Guilty Love (Completed)

Chapter Twenty'Seven

"Visit him?" she said fiercely now, to Megan. "Me, visit him in prison? If he thought I would, he's out of his mind. He killed Barty!"

"But he didn't mean to, Linzi!" Megan said earnestly. "He was trying to save your life! He walked in and saw your husband strangling you and just picked up the nearest thing and hit him with it. It was a reflex action. An accident, almost. He didn't intend to kill Barty!"

"But he did!" Linzi muttered. "Oh, I know what you all thought! But it wasn't true, there was nothing between me and Ritchie Calhoun. I just worked for him. We were never lovers. I loved my husband, and Ritchie killed him! Visit him in prison? I never want to see him again!"

"That's very unfair," Megan protested indignantly. "Poor Ritchie, aren't you sorry for him? After all he's gone through? He's a wonderful boss and a good friend, and let me tell you.... I never believed all that gossip about you and Ritchie in the first place! I know both of you, and I knew it was a lies. I know how loyal you were to your husband. I remember the way he got drunk at our party. Everyone knew he was a drinker, and felt sorry for you, but I saw you were still very fond of your husband. But honestly, Linzi! Being faithful is one thing -- pretending he wasn't actually trying to kill you is behaving like an ostrich!"

"No!" Linzi put her hands over her ears to shut out the quiet voice.

"Linzi, the medical evidence was too strong -- you can't deny it!"

"Barty grabbed me by the throat, but he wouldn't have killed me, he'd have stopped of his own accord, he always had before! Ritchie didn't need to hit him so hard!"

Megan made a soft sound of horror and pity. "He always had before? My God, Linzi, how often had it happened? How often had he almost killed you? And you go on saying he loved you!"

Her small face stubborn, Linzi huskily said, "Barty loved me, Megan. If you'd known him when we were young! He was warm and tender and loving, a wonderful friend, great fun to be with, and a wonderful husband, too. Then all that changed after his accident. Ok, he could be violent, at times I think he almost hated me, because I was fine and his life had been blasted, but I never doubted that underneath all that, he still loved me."

Megan had listened intently. "You're very loyal, and I admire that," she slowly said. "I hope I'd be as loyal to my Ted, if it happened to us, God forbid. Ok, I won't say another word. But Ritchie is going to keep looking until he finds you, dear, so if you really don't want to see him again perhaps you had better move on? Because from what Ted says this obsession of his is worrying. I wouldn't want you to get hurt again."

Linzi gave her a wide-eyed, shaken look.

Megan shrugged. "Think about it." She glanced at her watch. "I'd better go, I have to be back before my brother-in-law gets back from hospital. Look, give me your number. I'll get in touch the minute I have any news."

"Thank you, Megan," Linzi said huskily.

Megan gave her a warm hug and then she was gone. Linzi walked slowly back to the antiques shop, her brain buzzing with shock. Ritchie might soon be out of prison, a free man again. But she wouldn't be free. She had been in prison ever since the day Barty was killed, shut out of life, behind bars nobody could see, and she was still imprisoned, without hope of a parole.

The events of that night three years ago had marked her in many different ways, most of them invisible to others. She closed her eyes, a groan wrenching her as she unlocked the door of the shop and opened up again although there were no customers around. People would still be eating their lunch.
A while later she was walking around the shop, picking up antiques, staring at others, trying to think clearly.

Was it really nearly three years since Barty died, eighteen months since Ritchie was sent to prison? The time had gone by so fast. What had she done since she'd left the north? Nothing, just existed, like a buried seed in the dark, waiting for a chance to break out to the light. The years had gone by without her counting the days.

Now Ritchie would soon be free. Free to come looking for her! Panic made her nerves flash like electric sparks, she had trouble breathing.

Was Megan right? Would he want to see her? After all this time? It was so long since they'd seen each other, surely he would have forgetten all about her?

Have you forgotten about him? asked a chill little voice inside her and Linzi knew she hadn't, how could she?

She wished she could. She had tried hard enough, heaven knew. She would have thought he would want to forget, too. Surely it must have been a nightmare for him too, one he wanted just to put behind him?
  Then she remembered the way he had looked at her in that courtroom. That strange intensity that made her heart stop, that had left her barely able to walk, she was trembling so much.
  Even remembering it could make her heart miss a beat and she had dreamt about that moment night after night, it had haunted her. But could she help the way her unconscious dealt with the turmoil of the past? You couldn't take any notice of dreams, they were a snare and a delusion. They didn't mean anything.

Why are you lying to yourself? she thought then bitting her lip. You know what those dreams were about. Ritchie had known, he had challenged her directly, tried to make her admit how she felt, but had failed.

She couldn't admit anything.

Her secret emotions were a snake lying coiled in the ver depths of her mind. Every time she caught sight of it she fled. The guilt she felt over Barty's death was all mixed up with guilt over Ritchie, a secret dread that when Ritchie hit out at Barty he had half wanted to kill him, a dread too that she had wanted Barty out of her life, that she had wanted it all to end.

Oh God, stop thinking! She told herself, pausing in her restless pacing of the shop, in front of a long-case clock which Aunt Ella's son, Gareth, was working on at the moment. She stared at that, made herself think about it, about Gareth.

Gareth was good with clock and watches, and if the problem was too complicated for him they got somebody more expert to deal with it. This clock had a wonderful case, marquetry made it shine in the sunlight as if the wood were jewelled. Linzi loved the painted face too, the elegant iron arrows which were the clock hands pointed to two o'clock. Surprised to see it was only that time, she frowned -- where was Aunt Ella? She should be back by now.

A moment later someone hurried into the shop, a big, fair man in jeans and a black T-shirt, carrying a large box in his arms, who grinned cheerfully at her.

"Mum did well at the auction. We managed to get some good stuff very cheap, there weren't many dealers there, they'd all gone over to the big sale at Grenoch Hall, hoping to pick up some of the Grenoch porcelain and glass collection." He put the box on the shop counter and peered into it, not yet noticing Linzi's pallor, the look of shock in her eyes. "Very nice silver dressing-table set. Tarnished, but we'll soon make it shine again. Some silver photo frames, mostly twentieth century. And what do you think of this?"

He fished out a small hand mirror set in an ormolu frame and she took it from him. "It's lovely," she murmured. "Isn't it? But does it say Art Nouveau to you? Mum swears it is, but there's no provenance, no date on it and we couldn't find the maker's name. I had a feeling it could be a later reproduction."

With a faintly unsteady finger, Linzi traced the sinuous, curving lines of the design. "Could be, but this has the right feel. I've seen something like this before, Austrian, I think, a Viennese manufacturer. Definitely not English."

Gareth nodded, taking her opinion seriously. Linzi had picked up a good deal about antiques during the two years she had worked in the shop.

"That's what Mum said."