Kiss and Tell (112 page)

‘Lough’s competing at Upton today, but he’s only got one on the
lorry and doesn’t need me, yeah. I had to catch three buses to get to this place, can you believe?’

‘Beccy must be grateful you made the effort,’ Em said stiffly as they found a snack bar. She found him incredibly grating.

‘Black two sugars, thanks.’ Lemon hung back. ‘And I’d love a couple of Snickers bars, yeah? I skipped breakfast to come here.’

Em paid for their coffees and the chocolate and started back along the corridor towards Beccy’s room, hoping he’d leave them alone for a bit.

But he was right behind her. ‘This is all Hugo’s fault. He over-horsed her.’

‘You think so?’ Em slowed down.

‘Defo.’ He drew alongside. ‘She should never have ridden that class, yeah, but she’d do anything for Hugo.’

‘Probably true,’ Em sighed.

‘Lying for him about New Year was bad enough, but getting killed for him … woah.’

‘Lying for him?’

He shook his head, looking away. ‘That bastard thinks he can do what he likes. I told her to go to the police, but she refused.’

‘
Police?
’

He stared into his plastic cup. ‘I wish I’d pushed it more now. She and I aren’t too matey these days, yeah, but I still care about her and I can’t stand back and watch while Hugo gets away with this too. She should sue him for making her ride that horse. He’ll hardly want to contest given what she knows about him. She could take him for a lot of money.’

‘And where do you fit in to this?’

He turned to gaze at the health information posters lining the corridor walls, small eyes narrowing. ‘I came to offer my support.’

Em regarded him warily, uncertain how to take him, yet guessing he knew more about Beccy’s recent past than any of her immediate family. ‘What exactly did she lie about for Hugo?’

‘I can’t betray a confidence. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going outside for a smoke. Trust me, what Hugo did to your sister was bad. Really bad.’ As he headed for the exit he reached out and tapped a poster on the wall, offering a helpline for victims of sexual assault and rape.

*

At Upton, Tash called for updates on Beccy as often as possible, speaking first to Em and then later Henrietta, who finally made it back to the UK with James the following evening after an interminable wait in Portugal for available seats. She was very spaced-out, they reported cautiously. Henrietta in particular sounded guarded and reluctant to pass on news, and Tash worried that there were complications they weren’t telling her about.

‘I’m heading straight to Somerset to compete after we’ve finished here, but I’ll visit her as soon as I’m back,’ she promised, dreading the prospect of breaking the news about Riley.

That evening, Tash was appalled to find Gus and Lucy Field canoodling quite openly when they joined her and Hugo for a drink in the lorry. Penny wasn’t there, having stayed behind at Lime Tree Farm. She would be taking her four-legged babies to Stockland Lovell later in the week, where Tash was also aiming next, while Hugo and Gus headed to advanced trials in Sussex along with Lucy. Tash dreaded to think what they’d all get up to there. It was the peak of the season, with riders on the road for weeks on end – traditionally the prime time for affairs to hot up.

‘I can’t believe you just stood back and let that happen,’ she told Hugo after Gus and Lucy had left.

‘What am I supposed to do? Throw a bucket of cold water over them?’

‘Penny is an old friend.’

‘Affairs happen in this sport; we all just have to get on with it. The Moncrieffs have been giving house room to your Kiwi admirer for weeks and I haven’t kicked up a fuss, have I?’

‘Don’t start that again, Hugo.’ Tash sighed, grateful that Lough had returned to Berkshire as soon as he’d completed his class and wasn’t staying in the lorry park. ‘We agreed to put it behind us. We have to trust each other.’

‘Trust none, for oaths are straws,’ he glowered out of the window, ‘men’s faiths are wafer-cakes.’

‘Henry the Fifth.’ Tash recognised, studying him curiously; she couldn’t remember him ever quoting Shakespeare before.

He looked sheepish. ‘I played Pistol in a school production.’

‘Does that make me Mistress Quickly?’ Tash anxiously recalled a downtrodden Judi Dench in unflattering sackcloth in the movie version she’d seen.

‘You always knew more about literature than me.’ He shrugged. ‘I just remember it was hell wearing tights, and I kept forgetting my lines. Pistol talks far too much for a minor character.’

‘Men of few words are the best men.’ Tash reached out to touch his arm. Secretly she wished he would open up more, but his face was its familiar, handsome mask again, and she knew better than to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war half way through a competition.

In her hospital room, Beccy was doing a lot of talking, but not all of it made sense. She was trying to explain about her father, but kept muddling him up with Hugo, past and present becoming hopelessly jumbled as she fought though a mental maze and physical pain.

‘I loved him so much, even though he hurt me. Tash says I mustn’t blame myself, but it was my fault, wasn’t it? She only said that to make me feel better.’

‘Tash knows?’ Em gaped at her.

But Beccy wasn’t listening. ‘It’s why I’m the way I am, why I can’t ever have normal relationships. Lem really hates Hugo, so he called it sexual assault, but it wasn’t like that. It was
my
fault. I’m the reason Tash and Hugo’s marriage is in trouble. I led Lough on, just like I led on Hugo, just like I rode too fast and did this to myself. I deserved it all, Em. I’m to blame for everything.’ She talked herself in circles, remorseful and wretched, never fully making sense, drifting in and out of tears and sleep, her fantasy world and her secrets unravelling simultaneously.

As soon as their mother had arrived from Portugal, tearful and contrite with a sullen James in tow, Em left them all together and went outside to phone Lemon, whose number she’d found on her sister’s phone. Using her steeliest charms honed from years working in media high finance, Em demanded facts, and fast. False loyalty swept aside by such practised coercion, Lemon was a great deal more forthcoming, soon sparing no detail of the sordid, drunken encounter that had gone too far and left Beccy reeling. ‘I’m only telling you all this because he mustn’t get away with it, yeah?’

Tash was dumbfounded when her father and Henrietta appeared across the gravel car park at Stockland Lovell shortly after she arrived, looking out of place in their golfing casuals amid the scruffy polo shirts and breeches of the professional mid-week event riders.

One look at her father’s face told her to be afraid. His usually ruddy cheeks were streaked with grey, and he couldn’t look her in the eye.

‘What is it?’ Tash asked, knowing that if they hadn’t driven all this way just to cheer her on.

‘Let’s sit in the box.’ Henrietta couldn’t look her in the eye.

‘There’s no luxury living in this thing,’ Tash apologised as they clambered into a little groom’s living area that was no bigger than a broom cupboard and sweltering hot, but there was a tiny table and two benches.

She was certainly glad to be sitting down when Henrietta finally confessed why they were there.

Tash couldn’t take it in at first.

‘Beccy is saying Hugo tried to rape her on New Years’ Eve?’ she clarified, so shocked that she almost wanted to laugh.

‘Rape’s a very emotive word, but what went on was certainly not entirely consensual.’

‘Well that’s rape, then,’ Tash gasped, her head spinning. ‘Christ. Oh bloody Christ. Why would she say such a thing?’

‘Because it happened.’ Henrietta was too angry to show any compassion. ‘Those painkilling drugs that she’s on are terribly powerful. Apparently all sorts of things come out when people are on them.’

‘Is she sure it was Hugo? It must be pretty dark in that loft above the stables at Lime Tree Farm.’

‘She’s totally sure. They spoke. He said his name.’

Tash felt panic and bile rising.

‘One of Beccy’s friends alerted us,’ Henrietta went on. ‘In strictest confidence, of course. Beccy confided in those closest to her as soon as it happened. She was terribly upset at the time, apparently – I’m surprised you didn’t notice.’ She eyed Tash critically. ‘Her friend wanted her to report it to the police, but she was adamant that she didn’t want to get Hugo into trouble. She’s very muddled about her feelings, you see. She still thinks she might have led him on.’

Tash was too horrified to speak. Her father, struck equally dumb with embarrassment, couldn’t bring himself to look at her at all.

‘We gather that Hugo has a bit of a … reputation,’ Henrietta said delicately, while James cleared his throat.

‘Says who?’ Tash bleated.

‘I think it’s best not to reveal any names in case …’ Henrietta looked down at her hands.

‘In case what? The “friend” appears as a prosecution witness?’ Tash laughed disbelievingly. ‘Do you think I’m going to hire some heavies and have them frightened off for turning supergrass?’ She pressed her face into her hands and fought to control her breathing. She knew she could hardly defend Hugo’s reputation by pointing out that he’d been flirting with Sylva Frost for a lot of New Year’s Eve. And then there was the Debbie Double-G fiasco, and of course V.

To make matters worse, when Hugo finally returned Tash’s increasingly frantic calls he refused to take it at all seriously. He was at the Brightling Park trials and leading one section already. ‘I’m riding two horses tomorrow. I’m not packing up early because of some nonsense Beccy’s made up.’

‘And what will you do if the police turn up and arrest you for rape in the start box?’

‘It won’t come to that.’

‘It will if Henrietta has her way.’

Tash went to the hospital while Hugo was driving back from Sussex. She was still wearing riding gear, her cream breeches immaculate because she hadn’t even got on a horse. This time, the trainers on her feet squeaked through the corridors as she raced to Beccy. They’d just moved her on to a ward, which made it difficult to talk, especially when the elderly woman in the next bed lent over chattily and admired Tash’s mismatched knee-length stripy socks, which were pulled up over her breeches. ‘Is that the fashion these days, dear?’

Tash smiled politely and drew the curtains around Beccy’s bed.

‘Please tell me this is some sort of terrible mistake?’ she whispered.

But Beccy shook her head, her china doll face crumpling as tears gushed up. ‘It’s no mistake, Tash.’

‘He tried to’ – the word caught in her throat – ‘to rape you?’

‘No! It wasn’t like that. We were both very drunk and got carried away, then I was upset and he just walked away and left me there.’

Deathly pale, obviously in a great deal of pain despite the drugs, Beccy looked utterly pathetic. Tash had known Beccy to cry wolf on
many occasions, but this time she sensed she was telling the truth. It was just too terrible a thing to lie about. She patted her arm abstractedly, too anguished by the facts to feel sympathy or comfort. She was just furiously angry at them both, at Hugo and at Beccy.

‘Did you encourage him?’ she asked bluntly.

Beccy chewed her lips. ‘I might have said something.’

‘Said what?’

‘A line I’d heard. I thought it was funny.’

‘What line?’

Beccy was volcano-core red. ‘I said something about taking the weight off his feet and t-thrusting it into—’

‘Ok, I get the picture.’ Tash held up her hand. Icy fingers gripped at her temples and throat. She’d heard that line before. Hugo had used it. She felt faint.

‘What’s going to happen?’ Beccy asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Tash said honestly.

Beccy turned her cheek to the pillow, her skin almost grey. Her forehead was glistening waxily because the searing pain made her perspire and there were deep black circles around her eyes. She looked truly ghastly. ‘I wish Em and Mummy had left well alone. I didn’t mean to say anything. I just want to forget about it.’

‘These things don’t get forgotten though, do they?’ Tash sighed. ‘The things that change our lives for ever, like what happened with your father.’

Beccy let out a bleat and closed her eyes. ‘I’ve been talking about him too, you know, but Em blanks it out every time, like she just doesn’t want to hear. I guess that’s half the reason she and Mummy are kicking up such a stink about the other thing. They’re happy to sacrifice Hugo’s honour to preserve the memory of my father.’

Tash said nothing, thinking that Hugo’s honour looked pretty shabby right now.

‘I
did
lead him on,’ Beccy whispered, desperate for atonement. ‘There wasn’t anything remotely romantic about it, I promise, and afterwards he just acted like it had never happened. I could have been anyone, really. He said he was excited by—’ She stopped herself.

Tash looked up sharply. ‘Excited by what?’

Beccy bit her lower lip, eyes opening and peering warily at Tash. ‘Sylva Frost. I’d seen them flirting outside, you see. I set off a car
alarm by mistake and Sylva went inside again, or was it the other way around?’ Her eyelids were drooping again. She looked beaten up with pain and tiredness. ‘Then Hugo followed me to the stables loft.’

Tash ran her tongue along her top teeth and nodded.

‘I have to go.’ She started to pull back the curtains.

But as she reached for her bag Beccy grabbed her sleeve. ‘What happened to Riley? Is he okay? Mum and Em won’t tell me.’

Just for a moment, Tash wanted to yell it in her face: he’s dead, Beccy, he’s dead like my marriage is dead, and it’s all your fault.

But she couldn’t do it to her.

She perched on the edge of the bed, keeping her voice low. ‘He had an injury that meant he would never have competed again. It was kindest to let him go. He was in a lot of pain.’

Beccy shrank away, her eyes going strangely blank. ‘I know how he felt.’

‘Would you like me to call a nurse for more painkillers?’

‘It’s not my pelvis hurting, it’s here.’ She prodded angry fingers at her chest. ‘Everyone hates me.
I
hate me.’