Exposure

  The home of Ken’s parents is large and ornate in Spanish style. This is an area of rural life contrasting with retirement and holiday homes of well heeled Spaniards. Returning to their roots after years in their British restaurant trade allowed Ken’s parents to settle to a comfortable existence in the land of their youth.

  They welcome Jane to their home in both expansive and simple mode. They hope that she will feel at home during her days with them.

  Ken and the children are on the beach when they arrive at the house and it is an hour before they come back. By this time, Linda, Jane and Ken’s parents are sitting on the veranda over a pot of coffee. The children are friendly and exuberant, glad to have their mother back and full of news of their adventures of the last few days. Ken, too, is polite and friendly but not, Linda thinks, as warm towards Jane as he was at the garden party.

  Jane slots into the role of honoured guest, allowing herself to be showered with attention by Ken’s parents, and offering to help where she can. A daily maid’s presence, and the culinary skills of her hosts render this offer redundant.

  She does her best to fit into the family atmosphere, focussing a lot of her attention on the children to whom she finds she can relate easily. They seem to warm to her attentions and chat easily to her as the days progress.

  Linda lies on the first night as Ken makes love to her, conscious of her lack of choice in what he is doing but not prepared to confront him over it. She thinks of Jane, undoubtedly lying awake in the next room.

  Neither she nor Jane refers to the night before they meet to go for a swim in the early morning. They just look at each other and then sit quietly looking out to sea, engulfed by sadness.

  Linda seldom leaves Jane’s side, save at bedtime, and an uneasy calm descends on the three adults. Whilst the children, fluent in Spanish by now, are off playing with local friends, Ken drives the two women around the local countryside and along the rugged coast, where they picnic in the quiet sandy coves. It is as pleasant a few days, Linda thinks, as could be possible in these circumstances. Ken makes occasional jibes in private about some aspect of Jane’s personality and about the fact that his summer is being dominated by the presence of a relative stranger. In a moment of exasperation, Linda goes as far as to say that Ken might as well get used to the idea of Jane being around. This is greeted with silence and no more is said. But it is a truce; no more than that.

  In the evenings they eat as a large family group with neighbours and relatives from around Llanes who join them. These are happy evenings where language barriers are overcome by Linda and Ken’s translations, by the few words that Jane has picked up and by the goodwill of people wanting to make themselves understood. Time passes quickly.

  The evening before Jane’s departure for Santiago airport – a journey she will make

  this time with a family member who is travelling in that direction – Linda leaves the dinner party and takes Jane outside onto the veranda to say a quiet farewell. In the cool breeze, they look out over the town lights to the dark sea beyond, two silent people once again facing another goodbye.

  Linda reminds Jane of the commitment she made in Santiago and asks if Jane

  can wait. Now Linda is asking when Jane has just experienced at first hand Linda having a husband and lover in Ken.

  Jane says she will but that it will not be easy. She is near to tears as she speaks. They determine to spend a weekend together at Jane’s flat as soon as Linda can organize something. They hug for the last time in private and Linda risks a fleeting kiss on Jane’s lips.

  “I shall miss you, Darling,” she whispers.

  “And I you.” There is a choke in Jane’s voice.

  Jane returns to the city via London, now with a life-plan that will see her living a relationship at a distance for several years and then living with Linda later on in a home of their own. Linda has agreed with her that they intend to continue to work together at the university, seeing no reason to do otherwise. Linda will keep the relationship secret from work and from Ken. Jane has agreed to respect this, partly against her own instinct to be open and above board about things. But at least they have agreed to socialise with Jane’s friends who, Linda knows, can be trusted. They also have the support and affection of Susan. Maybe it will be possible to create a life for a few years, in which their relationship can be nurtured and developed.

  CHAPTER 18

  Ken accosts Linda on the evening of Jane’s departure after the children are in bed. This is a man cold with anger and a man who has had time to think and to prepare for what he means to say.

  “I saw the kiss on the veranda.” It is a statement full of accusation. “Are you two lovers?”

  Linda tells him the truth. There is no point in lying. She simply says, “Yes, Jane is my lover.”

  He is a man practically beside himself with pent up fury. She sits in silence as Ken rages at her. He realized that she came back front the Hebrides early. He rang the hotel they stayed in to be told that his wife checked out and left with the rest of the University party. He expected her to arrive home that evening and assumed that she intended to surprise him by coming out early to Spain. He realized something was awry when she rang from her mobile, describing her wet Sunday on the island. He already had his suspicion about Jane from the garden party and was stunned when Linda suggested she intended to invite her to Spain.

  Basically, he decided to set a trap for his wife by agreeing to Jane’s visit. This is what infuriates Linda. This energises her to tell it like it is.

  If anything, it is a relief to be straight with Ken. He seems cold but calm. She tries to negotiate and reason with him.

  “Ken, my love for Jane has nothing to do with my love for him and for the children.”

  But, sitting on his parents’ veranda, he flares again, outraged.

  “How can you even start to equate our marriage love for whatever it is you think you feel for that tramp?”

  She has never seen him so cruel.

  “How could you get involved with another woman? It is repulsive, Linda, repulsive – especially the kiss.”

  She stares at him, as if by doing so she will make it clear that it is his views, not her kiss, that are repulsive.

  “There is no way that I allow any children of mine to be brought up with their mother having an affair with a lesbian.”

  He gives her an ultimatum.

  “Either you stop this affair right now and get rid of Jane from the University or I divorce you and take the children. And I want ‘proper’ sex restored; none of this lying on your back and letting it happen.”

  She listens in silence as his tirade bursts around her head. He is not violent and she has no fear of it. But she watches Ken become someone she has never seen before. He is a man who has the power to take her children. He is a man who has assumed proprietorial rights over her children. He is a man disgusted by her relationship with another woman. He is a man torn by the impotent fury of having no means to combat what he cannot understand – no means except the imposition of threats. In these moments sitting here in the sun, Linda’s emotions for Ken close down. But as they close down, she realizes in that instant that she will not give up the children, no matter what else the cost.

  CHAPTER 19

  She is tiring of Brenda but she has little choice but to agree to meet her again. The woman is on Susan’s answer phone, her tone neutral, a few evenings after Susan’s evening with Linda and Jane. The last thing that Susan wants is another evening of lamentations over Dave Ramsey but, on the other hand, she needs to know whether Dave had gone ahead with his threatened confession to Brenda and, if he has, how Brenda has reacted.

  She allows herself a decent night’s sleep first. It is a sleep that turns out to be heavy with erotic dreams about women together with women and one from which she wakes, surprised at her own excitement. But that feeling is quickly gone from her conscious and reasoning mind. For all that she knows a great deal about sex, she draws a blank when she
tries to work out what Jane and Linda do together. Well, what they do together that brings any satisfaction.

  “It’s best not to dwell on that,” she thinks as she pours some juice from the fridge, just as she imagines that Linda does not dwell on what she got up to with Alberto, Dave - or anyone else for that matter.

  If anything, she is vaguely amused at Linda. Solid, sensible Linda is now taking serious risks with her life, both at work and at home, and she just does not see it. In a way, Linda makes Susan’s indiscretions look minor.

  As for those indiscretions, she has concluded that she might well arrange to see this private detective, Paul Shand, and see what he has to say about Ramsey. There is no need to tell Bill in advance – any more than Bill had the courtesy to gain her full agreement for contacting Shand in the first place.

  She speaks to Brenda once she has showered. It is a Saturday and they agree to meet again at the Café Noir. If Brenda is in any way antagonistic, she gives no hint of it on the telephone line. If anything, she is almost deferential in her gratitude to Susan for the phone call. They agree on the late morning.

  Meanwhile, she finds Paul Shand in the classified directory under ‘Detective Agencies’, and is surprised to see how many of these companies there are. The services that they offer leave her feeling uncomfortable – surveillance, de-bugging, covert photography. She just hopes that she will never be a prey to any of this; that she is not already.

  She hears the surprise in Shand’s voice when his secretary puts her through to him but he agrees to see her right away and they set the meeting for ten in his office.

  She is vaguely surprised that the building and the office are tolerably smart, just as Bill described them. Still, Susan feels that she is in none too savoury company when she sets eyes on the detective. Oh, he is a good looking and strapping big man all right but she always detested silver chunky bracelets on a man – they speak of a newly moneyed, slightly thuggish style that she simply loathes.

  There is no warmth in the greeting. From Shand, she definitely gets the full body once over that suggests that he can now picture her unclothed. He is standing, dressed in a fawn suit and brown shirt with matching tie, more like a gangster than the ex-policeman that his advertising spread in the outer office declares.

  “How can I help you, Miss Blakely?” he asks, with none of the respect for the minor celebrity that she is. He sits down before she does, indicating the chair opposite his desk to Susan.

  “My partner – fiancée – tells me that he has engaged your services over Dave Ramsey.”

  He starts to say something about assured client confidentiality but she waves him aside and continues.

  “I know all about it, Mr Shand. Bill sought my agreement before approaching you. We discussed it at length. I am here because he has been detained in Rome and he asked me to check on your progress.”

  Shand looks at her, pen held between the fingers of both hands, elbows leaning on the desk. He seems to be deciding whether to deal with her and to conclude that he will accept Susan’s account of why she is there. He is probably playing her along, but Susan decides to take that gamble.

  “Of course, I shall be in touch with your fiancée after his return to the city. Meantime, you might like to pass on to him that I have established that Ramsey definitely wrote the letter that Mr Nicolson received.”

  She listens as Shand outlines what he knows and how he knows it.

  He compared Ramsey’s known handwriting and the letter. Shand declines to say who did the test but indicates that there is no doubt about the competence of the expert. He acquired a sample of Ramsey’s writing by going along to the drop-in café at the church where Ramsey worked and chatting to volunteer staff over a mug of tea. Purporting to be a sympathetic church attendee who had heard of Dave’s hospitalisation, he drew them out about Ramsey’s good works till one of them pointed at the laden notice board and described how Ramsey often tried to keep in touch with the most transient of the visitors by pinning notes up for them. Finding a note on the board half an hour later was easy.

  So, he concludes, it can now be taken as fact that Ramsey wrote the letter to Bill.

  Susan does not like hearing this. Worse is to come.

  “I spoke to Ramsey myself, at the hospital, the day before he was discharged. And I had the distinct impression that this affair with you did happen.” He watches for her reaction.

  Susan glares. She is enough of a journalist not to react to the comment about the affair. Instead she asks,

  “You spoke to Ramsey? He’s been discharged?”

  “Yes, I spoke to him – not as myself. And no, he is still in hospital. I said I was a reporter from the City Tribune called Skidman. Ramsey was none the wiser, especially when I gave him a ‘borrowed’ business card. Skidman is still relatively unknown so there was no way Ramsey could know what he looks like.”

  “What did he say?” Susan asks, still banking on her hope that Ramsey would be unlikely to have said anything to jeopardise his own position, especially after her warning to him on the phone. Did this mean, she tries to work out as rapidly as she can, that there was no press involvement; that it was Shand and Shand alone who contacted Ramsey?

  “It was more how he didn’t say anything to confirm or deny it. Said he’d think about talking to the press to protect himself in any exposé of you, Miss Blakely. I’d guess that he is now afraid of this leaking out any further. Afraid for himself, I mean. And that leads me to think he’s got something to hide. And that in turn most probably is the Mull business.

  “Sounds thin,” observes Susan, caustically. “I don’t see how you can possibly make that deduction and worse, pass that on to Bill. At the end of the day, this man Ramsey is mentally unstable and clearly a fantasising sex freak. I won’t tolerate this, Mr Shand.”

  She stands as if to leave but Shand is looking at her very closely and as he scrutinises her face, she realizes that she has walked into a trap of her own making. She is now being questioned and investigated.

  “Maybe it does sound thin, Miss Blakely, but I went to see his wife, Brenda. And this is where it gets interesting.”

  She sits down.

  “Good God. Do you think that was ethical?’ She sounds as outraged as she can.

  “Fair, ethical and legal, Miss Blakely. I saw her twice in fact – still as Jeremy Skidman. The first time was at her flat. I said I heard her husband was ill and that there was a rumour that it was to do with an affair he had on Mull. I have to say she looked dumbfounded, then upset and then angry. She all but jammed my hand as she slammed the door. I spoke to her through the letterbox and told her we were as keen at the paper as she was to quash the rumour saying that, after all, he was a young minister with a respected reputation.”

  Susan listens, appalled at one level at Shand’s tactics, frightened at another for what Shand might be uncovering and what damage he might be perpetrating through his enquiries.

  “The second time I saw her was at the University in the canteen. It was only two days later but I’d say she had aged five rears. I did the sympathy bit,” he laughs, without humour. “Anyway, I said I’d really like to talk to her. I asked her whether Dave had been able to quash the rumour. She just stared at me in a way that said it all. By the looks of it she’s now convinced that Mull happened. I’d hazard a guess she confronted hubby and he spilled the beans.”

  Silence falls on the office as Susan takes this in. Was Shand bluffing? Then slowly she says,

  “So Ramsey says something happened with someone – me, presumably – and his wife may or may not believe him. That’s hardly conclusive though, is it? Ramsey is still just a fantasizing stalker, Mr Shand.”

  “Perhaps it’s not conclusive, Miss Blakely. But it is certainly possible that you and he had a sexual encounter exactly as Ramsey describes it. Did you?”

  Susan stands up in a well-played display of outrage.

  “I warn you, Mr Shand, you will be very careful what you say about me or yo
u will hear from my solicitor.”

  Shand just sits and looks at her, paper knife twirling in his hand, as she leaves his office and as she bangs the door behind her.

  The interview has lasted barely fifteen minutes. But it leaves Susan jangled and displaced. How dare Shand, and Bill for that matter, intrude on her privacy like this? Fortunately, she has an hour before seeing Brenda and, more fortunately, she has no car with her. She doubts if she would be steady enough to drive. Her anger would probably make her a menace on the road this morning. She walks the length of the main shopping street, collecting her thoughts and preparing to see what Brenda has made of all this. The question uppermost in her mind is whether Brenda has now swung to believing the reporter and Dave’s confession.

  In the coffee house she chooses a booth as far from the earshot of other customers as the limited space allows. Brenda arrives right on time and scans the room with an anxious look on her face until she locates Susan. There is a brief smile of recognition before she walks over. That is reassuring. Susan stands to kiss her briefly on the cheek, sure in that instant that Brenda has much to say.

  Having taken on the role, unasked, of mentor and confidante, there is no need for the usual social exchanges of friendship. Susan can see right away that Brenda is strained and asks how she is.

  This is a different Brenda today. She is even more burdened and weary and there is a shift from the overriding anxiety that was her predominant emotion during Dave’s time in the hospitals. She is halting with Susan, unsure, and searching Susan’s eyes as she speaks. Susan guesses that she is about to tell her about Shand’s visit. And she is right. It happened on the morning of Dave’s return from hospital. Brenda looks at Susan and tells her that a journalist came to see her about what Susan warned her.

  “What?” Susan prompts her, leaning forward with a solicitous and surprised air towards the other woman. “Not Dave’s story about this sexual encounter that he’s dreamed up? Surely not?”