Burning with Passion

‘How do you know?’

‘He wanted me to get some information on entertainment. What was on at the Opera House. Things like that. He used your extension to talk to me.’

‘Who else, Jenny?’

‘No one.’

Caitlin paused to consider.

‘Jenny, if you can’t think of anyone else who might have come into my office, I think you had better come up and see me.’

A long pause.

‘There was one other person,’ Jenny confessed. She sounded scared.

‘Who, Jenny?’ Caitlin pressed.

‘Me. I wanted to see the roses again,’ she gushed, anxious to excuse herself. ‘I saw them delivered in the morning before you arrived. They were so lovely, much nicer than the ones my boyfriend gave me. I was just a teeny bit envious. I’m sorry, Caitlin. I swear I didn’t do anything. I didn’t touch a thing.’

She didn’t have to, Caitlin reflected. All she had to do was read her letter of resignation.

‘Oh, Jenny...’

‘I swear I didn’t do anything wrong, Caitlin. I swear it.’

‘No one else came into my office?’

‘I’m certain of it. Paul Jordan came back a little before closing time. He chatted to me about his day for a few minutes, how he hoped to close a really big deal, then went home. The other salesmen filtered through. The factory manager came in, but no one else, literally no one went upstairs.’

‘Thank you, Jenny.’

‘Is everything OK?’

Caitlin hesitated, wishing she could let Jenny off the hook. Perhaps it was no more than an indiscretion. But such indiscretions had to be stopped. ‘I’m afraid it isn’t, Jenny,’ Caitlin said sadly, and hung up.

The mail arrived. She dealt with it as far as she could and made preparatory notes for David’s attention. Business calls came in. She took messages and made appointments.

Caitlin was so busy that she did not notice time passing. Jenny’s involvement with the flow of information concerning David Hartley’s business activities to Michael Crawley kept surfacing in her mind. Caitlin’s own involvement with David Hartley, and what the future held, was never far from her consciousness.

When David returned to the office, his face was set in stern, unyielding lines. Implacable. Resolute. Caitlin knew the look. Whatever David had determined on as his course of action, his mind was made up and there was very little that anyone could do to change it.

‘There’s a few things that need to be done,’ he said, ‘before I’ll be completely free.’

‘There’s something I think you need to know,’ Caitlin said, ‘before you do anything.’

It made David pause. ‘What?’ he enquired.

Caitlin told him of her conversation with Jenny. David listened while she repeated word for word what had been said between them. When Caitlin finished, David ran his fingertips along his jawline. ‘That puts the seal on it,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Caitlin. I know exactly what to do.’

Caitlin couldn’t suppress an internal quiver of dismay. She hadn’t known Jenny well, but she had seemed a nice enough person. To believe that she had been Michael Crawley’s informant somehow destroyed confidence in other human beings.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked David.

‘Ring Anderson, the accountant,’ he said.

Caitlin’s mind did a double-take. Of all the responses she thought David would make, this was one she had never contemplated. She picked up the phone, hit the automatic dialling, and waited until she was connected before she passed the instrument to David.

He sat on the edge of the desk, relaxed, self-confident, arrogant. ‘Jeremy, this is David Hartley. I want you to drop everything you’re doing, come over here, and run my business for a few days.’