Chapter 19: Getting to Know You

I had been working in Pro and Pubs for nearly seven months, and making the switch had really paid off. At first I found my role difficult, with many new concepts to grasp, and when bidding for a contract we worked all hours.

However, I soon began to reap the rewards of an enhanced salary, and going out and about meeting clients, 'schmoozing' as it was known in the department.

I discovered I had a flair for 'schmoozing, ' especially with females, although nothing sexual came of it as we were discouraged from mixing business with pleasure, and in fact I made the beast with two backs only once since the previous Christmas.

One evening a week, and on weekends whenever my duties at Pro and Pubs permitted, I would parade with Bravo Company, 8th Wessex, Territorial Army.

My 39th birthday found me and the company taking part in an exercise with the rest of the battalion on Salisbury Plain, not far from Warminster of happy memory. The battalion adjutant was a female; a large, well-proportioned woman with a commanding presence and a propensity for squaddies' cock. Captain Kay Mills may not have been a nymphomaniac but she was always ready to help out when they were busy. Her husband had set up house with a teenage slapper, and Kay retaliated by shagging her way through the members of 8th Wessex, a task similar to that of painting the Forth Bridge. The battalion personnel changed frequently, with men leaving and recruits joining practically every month. Nevertheless, Kay determinedly bedded the fresh flesh as soon as possible. I had been left on her back burner specifically for my birthday treat, although I must confess her cries of pleasure, muted by the Respirator S10 she was wearing at the time – don't ask! – indicated the treat was equally shared and appreciated.

Unfortunately, Bravo Company didn't exercise with the battalion on many weekends, and there had been no further assaults on my virtue. Even with the close proximity, extremely close in Kay's case, of a military ambience due, to my membership of the TA, I still occasionally suffered flashbacks and nightmares.

Now I no longer worked for Suzannah Weston, and had improved my career and salary prospects, I decide to take the bull by the horns and get to know her better, eventually, hopefully, in the biblical sense.

The smile she had given me, when I saw her off in a taxi after bandaging her sprained ankle, enveloped me in a cloud of anticipated delight for six months. Was I in love, in lust, or merely insane? I had previous experience with the last emotion when I convinced myself Sharon from the White Swan loved me.

I didn't have too many chances of bumping into Suzannah as I worked mostly in London. Occasionally I managed a morning or afternoon at West Drayton, and would make a point of popping in to her office. She seemed to appreciate my visits, and sometimes we would lunch together at the site restaurant. If people thought we were a couple then they would have been wrong, but not for the want of me trying. When we met she would be polite but rather distant. I did once invite her out for dinner, but she declined on the grounds it wasn't company policy for the staff to fraternize outside of working hours. When I mentioned Guthrie and Shona Lewis she shook her head.

"Malicious gossip, and if we are seen together too often, even on site, we will suffer the same defamation." She gave me a no nonsense look. "It's difficult enough for women employed at MilSys to be taken seriously as managers; my position would be undermined by any gossip. You do see my problem, Mister Desmond?"

I nodded wearily. We always maintained a formally polite atmosphere between us; she was always Ms. Weston and I Mr. Desmond.

On one occasion, on the way back to her office from lunch, I screwed up my courage and asked straight out. "Would you prefer I didn't call in to see you when I'm on site?"

She stopped and stared at me, and for an instant I thought I saw a flash of disappointment cross her face. "That would be your decision, Mister Desmond, but I admit I do enjoy our little chats."

She gave a small smile and went into her office. I stared at the closing door and thought, 'maybe I have opened a crack in her defences.'

'Our little chats', as she called them, were nothing more than an exchange of news of what had been happening in our respective departments; more like a team meeting than a tête-à-tête, but beggars can't be choosers, and merely sitting across the table from her in the staff restaurant was an event I looked forward to, and something which would have been unthinkable a year ago. I sighed, and turned to go.

"She does look forward to your visits, Des." I spun around in surprise. I hadn't noticed Vera sitting behind her desk. "Beneath her frosty exterior Suzannah is a quite a fragile person. She must have had some bad experiences with men, and is wary of getting involved again." Vera stood up with some papers in her hand. "But keep pegging away. If anyone can melt Miss Ice Knickers it's you." She gave me a wink, then knocked on Susannah's office door and entered.

I went home wondering, hoping, if Vera could be right.

Early one Monday morning, in October 2003, I had a particularly vivid nightmare concerning the Serb teenager I had shot in Bosnia. He stood before me, blood gushing from his eyes and screaming in agony, neither of which had actually happened at the time I shot him. Nevertheless it brought me trembling to full consciousness. I couldn't get back to sleep, so decided to go for a run.

I pulled on my tracksuit and went out in the chill early morning air to run around the park outside my block of flats, which was a green lung of the area and stretched across to where Suzannah Weston's block of flats were situated. Occasionally we would pass each other on the circuit, but would only nod a greeting and continue running. I didn't use the park too often in case she thought I was stalking her, or such. However, this early in the morning there would be little chance of us meeting. A quick glance at the clock showed it to be 03.50 hours, and the good burghers of Iver would be tucked up warmly in their beds. Of course, the not so good burghers of Iver might be out breaking and entering.

I set out at a good pace, and had completed at least three circuits, which equates to about four miles, when it happened. I ran, concentrating on the contract Pro's and Pubs were working on, and although I could see her apartment block from the track as I passed, not about Suzannah. One moment I was going over in my mind the main facts of the presentation I was due to give next month to a Chilean police delegation at Harrogate Arms Week, and the next I was on the ground. My right leg had crumpled like tissue. I screamed in pain, and rolled in agony. For a split second I thought I'd been shot. I tried to stand, but my leg simply buckled beneath me, and I landed back on my arse. Fortunately by then the excruciating pain had subsided to an agonising ache.

I spied a park bench about 20 yards along the path and crawled over to it, dragging my leg as if it was broken. I managed to heave myself up onto the bench, and then must have passed out because I came to in grey daylight, with a wispy, freezing, fog enveloping me.

Although it was only early October the country had been experiencing nightly frosts, and below freezing temperatures during the day, and in fact a covering of hoar frost coated my tracksuit, and I was shivering with cold.

I tried to rise from the park bench, but once again my leg refused to take my weight, and I fell back on the seat with a bump. I was searching for, more in hope than in anticipation of finding, my mobile phone in my tracksuit pocket, when I heard a voice.

"Mister Desmond, are you alright?" I looked up to see Suzannah Weston; trim in a maroon tracksuit, and concern on her beautiful face. Before I could reply she answered her question. "Of course you're not alright. You are shivering with cold, and look as if you spent the night on the bench." She came closer and sniffed. I savoured the scent of her fresh, feminine sweat, and her own body odour, which had a flavour of violets. "Well, at least you're not drunk."

"I was out for a run and my leg just gave way. I managed to crawl to this bench before passing out. Give me a hand up and I'll be fine."

She put out her hand and I grasped it, and with her help I managed to stand, relishing the touch of her flesh for precious seconds. Suzannah put her arm around my waist, and I draped my right arm over her shoulders. Her left leg was hard up against my right, giving it some support, and I felt pins and needles in the leg, so at least some life was returning. Life was also returning to my middle leg. Being so up close and personal with Suzannah Weston had awakened Mister John Thomas.

As neither of us were carrying mobile phones we started walking, rather ungainly, and with some discomfort for me in the underwear department, towards a telephone kiosk at the park entrance, where Suzannah intended ringing for a taxi to take me home. It was slow going, for although my leg seemed to have recovered its strength I was trying not to let my erection become too obvious, and was also prolonging the physical contact with her.

At the park entrance she propped me against the side of the kiosk prior to going inside to phone, when I started shivering. On my life it wasn't feigned or faked. I trembled like a leaf, and gave a fairly good impression of a man with St Vitus Dance.

"You are probably suffering from hypothermia." She said, alarmed. "You'd better come up to my flat and have a hot drink and warm up."

We made our way, out of the park towards her apartment block opposite, if not cheek by jowl then cheek by cheek, and haunch by haunch. I got the impression Suzannah was enjoying the sensation of our bodies rubbing together, even though both encased in tracksuits. I was on cloud nine, enthralled and entranced by her proximity. Actually I did not have hypothermia, although I was extremely cold. I had completed a course on hypothermia as a combat medic, and recalled that shivering is only one sign of the condition, and I wasn't exhibiting any of the others, such as shallow breathing, memory loss, or exhaustion, and my stumbling steps were due to my leg giving way and only now coming back to life.

Suzannah used a swipe card to enter her block, and as she pressed for the lift I took a quick glance around the foyer. It was a more modern and luxurious building than Bourne Mansions, but didn't have a concierge, although there were three lifts, and one soon arrived.

We were both silent in the lift on the way up to her top floor flat.

"It's déjà vu all over again." I broke the awkward atmosphere between us with the memory of the last time we had shared a lift; taking her to my flat to bandage her sprained ankle. She laughed, not something I'd heard from her before, and it was a wonderful sound. "As Yogi Berra is reputed to have said."

"What, the cartoon bear that's smarter than the average bear?"

"No, silly. The baseball player." She smiled at me, and immediately my leg felt better. "You've never heard of him have you?" I shook my head.