He walked towards her then, sat on the bed, leaned over her and touched her hair. It was a full moon out over the bay and the light from it was shining directly onto the bed. She could see his eyes quite clearly as he came close to her, but she wasn’t sure at all what she could see in them. It couldn’t be love, not yet, and half of her hoped that it wasn’t. She could imagine all too vividly the trouble that lay ahead of them.
She realized that it wasn’t going to stop her, though. Nothing could. If Cooper wanted to see her again, to continue with whatever it was that they had started, there was absolutely no chance of her finding the strength to turn him away.
“You have no idea how much I want to stay with you,” he said softly.
Well, she had heard that before. But this time she believed the man who was telling her. Believed him absolutely. She did not reply. His next words surprised her, though.
“Will you sleep?”
She nodded, touched that he gave a damn. “I expect so. I should.”
She stretched her limbs, pushed her neck and shoulders deep into the pillows. Her body felt wonderfully relaxed, sated, fulfilled. It was her mind which was racing, which might keep her awake, remembering the pleasure, fretting about what it could lead to.
“Yes, but it’s not just that, is it? It’s what’s going on in your head.”
She was amazed. Could he read her thoughts? He smiled down at her, and his eyes were full of caring and concern. Her heart flipped. She hadn’t known anything like this, not in all her life. She really hadn’t, and she might as well admit it, to herself even if to nobody else.
“Shall I put you to sleep?”
“What?” She laughed again. He could make her do that so easily. It was uncanny. “What do you think I am?” she asked. “A sick dog that needs putting out of its misery?”
He kept smiling. He had such kind eyes.
“No, I think you’re a wonderful, sexy, loving woman whom I don’t want to leave, and I want to make sure you don’t lie awake worrying about things when I’ve gone.”
“Ah,” she murmured. “I’m not sure I can guarantee that.”
“I know,” he said. “But maybe I can help.”
She glanced at him, puzzled.
“Are you comfy?”
“Umm.” She was, too, gloriously so.
“OK, snuggle down then, pull the bedclothes up around your chin, and I’m going to put you to sleep.”
He was talking to her as if she was a child, she realized. It was all rather peculiar. And the most peculiar thing was that she loved it. It seemed very natural, too.
“Now, I’m going to kiss you on your fringe,” he said, and he did so. “Then I’m going to kiss your eyelids, then the tip of your nose. And then your lips. Just very lightly. Then your eyelids again.”
She reached up and smoothed his hair from his eyes.
“I’m not a baby, you know,” she protested hopelessly. “I’m a detective superintendent.”
“Maybe tomorrow you will be again,” he said. “But not right now. Right now you’re my big baby.”
And when he left the warm glow that had earlier enveloped her body had engulfed her entire being.
Cooper smoked five cigarettes in between waking up the following morning and leaving for work. He had almost given up smoking, too. But, by God, he had never needed cigarettes more. His head was spinning. He couldn’t believe what he had done. He couldn’t believe what he was feeling.
He sat at the breakfast table ignoring the toast his wife had made for him. His mug of tea remained untouched. He knew that Sarah was watching him uneasily. After a few seconds she reached for his mug, stood up from the table where she had been sitting opposite him, emptied the cold tea down the sink, returned to the table and poured him another hot fresh mugful.
He made no comment, even though he was aware that he should at the very least manage a thank-you. But somehow he could not muster the energy to deal with life’s mundanities. And he certainly had no interest in food or drink.
He lit yet another cigarette from the stub of the previous one.
Sarah reached across the table again and this time put her hand on top of his.
“Is something wrong, love?” she asked quietly.
Cooper shook his head and struggled to produce something which remotely passed for a smile of reassurance. He was aware, however, as his face stretched into a bizarre kind of grimace, that he had failed dismally.
Sarah gave his hand a little squeeze.
“Is it the Marshall case, love?” she asked. “I know how it’s upset you, with our girls and all. But I thought you’d got the result you all wanted, at last.”
Cooper made a real effort. “We have,” he said. “An absolute blinder. Against the odds, too. No, it’s not that. Just office politics. You know how it is.”
“No, I don’t. Not unless you tell me.”
Cooper pulled his hand away from her touch. He just couldn’t proceed with this kind of conversation, not this morning, not after what he’d done the previous night.
“I wouldn’t want to bore you with it,” he said.
“Since when have I been bored with anything that concerned you, Phil?” his wife asked. With just a note of reproach in her voice.
It was quite justified reproach, too, he reflected. They’d been married for eight years and Sarah had always been there for him. She’d always been more than his wife and the mother of his children. She’d always been there for him in every way. She was his best friend, his absolute confidante. He had always told her everything. Until last night, that is.
He couldn’t bear the way she was looking at him, with that slightly puzzled, bewildered expression in her eyes. He thought it was possibly the first time she’d ever looked at him like that. After all, he’d never given her cause before. They had always been so close. He was aware that she believed that she knew him through and through. That he had no secrets from her. And she would have been right, too. Until just a few hours earlier.
He forced himself to smile at her properly and gave her hand a reciprocal squeeze before taking his gently away and rising out of his seat. He forced himself also to make the kind of response he knew she was waiting for.
“Never, darling,” he said. “Never. But it’s nothing, honestly. And I can’t talk to you now, anyway. I’m late already.” He glanced at his watch. “In fact, I’m going to be seriously late if I don’t go this instant.”
Her puzzled look turned into simple anxiety then.
“You give too much sometimes, Phil,” she said. “Nobody can work the sort of hours you do without something breaking. I mean, whatever time did you come in last night, for a start?”
He turned away because he couldn’t bear to look her in the eye. Sarah was a heavy sleeper and she invariably went to bed well before midnight. She was a woman who needed her sleep and, after all, she was up every morning not long after six in order to be ready to get the children off to school and then to go to work herself. Sarah was a primary school teacher. Their joint incomes, although neither was that great alone, meant that they enjoyed a good lifestyle. They owned their own four-bedroomed house in Paignton. They each drove a car. They holidayed abroad. Earlier that year they had taken the girls to Disney World in Florida. They’d had a ball, too. Phil and Sarah still enjoyed each other’s company hugely. And that had been a big component in the success of their marriage so far. Phil, although he was disinclined to admit it at the nick or on the sports field, had always enjoyed being with the woman he married more than with anyone else in the world.