Matter of Trust

Immediately he released her, his fingers flexing as he stood up.

‘Debra—’

‘I’d like to get up,’ she told him, her glance strayed betrayingly to the indented pillow at the side of her own. ‘I expect the police will want to question me, and I don’t—’

‘You don’t want them to guess that we’re lovers?’ Marsh supplied quietly for her.

There was a huge painful lump in her throat, a misery and anguish she couldn’t begin to conquer. She wanted to cry out to him that she could not bear the humiliation of other men looking at her and thinking those words which Kevin had said, but her pride wouldn’t let her make that kind of appeal.

‘We aren’t lovers,’ she told him. ‘We just had sex.’

She saw the colour leave his skin. So he didn’t like it either, having something stripped of its softness, its delicacy, its personal intimacy and made ugly and raw. Well, how would he have liked to have been in her shoes, listening to Kevin Riley?

‘Debra...’

They both heard the car drawing up outside at the same time.

Marsh cursed under his breath. ‘That will be the police,’ he told her unnecessarily.

She waited until he had gone before hurrying into the bathroom. Her new underwear was still there, and if she did not have the time for the luxury of the kind of grim cleansing of her body she felt necessary then at least she could shower quickly, and dress in the uncontaminated clothes, which, she realised abruptly, were now all she possessed.

She could certainly never, ever wear any of her others again; the mere thought filled her with such repugnance, such sickness that she had to swallow quickly to suppress it.

She had no make-up other than her lipstick, but the last thing she felt like doing was adorning herself. However, the sight of her pale, strained face in the mirror made her change her mind and wish that she had the benefit of some kind of camouflage to hide herself behind.

The police interview was mercifully brief. She thought she saw the WPC’s eyelashes flicker a little in brief awareness when she was asked if Kevin Riley had attempted to attack her and she replied huskily that he had merely been verbally abusive.

Merely verbally abusive. She doubted if she would ever stop hearing the echo of his words.

Before they left the police explained to them what had happened. Kevin had apparently been found in Chester in an amusement arcade. They had taken him into custody, telling him that they wanted to talk to him about the break-in at her house, and they suspected that it must have been while he was either in the car or in the police station that he had overheard someone saying that she was staying with Marsh.

There had been some confusion at the police station caused by an influx of tourists who had come to report one of their number having her handbag snatched, and it had been during this confusion that Kevin had escaped.

‘I shouldn’t have gone out,’ Marsh intervened bitterly. ‘I should have guessed that he might come here.’

‘How could you?’ the police officer asked him. ‘None of us had any idea he knew Debra was here. Are you sure you’re all right?’ he asked Debra. ‘Shock can be a funny thing.’

‘I’m all right,’ Debra told him quickly. He was probably a perfectly pleasant man, but suddenly his very presence seemed to intimidate her.

Was he thinking the same as Kevin Riley? Beneath his surface concern and respect, was he mentally describing her with the same ugly words that Kevin had used?

Instinctively she took a step back from him, unaware of the way Marsh frowned as he watched her.

After the police had gone Marsh asked her quietly, ‘Debra, what exactly did Kevin Riley say to you?’

‘Nothing,’ she lied quickly, too quickly, she recognised as she saw the look in his eyes. ‘He simply threatened me, that’s all. He must have found out that I’d reported him to the supervisor. He knew that Karen had told me.’

Her face suddenly went white... Karen. She had almost forgotten about her.

‘Karen?’ she demanded rawly.

‘She’s fine,’ Marsh assured her. ‘It was probably because he couldn’t get to her that he came looking for you.’

Debra said nothing. She knew without being able to say why that he would have done it anyway... that he had enjoyed doing it, and that he had marked her out as one of his victims from that moment outside McDonald’s but she couldn’t express those feelings to Marsh. She couldn’t say anything to Marsh. Not now. Not ever.

‘I want to go home. To my parents,’ she added quickly in case he thought she meant she wanted to return to her own house. That wasn’t her home any more and could never be her home again.

‘Yes, of course. I rang them earlier this morning to explain what had happened, and I told them that I’d be driving you over later.’