Shadow of Doubt

by S L Beaumont

  There was a soft knock on the bathroom door a minute or two later. “Jess?” Will called. “Are you okay in there? Can you let me in?”

  When I didn’t answer, he cracked the door open and spoke again. “Jess? I’m coming in, okay.” When he saw my shaking body and tear-streaked face in the mirror, he gathered me into his arms and held me. “Sweetheart, it’s alright.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, trying to pull away, but this time he held firm. “I can’t seem to stop crying and I look hideous.”

  “Well, I have seen you looking better,” he replied, smiling at me in the mirror. I let out a slightly hysterical laugh.

  “Maybe this will stop your pursuit of me. I should have thought of it sooner.”

  “Or not, actually this just makes it worse. I would happily kill that bastard for doing this to you,” he said, becoming serious all of a sudden. “And I don’t care what you want to pretend, when it came down to it today, it was me that you called.”

  I looked up into his face. He held my gaze for a few seconds before leaning down and very lightly brushing my lips with his. “The cuts and bruising are temporary, you are still beautiful to me. Come on, let’s get you into bed.”

  If I was in trouble before, I was on my way to hell now. Who wouldn’t want to be told they were still beautiful, even when they looked like they’d been the victim of a car accident?

  “Stay with me?” I asked as I slid under the duvet.

  He nodded. “Let me just turn everything off.” He disappeared and I could hear him moving around. He returned to the bedroom a few minutes later and sat down on the edge of the bed and removed his shoes.

  “You sure? I can just sleep on the couch tonight,” he offered.

  “No,” I replied, shaking my head. I watched him remove his jeans and shirt, folding them on top of his neatly placed shoes. Wearing boxers and a white t-shirt, he climbed in behind me and eased me into his arms. I closed my eyes and slept.

  Sometime before dawn, I woke with a start and bolted upright, almost passing out from the pain in my side. Memories of the day before came crashing back in.

  “Hey,” Will said, his voice deep and husky with sleep.

  “Mmm…” I wasn’t the most coherent person in the morning, at the best of times. I eased myself out of bed and used the bathroom. I crawled back into his waiting arms and lay with my head on his chest. “Thank you for staying.”

  “My pleasure,” he murmured, running his hand up and down my back and then over my hip. I arched into his touch and pushed a hand under his t-shirt and began stroking his chest.

  “Careful, Jess,” he cautioned. I tipped my head back to look at him and was met with his mouth on mine. Gentle brushes of his lips at first, but when I opened mine beneath his, he took control, sweeping his tongue into my mouth. I couldn’t help but respond. God, I had so missed his kisses. Then ouch, I pulled away as his teeth bumped the swelling on the side of my lip.

  “Sorry, Jess. I got a little carried away,” he apologized as he flopped onto his back.

  “Yeah, this isn’t the time or the place,” I agreed, climbing out of bed. “Coffee?”

  “Yeah, that’d be good,” he said.

  I padded out to the kitchen, needing to put some distance between us and got busy making the coffee. I had just finished frothing the milk when Will walked into the kitchen, fully dressed in his clothes from the previous day. He sat at the little table by the window and watched me pour the milk onto the espresso shots. I handed him a cup and sat down opposite with mine.

  “Come and stay with me for the rest of the week,” he offered.

  I shook my head. “No, I’ll be fine here.”

  “You didn’t sound fine last night.”

  “I know, but in the cold light of day, I feel much better.”

  Will nodded. “Are we going to talk about us or are you going to ignore what just happened?”

  I looked down at my coffee. “Will, I need you to give me some time. I’m going to leave him. I just need to sort a couple of things out first.”

  Will reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Let me help.”

  “No, I have to do this on my own.”

  He sighed, resigned. “Okay, but you must promise me that you will call if you need anything. I mean it, anything.”

  “I will.”

  Chapter 24

  January 28

  I laid low for the rest of the week, while the bruising on my face went from black to purple to green and my ribs and the cut on my forehead stopped throbbing. I cancelled the appointments that I’d made to view flats as I figured it wouldn’t be a good look to potential landlords to turn up looking as I did. Rachel and Marie dropped by on Wednesday night for a couple of hours with Jimmy and Dave in tow. Not such a great idea as it turned out. I laughed so hard at their attempts to cheer me up, that my ribs hurt more than they had all week, but I appreciated their efforts. By Thursday night, I was pacing backwards and forwards across the lounge waiting for Colin to arrive home from the States.

  He let himself in, dropping his bags in the hall. Hearing the keys in the door had put me on alert and I stood waiting with the phone in my hand, ready to call the police if it wasn’t him. He frowned at me and gave me an awkward hug.

  “Ooh, careful. Cracked ribs, remember?” I said.

  Colin pulled back, studied my face and grimaced. “You look awful, Jess.”

  I opened and closed my mouth, unsure that I had heard him correctly. “Ah thanks, good to see you too. So tell me, who do you owe something to?” I ground out the words.

  He pulled a face and looked thoughtful. “No one that I can think of, maybe they had the wrong flat?” he suggested. It had taken him four days and 5,000 km to come up with that one?

  “So it was just a coincidence that he was looking for someone named Colin,” I spat back.

  He shrugged and I knew he was hiding something. I was beginning to think that my father had been onto something after all. What, I didn’t know, but I sure as hell intended finding out.

  Chapter 25

  January 29

  Watery winter sunshine filtered through the lounge window as I sat down with my laptop and morning coffee, and pulled up the scan of the documents that I’d sent to my personal email account. I needed something to focus on other than myself and with everything that had happened over the last few weeks, I hadn’t had a chance to look into the Mendelson government contract any further.

  Sitting cross-legged on the sofa, I started reading the document. Mendelson were contracted to supply a number of weapons in varying quantities. The contract was slow going, full of legal jargon and I was about to put it down when an exclusivity clause caught my eye. I continued reading. Mendelson had agreed to produce the SA80a2 rifle exclusively for the British Army.

  I continued reading through the rest of the contract, even the appendices. I was about to close the file when I realized that I’d scanned an additional page. A delivery docket from Mendelson’s factory near Glasgow to the army base in the Highlands filled the screen. Where had Dad found that? I sucked in a breath as I read the name of the delivery firm, Loch Freight Logistics International.

  My phone rang just as I was closing down my laptop. It was Colin. “I’m going to be late tonight. A couple of the lads are down from Strathgarvan for the weekend, so I’m going out for a beer with them.”

  “Okay, I won’t wait up.”

  “Gotta go, I have several meetings offsite with potential clients this afternoon.”

  As I hung up a plan formed in my mind.

  I caught the tube to Monument and walked through the underground tunnels to connect with the DLR, alighting at Devon Road and jumping on a bus down to Limehouse Cut. It was daylight this time and I found Colin’s new complex in no time. It was really just a glorified warehouse with a suite of offices on an upstairs mezzanine level. I announced myself using the intercom attached to the side of the main entrance and heard the buzz as the door lock released. Once ins
ide I found myself in a cavernous space with a large number of pallets and boxes stacked in high towers all around. The whir of an engine getting closer caught my attention and a forklift came into view. Its driver, wearing earmuffs, figuratively tipped his hat to me before disappearing down a row of boxes.

  “Jess, this way,” Kathleen, Colin’s office manager called from above. I made my way across the floor and climbed the stairs to meet her.

  “Ooh, that looks sore,” she said, peering at my face.

  “You should see the other guy,” I quipped.

  She smirked at my lame attempt at humor. “Colin’s not here.” Kathleen was an attractive blonde in her late twenties, meticulously good at her job, according to Colin, with a sharp enough tongue to keep all of the mainly men around her in their place. I had met her on occasion and liked her.

  “Oh,” I said, trying to look disappointed. “I thought I would surprise him. He’s been wanting to show me the new set-up. Is he due back soon?”

  Kathleen looked at her watch. “Should be within the hour.”

  “Do you mind if I wait?” I asked.

  “Be my guest,” she said, leading me through a doorway into an open plan office with four workstations. A closed door at one end had a plaque with Colin’s name stuck to it. “Sarah’s off sick and Emma’s on leave, so it’s just me. Sit wherever you like.”

  I dropped my bag on the floor beside Sarah’s desk. “Do you mind if I turn her computer on? There are a couple of things that I might as well Google while I’m waiting,” I asked.

  “Knock yourself out,” Kathleen replied as she gathered up a stack of envelopes from her desk. “Right, I’m off to post these, shouldn’t be long,” she said, pulling her jacket on.

  “Okay,” I replied bringing up a food website on Sarah’s computer. I also clicked open the icon for the L-FLI booking system. As soon as Kathleen closed the door, I opened Sarah’s top drawer. Hopefully she kept her logons and passwords written down somewhere. Sure enough, a little notebook contained everything that I needed and within a few seconds I had logged in.

  I took a deep steadying breath and tried to familiarize myself with the system. It seemed that customers made all of their bookings online, so I did a search on Mendelson. Within seconds, the factory address and contact details were displayed on the screen. A button took me to their orders. I searched for delivery dates for the previous month. Sure enough, there were two deliveries made in December. I opened the first. The delivery address was for an army base near Inverness and the schedules attached listed the items being delivered. I would need to check it against the contract. The second delivery docket was for two hundred units of SA800a2 semi-automatic rifles but didn’t have a delivery address. I clicked print on each order. Across the room the printer whirred to life but it didn’t print anything. I glanced at the clock on the wall. Kathleen had been gone ten minutes already. If this didn’t print soon, I’d have to cancel it. I repeated the process for November, again there were two deliveries, one to the army and one to the L-FLI base here in London. Where were they going from here? A sudden thought hit me. If Mendelson had an exclusive contract with the British army then what was L-FLI doing with the surplus? Selling them? My breath stilled. That would be arms dealing. I shook my head in an attempt to dislodge the thought. No way. I had a few suspicions about Colin, but not that, surely?

  I knew that I didn’t have long until Kathleen returned, so I logged into my email account and sent myself a message, attaching a copy of each of the orders. I watched as the screen icon showed each file being transferred. Come on. It was taking too long.

  The ‘file attached successfully’ message had just popped up on screen when I heard voices and the click of Kathleen’s heels on the stairs. At the same time, the printer decided to come to life and started spitting out pages. Shit, shit, shit. I pressed send on my email and closed down the booking system. I clicked back into the cuisine site, maximizing it to full screen, opened the first recipe and clicked print. The door swung open and Kathleen walked back in.

  “No queue for once,” she said dropping her bag on her desk.

  The printer continued to spew pages. We both glanced at it.

  “Just printing a couple of recipes,” I said, standing and walking over to the printer. I put myself between Kathleen and the printer and gathered the pages that had printed, just as the printer started beeping. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “It needs paper,” Kathleen said, starting to walk over. I spotted a ream of paper lying half open on the bench beside the printer. I almost pounced on it.

  “It’s okay, I can do it,” I said. As I opened the printer drawer to add a stack of paper, I saw that my hands were shaking. I hoped that Kathleen hadn’t noticed. The printer started printing again, page 7 of 12. Come on, come on. I glanced over my shoulder; she was sitting back at her desk, tapping away on her keyboard. I spied an A4 sized envelope on a shelf below the printer and slid my printouts inside.

  The recipe finally printed and I added it to the envelope and hurried back to Sarah’s desk. I slid the envelope into my bag.

  “That’s a few recipes,” Kathleen commented.

  “Yeah, well Colin’s always complaining what a crap cook I am, so I thought I’d try to surprise him with something new,” I said with a self-deprecating laugh.

  I glanced at my watch. I just wanted to get away from the warehouse, but I couldn’t exactly leave when I had said that I was there to see Colin. I sat back down at Sarah’s computer, logged out of my email account and pretended to surf the Internet, my heart beat slowing, but my hands still shaking. I kept looking at my bag, which now felt like it had a bomb in it. How would I explain its contents to Colin if he looked? I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Then again, why would he look in my bag?

  There was a commotion in the hallway outside the office and Colin burst in. He looked surprised and, I could have sworn, a little unsettled to see me.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “Well, I got bored at home and I thought since I didn’t get the tour the other night, that I would come over and surprise you,” I replied, smiling at him.

  He continued to frown. “Okay then, let me just put this stuff down,” he said. As a last thought I deleted the activity history from Sarah’s computer and shut it down. If Kathleen thought I was acting strangely, she didn’t show it.

  Colin showed me through the office suite, meeting and staff rooms before taking me down into the warehouse, explaining that the boxes here were mainly items waiting to be transported around the country the next day in the fleet of vans and trucks that were parked in the large gated parking space adjacent to the building. Several vans were parked inside the warehouse and were being loaded as we watched. My gaze shifted towards movement through the open roller doors at the end of the warehouse leading into the adjacent parking area and the sea of white vans and trucks with their distinctive L-FLI red and black logos. A black SUV pulled up near the entrance. I did a double take as I registered its license plate. The last three digits were 692, the same as in the photo that Emily had sent from the security cameras of the building next to my father’s law firm. That couldn’t be a coincidence. I gulped.

  “Whose vehicle is that?” I asked trying to sound casual. “It breaks the white van mold.”

  “Looks like the lads from Strathgarvan have arrived,” Colin said, following my gaze.

  I could scarcely breathe as the doors of the SUV opened and two men climbed out. Were these the same two people who visited my father before his death? One was tall and muscular, with a shaved head and a black goatee beard, the other was short and stocky with small round glasses. Colin strode towards them and embraced each man in turn, slapping them on the back.

  “All set?” he asked them.

  “Yeah,” the taller of the two replied, glancing at me.

  “This is my wife Jessica,” Colin said.

  Both men gave me a chin raise acknowledgement.

  C
olin turned to me. “Well, Kathleen will show you out and I need to show these boys some London hospitality. Don’t wait up.” Colin turned his back, threw an arm around each of the men’s shoulders and walked away from me towards the SUV.

  “Ya, ready then?” I jumped. I hadn’t heard Kathleen approach.

  “I guess I am,” I said with a final glance at Colin and his friends.

  Kathleen led me to a side door. She pressed a door release button and pushed the door open, stepping through and holding it for me.

  “I’ll see you again soon, Jess,” she said as a gust of wind pulled the door from her hand and it slammed shut. “Damn it.”

  I watched as she keyed a six-digit code into the keypad beside the door, 200192. The door opened and Kathleen disappeared inside. I turned and walked away. Trust Colin to use his birth date.

  Chapter 26

  January 29

  I called into work on my way home and transferred the emailed files to a flash drive deleting all record of them from my email account.

  Not for the first time, I wished Dad was around to talk to. I considered calling Will several times, but something stopped me. If my conclusions were correct, and Colin was using his freight business for illegal weapons trafficking, then I probably shouldn’t voice that over a telephone line. Was that the conclusion that my father had arrived at? Was that why he was killed? I was due to have lunch with Will the next day, so I decided to wait until then to talk to him. This wasn’t going anywhere, right?

  I was just packing up, locking the printouts in my desk drawer and slipping the flash drive into my bag, when I heard the elevator ping. I looked up to see my head of department crossing the floor towards me with a big smile on his round face.

  “Jess,” he boomed. “I’m glad you’re here, saves me a phone call. You’re looking a lot better than I expected.”