Guilty Love (Completed)

Chapter Twenty'Six

"Ritchie! He's coming out?" she whispered, suddenly so cold that she was shivering convulsively. "But.... He got three years!"

It was a year and a half since she last saw Ritchie Calhoun -- in a stuffy courtroom, on a day in early summer, all the windows wide open and a brass fan turning on the ceiling above the well of the court, yet the air still humid, heavy with the scent of white lilac growing outside in the formal garden surrounding the building.

She could remember every detail, she had tried never to think about those days in court yet in her dreams she often found herself back there, reliving the agony of telling all those strangers what had happened, the inner secrets of her private life, things she had never told anyone before.

It had been painful to admit to Barty's moods, his drinking, his violence -- to talk in open court about her lost baby, Barty's impotence and how he had felt about that. She hadn't wanted to answer many of the questions, but Ritchie's defence counsel had forced the answer out of her.

She had kept her eyes fixed on the lawyers questioning her, never moving her gaze towards the man in the dock, except once, early on in her evidence, when she was asked to look at him and identify him. She had given him a swift, blind look, not meeting his eyes, then looked away. Given a nod. Yes, that was him.

After that she hadn't looked at him again, but throughout that long ordeal she could feel his gaze fixed on her. He had never once looked away. Insistently, relentlessly, he had stared at her, and despite the heat of the weather she had been icily chill and had kept shivering. Once or twice she had almost fainted, a glass of water had been offered to her, and she had been allowed to sit down to finish her evidence.

She was in court to hear the sentence. Aunt Ella had suggested they leave first, but Linzi had to stay. She could not have left without knowing what was going to happen to him. When the sentence was announced, she had turned paler than the prisoner himself and swayed, her eyes almost closing.

Three years in prison! Three years out of his life!

    Aunt Ella had taken her out then. As they got up to leave, she had felt Ritchie watching, felt him willing her to look at him. Her eyes had been drawn towards him like a magnet turning to the north. Across the room their eyes had met, she could remember it as if it had happened yesterday, the brass fan whirring overhead, the hushed whispering from the people in the public seats, Ritchie's dark, mesmeric eyes staring into hers, piercing her to the heart.

She had felt the strangest sensation of confusion. The rest of the people in the room had vanished, fallen away. For a moment, she was alone with Ritchie, fixed by his gaze, she was drowning in a rush of guilt, shame and regret, as if she was the one who should be standing in the dock, should be facing punishment. All of this was her fault and Ritchie was being punished in her place.

Aunt Ella had led her out, an arm around her, but Ritchie had gone with her, in her head and however hard she tried to evict him he had been there, ever since. She looked at Megan with distraught eyes. "He's only served eighteen months -- they wouldn't release him yet, surely!"

Megan said flatly, "These days, people don't usually serve their full term, and Ritchie's been a model prisoner. He's up for parole this week and if they grant it he'll be let out at once."

It hadn't occurred to Linzi that he might get out early,  her mouth was ash-dry. She took a long drink of cider, trying to think about the implications of what Megan had told her.

"At once?" she whispered.

Megan nodded. Her voice low, she muttered, "Linzi, you know as soon as he is out he is going to come looking for you, don't you?"

Linzi's blue eyes dilated, their pupil glittering, black as sloes. "He won't!"

Megan gave her a wry glance. "Ted says he's getting a private detective to look for you."
Linzi's nerves jumped. "A detective?" She was appalled. "Megan, don't tell him where I am! Promise you won't, Megan! Don't tell anyone, not even Ted!"

There was disapproval in Megan's face, her voice cooled. "Don't you think you owe it to Ritchie to see him?"

"I can't! Linzi said wildly, getting up. "I'm sorry, but I can't."

She walked towards the exit and Megan followed her, caught up with her in the busy high street. She put a hand on Linzi's arm, forcing her to stop as she hurried along the pavement.

"I won't tell him, if you don't want me to!" she promised, and Linzi relaxed. Watching her face, Megan sighed, "But I'm warning you, Ted says Ritchie is obsessed with finding you, I don't think he'll stop looking until he does, Linzi, he has paid a terrible price for trying to save your life..... why won't you see him?"

Linzi looked at her with disbelief. "Isn't it obvious? Whatever the reason... he killed my husband! Do you really expect me to shrug and say "Well,  let bygones be bygones?"

It was almost an accident, though!" protested Megan. "And if it hadn't been for you, Ritchie would have spent the last two years as a free man. Ted says he's changed a lot. He was always quite tough, but now he's hard, almost bitter. Prison hasn't been easy for him."

Linzi bent her head, her fine hair flowing down against her pale skin. "No, I don't suppose it was."

They walked along towards the antiques shop and halted outside. Megan gave her a sideways look, then tentatively said, "Ted thinks Ritchie's angry because you gave evidence against him..."

"I had to!"

"I know, but he seemed to feel you had turned against him. You never visited him, wouldn't see him, you disappeared and nobody knew where you'd gone. Over the months while Ted's been visiting him, Ritchie has changed, grown very moody. He talks about you a lot, Ted think he broods over you when he's alone, that he was expecting you to visit him in prison, stand by him. He took it badly when you went away."

There was the echo of a question mark against the last remark. Linzi sensed a dammed-up curiosity in Megan. It didn't suprise her. During the trial it had been only too clear that many people thought there was a lot that hadn't come out, hadn't been said. People had stared at her, whispered, everywhere she went, wondering exactly what her relationship with Ritchie had been, whether they had been secret lovers, whether her husband haf found out, whether that was why he had attacked her, why Ritchie had killed him.

During the days of the trial she had been followed everywhere by reporters, flashlights exploding in her face as she walked along streets, men trying to grab her, jostling around her, firing off questions that made her wince and flush and tremble. They had no pity, her obvious shock and dismay had only made them pursue her the more relentlessly, like sharks scenting blood.

Hints had been dropped to her by reporters, slyly implying that she and Ritchie might have wanted Barty dead, out of their way. Nobody had dared print that, for fear of a libel suit, but Linzi had not been left in any doubt about the gossip and innuendo circulating. Nobody seemed to want to believe that there had been no love-affair between her and Ritchie, and she had resented that, she still did.

Sometimes she Shook with anger when she thought about some of the things people had said. One reporter had actually told her, "People will say there's no smoke without fire, you know. Talk to me and I'll put your side of it!" And the worst part of that was that although she had never had an affair with Ritchie there was still a spark hidden in all that smoke. In a way that made it harder. She had fought her secret attraction towards Ritchie and won -- but she had still been condemned for it, punished for it. That was what was so bitterly unfair.