Love Me

Episode 10

In a detailed account for the work involved in treating both the wet and dry rot to

City Hall, she had only just noticed that slipped in at the back was an

additional sheet reporting on some dry rot infestation in the Rectory, David’s

private property, and with it was a brief note confirming that the work on the

Rectory would be put in hand before the contractors started working on

City Hall itself.

Kelly could feel her heart starting to thump heavily with a mixture of anger

and pain as she re-read the sheet. It wasn’t unknown for the owners of the

properties the Trust took over to try to drive as hard a bargain as they possibly

could. It had fallen to Kelly on more than one occasion to tactfully inform very

grand personages that odd pieces of furniture they had listed as antiques had

turned out, on further inspection, to be in fact extremely good copies and

therefore not worth the value which had originally been attributed to them. On

such occasions a very large supply of tact plus an even larger helping of erring

on the side of generosity was called for, but for some reason the possibility of

having caught David out in such a way evoked within her such strong and

confusing emotions that she had to get up from her makeshift desk in front of her

bedroom window to pace her bedroom floor whilst she mentally rehearsed

exactly how she was going to confront him with her discovery of what he had

done. The sum involved wasn’t particularly large—and, had David gone about

things in a different way, she knew perfectly well that the Trust would probably

have large-mindedly and generously offered to bear the cost of the work on the

Rectory. It was the fact that he had tried to cheat them...to deceive and trick

her...that Kelly found so unacceptable, the fact that he probably thought he had

deceived her, the fact that he was probably secretly laughing at her behind her

back. Well, he wasn’t going to be laughing when she confronted him, she

decided angrily.

A knock on her bedroom door stopped her in her tracks, her body tensing as

she called out tersely, ‘Come in,’ whilst mentally deciding how to mount her

attack. But when the door opened it wasn’t David who walked into her room but

the housekeeper, Mrs .

‘Oh, Mrs ,’ Kelly faltered.

David asked me to check with you what you would like for dinner this ‘David asked me to check with you what you would like for dinner this

evening,’ the woman told her. ‘He landed a fine wild salmon this morning and

he said it was a particular favourite of yours...’

Kelly closed her eyes.

Damn David. What was he trying to do to her reminding her, of things, of a past,

she would much rather forget?

‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs Le,’ she told the other woman crisply, ‘but I

shall be eating out this evening.’

Previously she had not given the least thought to where she might eat her

evening meal, and she knew that her behaviour in refusing David’s salmon was

both illogical and slightly childish, but she hadn’t been able to help herself.

Where was David anyway...strategically keeping out of her way? Well, he

couldn’t do that for ever, and she certainly intended to tell him what she had

discovered and to demand an explanation of his misuse of the Trust’s funds. No

doubt he had imagined that he could slip the bill for the work on his own

property through with the bill for the cost of the work on City Hall without

anyone being any the wiser. Well, he was going to learn very quickly his error.

Which reminded her—she really ought to go up to the house and have a word

with whoever was in charge of the company he had hired to deal with the dry

rot. Kelly pursed her lips. By rights the contract ought to have been put out to

tender, but she had to admit that by acting so promptly and getting both the

report compiled and the work started David had saved her a good deal of

groundwork—and enabled work to be done on the Rectory at the Trust’s

expense?

Ten minutes later Kelly was on her way downstairs when she heard voices in

the hallway, and as she rounded the curve of the staircase she could see Mrs

Le talking with a tall, elegant woman in her late thirties.

‘So you’ll tell David that I called,’ she was saying to Mrs Lee.

‘Yes, I will, Mrs Le,’ the other woman was responding respectfully.

Thoughtfully and discreetly Kelly studied her. Tall, slender, expensively

dressed, immaculately made up, she was the type of woman whom Kelly could

remember David favouring and she immediately guessed that she must be David’s

current woman-friend. There was certainly that very confident, almost

proprietorial air about her that suggested she was far more than simply a mere

visitor to the house. She turned away from Mrs Lee and then saw Kelly, her

expression changing slightly and becoming, if not challenging then certainly

assessing, Kelly recognised as she continued on her way downstairs.

‘I’m just on my way to City Hall, Mrs Lee,’ she told David’s daily

calmly, adding with an impetuosity she later refused to examine or analyse calmly, adding with an impetuosity she later refused to examine or analyse,

‘Please thank David for his offer of dinner.’

Out of the corner of her eye she could see the way David’s woman-friend’s eyes

darkened as she watched her, and she had just reached the front door when Mrs

Lee stopped her, announcing, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I almost forgot; David asked

me to tell you that if you wanted to finish going over the big house he’d be back

around three.

‘Did he? That’s very thoughtful of him. How very obliging of him,’ Kelly

responded acidly. ‘When he does return, Mrs Lee, please tell him that there’s

no need for him to put himself to so much trouble. I have my own set of keys to

City Hall.’

Without waiting for the older woman to make any further response, Kelly

pulled open the front door. How dared he? she fumed as she hurried towards her

hire car. She had no need of either his company or his permission to view the

Hall. Furiously she started the Discovery, sending up an angry spray of gravel as

she reversed and then headed for the drive.

She was over halfway to City Hall before she felt calm enough to slow

down a little, her face burning as hotly as her temper. It was not up to David to tell

her what she could and could not do—not any longer.

As she brought the Discovery to a halt outside the house she hastily averted

her eyes from the spot where last night... What had happened last night was

something she had no intention of dwelling on nor trying to analyse; it had been

a mistake, an error of judgement, a total and complete aberration and something

which had, no doubt, been brought on by some kind of jet lag, some kind of

inexplicable imbalance, and it really wasn’t worthy of having her waste any time

agonising over it.

Unlocking the huge door, she turned the handle and took a deep breath as she

pushed it open and stepped inside. Resolutely ignoring the echoing sound of her

own footsteps, she hurried to where she and David had left off their inspection the

previous day. In her bag she had an inventory and a plan of the house, but an

hour later she was forced to admit that it was proving far less interesting

inspecting the rooms on her own than it had been yesterday, with David’s

informative descriptions of the rooms and their original uses.

From previous experience she knew that in a very short space of time she

herself would be completely familiar with the house’s layout and its history, but

right now... She gave a small scream as a mouse scuttled across the floor right in

front of her. She had always had an irrational fear of them—they moved so fast

and so far, and she had never totally got over an unpleasant childhood and so far, and she had never totally got over an unpleasant childhood

experience of having one jump towards her as it ran from one of the stable cats.

She was working her way along the upper floor when she suddenly heard David

calling her name. Stiffening, she stood where she was. Mrs Lee must have told

him that he would find her here. In her bag she had the report and the costings he

had commissioned for treatment of the wet and dry rot. Firmly she walked

towards the door, opened it and called out, ‘I’m up here, David...’

‘You shouldn’t have come here on your own,’ he cautioned her as he came

down the corridor towards her.

‘Why not? The house isn’t haunted, is it?’ she mocked him sarcastically.

‘Not as far as I know,’ he agreed, ‘but the floors, especially on these upper

two floors, aren’t totally to be trusted, and if you should have had an accident—’

‘How very thoughtful of you to be concerned, David,’ Kelly interrupted him.

‘Almost as thoughtful as it was of you to commission these reports.’

As she spoke she removed the reports from her bag and waved them under his

nose. ‘Or am I being naive and would “self-interested” be a much truer

description?’ David started to frown.

‘I don’t know what you’re trying to imply, Kelly,’ he began, but she wouldn’t

let him go any further, challenging him immediately,

‘Don’t you, David? I read the reports from the surveyors this morning. Tucked

in at the back of the estimates you’d obtained was this.

She handed him the costing for the work on the Rectory.

‘So?’ David shrugged after he had scanned the piece of paper she proffered.

‘This particular costing relates to work that needs to be carried out on the

Rectory, your own private house,’ Kelly pointed out patiently.

‘And...?’ David demanded, frowning at her before telling her, ‘I’m sorry, Kelly,

but I’m afraid I’m at a loss to understand exactly what it is you’re driving at. The

Rectory needed some work doing on it to put right the dry rot the surveyors

found, and—’

‘You decided to slip the bill for that work in amongst the bills for the work

that was needed on City Hall, to lose it amongst the admittedly far greater

cost of the work needed here!’

‘What?’ David demanded ominously quietly, his expression as well as his voice

betraying his outrage.

‘I don’t like what you’re trying to suggest, Kelly,’ he told her sharply.

She shook her head and told him thinly, ‘Neither do I, David. But the facts

speak for themselves.’

‘Do they?’ His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘I rather think it’s your overhere ‘Do they?’ His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘I rather think it’s your overheated

imagination that’s doing the “speaking” through your totally erroneous

interpretation of them,’ he told her through gritted teeth.

‘You can’t deny the evidence of this report,’Kelly reminded him sternly.

‘What evidence?’ David demanded. ‘This is a report and an estimate for work

on the Rectory—work which I have had carried out at my own expense; the only

reason the report and costing is there at all is because I omitted to remove it

when I had the documents copied for you...’