sobbing into them so convulsively it was like her entire body was in spasm.

Closing the door quietly behind her Corrie walked across the narrow space, sat down on the floor beside Annalise and pulled her into her arms. To her relief Annalise didn’t resist and as Corrie held her, while she choked and shuddered, Corrie was looking at the rope burns on her wrists and through the mesh of her tights the same burns on her ankles.

After only a few minutes Annalise turned to bury her face in Corrie’s shoulder and, like a child, wrapped her arms around Corrie’s neck.

‘That’s it,’ Corrie soothed, ‘let it all out now. I’m here, I won’t let you go.’

‘Oh Corrie,’ Annalise sobbed. ‘Corrie, it was so awful. I should hate you for it, and I keep trying to make myself, but I can’t.’

‘I’m glad about that,’ Corrie smiled. ‘I just wish I knew why he was doing it.’

‘He said … He said …’

Annalise’s words couldn’t get past her sobs and Corrie hugged her saying, ‘It’s all right, sweetheart, you can tell me later …’

Suddenly Annalise’s tears were coming faster. ‘I’m sorry I hit you,’ she gasped. ‘Corrie, I didn’t mean it. It’s not your fault, I know it’s not. It’s just that he wants you, not me … But I know you don’t want him. I told him that, and he got so angry … Colin had to pull him off me – I thought he was going to kill me, Corrie. His hands were round my neck and it was like … It was like he hated me.
And
then … When we got home last night …’ Annalise stopped and her eyes rounded with horror. Corrie drew her head back to her shoulder and held her tightly as she started to shake so badly that for a panicked moment Corrie thought she was having some kind of attack.

‘What happened when you got home last night?’ Corrie asked minutes later.

Annalise lifted her head, and Corrie gently brushed away the hair that was plastered to her cheeks. Annalise’s lovely luminous blue eyes, now red-rimmed and sore, were searching Corrie’s face. Corrie smiled her encouragement, then lowering her eyes, as though in shame, Annalise whispered,

‘He raped me, Corrie.’

‘Oh no!’ Corrie groaned, closing her eyes as though to block out the horrifying spectacle Annalise’s words had conjured.

‘I told him that I would let him make love to me,’ Annalise went on, ‘but he didn’t want to. He said he was going to fuck Siobhan, and that I was Siobhan, and he was speaking in this awful Irish voice. I always loved his Irish voice before, but this was so horrible, I was so afraid …’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh Corrie, I can’t tell you the things he did to me. They were so degrading, so … No, I can’t think about it! He said that if you’d been here it would never have happened, but seeing that you weren’t he was going to rape me and make me suffer all that Siobhan had suffered … He just wasn’t making any sense … First it was you, then it was Siobhan … And he was shouting so loud I thought I was losing my mind. I begged him to tell me who Siobhan was, but he started to rape me and …’ She was gasping for breath and though Corrie could see how confused she was, she could only guess at the torment that had been inflicted on her body, now reliving itself in her mind.

‘If only I knew who she was,’ Annalise wept. ‘It’s all to do with her, I know that. But he’s blaming you … Why
is
he blaming you, Corrie? Do you know who she is? If you do, tell me, please!’

‘I only wish I did know,’ Corrie sighed. ‘But you’re right it is all to do with her, it has to be. Where is he now?’

‘I don’t know. He left at the same time as I did this morning. He kept saying he was sorry, that it would never happen again … He said I should set a date for the wedding, but I don’t want to, Corrie. I can’t marry him now, not after what he did to me.’

Corrie rested her head back against the shelf behind her. It was terrible to think of how much Annalise had been suffering while she and Cristos … But it was no good thinking that way! What had happened wasn’t her fault. She could never have known that Luke would show up that way. But if she’d been there … If she’d been there then so too would Cristos and Annalise might not be sitting here now, like the wreck of a child … But she was, and Corrie could only thank God that for some reason Annalise had decided to trust her again.

‘Corrie?’ Annalise whispered tentatively.

‘Mmm?’

‘It’s not true about you and my father, is it?’

It was more a statement than a question and Corrie squeezed her tightly, almost smiling at the way Annalise seemed to have read her thoughts. ‘No, it’s not true,’ she said, and wondered if she should tell Annalise precisely why it couldn’t be true. But as soon as the thought came into her head she discarded it – Annalise had enough to cope with right now.

‘I never really believed it,’ Annalise said. ‘But Mummy got me so fired up about it … She’s like that sometimes and I hate her for it … She says things that aren’t true … But … I have to ask this, Corrie, why were you there that night, at the Ritz, with him?’

‘I was talking to him about you,’ Corrie said. ‘I was worried about the way Luke was treating you … You see,
all
those things Luke has said to me – and to you about me … Well, I don’t even pretend to understand them, but there’s something going on inside his head … I thought that maybe your father could help, that perhaps he could throw some light on why Luke is like he is.’