EVEN IF IT ENDED IN TEARS AND EMBARRASSMENT
Nurse Alison Worthywool could not get the passionate clinch with Yarrow out of her thoughts; the notion that they were two lonely souls in orbits apart suddenly finding themselves thrown together remained vivid in her mind.
However, Yarrow was totally immersed in the search for Emily’s killer, working sixteen hours a day. On the days he does get home from the station, he falls straight into bed. Sometimes he sleeps at the station, on a camp bed he brought into his office for those occasions when he was too tired to drive.
His eyes have sunk into deep panda pouches, his cough is worse, and his consumption of cigarettes is now over a hundred per day. He knows he must slow down; he knows he has to cut back on the cigarettes. He knows that station canteen food, all that he eats, is barely digestible and he is on a fast track for an ulcer or a heart attack, but he cannot break out of the vicious cycle.
He is obsessed, he can think of nothing else but the search for the killer, has not taken a day off since the day of the murder. He is a walking wreck and is reaching the stage where he is becoming ineffective. He also knows this, the only consolation he has is that he is not drinking, at least not much. A pint or two at the ‘Dog’ and that is that. At least he has not sunk back into seeking the answers at the bottom of a bottle of scotch.
Even so, he often has thoughts about Alison Worthywool and knows that he would like to meet her again, but when? And how?
He does sometimes think that he ought to find some time to drive down to the hospital and try to see her, to explain that once the murder hunt is over they will get together, explore their feelings for each other, but each day goes by when some other urgent business has come along and the intention is lost amongst the mountains of paper and reports that he drives himself to absorb and then another day has gone.
As for Alison, yes, she thinks of him constantly. Whenever she has reason to visit the matron’s office where they once clung to each other, she relives that moment. She remembers the feel of the skin of his ravaged face and she wants to soothe away that pain, the feel of his tall, bony body against hers, the sudden urgent hardness she briefly felt before he pulled away in embarrassment. The faint smell of his shaving soap and the smell of his sweat, his hair oil.
She wants him. Wants him so badly but was hurt and disappointed that he had made no effort to contact her. Had forgotten her? Her rational mind told herself that he was immensely busy with the investigation, that as soon as the killer was found he would seek her out, but the other irrational side dismissed this, he’s forgotten you, never had any intention of meeting you again, fobbed you off to spare your feelings. Like Alan, he thinks you’re a fat cow, an ugly fat cow and he also would be too embarrassed to be seen with you.
These thoughts tormented her, she wanted to find some excuse to go down to the station on Wentmore Road, to try to see him but does not want to embarrass him – or embarrass herself by a rejection.
But still, she could not get him out of her mind, she knew he was gentle and kind, could feel it in him, she lay in bed at night thinking of him and one night, she raised the hem of her nightgown and masturbated, imagining him deep inside and brought herself to shuddering climax.
She was no virgin; she had had sex with her ex-fiancé Alan a few times before he left her for Susan Hall.
Bitch!
As she lay in post-orgasmic languor, she resolved, once again, to steel herself to try to meet him at the station, even if it ended in tears and embarrassment, at least she would know where she stood.