by Bourne, Sam
Maggie looked hard at the person in front of her – at the two people in front of her, according to what Natasha had just said. She looked and looked, searching for an answer.
When you heard someone say that they were a good judge of character, what, Maggie wondered, did that really mean? Surely it meant that you took a good look at someone, looked especially perhaps at their eyes, and you listened for some voice inside you that said yes or no, thumbs up or thumbs down. And you had faith in that voice and you decided to take a leap.
Maggie had got that call wrong in the past, sometimes at great cost. She had allowed her heart to be broken, more than once, because she had got it wrong. But in the end, what else was there? What other voice could you listen to, if not the one inside you? And what kind of life would it be if you never took that leap?
She leaned forward intently, narrowing the distance between her face and Natasha’s. She rested her elbows on the table and her chin on her fists. ‘I want to believe you, because I know what happened to you and I know it’s true. And I know that you were denied justice.’ She paused. ‘So here’s what I want.’
Natasha nodded, like a dutiful schoolgirl about to receive her homework. And for the first time, Maggie thought she’d glimpsed Mindy Hagen, right in front of her. She felt her heart squeeze.
Maggie cleared her throat. ‘I want you to get a message, through me if necessary, to the other Judiths. Say that the killing has to stop. That this is not what you intended, that this is not what you want.’
Natasha gave another nod.
‘Second, I want you to give a TV interview and tell the truth about what happened that night in your home.’
‘OK.’
‘And in that TV interview, I want you to say who you really are. I think you need to tell the story of Mindy Hagen, and the life you have made for yourself. If you run for president – and there’s still time, just – it will come out eventually. It has to. But even if you don’t, I think it’s the only way you can live. I learned that myself recently: that in the end you have to tell the truth.’
Natasha smiled. ‘Are you speaking as a political adviser or as a therapist?’
Maggie smiled back. ‘Both.’
‘Can you imagine what the great American public would make of that? The press? They’d say I’m a total fraud. That I’ve been living a lie.’
‘Not if you told them the story you told me, through your diary. They would be moved. And they would applaud your courage, your resilience, your honesty.’ Maggie heard Stuart Goldstein’s voice in her head. That Mindy thing is a killer backstory: trailer park kid from Arkansas gets herself to Harvard, are you kidding me? Much better than being some silver spoon princess from Massachusetts. Besides, Massachusetts is in our column already; Arkansas would be a gain.
But all Maggie said out loud was, ‘Your story is authentic, and that’s all that matters in politics. That you’re true to yourself. But first you have to admit who “yourself” actually is. Including admitting that to you.’
‘And if I do all that?’
‘Then the revenge circle stays between us. No one will ever know. The women in Chicago and Bangalore will be safe; so will the other Judiths. I will keep your secret.’
Once again, Natasha examined her own hands for a while, the same hands, Maggie thought, that had tried and failed to fend off the touches of a boy she had loved as her brother. Natasha was wrestling with the same decision Maggie had, wondering if she should dare take the leap.
Finally, she reached across the table and shook Maggie’s hand. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Deal.’
MONDAY
Chapter 48
This is Meet the Press Daily. For our full hour tonight, in-depth insight and analysis of last night’s sensational NBC interview with presidential hopeful Natasha Winthrop, the civil rights lawyer accused of homicide in what she says was an act of self-defense against a violent rapist.
Gotta begin with you, Katty. We’ve both been in this town a long time, have you ever seen anything like that?
No, I have not. (Laughter) You’ve got me there. I know ‘unprecedented’ is an overused word in the news business, but seriously: there is no precedent for what we witnessed last night. I mean, let’s just start with the optics—
Right, that is something else—
There she was, this is a woman who aspires to be president, and she is interviewed in what was very clearly a prison, wearing prison fatigues and – this is what is so extraordinary – it kind of worked.
I know, this is—
It looked like something you might see in a developing country – you know, the leader in waiting, jailed by the regime, granting a rare interview from her prison cell.
It was stunning.
Stunning! And it reinforced her message that she is somehow a political prisoner. That she is in jail for daring to take a stand on violence against women.
And what about this strategy of full disclosure: how do you think that worked for her?
Well, she just laid her cards on the table, didn’t she? She explained that, yes, she did know the man who violently attacked her; that she had been following his case for many years, tracking his skill in evading justice again and again; and that she devised this scheme to ensure that the next time he tried to rape a woman, there would be evidence. I mean, that was a compelling case.
Let’s take a listen to that part of the exchange:
‘You did not plan to kill him?’
‘Absolutely not. I had plans in place that would ensure I was safe and he would be caught. Lester, those plans went horribly wrong. I was playing with fire and I got burned. I ended up in this place, having to defend myself. But my word, that was the last thing I would have planned.’
That’s the interview from last night and you found it persuasive?
I found it brave. I found it honest. I found it moving. But it doesn’t matter what I thought. Just listen to the American people. Polling overnight shows that—
Let’s flash that figure up. There we go.
Sixty-eight per cent agree or strongly agree that Natasha Winthrop was telling the truth, with a similar number saying all charges against her should be dropped—
That was before word came from the prosecutor’s office in DC saying that the homicide charges would indeed be dropped, on the grounds that ‘there is no realistic prospect of conviction’. Sorry, I interrupted, go ahead—
Well, Chuck, as you can imagine, this is the number that’s got people in DC excited. ‘Should Natasha Winthrop enter the race for President of the United States?’ Sixty-four per cent saying yes to that question. Now, clearly, that’s not sixty-four per cent saying they would vote for her, but especially in the light of Tom Harrison’s decision to suspend his campaign over those Russia and hacking stories—
Maggie muted the TV. She wanted to focus on which dress to wear. With Uri on the other side of the world, she was reduced to propping up her phone on the bathroom shelf and posing in front of the lens while Liz assessed her outfits via FaceTime.
‘Turn around again.’
‘I’ve already done that twice.’
‘I’m just trying to work out if it’s the dress or just that your arse has got bigger.’
‘Not being helpful.’
‘Believe me, I really am being helpful. You don’t want to go in there looking like Sister Agnes in her gym pants.’
‘Liz, I don’t have time for this.’
‘Seriously, though, do you remember the arse on that woman? It had layers. Like the ice sheet in Greenland. Like it had its own ecosystem or something. What are you doing?’
‘I’m taking it off.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you said my arse looks like it’s the size of Greenland.’
‘I said, I wanted to work out if it looked like that.’
�
�What about the black trouser thing?’
Eventually, Maggie got herself dressed and out. It was a party for Natasha’s release, but it was also very clearly not only that. Parties in Washington, DC, were rarely just one thing: a senator would host a silver wedding party for six hundred of his closest friends eighteen months before a presidential election and every guest would greet each other with the same two words: ‘He’s running.’
Once Maggie arrived at this do, at a restaurant on Washington Harbour, its lights twinkling on the water, she saw nothing to alter her view. The room was full of journalists from Axios, the Post and Politico, congressional aides and, strikingly, the leaders of the key national women’s organizations. For a party thrown together at just a few hours’ notice, it was impressive.
Maggie got herself a drink, fended off the attentions of a former State Department colleague, now divorced, and was soon chatting amiably with Jake Haynes of the New York Times.
‘Thanks again, Maggie,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘Took Harrison out with one strike.’
‘That was all you, Jake, remember. I didn’t even know he was using Imperial Analytica.’
‘And we didn’t know the company was basically a Russian front operating like a gang of thugs.’ He raised his glass again. ‘You see, that’s why we’re the perfect team.’ He gave a smile which Maggie suspected was an attempt at being flirtatious.
When Maggie offered zero response, he said, ‘That interview was something, huh?’
Maggie assented that it was, though what she was thinking about was what she had been turning over in her mind for the last twenty-four hours: namely, all the things Natasha did not say on television.
Yes, she had confessed to knowing of Todd, to having followed his case. But when asked why she had singled out this rapist of all rapists, Natasha had shown the interviewer the same dead bat she had shown Maggie at Pilgrim’s Cove a few days earlier. She made no mention of Little Rock. And not so much as a hint of Mindy Hagen.
Maggie had thumbed out a text: What about our deal? But she had not sent it.
She wanted to think some more, especially about one question she had not got to ask when they’d met in the DC jail. It was simple. Natasha had thrown open her entire life to Maggie, allowing her to roam through her files, paper and digital. She must have known it would lead to Penobscot and to Aunt Peggy, and indeed to the Judiths. Why would she have done that?
Of course, Maggie knew the official answer: Natasha wanted to know what in her work might explain, and ideally identify, the enemies that were out to get her. But she had risked Maggie probing much deeper into her past. Why?
Someone was dinging a glass, calling for silence. An actor was on stage, a box-set favourite who, Maggie knew, Liz would be swooning over but who Maggie struggled to name. He was delivering a long paean of praise for ‘. . . the champion of civil rights, role model to our daughters, warrior queen . . .’ but Maggie was barely taking it in. She was thinking about her question.
A snatch of conversation came back to her, from when she’d been trying to persuade Peggy Winthrop to talk to her.
Natasha is a very careful young woman. She tends not to make mistakes. But nonetheless she gave you access to her computer, and allowed you free rein to find a path here. To find me.
Maggie hadn’t probed that too deeply at the time; she’d been glad just to have her foot in the door. But now she wondered if the aged Aunt Peggy had understood what Maggie had missed: that Natasha had wanted Peggy to be found. Which meant she had wanted Mindy to be found.
Now Natasha was onstage, basking in the applause. A chant picked up: ‘Run, Tasha, run! Run, Tasha, run!’
She was smiling and modestly gesturing for the crowd to pipe down.
How easily Peggy had handed over the diary. No resistance at all. She had volunteered it.
‘Run, Tasha, run!’
Why would Natasha Winthrop want to be found, and then agree to do a set-piece TV interview only to say nothing, only to keep Mindy hidden?
‘Thank you, everyone. Your support means so much to me.’
Maggie watched Winthrop the way Stuart Goldstein would have watched her. There was no denying it. She was quality ‘horseflesh’, to use the word Stu deployed when assessing candidates like animals at a livestock market. Crisp, clear, compelling. And beautiful. A thirty-something lawyer with no experience of elected office; a rape victim accused until today of murder; a (supposed) WASP from the East Coast elite, it was mad to think of her running for the White House – and yet it was also possible.
Natasha came down from the stage and was instantly mobbed. Maggie hung back, waiting for the scrum around the candidate-to-be to edge towards her. As it got close, Maggie moved towards it, until the two women were face to face.
Over the din, Maggie said, ‘Great speech, Natasha.’
Natasha shouted back. ‘Thank you so much!’
‘Interview went well.’
‘Yes! Thanks for your help with it.’
Several looks passed between them, an expression that said Not here from Natasha, and a Don’t worry in reply from Maggie.
‘There’s something I’d like to ask you, Natasha.’
‘Great! Why don’t we fix up to meet?’
‘It’ll only take a second.’
‘Hi!’ Natasha shook hands with a woman in her sixties who held up her phone, requesting a selfie. Maggie waited for it to be done and then, as Natasha tried to move on, placed her hand on her wrist. As if to say, Stop.
‘I want to know why you wanted me to find out.’
‘Find out?’
‘About you.’ Maggie’s eyes said: Don’t make me spell it out. ‘Why?’
Natasha paused, then took Maggie’s hand. ‘Because you’re the very best, Maggie. The best.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘Oh, it does. I knew that if there was any possible way to find out about me, you’d find it. And you did.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘You’ll remember that the man I once thought of as my father was a plumber. Before installing a pipe, plumbers test it. They send water down the pipe, and check to see if any comes out where it shouldn’t. That way they know in advance if there’s a hole where they might spring a leak. Well, you, Maggie, found the hole. And now I can patch it up.’
‘What? How?’
‘Those phone records, for example. Not too difficult to make those go away.’ And there, once more, was that look of pure ice that Maggie had glimpsed in Cape Cod. It had sent a chill through her then and it did so again now.
Maggie suddenly thought of Great-Aunt Peggy, out in the middle of nowhere on the distant Atlantic shore. She’d moved there a decade or so ago, she said. Was the truth that Natasha had banished her saviour to the very edge of the country once her career was up and running, the better to keep her secret safe? So many thoughts were tumbling through Maggie’s mind, but the words that came out were: ‘But, but . . . I know about it now. The story is out.’
‘Not at all.’ Natasha squeezed Maggie’s hand again, and moved her face closer still. ‘Because when I say you’re the best, I don’t just mean that you’re good at your job. Though you are. I mean that you’re good. You’re a good person, Maggie. I know you won’t betray me, just as you won’t betray those other colleagues of mine. What did you call them? The “Judiths”. So ingenious. And I certainly know that you won’t betray Mindy. Not after everything that happened to her.’
Now a man pushed through the throng, arms outstretched for a hug, which was duly offered. In tow were what Maggie assumed was a wife and three daughters, all clamouring for a selfie with the woman of the hour. Within a second or two, they had jostled Maggie out of the way and Natasha was swallowed up and gone.
A waiter arrived with a bottle of champagne, clad in a white napkin. He moved to top up Mag
gie’s glass, but instead she handed it back to him. She headed for the exit, receiving a little wave from Jake Haynes, who was shouting into his phone, on her way out.
Outside, by the water, the throb of the party behind her, she caught herself breathing heavily, almost panting. Natasha Winthrop had played her good and proper. She’d made Maggie do a pilot run for the opposition research that she knew would come her way if she ever sought the presidency. If someone somehow gained full access to all her records, what would they find? Maggie had provided the answer.
As another chant erupted and spilled out from the restaurant – ‘Run, Tasha, run!’ – Maggie thought once more of the story Natasha had told again and again, to her, to the TV interviewer, to the nation. How she had acted spontaneously, to defend herself from a violent attacker.
But did Natasha’s plan really go wrong that night? Or did it, in fact, run like clockwork? Did she only ever want to see ‘Todd’ – Paul – the brother who had abused her so cruelly, arrested and convicted? Or did this woman who had lived two such different lives – keeping each one hidden from the other – set out to kill a man in a premeditated, cold-blooded act of revenge? And if Natasha Winthrop, who might now be on her way to winning the most powerful office in the world, had done that, was she right or wrong to do it? Should Maggie keep her secret, or expose it?
In the glittering night of a Washington autumn, as the cheers and chants drifted over the harbour, Maggie realized with a dizzy kind of sickness that if there was an answer to any one of those questions, she did not know it.
Acknowledgements
This is a novel, but it is rooted in a bleak set of facts. The conviction rates for rape are as appallingly low as Natasha Winthrop says they are, with the picture in Britain as grim as it is in the US. In India, one rape is indeed reported every fifteen minutes. The episodes of sexual harassment and assault, whether set in New York, London or Stockholm, are based on victims’ accounts that are anything but fiction: I feel deep admiration for their courage in speaking out, and great gratitude to the journalists who recorded their stories.