by A B Morgan
Guy was quick to reply. ‘Unsurprising but not very clever of Konrad to have her lodging with his friends, especially as Mrs Annette Ribble is his work colleague and everyone is well aware of the fact. How predictable of him to keep his little spy so close.’
‘She’s not little, not in the slightest. Short, yes, but little… no. It must be tight for space in their house with three of them taking up so much room.’
‘Now, now, Abigail, that’s not nice.’
‘Maybe not, but it’s true.’ She exhaled loudly. ‘I’ll make Miss Roly-Poly Ella Fitzwilliam wait before I get in contact with her.’ In any other circumstances she wouldn’t have bothered speaking to the girl again. She was nice enough, but of no interest other than as a rabbit to catch an old fox.
‘When is your next therapy appointment?’ Guy enquired.
‘Wednesday of next week. You know it is.’
‘Good. You’ve not been going as regularly as we agreed.’
‘Well, she’s so pathetically patronising,’ Abigail whined.
Guy deliberately disregarded her comment. ‘Make sure you give the date and time to MacDonald. I want to be reassured about your physical attendance.’
‘Can’t I drive myself?’ Abigail objected, ‘I’m supposed to be recovering and learning to be more independent. MacDonald can’t be everywhere at once, now can he? It’s only a few miles.’
She heard Guy breathing heavily before he spoke again. ‘No, you can drive the jeep around the estate as you do now, but I’ve been very clear about this; no driving by yourself on public roads. We are easy targets for blackmail and kidnap, Abigail. MacDonald is paid to keep us both safe. If he can’t be around, then Peters can drive you. No funny business.’
‘Funny business? I can’t think what you mean,’ she replied, annoyed that her driving was being brought up again.
‘You know precisely what I mean, Abigail.’
‘Do I?’
‘Abigail!’ Guy admonished. ‘What you did recently was beyond foolish. MacDonald had no choice other than to report his suspicions about you driving the Lexus. He keeps meticulous records and the additional mileage was unaccounted for.’
‘You told me to make it look realistic. I can hardly stalk someone with a ruddy chauffeur in the car, so I took the least recognisable vehicle we own. I like driving. I can’t stay cooped up forever.’
She heard him sigh with irritation. ‘You’ve been pretending to stalk someone for very good reason. The job is done, and Konrad Neale is hooked. Enough is enough now, Abigail. You’re taking this too far. No more contact with Logan Peplow. I forbid it.’
Abigail looked down at herself, rested the handset back on its cradle without saying goodbye and headed for the nearest bathroom to stand on the weighing scales and criticise her reflection in the mirror.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Something’s not right
Clare Gray stood at the window, her right hand landing at her throat in alarm. She gasped as she watched Abigail Nithercott’s Jaguar roar out of the gravel driveway, sports mode allowing the wheels to screech only as they took purchase on the tarmac beyond.
‘Hellfire! She didn’t even check to see if the road was clear,’ Clare said, letting out an unsteady breath. Turning away from the view into the garden and beyond, Clare leaned over the low marble-topped coffee table to press a small button and play back the digital recording of the morning’s therapy session. The content of the disclosures had been so distracting that she was convinced she’d missed something vital.
Only seconds later she hit the pause button.
‘You stupid idiot,’ she bemoaned loudly. How was it possible? What an enormous oversight on her part. She didn’t need to replay the whole thing; the answer had been there all the time. Noise. A noise was missing, and it signalled trouble.
‘Where’s the tick, tick, tack of the stupid knitting?’ she yelled at an unsuspecting spider plant.
Most clients were easy to read from what they said, the way they behaved, and Clare felt confident in how she approached their needs. Abigail was different. She withheld far more than most and she used Clare, not for support and advice, but merely to fulfil an agreement to attend therapy. This was what Clare was paid for, and if a client chose not to be open with the truth or to avoid the real issues underlying their difficulties then so be it.
Whatever the reason for therapy, Clare dreaded the fruitless sessions with Abigail Nithercott. The money was handy, but she wouldn’t have missed Abigail’s unscintillating personality if she’d decided to stop attending. After several weeks of frustrating repetition via phone, Abigail unexpectedly made a leap forward. She agreed to one face-to-face meeting.
‘Just one, to see how it goes. I’m not certain I want to you delving into my psyche.’
‘I’m not a hypnotherapist, Abigail, I’m a life coach.’
‘Call me Abi. You must call me Abi.’
‘Sorry,’ Clare apologised, amazed by her client’s newly discovered assertiveness. ‘I didn’t realise.’ She scratched her nose, drew breath and restated her mantra. ‘Abi, you decide what your goals are; I’m only here to support you and help you attain those goals. Like I said.’
‘If you say so, I don’t recall. Remind me. What goals did I set?’
Abigail Nithercott made Clare feel decidedly ill at ease because of what she didn’t say, rather than the content of her replies. If Clare asked a direct question, she would simply brush it aside with a lie or a passive aggressive response.
‘I’m sure you don’t need to know about that,’ she would say and smile with her mouth while the muscles on the rest of her china-doll face remained unaffected. Clare would have no idea what the woman was thinking.
Then there was the knitting. When she turned up for therapy, out came the knitting. Endless knit, knit, knit, through every minute of every session. Clare heard the clacking sounds down the phone line and even found herself imagining the same noises when she read Abigail’s emails.
‘What would happen if I asked you not to bring knitting to our sessions?’ Clare once asked.
‘Why would you do that when I told you before that it helps bring down my levels of anxiety? Besides, I’ve been knitting for years. My mother taught me. Keeping an only child occupied can be tough.’ Abigail had told this to Clare several times.
‘Your goal is to be more confident in public,’ Clare reminded her. ‘And we’ve been working on other less physical methods for managing anxiety that you could use instead. It won’t be easy if you knit wherever you go.’ She tried levity. ‘You could trip on a scarf and embarrass yourself.’
Abigail curled a lip in response.
‘What are you making anyway?’ Clare asked.
‘A security blanket.’
‘A what?’
‘You heard.’
She did, but the reply made no sense and knowing that Abigail Nithercott did not possess a sense of humour, she assumed it was another lie.
During the therapy session that morning, Clare asked about the business project Abigail and Guy had set up as part of “life goal planning”. This was a recovery strategy aimed at improving Abigail’s self-esteem and self-confidence. Clare’s theory was, that given a sense of control over part of her life, Abigail would be less inclined to over-control her calorie intake.
However, instead of answering this straightforward enquiry, her client slid neatly into a confession about falling in love, which completely wrong-footed Clare.
‘Who is this man?’ she asked and then allowed the resultant pause to continue long beyond what most people would find comfortable. Abigail gazed directly back, testing her to see who would look away first. Not a new tactic, but Clare had never known her to take it to this extreme before. After several minutes Abigail broke eye contact and continued her explanation, staring out through the office window.
‘When I heard his name, it was like a sign. Confirming what I already know. It was on the radio. Some dull sports programme I was l
istening to while I cast off the sleeve I was knitting.’
Clare gave an encouraging smile, willing the woman to get to the specifics of her story, but she never really did. With those breathless revelations Abigail sank back into the chair, crossing her elegant legs. She released a short laugh through her nose, smiling at the memory.
‘I know what you’re thinking. What a ridiculous reaction to have about a man I barely know. It sounds pathetic, but that was how it happened, and it set off an emotional tidal wave. I felt excited, perhaps exhilarated at the very thought that he was out there, waiting for me. He said so.’
‘You contacted him?’ Clare asked, her voice slightly squeaky with surprise.
‘What’s it to you?’ Abigail challenged, her eyes narrowing to thin slits. ‘Don’t you have your own love life? Eh? Logan is mine and you can keep your depraved thoughts to yourself.’
This malicious response was uncalled for and Clare’s mouth dropped open at the accusation. ‘Abigail, I’ve never met the man you’re telling me about. I’m not interested in him, but I am interested in you,’ Clare said.
Not sure where she was going with that statement, she faltered. It hadn’t got her anywhere, so instead she broke the rules. ‘Abigail, what about Guy? How does he fit in with this?’
‘Abi. You must call me Abi. I’ve told you.’ She was insistent. Looking down her finely-chiselled nose she snarled, ‘What about Guy? Why would he be interested?’ She glanced up, catching Clare’s doubtful expression. ‘He doesn’t control me,’ she said, as if a foul smell upset her stomach. ‘I can’t bear Guy’s presumption that I will do as I’m told.’
Uncertainty flitted across Clare’s face because she knew Guy did control Abigail and she allowed him to control her. ‘That’s not what you usually say,’ Clare ventured, careful to keep her voice well modulated. Abigail was showing signs of rising hostility, not an emotion she had revealed before. ‘You would normally be telling me how worried you are about letting him down, not being good enough. In fact, last time we spoke, you were wracked by anxiety in the belief that he was sick of your—’
Abigail sprang to her feet. ‘No, I wasn’t! That’s an appalling lie. How dare you talk to me like that! Guy is immaterial. Logan makes sense of everything, and neither you nor Guy nor anyone else can tell me he doesn’t love me.’ With a smack of her lips she said, ‘I live for our time together ... and we will be together.’
Without any prompting, a look of raw hatred clouded her face. ‘She will have one hell of a shock let me tell you! And she’s not the only one.’
The venomous words spewed forth with tiny droplets of saliva attached to them and Clare willed herself not to flinch. What the hell was going on? What had happened to Abigail? Who was this man Logan, and who is the other person she refers to?
Clare took a gamble, which very nearly paid off.
‘Who is she?’
Abigail turned to examine the houseplants on the windowsill, throwing comments back over her shoulder. ‘She? She doesn’t deserve to be in the same room as him. He’ll know the truth about her soon enough.’ Rotating to confront Clare again, she said, ‘and she’s none of your business.’
Despite nerves nearly getting the better of her, Clare forced another question. This situation wasn’t easy. They were alone. No help was at hand. ‘I can hear how serious this new relationship is to you. Can I ask how you know, so absolutely, that he loves you?’
Abigail hugged her elbows. ‘Because he tells me. He touches me. He’s part of me.’
Clare was taken aback. ‘Part of you?’
Infuriated, the skinny woman arched her back. ‘I knew you were lying,’ she said suddenly, thrusting her head forward, aiming a slender forefinger at the therapist. ‘You jealous bitch. You want him? Well, you can’t have him.’
Clare raised her palms. If the coffee table between them hadn’t been so incredibly heavy it could easily have become a weapon, such was the rage in the Abigail’s reaction. As it was, she forcefully pushed her calves back against the chair behind her, making it rock and fall with a resounding crash. She picked up her shoulder bag and stormed out of the office, shouting swear words more commonly heard in the red-light district of the local town.
❖
With her mind made up, Clare reached for the phone to dial a familiar number. Parking on the edge of her office chair, she held for a connection, phone in one hand pressed to her ear, drumming her unoccupied fingers against a thigh. It rang and rang. Just as she started to exhale with impatience, a voice broke into her grumbling thoughts about the state of GP services and the NHS in general.
‘Bosworth Bishops Medical Practice, can I help you?’
‘Hello there, this is Clare Gray. I’m sorry to ask, I know he’ll be busy, but is it possible to have a word with Doctor Jameson? I need to discuss one of his patients, with some urgency.’ She didn’t normally interrupt his busy schedule, but this was an exception.
After several tuneful seconds on hold, listening to a sorry version of Roger Whittaker’s “Old Durham Town” played on panpipes, she was put through.
‘Clare,’ announced a rich voice, the merest hint of an Irish brogue seeping through. ‘How’s the world of life coaching these days?’
There was a vague laugh as she replied. ‘Horribly boring most of the time, but lucrative - just as you predicted.’
❖
It was his fault. When she’d been forced to retire, far too early, she’d no idea how she was going to fill her time. No one really knew what to do with a burnt-out psychiatric nurse. Niall Jameson did. He had come up with the idea one unforgettably dismal day over eighteen months earlier as Clare sat in his surgery.
‘I don’t do tears, not in public,’ she’d blurted out. In a rush of deep emotional loss, she then melted into a quivering mass of bawling and snot.
He stood by, patiently handing her a cluster of tissues. ‘Clare. I know it’s hard to come to terms with your career ending with a whimper. It’s not your style. You’ve been through a lot. The death of a loved one is a tragic thing and losing a husband when you’re still so young is wretched, but you’ll bounce back. Have you considered becoming a counsellor or life coach?’
Shocked at his ignorance of her psychological frailty, she sounded curt. ‘A what?’
‘A professional mentor,’ he said, without hesitation. ‘You’d be doing me a favour. Use your not inconsiderable skills and experience to earn a fortune from rich unhappy patients and keep them out of my surgery.’
That’s how simply it began, a career lifeline, antidepressants, HRT and a reason to feel useful again, but never did Clare imagine what a tangled bloody mess it would lead to.
❖
It wasn’t completely reassuring to hear his voice that Wednesday, but she’d no other professional to turn to. ‘Niall, I’m way out of my depth,’ Clare protested.
He chuckled. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’ve had some excellent feedback from Lillian Fox. You worked wonders with the old dear. I hardly see her these days.’ He paused. ‘Sorry. You haven’t called for a cosy chat. What can I do for you?’
‘Abi Nithercott. I’ve just seen her. Have you time for a discussion?’
‘Abigail Nithercott? Good God, there’s a name to conjure with. I thought you would have given up on her by now. Tell me all. Morning surgery is done. I’m all ears. Fire away. Still knitting is she?’
‘No, bizarrely, the equipment was in her bag today and that’s where it stayed.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Listening skills
The last quarter of a mile was the toughest. On her third visit to see Clare Gray, Ella made it to the top of the hill on her bicycle without stopping. She pulled over well before the turning into the driveway, chest heaving with exertion. The gravel at the entrance made for a treacherous surface and Ella was intent on avoiding a nasty accident involving bare flesh and sharp stones, so she dismounted and stood on the pavement. Swigging from a water bottle that usually lived
on the crossbar, she swept a forearm across her sweaty brow.
Clare Gray was a counsellor of sorts, a therapist, and Ella had been taken on by her as part of a wellness and recovery plan supported by her new GP, the amiable Dr Niall Jameson. ‘Good choice, you’ll like Clare. She’s down to earth. A good sort,’ he’d said.
Dr Jameson was correct. Clare, a tall stout woman in her fifties, worked from an office adjacent to her house. This was a log cabin style building with a small waiting area and a larger consultation room overlooking a rambling front garden, the driveway, and overgrown pond. Clare was unassuming, dressed casually in jeans and baggy shirt, natural and not prone to use of waffling psychology. If there was one thing certain to result in Ella disengaging from help, it was the patronising drone of psychobabble. But as a refreshing change from previous therapists, Clare had the ability to tune in to humour, and soon enough a gentle trusting relationship was building; all the more reason for Ella to feel guilt at the betrayal of that trust.
As she gathered her strength and prepared to push the bike towards the unforgiving gravel, Ella heard a car door slam, an engine purr into life, and watched a dark saloon car lurch in her direction. She braced herself by pulling the bicycle backwards, and the car missed the front wheel by a matter of inches. It sped, without stopping, onto the road leading towards the village of Swandale.
The number plate read NITH 2. A Jaguar, British racing green in colour, was driven by a blonde woman with a face as miserable as three wet Wednesdays. Given the circumstances, Ella didn’t get a good look at her. But if initial impressions were right, then so was the research Lorna, Mal and Konrad had undertaken.
