Pools of Blue , livre ebook

Troubador Publishing Ltd - Sue Ryan

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112 pages

English

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Sarah Williams is a talented copywriter, finally landing her dream job in a top-notch London Advertising Agency. The year is 1997. Christopher Hobson is the newly appointed Creative Director, whose reputation precedes his arrival. Despite herself, Sarah falls for this handsome man, with his Pools of Blue eyes.They are clearly in love, but it's not long before Chris's obvious drinking habit begins to impact their relationship. Sarah tries her best to manage the problem.... or ignore it. However, Chris's abuse, together with his jealousy of her industry awards, becomes increasingly difficult to tolerate. We learn too that Chris's family harbours a secret regarding his absent father.In a bid to move past their problems, Chris attends AA meetings and the couple go to counselling. A move to the countryside provides a brief respite but other problems soon manifest themselves. Chris joins their neighbour in a weekly game shoot and eventually acquires his own rifle.His behaviour at work gets out of hand, and he becomes disproportionately jealous of Sarah's relationship with a colleague, convinced she's having an affair.Just when Sarah decides she's had enough and their relationship must come to an end, a shooting takes place.Chris is now in the courtroom facing a charge of attempted murder. The odds are stacked against him, but the trial soon takes an interesting turn...

Informations

Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 octobre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781803133713
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Copyright © 2022 Sue Ryan

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 978 1803133 713

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

For Patrick and Alex; my love always for the wonderful young men you’ve become, and my total admiration for everything you’ve achieved to date and will, I have no doubt, go on to achieve in the future.

For Nick; forever in my heart.
Thank you for all the lovely memories.

Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Acknowledgements
About the Author

Chapter One
The nurse handed me my discharge letter. It was sealed and addressed to my GP. The accompanying list of prescription drugs was not sealed, and it made for some unsettling reading. Apparently my Consultant had deemed me recovered enough to be released. Well what did he know? Parts of me had recovered, granted, but I reckoned my heart was still in intensive care, refusing to play ball with this whole ‘getting better’ thing. Nonetheless it managed to produce an impressive ECG printout, one sufficient enough to fool the whole medical team. One month and four days ago, there seemed little hope of any part of me surviving the wreckage. But time, as they say, is a great healer. And modern medicine is a sodding marvel.
You see one month and four days ago, my husband shot me. Or should I say my soon-to-be-ex-husband shot me. Call me sensitive, but I decided that I no longer wanted to be with him after he’d pumped a couple of bullets into my body. So I filed for divorce. I say bullets but actually they were pellets. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here at all. Also I did no such filing, my sister took care of the details and I just signed on the dotted line with, it has to be said, some difficulty due to the plaster cast encasing my whole right arm. I was told that one pellet hit my shoulder and the other my thigh, so it took me a good while to figure out why my arm was smashed to bits. Turns out I’d keeled over from the impact of the pellets (pretty pathetic, I know). Our coffee table had broken my fall, along with my right arm. Ironically, that table had been a wedding present from Chris’s Mum and I’d always hated it.
So here I was, fully ‘recovered’ and ready to face the world again. How exactly does one face the world when one has been shot by one’s husband? I guess I was about to find out. But first let me try and explain exactly how I came to be in this unfortunate position.
***
LONDON 1997
Of course the whole sorry tale began the minute I laid eyes on my husband-to-be, just a few months into my first proper job. After a couple of expensive creative writing courses and free work placements, not to mention a degree and a Masters, I’d finally managed to land the job of my dreams; copywriter for a large Advertising Agency in London. I’d blagged my way into a work placement a few months earlier. Actually I’d flirted my way in but hey, the end justifies the means in my book. Either way I proved my worth and so was taken on as a full-time and, to the tangible relief of my parents, salaried member of staff. I felt on top of the world! I had a real job! What’s more I was being paid for something I loved doing.
Creative teams generally worked in pairs to dream up an idea in answer to a client’s brief. I was teamed up with an experienced Art Director so that he could ‘hold my hand’ for the first few months. Phil was an avuncular sort, with a bulging belly and a receding hairline. When it turned out that he was taking his own brief a little too literally, I was pretty pissed off. Trust me to cop a sleazebag as my very first creative partner. I really was only interested in his artistic talents vis-a-vis creating TV commercials, not how creative he could be in the bedroom. Might have had something to do with his paunch and lack of hair (the man was only mid-thirties for Christ’s sake) but of course I refrained from pointing that out. His chat-up line went something like:
“Hey Sarah, why don’t we put this baby to bed tonight at my place, over a bottle of wine? We’ve nearly cracked it and I definitely think better after a good meal and a glass or two of Merlot.”
‘If that were the case you should be knee-deep in awards by now’ was the riposte that immediately came to mind, but I replied: “Yeah, right Phil. Umm, I don’t think that’s a good idea really. We’d be better off keeping our relationship professional don’t you think?”
“OK sweetheart, but if you change your mind I’m all yours. We could make beautiful music together!”
This was one of many dreadful clichés the man endlessly churned out. Good job I was the writer.
Anyway he got the message loud and clear, and much to my surprise subsequently fell in love with Tina in Accounts. That was a result all right. Because truth be told, I really enjoyed working with Phil. He had a great deal of experience and was a good mentor. I learned a lot from him. We went on to develop a sound working relationship as well as becoming great mates. I never missed an opportunity to tease him about his odious seduction attempt though.
Around about the time that Phil fell hook, line and sinker for Tina (I’m sure it was because she was very understanding about his hugely inflated monthly expenses) the Agency appointed a new Creative Director. A lot of gossip preceded his arrival. He’d been poached from a competitor and his reputation was legendary. Legendary for two reasons I might add; one, if he thought the client was wrong he told them so in no uncertain terms, and two, he could apparently bed any woman he wanted. I’d never met the man and so was more than a little intrigued, whilst at the same time sure of my conviction that his charm wouldn’t work on me. No Siree!! If he thinks he’s going to get me into bed, he’s got another think coming.
And so Christopher Hobson bowled into the Agency and into my life. Tall, dark and – yes you’ve got it – handsome – he was charm personified. For the first few days anyway. He went around introducing himself to everyone, took a look at some of our work, commented favourably and moved on. All the while smiling at everyone he came into contact with (even the client service boys or ‘suits’ as we called them). We were all taken in. Clearly the gossip was wrong! Either that or he’d had a massive personality change somewhere between leaving his last Agency and joining ours. Unfortunately, it wasn’t too long before the real Mr Hobson emerged.
To be fair to the man (not an easy thing to say about a person who’s levelled a gun at you) he did treat his creative teams quite well. He was generally very encouraging and supportive. If he didn’t like what you’d produced, his observations were short and not so sweet. But if he did like it the flow of compliments would be nigh on embarrassing. Client meetings, though, were a veritable spectator sport at times. Those present were frequently treated to his famed temper. ‘Don’t make Chris cross’ was the oft-whispered phrase, just prior to one of these meetings. Thinking back, it was amazing how we managed to keep hold of some of our clients. He would make mincemeat of them if they didn’t like the ideas he was presenting. He would belittle them, tell them they didn’t know what they were talking about and then simply walk out. Invariably, a senior ‘suit’ was sent to sweet-talk him back to the room where a gibbering wreck of a client apologised to him profusely, saying ‘of course he was right, they could see what he meant now – they just hadn’t thought of it from that angle…’
This didn’t happen at every meeting of course, but on the odd occasion when it did, word would spread like wildfire that Chris had one of the clients cowering in a corner again. This amused the rest of us no end and, in the time-honoured fashion