Anne Mather - Dishonourable Intent

Will’s brows drew together. ‘Who are we talking about now?’ be asked tersely. ‘This—friend?’

‘What friend? Oh—you mean the car!’ Francesca sipped her tea. ‘No, that belongs to Clare—one of the women I work with.’

Will tried not to get impatient. ‘What’s wrong with your own car? Has it broken down?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘If that’s what this is about—’

‘As if!’ Francesca stared at him disgustedly. ‘Do you honestly think I’d have come to you if all I wanted to do was change my car?’

‘I don’t know, do I?’ Will’s eyes hardened. ‘Perhaps the problem is I can’t imagine anything that I might be willing to do for you,’ be retorted sharply. ‘And if some man is giving you grief, think again!’

The china teacup clattered into its saucer, and spots of brown liquid dotted the white cloth. For a moment, he thought she must have burned her mouth, but then he realised she was crying. Huge, shuddering sobs were shaking her thin shoulders, and she’d wrapped her arms about her knees and was rocking back and forth, like a child in pain.

Will stared at her, aghast. In all the years he had known her, he had never known Francesca to cry—not like this, at least. Even when they’d split up, she had maintained a mask of indifference when she was with him, and if her eyelids had sometimes looked puffy he’d put it down to lack of sleep.

But this—this was different. Whatever was wrong with her it was something she obviously couldn’t handle herself. The thought that she might have discovered she had some terminal disease caused a shaft of pain inside him.

But something had to be done now. He bad to say something, do something, to bring her out of this paroxysm of grief. She’d regret giving in and letting him see her this way, once she was over it, he thought cynically. But he didn’t think it was an act. Playing for sympathy wasn’t Francesca’s style.

Or it hadn’t been. He scowled. Dammit, it was more than five years since he’d seen her, and anything could have happened to her in that time. But he didn’t think she could have changed her personality. She’d lost weight, sure, but she didn’t strike him as having lost her self-respect.

‘Fran,’ he said persuasively, the name he had had for her sliding automatically off his tongue. ‘Hey,’ he added, his spread fingers curling impotently over his thighs, ‘it can’t be that serious. Come on. Lighten up. I didn’t mean what I said.’

‘Didn’t you?’

Her head had been buried in her hands, but now her fingers parted to reveal drowned amber eyes. She still shook, but the aching sobs had eased somewhat, and he wondered if he was in danger of being treated as a fool all over again.

‘Perhaps not,’ he muttered, in two minds as to how to deal with this, and she fumbled in the purse at her feet for a tissue to dry her face. ‘Fran—Francesca—what is going on? Are you going to tell me?’ He balled one fist inside the other. ‘I gather the problem is some man.’

She nodded then, scrubbing at her eyes with the tissue as Will felt a rekindling of his anger. Dammit, he thought, what did she think he was? Some kind of agony husband? Ex-husband, he amended harshly. Any problems she had, she should deal with herself.

‘It’s not what you think,’ she said at last, when she had herself in control again, and Will arched a sceptical brow.

‘No?’ he queried flatly. And then he said, ‘You’ve admitted it’s a man, haven’t you? How many distinctions are there?’

‘Quite a lot, actually,’ she answered quickly, using the tissue to blow her nose. ‘I didn’t say it was a man I’ve been involved with.’ She shivered. ‘As a matter of fact, we’ve never even met.’

‘What?’ Will hooked his leg over the arm and slid down onto the sofa proper. ‘What are you saying? That some man is pestering you?’ He felt a disproportionate sense of anger. ‘For pity’s sake, Fran, why haven’t you reported him to the police?’

‘I have.’ She drew a trembling breath. ‘There’s nothing they can do.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! Of course there’s something they can do. They can arrest the man. If he’s giving you a hard time, that’s all the proof they need.’

‘No, it’s not.’ Francesca’s shoulders drooped. ‘Being—pestered by someone doesn’t constitute a felony. In any case, they don’t know who he is.’

‘You haven’t told them?’

‘I don’t know who it is,’ she retorted huskily. ‘He—I—he’s too clever to let them catch him in the act.’

Will stared at her. ‘In the act of what?’ His stomach tightened. ‘Has he touched you?’

‘Not yet,’ answered Francesca in an uneven tone. ‘I’ve told you, we’ve never met But—I think he’s tried to break into my flat.’ Her abhorrence was apparent. “That’s when I knew I had to get away.’

Will sank back against the squashy upholstery, disbelief warring with a growing sense of outrage. It couldn’t be true, he told himself. Francesca was lying; she had to be. It was inconceivable that her life was in any kind of danger.

Swallowing the bile that had gathered at the back of his throat, he regarded her steadily. ‘Perhaps you ought to tell me how long this has been going on,’ he suggested, propping one booted foot beside the tray, and she nodded.

‘Yes.’ She moistened her lips. ‘Well—about six months, I suppose, altogether. To begin with, I didn’t know what was going. an.’

Will breathed deeply. ‘Six months!’ he said. ‘So long?’

‘Well, according to the police, a stalker can take years before he approaches his victim. To begin with, he gets his kicks from watching them without them knowing what’s going on.’

Will blew back the hair from his forehead. Despite himself, he was responding to the frankness of her tone. If she was lying, she was making a bloody good job of it. And if she wasn’t—His lips tightened. Frustration didn’t even begin to cover how he felt.

‘Go on,’ he said, not trusting himself to make any constructive comment, and, resting her arms along her thighs, she shredded the tissue she was holding as she continued.

‘At first—at first I thought I was imagining it. As you probably know, I’m still working for Teniko, and just recently—within the last year, that is—my hours have been changed. Sometimes, I start later in the morning, but I don’t get home until later in the evening.’

‘Why?’

She flushed. ‘Because—because I’ve been promoted. And Teniko have moved their head office to California, which means we often have satellite conferences in the evening.’

‘In the evening?’ Will knew it wasn’t important, and he was perfectly aware why the meetings would be so late. But he needed a little time to come to terms with this, and talking about normal things, like her working hours, enabled him to get some perspective.

‘It’s morning in San Francisco,’ Francesca explained, answering him anyway. ‘We’re presently involved in developing some new computer software, and as the virtual reality market is a very competitive field our meetings are always confidential.’

‘I don’t want to hear about your job,’ said Will shortly, and he was annoyed to hear the irritation in his voice. He didn’t want her to think he cared a damn what she was doing with her life, but at the same time he didn’t want her to think he was bitter either. He wiped his expression clean of any emotion before asking evenly, ‘Are you saying you’re alone when you leave the building?’

Francesca nodded. ‘Sometimes. At least, there are very few other commuters about. The rush hour’s over, you see. Most people have already left their offices. And—and it’s much easier to follow someone if they’re not tied up in a crowd.’