Chapter 74
Stephen had plenty of time to spy now that he was on extended sick leave for stress. He’d confided in his HR officer at work that he had discovered his mother might have been murdered by his wife and hoped that she’d spread it around because she was a renowned gossip. Ironically, she’d felt sorry for him and respected his privacy.
He had seen Bonnie leave and he knew that there were only two customers in the shop, accompanied by a guide dog. He walked in, setting the doorbell tinkling. Lewis Harley had just finished wrapping something up for them and was saying that he would see them again soon he hoped. Stephen pretended to browse and only when the couple left did he turn to face Lew and saw that he was instantly recognised.
‘Mr Harley,’ he said with a sly grin, under the impression that he was talking to the enlightened. ‘I can’t believe you’re still employing my wife.’
‘I would like you to leave,’ said Lew. He would remove him forcibly if he had to.
‘Have you no shame?’ Stephen’s smile dropped.
‘I won’t tell you again.’ Lew stepped forward and Stephen scuttled backwards towards the door.
‘After what she did you’ll still . . .? I’m going, I’m going,’ he cowered as Lew strode right up to him.
Lew reached behind Stephen and pulled open the door. ‘Get out please,’ he wanted to shout, though he kept his voice level.
‘A fine way to conduct business,’ Stephen huffed. ‘Well, I did try to warn you.’
‘What are you talking about?’ growled Lew, losing the last vestiges of his patience.
‘My letter to you explained everything,’ said Stephen.
‘I have no idea what you mean,’ returned Lew and Stephen knew from his reaction that he really didn’t. He’d posted that letter through the door of the Pot of Gold himself. If Lewis Harley hadn’t seen it, Bonita must have intercepted it.
‘Ask Bonita what she did,’ he said, with a salacious twist to his mouth. Then, grenade dropped, he turned from an irate but puzzled Lewis Harley and walked back to his car with a self-satisfied swagger in his step.
Lew didn’t know whether to tell Bonnie about his visitor that lunchtime, spitting out his cryptic clues: After what she did. Ask Bonita what she did. What did he mean? Nothing, probably; he was stirring. And what letter? Something was bobbing around in his brain about a missing brown envelope that never turned up but it flittered away when he tried to pin it down.
He weighed it up in his mind and by the time Bonnie returned, he decided he should mention it to her: forewarned was forearmed. He asked her first about Mrs Twist but there was no easy bending of the conversation around to Brookland. He might as well just come out with it.
‘Bonnie, Stephen was here today. I think he was looking for you. I threw him out. Not quite as dramatically as you can throw people out but I told him not to come back.’ He smiled, hoping to put her at ease but she was blanching before his eyes.
‘Did he say anything?’ she asked.
‘Not a lot. That he’d explained it all in a letter. And that I had to ask you what you’d done.’ He gave her a puzzled look.‘I have no idea what he means, nor am I going to give it headspace. And neither should you.’ But he saw worry cross her face like clouds cross the sun and he knew that there was something she wasn’t telling him. That bloody man, he thought. ‘Look, forget I said anything. Put the kettle on, Bonnie,’ he said extra cheerfully, ‘and break out the biscuits.’
Bonnie went into the back room to take off her coat and once she was out of his sight she bit her hand hard in an effort to stop the sob escaping her. The time had finally come. She had to leave the Pot of Gold before she too was thrown out.
She had walked back into the Pot of Gold after speaking to Katherine Ellison with hope in her heart that someone was on her side; that, at last, there was weight to the testament of her honesty; and it brought a pinprick of light to the end of the very dark tunnel in which she was crawling. But really, it meant nothing. Whether or not a jury believed what Mrs Ellison had to say above Stephen’s spurious account, she, Bonnie Sherman, had committed a criminal act in assisting a suicide and she had no intention of not admitting to it. And Lew Harley did not associate with people like that; he was a highly regarded businessman, respected, honourable. She would not put him in the uncomfortable position of having to let her go once Stephen had exposed her, because she knew he was a good person and it would not be a duty he would relish.
She turned the sign in the door from open to closed as normal, sadly aware that she would not be back tomorrow. This would be the last time she closed the blinds, washed up their coffee mugs in the sink, shut down the PC, did a final circuit around the shop to check that all the lights were off. She would not see Lew Harley again. It was for the best. She was in love with him and it could go nowhere, they were from different worlds. She said goodnight to him, savouring the smile in his lovely deep blue eyes, knowing that she could not bear to risk another day and find those eyes unable to meet with hers; she would crumble from the pain and the shame. Once she reached home she wrote him a note, sealed it and drove straight back to the Pot of Gold to push it through the letter box for Lew to find in the morning. She noticed the black car tailing her and knew from the registration plate that it was Stephen. It didn’t matter. It was over. He had won.