Part 31 (1/2)

'Stevie, I'm sorry, I just don't have anywhere else to turn.' He was walking up and down in front of her, overdosed with nervous energy.

'Matthew, sit down, please. Start from the beginning.'

'I don't know where the beginning of this mess is. I've been sacked. Jo's left me. I came home today and all her stuff had gone. I don't know what to do.'

Stevie gulped. Jo had left him. Would she try to come back to Adam then? Would she walk straight back into that soft, forgiving part of his heart that was forever reserved for her? Stevie felt panicky and wanted to go back to the cottage. She stood up to go, but then Matthew started to make strange groaning noises and she knew she couldn't leave him.

'Why have you been sacked, Matthew?'

'For hara.s.sing Jo. Yes, don't look at me like that. I know what you're going to say.'

'I don't understand.'

'I think Jo has been spreading stories at work that I've been hitting her.'

'You hitting her?' Anyone who knew Matthew wouldn't believe that, surely. Then again, people judged on hearsaywasn't she herself testament to that?

'It gets worse. I'm also, apparently, a s.e.xual predator.'

'Why would she say things like that?'

'I think she got the idea that I had more money than I actually have.' He looked s.h.i.+fty at that point. 'When she found out I was broke, things changed. She started...Oh G.o.d! That's why!'

Matthew slapped his forehead as the realization of what all that rough s.e.x was about hit him like a bullet to the brain. The bruises! That was why she wanted him to bite her. How thick was he not to have seen it?

'What, Matthew?'

'She started asking me for...' What a k.n.o.b I am!

'For what?'

Matthew blanched. This really wasn't the sort of thing Stevie should hear. But he was desperate, and to get the right sort of help, he needed to tell her everything. Just as if she was a sort of heart bank manager in the mould of Robert.

'Rough s.e.x. She wanted me to hurt her.'

Stevie s.h.i.+fted a little uncomfortably. It felt weird, listening to details of his intimacies with someone else. She couldn't tell if it hurt; her feelings were too mixed-up to pick out any pure emotions.

'And did you?'

'No, of course not! Although...'

'What?' she encouraged eventually, after no details were forthcoming.

'I gave her a love bite, here'he indicated the place on his own chest'it looked pretty nasty. But it wasn't a real bite. And we both got a few bruises from banging into walls and falling off the bed and things. I'm not into that pain stuff, as you know.'

'But why tell all those lies? Why didn't she just leave you?' asked Stevie, steering the conversation away from the history of their own s.e.x-life.

'I don't know.'

Unless she had a new lover. Wasn't that what she had done to Adam? Invent cuts and bruises to get the new sucker onside? thought Stevie, in full-on Miss Marple mode.

'What are you thinking?' said Matthew. He was half-talking, half-hiccuping like Danny did when he was upset.

'Have you tried ringing her?'

'She's not answering.'

'No, she wouldn't,' Stevie said, sourly.

'I've just secured my house against my job. I'll lose everything.'

'Why have you done that?'

Matthew sighed and prepared to sacrifice a big chunk of pride.

'I've got no money, Stevie. No, actually, I've got minus no money. I'm up to my neck in debt.'

And so you took Jo on holiday. With my son's holiday money, Stevie thought, but she didn't say it aloud. However much he might have deserved it, she couldn't kick Matt when he was down. And he was about as down as you could get, by the look of things.

'Please stay with me for a bit longer,' he said, as she looked eagerly across the road and saw a light switch off. 'Just ten minutes. Stevie, I've been so stupid. I'm not even sure she was telling the truth about Adam now. Maybe he didn't hit her or do all those things she said he did.'

'I'm quite positive she lied,' said Stevie. 'He's a good man.'

'Can I make you a coffee?' he said, noticing the wistfulness in her voice and therefore changing the subject. He did not want to know how good Adam MacLean was, because Matthew didn't feel like a very good man himself.

'Just a quick one then,' said Stevie, who didn't want one, but couldn't bear to see someone so lost. Matthew had a long sleepless lonely night in front of him; ten more minutes in his company wouldn't kill her.

'You can help me, Stevie. I hate to ask but you are the only one who could.'

'In what way?' she asked cautiously, in case he wanted her to be some intermediary between him and b.i.t.c.hface.

'Can you tell them at work that I'm not violent?' he snuffled. 'I'll never work again if they think I'm a s.e.xual predator. I can't stand it that people are thinking that about me.'

And because Stevie had once been accused of apple scrumping at school and couldn't bear to see injustice, she said that she would.

When she went back to the cottage, only one light was on and Adam had gone to bed. She knocked gently on his door, but he was obviously asleep and didn't answer.

His plan had worked, after all. Jo was free. There was nothing stopping him going to her.

Stevie didn't think she could bear it.

Adam was awake, tracing the sounds of her footsteps up the stairs, her soft knock on his bedroom door, and he wanted so much to say, 'I'm here, come into my room. Come into my bed,' but he didn't answer. So it looked as if his plan had worked, after all. Matthew was free and with one click of his fingers, he had managed to get her over the road again. She had leapt out of Adam's arms to go to him. The sand in his hourgla.s.s had run out. Matthew was free. There was nothing stopping her going back to him.

Adam didn't think he could bear it.