He began to cry then. To weep unashamed tears. His shoulders shook. Big sobs racked his body.
“I really am in love with you,” he muttered through the tears.
She got up from her seat, went across and sat next to him. She wrapped her arms around him, this big strong man. He buried his head in her shoulder and just carried on weeping.
It was several minutes before he stopped. She did not try to say anything. Instead she just held him very tightly, her whole body encouraging him to let his feelings out. He certainly seemed better at doing so than she was, she thought. And she warmed to him even more because of it.
Eventually he pulled away from her, wiping his face with both hands. His eyes were red and swollen and full of anguish. She didn’t think she had ever witnessed such an instinctive outpouring of raw emotion.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“No,” she responded gently. “I’m very very flattered.”
He pulled even further away, the pain in him all the more apparent.
“Is that all? Just flattered? What about you? What do you feel?”
“I–I don’t know,” she said. She thought that she did know well enough. In fact, she knew that she did. But old habits die hard. It was not in Karen’s nature readily to open her heart.
“You don’t know?” He sounded quite distraught.
“You’ve given me a shock, Phil,” she went on, trying to be lucid, to be logical, to cool the situation a little. “I mean, you’re a copper. And a married one. I actually know nothing about your personal life. I don’t know if you’re happy, I know nothing about your marriage or your family. I am well aware, though, how so many of the blokes in the job are. I’m privy to locker-room gossip. I’m another cop. I know how they talk about women, particularly the married ones. How they talk about their wives. How they talk about other women who are stupid enough to let them into their beds. Most of them have no intention of rocking their marital boat, that’s for certain. They just like a bit of variety. And they’re quite inclined to boast about it. They’re into one-night stands, because that way they don’t get any extra problems. I thought that’s what I was to you. Just a one-night stand. I thought you made that perfectly clear. I thought maybe that was how you lived your life. That you liked to play away from home occasionally but that was all. And that in the cold light of dawn you backed away — particularly from me, a woman you worked with, a woman who is a senior officer.”
It was quite a speech for Karen, and it was the truth. Phil Cooper looked as surprised as she had been earlier. He shook his head.
“Is that really what you thought, boss?”
“Phil, for Christ’s sake, will you stop calling me boss? Under the circumstances it makes me feel even worse.”
Cooper managed a wry smile. “Sorry,” he muttered, for the umpteenth time. He took a big white handkerchief from his trouser pocket and blew his nose noisily. The handkerchief had been neatly pressed and folded, by his wife, no doubt. Only men who had wives who did that sort of thing for them were likely to carry carefully ironed real cloth handkerchiefs around with them.
She watched in silence, determined not to get too carried away. The handkerchief had been a timely reminder. Whatever he said, whatever he professed to feel for her, he was still a married man who had shown great reluctance to follow up their night together.
It was a minute or two before Phil began to talk again, his voice quite calm now. “I’d better tell you about me,” he began. “I’m not like the others.”
Well, that was original, she thought, trying desperately to remain at least a little cynical.
“You see...” He looked uncertain, sounded as if he couldn’t get the words out. “You see, I met my wife when we were both very young. She was sixteen and I was seventeen. We were both virgins. We became best friends and eventually lovers and before either of us knew where we were we were married. I was barely twenty. Neither of us had been to bed with anyone else.”
Another pause. Karen waited again.
“The thing is, Karen, that was still how it was until you, until us...”
He really couldn’t get the words out. Karen was confused. He couldn’t possibly mean what he seemed to mean, could he?
“I don’t quite understand,” she said. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“I’m trying to tell you that you are the only woman I have ever been to bed with except my wife. I’ve always been faithful to her. But it’s not something you let onto in a police station. Most of the guys would think that there was something wrong with you.”
With a different sort of man Karen might have thought this was a chat-up line. There was, however, absolutely no chance that Cooper was being anything other than devastatingly truthful. She somehow did not doubt that for one minute. And she could see that he hadn’t finished what he was saying. She waited in stunned silence for him to continue, to drop a further bombshell, maybe.
“I don’t mess around, Karen. I never have and I never will. This thing that happened between us, it didn’t happen by chance. It wasn’t a game. I don’t know about you, I can’t guess about you. You keep things so close to your chest. But for me it had been building up for some time.”
“I tried very hard not to let myself do anything about it. I didn’t know how you felt but I bloody well knew how I felt. I knew it was important before it happened, and when it did happen, well, it was probably the most momentous thing in my life. I’ve never felt anything like it, Karen. Yes, OK, I told myself afterwards that it must never happen again. But I just knew in that instant when we first touched how special we were, that there was something between us that I may well have been looking for all my life.”
He stopped. He looked uncertain now, perhaps regretting already that he had said so much. Karen touched his face, then took his hand and squeezed it in a gesture of reassurance. No, not a gesture. She wanted desperately to reassure him, to bring him comfort. The time had come even for her to be honest. She had tried not to admit to herself what she really felt. In the face of this extraordinary outburst of emotion, this extraordinary display of trust in her, this candid declaration of love, she could do nothing, for once in her life, other than be totally honest about the depth of her feelings.
“It’s all right, Phil,” she said. “It’s the same for me.”
“Really?” His voice was very small.
“Really. From the beginning of ‘us.’ As you say, maybe even from before that. But I thought it wasn’t like that for you. When you didn’t want to speak to me the next morning I didn’t know what to do. I was devastated. You had really hurt me and I just wanted to hurt you. That was why I kept sniping at you. I am sorry.”
“Don’t be. I understand. I can see how it must have looked.”
“Yes, well. Why, though? Why couldn’t you at least have talked to me the next morning?”
Cooper gave a little grunt.
“I’d just sent my children to school. I’d just had breakfast with my wife. I don’t cheat, Karen. I don’t do it. It might seem old-fashioned, but there it is. When I saw you in the car park I just wanted to take you in my arms. But I couldn’t. I just didn’t dare respond at all. So I decided I had to try to walk away. Turn my back on you. It was all I felt capable of.”
“Guilt, then? That old friend.”
“No.” Cooper sounded mildly surprised at his own reply. “I didn’t feel guilty. I don’t feel guilty. I don’t think it comes with this particular territory, not when you’re being absolutely honest, not when you’re being true to yourself.” He managed a small smile. “Fear more than guilt, I think.”
“And are you still afraid?”
“Terrified.” This time he beamed at her, that big wide smile which seemed to have done something permanent to her heartstrings.