The Sudden Departure of the Frasers (33 page)

‘He was fully dressed, so you mean that he needed to use his hand to undo his trousers?’

‘Yes. And … and also to put himself inside me.’

‘And did he remove his hand from your mouth at any other time to allow you to speak?’

‘Only afterwards, when he let me go. He said to get out and remember what he’d said about destroying me. He said it wouldn’t just be me who would suffer but Jeremy as well, because he would deny everything and Jeremy would think I’d been having an affair.’

‘Did you call out or say anything that might have been overheard by a neighbour?’

I remembered Felicity then, standing in her doorway as I staggered past, already half-blind from the streaming tears. Extraordinarily, until then, I had forgotten she’d been there. ‘He has a neighbour downstairs, Felicity Boyd she’s called, and she saw me leave. When he let me go I screamed something as I ran out, “You’ll never touch me again,” something like that. She may have heard. I was completely hysterical,’ I added. ‘I’m not really sure what I said or when. I’m so sorry.’

‘No need to be sorry, you’re doing brilliantly, Amber.’ Wendy continued to draw details from me about the sexual attack itself, the number of times penetration had taken place, whether there’d been any anal or oral assault, if I still had the underwear and clothing I’d worn that afternoon. The questions were difficult to answer, they almost broke me, but I reminded myself that there must have been women in this seat before me who’d experienced far worse than I had.

‘Had you been in his bedroom before, Amber?’

Oh God. I had prepared this overnight, but now the moment had come I struggled to remember the lines. ‘Yes, a few times. He showed me the view from his window once when I wondered if he overlooked my garden. I think I sat in the leather armchair once.’

I certainly had, straddling him, joined to him, sucking at his mouth, tearing at his hair. I felt nauseous at the memory, my brain still unable to reconcile the original infatuation with the final conflict.

‘I’ve been all over the flat,’ I said, thinking it best to volunteer this. In the event, it was surprising how truthful I was able to be about the logistics of my visits while withholding all information about the sexual activities themselves.

‘And has he tried to see you or contact you since the incident?’

‘No. I’ve seen him out of the window, but I’ve mainly stayed inside. I couldn’t stop crying for ages and I didn’t want anyone to see me in that state.’

‘So there are no voicemails, texts or emails from him that you can show us?’

‘There is one text, yes. It says, “No hard feelings?” But I know that doesn’t prove anything.’ Briefly, anger flared. ‘“No hard feelings?” That makes it sound like we just had some little disagreement! I didn’t reply to it, I was too upset.’

‘You did the right thing, Amber. There are no other messages from earlier in your friendship?’

‘I suppose I might have one or two from before …’ But of course I did not. Every text between us had been deleted, I was certain of that. But my relief was short-lived, for Wendy did not seem as disappointed by this as I might have expected, by which I deduced that the police would be able to access phone records, they’d have technology that allowed them to read deleted messages. Nothing was ever
truly erased, was it? And though the majority of our texts had been innocent by design – ‘Free tomorrow at 2?’ ‘Coffee as usual Thurs?’ – there had been of course that period in November when I’d given rein to lunacy and bombarded Rob wildly: ‘Where are you?’ I’d demanded, over and over, and ‘Why don’t you respond?’ Later, there’d been other liberties between us:
Still playing Florence Nightingale
… ?

It was becoming clear to me that I needed to abort this investigation before it got properly under way if I was to succeed in concealing from Jeremy my long-term infidelity. I needed to make it my priority to protect him from the truth of the affair, regardless of how catastrophically it had ended – and that did not necessarily mean doing the right thing as the police saw it.

But while I was here, a captive of my own making, I had to go through the motions of finishing this interview. ‘Is that all?’ I asked Wendy hopefully.

‘There’s just a little more, if you can manage it.’ She passed me my glass of water, urging me to take another mouthful, to try to relax. Then she raised an issue that I deeply regretted having shared with Jeremy the night before, when I’d been in the full flow of emotion.

‘We understand from your husband that Mr Whalen told you he had been accused of a sexual offence in the past.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Could you tell me exactly what he told you?’

‘It was when he was a student,’ I said, ‘but the charges were dropped. It was a girlfriend he’d just broken up with. She accused him of raping her, but she admitted it was a false claim.’

I reached for a tissue and held it to my throbbing face as she drew from me everything I could remember from Rob’s treetop confidence.

‘Can you say how it was that you still felt safe with him after having learned of this previous incident?’

‘We confided in each other, we were friends. I believed him when he said there was nothing in it. I trusted him.’ I took a sharp breath, causing pain under my ribs, and I thought for a split second of the beginnings of a baby in my abdomen. A son or a daughter in miniature human design, burgeoning, seizing precious life. I thought of the tree house, the rawness of Rob’s need and my celebration of its return. That confession of his: I
had
believed it. ‘I still do believe him,’ I said firmly. ‘On that score. I don’t see that and this as being related at all.’

But
they
would, I knew, just as Jeremy had. ‘I’m amazed he told you something like that,’ he’d remarked in the early hours. ‘They might not have found out otherwise, it’s been so long. He’s dug his own grave now.’

I knew, too, that Jeremy would mention that girl at Joanne and Kenny’s dinner party, urge the police to question her – and others – to discover a damning pattern of abuse.

When the interview was over, Wendy and I joined Jeremy and the two CID officers in an adjoining room.

‘Darling!’ Jeremy leaped up straight away to embrace me and check for any adverse effects of my interrogation.

‘I’m fine,’ I told him. It was becoming my catchphrase.

‘What happens now?’ he asked the officers. He seemed positively refreshed by his own experience of making a
statement, as determined to pursue justice as I was reluctant.

DI Swann cleared his throat. ‘Well, based on your wife’s statement, we have enough information to arrest Mr Whalen and question him about the incident.’

‘Good,’ Jeremy said, grim, unequivocal.

I could imagine it all too clearly, the officers on the doorstep, Rob buzzing them in, hearing the words that would infuriate him, all too soon filling him with abject terror: ‘An allegation has been made against you …’ Would Pippa be there? Would she stand by him, thinking she trusted him instinctively, as I once had, convinced that he was incapable of such a crime?

‘Will he be put in handcuffs?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

This detail pleased Jeremy. ‘When will you go there? Today?’

‘Within the next twenty-four hours. Possibly this evening or first thing tomorrow before he leaves for work.’

‘He works from home,’ Jeremy said. ‘He’s usually in all day, isn’t he, darling?’

I nodded. ‘I didn’t think things would move so fast.’

‘It’s an extremely serious situation, Amber,’ Wendy said. ‘You have our word that we’ll progress as efficiently as we can.’

‘Will you put him in a cell?’ Jeremy demanded, focusing on the most senior officer present, DI Swann. ‘How long will you hold him for?’

‘He’ll be held in a police cell, yes, for as long as it takes to question him and visit the scene.’

‘What do you mean, “visit the scene”?’ I echoed.

‘Well, once we’ve brought him in we’ll arrange access to his flat so that we can examine it. There may still be evidence that’s useful if the CPS decide to bring a case.’

My hand flew out in involuntary protest. This was unravelling badly. ‘The thing is …’ It was difficult to voice my objection without making it sound as if I were protecting my attacker, but I worried, of course, about evidence in his flat of other, historical intimacy. I imagined a forensic team combing the rooms in the way I’d seen done on TV; they’d find fibres from my clothes – an extensive collection of them – as well as hair, skin, traces of bodily fluids. ‘As I explained to Wendy, I’ve been all over the flat on previous visits. And anyway, his girlfriend has moved in since it happened. He’ll have changed the bedclothes, cleaned up, surely?’

‘Even so, there may still be evidence we can collect that will help build the case.’ As DI Swann and his colleagues peered benignly at me for signs of approval, I felt as if I were standing on the set of a crime drama, the words being spoken by actors deep in character.

‘Will you let us know when he’s released again?’ I asked numbly.

Wendy laid a comforting hand on my arm. ‘Of course. I’ll be in touch to let you know as soon as he’s released, along with the decision made – charge or bail, with or without conditions.’

‘I don’t think he should be bailed at all,’ Jeremy insisted, not only speaking now as if a member of the investigating team himself but also exuding all the authority of the
highest-ranked among them. ‘Not when he’s been accused of the same thing before – you’ve made a note of that, right?’

‘Rest assured we’ll be checking our databases to see if this previous charge is still on record,’ DS Graham told him. ‘It may not be, however; you need to be aware of that.’

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ Jeremy asked, frowning.

‘Records are sometimes removed after a period of time, partly to protect the innocent from malicious allegations.’

Malicious allegations: that was the exact phrase Rob had used in relation to the college girlfriend.

‘Even if the crime report is no longer available, his arrest should still show on PNC,’ DS Graham told Jeremy.

‘Police National Computer,’ Wendy clarified for my benefit. ‘Every force has a system going back fifteen years to show the basic details of the allegation at the very least. As long as we can find out which force to ask, we’ll be able to get the information.’

‘So even though the charge was dropped, it’ll be useful in a trial,’ Jeremy said. ‘It shows he’s got a bad character, if nothing else.’ Sure enough, he now mentioned Kenny’s colleague, and a note was made of Kenny’s phone number, address and employer.

‘Where will you be for us to contact
you
?’ Wendy asked us.

‘I can’t go back home,’ I said. ‘I can’t be there when he’s arrested or when he gets back from questioning. He’ll come and find me.’ Again I could imagine it in grotesque
detail: Rob storming around, spewing details of our assignations in front of Jeremy, in front of the street, the horror of those details obliterating the effects of the single episode I had reported.

‘Of course you can’t,’ Jeremy said. ‘You can’t be anywhere near this monster. I can’t believe I’ve left you there on your own; you must have been absolutely petrified every time I left the house.’ He pulled me close, my rescuer and protector, just as he’d been when we’d met years ago, when I’d falteringly confided the personal history I’d so recently shed. ‘Let’s go to a hotel. I’ll check us in and then I’ll go back to the house to get some clothes and things.’

He promised to let Wendy know of our new, temporary accommodation the moment we were installed.

Finally, as we were finishing, there was good news. DS Graham confirmed that a discussion had taken place in which it was agreed I would not be expected to undergo a medical examination. He mentioned my pregnancy and asked if I had been examined by my GP or an obstetrician in the period between the assault and my reporting the incident. I said no, but I intended visiting my GP in the next week or so.

‘I’d rather no one was told about my situation,’ I added. ‘It’s early days and I don’t want it to be affected by everything that’s happened.’

Wendy nodded. ‘We can’t say for sure if it will be relevant to the investigation or not, but we’ll do everything we can to respect your privacy.’

It was then, just as we parted, that DI Swann said
something I was not expecting and could find no response to at the time, but which, ghastly as it was, did at least bring a halt to the spinning and flailing of my mind and direct it instead towards a solution.

It would need some thinking through, but it was possible I had found a way out.

The man next door was a rapist. Or he wasn’t. And only a few weeks ago she’d craved his approval,
basked
in it when she’d got it.

Christy could not stop shivering – and not only because it was a cool early-October day and the Davenports’ draconian household budget prohibited the turning on of the central heating before the clocks went back. She looked at Joe’s scribbled notes, just a few names and dates on the back of a printed document: the date of the incident, the date the report was made, the person who made the complaint, and the person against whom it was made.

Amber Fraser and Rob Whalen: at last, the truth about how they were connected – or how their connection had been severed.

‘Rape,’ she said to Joe, thinking it was the bleakest, the blackest syllable she had ever uttered. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Alleged,’ he corrected her. ‘He was only questioned. Like the letter says, the inquiry was closed.’

‘Felicity must have been a witness, mustn’t she? Perhaps she was the one who phoned the police.’

‘No, look at the log details: Jeremy Fraser was the one
who phoned – and two weeks after the event, as well. They took their time reporting it.’

‘No wonder the police didn’t prosecute. There can’t have been any physical evidence by then, can there?’

‘Possibly.’ Joe paused. ‘Or perhaps there wasn’t any crime.’

Christy chose to ignore this.

‘So Rob was arrested on January 31st. Then the letter about the inquiry ending was sent in mid March. It probably sat in a pile of paperwork for weeks, as well, so the investigation can’t have lasted very long at all. And this was all happening at the same time the house came on the market, when we first heard from the agent.

‘Now we know why the Frasers sold up,’ Joe said.

‘Rob must have threatened her,’ Christy continued, ‘pressured her into withdrawing her statement. Perhaps that’s why she took her time coming forward in the first place. If he’s the kind of man who would commit rape, then he’s the kind who would use intimidation, and we already know he sent the neighbours letters trying to browbeat them into silence, so –’

‘He’ll stop at nothing?’ Joe finished wryly. ‘I’m sorry, but the way the law works is we accept he has
not
committed rape and he has sent the letters because he has every right to defend his good reputation.’

Christy shook her head. It was inevitable that he would take a rational approach; he’d make a decent detective himself. ‘I know you don’t believe that, Joe, or you wouldn’t have told me to stay inside and avoid him. You wouldn’t have come home.’

‘I was worried you might get into a row with him,’ Joe said.

‘Yes, because he’s potentially violent!’ She was already driving on, aligning clues, tidying frayed ends. ‘That’s why the Frasers sold at the price they did, that’s why they authorized the solicitor to pay for our roof – to keep us sweet in case we found out they’d been withholding information about a police investigation and kicked up a fuss. Oh my God, Joe,
rape
. I
knew
he was evil – I told you, right from the start! It must be torture for Caroline and Liz and everyone having him still living here when they don’t believe he’s innocent!’

Joe remained solidly resistant to hysteria, every inch the legal professional. ‘
They
might not believe it, but the police obviously do. Caroline and her crew are not relevant.’ He reached for her hand. ‘But you’re right, we do need to talk it through, find out a bit more. This is serious stuff we’ve unearthed.’

Calmed by his grip, Christy paused. As she looked at him now in the limpid light of the kitchen, it seemed like months since she’d seen him in the day. Perhaps it was because he was wearing work clothes at home in the middle of the afternoon, dark corporate clothing that brought an alarming pallor to his sun-deprived complexion. He looked frighteningly aged, in that accelerated way a prime minister did midterm, half broken, as if it could go either way. You certainly would not bet on him in a fight against Rob Whalen.

Don’t look so terrified. You’re not my type
. Well, Amber Fraser had been his type and she’d fled for her life.

She gave a sudden involuntary whine.

‘Hey, come on,’ Joe said, ‘I know you’re shaken, but we don’t want to be a part of any witch hunt, do we? Felix and Steph seem perfectly happy with him, don’t they? You said he was left in charge of Matilda the other day.’

‘Only because they don’t know anything about this – if they did, there’s no way they would have left their baby with him. They wouldn’t have bought the flat in the first place. Living downstairs from a rapist!’ Hysteria was rising once more. ‘Should we tell them, Joe? I think we should. I wish someone had told
us
.’

‘No. It would be slander, we’d get a letter from his lawyer, exactly like Kenny and the others did, and if you carry on like this it will be more than a letter, we’ll be prosecuted, ordered to pay damages, costs, the lot. So calm down.’

Christy did not reply. As far as she was concerned the letters were an expression of Rob’s bullying, his need to control what others said and thought.

‘Before today, you were starting to get on well with him, remember?’

‘I should have trusted my instincts,’ she said.

‘Instincts aren’t always right,’ Joe said. ‘What about his girlfriend, the same one he’s been with since before all of this, didn’t Caroline say? Doesn’t her trust in him suggest a reasonable assumption of innocence?’

‘I don’t see why. Even serial killers have women in love with them, it’s a known phenomenon.’ But at the thought of Pippa, Christy remembered the scene on which she’d
eavesdropped and her conviction wavered: regardless of what she’d discovered since, the disagreement she’d overheard had been about infidelity, sexual jealousy, not assault. If nothing else, they had been in accord about the ‘nightmare’.
You know
I’d
never discuss it
, Pippa had said. Joe was right, she
hadn’t
given credence to the Frasers’ allegation, even if Christy thought she should have. But it was academic, Christy reminded herself, for she and Rob had broken up two weeks ago and she hadn’t been seen in the neighbourhood since. Pippa was safe.

But was
she
? Rob was at that moment
next door
, and he would be there day after day after day. She couldn’t expect Joe to take any more time off work, and yet she couldn’t countenance the thought of being left in the house alone while Rob paced about
there
, on the other side of the wall, knowing she was getting close to his hidden truth. Having strived for so long to share in the street’s secrets, she now felt crippled by their weight. There was no solution, no resolution. There was certainly no satisfaction.

‘I’m going to ask Caroline about this,’ she said, springing to her feet with sudden decisiveness. ‘It’s five-thirty, she must be back from her school trip by now.’

‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’ Joe said, his frown making it clear that
he
did not. ‘Shall I come with you?’

‘I’ll be fine. You stay here. You probably need to check in with work.’ And she touched his arm before she left, grateful that he was here today, at least.

Outside, the early evening shimmered as if nothing were awry; there was even birdsong. Marching down the
Sellerses’ path, Christy was reminded of the previous time she’d blundered down it, back in the early days when she’d been so naive she’d thought the drama was to do with Joe and her, with
planning permission
.

‘Christy, hello! Come in,’ said Caroline. ‘Oh dear, I can see you’ve got something on your mind …’

All the Sellers children were home from school and there was the debris of toast and fruit on the kitchen table, discarded souvenirs from the museum, including a half-eaten chocolate mummy. Blurred figures dashed in and out, and Christy wished she didn’t have to destroy that easy mood by launching another fraught interrogation. She asked Caroline if it was possible to talk privately.

‘We can certainly try.’ Caroline pushed shut the kitchen door and placed a foot against it to bar entry to any curious youngsters.

‘I know about the rape,’ Christy said in an undertone.

‘Oh.’ At once, Caroline’s face slackened. She leaned back, her full weight limp against the closed door, and for a moment Christy thought she might slide to the floor and cry.

‘Kenny told me you’ve all been warned about spreading falsehoods, but this conversation goes no further, you have my word. You knew both of them, Rob and Amber. Do
you
think he’s guilty?’

‘You know I can’t answer that,’ Caroline said.

‘Don’t even speak then, just nod. He can’t stop you nodding, can he?’

And with a barely perceptible bow of her head, Caroline’s long period of self-censorship was over at last.
When she spoke, the words were muttered low, as if she feared microphones had been planted in the pen pots and biscuit tin; she’d lived this way for months, Christy thought, appalled at having railed against her own ignorance when she should have been appreciating its benefits. ‘I can’t speak for everyone, though. Richard, for one, follows the letter of the law and says if he wasn’t charged then there can’t have been evidence, and if there was no evidence there was no crime. Kenny says the same.’

Which was Joe’s position. Gender lines were drawn here, it seemed. ‘You were all friends, weren’t you, before it happened? Was there ever anything strange about the way he behaved towards Amber?’

‘No, not at all. I must admit I hadn’t seen either of them much since before Christmas. He was away on work assignments and seeing Pippa a lot and then they were all on holiday, but the last time I saw the two of them together they seemed fine. They were being quite flirtatious with each other, actually, but Amber was like that with everyone so it didn’t mean anything. She was happy, glowing from her holiday.’

‘Was
he
normally flirtatious, though?’

‘Sometimes, in his own way. They were quite similar characters, which I guess was part of why they got on so well. He knew the effect he had on women. Quite a few around here had a soft spot for him back then – God, I remember joking with Amber myself about having an affair with him. But we didn’t really
know
him. Before the Frasers moved in and Amber got him on the social scene, he’d been very enigmatic. We used to invent histories for him, say he
was an assassin, stupid stuff like that. No one ever saw him with a regular girlfriend, not until Pippa. I told you she moved in with him for only a little while, didn’t I? Well, it was actually a matter of
days
. She can’t have known a thing about what happened with Amber until he was arrested.’

‘Maybe he moved her in to cover his tracks?’ Christy suggested.

Again, Caroline dipped her head in agreement. ‘I feel very sorry for her because I know she really cared for Rob. Enough to stand by him, obviously.’

‘They’ve split up now,’ Christy said.

‘I think that’s for the best,’ Caroline said. ‘If you were her, well, you could never actually be
sure
, could you?’

‘Were you there when the police came?’

‘Yes, I saw him being taken off. It was terrible timing, about eight-thirty in the morning, right as we were all leaving for school. The kids were excited about seeing a police car; people were looking out of their windows, coming out to watch. He was so
angry
, Christy, it was truly frightening. And then when he came back, for that whole period afterwards, he just went to ground, you never saw him. I actually felt some sympathy for him, because people were behaving appallingly; he was pretty much under siege up there. He’d been helping at St Luke’s and some of the parents found out his address and turned up screaming under his window, even throwing stuff up and breaking the glass – you’d think he’d been convicted of paedophilia the way they were talking.’

Perhaps it was one of these parents who had sent the hate mail, Christy thought; someone from further afield
who’d made a mistake with the house number. It made sense too of the chaperoning she’d observed, the older girls being ferried to and from school when they might easily have made their own way.

‘And it wasn’t just them,’ Caroline continued. ‘I remember Kenny thumping at his door and yelling through the letter box for him to come out and explain to us why she’d gone. He was very fond of Amber, but I’m not sure that was the best way to tackle the situation. Especially since Rob decided to come down that time.’

‘They got into a fight?’ Christy asked.

‘Yes, they were shoving each other and Kenny lashed out. He hurt himself more than he hurt Rob – I think he broke a knuckle. That must have been just before you and Joe moved in. By then we’d discovered Amber and Jeremy had gone for good and the house was being sold. We were all in complete shock, of course.’

‘Was Felicity aware of all of this?’

‘Yes. She felt completely besieged, sharing a house with him. And she told me that she’d heard shouting the afternoon it happened –
allegedly
happened – and she’d seen Amber crying as she left his flat. She said she knew instinctively that Rob had hurt her.’

‘Then why didn’t she phone the police?’ Christy asked.

‘Oh, believe me, she wishes she had. But at the time she didn’t trust her instinct, said she’d always thought there was something a bit deceitful about Amber, which was of course ridiculous. When it all came out, she felt terribly guilty, really blamed herself. She didn’t want anything more to do with Rob.’

‘What about Amber? Did you speak to her after that day?’

‘No and that’s my greatest regret.’ Grief shadowed Caroline’s face, pulled its contours downwards, ageing her. ‘There was a week or so when I didn’t have a clue anything had happened, I thought she was just busy with other things. But then Jeremy was going away and he asked me to keep an eye on her. He said she’d been feeling low about not being able to get pregnant, hadn’t got out of bed for days. Of course I promised I would, but whenever I called round or phoned her there was no answer and I started to think she must have gone to stay with friends or maybe even flown out to join him. It’s so sad to think that she must have been in the house all that time, alone and suffering. And then Jeremy came back and they left for good.’