Don't Stand So Close (22 page)

Peter put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. She wasn’t afraid of his touch. He put his lips to her forehead.

‘I’ll come with you to the police station,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay with you. They’ll get you a doctor.’

‘I haven’t decided yet – if I want to report it,’ she said.

‘The quicker you do, the quicker they can pick him up.’

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. ‘I need to think about it,’ she said. ‘That’s why I called you first. I want to know what will happen if I do report it.’

He kept his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him.

‘I’ll take you down to the nearest station – Swiss Cottage. We can ask for a female police officer. You’ll tell her exactly what you told me. They’ll get a doctor to examine you and take swabs for DNA evidence. They’ll want to treat the clinic as a crime scene, they might find evidence here. But we need to act quickly in case the bastard decides to run.’

‘I don’t think he will. There’s a court case in progress, he’s trying to get custody of his daughter. And he thinks he’s safe.’

‘Did he threaten you with anything?’

‘He said he’d put photographs on the internet. And that he would say that we had a relationship – something that would imply that I’d violated my ethical code. He’ll say it wasn’t a scheduled appointment, that I invited him here for sex after hours. We once bumped into each other in a restaurant, he bought me a drink, there were lots of witnesses. Long story.’

‘You don’t have to explain,’ he said. ‘Are you ready?’

The shivering had begun again and the entire surface of her skin was burning, at the same time, she was freezing cold. The last shreds of her dignity would be shattered under the bright lights of the police station, everybody would know. The careful façade she had created behind her title –
Dr Davies
– would be stripped away. It would be her word against his. They would dredge up her history. An interview at the police station, followed by a court case, would be an extended version of what she had gone through upstairs at
the hands of Lawrence Simpson. It wasn’t worth it. She had had enough. She couldn’t bear any more. She was hanging on to herself with her fingernails, keeping herself together when she felt she would collapse, would fly apart, would finally crumble and give up.

‘You’re in shock,’ he said. ‘Another half an hour won’t matter. I’ll wait with you.’

‘I’m so cold,’ she said. He sat close, reached over and put both arms around her. She wanted to stay that way, and never have to move and never have to remember. She fixed her eyes on the deep red leather of the chesterfield. Hundreds and hundreds of buttons began to swirl in front of her.

‘Do you want me to call someone for you?’ he asked.

‘No one. I don’t want anyone to know. I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t go through with this. I’m not going to report what happened.’

She could report what Simpson had done to her, but the public ignominy would be shared between them. One way or another, she would be called in front of an ethics committee. Her photograph might appear in the newspapers and the professional persona she had worked so hard to earn would rupture. She knew how short prison sentences for rape could be – and that was if they even secured a conviction.

She had a choice: she could keep her mouth shut, withdraw from the Simpson report, carry on with her life. Pretend.

‘Stella, it’s not my decision to make but I think it’s critical that you go to the police. Tonight.’

‘If I go to the police,’ she said, ‘then I can’t revoke my statement, can I? They can investigate, even if I ask them not to.’

He nodded.

She shook her head. ‘I can’t.’

‘Technically,’ he said, ‘I could report this myself.’

‘You wouldn’t do that to me.’ She looked him straight in the eyes. ‘Tell me you won’t do that.’

‘I know you’re in shock,’ he said, ‘but it’s important that you make a police report.’

‘You’re saying that because you’re a policeman.’

‘I’m saying it because I care. It’s the best thing for you. He’s still out there, he could hurt someone else. And if he’s not arrested, you’ll live in fear.’

She pulled away. ‘Pete, we’ve been friends for years, but you don’t know everything about me.’

The churning sensation in her stomach was settling and so was the buzzing in her head; all of it was quietening down. Her lower back still ached and so she leaned back and carefully lifted her feet one at a time, putting them up on the coffee table. She thought about how much Anne would hate the sight of her feet on the magazines.

‘I need to talk to my boss. He’s a psychiatrist. I need to get another perspective. I need to think about what it’s going to do to my career if this comes out.’ Her voice sounded stronger, but when she looked down, her hands were still trembling. She couldn’t remember Max’s mobile number, even though she knew it off by heart.

‘Can you dial for me?’ she asked.

She handed Peter her phone. ‘Press the green button,’ she said. ‘Then press
M
, his name comes up first: Max.’

The window had exploded; she hadn’t expected it to be so loud. Glass everywhere. She hadn’t meant to smash the window. She couldn’t remember why she’d done that. Sometimes, her anger got the better of her. Her crazy part. Hate was everywhere inside her, like fire, burning her alive.

She ran for the trees at the back of the garden. The cold hit her, like a blast from a gun, burning her eyes and her mouth and her ears. She had forgotten how bad it was outside.

Shit. Fuck.

He was calling her, coming after her.

She had made a really bad mistake. All she wanted was to get home again, to her bed. To her mother. There must be a way out of this place. But once she got inside the trees there was only blackness. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t see; she couldn’t find a path. Only dark. Black, freezing cold. She had to slow down. She counted ten, small shuffling steps, holding her hands out straight in front of her. A million needles were poking into her palms. Her knees buckled and she sank down into the soft cushion of snow.

‘BLUE!’

The police don’t help. They don’t believe a word you say.

The freezing air pierced and stabbed her face. Her hands stung so badly it was driving her mad. All she wanted was to lie down. If she stayed out in the snow, she knew she would give up; she would go to sleep and probably die. She had wanted to smash that stupid fat green statue straight into the wife’s head.

They would take her away from her mother. Again.

She hated Max Fisher. She hated him most of all. She wanted a knife, to slice up her arms and let the rage and the cold bleed out of her. She pushed her raw hands into her pockets, feeling carefully for the piece of glass: a long, thin triangle.

But as the cold took over, the fire inside her faded. She gave up. She put her head between her knees and waited. She would let them do whatever they wanted to her. She didn’t want to be out in the snow. She didn’t really want to die. She wasn’t crazy.

She heard him, coming closer, his boots crunching. She closed her eyes. Invisible. He just stood there. He didn’t try to grab her or anything.

‘Let’s go back to the house,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to be frightened.’

She lifted her head and held out her hands. ‘I’m bleeding.’

He bent down to take a look. She lifted her arms, higher. He lifted her up.

She reached around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder. She closed her eyes, pretending it was him. His hands were around her waist and under her knees. She felt like she was about six years old. He walked, slow and steady, and she felt peaceful, being carried. It was so quiet.

He stumbled, trying to climb up the slippery steps of the porch and she clung on tighter.

A bright light burst through her eyelids. She blinked. Stella was standing next to the fucked-up window, shining a torch right at her. She looked terrified and she looked like she was sorry. She’d turned white and she was breathing like she was having an asthma attack or something.

‘I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ Stella said. She got a sick look on her face when she saw the blood. ‘Are you in pain?’

She left her face pressed against the policeman’s shoulder. ‘She didn’t get very far,’ he said.

Just inside the house, he put her down. She preferred being carried. She wasn’t going to help them; she wasn’t going to make it easy. She let her legs go limp and refused to walk. Stella came closer and held one of her arms, he took hold of the other. She slumped between them, so they had to half lift, half drag her. The house was a mess. Totally fucked up. It was cold inside, too.

‘The study,’ Stella said.

They dragged her, all the way through the living room, across the entrance hall and into the study. She tried to make herself heavy. She wanted Stella to suffer. She wanted to make her pay, for calling her a crazy liar.

The window in the study was tiny: long and narrow and placed high up on the wall. There was no way out.

When they let go of her, she stumbled, dropped to her knees. Her clothes were on fire. She pulled at them, trying to get her arms out of her jacket; she threw it off, everything was tangled, she couldn’t get her legs out, she was jerking all over the place.

‘Blue, stop.’ Stella held her down. Her voice was kind and soft.

Now her skin had turned clammy and cool, the burning
had gone away but the snow was back inside her and she couldn’t get warm. Her blood was leaking out, all over the place.

The two of them wrapped a blanket around her and lifted her into a deep, soft chair.

Stella rubbed her arms and her back. ‘I think she has hypothermia,’ she said. ‘We need to keep her temperature stable.’

They were smothering her, in blankets. Blood was flowing, from the cuts on her hands, soaking all the way down, all the way right inside, down into the chair.

The policeman pulled at her arms, straightening them out, examining the bits of glass in her hands, pushing her sleeves up, staring at the old scars too. He had gloves on. She watched what he was doing with the tweezers, but it was like watching somebody else’s body, someone else who was bleeding. She felt nothing.

Stella looked away. Like she was about to faint.

‘I don’t think there’s too much damage,’ the policeman said. He was lying, pretending to be cheerful. ‘A few glass splinters. I’ll take some of them out and clean the cuts with disinfectant. Then you’ll need to see a proper doctor.’

‘The nearest emergency room is a thirty-minute drive,’ Stella said. ‘Longer if the roads are iced over.’

He held her arm, stretched out straight along the arm of the chair, his fingers tight around her wrist. He didn’t flinch as he stabbed the sharp tip of the tweezers into the cuts. She hoped he knew what he was doing. Slowly, he took out a sliver of glass. It stung when he pulled it out, she pressed her lips together but she was moaning. He did it again, the sharp tip of the tweezers into her bloody hands, over and over again. It took for ever. When he had finished, he laid the
tweezers down on the towel, next to the bits of glass. Stella swooped in and took them away. He bandaged her hands and wrists. He was useless, her fists were so thick she looked like a boxer.

Her blood was splattered all over his shirt. His jeans were soaking wet.

Stella sat on the arm of the chair and tried to stroke her hair. She let her. Stella felt sorry for her. Stella wasn’t a bad person. Blue would fight for Max too, if he was her husband. She wouldn’t want to believe anything bad about him either.

There was noise, from the entrance hall. Someone was coming through the front door.

‘I’m home,’ he said.

It was him. The feeling of warmth spread through her, flowing from deep inside her belly, up through her arms and down to her toes. Fizzing. Like champagne.

Her husband stood at the door of the study. He had his coat slung over his arm and he was holding his medical bag. He was calm and composed and he looked right through her, as though she were invisible.

Nobody moved.

Blue huddled under a blanket. Stella perched on the edge of her chair, still feeling the adrenaline rush of her brief foray outside the house.

‘Peter?’ Max said. He was apparently more surprised to see her old flame than he was to see Blue.

Peter was leaning against her desk, his arms folded and his shirt smeared with Blue’s blood. He nodded. He didn’t rush forward to offer Max a handshake.

‘Stella called. She asked me to come over,’ Peter said. ‘What brings you home at this hour?’

Max placed his bag down on the floor. He did not move any closer. He did not embrace her. It wasn’t the presence of unexpected guests that held him back; it was never really any different when he arrived home. Stella had learned to live with the distance between them.

She saw the scene through Peter’s eyes: a man disinterested in his wife. Detached.

She wondered if Max would care, if he knew, about the kiss with Peter. She could only hope there might be a flicker of jealousy somewhere behind his inscrutable exterior. He knew they had slept together, once. But she could barely summon the energy she needed to delude herself.

‘You’re still with the police?’ Max asked.

Peter nodded. ‘I am. I take it someone from the Met police tracked you down. Asked about a patient of yours who’s gone missing.’

‘This girl arrived at the house tonight.’ Stella placed her hands on Blue’s shoulders, as if to bring attention to the most unexpected person in the room. ‘She says her name is Blue. I understand you know who she is, and you know the family—’

‘Why is it so cold in here?’ Max asked.

‘Because there’s a gaping hole in the living room,’ Stella said. ‘Our guest threw your mother’s Buddha through the window.’

‘I see.’

‘She says she’s your patient.’

Max nodded. ‘Was,’ he said. ‘Was my patient.’ He seemed to feel no need to explain. The anger simmering in Stella’s solar plexus grew larger.

‘Blue cut herself on the glass from the window,’ Stella said. ‘Pete’s been trying to patch her up.’