It did not come naturally to him to deceive her. Thanks to Sarah’s sleeping habits he had been able to creep in at 3.30 that morning without disturbing her, and it was far from the first time that he had arrived home in the middle of the night that way. Indeed it was something of a habit. His was one of those sorts of jobs. It was not, however, his habit to arrive home in the middle of the night having climbed out of another woman’s bed.
Already he felt consumed with guilt. A guilt made all the worse because, in spite of Sarah’s concern about his out-of-character behaviour, he was well aware that the last thing on her mind was the remotest suspicion that he may have been unfaithful to her. He had known he would be able to get away with it. He knew he would almost certainly be able to get away with it for some time to come, should he choose to follow that path. And that made things even worse, really. The kind of trust that there was between him and Sarah would take a lot of shaking. But he dreaded even the thought of what might happen to either of them if it was shaken.
He reached for his car keys which, upon his eventual arrival home the previous night, he had deposited on the shelf above the fridge where he always kept them. Funny how the same habits of everyday life continue even when you are rocking the core of it to the very foundations, he reflected obliquely. Even the thought of that made him feel quite nauseous.
He struggled to make his voice sound normal when he finally replied to her question. He didn’t think he could manage a specific lie, and thanked God that he would almost certainly not have to produce one. Sarah would not push the point. It wouldn’t occur to her that she had any reason to do so.
“Not a clue,” he said, feeling like a complete rat. “Best not to think about time sometimes, particularly when all it does is make you realize how little sleep you’re going to get. You were blotto, though. As usual.”
He grinned at her. He was trying desperately to behave normally, not to give a hint that anything out of the ordinary had happened at all. He leaned forward and pecked his wife on the cheek, affectionately ruffling her curly red hair as he did so.
“Oh, Phil, why do you always mess up my hair?” she asked, and she pulled away just as she always did. She smiled, though. It was part of the routine of their life together. He played with her hair. She grumbled about it even though he knew she rather liked it. And somehow it cut right through him to the quick.
“If I stopped messing up your hair, would you miss it?” he asked suddenly, and he could feel tears pricking.
Her eyes softened. As usual he could see the love in them. “You know I would, you big softy,” she said.
His grin came more naturally then, but it still hurt. He touched her hand one last time before heading for the door.
“See you tonight, love,” he called over his shoulder.
“And try not to be so late,” she responded. “Tell the miserable sods that if you don’t get a decent night’s sleep you won’t be able to work at all.”
He laughed as he shut the door behind him, knowing that she would expect him to. There was always plenty of laughter between the pair of them. But as soon as the door was closed he stopped laughing and an expression of almost physical pain wiped the smile off his usually genial face, giving him a grim and haunted look.
He couldn’t do this, he thought to himself. He really couldn’t. Most of the men he knew seemed able to sleep around and have affairs without a second’s thought. It just wasn’t in Cooper’s nature.
He climbed into his car and slammed the door swiftly and noisily behind him, as if trying to shut off the worries of the world outside. For a few seconds he slumped back in the seat reflecting on the troubled path he had set out on. Then he made a resolution. The only possible one.
“Right, that’s it,” he muttered to himself as he started the engine. “I’m sorry, Karen Meadows, I really am. But last night will have to be not only the first time, but also the last.”
Karen’s alarm woke her at 6.45 A. M. as usual. And she woke with a smile on her face. It was not, however, long-lived. The memories of last night’s glorious lovemaking, that wonderful instant closeness to a man she really liked and cared about was one thing. The reality of the situation, of embarking on any kind of relationship with a married, much younger junior officer, was quite another.
Plus, her head ached and her mouth felt like a dirty ashtray again. Good sex does not stop you suffering the effects of a hangover, she reflected wryly.
With a great effort of will she dragged herself out of bed and into the bathroom. “Oh, shit,” she muttered to herself as the entire flat seemed to wobble before her eyes.
The condition of her head was still distinctly poor and her mood remained mixed as she drove to the station. Her body felt absolutely great. But she didn’t like to think about any of the possible consequences of the previous night’s activities. It had, however, been special. Very special. She had no doubt about that.
It was another cold grey January day, but one good thing about winter in a holiday resort was that there were few tourists about and without them Torquay’s traffic usually ran reasonably smoothly. Her journey to the police station took a scant five minutes in a minicab that she had ordered after this time remembering that she had abandoned her car. As the cab pulled into the station yard, while she was still trying to make some sort of sense of the way she was feeling, she caught a glimpse of Phil Cooper arriving. Swiftly she climbed out of the cab, paid the driver, and waited for Phil to park.
He did not seem to see her. Clapping his arms around himself as if they would protect him from the wintry chill of the morning, he walked straight towards the back door of the station. She called out. She couldn’t help herself.
“Phil,” she shouted.
His stride faltered, he seemed to hesitate, then he turned to look directly at her.
“Uh, good morning,” he said flatly.
She did a double take. This was not the Phil Cooper of yesterday. She feared at once that he was already regretting their brief liaison. His face was flushed. There was a look in his eyes that she could not quite recognize but she was pretty sure that it involved panic. The wide face-splitting grin she found so attractive was conspicuous by its absence. Indeed, he did not smile at her at all.
“Good morning,” she responded uncertainly. And after that she didn’t know what to say at all. Phil Cooper simply squared his big shoulders and turned away. She nearly called after him again. She wanted desperately to say something about the previous night. Just to mention it, just to acknowledge what had happened between them — indeed, to acknowledge that anything at all had happened between them, would have been, at that moment, enough.
She did not do so, however. Instead, filled with foreboding at the prospect of the day ahead, she followed the detective sergeant slowly into the building. She worked closely with Phil Cooper all the time, and she wasn’t at all sure how she was going to be able to cope. Although so well fulfilled physically, she had felt uncertain and anxious about what she had allowed to happen, or rather what she had actively encouraged to happen, from the moment she had awoken. However, the grim reality of meeting Cooper for the first time after their sex session, which it now seemed to her must be all he regarded it as, had been far worse than anything she had imagined.
She had anticipated a certain awkwardness, she had been well aware that this rash escalation of an excellent professional relationship into one which was both physical and, for her at least, emotional too, was likely to present both of them with a daily quandary. But suddenly, and with devastating clarity, she realized what she had seen in Phil Cooper’s eyes just seconds earlier. It had been hostility.