Blueprint for Love (Choc Lit) (14 page)

          In the office, Jonathan fired up his computer and logged into the hard disk containing the footage from the various security cameras.
‘I doubt if your burglar climbed over the wall, so let’s check the camera on the main gate first.’

          They trawled through hours of footage, and although they were able to play it back faster than normal speed, it was a tedious task. Hazel brought the promised coffee on a tray, with the boys carrying a mug each, then they retreated quickly and left them to it.

          He hadn’t had much sleep the night before on the uncomfortable hotel bed, and although the coffee helped, Jonathan felt his eyelids grow heavy.

          Suddenly George grabbed his shoulder.
‘There! Stop! Back up a bit. That’s it.’

          An incriminating scene played out in front of them. A man with a bolt cutter appeared outside the locked gate, signalling to someone on the inside, who then came into view of the camera. It was a woman, dressed in a trench coat, jeans, and with a scarf tied around her head. Taking out a bundle of keys, she unlocked the wrought iron gates, keeping her face turned away from the camera as if she was familiar with its location. The man slipped through the gate, the woman locked it again, and they both disappeared from view.

          ‘Well, I’ll be ... that’s Lawrence!’ George exploded, clenching his fists. ‘The scheming toad!’

         
‘Lawrence?’ An icy feeling slid down Jonathan’s back, and it was as if his own voice came from far away. He’d heard that name before. Hazel’s friend. The one she claimed to have only just met.

         
‘The son of my old business partner,’ George explained. ‘His father wasn’t able to carry on with my research without my notes, but he knows my invention is worth a lot of money if they can sell it to one of the oil companies. Money is all they ever cared about,’ he added with a contemptuous snarl.

         
‘And did they succeed in stealing it?’

         
‘Harrumph. What they took won’t make any sense to them. I keep all my important findings up here.’ George tapped his head, then focused on the CCTV footage again. ‘Who’s the woman, I wonder? And how did she get hold of a key?’

         
‘I don’t know,’ Jonathan replied, but it was a lie. He did know. He’d have recognised that raincoat anywhere, the style and the cut unmistakable even on a black and white security film.

          The woman letting in the burglar was Hazel.

Hazel was tidying up in the kitchen when Jonathan sought her out.

          ‘A word, if you please.’

         
‘Of course.’ She dried her hands on a tea towel.

          Jonathan got right to the point.
‘You let the burglar in. Your friend Lawrence.’

          Confused by his words, Hazel blinked.
‘
Lawrence
? What are you talking about?’

         
‘Don’t bother denying it. You were caught on CCTV wearing that red raincoat of yours. I’d recognise it anywhere.’

         
‘My raincoat? Oh, but someone collected it from the dry cleaner's, and– ‘

          Jonathan held up his hand and sent her a look of contempt.
‘I don’t want to hear it. You’ve already explained yourself to me too many times. I should’ve seen through it, but I was blinded by your pretty face.’

         
‘Jonathan, listen, I– ‘

         
‘I want you to pack your things and leave. Right away. And I don’t want to see you ever again.’

          He turned on his heel and left. Wringing the tea towel in her hands, she tried to make sense of what he’d said. Lawrence was a burglar. Someone had let him in during the night, wearing Hazel’s raincoat as a disguise. Which meant she’d been set up. Meeting Lawrence, losing her dry cleaning ticket, having allowed herself to be goaded into breaking and entering – it had been a set-up from start to finish.

          But who was behind it, other than Lawrence? Tabitha? Maybe, maybe not, but there was no way Hazel could prove it. And Jonathan seemed to have made his mind up about her ‘guilt’ anyway.

          The reality of the situation hit her. Jonathan never wanted to see her again. That meant never seeing Seth and Ben either, nor George and Irene, and everyone else she’d come to like and respect in this wonderful place.

          Stifling a cry with her hand, she stumbled towards a chair. It was like losing her family all over again, and she wrapped her arms around herself to quell the horrible, sick feeling that her heart had been ripped out. It was almost too much to bear.

          How long she sat on the hard kitchen chair, she had no idea. Finally she rose, slowly because her legs were shaking, and went to her apartment to pack.

Swirling the ice cubes in his drink, Jonathan stared out into the dark. Standing by the large window facing the front drive, he was in exactly the same spot he’d been earlier when he’d watched Hazel struggling down the gravelled path with her bags. The gentlemanly thing would have been to help her to the bus stop, but he’d found himself unable to do that.

          The anger was still there, pushing against his ribcage from the inside so hard he feared his chest would explode. Anger at Hazel’s betrayal, anger that his father’s work had left them all so exposed, but mostly he was angry with himself for being taken in.

          I’ll never trust another woman for as long as I live, he thought for the umpteenth time.

          But behind the anger was the realisation that he’d fallen in love with her, and it was like an open wound which wouldn’t heal. The sense that he’d lost something precious before he’d had a chance to hold it, gripped his insides and made even simple acts like lifting a glass to his lips physically painful. Whatever her betrayal, and despite his own righteous anger, he couldn’t just make those feelings disappear. It would be a long time before he got over her. If he ever did.

          He was startled out of his thoughts by movement behind him.
‘Dad?’

         
‘Ben? Why aren’t you asleep?’

         
‘Is Hazel going to come and sleep in our bed again tonight?’

          Jonathan frowned.
‘In your bed?’

          Ben shrugged.
‘She was reading to us.’

         
‘How do you know she was in the bed with you, if you were asleep?’

          Chewing his lips, Ben lowered his eyes.
‘I woke up, and it was, like, really late, but I couldn’t sleep so I played with my Nintendo for a bit. I was worried the beeping noise would wake her, but it didn’t.’ He looked up again. ‘Are you cross with me? I know I’m not supposed to play Nintendo in the middle of the night.’

          Jonathan stared at his son while his mind was working overtime. His heart lifted at the thought that his suspicion of Hazel might be unfounded. Perhaps she hadn’t forsaken him after all.

          ‘No, I’m not angry,’ he said, and gave Ben a quick hug. ‘In fact, I’m very glad you told me. Now, let’s get you back to bed.’

          He waited until he was sure Ben had fallen asleep again, then rushed to his office and switched on the computer. If Hazel had been asleep between the boys all night, who was the woman in the raincoat?

          Calling up the security footage again, he played back the section from the main gate, paying particular attention to the woman. Recalling how perfectly that coat had fitted Hazel when he first met her, it became clear on closer inspection that both the sleeves and the body were far too short for the person wearing it in the picture.

          In fact, the height and stature of the mysterious woman was a closer match to Tabitha than Hazel.

          He sat back with his eyes frozen on the screen, his stomach churning and his palms sweating. Overcome with despair, he realised that he’d made a terrible mistake.

Tabitha wasn’t in when he arrived at her flat in Norwich, but he wasn’t surprised. Tabitha liked going dancing on Saturday nights, so he settled down in the car to wait for her.

          Later, a knock on the Land Rover’s window brought him out of his involuntary slumber.

          ‘Cooey! Have you come to see me?’

         
‘Where have you been?’ Squinting at the morning sun, Jonathan stepped out of the car.

          Tabitha pouted.
‘Clubbing. Is there a problem?’

         
‘I need to talk to you.’

         
‘Well, come on up.’

          He followed her up the stairs to her flat, conscious of the questioning glance she sent him over her shoulder.

          ‘I’ll get the coffee on,’ she said, in her most sultry voice. ‘You look like you could do with some.’

         
‘Fine.’ He didn’t really want coffee but it postponed the moment when he had to confront her. Confront her with what exactly? He had nothing to go on, except a hunch, and he wasn’t sure he could trust even his hunches these days.

          While Tabitha was in the kitchen, his eyes roamed the décor of her living room – all glass, chrome and white furnishings, which wasn’t much to his taste. He slumped down on her pristine sofa, realising only then how tired and confused he felt, and adjusted an expensive-looking silk cushion. Something dug into his back. Pulling the offending article out from under the cushion, he froze.

          It was a crumpled red raincoat.

          Smiling, Tabitha appeared with coffee on a tray, but her smile dropped when she saw what he was holding, and she put the tray down.

          ‘Would you like to explain yourself?’

          She gave a tinkling little laugh.
‘How did that get there? I’ve been looking for it everywhere.’

         
‘It’s not even yours.’

         
‘Of course it’s mine. Who else would it belong to?’

         
‘There was a break-in at the Manor, the night between Friday and Saturday. Two people were caught on CCTV, and one of them was wearing this coat, which, by the way, is far too small for you. Hazel claimed that someone had collected her coat from the dry cleaner's, but I didn’t listen. I should have.’

          Realising that the game was up, Tabitha sank into an armchair with a dramatic sigh.
‘I did it all for you, Jon-nee.’

         
‘For
me
?’

         
‘I thought we had something.’

         
‘What gave you that idea? I respected you as a colleague, and I admit you are very attractive,’ Jonathan replied, ‘but that’s all. I’ve never given you the impression that I had any tender feelings towards you.’

         
‘
She
turned your head,’ Tabitha snarled, with a sudden nasty expression on her face. ‘I noticed that as soon as she arrived. When my old colleague, Lawrence, contacted me, I saw a way of getting rid of her and helping him at the same time.’

         
‘So you decided to frame Hazel by deliberately stealing her coat?’ Jonathan’s voice was cold and hard, but she hardly seemed to notice.

Tabitha just shrugged.
‘She’d dropped her dry cleaning ticket in the office, and I collected it to annoy her. That it was a coat proved to be useful, but it was mere chance.’

‘
So how did you get in again after the party? I thought all the gates were secured.’

‘
I stayed behind afterwards, and took the gate keys from your office. As for the fence around the shed, I’d seen the code for the keypad on your desk, and I knew where the camera was.’

          She looked almost proud of herself, while Jonathan had to fight an urge to wipe the smug grin off her face.

          ‘Are you going to have me arrested?’ she asked, with a toss of her hair. ‘You can’t prove anything.’

          He noted the challenge in her words, but didn’t rise to it. Any admiration he’d had for Tabitha had completely evaporated.
‘No, but Lawrence will be. Whether he spills the beans on you or not, is up to him. In the meantime, you can expect the paperwork in the post for dissolving our company partnership. I suggest you sign.’

          Clearly she hadn’t considered the possibility that Lawrence might implicate her, and her face paled visibly. Carrying Hazel’s raincoat over his arm, Jonathan left Tabitha standing in the middle of the room, struck dumb.

He called Alison from the Land Rover.
‘When you picked up Hazel yesterday, where did you take her?’

         
‘To Sunnyside B&B, just off the high street. Why? Jonathan, what have you done?’

         
‘Only made the biggest mistake in my life,’ he replied, and hung up.

          Sunnyside was tucked away in a quiet cul-de-sac, and fortunately there was a parking space right outside. However, Hazel wasn’t there.