The Sudden Departure of the Frasers (32 page)

He glanced again at the body of the letter, raising his eyebrows at her. ‘And how do you “know” that, exactly? I don’t see my name anywhere here.’

‘I overheard something at St Luke’s. The kids said a few things they weren’t supposed to.’

He jeered at this, a jeer that seemed to animate his whole body: ‘So you’re getting your information from nine-year-olds, are you? Jesus, did you not listen to a word I said when we spoke about this before?’

But Christy had too many questions of her own to reply to his. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d volunteered at St Luke’s before me? You knew I’d been allocated that
school, you told me all about the problems they have there, and yet you didn’t say a word about having worked there yourself.’

‘Well, if that doesn’t sound like a guilty man, I don’t know what does,’ he sneered.

‘They said you’d been in prison.’

‘Then they lied.’

‘Did they lie about you having to stop volunteering because the police were called? Was that why you changed your name for your new column?’ She construed his silence as admission. ‘Anyway, if the charges were dropped, it doesn’t matter if I know or not, surely?’

He took a step towards her, regarded her with burning-cold fury, a glare more intimidating than any she’d been subjected to before in her life, and she shrank from him in spite of herself. ‘It
does
matter, yes. Have you got no respect for other people’s privacy? What gives you the right to turn up at someone’s door and demand to know their business?’ He was close enough now for her to feel his breath on her skin, to smell his disgust for her. ‘Oh, sorry, you already said: you don’t like feeling like you’re in the middle of a drama. Well, join the club, love.’

‘
Please
,’ Christy pleaded, her agitation peaking and tipping back in that single syllable. ‘I know you’ve sent Caroline and everyone a letter threatening legal action, but I’m not spreading falsehoods or anything like that, I’m just asking
you
for the truth.’

‘I told you before. I have no intention of discussing this with you.’

‘Why not? I’m your next-door neighbour, don’t I have a right to know if I’m in danger?’

‘Oh, you’re not in danger – except perhaps from your own mind.’ He handed the letter back to her. ‘You need to stop meddling, Christy. That would be the best decision you could make.’

They stared at each other, both breathing hard.

‘This is why the Frasers left, isn’t it?’ Her voice was fractured with fear. ‘And Felicity? They left because of you.’

Rob loomed over her once more, face clenched in anger, making her acutely aware of where she was and how easy it would be for him to overpower her. She scuttled back a few steps out of his range, causing him to scoff as he retreated into the hallway, his original errand evidently abandoned.

‘Don’t look so terrified,’ he said. ‘You’re not my type.’

Returning home, she locked the doors and windows as a precaution. Just as she was about to ring Joe and beg him to come home early, he phoned her.

‘Listen, I’ve managed to get hold of the call log from the police, the first complaint of something happening on January 15th. You were right, it
was
him. Robert Whalen, date of birth: 12th of June 1978. He was arrested at the end of January.’

‘I
knew
it.’ Eight months ago, that was all. When they’d moved in, his brush with the law had been only weeks old, frighteningly recent. It was
still
frighteningly recent. ‘Oh God, Joe, I saw him just now. I showed him the letter.’

‘Why on earth did you do that?’ Joe’s rising stress echoed hers. ‘You didn’t go up to his flat, did you?’

‘No, I saw him on the doorstep. I didn’t think you’d be able to find anything out so I thought I’d talk to Steph but she wasn’t in and …’ Her tongue was moving too fast against her palate, swallowing the spaces between words and making her incoherent.

‘Try and calm down,’ Joe said. ‘Are you at home now?’

‘Yes. I’ve locked myself in.’

‘Well, don’t approach him again. I’m on my way.’

‘Why, what did you find out? What was his crime?’

‘Alleged crime,’ Joe said.

‘OK, alleged crime. What was it?’

‘It’s bloody serious, Christy.’

‘Just tell me!’

And she heard the anxious suck of his breath before he spoke.

‘I was raped,’ I said.

Jeremy stared at me. I could see from the faint flinching of his eyes that his instinct was to repel the notion before he could absorb it. ‘You were … ?’

‘Raped,’ I repeated. ‘Two weeks ago.’ And horrific as it was, I felt a euphoric surge of relief in releasing the words to the world.

He came to me at once and held me very close; then, a growled syllable, scarcely human: ‘Who?’

‘Rob,’ I whispered.

‘
Rob?
You mean the guy next door? Your friend Rob?’

‘He’s no friend.’

And then the situation was no longer mine. It was the runaway train, the kamikaze plunge towards certain death. Jeremy’s anger was of the contained, implosive kind, the kind that can cause hearts to fail, blow flesh to bits, the most potent kind of all.

‘He will not get away with this,’ he vowed, ‘not while I am living and breathing.’

‘Please don’t go round there,’ I begged, clutching to him.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t. This needs to be dealt with
properly. I’m not having him slapping me with a charge for assault when
he’s
the criminal.’

He phoned the police, though I protested hysterically that I didn’t want to report the incident. It was after ten by then, and I heard him give his assurance that we would be safe until morning, when officers would visit early to talk to me. Then he rang his assistant at home and told her he would not be coming to the office the next day. His voice was eerily steady, stripped of tone or nuance; though he gave no reason, I knew she would assume that someone had died.

I never wanted to involve the police, not knowing as I did about the baby. Looking back now, I think I hoped I’d wake up in the morning and find that time had folded and we’d missed a day, that I’d be given a choice of alternative endings and be able to select the one that could save me. But instead two uniformed constables from the local station arrived at nine o’clock, exactly as planned, to make their preliminary assessment.

I quaked as they accepted our tea and sat on the sofa opposite us in our sitting room, composed myself at first with unrelated trains of thought: Hetty would not have liked to see the mud brought in onto the vintage kilim by one of the officers … Should I adjust the blinds, because the light seemed awkward for them … ? Wasn’t it funny how their expressions – mild, honourable, encouraging – were perfectly identical? Did they have to practise it in training? Sliding my hand into Jeremy’s, I wondered if I could get through this without speaking, by letting him speak for me.

But there were questions and I, inescapably, was the only one who could answer them. Clearly defined roles were immediately apparent: DC Mayer did the asking, while the officer whose name I didn’t catch noted my answers in a pocketbook.

‘You have something to report to us, Mrs Fraser?’

‘Yes.’ There was a sensation of standing on the roof of a very tall building, longing for a sudden gust to take me. ‘I was … I was assaulted by the man next door.’

They asked the name of the male in question, and when Jeremy answered they requested that I repeat it.

‘He was known to you before the incident?’

‘Yes, as I say, he lives next door. At number 38. Flat B. That’s where it took place.’

‘When was this?’

I named the date, Tuesday the 15th of January, one I knew I would never forget.

‘I can confirm that,’ Jeremy said. ‘When I came home from work that evening she was very distressed. Hysterical, I’d say.’

‘And what was the nature of the assault?’ said DC Mayer.

‘He made me have sex with him. He raped me.’

The officer explained that he did not want details at this stage but only to record the nature of the rape and if I had sustained any injuries. I said the rape had been vaginal and though I’d felt pain during it and for several days afterwards I had not been injured enough to need medical assistance.

‘There was some blood, wasn’t there?’ Jeremy reminded me, his tone troubled. ‘I saw it on the sheet.’

I closed my eyes. ‘Yes, but that’s been washed now.’ As had I, washed and healed – physically.

‘No external injuries?’

‘I would have noticed if there were any,’ Jeremy interjected. ‘I’ve been away on business since last week, but I would have noticed before that.’ His brow tensed as he blamed himself for his failure to read my mind in the immediate aftermath, for his unavoidable absence afterwards. I knew he felt miserable that I’d been unable to tell him sooner, and I squeezed his hand harder, just as miserable to know I was so unworthy of him.

‘Would you be willing to have a medical examination, Mrs Fraser?’

‘I think too much time will have passed,’ I said. ‘How long … ?’

‘We usually have a window of seven days,’ said DC Mayer, ‘if the male ejaculated without a condom.’

He kept saying ‘male’, as if Rob were a different mammal, or perhaps represented
all
men. In a way, he did.

‘It’s been much longer than that,’ I said. ‘Over two weeks now.’

‘CID may still consider it evidentially worthwhile,’ he persisted. ‘There may still be bruising.’

‘He’s right, darling, if you don’t have a medical then the defence will be able to exploit the fact that you didn’t co-operate,’ Jeremy said. ‘They’ll use it against you.’

He was already anticipating a trial. I felt faint, gave him a beseeching look before turning back to the officers.

‘The thing is, I’ve just found out I’m pregnant, so I’d really rather not.’

Noting Jeremy’s startled reaction, I saw that he had momentarily forgotten about the pregnancy – a bombshell for sixty seconds, it had been totally vaporized by the crisis that had followed – and immediately he revised his position to support me.

‘I agree with Amber. If there’s only a seven-day window then I don’t see any reason for her to go through the additional distress of an internal examination.’

The officers appeared to accept this for the time being, and I gave Jeremy a grateful look.

‘Have you seen Mr Whalen since the incident?’

‘No, I’ve hardly left the house.’

‘She’s been very low,’ said Jeremy. ‘I’ve never seen her like this and now I know why. If I’d had any idea! This man has been next door all this time, while I was away! He could have tried to get to her again …’

I began to snivel and Jeremy pressed me to him, kissing the side of my head, whispering that I was safe now.

In sympathy, my questioner’s tone became more compassionate still. ‘And you decided not to report what happened straight away?’

‘Yes.’ I bowed my head. ‘I’m sorry now that I didn’t, I know I should have. I think I was traumatized. I couldn’t believe it had happened, I didn’t know whether to trust my own memory of it, it was so out of character for him. He’s normally …’ I trailed off, inarticulate, lost.

‘But now you’re sure you’d like the police to investigate this?’

‘Of course she would,’ Jeremy cried, indignant. ‘You
can’t have a rapist roaming the neighbourhood! You need to get him under lock and key as soon as possible. This morning, ideally!’

I could tell his interruptions were worrying the officers. In a tactful effort to sideline him, they assured him that he would have the opportunity to make a statement of his own and that it was necessary to know my wishes personally regarding an investigation.

‘Yes, I would like you to investigate,’ I said, though the truth was I shared none of Jeremy’s fervour. I’d read magazine articles about victims of violent crime who chose not to make a complaint and, as a rule, I’d scorned their cowardice. Now I understood how they felt. When you are damaged your instinct is to seek to limit that damage, not to extend it, to reopen its wounds. Revenge is no priority.

Mercifully, the assessment appeared to be at an end, because the other constable was closing his pocketbook and DC Mayer was smiling. ‘In that case, we will pass this straight to CID and a specially trained officer will be in touch with you this morning to arrange the formal interview, probably for later today.’ He added that owing to the nature of the allegation the interview would take place in a special unit rather than the police station, and that it would be recorded as evidence.

‘Later today?’ I repeated, worried.

‘Yes, they move very quickly in Sexual Offences. Reports of this kind are taken with the utmost seriousness.’

And as Jeremy applauded this dedication to excellence,
I felt the beginnings of raw dread, sharp fingers throttling my natural resources of courage.

I began again to cry.

The facility was not in Lime Park or its environs but more central, closer to the river, to the casual eye a nondescript semi-detached house with an exterior that was decently maintained. Inside, the rooms were comfortably furnished and unremarkable – until you noticed the pulled blackout blinds and video equipment.

Two plain-clothed CID officers were there to meet us, as well as Wendy, the specially trained officer who had phoned earlier to arrange the interview and explain her role. She was in her forties, low key in both look and demeanour but possessing a fierceness in her eyes that was protective, almost maternal. She, the two male officers, my own husband: each of them radiated such integrity, it was overwhelming.

‘As I said on the phone, Amber, I’m here to support you through the whole process,’ Wendy said, ‘however long it takes. I’ll be interviewing you today and I’ll keep you updated on the progress of the investigation. You already have my mobile number and you can contact me at any time with any questions you have. Do you have any now, before we start?’

Only one, I thought. How can I travel back to January 15th and alter the afternoon’s events? Tell me,
please
, at what moment I might have withdrawn, prevented the conclusion from taking the devastating form it had.

Jeremy and I were to be kept apart. While I was formally
questioned, he would be making his statement of first complaint, and we were not allowed to be present at one another’s interview. Saying goodbye, I felt overcome, as if I might never see him again.

Wendy and I sat in easy chairs angled towards one another, a table at knee height for glasses of water and, I noticed, a box of tissues, making me think of the many who’d sat in the chair before me and been in tears as they relived the suffering of their experiences. There was an odd comfort in that. The video equipment was pointed out to me, though I could hardly have missed it.

‘Everything in the room is being recorded visually and audibly, and the DC will be monitoring outside the room. Are you comfortable with these arrangements, Amber?’

‘Yes, fine.’

In fact, I was appalled to find myself here, at the eye of an expensive police investigation. I felt frightened, inadequate, so consumed by the magnitude of it that I could not at first begin. But Wendy was patient, almost hypnotic in her murmured encouragement, and as we began with a clarification of the logistics of Rob’s flat, the date and time I’d arrived, I felt myself relax and forget the camera.

‘Why were you in his flat that afternoon, Amber?’

‘He’d invited me over for coffee. We’re friends – we
were
friends – and we met up most weeks, maybe twice a week. It started when I had builders in my house last spring. I’d go to his flat to escape the chaos. That had all finished months ago, but we still got together regularly, often at his place.’

‘Which room did you usually drink your coffee in?’

‘In the living room.’

‘How did you come to be in his bedroom this time?’

I’d had all night to think how to explain this, for I could not of course utter a word about having been a regular in his bedroom, about the countless liaisons we’d had in which there’d been no whisper of a possibility that the atmosphere between us could ignite so disastrously.

‘I hadn’t been there long when he said he wanted to show me a new shirt he’d bought, get my opinion on it because I’m quite into clothes and fashion, I’ve advised other neighbours. So I followed him into the bedroom. He closed the door and before I could even ask why he’d done that he was pushing me really roughly against it and was covering my mouth with his hand. I tried to wriggle free, but he was very strong and I couldn’t speak through his hand and he was threatening me with violence if I didn’t go along with what he wanted. He said he’d hurt me, not just physically, but he’d spread terrible lies about me, things about my past. He said he’d start a hate campaign against me on the Internet.’ Hearing once more his words in my head –
The evidence just keeps on coming, Amber Baby
– I whimpered, paused to take a breath and drink from my glass of water.

‘Go on, when you’re ready,’ Wendy said.

‘I was terrified, I didn’t even recognize him. He made me lie on the bed and take my underwear off. Then he raped me.’

‘You were lying on your back?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the penetration was vaginal?’

‘Yes. He told me not to fight him or he would hurt me even more. I couldn’t scream because he had his hand over my mouth still. I was really panicking and couldn’t breathe very well.’

‘He would have understood that you were not consenting, would he?’

‘Yes, I was saying “No” all the time, or trying to, and I was obviously objecting physically. But it was like he didn’t understand what I was saying or doing, he didn’t care. He was so rough the way he handled me. It was as if he hated me and wished I was dead.’ I remembered then the mercilessness in his face as it hovered above mine, the intensity of his contempt, the scorn on his breath. ‘It wasn’t like normal sex. I could feel the pain everywhere. He wanted to hurt me
inside
.’

‘Were you able to use your hands to fend him off?’

‘No, he had them pinned above my head, both of them in one hand.’

‘So, just to be clear, he used one of his hands to grip yours and the other one to restrain your mouth?’

‘Yes, when he needed to use one of them, he pressed his mouth against mine to keep me quiet. When that happened, I tried to bite him but I couldn’t get my mouth open. I was struggling to breathe. And then the hand came back.’