An Unexpected Gift

by Lily Zante

  She had refused to tell her parents, even now, that Carl was somehow implicated in all this mess. She refused to listen to Kerrie who insisted and repeated to her that her parents deserved to know who was behind the attack. And so now, apart from Kerrie and Daniel, she had no other people to turn to for.

  I’ll be there with you. That’s what Daniel had promised. Caitlin wondered how exactly he would be there for her, with Marisa still waiting for him at home.

  She drew her attention away from the window and paused before she said, “You know how sometimes you think you have a person all figured out? And then they turn out to be and do things completely different to how you thought they might? Carl was one of those people. It started out good but then things changed, real fast. And now I look back on it all and I wonder how I could have gotten everything so wrong.”

  Daniel gazed at her tenderly. “Sometimes, you meet people who bring out the best in you.”

  She smirked. “And Carl bought out the worst in me just like I’m sure I bought out the very worst in him. And when that happens, you know you’re not really supposed to be together. Not if you want to be happy.”

  Feeling uncomfortable that their conversation had taken a turn onto personal matters, Caitlin steered it back on course. “How’s Marisa?” she asked, looking into her wine glass.

  “Fine.”

  “I thought we might have bumped into her at the weekend,” said Caitlin, pretending not to be so bothered about it all.

  “I was out with my sister and her husband, they’d popped into HMV when my nephew and I saw you.”

  His nephew?

  “I thought he was your son,” stammered Caitlin, “you both have similar colouring.”

  It was a simple enough mistake to make. “My sister and I have the same hair and eye colour. I don’t have any children.”

  He said I and not we.

  “Oh.” She felt relieved.

  Daniel poured her another glass of wine and one for himself too. They discussed other things then, her job, his work. Friends, family, where they lived, why they picked London out of everywhere else and so on. Idle chit chat, nothing further to do with relationships or the attack.

  His was an easy going personality and they hit it off. Even the pauses weren’t awkward. Caitlin felt at ease, at peace. She was glad she had met up with him. Glad that he had suggested it in the first place.

  “Did you want to grab something to eat?” he suggested. He said it simply, as though he would be asking a friend. She narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out why he wanted to grab a bite to eat. Didn’t he have a home to go to?

  She was tempted and yet going for a meal with Daniel was not going to help her get him out of her thoughts. She feigned surprise as she glanced at her watch and for a split second she really was surprised that it was already ten o’clock. “Ten already?” her brows knitted together in genuine surprise.

  Daniel waited for her response but had the uneasy feeling that she was going to turn him down. “Didn’t realize it was so late. I take it that’s a no then?” He shrugged his shoulders and added, “It’s late, maybe it’s better to head on home.”

  “It was nice, talking and stuff. But I have to go. I don’t like being out too late these days.” She reached behind her to grab her coat.

  “Sure, I understand. I’d offer to see you back home, under the circumstances, but I wouldn’t want you to think I was coming onto you or anything.” Caitlin looked up startled. His words surprised her. That he had said out loud what she had been thinking and worrying about the whole time she had sat here with him.

  “I know you’re not coming onto me. I know ….because you’re married, right?”

  Daniel gave her an odd look, which she couldn’t quite translate. “Sorry Caitlin, I didn’t mean to be so….direct. The last thing I want is for you to think I have other ulterior motives. I wanted to meet you because what your friend said, about your ex and the attack. I wanted to know more. He attacked me too and I was curious.”

  Instead of getting up to put on her coat, she relaxed back in her chair and looked at him directly. “Daniel, it’s fine. I’m glad you said what you did. It makes everything more out in the open. For what its worth, I find it real easy talking to you too. You probably think I keep going on about it, but you saved me that night. My whole world is all shook up right now. I’m trying to put the few months with him behind me, I’m trying to deal with the assault, I’m struggling with the idea that he paid someone to beat me up.” And I’m struggling to fight my attraction to you.

  Daniel slipped on his coat and looked at her sympathetically. “Tough times Caitlin but we’ll get through them. The assault, your ex, the charges, all of it. I’ll be there right beside you.”

  “Will you?” she asked, drawing her scarf tightly around her neck.

  He ran a sturdy hand through his thick blond hair. “We were thrown into this and we’ll get out of it. Trust me.”

  She did trust him but it was more than trust. She knew she could count on him because he had turned up at the very point in her life when she was beginning to lose hope in ever getting close to another man again.

  He’s going to help you through the court case and facing Carl. Don’t expect anything more. He’s married, remember?

  They stepped out into the crisp night air and onto the busy Kingsway road, where cars, motorbikes, vans and lorries hurtled along at breakneck speed.

  She turned to him, just outside the wine bar, the light from inside bathing her face in a soft amber glow. She paused for a moment before looking into his eyes. “Sometimes I think that the way we met, as unexpected as it was, was a blessing in disguise. You see Daniel, whether you want to see it that way or not, the way I see it is that you gave me a gift. You saved my life and I feel indebted to you. I know you said I shouldn’t, but I do. And I can’t help it. It’s like I feel this….this…this connection to you. And I don’t even understand it myself.”

  “Don’t feel indebted,” he said softly, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t feel as though you owe me anything, because you don’t.”

  She stared into his eyes, mesmerized by their blueness and if she let herself she could almost lose herself in his gaze. Almost.

  He leant forward, gently placing his hands on her shoulders and bent down to kiss her lightly on the cheek. As he did so, she hugged him back, lightly holding his arms as he hugged her close to his chest. He drew back slightly, not wanting to overstep his place, but her half-parted lips and the longing in her eyes held him spellbound. He wanted to kiss her, badly, but he restrained himself.

  Instead, she closed her lips and brushed a light kiss against his lips. It happened all so fast, that it seemed as though it hadn’t happened at all.

  “I’m glad we met tonight Caitlin.”

  “Me too.”

  He insisted on calling her a black cab which he knew would safely take her back home. And despite her protests, he wouldn’t have any of it. She was safely back at home less than thirty minutes later.

  And Daniel headed back to his house in a separate black cab, unaware that he was being followed.

  Chapter Ten

  The entire journey home, Daniel had been thinking about the evening with Caitlin and the light kiss they had shared. He had done the decent thing and held back. But she had kissed him first.

  Lightly, very lightly, but it was a kiss all the same.

  He had been so close to telling her about Marisa but it didn’t seem appropriate to mention anything about his own personal hell just yet.

  The cab pulled up outside Daniel’s house. It was eerily quiet and the floodlight came on as he walked up the driveway.

  As soon as he stepped into his hallway, he immediately felt that something was different about the place.

  He looked around the rooms and saw a few things missing. He opened his coat closet and saw that only his coats and jackets and his shoes were inside.

  All of Marisa’s things were gone.

&nbs
p; He breathed a huge sigh of relief as the realization hit home and then he laughed out loud. It was a wholesome, loud and hearty laugh. He had his house back and Marisa was gone, for good. Not the Marisa that he fell in love with, but the Marisa that she had become, a needy, greedy, spiteful and vain Marisa. They had grown apart so quickly in the last six months of their married life. The laughter was his release; it was the letting out of much pent up frustration. Living with Marisa these last few months had been especially trying. And now, at long last, he had his life and his home back.

  Maybe life was starting to look up now.

  Daniel stood in his hallway, dropped his briefcase to the floor and inhaled deeply. For the first time in weeks, he was starting to feel optimistic about the future.

  When he awoke the next morning and came down the stairs, he felt the strong need to vomit.

  He cupped his hand over his nose, noticing a nasty odor in the house. It was the sharp smell of excrement. Wrinkling his face, he looked down on the floor of his landing and saw the squidgy and unmistakable pile of dog excrement on his doormat. His letter box was soiled and the smell was everywhere. Quelling the desire to reach over and retch, Daniel stepped over the feces and yanked the door open in a fit of rage.

  The joy of yesterday was but a distant memory.

  His face was ablaze with anger and his blue eyes flashed angrily as he marched out onto his driveway, looking around angrily in all directions. It was only six o’clock in the morning. Daniel was an early riser and liked to be in the office no later than seven thirty on most days. The quiet suburban street was empty, and dark. There didn’t seem to be anybody around. He looked around, at his house and saw everything looked fine there. Then he paused as something caught his eye.

  The tires of his prized Merc had been slashed. All four of them. And someone had taken a sharp object and drawn a deep line all around the edge of his car.

  Damn you Marisa.

  He loved this car and she knew he had. She had also known how clean and tidy he was and that posting dog feces through his front door would set him off. She was gone but still giving him hell.

  He slowly made his way back into the house. He had a niggling feeling in the back of his mind but it was too early in the morning to figure out what. Daniel sniffed in disgust. The putrid smell of the excrement filled his nostrils, making him want to throw up then and there.

  Instead, he got a plastic carrier bag and threw it over the pile, scooping it up cleanly and wrapping it up in several sheets of newspaper before throwing it into the bin.

  He would get Louise, his secretary, to call Marie, his regular cleaner to clean up the mess on the letterbox and the mat. The mat couldn’t stay a moment longer. He lunged forward, picked it up and flung it out into the back garden. He didn’t want it in his house. As for the tires, he would have to see to them later. He was going to have to speak to Marisa and threaten her with the police if she ever pulled a stunt like this again. But he was busy at work today and had an eight o’clock meeting which was urgent.

  Everything else had to take a back seat.

  He looked at the clock, it was getting on. He needed to get to work. Before he ran into the shower, Daniel flipped through his wallet and dug out DCI Osborn’s number. This was the man who was looking into the attack he had been involved in before Christmas.

  He would give him a call later on in the morning, to see if they had made any headway with getting that animal formally arrested and charged.

  Why was it that his life was full of people who did nothing but cause him grief?

  Chapter Eleven

  The morning after meeting Daniel, Caitlin woke up to yet another silent phone call. They had started up again a few days ago.

  This cold morning, her ring tone shook her roughly from her sweet slumber. She groggily reached out for her mobile phone which lay on her bedside cabinet. She rubbed her eyes as she answered the call, registering that it was still only half past five in the morning.

  But as soon as she reached for it, it stopped ringing. She put the phone back on her bedside cabinet and rubbed her eyes.

  She had started receiving them first back in November, soon after she had dumped Carl. He would call her but say nothing.

  At first, she tried to speak to him and reason with him. She knew it was him but when he said nothing, she hung up. He would call back immediately and do the same thing all over again. Never saying a word. But just hanging on the phone, listening to her. It was eerie. And the more it happened, the more it unnerved her.

  She would have preferred him to shout at her than to have the complete silence.

  The silence scared her because it was full of so much intent. He used to text her too. Nasty texts, swearing at her, accusing her of many things. Sometimes it seemed as though there were two different people writing the texts. Sometimes he would type out abusive things. Other times he would say he was sorry and tell her how much he loved her. He would plead with her to get back together with him.

  It got to a point back in November that he would call her continuously. Soon she started hanging up on him. And then after that she had his number blocked from her phone.

  He started up on the land line but she and Kerrie both stopped answering the phone.

  He hounded her mercilessly on Facebook and sent her emails by the dozen. Short emails telling her he hated her interspersed with long ones, pages of them, declaring his love for her.

  She knew then that she had become his obsession.

  She was almost on the verge of telling her parents about the situation but then in December everything had gone quiet.

  She naively assumed that he had gotten over her. And then the attack happened. The week’s hiatus from his constant harassment had given her a false sense of comfort.

  As she recalled these fragmented memories of a time she would much rather forget, Caitlin slid further down beneath her duvet, immersing herself completely in its warmth and blotting out the rest of the world outside.

  So much had happened in the last few weeks that she had forgotten all about the phonecalls – until now.

  As she lay under the duvet, she heard the familiar ring tone of her phone once more. She had been waiting for it. She knew he would try again and the minute it rang, her mind and body went on high alert instinctively and her stomach tightened.

  “Hello?” she said warily. She knew, even as she said these words, that there would be silence at the other end. She pushed the duvet away and hung up the call, then lay in bed looking at the patterns on her ceiling.

  She wondered what Daniel was up to. Daniel. She always thought of Daniel whenever anything related to Carl came to mind. The almost comical ring tone of her phone went off again, ripping away all thoughts of Daniel. This time she seized her phone angrily.

  How dare he intrude on her life again? She’d show him. But even as she opened her mouth to shout out abuse at him, she couldn’t. No words came out. It was as if he had taken away her ability to speak, simply by being at the other end of the line. She hated this the most; the almost paralyzing effect he had on her. She had always prided herself on being feisty and outspoken but meeting Carl had stripped away that feistiness.

  She switched her phone off and made up her mind to visit DCI Osborn later on.

  Caitlin turned up at the police station after finishing work later that day. She had phoned ahead and DCI Osborn was expecting her.

  All day at work, the two early morning phone calls had bothered her. Each time she tried to move forward with her life, Carl seemed to find a way to stop her.

  “Hello Caitlin, you said you had some more information for me? What is it?” DCI Osborn had a direct approach and she liked that.

  “I’ve been getting silent phone calls again. I’m certain it’s Carl Summers.”

  “Does he say anything?” DCI Osborn listened patiently.

  “No. Nothing. He says nothing. There’s just silence at the other end. He did this back in November, when I ended the rela
tionship. But the calls stopped in December. All his harassment stopped then.”

  “He was gearing himself up for the attack on you, more than likely.”

  Caitlin nodded.

  “How many calls had you had now?”

  “A couple last week. Two this morning, at around half past five.”

  The DCI listened carefully and scribbled something down.

  “Has he confessed?” Caitlin asked quietly.

  “No. But he will. We’ll find the proof to pin on him.” DCI Osborn took off his glasses and rubbed the sore bridge of his nose. His eyes looked even more tired than she remembered from last time.

  “I don’t get it. If the man who attacked me already confessed that Carl Summers paid him why can’t you just go and arrest him now?”

  “I wish it were as easy as that. But it isn’t. Right now it would be a case of the attacker’s word against your ex’s word. We need solid evidence that will stand up in a court of law.”

  “And what are you doing to get that evidence?”

  “We’re working on it Caitlin, I know it must be frightening for you. But we are working on it. We’ve approached him and he denies any involvement in the attack on you and Daniel.”

  At the mere mention of his name, Caitlin’s heart jumped.

  The DCI carried on, “In fact that young man Daniel is most anxious we arrest him and charge him as soon as possible.”

  “Has he been in touch with you?” Caitlin asked curiously, wanting to know what else Daniel might have asked.

  “He has. He rang this morning. He wanted to know whether we had made any further progress. Sorry to say I wasn’t able to give him the news he wanted.”

  Caitlin flinched inwardly. Daniel called?

  “We will get him Caitlin, don’t you worry about that. We always do. But I must warn you that if and when we arrest and charge him, and the CPS decide to prosecute him, it can take many months for the full case to get to court.”