CHAPTER NINE
I
T SEEMED as if her car would never come back. She stood at the kitchen window, watching and waiting, her only regret that she couldn’t simply walk out of this house that she’d loved so much, and escape.
After Adam’s departure she’d packed everything. Even Melusine was confined in her cat basket, raging furiously.
‘I’m sorry—I’m sorry,’ she’d whispered as she fastened the straps. ‘But this is the way it has to be. Because I’ve been such a fool. And now I have to run away.’
The car arrived in the yard at last, followed by the garage’s pick-up truck. Tara paid the mechanics hurriedly, answered their questions about the police enquiries almost at random, and was transferring her bags and boxes to the boot before the pick-up had left the yard.
She’d just put Melusine in the car when she heard a dog barking happily.
Buster, she thought. So Caroline’s here already—before I could leave.
Despising herself, she went back into the house and up into the room she’d used, the bed now stripped and the sheets and pillowcases washed and draped on a clothes horse in the kitchen.
Sheltered by the curtain, she peeped out. There was someone standing by the river, slim and tall, in a white dress, with blonde hair piled on top of her head and Buster frisking adoringly round her. Tara couldn’t see her face, but female instinct told her that the other woman was beautiful.
Chic, too, she thought, feeding her jealousy. Brittle, and no doubt expensive. A run-down house by a backwater would not be her world at all. Adam could pull it down and build a shopping mall, and she probably wouldn’t lift a finger to stop him.
As she watched, Adam came into view. He walked to Caroline’s side and put his arm round her, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.
But whatever I think they’re a couple, Tara thought desolately. They belong together. I was a passing fancy, but she’s what he wants and I have to live with that. Somehow.
Her throat aching with tears, she backed slowly away from the window and went downstairs to the car.
She hadn’t been away for long, but her flat smelt unused—alien, she thought, wrinkling her nose critically as she bent to pick up her post.
Mostly bills and circulars by the look of it. The newsletter from her residents’ association, a magazine subscription reminder, and a square white envelope addressed to her in handwritten block capitals. The same capitals straggled across the half-sheet of paper it contained. The message was short and to the point. The single word ‘BITCH’.
She crumpled it in her hand, feeling sick. This weirdo knew where she lived as well as where she’d been spending her vacation. The car tyres weren’t a one-off incident. Somehow she’d become a target.
She hardly dared play back the messages on her answering machine, but they seemed all right. Her parents had rung, and sounded wonderful. Becky had left a caustic message. ‘Just checking, sweetie, that you really are away.’ And Janet, her secretary, had rung, sounding flustered and quite unlike herself, needing to talk to her urgently.
Some problem with the report I left her? Tara wondered, mystified. Surely not. And she could always have asked one of the other associates for help if she’d needed to.
I’ll sort it out on Monday morning, she thought, with a sigh.
And there was something else nagging away at the back of her mind, too, which she couldn’t yet pinpoint exactly.
Is it any wonder? she thought with a shrug. It’ll come to me eventually.
But, first and foremost, she had the weekend to get through. The weather was good, and she went out as much as possible; walking in the park, eating at pavement cafés, rather doggedly paying long-promised visits to museums.
And never, under any circumstances, thinking about Adam.
On Monday, she received a warm, if surprised, welcome back at Marchant Southern.
‘Couldn’t keep away from us, eh?’ Leo Southern commented. ‘Which is more than can be said for that secretary of yours,’ he added with asperity.
Tara frowned. ‘I saw she wasn’t at her desk when I came in.’
‘Nor likely to be, I’m afraid. She resigned last week and phoned in sick today, so I guess she won’t be working her notice.’
‘Janet’s left?’ Tara stared at him, dismayed. ‘But why on earth should she do that?’
‘She said she’d talk to you, but presumably she’s thought better of that.’ Leo frowned. ‘I got the impression it was some personal problem—domestic crisis—boyfriend playing up—that kind of thing. She was a bit emotional.’
‘Janet lives very happily with her mother, and as far as I know there is no boyfriend.’ Tara sighed. ‘I don’t understand.’
She paused. ‘Did you fill the slot at Bearcroft Holdings?’
‘Yes, indeed, but not with the enterprising Mr Fortescue.’ Leo frowned. ‘Since we turned him down we’ve been picking up a few iffy reports about him on the grapevine. It’s good you already had him taped.’
‘I aim to please,’ she said lightly.
‘Hmm.’ Leo scrutinised her for a moment. ‘I can’t say your break has done you much good, Tara. You look like a ghost.’
‘I feel terrific.’ She pretended to flex her muscles. ‘Rarin’ to go.’
‘Well, maybe your first job should be finding a new secretary.’
‘Not yet.’ Tara shook her head. ‘I’m going to find out why Janet wants to leave, and try to persuade her to change her mind.’
But although she rang Janet’s home several times during the day there was no reply.
Maybe she really is sick, Tara thought, frowning. But why, then, doesn’t her mother answer—unless she’s ill too, of course? I’ll phone again tomorrow, and if there’s still no response I’ll call round.
It wasn’t a particularly strenuous day, but she felt bone-weary as she let herself into the flat that evening. Melusine welcomed her with extravagant pleasure, and she attended to her needs before turning her attention to the day’s mail. No square hand-written envelope this time, she noted with relief.
She’d done some basic food shopping on her way home, and she put some Debussy on the CD player while she prepared chicken with peppers, tomatoes and white wine for her evening meal.
It was all simmering nicely when the phone rang.
‘Tara Lyndon speaking,’ she said crisply, and the line went dead.
‘Why don’t people apologise when they mis-dial any more?’ she asked the world at large on her way back to the kitchen.
She was slicing green beans when the phone rang again. This time, when she answered, she was greeted by total silence.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Hello—is anyone there?’
She’d just convinced herself it was some technical fault when she became aware of a faint sound.
Someone breathing, she thought, her mouth suddenly dry.
‘Look, who is this?’ She tried to sound cool and in control.
But there was no answer. Just the breathing getting louder. Hoarse and stertorous, it seemed to fill her head, making her feel somehow—unclean.
‘Who are you?’ she whispered at last, her voice shaking. ‘What do you want?’
‘You’ll find out—bitch!’ A voice distorted, unrecognisable.
She wanted to put the phone back on its rest, but her hands were trembling too much. For a moment she thought she could hear her heart pounding, then realised it was someone knocking at the flat door.
Still clutching the phone, hand over the mouthpiece, she went to answer. Adam was standing on the doorstep, tight-lipped, his face strained.
As his lips parted to speak she shook her head, pointing silently at the phone she was holding.
He took it from her and stood for a moment, head bent, listening intently. Then he spoke, icily, briefly, succinctly and obscenely, before walking across the room and replacing the phone.
He looked at Tara. ‘How long has this been going on?’
Her lips felt numb. ‘Just since I got home this evening. ‘I—thought it was a wrong number at first.’
‘Keep thinking of it like that,’ he said. ‘A wrong number. A wrong mind.’
‘Do you think it’s the person who slashed my tyres?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But from now on you get the phone company to monitor your calls. And you talk to the local police too.’ He paused. ‘Of course, it may not happen again.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because he now thinks you’re not on your own,’ he said quietly.
‘I’m sure he does.’ She pushed her hair back from her face, aware of a sudden surge of relief at his intervention. And realising too how dangerous it was to feel like that. She hurried back into speech, trying to lighten the situation. ‘But I’d say it’s physically impossible—what you told him to do.’
He looked at her with the ghost of his old smile. ‘Want to try it and see?’ He saw her flinch, and put out a hand. ‘No—that was crass—stupid. I’m sorry. Let’s just say it’s a good job I arrived when I did.’
‘Yes,’ she said. Then, more sharply.
‘No.
I mean—why are you here? How did you find me?’ She bit her lip. ‘Oh, don’t tell me. My beloved sister—who else?’
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Why do you find it so hard to let people care about you?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Let me ask you something. How do your marriage plans stand at the moment?’
His mouth tightened. ‘They’ve been put on hold.’
‘I’m sorry. I thought you seemed—ideally suited.’
‘I still think so,’ he said. ‘I shall just have to work on it.’
‘And visiting me is part of the plan?’ Her tone was angrily derisive. ‘What do you want—a sworn promise that I’ll never tell a soul about our little dance round the maypole? You have it—although I’m afraid Becky guessed, and she’ll almost certainly have told Harry. So it can’t just be our secret.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I already know that.’
She stared at him. ‘Is this why your engagement’s on hold? Because she’s found out?’
‘Yes, she knows,’ he said abruptly. ‘But that’s not all of it. There are other factors.’
She swallowed. ‘Adam—I’m sorry. I never intended this to happen.’ She paused. ‘Did you tell her?’
‘I didn’t have to.’
‘Oh, God.’ Tara sat down heavily on the sofa. ‘That’s—terrible. I—I feel so guilty.’
‘You have no reason,’ he said quietly. ‘I made all the moves. The blame is mine entirely. And now I have to deal with it.’
Tara looked down at her bare hands, twisted together in her lap. She said, slowly, ‘It may not be the end of everything. If you could talk to her—make her see it was a mistake—purely circumstantial—that it didn’t mean anything.’ She couldn’t believe she was saying these things. ‘She’ll forgive you—I’m sure of it.’
‘Could you forgive that great a sin?’ His blue eyes were studying her with an odd intensity.
‘Yes.’ Her voice was almost a whisper. ‘If I loved you. If I wanted to save what we had together.’ She gestured awkwardly. ‘They say sometimes it can make you—the relationship—stronger.’
‘Do they?’ There was a strange note in his voice. ‘Well—I shall just have to see.’
He paused. ‘Of course, in my case, there’s an additional snag,’ he continued. ‘Because the truth is I still want you, Tara.’
His voice softened huskily—devastatingly. ‘I want to hold you, and undress you. I want to kiss your breasts, and caress every inch of you, then lose myself in you and feel your body tremble as you come.’
‘You—mustn’t say that.’ The words were torn from her.
‘And the thought of having to exist for the rest of my life on memories,’ Adam went on, as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘is driving me quietly out of my mind.’
Then choose, she screamed at him silently. Her or me. Because you can’t have both.
‘I said it was over,’ she said from her parched throat. ‘And I meant it. It should never have begun.’
She couldn’t look at him—meet his gaze—in case he read her own hidden truth in her eyes. Because if he came across the room to her—if he touched her—she would be lost...
‘No,’ he said, with an odd bitterness. ‘I’m starting to see that now—when it’s too late.’
She was aware of him moving—walking away from her, and then the quiet closure of the door.
She sat for a long time, motionless and tearless, only rousing herself when Melusine jumped on to her lap, butting her head against Tara’s arm for attention.
Tara picked her up and held her tightly.
‘He’s made his choice,’ she whispered into the glossy fur. ‘And now I’m the one left with the memories. Heaven help me.’
She’d hoped work might prove an anodyne. But she was wrong.
She went in and sat at her desk, but she couldn’t concentrate. She’d just decided to call it a day when Leo put his head round the door.