Shadow of Doubt

by S L Beaumont

  He grabbed me by the throat and shoved me up against the inside wall by the door. I clawed at his hand as I struggled for breath. “You tell him that he owes us,” he said in a nasty voice. I couldn’t place the accent, but it wasn’t English. He released me and threw me to the ground. I caught the side of my face on the hall table as I fell, hitting the floor and seeing stars. The man reached for me, pulling me to my feet and ripped my shirt down the front. His hand snaked underneath, roughly fondling my breast, as a door slammed somewhere in the stairwell. He hesitated and swore, before pushing me to the ground again and kicking me hard in the ribs, twice. He rushed through the doorway and down the stairs. I lay there for a few moments trying to get my breath back and get control of the pain coursing through my body. Once I had managed to suck in a good deep breath, I crawled to the door and pushed it closed, hearing the deadbolt lock into place. I leaned back against it as tears started running down my cheeks.

  After a minute and several uneasy breaths that made my chest feel like it was on fire, I fished my mobile phone from the pocket of my skirt and speed-dialed Will.

  “Jess,” he answered on the second ring, sounding delighted. “I was just thinking about you.”

  “Will. Can you come? I’ve had an intruder. I’m hurt,” I sobbed.

  “God, Jess. Has he gone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m on my way. I’m on late starts this week, so I’m still home. I’ll be there shortly.” I could hear him running down stairs and a door closing. “How badly hurt are you? Do you need me to call an ambulance?”

  “I don’t think so,” I answered, although there was blackness at the edge of my vision and I’d begun shaking.

  “Stay talking to me, Jess,” he instructed, sounding concerned. I heard him give my address to a taxi driver. I felt very dizzy but continued holding the phone to my ear. “Where are you in the house?”

  “Sitting by the door.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “No but, Will, I’m scared that he is still downstairs. Be careful. He was wearing a motor bike helmet,” I said.

  “Okay, Jess. Keep your door locked until I get there.”

  “Mm…” I mumbled, blinking to try and clear my cloudy vision.

  “Jess, stay on the line,” he said. “Can you go any faster?” I heard him ask the taxi driver.

  “You still there, Jess?”

  “Yeah, not going anywhere.”

  He gave a soft laugh. “Good, I’m nearly there. Have you called the police?” he asked.

  “No. I just called you.”

  “Oh, Jess. I’m almost there. Stay on the phone.”

  I could hear him talking to the taxi driver and a door slamming.

  “Okay. I’m outside your building. There’s no one hanging around here. Let me up,” he said.

  I pulled myself up using the door handle. The pain was sharp and immediate. I dropped the phone and swore, but managed to push the intercom button, which released the front door. I could hear footsteps thundering up the stairs, but I still jumped at the knock on my door.

  “Jess, it’s me. Open up,” Will called.

  I used the peephole to check before opening the door with one hand and holding the front of my shirt together with the other. The shocked expression on Will’s face showed how I must have looked. He closed the door and pulled me into his arms. I whimpered and he released me, with a concerned expression.

  “Ribs,” I muttered by way of explanation.

  “God, sorry. Here come and sit down.” He helped me into the lounge and onto the sofa before disappearing and returning with a towel from the bathroom. It was only then that I felt the blood running down the side of my face. I lifted my hand to touch my temple.

  “No, don’t touch, Jess. Here.” Will pressed the towel to the contusion. “Can you tell me what happened?” He crouched down in front of me, continuing to hold the towel against my head, his other hand on my leg, which had an uncontrollable shake.

  “Will, I think if there hadn’t been a noise on the stairs, which scared him off, that he might have done worse to me,” I said, the realization that I had probably come off lightly, dawning on me.

  Will’s expression darkened as he took in the ripped shirt. “Okay. I’m calling the police.”

  The next couple of hours were spent answering questions and drinking tea. The police officers that came, a man and women, were both professional and kind. The man door-knocked around the neighbors, but of those who were home, none had seen the assailant, and all were shocked that I had been attacked and they hadn’t heard anything.

  “I think you should see your GP,” the WPC advised. “You may need stitches on that eyebrow, and it would be good to have a doctor’s report of your injuries, in case we manage to catch him.”

  I tried calling Colin several times, but his phone was switched off and went straight to voicemail. I eventually left him a message to call me urgently.

  The police officers left their cards with instructions to call if I thought of anything further and for Colin to get in touch when he returned from the United States.

  Will booked an Uber to take us to my doctor’s surgery, after he managed to sweet-talk the receptionist into squeezing me into their already overbooked clinic. By 4 pm, we were back at the flat. My injuries had been tended to and I was feeling exhausted. I tried calling Colin again. His phone was still switched off.

  “Would you like another tea?” Will asked.

  I grimaced. “I’ve had way too much tea. I’m tea-logged. Why don’t you open a bottle of wine instead? Medicinal purposes only, of course.” A sudden thought entered my head. “Sorry, Will, I’ve taken up your whole day. I hope work was okay with you taking the day off at such short notice. Don’t feel you have to stay, if you have somewhere to be. I really appreciate everything that you’ve done.” What I didn’t say was that the thought of staying in the flat on my own after dark frightened the hell out of me. What happened if the guy came back? He knew Colin was away, because I had told him, but I didn’t feel that I could ask Will to stay any longer.

  Will came and sat down beside me, taking my hand and tilting my chin up gently to look at him.

  “Listen to me. There is nothing that will take me away from here tonight or tomorrow, for that matter. I’m so glad that it was me you called,” he said.

  I let out a deep sigh and closed my eyes. He was watching me with such intensity when I opened them again, that I blushed. “Thank you. If I’m honest, the thought of being here alone tonight is a bit scary,” I admitted.

  “I’ll take the sofa, Jess. No one is getting through that front door, without me knowing it,” he said. “Now, food as well as wine, I think.”

  “There’s not much here, we’ll need to order in,” I said. I didn’t add that the reason there was very little food was that I was due to move out the following day.

  I was in the bathroom trying to fix my hair and makeup, so that I didn’t look quite so hideous, when my mobile rang a little while later. The bruising was coming out around my eye, which was almost swollen shut. The split on my right eyebrow, which had bled so profusely, was held together by five little pieces of surgical tape and my lip was fat and swollen on the same side. I had red marks on either side of my neck. In fact, if I turned my head, I could see the outline of three fingers, no wonder my throat was sore. I didn’t look at all attractive. I styled my hair so that it hung over the right side of my face covering some of the damage and tucked it behind my left ear, letting it fall over the finger marks. A little better. I could hear Will talking, as I walked back into the lounge.

  “Here she is.” He handed my mobile to me, his expression was neutral.

  “What the hell is he doing there?” Colin demanded.

  “I called him, after someone looking for you beat me up,” I snapped. Unbelievable, did he even care how I was? Surely Will had told him.

  There was a pause. “What happened, Jess?”

  I explained the
events of the morning.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked when I had finished.

  “Cuts and bruises.”

  Will placed a glass of red wine on the coffee table in front of me and went to stand by the window across the room with his back to me, drinking his. I noticed his free hand kept clenching and unclenching as I spoke.

  “When are you back?” I asked Colin.

  “Not until Thursday night,” he replied. I noticed that there was no offer to come sooner.

  “Just so you know, Will is going to stay here tonight,” I told him.

  “What the hell for?” Colin’s voice was raised. Across the room I saw Will’s shoulders stiffen. He had heard. I stood and walked into the kitchen to continue the conversation.

  “Colin, I have a black eye, split lip, choke marks around my throat, not to mention two cracked ribs and I’m as frightened as hell that the guy will come back. If he hadn’t been disturbed this morning, he may well have raped me, if ripping my shirt open and grabbing my breast was any indication. So, yes, Will is staying and no, I won’t be screwing him in our bed.”

  “Jessica. There is no need to take that attitude,” Colin said, sounding more like a parent than a spouse. I said nothing. “Fine,” he conceded after a long silence.

  “Oh, and the police want to talk to you. They want to know who you owe something to. Actually, I’d like to know that too,” I added.

  “I’ll talk to them when I get back,” he said. “Now you go and rest. Put William back on.”

  “Is that really necessary?” I asked.

  Colin sighed as though I was being a petulant teenager. “Just do it, Jess.”

  I walked back into the lounge to find Will still leaning against the window, with a furious expression on his face. I handed him my mobile shrugging my shoulders and mouthing ‘sorry’.

  “Colin,” he said, listening. “Sure, no problem, will do.” He ended the call without saying goodbye.

  We looked at each other for a long minute, until I broke the silence.

  “I’m sorry that you had to hear that. When he stops to think, he will be appreciative that you came to my aid,” I said.

  “Don’t make excuses for him. I don’t want to hear them,” Will said, curling his lip in disgust.

  I sighed and sat down again, wincing as pain shot up my right side. Will was beside me in an instant.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I will be. It just hurts when I move suddenly.”

  We sat on opposite ends of the couch sipping our wine. Will switched the TV on and we watched one of the news channels. After a while, he helped me put my feet up and slipped my sandals off, settling my feet in his lap and began to massage them. I closed my eyes and relaxed. Will gave the best foot massages. I could feel the tension and pain in my body retreating to a dull ache and I let out a big sigh. My eyes suddenly shot open. The thing with Will’s foot massages was that they had always started out innocently enough, but usually ended up with me naked on top of him. My thighs clenched at the thought. Will stopped circling the balls of my feet with his thumbs and quirked an eyebrow at me. Shit. He knew my body too well. I pulled my feet away, muttering thanks and retreated to the kitchen to gather plates and cutlery for our delivery.

  He appeared beside me a moment or two later. “Here, let me get those,” he said leaning over me to pull down two plates from a cupboard above the bench. “You don’t want to stretch with those ribs.” His chest brushed my arm and I inhaled the clean, fresh peppery scent that was all Will. Despite everything that had happened that day, I was still feeling attracted to him. Oh God, I was in trouble.

  Will carried the plates and cutlery into the lounge and set them down on the coffee table. I followed and gave a little shriek as the intercom buzzed.

  “It’s okay,” Will reassured me, putting his hand on my shoulder. “It’ll just be the pizza.” He spoke through the intercom and let the pizza delivery guy up the stairs and paid him in the hallway. I only relaxed once the door was double locked again with the chain in place.

  I was still standing when he carried the pizza and salad back into the room. He put them down on the table and coaxed me into his arms.

  “It’s okay to be frightened, but I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he murmured, kissing the top of my head. I swallowed a painful lump in my throat. I was not going to cry again. He released me.

  “I don’t know about you, but I am starving,” he said.

  Between us we demolished the food; well he did really, I didn’t have much of an appetite and it hurt to swallow.

  “Jess, can I ask you something?” Will said, pausing between slices.

  “Sure,” I replied, picking at my salad.

  “Who does Colin owe money to?” he asked. “How is he financing his business expansion?”

  “I’ve been wondering that too. He keeps me out of all his business decisions,” I replied.

  “You may want to be careful with that,” Will replied. “I mean, as his wife, his personal liabilities will affect your assets too.”

  “Dad set things up for me before we married, trusts and the like, so legally I shouldn’t be compromised,” I replied.

  But that sparked a thought. I had run into a brick wall working through the company structure because there were a number of trusts involved, and trusts had no easily accessible public records. However, there had to be lawyers involved in the set-up and administration of the trusts and someone had to be doing the accounts and taking care of any tax obligations. That was the next avenue to follow.

  Chapter 23

  January 25

  “Will, I’m just going to check something, okay?”

  “Do you need a hand?” he said as he devoured his sixth slice of pizza.

  I shook my head and eased myself up off the sofa, wandered into the small study and sat down in the swivel office chair at the desk. It was an odd-shaped little room, tucked away under the eaves with only enough room for a desk, a small bookshelf and a comfortable armchair. The pine desk was from IKEA and sat beneath the only window in the room. It was dark outside, however, so I switched on the desk lamp. Colin used this room more than I did. I was only ever in here to check my email at the weekend or to pay bills. I sat for a few moments contemplating what I was about to do, justifying it to myself.

  I pulled open the file drawer on the desk and flicked through the hanging files until I found one labeled ‘Colin’. Bending over hurt, so I removed the file from the drawer and laid it on the desk. It was full of statements for his personal bank account, receipts and insurance forms from the last two and a bit years. I sorted through until I found his most recent bank statement. It had a closing balance of £500. Glancing at it, I saw no unusual transactions. The monthly salary that he drew from one of his businesses, and a regular outgoing into our joint account, which covered his share of the mortgage, utilities and food.

  I reviewed each statement going back two years. There were no unusual amounts deposited or withdrawn. I closed the file and returned it to the drawer and flicked through the rest of the file dividers. There were no company or trust documents here, though. And no detail on which law firm he might be using. It must all be kept on site at the warehouse. Movement in the doorway attracted my attention. Will stood there watching me. I must have looked guilty, because he raised an eyebrow and said, “Everything okay?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, just looking to see if I could find out who Colin owes money to.”

  “Any luck? Can I help?”

  “No, there’s nothing here other than our personal stuff,” I replied, switching off the desk lamp and returning to the lounge, curling up on the sofa, my brain whirring, trying to process. “What would he owe if it weren’t money? Perhaps he owed someone a favor?”

  Will shrugged.

  I wasn’t ready to confide my father’s investigation into Colin or my suspicions about his death to anyone, even Will, just yet. I didn’t have any real proof, just a series of unrelated events which now in
cluded this morning’s assault. Saying anything after that would only make me look paranoid or worse, nasty.

  I woke with a start a while later. I was curled up against Will on the sofa. Only the side lights were burning and dinner had been cleared away. The TV was on in the background.

  “Hey, sleepyhead, I didn’t like to wake you. Would you like me to carry you to bed? I wasn’t sure how to lift you without hurting you,” Will said.

  I snuggled against him as the events of the day came crashing back. He had his arm around me, holding me, and I felt safe. “Can I stay here a little longer?”

  “Of course. Whatever you want,” he replied.

  I shuffled around so that I was lying on my side with my head on his lap and my legs curled up on the sofa. I draped my arm over my ribs and felt tears pouring down my face. I guess it was delayed shock from the attack coming out. I pretended to watch the TV for a little while as he stroked my hair. If Will knew I was crying, he didn’t say, he just let me lie there.

  After a while I spoke again. “You know I had no chance to defend myself. He knocked me off balance when he forced his way in the door,” I said.

  “No one is suggesting that you should or could have, Jess,” Will said. He tensed. “Or is that what Colin said?”

  “No. I just always thought I would be able to protect myself in that kind of situation. Now I know I can’t necessarily and that’s very disempowering,” I explained.

  “You can’t dwell on that,” he said. “You could always install a panic button by the door that would sound an alarm, if that would make you feel better.”

  “I was thinking I should take self-defense classes.” I sat up. “I think I will go to bed.” I wandered into my bedroom and pulled my top and skirt off, dropping them in the washing hamper and pulled on my favorite tank top and PJ bottoms. I brushed my teeth and started washing my face in the bathroom. My swollen reflection looked back at me from the mirror and I began to shake. I didn’t really consider myself a vain person. Sure, I always liked to look my best, but this was hideous. I began to cry again.