Chapter 3

“Bollocks Kate! This is my house and I’m sleeping in my own bed! If you don’t like it you can sleep in the bloody spare room.” I shouted as I went up the stairs.

I didn’t even have a shower that night; I just stripped off (I sleep naked, always have done) and climbed into bed. I don’t know how much later it was that I was woken by Katie coming into the room to get some of her things. She clattered around obviously making much more noise than was necessary and I heard her mutter the word “Bastard” more than once, before she finally left me in piece.

I have no idea what time I awoke the following morning; I just lay there for a long time, going over the previous day’s events. None of it made any sense to me at all, and as I replayed the day over in my mind, a question jumped into my head that I hadn’t asked myself and no one else seemed to have asked either. Where did this so-called DNA sample of mine that everyone was raving on about, and had apparently convicted me in Kate’s eyes, come from? Except for the previous afternoon, I could never remember giving a DNA sample in my life.

I got up and took a long shower before dressing. Then I made my way downstairs to the kitchen to find something to eat. It struck me that I hadn’t done much of that - eating that is - since the quick breakfast we’d snatched on the way to the office from the airport the previous day.

Katie was on the telephone when I walked into the kitchen, but she quickly terminated the call when she saw me. Too quickly actually, she obviously didn’t wanted me to overhear what she was saying or know who she was talking to.

Out of interest, a quick check of the call minder later in the day informed me that she’d been chatting with her sister. There were lots of calls on the log that had been made and received over the previous few days, to numbers that I didn’t recognise and were not listed in the telephone’s call-log internal directory.

Although there was one number that I did recognise; it or rather her name, jumped out at me like a sore thumb. It was my PA, Jean’s home telephone. Apparently Jean had called the house earlier that morning and talked to Katie for about fifteen minutes.

As I began making some more coffee - I’d discovered the pot was empty - I had to wonder if Katie had made a small batch on purpose that morning. She left the room without a good morning or anything; not that I had expected one.

“Okay girl you want to play the send “Owen to Coventry” game, then I’m in!” I thought to myself.

Well for a while at least; I was going to have to ask Katie if she had given this Cartwright guy a sample of my hair or something for that damned DNA test, before very much longer. But I was pretty pissed-off that Katie didn’t appear to be prepared to take my word or even listen what I had to say about anything; consequently I was feeling rather belligerent myself!

I clattered around noisily cooking myself some breakfast, then settled down to eat it and drink another cup of coffee. Eventually Katie reappeared in the kitchen. She quite obviously had been getting ready to go out – shopping I supposed, that was her normal Saturday routine, shopping with her sister – but it struck me she’d made more of an effort on her appearance that morning than she usually did for a Saturday morning shopping trip.

“Where are you going? We need to talk.” I said to her.

Katie looked at me as if I was something the cat had dragged in.

“I heard all I needed to hear, from you last night. If you’d been honest for just one second, I might have thought a little better of you. But you just keep denying everything.” She barked back at me

“For Christ’s sake Kate! Of course I deny it! It isn’t true, can’t you understand that?” I barked back at her.

Yeah well, I did raise my voice a little, but I was feeling pretty frustrated by then.

“That DNA evidence says otherwise and you can’t argue with scientific fact, no matter how much you try!” She shouted at me again.

“Katie, just tell me one thing. Where did this so-called DNA evidence come from? Did you give someone some of my hair or something from my comb in the bathroom? Because I’m buggered if I’ve ever given anyone a smear or anything to take a sample from!”

“I don’t know where they got it. But the courts ... they wouldn’t make a mistake about something like that!” She retorted.

“Who bloody says they wouldn’t? They claim that I was in Las Vegas and I’ve never been to the bleedin’ place in my life. Look here, where are the entry and exit stamps for the USA on my passport?” I said waving the document under her nose.

Just for an instant, there was a look of doubt in Katie’s eyes. But then just as quickly, the look of distain returned.

“What, do you think I’m stupid or something? You must have used your New Zealand passport, you’ve used it before to travel.” She threw back at me.

I’d better explain Katie’s comment. I was born in New Zealand, of British parents and have dual nationality, although I’ve lived in the UK since I was a small child and consider myself British.

“My New Zealand passport expired years ago Katie, you know that. I only used it once when my British one was out of date, and I never did get around to renewing the New Zealand one.”

“So you say!” Kate commented, the expression on her face and her tone of voice making it clear that she didn’t believe me. Then she walked ... no stomped, out of the house without another word.

I went to the window and watched her drive away. “This is effing ridiculous!” I said to myself, “How can Katie not even give me the benefit of the doubt?” It was plainly obvious that she was completely convinced I’d been running around on her.

But then the thoughts suddenly struck me, “Could I have been purposely set-up? And secondly, “What had Jean and Katie found to talk about for so long that morning?

Picking up the phone, I called Jean’s home number.

“Owen where are you?” Jean demanded, almost the instant she realised it was me on the line.

“At home, I’ve been here all night; where did you think I’d be?” I replied.

“But Katie told me, that you left the house last night and she didn’t know where you were! Well she all-but shouted down the telephone at me, actually!”

“The bitch, she wanted me to move out of the house last night, but I refused. She slept in the spare room, I think!”

“God Owen, she called me all the names under the sun when I told her that all this Cartwright stuff was nonsense.”

“I’m sorry Jean.” I replied.

“Oh, don’t you go apologising for Katie, Owen, she’ll have to do that for herself when this rubbish gets thrown out of court.”

“She all-but accused you and me of getting together you know.” I informed her.

“Yes, so I gathered! I got it all this morning and I told her that was utter nonsense as well. You know I can’t work it out; it’s like she wants to believe the lies.”

“That’s what it seems like to me as well. I even showed her my passport and pointed out that there were no American visas or entry and exit stamps in it. Katie just said that I’d probably used my New Zealand passport. Anyway what did you call for this morning?”

“Oh, only just to see if you were all right. I got a fax back from that Mrs Rose, asking for some other details about your movements in the last two years, and I think I gave her everything she needed. She didn’t come back to me again last night anyway.”

“Thanks Jean, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“That’s my job Owen, but Greg and I are really worried about you and Katie.”

“Don’t be Jean. I’ve got a clean conscience, so I’ve got nothing to worry about in the long term. Katie keeps on harping on about DNA comparisons being foolproof. What she doesn’t seem to understand is, that you’ve got to be comparing the right person’s DNA in the first place. I’ve got no worries on that score. The only problem is, that it looks like Katie is painting herself into a corner, although I think her sister and the dragon are stirring the pot.”

“What’s new, they’ve never been members of your fan club Owen.”

“Don’t I know it? Now you forget about my problems and have a nice weekend with Greg and the kids, I’ll be in touch on Monday.”

I spent the rest of the morning, unpacking and washing my gear. Then I cut the lawns both front and rear. I was still pottering about in the garden when Katie returned. She had her sister Christine with her, and they were both carrying large carrier bags from one of the more expensive department stores in town. I ignored their arrival as best I could and carried on deadheading the roses, as if nothing was amiss.

Surprisingly – well it surprised me anyway – sometime later, Katie called me in to the house, announcing that dinner was ready. The way she’d ignored me when it came to breakfast that day, I’d figure she’d do the same that evening. I never have been able to get my head around the way she behaved towards me that day.

However, my dinner was on the kitchen table; Katie and Christine were obviously eating in the dining room. And apparently, enjoying one of my best bottles of wine with their meal. Not that I’m really a wine drinker, much preferring a good pint of real ale. But my employers have an agent in France, with whom I’ve always got along with extremely well. He’s got his own vineyard and - although I no longer cover the European operation - he nearly always hunts me out when he’s in the country with a box of his latest brew. Or do they call it vintage ... or maybe pressings; whatever as I said wine isn’t really my poison.

Quite deliberately I went into the dining room and poured myself a large glass from bottle the girls had on the table. Under her breath, Christine made some snide comment that I couldn’t actually make out.

“Good afternoon to you as well Christine! Nice to see you, it’s so kind of you to drop by and stir the shit!” I replied sarcastically, to her unheard dig.

“I don’t see why you don’t get the police to throw him out of the house, Kate?” Christine said to my wife, with a venomous tone to her voice, but loud enough for me to clearly hear this time.

“They can’t do that Christine. Not unless Owen threatens to hurt me or shows physical violence towards me!” Katie replied.

“We’ll tell them that he has threatened you. I’ll back you up!” Christine offered. Rather too enthusiastically I thought.

“He might be a cheating bastard Chris, but I don’t believe that Owen would ever raise a hand to me. He’s not made that way.”

“The police won’t know that and it’ll be two against one. His word against ours!” Christine suggested, a tone of triumph entering her voice.

“That would be lying Chrissie! And that would do nothing but drag me down to Owen’s level; telling lies all the time! Don’t worry, my solicitor tells me that he’ll have him out of the house very shortly.”

I figured it was my turn to enter the conversation.

“Well now is that so? Well I’ve got some really bad news for both of you girls and your so-called legal eagle. As I’ve done nothing that I need to feel ashamed of, my legal people tell me that they can’t see any judge requiring me to leave this house. I can however, see two women who are going to be very embarrassed in the very near future.” I added, as I left the room to return to my meal in the kitchen.

I thought I’d behaved impeccably by not rising to their taunts.

Shortly thereafter Katie came in the kitchen and placed the dishes they’d been using in the dishwasher. She didn’t say a word and the only time she looked in my direction, I got that “cat dragged in” look from her again. Then she left the room and I heard the two women go upstairs. I assumed to the spare room that Katie had slept in the night before.

For the next couple of hours I heard them talking and even laughing, although I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then I heard the shower going a couple of times. It was then I think that I realised that Katie and Christine were getting ready for a night out on the town together. It wasn’t unusual for Christine to get ready at our house after she’d been out with Katie for the day. But normally, - and against my better judgement - I was taking them out for a meal or a to a show. Not that I ever enjoyed having Christine around the house, regretfully Christine and I had what is often referred to as “history”; but over the years I’d learnt to tolerate her for Katie’s sake.

I suppose this would really be a good time to explain the animosity between Christine and me, and how I eventually finished up being married to her sister Kate.

I’d first run into Christine a few years before I met Katie, actually whilst I was out on a stag night with some friends. Christine was out that night with a hen party and they were a pretty wild bunch, I can tell you. We’d spotted them in a few pubs in town during the evening, but it was fairly late when our drunken stag party actually ran into their equally inebriated hen party. By that time, I doubt that anyone was thinking straight or feeling any pain, if you understand what I’m saying.

Once the two parties teamed up together, things very quickly got completely out of hand. I last saw the prospective bride and the prospective groom making out (yeah the full horizontal tango) on a pool table in that back room of one of the seedier pubs in town, where most of the other guys from the stag do, were egging them on. Oh, and I’d better point out that the prospective bride and groom, were not intending to be at the same wedding ceremony.

Two other hen party girls -- or should I say women, they were both getting on a little and old enough to know better -- (and most likely at their age, married) were also putting on a show with the rest of the stag party and anyone else who happened to be handy. One was on her back lying on a settle pulling a proverbial train. The other appeared to be lying on her stomach over a bar stool taking on all comers at both ends, and shouting “Next” whenever one of the guys finished.

I’ve never been into group -- or public -- sex and I can’t say that either does anything for me. But like most guys, I do have a bit of the voyeur in me. So after watching the antics for a little while, I’d taken to propping up the main bar and trying to watch proceedings in the poolroom on the security monitor that allowed the barman to see who was vandalising the pool table. Yeah that was the kind of place it was.

I should say that this wasn’t the kind of pub that bothered with bouncers, doormen or anything like that. Normally if anyone got out of hand in there, the govner gave them a pasting and threw them out. He was an ex-boxer I believe; I don’t know though, from the way drunk punches seemed to bounce off him -- and he retaliated -- he probably still was a professional boxer.

Anyway, I somehow became aware that one of the other customers near me in the pub, was apparently manhandling a female from the hen party who didn’t appear to appreciate his attentions. Pissed or sober, I couldn’t let something like that happen, and as the govner was nowhere in sight, I had a gentle word with the guy. Not surprisingly to me, he backed off straight away, holding up both palms towards me, in the typical “I ain’t looking for trouble with you mate,” attitude. I’m not a big guy, but it was known around town that I could handle myself when push comes to shove.

The young woman, having been rescued from her tormentor, latched onto me like glue and didn’t let me get more that a couple of feet from her until the police arrived.

I have no idea who called the law that evening or even why. Maybe someone objected to the free sex show going on in the poolroom.

Whatever, by the time the officers had elbowed their way to the poolroom door, everything was respectable in there. The police however cleared the pub and closed it down for the night. It was whilst they were doing that, that I lost contact with the rest of my friends and Christine lost contact with the girls from the hen party. Somehow the two of us finished up in a nightclub together, and she was still with me when I woke up in my own bed the following morning.

Whether we “had” or “hadn’t” when we’d got home that night, I have no idea. It was of no real concern, because we did the moment we woke up in the morning anyway. And for the next six months we did it quite regularly, even more after I bought Christine an engagement ring. Christ, I was besotted with the woman; she had a beautiful face and a figure to die for. On top of that, she was intelligent. Well, I thought so at the time.

The only bug in the ointment was the witch. Or the dragon, or whatever other derogatory term you can come up with. It was the night that I asked Christine to marry me that I first met her mother. Well no, that isn’t exactly true, that was the evening I discovered that I’d at least seen the bitch before, at that bloody hen party. It had been her, balancing on top of a bar stool shouting “Next” whenever a vacancy came about. I was so embarrassed when I recognised her, that if the ground had opened up and swallowed me, I would have been grateful.

I don’t know whether Christine’s mother recognised me from that evening or not. If she did, she didn’t care. Which was one hell of a shame, because Christine’s father was a really nice bloke. But after meeting him and two of Christine’s brothers - just from the looks of the three siblings that I saw that night - I pretty soon realised that, it was extremely doubtful that any of them, had been actually been fathered by the man they called dad.

But each to his own, and I’ve never have been one to hold the sins of the parents against the children. Christine’s mother was a different case entirely, though. She struck me as an out and out slut and I couldn’t abide the woman. Perhaps it was my feelings towards her that translated into the contempt she held me in. Whatever, I tried to pretend that the woman didn’t exist and she returned the compliment.

I did discover that there were other siblings as well, but they were away at college, in the army and the like, so I wouldn’t meet any of them until the wedding.

Whatever; Christine and I made plans for the big day, and her poor old father must have dug deep into his piggy bank to afford the lavish “do” that the witch had planned. My folks were pretty much out of it, having returned to the antipodes some years previously. My father loved living down there.

Anyway my stag night had been planned to coincide with Christine’s hen night two weeks before the wedding. However there was a mix up in the flight bookings and my stepbrothers couldn’t get to the UK in time. So I put my stag night off until the week before the wedding.

That left me at a bit of a loose end on the night of Christine’s hen party. A couple of my mates suggest that we go out and down a couple, just for the kick. But as I didn’t want to run into Chris and her crowd around town, and spoil things for her, the three of us chose to visit a couple of pubs at the seedier end of town. We were no strangers there, but they aren’t the kind of places you would normally take your girlfriend.

You know what I’m going to say next don’t you. Well if you don’t you are as dumb as I was when I took up with Christine in the first place. What kind of girl jumps into bed with someone who is basically nothing more than a complete stranger to them? The kind of woman who will make out with a complete stranger - or I don’t know it could have been strangers, I have no idea who many other guys had her that night – against the back wall of a seedy pub, that’s who.

Yeah, it was about ten thirty when my friends and I walked into that particular pub. We could hear the yelling and shouting coming from the Poolroom, so out of curiosity we strolled over to take a gander at what was going on. Inside were a half a dozen girls, most of whom looked vaguely familiar, playing pool or dancing with some of the usual guys who frequented the pub.

But sitting on the settle was the ‘bitch of bitches’ making out with some old guy. One of the girls who was playing pool looked up and saw me standing there. In an instant she had that deer caught in the cars headlights expression on her face and I got a distinct sinking feeling in my stomach.

I looked around, but there was no sign of Christine. The girl who’d recognised me - one of Christine’s co-workers I believe – came over and tried to give me some old flannel about Chris not feeling well and having gone home early. That didn’t really cut much ice with me because her mother was snogging some geezer over the other side of the room. Bitch she might be, but if her daughter was unwell, surely she’d have been the one to take Christine home.