The Burning (26 page)

She blinked at him, her eyes trusting, and I wanted to tell her to hurry up.

‘I probably overreacted. I mean, these things happen, don’t they? But my flatmate at the time was very politically active – a real feminist. You know, she went on Reclaim the Streets marches and stuff. She was completely supportive and made me report him.’

‘What happened?’

‘We’d been going out for a few months.’ A tiny smile. ‘Everything was going really well. He was so attentive and kind, and he’s unbelievably clever. I mean, I still think that. I really liked him.’

And I doubted he had disliked the unquestioning adulation she had offered him.

‘We were still getting to know one another. We had met in a bar – we got chatting when the barman ignored him and asked me for my order instead. I got so flustered, but he was lovely about it. He was usually such a gentleman.’ She sounded as if she still couldn’t quite believe what had happened. I dug the tip of my pen into the crease down the centre of my notebook, whiling away the time while I waited for her to get to the point.

‘Basically, I didn’t know any of his friends or colleagues, so I had to go with my instincts when he asked me to go out with him. I really liked him, but I wanted to take things slowly, you know. I didn’t want to rush into anything, but I didn’t want him to lose interest either.’

‘Of course not.’ Rob was nodding as if he was familiar with the difficult choices faced by twenty-something single women in a hostile dating environment. And maybe he was. He tended not to go in for tales from his private life – or at least, he didn’t share them with me.

‘We hadn’t – you know.’

‘Slept together?’ I couldn’t help being blunt; I was getting tired of her edging around the subject. She looked affronted for a moment, then nodded.

‘This was after you’d been going out for how long?’

‘Three months.’ She blinked at me innocently. I was willing to bet she had a heap of self-help books in her bedroom, and the most frequently consulted would be
The Rules
. She had all the hallmarks of the rabid husband-hunter. If you want someone to buy the cow, you don’t give the milk away for free.

‘He’d gone out with his friends, on his own. It was a lads’ night out. I stayed in and did girly things like painting my nails.’ She extended a hand in Rob’s direction so he could admire her perfect French manicure. ‘It’s really hard to find the time to do stuff like that when you’re in a relationship.’ A pause. ‘I’m single at the moment, so …’

‘Very nice,’ Rob said gallantly. ‘He came around, did he?’

‘At about two o’clock in the morning.’ She pulled a face. ‘I wasn’t expecting him to come that late. He banged on the door and yelled, and I freaked out. He really frightened me, and he woke up my neighbours. Sonia, my flatmate, was furious. It wasn’t even the weekend – it was a Tuesday night. You don’t do that kind of thing on a school night.’

‘What did you do?’ I asked.

‘Well, I let him in.’ The searchlight eyes were turned on me for a second. ‘I mean, it’s not as if I didn’t know who it was. I took him straight into my bedroom, because I wasn’t sure if Sonia was going to go back to bed. I was a bit worried that she might come in and make a scene if he was in this room or the kitchen. She was so pissed off with him, and to be honest, they didn’t get on that well. Anyway, as soon as I shut the door, he grabbed me and tried to get me onto the bed.’

Her voice had dropped; I could tell she was genuinely upset as she relived the experience, and I felt somewhat ashamed of myself for having been impatient.

‘He wouldn’t take no for an answer. I mean, he
was
drunk, so he probably didn’t really know what he was doing. He wasn’t violent, exactly, but he just kept pushing me back, and I screamed at him to stop, leave me alone. He was so much stronger than me. I couldn’t get away. He was calling me names, saying I had made him wait long enough and he was tired of it …’ She closed her eyes and pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, struggling for composure. Rob looked over at me and raised one eyebrow.

‘Take your time, Chloe,’ I said. ‘We’re not in a rush.’

She flapped a hand, her eyes still closed. ‘Sorry. It’s just so hard. I mean, it was over in seconds, but it took me months to recover.’ She squeezed her eyes tight closed and then opened them wide, her long wet eyelashes standing out like petals on a daisy. ‘Where was I? Oh yeah. Obviously Sonia heard what was going on. She came running in. Luckily for me, she was a really serious hockey player, and she’d picked up her stick on the way. She hit him with it a few times and then basically kicked him out of the flat. She wanted to call the police, but I wouldn’t let her. I didn’t want to make a formal complaint about it. She talked me into getting the restraining order the following week.’

‘You must have been very frightened of Maddick to do that.’

Instead of answering me straightaway, she wriggled in her seat. ‘Um. Yes. I mean, I suppose so. It was really that Sonia wouldn’t drop it. She kept printing out stories from the Internet about women who were murdered by their exes. I’d come home from work and find them pushed under the door of my room. Girls who’d met men on dating sites and got stalked by them, and the police didn’t do anything to stop the stalkers until it was too late and the women had been raped or killed or whatever. It was really upsetting.’

‘I’m sure it was.’ Rob was doing his manly, reassuring bit. Chloe gazed at him adoringly. If he wasn’t careful, she’d be sitting on his lap soon.

‘In the end, I did go to court to get the restraining order. Gil was there too, to put his side across, and I felt really sorry for him, actually, because it was hugely embarrassing. He explained that he’d just been incredibly drunk. Then he said he thought I might have overreacted.’ Her eyes narrowed as she recalled it. ‘I mean, that was
it
as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t going to back down after he’d said that. If Sonia hadn’t been in the flat that night, I don’t know what would have happened, and neither does he.’

‘So the order was granted. When did he breach it?’

‘Three months later.’ She was looking uneasy again. ‘To be fair to him, it wasn’t completely his fault. I hadn’t realised how seriously the police took non-molestation orders.’

They had become a top priority thanks to the sort of cases she had just mentioned. The bosses in the Met had got tired of making excuses for the fact that so many women had died at the hands of their harassers. You treated domestic violence as a minor concern at your peril. It was a hard lesson we’d learned, at the expense of some vulnerable people who had deserved better.

‘What happened?’

She peeked up at Rob through her long eyelashes before replying in a small voice. ‘He’d sent me a really lovely letter apologising for what happened that night and asking me to forgive him. I put it away in a drawer as soon as I’d read it, but I couldn’t forget about it – I just kept going back to look at it again and again. Eventually I rang him up and asked him to come over to pick up the stuff he’d left here. I’d put it in a box under my bed, because I didn’t think it was right to throw it away. Sonia wanted me to take his clothes to the charity shop and burn everything else.’ She giggled, then became serious again. ‘That was just an excuse. I wanted to see him. I didn’t want to leave it on such bad terms. I was feeling a bit embarrassed about the restraining order, and I wanted to clear the air. I thought it would be OK.’

‘But it wasn’t.’ Rob sounded resigned.

‘No, it was. Well, it would have been. Sonia was out for the afternoon, but she came back sooner than I was expecting. She saw his car outside and called the police. I think everyone thought that he’d made me agree to him coming over – that he’d brainwashed me, or manipulated me. But that wasn’t it at all. He left as soon as the police came, and I told them nothing had happened, I hadn’t been threatened or anything. They seemed to listen to me. I didn’t know that he’d have to go to the magistrates’ court anyway.’

‘Did you go along?’

She shook her head violently. ‘No. I couldn’t face it. But the police told me he pleaded guilty. The fine was a bit of a slap on the wrist. I mean, I think they must have known he wasn’t doing anything wrong by coming here.’

‘Have you seen him since?’

She coloured again. ‘It was too awkward. I felt really bad about what happened, but it was his fault originally. I mean, everyone tells me I don’t have anything to apologise for, but I can’t help feeling like I have to take some responsibility too.’

‘You live and learn,’ I said. ‘Try not to worry about it.’

She tore her eyes away from Rob’s face for a moment. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’ I stood up. ‘I think we’ve got all we came for. I’ll just head out to the car.’

Rob had twisted around to look at me, consternation on his face, but I didn’t break stride. If he wanted to be DC Charming, he had to take the consequences. And that included extracting himself from Chloe Sandler’s living room without any help from me.

I had only had time to check my mobile phone – another voicemail from my mother, which I didn’t feel strong enough to play back – before the car door opened and Rob sat into the driver’s seat. His ears were tinged with red.

‘Trouble?’ I asked sweetly.

‘Nothing I couldn’t handle.’

‘I’ll bet. I think she was quite keen to be handled, actually. But only up to a point.’

‘Are you thirsty? Do you want me to stop on the way back and get you a saucer of milk?’

I purred, then got serious. ‘What did you make of that?’

He scratched his jaw absent-mindedly. ‘Could be something. Could be nothing. I know she said it was her idea to invite him round, but––’

‘But she’s not the most forceful person in the world,’ I finished for him. ‘She’s a classic victim, isn’t she? He nearly raped her and she thinks it was all her fault.’

‘Yeah. But I don’t know if that makes him our killer.’ He shot a sidelong look at me. ‘I do know that I wouldn’t want to bump into Sonia down a dark alley, with or without her hockey stick.’

‘You would definitely come off worst,’ I agreed. ‘I liked the sound of Sonia. She had common sense.’

Sonia had stood between Gil Maddick and poor little Chloe. She hadn’t backed down. She hadn’t been too polite to make a fuss.

And she just might have saved her flatmate’s life.