Читать книгу Baby on Loan - Liz Fielding - Страница 8

JESSIE had any number of choices. Call the police. Scream. Barricade herself in with Bertie and Mao and wait until the burglar had helped himself to whatever he fancied and went away. Scream. Confront the villain. Scream…

Oh, stop it! she told her wittering brain. The police. She had a mobile; she’d call the police. She pushed her spectacles down her nose and looked around. Where was it? When had she last used it? Oh, hell, it was in her handbag and that was downstairs. With the burglar. Which dealt with option number one.

And she’d thought her life couldn’t get any worse.

Screaming, seriously screaming, and giving vent to all the anguish of the last two days had its attractions.

But screaming would wake Bertie and frighten Mao and maybe the burglar wouldn’t run away. Maybe he’d come looking for her in order to shut her up. Which thought was sufficient to put a hold on screaming. For the moment.

It would have to be option number three, then. The barricade.

She put the cat down and looked around. Memory and the light spilling in from the landing suggested that the furniture was of the kind that required a minimum of three heavily muscled men to shift. With a fourth directing operations. Except for Bertie’s lightweight travelling cot, of course. Apart from the fact that it wouldn’t stop a determined flea, Bertie was in it. Asleep. And no one was going to wake up Bertie if she could help it.

But any burglar worth his salt would certainly come upstairs looking for jewellery and money.

It was time for option four. No! Not screaming! And maybe not confronting the villain; she preferred to remain defensive if at all possible. What she needed, then, was something with which to defend herself. And Bertie. And, since he was her responsibility too, Mao.

She swallowed. And if there was more than one of them?

Refusing to think about it, she opened the wardrobe door and peered into the dark interior, desperate for inspiration. She’d been too busy to unpack and now she discovered it was full of dark, heavy clothes. Really, Carrie might have emptied the wardrobe of her gothic junk before she let the place…

She didn’t have time to worry about it. What she needed right now was a sharply pointed umbrella, or… Something hard and heavy fell out and landed painfully on her toes. She bit back a yell of pain and bent to pick up the object.

It was a cricket bat. Brilliant. Odd—she didn’t quite see Carenza leading out the England ladies’ cricket team—but brilliant. She seized it and immediately felt more in control. Hefting it defensively in her hand, she crossed to the door, opened it a little wider in order to listen.

Before she could stop him, Mao shot through the gap.

Patrick opened the fridge. On the shelf inside the door, there was an open carton of milk; he sniffed it cautiously. It was fresh. He replaced it and explored further.

He took out a dish, uncovered it. It appeared to be mashed up fish. Unimpressed by Carenza’s culinary skills, he rejected it, but as he opened a box of eggs something soft and warm brushed against his ankles.

Unnerved, he stepped back. The creature let out a banshee wail as he stepped on its tail, before tangling itself between his legs as it tried to escape.

Off balance and uncertain where he could safely put his feet, Patrick made a grab for the first thing that came to hand.

It was the shelf inside the fridge door.

It took his weight for a tantalising millisecond during which he thought he’d got away with it. Then, as shelf and door parted company, milk and moulded plastic succumbed to gravity and hit the floor. Patrick and the eggs were delayed slightly, while his head bounced off the edge of the work surface.

Jessie, dithering behind the bedroom door and wondering whether in fact the bat was such a good idea after all—she might just be handing the burglar a weapon—heard Mao’s howl of outrage, swiftly followed by a horrendous crash.

Had the burglar killed the cat? Had the cat killed the burglar? Whatever was going on, it was clear that she could no longer hide upstairs. With the cricket bat raised shakily before her, she advanced slowly down the stairs and approached the kitchen with caution.

She’d been too tired to bother with clearing up before she’d fallen into bed, but, even so, the scene that met her gaze was a shock. Smashed eggs, milk spreading to form a small lake, a lake at which a perfectly content Mao was busy lapping, and in the middle of it all, flat on his back, blood oozing from a wound on his forehead, lay a man who seemed to fill all the available space. A man dressed from head to toe in burglar-black. Black chinos, a black shirt, sleeves rolled back to reveal thickly muscled forearms.

He was tall and strong and he would have disarmed her without raising a sweat.

Fortunately, he was unconscious.

Or maybe not. Even as she stood there, congratulating herself on the fact, he groaned and opened his eyes. Jessie grasped the bat tightly, swallowed nervously and croaked, ‘Don’t move!’

Patrick stared up at the ceiling. The kitchen ceiling. He was lying on the kitchen floor, in a very cold puddle, and his head felt as if it was about to fall off. And there was a wild-haired, semi-naked woman wearing spectacles two sizes too big for her, threatening him with his own cricket bat. Had she hit him with it? He began to raise his hand to his head in order to assess the damage.

‘Don’t move!’ she repeated.

The words, undoubtedly meant to be threatening—although the effect was considerably diminished by the nervous wobble in her voice—were unnecessary. He had no desire to move. He just wanted to close his eyes and hope that when he opened them again all this would have gone away.

He tried it.

His eyes closed again. Jessie ventured a step nearer. He looked horribly pale and the gash on his forehead looked nasty. Oh, good grief, he was going to die. He was going to die and she’d get the blame and go to jail. That was the way it was. You read about it in the papers all the time. Burglar breaks in, burglar dies, innocent householder goes to jail.

Kevin and Faye would be sorry then…

She gasped. What on earth was she thinking of? He might have broken in, but the man clearly needed her help. She dropped the bat and paddled barefoot through the lake of cold milk to his side.

Stretched out on the kitchen floor he seemed very large, very threatening. Even unconscious he looked very dangerous. But she couldn’t just leave him there. Grabbing a clean bib from the work surface, she knelt beside him and dabbed, tentatively, at the blood oozing from the wound on his forehead, forgetting her fear in her concern.

His eyes opened with an immediacy that suggested he hadn’t been as far out of it as she’d thought, and he grabbed at her wrist. ‘Who the devil are you?’ he demanded.

‘Jessie,’ she replied instantly, not wanting to irritate him in any way. ‘My name’s Jessie. How do you feel?’ She put real warmth into her voice. She really wanted him to know that she wasn’t going to do anything bad…

‘How do I look?’ he countered.

He certainly didn’t look good. Apart from the pallor, made worse by the dark shadow of a day-old beard, there was the blood which still hadn’t stopped oozing. She put her fingers against his throat to check his pulse. It seemed the right thing to do, although she wasn’t sure why because she could see for herself that he wasn’t dead.

His skin was warm and smooth beneath her fingers, his pulse reassuringly strong. ‘Well?’ he asked after a moment. ‘Will I live?’

‘I th-th-think so.’

‘I’d be happier if you could sound a little more convincing.’

He didn’t sound like a burglar. But then, what did she know? ‘Well…’ she began. Then something about the sardonic twist of his mouth alerted her to the fact that he wasn’t being entirely serious.

‘I won’t struggle if you think I need the kiss of life,’ he said, confirming her worst suspicions.

For a moment she was tempted. He might have broken in, but if he’d been the man in black leaving a box of chocolates she had the feeling any woman would be left wearing a smile. Maybe she should offer to kiss him better…

No! For heaven’s sake, would she never learn?

And if he was well enough to joke, he was probably capable of getting up and…and maybe it would be better not to think about what he was capable of doing. Actually, she realised, as her brain stopped freewheeling and finally clicked into gear, she should stop wasting time and call the police and an ambulance. Right now.

‘What you need is a trip to the nearest A and E department,’ she said, primly, making a tentative attempt to free herself. He might be in a jokey mood, but she wasn’t prepared to risk annoying him. His fingers remained clamped about her wrist as he tried to sit up. The effort was clearly too much for him and he subsided, with a groan, releasing her as he put his hand to his head.

Her mobile. She needed her mobile. Her bag was on the work surface next to the fridge and she stood up to reach for it. That was when her burglar grabbed her ankle.

And that was when she finally stopped being controlled and sensible and did what she’d been wanting to ever since she’d realised she had an intruder. She opened her mouth and screamed blue murder.

Patrick, who had simply wanted to know what this Jessie woman was doing in his house and where Carenza had disappeared to, decided that, after all, it didn’t matter that much. Stopping her from screaming was far more important, so he tugged on her foot. Hard. The noise stopped abruptly.

Then she fell on top of him.

He muttered one brief word as the breath was knocked from him. One word was all it took to sum up his feelings. Her eyes, inches from his own, widened in shock, but before she could do or say another thing he grabbed her. ‘Don’t. Please don’t say another word. I don’t know who you are, or what you’re doing here, but I give up. You win.’

‘Win? Win?’ Even to her own ears she was beginning to sound hysterical. Well, that was fine. She had every right to be hysterical. She was lying crushed against the chest of a ruthless criminal. A man who’d broken into her home. Who, even with a nasty head wound, was more than capable of taking advantage of the situation. And the situation was that while she was wearing a mercifully long and baggy T-shirt, there was little else to cover her embarrassment. Well, actually nothing else. All he had to do was move his hand a few inches and he’d discover that for himself.

She firmly resisted her brain’s urgent prompting to tug her T-shirt down as far as it would go. That would only draw attention to her plight. Instead she forced herself to look him squarely in the face and tell him to let her go. Right now.

It was an interesting face. The kind of face that, under different circumstances, she’d like to see more of. On the thin side, but with strong bones, a lot of character, and she had the strong impression that pain was not a stranger to him. Yet his mouth promised passion. Oh, good grief. And she’d thought he was rambling!

‘In what way, exactly, do I win?’ she demanded, trying to get a grip of herself, gather her wits.

‘I surrender,’ he said. Surrender? What was he talking about? She stared at him. He had the most extraordinary eyes, she thought. Grey, but with tiny flecks of gold that seemed to be heating them up. Or was that just her imagination? ‘Just don’t scream any more. Please.’

‘Do you mean that?’ she demanded as fiercely as she could, not entirely trusting him. The wobble in her voice wouldn’t scare a mouse.

‘Oh, forget it. Give me a knife and I’ll cut my own throat. It’ll be quicker than the punishment you’re dishing out.’

‘Me!’ she squeaked. ‘I didn’t ask you to break in and fall over.’

‘Fall over?’ he shouted, then winced. ‘Is that going to be your story?’ And he flung the arm that was holding her towards the cricket bat and grasped the handle. ‘Haven’t you forgotten exhibit A?’ he said as he brandished it at her.

She scrambled to her feet and put some distance between them before he decided to beat her senseless with it. ‘Just stay there,’ she said. ‘Don’t you move. I’m going to call an ambulance.’ She backed hurriedly away, ignoring the milk dripping from her T-shirt and running down her legs.

He dropped the bat. ‘You’ll have to drag me out into the street if you want it to run me over,’ he warned her blackly.

Rambling. Definitely rambling. He needed to be in hospital, and quickly, but she moved well out of reach before she extracted her cellphone from her bag, dialled the emergency services and asked for an ambulance. They wanted details. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know who he is. He broke into my house and he’s fallen in the kitchen…’

‘It’s not your house!’ he yelled. ‘It’s mine!’

‘Head injury?’ she repeated distractedly as the ambulance dispatcher probed for details. Had he been watching the house? Had he seen Carenza leave and thought it was empty? He was regarding her angrily, but he hadn’t moved an inch. Unconvinced by this evidence of co-operation, she stepped further back into the hall, leaving a milky footprint on the carpet. More mess. More bother. ‘Oh, yes, he gashed his forehead on the corner of the kitchen unit… Yes, he’s conscious, but he seems to be a bit odd…not quite making sense… I thought maybe he was, you know, on something…’ He groaned. She ignored him. ‘Would you? And you’ll inform the police. Thank you so much.’ She hung up and returned to the kitchen, standing in the doorway, unwilling to get any nearer. One close encounter had been quite enough. ‘They’ll be here soon.’

‘Tell me,’ he asked, finally managing to heave himself into a sitting position and propping himself up against a cupboard, ‘are you mad, or is it me?’ He sounded quite serious, as if he really wanted to know.

Unwilling to say anything that might agitate him further, Jessie kept her distance, although her knees were shaking so much that if she didn’t sit down soon, she’d probably collapse in a heap right where she was. ‘Just keep still. I’m sure they’ll be here soon,’ she said, with a lot more calm conviction than she felt.

‘Are you? I hope you’re right. Tell me, where did that cat come from?’

Mao, having enjoyed the free spillage of milk and toyed with the yolk of one of the eggs, was now carefully washing his face. Jessie watched him for a moment. There was something almost hypnotic about the delicate, repetitive movements… ‘I don’t know. He belongs to the owner of the house.’ She turned to him. ‘It’s one of the reasons she was desperate for someone to move in. She needed someone to look after him. It must have been a bit of shock to discover the house wasn’t empty after all.’

‘You could say that. Especially since this is my house.’

He was worse than she thought. Much worse. Jessie glanced at her watch, wondering how long it would take the ambulance to arrive. ‘This is your house, is it?’ she asked in what sounded, even to her own ears, a patronising attempt to humour him.

‘Yes, madam, it is,’ he said, sharply. ‘And you can believe me when I tell you that I hate cats. And so does my dog. So maybe you’d like to explain what you’re doing here?’ Dog? He had a dog? She glanced around nervously. That was all she needed, a burglar who modelled himself on that Dickensian prototype Bill Sykes. But there was no slavering bull-terrier waiting to tear her limb from limb and Jessie, praying fervently for the early arrival of someone to remove this madman from her home, decided that humouring him would be the safest course.

‘I’d love to—’

‘Why don’t you start by telling me—?’

Upstairs, Bertie began to cry. She could have kissed him. Would kiss him. Right now. ‘I’d love to stop and chat but I have to see to the baby.’

‘Baby?’ He looked, she thought, as if he’d been struck a second blow. ‘You’ve got a baby? Here?’

‘He’s teething, poor soul,’ she said, beating a hasty retreat, stumbling over the bag her unwelcome caller had left in the hall. It was black and expensive and clearly very heavy. He’d probably stolen it and stuffed it full of the loot at a house he’d broken into earlier. ‘Just stay put and the ambulancemen will be with you any minute.’ She turned, put the front door on the latch so that whichever of the emergency services got there first could let themselves in, and bolted upstairs.

Bertie was intermittently bawling and stuffing his fist into his mouth. Jessie threw on the first things that came to hand and then she picked him up. He needed changing. The nappies were downstairs. In the kitchen. It figured.

Baby? Patrick grabbed hold of the edge of the sink and hauled himself to his feet, doing his best to ignore the thumping pain in his head, the rush of nausea. That was the smell. Warm milk, baby cream, talc, that stuff Bella had used to sterilise bottles. That was the scent that had eluded him. How could he have forgotten it?

He’d come back after the funeral and it had seemed to fill the house. It had taken him months to get rid of it. He’d got to the point where he’d thought he’d have to move. But in the end he’d realised that the smell existed more in his head than in reality. A faint ghost of his lost family that would forever haunt him. Moving would have been pointless.

Where the hell was Carenza? He clutched onto the sink for a moment while the kitchen spun around him, determined that whatever happened he wouldn’t be sick. When he felt strong enough to risk opening his eyes, he discovered that he was being regarded suspiciously by a uniformed policeman.

‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘Officer, there’s a mad-woman in my house. She hit me with a cricket bat.’

‘Why don’t you sit down, sir? The ambulance will be here in just a moment.’ He didn’t need a second invitation to sink into the nearest chair. His trousers squelched damply beneath him. ‘Maybe, while I’m waiting we could just deal with the details? If you feel up to it. Shall we start with your name?’

‘Shouldn’t you caution me?’ he demanded.

‘Just for the record, sir.’

He let it go. ‘Dalton. Patrick Dalton.’

The man made a note. ‘And your address?’

‘Twenty-seven Cotswold Street.’

‘That’s this address, sir.’

‘That’s right. My name is Patrick Dalton and I live here,’ he said, slowly and carefully. ‘This is my home,’ he added, just to make the point.

The man made a note, then turned as the front door opened. ‘The medics have arrived. We’ll sort all this out later, sir, down at the hospital.’

Patrick recognised the calming tone of a policeman confronted with a man he thinks is crazy. A policeman covering himself with excessive politeness in case he was wrong. He considered telling the man that he was a barrister, a Queen’s Counsel, and that he’d find him listed… But his head was throbbing too much to bother. Hospital first, explanations later.

Then he’d take great pleasure in telling that woman to take her baby and her cat and get out of his house—right after she’d told him where he could find Carenza.

‘Would you like to tell me what happened, miss?’ The policeman stood by impassively while Jessie tried to change Bertie with fingers that didn’t seem capable of removing the peel-back strips from the tapes of the disposal nappy.

She’d been calm, very calm under the circumstances, but reaction was about to set in and she was nothing but jelly. The policeman, seeing her difficulty, helped her out while she explained, haltingly, what had happened.

‘Mr Dalton said you hit him with a cricket bat.’

‘That’s a lie!’ Then she flushed guiltily as she saw the cricket bat still lying on the floor where he’d dropped it. ‘Dalton? Is that his name?’

‘Patrick Dalton. So he says. He has a very nasty gash on his forehead.’

‘I know. I think he must have hit his head when he fell.’ She picked up Bertie, cuddled him. ‘From the noise, I can only assume he stepped on the cat and lost his balance, although what he hoped to find in the fridge I can’t imagine.’

‘You’d be surprised. The fridge and freezer are favourite places to hide valuables. Unfortunately the villains know that, although the gentleman did say that he lives here.’

‘He said that to me, too. It’s not true, you know. I rented the house from a Miss Carenza Finch. I only moved in today.’ Bertie grizzled into her shoulder. ‘Maybe he has a concussion.’

‘Maybe.’ The man cleared his throat. ‘There’s no sign of a break-in, though. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but this wouldn’t be a domestic situation would it?’

‘Domestic?’

‘A lovers’ tiff that’s got a bit out of hand?’

‘Lovers’…’ Jessie stared at him open-mouthed, temporarily lost for words. ‘Officer, I’ve never met that man before in my entire life. And if I meet him again it will be too soon. I told you, I moved in here today,’ she explained. ‘The owner was going abroad for the summer and needed someone to make the place look lived in, to take care of her cat, her plants. Is this a high-crime area?’

‘Not particularly. Most people have burglar alarms. You have one yourself,’ he pointed out. ‘Was it switched on?’

‘Well, no. Actually, it wasn’t. I was tired, what with the baby… I just forgot. Maybe I forgot to lock the door, too.’ He nodded, understandingly. ‘Do you want to see the lease? It’s on the table in the hall. Oh, and that man left a bag out there, too. Evidently this wasn’t his first job tonight.’

The policeman glanced at the lease, made some notes and then picked up the bag. ‘I’ll leave you in peace, then, miss. Maybe you could come down to the station and make a statement in the morning?’

‘Yes, of course.’ More time-wasting, Jessie thought, with a groan. Why did the wretched man have to choose her house? She followed the policeman to the door. ‘What will happen to Mr Dalton? If that’s his real name.’ He glanced at the bag with its airline labels and flipped one over. It read Patrick Dalton, but there was no address.

‘Maybe he stole the bag,’ she said. ‘And the name.’ And if he hadn’t? If he was telling the truth? His eyes didn’t have the look of a man who lied. But then Graeme had eyes that promised the earth and she’d believed him. She was no judge.

‘Right, then. I’ll leave you to put the little one back to bed. Don’t forget the alarm, now,’ he reminded her as he headed down the front steps.

‘I won’t.’ There was no way she was going through that again, she thought as she closed the door and set the alarm.

But, supercharged with adrenalin, she wasn’t going to get back to sleep. She cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, trying not to think about her good-looking burglar with the honest eyes. Or the way his body had felt beneath her. It wasn’t easy and a touch desperately, she connected her computer and set to work.

‘I don’t know how much longer I can hold out, Kevin. I miss him so much.’

‘Me too. Weird, isn’t it? The quiet actually hurts my ears.’

‘Do you suppose it’s worked yet?’

‘I shouldn’t think so, sweetheart. They wouldn’t just pitch her out onto the street, would they? Not just like that?’

‘Wouldn’t they?’

‘We said we’d give it a week, Faye.’

‘I’m not sure I can hold out that long. Suppose she can’t cope? Suppose—?’

‘Jessie is the most capable woman I know, and she was brilliant with Bertie on Sunday.’

‘Yes, but I was there on Sunday.’

‘You left enough instructions to fill a baby book. And if she has any problems she’ll…’

‘She’ll what?’

‘She’ll do what she always does. She’ll call up someone on the internet. Come and have a cuddle.’

‘That’s what got us into this situation in the first place.’

It had been light for an hour when Bertie woke. Maybe she was beginning to get used to less sleep, or maybe it was just that she’d made serious headway with the project she was working on, or maybe it was just the fact that she had somewhere to live for a few weeks, but Jessie felt on top of the world as she bent over the cot and picked him up.

‘Hungry, sweetheart?’ He jammed his fist into his mouth and she laughed.

She put on the kettle, made a note to organise a replacement shelf for the fridge, then made tea for herself and a bottle for Bertie. There was a mark on the curved edge of the worktop. Was that where Patrick Dalton, if that was really his name, had banged his head? Had he hit it that hard? The thought made her feel queasy. Maybe she should visit him in hospital.

Oh, right. And take him some hothouse grapes while she was at it.

Maybe he was already in a police cell. The thought gave her no pleasure. He hadn’t looked like a burglar. He hadn’t sounded like a burglar either, but a good start in life didn’t necessarily mean a good end.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Dalton, but under the circumstances my officers had no choice but to take Miss Hayes’ word for what happened.’

‘I imagine her word was nothing but the truth. As she saw it.’

‘You won’t be pressing charges, then?’

‘What charges? Your man saw the lease, you said. My niece apparently let my house to the woman. I imagine she’ll insist, with some justification, that she’s the injured party.’ He touched the dressing on his forehead and winced. ‘I’ll reimburse Ms Hayes and when she’s gone I’ll find Carenza and make sure she has a summer she won’t forget in a hurry.’

‘Yes, sir. Is that your bag?’ The Deputy Chief Constable nodded to a young constable, who picked it up. ‘The very least I can do is offer you a lift home.’

The kitchen was clean; Bertie had had his bath and was taking a nap. She was going to take a shower, get dressed and, when he woke, she would put him in the buggy and walk down to the police station to make her statement. And find out if her burglar had recovered.

Not that she felt responsible. When he’d grabbed her ankle he’d frightened her out of her wits. But then, when she’d been lying on top of him, confronted by grey eyes that looked…what, exactly? Certainly not threatening. Bemused, perhaps. Shaken, maybe.

Well, she’d been feeling a little off-balance, too. And not just because he’d pulled her feet from under her.

Which was ridiculous. She wasn’t ever going to put herself through that kind of misery again. Never.

She’d be fine once she’d had a good night’s sleep.

The en suite bathroom was richly furnished, matching the bedroom, its warm colours comforting and restful. Jessie changed her mind about the shower and turned on the taps to fill the huge old-fashioned claw-footed tub.

She hadn’t had time to unpack, but the bathroom was well stocked and she helped herself to a dollop of a deliciously woody-scented bath gel. Then, leaving the door wide open so that she could hear Bertie if he cried, she fastened her hair up in a band and slipped beneath the foam.

‘You’re sure you don’t need help?’ The DCC was deeply embarrassed that his officers had arrested Patrick Dalton for housebreaking. The man was not only a well-known barrister but one of the youngest ever to have been appointed Queen’s Counsel. It had been an honest mistake, but Mr Dalton wasn’t known to be forgiving of mistakes made by the police.

‘I think I can handle it. But thanks for the offer. And as for last night, well, if you don’t tell anyone, I promise I won’t.’

‘That’s very generous of you, Mr Dalton.’

‘I know.’

Disconcerted by such bluntness, he said, ‘You’re sure you don’t want me to come in and explain the situation to Miss Hayes?’

‘I think I can handle it. And I’ve always got yesterday’s newspaper if she needs convincing.’ The headline gave him no pleasure, but the photograph had convinced the local plod that he wasn’t a villain. It would certainly come in useful if he needed to convince Miss Jessie Hayes of that fact.

Patrick tucked the newspaper under his arm and took his bag from the young constable. His head was throbbing but he walked briskly up the steps to his front door. He didn’t ring the bell. He knew that would be the sensible thing to do, but if the lady put the chain on the door and refused to let him across the threshold he would be in an awkward situation.

Somehow he didn’t think he’d ever live it down in the Inns of Court if he had to resort to the law to remove an unwanted tenant. Which was why he wasn’t going to risk it. Instead he waited until the police car had pulled away from the kerb and then let himself in.

The alarm was set this time. He set down his bag, tossed yesterday’s evening paper on the hall table and punched in the code. There was no instant cry of outrage.

‘Hello? Anyone there?’ he called.

No reply. He made his way, cautiously, down to the kitchen, which had been restored to some semblance of normality.

He took in the painfully familiar sight of soaking baby bottles and for a moment, just a moment, was transported back ten years. Then the cat stropped against his legs. Scrub normality, he thought as he grimly made his way back up through the house. But there was no sign of his tenant. Apart from a milky footprint in the hall.

Maybe she was out. Taking the baby for a walk.

He realised he’d been holding his breath for far too long and he made a conscious effort to relax as he picked up his bag and climbed the stairs, determined on a shower and eight hours’ sleep.

He was brought up sharply by the sight of the small cot standing beside the bed. Then he turned away, promising himself he’d have it folded and standing by the front door before she got back. Have a cheque and a van waiting. Maybe she’d be reasonable.

He thought about the determined way she’d been holding the cricket bat, even though she’d clearly been scared witless, and decided it was unlikely. But it was worth a try.

He kicked off his shoes, tugged his shirt over his head as he stepped through the bathroom door, tossing it with practised aim into the laundry basket. Then he turned and came to an abrupt halt.

Jessica Hayes was lying back in the bath, damp chestnut curls clinging softly around her forehead and cheeks, islands of soft foam offering nothing but the minimum of decency to cover the enticing curves of her naked body.

Last night he’d been confronted by a harridan with a cricket bat. Minus the owl-like spectacles and the frown, she looked quite different. And totally vulnerable. It was a sight to soften the hardest of hearts.

His was well known to be made of tempered steel; he found it easier if people believed that. But, even so, if a man was going to come home and find a woman in his bathtub, he acknowledged, he’d have to go a long way before he found anyone who filled it quite so fetchingly.

However, he could quite understand that, viewed from her perspective, the situation wouldn’t seem quite as pleasurable.

On the contrary, he was certain that the only reason she wasn’t screaming her head off right this minute was because she was fast asleep.