The Accident (27 page)

‘Stand up.’

I slowly picked myself up from the ground.

‘Take off your clothes.’

I did as I was told, slowly, painfully, undoing the buttons of my shirt before slipping it off – I winced as it caught on my swollen right shoulder – then let it slip to the floor. I undid my jeans, pushed them past my hips and stepped out of them.

‘And your underwear.’

‘James, please. We weren’t going out together when Steve and I … when we … it was all a terrible mistake. I didn’t enjoy it and I didn’t feel anything. In fact, it just made me miss you more and
—
’

‘Your underwear.’

I pushed my knickers to the ground first then reached round to unclip my bra. My shoulder twisted sharply and I gasped in pain but I was more scared by what James would do if I didn’t comply so I undid my bra and dropped that to the floor too.

I flinched as he took a step towards me but, instead of hitting me, he side-stepped me and walked up to the window, threw open the curtains and opened the window.

‘Stand here, Susan.’

I hesitated. There was a row of houses opposite. They were separated from us by the busy road below but, just as we could see into their illuminated homes on a dark night, so they could see into ours.

‘The window, Suzy.’

I walked forwards like I was sleepwalking through my worst nightmare.

‘That’s it, walk right up to the window. I want everyone to see what a disgusting, fat, dirty whore you really are.’

I gripped hold of the sill and looked out at the cars below. Maybe if one of them saw me they’d realize something was wrong and call the police. I dismissed the thought almost as soon as it crossed my mind. No, they wouldn’t. This was London. No one cared enough to call the police. I heard a noise behind me and spun round, sure James was about to push me to my death and came face to face with an anglepoise lamp, the bright bulb pointed upwards, blinding me.

‘Turn back around,’ James said. ‘I want the world to see how ugly and flawed you are. I want them to see how riddled with flab and cellulite and stretch marks and saddle bags. I want them to look at your saggy breasts and your enormous thighs and I want them to wonder how anyone could ever have stomached making love to you. How anyone could have loved
this
,’ he prodded me in the side.

I fought back tears but said nothing. If this was James’s punishment for me sleeping with Steve then so be it. There were worse things than public humiliation, far worse.

‘Ever wonder why I stopped sleeping with you, Suzy?’ He paused for a reaction then continued anyway. ‘When this is how you look? Do you have any idea how much of a turn-off men find a body like yours?’

A tear dribbled down my cheek. Fucking bastard. When this was over, when he finally ended my ordeal I’d run so far away from him he’d never find me again.

‘And to think I felt guilty for going back to prostitutes?’ He stifled a laugh and I realized I must have stiffened in surprise. ‘I just couldn’t bear making love to a fat, lardy lump any more. And you were never very good at sucking dick.’

‘Right.’ The sofa creaked as he stood up and the room suddenly dimmed. He must have turned the lamp off. ‘Enough entertainment. I want to know why you fucked Steve, how many times you fucked Steve, how you fucked him and whether,’ he grabbed hold of my hair and yanked me backwards, ‘you laughed at me the whole fucking time?’

‘James no!’ I twisted and fought, hitting him, scratching him and kicking him as he dragged me across the room and bent me over the glass table in the corner of the room. ‘Just let me go. Please.’

‘Let you go?’ I heard the zip of his fly open and then the weight of his chest on my back as he hissed in my ear. ‘Suzy, I’m never going to let you go. Never. You’re a filthy whore but you’re my whore. And besides,’ he lifted my head from the glass then smashed it back down again, ‘I want you to apologise to Mother. She had a heart attack when she saw what I’d done to your room, what
you
made me do. I want you to spend the rest of your life apologizing, to both of us. Now then,’ he kicked my legs apart and pressed his penis against my anus, ‘did Steve fuck you
here
?’

I stared across at the batik wall hanging and let the wide white eyes hypnotise me. My mind went blank as I slipped into the gaping dark mouth and disappeared.

Chapter 23

‘Sue, get in.’

I look round, expecting to stare into the cold grey eyes of my ex-boyfriend, but there’s no one behind me.

‘Sue Jackson?’

A black Mercedes with tinted windows draws up alongside me and a man beckons from one of the passenger windows. He looks familiar but I can’t quite place—

‘Steve Torrance.’ He flashes me an electric smile and I recognize the dazzling white teeth. Alex Henri’s agent. I saw his picture on the internet. He disappears back into the car and the door opens. ‘Get in.’

I glance behind me again but there’s no one there. The alley is empty too. I can’t have imagined James running behind me. He was there, I saw his face. Where’s he gone? Did Steve’s car startle him into the shadows? Is he waiting for him to leave before he makes his move?

‘Look, Sue,’ Steve’s face appears next to the open door. ‘I’m a very busy man. Get in or tell me to fuck off, just hurry the fuck up.’

I falter. Try and flag a taxi to Victoria and risk James reappearing or get in a car with a man I’ve never met before?

Steve’s smile widens as I open the door. He moves across into the other passenger seat, leaving the one nearest me empty. I look round one last time – the street is still empty – then slip into the car and lock the door behind me. A shadow crosses my window and I jerk away from the door. ‘Can we just go now, please. Drive!’

The driver, an older man wearing a peaked cap pulled low over his eyes twists round. ‘Who’d you think you are – Robert de Niro? This is the West End, love, not New Bloody York.’

He glances at Steve Torrance who raises an eyebrow then turns to look at me, the smile still fixed firmly in place. ‘Where would you like to go, Sue?’

‘Victoria.’ I pull my handbag close, one eye still on the street. I keep expecting James to yank open the door and pull me into the street.

The driver shrugs, taps his indicator and we pull away. The road is gridlocked with traffic and it takes an age to get to the end of the street. It’s only when we hit a pedestrian-free road that I allow myself to relax.

Steve Torrance glances up from his BlackBerry. ‘How much?’

I say nothing, assuming he’s talking to the driver.

‘How much?’ he says again, briefly catching my eye before he looks back at his phone.

I grip my bag to my chest. ‘How much what?’

‘To keep quiet.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Look Sue,’ he leans back in his seat and tucks his mobile into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘Let’s not fanny about. Your big song and dance act in the club got you noticed, congratulations. Let’s just hope there weren’t any journalists with mobile phones set to record or this conversation is as redundant as Bob Diamond.’ He laughs at his own joke. ‘So come on, how much is it going to take to stop you going to the papers?’

It takes a couple of seconds for what he’s saying to sink in.

‘You think that’s why I did it? I confronted Alex because I wanted paying off?’

‘You don’t?’

‘No, of course not.’ I adjust my seatbelt so I can look at him face on. He can’t be much taller than me but his large gut and lack of neck make him look broad and there’s a sheen at the top of his bald head. ‘I’m not that kind of woman. My husband is Brian Jackson, MP for Brighton.’

‘Great.’ He reaches into his inside pocket, pulls out a handkerchief and presses it to his brow. ‘That’s all I fucking need, the bloody government getting involved just because Henri can’t keep it in his pants.’

‘So he did have sex with my daughter?’ I ask the question as evenly as I can even though my heart is twisting in my chest.

He stops mopping to look at me. ‘Hang on one fucking second. It sounded to me – and every other twat with ears – that you were accusing my client of having sex with a minor. Are you saying now that he didn’t?’

‘I didn’t accuse him of anything. I asked him to talk to me.’

‘Stop the car!’ He leans forward in his seat and holds up a hand. ‘Stop the fucking car right now!’

There’s a squeal of brakes, a horn honks and then the car jerks to a stop. To our left is a park, an enormous iron fence wrapped around it and to the right there’s a row of B&B style hotels. The street lamps either side cast accusing pools of light on the beer cans, cigarette ends and dog poo that litter the pavement. If we’re in Victoria we’re not in the nice bit.

‘Out.’ Steve reaches across me and opens my door. ‘Get out of my car!’

‘No.’ I pull the door shut.

‘What do you fucking mean no?’ His face is inches from mine. I can see the open pores and broken veins around his nose and smell the champagne and curry on his breath.

‘I’m not getting out until you tell me what happened.’

‘When?’

‘When Charlotte and Alex Henri went to the toilets together.’

‘You’re asking the wrong man, darling, because I wasn’t there.’

‘Then I suggest you find out.’

‘I should, should I?’ His top lip curls into a sneer. ‘You’re not going to the press, you’ve already admitted as much.’

‘No, but I could go to the police.’ The sneer instantly disappears. ‘My fifteen-year-old daughter is in a coma and I have every reason to believe that what happened with your client may have put her there.’

‘Woah!’ He raises his hands, palms out. ‘Who said anything about a coma?’

‘I did, just now.’

‘What the fuck?’ He catches the driver looking at him and waves a hand for him to start the engine. A few seconds later we pull away.

Steve leans towards me and lowers his voice. ‘If you’re accusing my client of harming your daughter you’d better have bloody good evidence because—’

‘I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I just want to know what happened when they met.’

He sits back in his seat. ‘I told you, I wasn’t there. I was in New York on business.’

The car turns a corner and there’s a sign for Victoria station. I glance at my watch. Fifteen minutes until the last train leaves.

I look back at Steve. ‘Can you arrange for me to speak to Alex to ask him what happened?’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?’

‘Actually I’d—’

‘Here,’ he reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out his mobile. He hands it to me. ‘Put your number in. I’ll speak to Alex. I’ll give you a ring afterwards.’

I key in my mobile number even though I have no idea whether I can trust him or not. He makes his living from painting his clients in the most flattering light so if Alex does reveal something unsavoury he’s unlikely to share it with me. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he rang to say that he’d denied all knowledge of meeting Charlotte. If he even calls at all.

‘All good?’ He glances at the entry then tucks the mobile back in his jacket.

The car swings round a corner and then slows to a stop.

‘Victoria,’ the driver says.

Steve leans across the divide between us and holds out a hand. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he says as I shake it. The tiniest of frowns crosses his brow, then he sits back in his seat and pulls out his BlackBerry. I open the car door.

Friday 23rd October 1992

James kept me captive for six weeks, only leaving to visit his mother in hospital. Before he left he’d disconnect the phone and make sure that every door and window was locked. After a week, Val, my supervisor at Tescos called, asking to speak to me. I listened from the sofa as James told her I’d moved back to York because Mum’s health had taken a turn for the worse. No one else called.

I realized then that James could kill me any time he wanted and no one would miss me. It became my aim each morning just to make it through the day alive. Not that James touched me again – well, apart from the time he caught me waving from the spare bedroom window, trying to catch the attention of an old lady hobbling along the street below – he beat me black and blue for that. Instead he ordered me about – telling me to sit here, stand there, get out of his way, cook his food or else completely ignored me. He wouldn’t let me read a book, watch a film or tidy my sewing room. I was only allowed to do household chores or sit silently in the middle of the hallway where he could see me from the sofa in the lounge.

Three weeks after James raped me I told him I needed to go to the chemist. He laughed in my face and said I should have worried about the clap before I slept with Steve.

‘No,’ I said. ‘My period’s a week late. I need a pregnancy test.’

I was terrified as I sat on the closed toilet seat, the pot of my urine and the small white stick on the lip of the bath beside me. Two years ago I would have been over the moon if James had got me pregnant but now I was shaking with fear. I was still clinging desperately to the hope that the memory of my ‘infidelity’ with Steve would fade and James would get bored of having me around and let me go. But not if I was pregnant. If I was carrying his child he’d keep me prisoner for at least nine months.

‘Well?’ he burst into the bathroom. I hadn’t shut the door, there was no point.

I held the paddle up to him and said nothing.

‘Two blue lines?’ He frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘That I’m pregnant.’

I stepped up my attempt to escape the next time he left the house. The first thing I did was rip out a number for an abortion clinic from the Yellow Pages and stash it in the one thing that hadn’t been destroyed when James trashed my sewing room – the secret drawer in my table. I tucked it away with my diary and my savings and then searched the house for a way out, going through every drawer, every tin, every cupboard and every wardrobe looking for something, anything to help me. It took five days before I discovered the mink coat stashed at the back of Margaret’s wardrobe. I could barely breathe as my fingers stroked something small, cold and metallic in one of the pockets. A key. A door key. She hadn’t been out of the house alone for years but maybe someone somewhere was smiling down on me and it would fit the front door. I didn’t have a chance to find out because the front door slammed open as I closed my hands around the key. Panicking, I shut myself in the wardrobe and hid, as best I could, behind the mink coat. James’s footsteps reverberated throughout the house as he climbed the stairs.