BLINDFOLD

by Lyndon Stacey

  Once the gateway was reached, the man's confidence returned. He turned and pointed a warning finger at Gideon. `You're going to wish you hadn't fucking messed with me!' he hissed. `And you can tell that bitch I'll be back for her, and she'd better be ready.'

  He disappeared into the darkness without waiting for a reply, which was just as well because Gideon wouldn't have known what to say. That the man had been looking for Rachel had simply not occurred to him. He waited a moment or two to make sure he really had gone before turning thankfully back towards the house. In that instant there came a crashing sound from the lane that had him cursing and retracing his steps. His visitor had vented his spleen on the Norton on his way out.

  Having picked the bike up and stowed it safely in the shedcum-garage, Gideon trudged back to the front door, turned the key in the lock and then proceeded to flatten himself against the woodwork as the door unexpectedly resisted his weight. Perplexed, he pushed again.

  Nothing. It didn't shift.

  Someone had bolted it from the inside.

  Gideon thumped the door a couple of times with his fist,

  scanned the dusky garden for possible assailants, and then bent down and hailed Rachel through the vertical, brass letterbox. 'Gideon?'

  The reply came immediately, followed by a scraping noise as the heavy bolts were drawn clear. He pushed the door open and went in, shutting it quickly behind him and reaching for the light switch with a strange sense of deja vu.

  Nobody kicked the door in from the outside, and the hall light came on, bright and comforting. With an inarticulate cry of relief, Rachel flung herself at him, clinging to his jacket and burying her face against his chest.

  `Whoa there, Rachel! Steady on!' Gideon exclaimed, rocked back on his heels by this sudden assault. `What's been going on?'

  He was answered by a stream of disjointed words, rendered even less intelligible by being lost in the folds of his leather jacket. Gently he prised her away from him.

  `Rachel, Rachel!' he said, breaking in gently but firmly. `Hey, slow down! I can't hear a word. Let's go into the kitchen, have a cup of tea and you can start again. Okay?'

  She looked up at him, her dark eyes tragic, and nodded. `I'm sorry,' she said. `It's just - he wouldn't go away and I thought you were never going to come! I was so frightened!'

  `Well, I'm here now,' Gideon said soothingly. `And whoever it was has gone. We'll sort it out, okay?'

  She nodded again, trusting, like a child, but with his hands on her arms Gideon could feel her trembling.

  `Good girl,' he said, and turning her round, steered her into the kitchen, switching on the lights as he went.

  Minutes later, sitting in the chair by the Aga and cradling a cup of tea in her hands, Rachel seemed a lot calmer. In fact, she'd become quite subdued and appeared to be in no hurry to unburden herself.

  `Rachel?'

  Gideon turned a chair round and sat astride so that he was facing

  her over the back of it. He reached out a hand and touched her arm, causing her to look up briefly but she shied away from meeting his gaze and her eyes dropped again.

  `That man - the one outside - did he do this?' Gideon asked on an impulse, brushing her scarred cheekbone with a gentle finger. Her head came up sharply. `How did you know?' she breathed. `How could you possibly know?'

  Gideon shook his head. `I didn't. It was just a guess.' But he had known, ever since that first morning, that there was a lot more to Rachel's past than she was prepared to tell.

  `I can't believe he's out,' she said, running a shaking hand through her hair. `He's supposed to be locked away. I can't believe they let him out and didn't even tell me!'

  `Who is he, Rachel?'

  `Duke - Duncan Shelley. He's my husband . . . was my husband. They gave him five years. Everybody said it wasn't enough but he's still got three to go and he's out already! I just can't believe it!' Tears welled up and one overflowed, rolling slowly down her pale cheek. She looked at Gideon and her lip quivered. `I thought I was safe for another three years . . .'

  Gideon didn't know how to comfort her. Almost absentmindedly he reached out and fielded the tear with a finger.

  `I think the first thing we ought to do is find out if they really did let him go. I mean, I suppose it's just possible he's escaped, in which case somebody somewhere will be very glad to know we've seen him.'

  He got to his feet and went out into the hall to telephone. After a moment, with an uneasy glance at the black, uncurtained windows of the kitchen, Rachel followed him.

  `They don't know anything about it,' Gideon said, replacing the receiver after his persistence was finally rewarded by contact with a senior-ranking officer. `The chap I got hold of said they'd look into it and get back to us. Sorry.'

  Rachel nodded. She put her mug of tea up to her mouth and her teeth chattered audibly on the rim. Gideon took her firmly by the arm and led her into the sitting room where the woodburning stove stood black and cold.

  `Come on, sit down here,' he said guiding her gently towards the sofa. `I'll make up the fire and then you can tell me everything. No half-truths this time, okay?'

  She nodded, sitting obediently, finishing her tea while he crumpled newspaper and arranged kindling in the hearth. When he'd finished and the fire was crackling cosily, he sat beside her on the worn leather of the chair and she told him her story.

  She had met and fallen in love with Duncan Shelley, who was known as Duke, when he was serving at an army base near her home. She was barely eighteen and very impressionable, and when he'd been called up to serve in a war zone overseas, it had seemed vastly romantic to marry her soldier before he went. She had subsequently lived as an army wife for nearly five years and although she suffered long periods of loneliness while he was away, the joy of their reunions more than made up for it. Then Duke's regiment was disbanded, he came home for good, and it all fell apart.

  Unable to settle to civilian life he found it difficult to hold down a job, and within a very short time, eaten up with bitterness and feelings of inadequacy, he turned to the bottle.

  Rachel was at this time engaged on a design course at a local college and waitressing in the evenings to make ends meet. It wasn't easy but she hadn't minded, she said, could even have been happy if Duke had let her be.

  He wouldn't. Accustomed to the macho image of himself that the army had helped foster, he couldn't adjust to the idea of Rachel playing the more useful role in their relationship. He began to come home violently drunk and once or twice he'd hit her.

  Rachel's voice quivered as she related this part of her history. `I know what you'll say,' she declared with a sniff and a pathetic touch of defiance. `Everybody said it. I should have left him ... but he needed me. How could I leave him just because things

  were bad? I still loved him then, and he loved me when he wasn't too drunk to think straight. I really thought things would work out; that he'd get a job and we'd pull through.' She sighed. `I guess I was just kidding myself.'

  Gideon slid an arm round her shoulders, pulling her towards him. Childlike, she curled her shoeless feet under her and snuggled against him for comfort. He had only meant it as a brotherly gesture of reassurance and that was obviously how she'd taken it, but as Gideon felt the warmth of her slim body and caught the scent of her familiar musky perfume, he was suddenly aware that she was all woman.

  However, he was also aware that being needed held a certain attraction of its own, and that quite possibly what she'd awakened in him was primarily a fierce protectiveness towards her. Whatever it was, no power on earth could have made him betray that he felt anything more than friendship. Her trust was too fragile for that.

  `Wanting to see the best in someone is no crime, Rachel,' he assured her, speaking softly, close to her good ear. `But go on. Obviously things got worse.'

  `Yes. Some old army mates he used to drink with started teasing him about his ... well, they kept asking him when he was going to start a family. We'd been trying. T
hat was something else he was getting depressed about. The doctor said it was probably because he was so stressed, and said that the drinking wouldn't help, but Duke wouldn't hear of it. He went mad. He said it was my fault and accused me of taking the pill because I didn't want a baby to interrupt my study. It wasn't true!' she said, tilting her head so that she could see Gideon's face; desperate for him to believe her. `I would have done anything by then to make him happier, but I couldn't get pregnant. It wasn't my fault. I had tests and I was clear. The doctor wanted to do tests on Duke but he wouldn't have it.'

  She paused, looking down at her own tightly clasped hands, the knuckles showing white. `He came home from the pub early one night in a terrible mood. They'd been teasing him again and he only had one thing on his mind. I didn't want to. It - well - it wasn't a good time for me, but he wouldn't listen. He dragged me into the lounge and then he - he raped me.'

  Her voice faded and she began to tremble, and Gideon murmured comfort into the dark, shining hair.

  `Was that how you got the scar?' he asked after a moment. `Did he hit you?' Talking seemed the best way to exorcise her demons.

  `I lost my temper,' Rachel said. `I know I shouldn't have but he'd hurt me and I wanted to hurt him back. I told him it was his fault we couldn't have children, not mine. I told him that he'd never amount to anything if he didn't pull himself together and stop drinking. I said - I said if he hit me again I'd leave him. I know I shouldn't have said those things, but I was really mad.'

  She paused again, staring straight ahead, then continued in a colourless voice, as if to disassociate herself was her only way of remembering safely. `He broke a bottle -just as if it was a pub brawl or something - he broke a bottle and he said he'd make it so that no man would ever look at me again. He said I'd be glad to stay with him when he'd finished, because nobody else would want me around. And then he did this.' She fingered the scar almost absent-mindedly.

  `I fought him. I really tried! I even tried to . . .' She stopped abruptly, her eyes flickering up to glance at Gideon and then, as quickly, away again. `Well, I hit him with a candlestick but it just made him madder. I remember him coming at me and then everything went black. The doctors think he banged my head against the wall, maybe several times. He fractured my skull and when I woke up I couldn't hear a thing. I was so frightened. Eventually my right ear improved but my left one never has.'

  Filled with compassion, Gideon put a finger under her chin and gently tilted her head up. `You shouldn't feel guilty, you know,' he told her. `You did everything you could to help him, but there isn't really anything you can do to help somebody who's determined to self-destruct. His life had gone off the rails and I guess you were the one area he felt he could still control, only you weren't playing the part right. You were building a life for yourself. He couldn't live with what he'd become and was just looking for someone to blame for his own weakness. There was nothing you could have done to stop it happening, Rachel. Don't torture yourself.'

  Her eyes filled with tears. `Perhaps if I'd been more patient . . .' `No, Rachel. It wouldn't have made any difference. He was looking for a confrontation, and sooner or later he'd have found a way to goad you into retaliation. What we've got to do now is to make sure he can't take up where he left off. He obviously hasn't learned his lesson.'

  `When they sentenced him he said he'd be back for me. I moved out of Kent as soon as he'd gone; I thought if I moved around he'd never find me. How did he find me?' she finished on a half-sob.

  `I don't know, sweetheart,' Gideon said, the endearment slipping past his guard. She gave no sign that she'd noticed. `But we'll sort it out, I promise.'

  `He came about an hour before you did. He knocked on the door and I went to answer it, but then I caught sight of him peering in the lounge window so I pretended to be out. I thought he'd go away but he didn't. . .'

  `Was it him you thought you saw the other day in Blandford?' `Yes, but then I thought I must have been mistaken. You don't think it was him and he followed me home?'

  `I don't know. It's possible, I suppose.'

  `He kept knocking on the door and then he started prowling round the back. He tried all the doors and windows, and at one point he was shouting for me to come out. I just kept quiet. I don't think he was sure I was in here or he would have broken in. I didn't know what to do. I was just praying you wouldn't be too long.'

  `I'm sorry,' Gideon said. `I had to drop somebody off in Chilminster on my way home.'

  `When you did come I didn't hear the bike,' she went on. `I didn't know you were back until he stopped thumping on the doors. Did he - did he say anything?'

  `Oh, one or two things,' Gideon said. `Nothing repeatable. And then he took a swing at me.'

  Rachel's eyes widened. `Oh, Gideon, I'm sorry! He didn't hurt you?'

  Gideon shook his head with a smile. `O, ye of little faith! I dumped him on his backside.'

  `Oh, I wish you hadn't done that!' she said, looking deeply unhappy. `He won't forget. He never forgets.'

  `Well, I won't forget either,' Gideon said with an attempt at lightness. `He flattened my snowdrops.'

  Rachel wasn't in the mood to appreciate his humour - such as it was - so he gave her shoulders a shake and suggested they get themselves something to eat.

  An hour and an impromptu lasagne later, a telephone call from the police did nothing to set Rachel's mind at rest. It appeared that Duke Shelley had been paroled ten days before but had almost immediately gone missing and his probation officer was keen to know of his whereabouts.

  `I expect they'll soon catch up with him,' Gideon said encouragingly, as he put the phone down. `And if he gives you any more trouble, he'll end up back inside.'

  `Is that what they said?' Rachel asked with hope in her eyes. `Well, not in so many words,' he admitted, `but he's not a completely free man. He'll have to watch his step.'

  `How could they do that?' Rachel demanded. `Just let him out and not warn me. Surely I had a right to know. I wasn't expecting it. He was supposed to be locked away for ages yet.'

  ,I don't suppose they knew where you were,' Gideon pointed out reasonably.

  `Duke found me.'

  There was that, of course. Gideon shrugged. `I don't know, then. Perhaps they're not required to. You haven't given this address to anyone, have you? Your mother? Friends?'

  Rachel shook her head. `I haven't spoken to my mother in years. She never liked Duncan and we fell out when I married him. I haven't told anyone where I am.'

  Gideon led the way back into the sitting room, where he busied himself in stoking the woodburning stove up with more logs.

  `Well, anyway. Now they know where he's likely to be, I'm sure they'll soon be on his tail. If he's got any sense he'll move on. We probably won't see him again.'

  Rachel sat on the sofa, curling her feet under her, and offered no reply. She obviously wasn't convinced either.

  It was about midnight and Gideon was just dropping off to sleep when a clatter from downstairs reawakened him. Silence followed and he settled down again, unwilling to leave his warm bed to investigate what was undoubtedly just the cat exploring the kitchen work surfaces. Moments later though, his bedroom door was pushed hesitantly open and somebody padded in.

  ' Gideon?' `Yeah?'

  Rachel stood halfway between him and the door, a slim figure in flower-print pyjamas.

  `Did you hear that?'

  `It was probably Elsa,' Gideon murmured sleepily. `Yes, I suppose so.' Doubtfully. She didn't move.

  Resigned, Gideon sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  In the kitchen, Elsa blinked in the sudden light and turned her head away, the end of her tail twitching in annoyance. On the floor a saucepan lid provided the expected answer to the mystery. Gideon replaced it on the wooden draining board, yawned, told the cat to be more careful in future, and retraced his steps.

  `I'm sorry,' Rachel said when he told her. `It's just, well, I couldn't sleep and it sounded so loud, I thou
ght . . .'

  `It's all right, Rachel. I don't think he'll come back here, at least, not tonight. He's bound to realise we'd tell the police.'

  `I suppose so . . .'

  Gideon climbed back into his bed, which had cooled somewhat in the interval. Rachel showed no inclination to return to hers. She stood in the doorway, twisting a fold of her pyjama jacket between her hands in a characteristic gesture of worry.

  `Oh, come here,' Gideon said eventually. `If you're not going back to your bed, you'd better come and get in this one. And shut the door, for goodness' sake. You'll catch your death if you stand there much longer. There's a force-nine gale blowing through that doorway.'

  Rachel approached the bed but still hesitated.

  `It's all right. You're quite safe,' he said with a smile. `I don't make a habit of seducing damsels in distress. Surely you know that by now?'

  Gratefully, she slipped in beside him.

  SEVEN

  THERE WAS PLENTY OF room in Gideon's king-sized double bed for two, quite separate, sleepers and he allowed Rachel her own space. It was she, in fact, who as she was finally succumbing to the effects of emotional exhaustion, turned over and snuggled close to him, her head resting on his upper arm and her body curled foetus-like at his side. Gideon resigned himself to a long and uncomfortable night.

  He awakened in the early morning after dozing fitfully. It was still quite dark but a glance at the illuminated dial of his alarm clock told him that it was past six.

  Rachel was sleeping deeply, the dreams that had caused her to cry out several times during the night seemingly over for the time being. She still lay across his arm and it took much gentle manoeuvring to extricate it without waking her. Having done so, it was another five minutes or so before feeling returned with an uncomfortable attack of pins and needles. He dressed quickly and quietly in the cold of the morning, the fingers of that one hand still refusing to do their full share of the work, and trod softly downstairs.