by Penny Jordan
‘That depends on how one defines the description “the best”,’ Marsh said wryly. ‘I don’t happen to subscribe to the view that the most important thing in a man’s or a woman’s life must necessarily be his or her career. For me it certainly isn’t. It’s true that I’ve enjoyed the challenges my work has given me, but I don’t intend to become a man who has nothing else in his life other than work.’
Debra couldn’t bring herself to ask him what else he might want in his life.
Because she was afraid of the answer?
‘What about you, Debra?’ he enquired, turning the tables on her. ‘Do you intend to make your career the main focus of your life?’
‘No.’ Her denial was so immediate that she flushed a little in chagrin at what it might have betrayed.
‘You want children, then?’ Marsh pressed.
‘I should like to have a family,’ Debra admitted more cautiously. ‘But only within the right kind of relationship.’
She was aware that Marsh was looking at her, but she kept her gaze fixed firmly on the road in front of them, while inwardly wondering why she had made that kind of statement. Had she done it as a warning to Marsh or as a reminder to herself?
‘Surely there is only one kind of relationship that matters?’ Marsh queried. ‘The kind where two people love one another and want to express that love through the conception of their child.’
Their conversation was becoming too personal, too dangerous, Debra thought, panicking a little.
‘Sometimes when two adults... love one another their love can be too intense, too volatile to provide a secure background for their children,’ she told him quickly.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see him frown, and she had a sudden quick suspicion that her words might have betrayed more to him than she wanted him to know.
To her relief they had turned into Brian’s road, and she said quickly, ‘That’s Brian’s house. That one on the right,’ even though she could see that Marsh was perfectly well aware of their destination.
This time she took care to find a chair between two that were already occupied, flushing a little as she saw the speculative assessing look Marsh was giving her.
He was a very intelligent man. Had she said too much, perhaps betrayed too much to him tonight? But if she had, surely he must realise that there was no point in pursuing her; that she was simply not the kind of woman who wanted what he could offer?
Not that he had shown any particular interest in her as a woman on the way over here, she reminded herself. She had been the one who had been too far aware of him, not the other way around.
Because everyone seemed to have several points to raise the meeting went on longer than usual.
Debra in particular wanted to discuss her concern over the situation at the home, where one child could bully and frighten another without anyone in charge being aware of it.
He had had an opportunity now to make contact with Kevin Riley, Marsh announced. A faint shadow darkened his eyes as he paused.
‘He’s obviously having problems adjusting his behaviour to meet the standards that society expects. He’s been the victim of an extremely violent and abusive father, and I have to confess that I’m not sure it’s going to be possible to eradicate the behavioural patterns he’s absorbed from living with his father. He has a tendency to express himself through physical violence. I hate the ideas of pigeon-holing or condemning any child—’
‘He’s not a child. He’s fourteen, going on forty,’ one of the others put in tiredly. ‘The boy’s a thug, and destined to end up in trouble.’ Debra looked at Marsh. His mouth had tightened a little, but she saw from the expression in his eyes that he was aware that there was an element of truth in what had been said.
‘Isn’t there somewhere he could be moved, to another home?’ Debra asked quietly. ‘I’m concerned for Karen. She’s obviously terrified of him.’ She gave a small shiver. ‘And I must admit that I can understand why.’
‘It can’t be done, I’m afraid,’ Brian told her. ‘There just isn’t anywhere else for him to go. Not at the moment.’
It was gone half-past eleven before the meeting finally broke up. Outside, the sky was clear, the stars brilliantly sharp, the air invigoratingly cool after the warmth of the crowded sitting-room.
Marsh made several comments on the meeting as he drove Debra home, but she had learned her lesson, and this time she kept her answers brief and unencouraging.
The street where she lived was in darkness as Marsh drove along it, including her own house.
Debra tensed as she stared at the darkened sitting-room window, where a light should have been shining. She always left the lights on when she was out at night.
‘What’s wrong?’ Marsh asked her, sensing her tension.
‘The lights are off,’ she told him huskily. ‘I always leave them on.’
She saw Marsh glancing at the street-lights as she had done, checking that there hadn’t been a power failure, and then he was saying quietly, ‘Stay here.’
Debra didn’t listen to him. It wasn’t up to him to tell her what to do, and by the time he was out of the car so was she, hurrying towards her front door behind him.
It was still locked and they needed her keys to go in, but immediately they were inside she knew she had been right to be afraid.
In the glow from the street-lights she could see the words sprayed on the hall walls, the shattered pieces of her mirror, the deep scratches on her table.
More paint had been sprayed on her carpets, and as she swayed sickly in the doorway, pressing her hand to her mouth, she heard Marsh saying curtly, ‘Go back to the car, Debra,’ but it was already too late. She had seen enough to know that whoever had broken into her house had not been motivated merely by a desire to steal.
There was evidence here of malice and hatred as well. The house seemed to pulse with a violent energy that contaminated it.
It was Marsh who rang for the police, who explained what had happened, who refused to allow her to go into any of the other rooms until they arrived.
Once they did arrive Debra went through the house with them, shaking off the gentle hand Marsh placed on her arm, afraid of giving in to the compulsion she felt to simply let him take charge.
She had heard and read of the effect that having their homes broken into could have on people, and now she understood how they felt.
The sitting-room was full of feathers from her ripped sofa cushions. More slogans had been sprayed on the walls, words that not merely demeaned her personally as a woman but that demeaned her whole sex.
She saw the way the young policewoman winced as she read them.
Inwardly she was shaking, stunned and sickened by what had happened, not really able to take in the full horror of it.
In the kitchen all her cupboards had been emptied, foodstuffs and broken crockery all over the floor, but it was upstairs in her bedroom that the worst atrocities had been performed.
At first the police were reluctant to let her see in, glancing over her head at Marsh, but she pushed past them and then came to an abrupt halt at what she saw.
It wasn’t just that every drawer and cupboard had been opened and her clothes thrown all over the room, it wasn’t just the violence that was so frighteningly evident in the words sprayed over her walls; they weren’t so very much different from what was downstairs.
What transfixed her was the photograph pinned up over her bed, a photograph of a nude woman obviously torn from some semi-pornographic magazine, the photograph pinned to the wall with the knife that had been used to slash across the woman’s body.
Out of the corner of her eye Debra saw that the policeman was picking up her strewn underwear and that it too was ripped and torn.
This wasn’t just a robbery, Debra recognised sickly. It was an act of violence, of aggression ... against her personally. She looked back at the photograph over the bed and her gorge rose. She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, shaking
with shock and fear.
It was well over an hour before the police left. It was Marsh who walked to the door with them, who told them that nothing would be touched, just as it had been Marsh who, when she was asked if there was anyone who might have a grudge against her, had grimly mentioned Kevin Riley’s name, something which would never have occurred to Debra.
She was standing in the kitchen when Marsh came back, just staring around, still unable to take in what had happened. The only thing that had actually touched her with any sense of reality was the knowledge that never, ever again could she live in this house; that never, ever again would she feel safe and secure here, that no amount of cleaning or redecorating would ever wipe from her memory the desecration she had seen.
‘Come on,’ Marsh said quietly, his hand on her arm as he guided her back into the hall.
She let him lead her, numbly following him out to his car and letting him settle her inside it without question or curiosity. She had no idea where he was taking her, nor did she really care. She was still in too great a state of shock, her eyes wide and staring as she fought against closing them and seeing again that violently abused photograph above her bed.
Kevin Riley. Could a boy of that age be capable of that kind of violence, that kind of sexual menace? She shuddered, suddenly knowing that he could. Tears filled her eyes and she started to shake.
Immediately Marsh reached out and touched her shoulder, in a gesture of understanding and comfort.
Now there was no room left in her to fear or resent her response to him, only a deep relief that he was there; that she wasn’t alone.
CHAPTER SIX
When Marsh stopped the car outside the house he was renting Debra looked uncertainly at him.
‘It’s almost half-past one,’ he told her calmly. ‘I didn’t think you’d want to disturb your parents so late. I’ve got a spare room, and the bed’s made up. You can sleep there tonight. I expect the police will want to see you again in the morning anyway, and I’ve given them my address and told them that you’d be staying with me.’
Debra felt too drained to argue. She still couldn’t fully accept what had happened.
Somewhere inside her a small panicky voice whispered that she couldn’t stay with Marsh, but she was too exhausted to listen to it.
Suddenly and wholly unexpectedly she craved sleep, or rather the escape that sleep would bring, and so she stood docilely while Marsh locked the car and then let him guide her up the path to the front door.
He still held her while he unlocked it, as though somehow he instinctively knew how much she needed the security and reassurance of that protective masculine touch.
It was only once she was inside the house with him that she started to panic, remembering that she had no change of clothes, no toothbrush, no personal possessions of any kind, and yet the thought of going back to what had once been her home, to search through the devastation and contamination for those things, made her stomach chum with nausea.
‘It’s this way,’ she heard Marsh saying quietly, the light touch of his hand on her arm guiding her towards the stairs.
She half stumbled on them, her body shaken by rigors she could not control. She heard Marsh curse, a muffled explosive sound that tensed her already strained muscles as her body recognised the male sound of aggression and reacted to it, terrifying vivid slashes of visual memories jagging through her brain: her bedroom, her clothes, that photograph.
She made a small whimpering sound of fear that Marsh instantly picked up on, turning to her, holding her as she turned to run, and then quickly picking her up so that her sharp cry of protest was muffled against his shoulder as he carried her the rest of the way up the stairs.
Distantly her mind registered the fact that her body welcomed rather than rejected him, that somehow being held by him made her feel safe... secure.
Her senses welcomed the house’s anonymity. If it was alien and unfamiliar to her then he, whoever it was who had destroyed her home and her peace of mind, would not be drawn to it to desecrate it as he had done her home.
Marsh crossed the landing and pushed open a bedroom door, nudging the light switch with his shoulder.
The room was small and plainly furnished—a bed, an old-fashioned walnut dressing-table and wardrobe, a dull green carpet on the floor and equally dull curtains at the window—but Debra welcomed its dullness, its lack of anything that corresponded to the bedroom she had decorated and furnished with such enjoyment and care.
She knew she would never ever be able to walk into that bedroom again without seeing what had been done to it.
‘The bathroom’s the first door on the left,’ Marsh told her quietly as he slowly released her. ‘I’m just going downstairs to make us both a drink. Call me when you’re in bed.’
‘But I can’t go to bed,’ Debra told him. ‘I don’t have anything to wear.’
She frowned as she heard the words, not recognising the whispery, confused sound of her own voice, trembling a little as she sensed how intense her shock must be for her to make that kind of comment... for her to actually look to Marsh to protect and provide for her, as though somehow she had reverted to childhood and was incapable of doing those things for herself; she, who prided herself on her independence.
‘Wait here,’ Marsh told her.
When he had gone she stared round the room, abruptly filled with such a sense of panic that she wanted to run after him, to plead with him not to leave her.
She was actually turning towards the door when he came back, carrying a soft blue shirt.
‘I don’t wear pyjamas, I’m afraid, but perhaps this will do,’ he offered, handing it to her.
It was clean and ironed and yet when she touched it, gripping it with her hands, holding it tightly against her body, her grip seemed to release from its fibres an elusive hint of his body scent.
‘Don’t worry. You’re perfectly safe here,’ Marsh told her, watching her.
‘You really think it might have been Kevin Riley?’
The words burst from her, filled with need to have him deny it, but instead he said tiredly, ‘It seems like it.’
‘That means he must know that Karen told me.’
‘It’s all right,’ Marsh assured her. ‘The police checked. Karen is perfectly safe. And so are you.’
Debra looked solemnly at him, her eyes wide and dark.
‘Am I?’ she questioned tautly.
‘Yes.’ He sounded so sure, so calm, that a little of her fear seeped away.
The bathroom was old-fashioned and rather chilly. In any other circumstances she would have found the rented house slightly depressing, with its lack of those small personal touches that made a house a home, but now she almost welcomed its blank anonymity, drying herself slowly on the rough towel she had found in the airing cupboard, her movements weighed down by fear and stress.
She hesitated before putting on Marsh’s shirt, touching it reluctantly before sliding her arms into it and then quickly fastening the buttons. She was just walking across the landing on her way back to her bedroom, when she heard Marsh call out from the bottom of the stairs, ‘Debra, are you all right?’
Immediately she tensed, frozen into immobility and speechlessness, caught fast in a paralysing web of panic and fear.
She heard Marsh coming upstairs but still couldn’t move. She saw him frown as he looked into her face, distantly aware of the controlled urgency of his movements as he put down the mug he was carrying and came towards her.
The sensation of his arms going round her, of being held and rocked as though she were still a child, swept aside reality and logic. She leaned on him instinctively, soaking up the comfort of his body, its warmth and protection, a child again, seeking the safe comfort of an adult to protect her from her childish fears.
‘That photograph,’ she said painfully, the words surfacing past the defences she had tried to erect against them. ‘He wanted it to be me, didn’t he? He wanted to do that to me.’
She was shaking now, the nausea and fear raking her stomach with sharp nails of terror.
‘You mustn’t think of it like that,’ Marsh told her. ‘That’s what he wants you to do.’
‘But if I’d gone back to the house while he was still there...’
She felt his arms tighten around her and her body trembled harder.
‘Thank God that didn’t happen,’ she heard him saying harshly, and then he gave her a small shake, his voice relaxed and easy, even though she could still feel the tension in his body, as he told her, ‘Come on. You need to get some sleep. I’ve put some brandy in your hot chocolate. That should help.’
As she responded to his words and started to pull back from him he held on to her and said softly, ‘Think you can make it, or do you want me to carry you?’
To carry her. Suddenly the tremor that ran so sharply through her had nothing at all to do with her trauma, and everything to do with the way she was imagining being held in Marsh’s arms and being carried by him to bed. Not a single solitary bed, but to a large shared one, where he might slowly unfasten the buttons of her borrowed shirt, laying bare her body to his gaze and to his mouth.
Shocked that she could have such thoughts after everything that had happened, she denied quickly, ‘No. No...I can manage,’ turning quickly towards her bedroom and hurrying into it, while he followed her with her drink.
‘I’ll leave the bedroom door open and the landing light on,’ he told her. ‘And, if you need to, don’t be afraid to call out. I’m only a light sleeper. You are safe here, Debra,’ he added firmly. ‘If I thought you were in the least danger it wouldn’t be in this bed you’d be sleeping, but in mine.’
The look he gave her made her heart turn over. He meant it, she recognised dizzily, her whole body shaking with an unfamiliar excitement. She moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue.
What if she were to tell him that she was so frightened that she didn’t think she could sleep alone?
Instantly she was appalled and ashamed of her thoughts. Keeping her back to him, she waited for him to put down the drink and leave her.