Free The Darkness and the Deep by Aline Templeton Page A

to go for a run before my two-thirty clinic, but not in this weather.’ She glanced through the French windows which gave on to wooden decking, sheltered by the leg of their L-shaped ranch-style house, but even so being blasted by the gale. It was pouring now, great billowing squalls of rain which rattled on the windowpanes like hailstones.
    ‘You’d better hope it’s just a meeting tonight and not a call-out,’ Lewis observed. ‘I certainly wouldn’t fancy going out in that.’
    His wife shuddered. ‘I’ve told you before – don’t say it! You only need to let the thought enter your mind and it prompts some dangerous lunatic somewhere to head for the rocks.’
    ‘Such superstition – and you a rational scientist!’ he mocked her, then added seriously, ‘But tell me about Willie – is he all right? I’d Jackie in today, complaining about headaches, and then it was the usual “By the way, doctor,” just as she was leaving. She’s very worried about him.’
    Ashley’s smooth brow furrowed. ‘Yes, I’m worried too. It’s nothing stronger than cannabis, as far as I can tell, but I’ve a nasty feeling his usage has increased. I sense he’s under a lot of strain, for some reason, and I tried tackling him head on – he simply lied about it, of course. But I’m keeping a very watchful eye and so far he’s been OK when he’s been on call. Trust me – I wouldn’t go out with a hopped-up cox.’
    ‘I should hope not.’ Lewis, still with the last bit of his sandwich in his hand, stood up. ‘I’d better go. Supper at – what, half-past six?’
    As the door shut behind him, Ashley sank back in her chair and closed her eyes, breathing a sigh of relief. It was a nervous business, this lying. Lewis always seemed oblivious – but could she be sure? He was, as Ritchie had reminded her, no fool, and he had always been so self-contained that she had long ago given up the struggle to work out what he was thinking. She suspected that most of the time it wasn’t very interesting, at least to her. But what she didn’t want was the embarrassment of accidental discovery, and there was always the chance that Lewis might be talking to Willie, or Jackie even, and happen to mention a meeting which, of course, wasn’t taking place. They’d been careful up to now; she was pretty sure no one else knew, since if there was gossip in the village Jocasta would be the first to find out through Gossip Queen Muriel at the reception desk or her other little favourite, the mouse-like Enid, who had a crush on Lewis that was positively comical.
    Still, there shouldn’t be too many more of these uncomfortable occasions. The showhouse had opened to the public now and there wasn’t even a corner of the site where she and Ritchie could meet safely, with buyers trampling round the finished houses – which had, gratifyingly, made Ritchie keener than ever.
    Originally it had been the old ‘my-wife-doesn’t-understand-me’ line, but now it had reached the ‘if-I-have-to-watch-her-doing-that-once-more-I-shan’t-be-responsible-for-my-actions’ stage. A marriage was over in all but name by the time the husband could spend ten minutes describing the irritating way his wife brushed her teeth.
    She’d begun the affair as – what? A hobby? A secret revenge on Lewis for bringing her to Knockhaven where, without the distraction of friends and city life, she had found herself living with a reserved, bloodless stranger in a claustrophobic society? Certainly, there had been nothing to stop her refusing to come with him, or even fleeing back to Edinburgh – nothing except the humiliation of admitting that her marriage had failed and suffering the sympathy of ‘friends’ who had envied her the charming, clever, good-looking doctor husband.
    It was all so ragingly, hog-whimperingly dull ! She wasn’t in love with Ritchie – but then, had she ever been in love with Lewis? She had never been convinced that love was anything more than a