Hidden (14 page)

‘I see.  Still, it’s done now.  Harry’s practically finished the alarm so there’s no point in stopping him.’

‘No, I suppose not.  And thanks for trying to help, even if it was unnecessary.’ She walked past him down the steps to her flat, taking care not to brush against him as she went by.  And that was easier said than done because with his massive girth he pretty much blocked the narrow gate.  At the front door there was a stranger replacing broken glass whom she greeted with a perfunctory smile as she passed and, avoiding another man at work in the hall –Harry, no doubt- she made her way into the sitting-room.  She threw her coat and bag, along with Grainne’s file and the bunch of flowers, onto the sofa and turned to face Peter, who had followed her into the room and was looking at her uncomfortably.

Kate knew she was being a bitch and hated herself fo
r doing it but she knew that she couldn’t let him get even a toehold back in her life.  If she did she might not have the strength to push him back out again; once had been hard enough, twice might be impossible.  So she forced herself to say coldly, ‘I’m sorry for being so ratty, Peter, but it’s been over between us for some time now and I don’t like you interfering in my affairs.  And I don’t like the thought of you and Trevor discussing me behind my back.  What else did he say about me?’

He looked surprised
and protested, ‘Come off it, Kate, I knew Trevor before I knew you!  Hell, I knew him before
you
did, back in school.  I talk to him all the time, but not about you.  When I arrived back in Ireland of course I rang him.  Did you really think he wouldn’t mention that you’re working for him now?  Or that you were burgled last night?  What’s the matter with you?’

She sat on the couch and tiredly closed her eyes, ‘Sorry, I suppose I’m being paranoid.  And I forgot
that you and Trev were in school together.  I know it’s early but it’s still been a long day.  And I didn’t sleep much last night.’

His face softened and he sat on the couch beside her, gently touching her hand, ‘That’s okay.  It must ha
ve been awful for you to come home and find you’d been robbed.  And you never were very good at handling stress
,
were you?’

She opened her eyes long enough to glare
murderously at him but he just laughed and said, ‘I’ll deal with Harry and the window guy.  You sit here and rest, and when they’re gone I’ll make you a coffee.’

Oh well
, at least he didn’t offer me a nice cup of tea. 
She closed her eyes again and felt the whole sofa move as he lifted his massive bulk off it and left the room.  His sheer size was, of course, one of the problems; when things went wrong –and they always seemed to- it was tempting to simply rest her head against one of his broad shoulders and let him deal with it.  And what
that,
and her attraction to one of his size, said about her father issues she preferred not to think.  And of course he knew how her innate strength seesawed against the weakness planted in her by her abusive childhood, because he knew her better than anyone.  Better than she knew herself?  Possibly.  And that was one of the reasons it was so important not to get involved with him again.

They had known each other slightly in Ireland, through Trevor, but although both had felt an instant attraction for the other
when they first met neither had mentioned or acted upon it.  It was only when they had bumped into each other a couple of years later in a pub in Oxford that they had hooked up.

After Kate had graduated she had been desperate for a job
-any
job- that would give her the five years in a public hospital she needed before being allowed to obtain her Ph. D.  In the end lack of opportunities had forced her to leave Ireland and take a position at the Oxford Mental Health Institute, far from her friends and family.  After two years of more-or-less unrelieved loneliness, working in a highly stressful environment, she had been delighted to see a friendly, familiar face from the past and had practically fallen into his arms.  What he was doing in Oxford was less clear, as he only told her that he was working on a refurbishment project in one of the colleges.  In fact, Kate had never been entirely clear exactly what he
did
for a living.  He had told her right at the beginning that he was an estimator for a big building firm, but that had meant absolutely nothing to Kate, and his subsequent attempts to describe his job hadn’t made matters much clearer.  But that hadn’t mattered; they had simply clicked together right from the start, and within days they were inseparable, within weeks living together.  Before Peter the longest relationship she had ever been in had lasted only four months, and that had been with Trevor Jordan.  With Peter it had been different.  In the beginning she had been madly, dizzily infatuated with him, but when the first wild excitement had worn off she had not ended the affair, as so often before.  Instead a deeper attachment had formed, and as well as her lover he had become her best friend.  Kate had never been able to bear even the
idea
of a long-term relationship, but with Peter there had been no sense of commitment, no sense of
this is the man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. 
Instead he had just slowly and easily become as much a part of her life as the color of her hair.  Occasionally she had panicked and tried to end things, feeling they were getting too serious, but somehow he had always won her back by the very casualness of his approach.  And he had learned early on never to mention the future, and to avoid words like forever.

Even after the incident with Arthur Straub they had stayed together
.  In fact, for a while it had brought them even closer, if that were possible.  When Kate had decided she wanted to get away from everything, to bury herself in the countryside and try to write, Peter had made no protest, but had quietly packed up and gone with her.  By that stage she had finished work at the Oxford asylum and completed her Ph. D. and after what had happened with Straub she knew she couldn’t go back to her police consultancy work.  And it had always been in the back of her mind that she one day wanted to write.  They had moved to a remote part of Dorset and for a while things had been better than ever, even though Peter had been forced to give up his job.  He hadn’t complained, though, and had set up his own little building company in a nearby town with the same quiet assurance with which he did everything.  He had done pretty well, too, and when her books had become successful
their future had seemed secure.  And yet that was when things had started falling apart.  Out of the blue -in her eyes, at least, though they had been together almost six years by then- Peter had asked her to marry him, and she had instantly rejected his offer. 
Instantly,
without even considering it.  He had been hurt and angry at her refusal, which in turn had angered Kate.  In her view everything had been just fine, and she had seen no reason to alter their situation.  Besides, she felt that he had no right to be angry, that he had no right to expect more from her than she was willing to give.

Peter had seen things differently, if just as simply. 
They loved each other; he wanted to marry her.  He wanted them to settle down and -a thought which filled her with panic- have a family together.  They had had not one but a series of furious rows, which had culminated in her ending things.  He had not taken her seriously at first, had thought that they would get back together a few days later, when their mutual anger had faded.  After all, this was what had happened before, after other fights.  But this time Kate had irrevocably made up her mind and had moved out of the flat they shared.  She could not and would not be owned, and the more he persisted the more determined she had become to banish him
from her life forever.

Even after he had
realized that she was serious this time he still had not given up, insisting that they were meant to be together, and that he would not let her let her throw away their relationship.  Even after she had returned to Ireland he had continued to ring her and had even come over twice, refusing to admit that things were over.  He even tried to blame
her
for their split-up, saying that it was her fear of commitment that had caused her to run, and even claiming that she still loved him but was simply afraid to admit it.  All
these things were reasons why she couldn’t afford to give him
a toehold back in her life now.  It had been eight months since their break-up, and six months since her return to Ireland, and he
still
was not totally gone from her life; how long would it take
to be free of him
i
f she now weakened even once?

How long she sat on the couch she didn’t know but she must have dozed off, for the next thing she was aware of was Peter shaking her gently awake, a steaming mug of coffee in one hand.  And it was dark outside the window as well as in the gloomy room.

‘Here you go, love,’ he said softly, as soon as he was sure she was fully awake.  ‘Get that down you.’

Unreasonably, and unexpectedly, tears flooded her ey
es. To cover them, and the accompanying confusion, she took a deep drink from the mug, forgetting that he always served it scalding hot.  The pain that instantly flooded her burnt mouth cleared her mind, and gave her an excuse for the inexplicable tears.

‘Oh shit, that’s
hot!’
she gasped breathlessly, her face screwed up in pain.

The look of self-reproach on his face was almost comical as he said, ‘
Oh shit, Kate, I’m sorry!  I should have warned you it was hot!  Are you okay?’

Kate couldn’t face his concern, wasn’t able for it, so she waved her hand dismissively, ‘I’m fine, honestly.  How long have I been asleep?’

‘About an hour.  The workmen are all gone, by the way, and this place is as secure as it’ll ever be.  I got Harry to put in the loudest alarm in the world so you needn’t worry about another break-in.’  He grinned, ‘It’s loud enough to summon dead policemen, never mind the living.’

She smiled back involuntarily and for a fleeting moment felt a return of some of their old intimacy.  But luckily she was able to quickly stifle it.

He might have been a builder rather than a psychologist but he had always been able to read her like a book, and now he saw the change in her expression and sighed, ‘Do you really hate me so much?’

Fresh
tears threatened to spill over and she had to keep her voice harsh to hide the emotion in it, ‘I don’t hate you, Peter, you
know
I don’t.  I just don’t want to be with you anymore.’

‘I’ve come to
realise that,’ he said dryly, ‘Even a thicko like me will get the message eventually, if it’s beaten into his head long enough.’

There was a long silence and then he said softly, ‘It’s still good to see you again, though.’

‘Stop
it!’ she said wearily, putting her mug down onto the occasional table hard enough to slop half its contents onto the polished surface.

He recoiled
as if slapped and said angrily, ‘Stop
what? 
I only said it was good to see you again!’

‘Yes,’ she said through frozen lips, unable to look at him lest her resolve faltered, ‘And that’s just it.  You’re
always
seeing me again.  Why can’t you just accept that things are over between us and move on?’

‘I have,’ he said simply but wit
h dignity, his face unreadable in the near darkness, ‘I’m not here to try and win you back.’

‘No
?’ she sneered, hating herself for doing it but somehow compelled to provoke him.

A harsh note entered his
voice as he retorted, ‘No.  I came here to do you a favour, as a friend, to prevent you from being robbed again.  And maybe hurt next time.  I would have done the same for any of my friends and I’d expect you to know that about me.’

She did,
but she couldn’t help replying snidely, ‘Dorset’s a long way to come to do a friend a favor.  Or did you just
happen
to be in Ireland?’

He looked at her a
s if she had lost her mind, anger darkening his face. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.  I’m not over to see you, I’m here because...’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Oh, never mind.  Just believe me when I tell you that my being in Ireland has nothing to do with you.  Okay?  You seem to have forgotten that all my family and most of my friends are here.  And before your paranoia runs amok, I rang Trevor today to invite him out for a pint, not to pry into your affairs.  He told me what had happened so I came around to try and help you out.  Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.’

He spoke stiffly but she could see
the pain in his eyes.  A deep pain she wrongly assumed was because of her.  So she said, ‘I’m sorry, Pete, I don’t mean to be a bitch.  I just want things to be clear between us.’  She closed her eyes, instantly hating herself for weakening at all. 
I should have just told him to get the hell out!  If he looks at me like that one more time I’m going to cry, and I’ll never forgive myself for that.

But he did not look at her at all.  Instead he looked out the window into the darkness beyond.  After what seemed a very long time he said simply, ‘One of the reasons I came
here today was to tell you that I finally got the message.  No more phone calls.  No more letters.  No more visits.  Nothing.  You’ve finally convinced me to let go.’