He could not sleep. He usually slept for six hours without stirring, woke and got up. Now it was one thirty and he had been in bed, sleepless, since eleven o’clock. The bedroom felt chilly. He went downstairs and poured himself a whisky. Into the kitchen. Topped it up with a splash of tap water. Looked around.
Tidy. Clean. Silent. Empty.
He sat at the table.
What should he feel now? Relief. It had washed over him briefly, when he had learned that the CPS had decided he would not be prosecuted, but it had slipped away like the tide and left him. He felt depressed. Irritable. And lonely.
No. Richard Serrailler would never admit to loneliness, even to himself. He was self-sufficient, practically, emotionally. He had never needed others and yet he had been surrounded with them all his life.
He was angry. He drank another mouthful. He was angry that Shelley had been so stupid and so deceitful, so manipulative, and so treacherous. She had always flirted, and the flirting had become more obvious. He could not have mistaken the signals she had sent out to him so often. Of course he couldn’t. He wasn’t a man who went looking for other women. But when a woman behaved as she had behaved …
A corner of him felt disappointed that he had not gone into court, with his excellent defence counsel, and been able to watch Shelley backtrack, contradict herself and, finally, crumble under questioning. But on the whole, no. He would not wish that on her. Let it be. She must have learned a lesson, even from the process of bringing a charge.
The tide of relief began to creep up towards him again. He had been spared not only a difficult hour or two in court, but also, far worse, having his name and reputation spread over the papers. It was unlikely to have reached the national press, but if it had, that hardly mattered. It was the local papers that would have hung him, and life in Lafferton would have become intolerable. He and Judith would have been forced to retreat, probably to France.
Judith.
He finished his whisky and poured another.
Judith.
He had loved her. Did love her. That was the truth. But marriage had been constraining, as it was with Meriel, except that they both had time-consuming, demanding work, the children had been growing up, there had been Martha … there had been no energy to spare on a marriage which had functioned well enough. Being retired, even if he had a few leftover jobs on the medical journal, and a couple of committees, had meant he and Judith had spent a lot of time together. Too much time.
The house was too big for one man. But he shrank even from the suggestion that he might move.
He wanted to be alone, but not alone.
Shelley and Tim were happily together, so far as he knew, but the way she had led him on had cost him his own marriage.
He put the glass in the sink and turned the tap on hard so that the cold water splashed up and soaked his pyjama jacket.
He needed Judith back.