by Mark Lawson
‘My daughter says that I should have done something at the time. But it’s lose–lose, isn’t it? When there might have been evidence, the police wouldn’t have listened to me. And, now that the police will listen to me, there isn’t evidence.’
‘Yes. That is often the issue in historic cases.’
‘If you don’t mind my asking, you’re – what? – midtwenties?’
‘Up a bit.’
‘Like my daughter.’ A flicker of the eyes to one of the framed pictures. ‘I think your generation’s much luckier. The lines are clearer.’
A montage of moments, at most times forgotten, from a hostel, a hotel and a flat. There was one former boyfriend and plenty of men in pubs or at parties who could have been brought to court under the new Met and CPS thresholds, and she had been on the team of a DCI who treated female colleagues as if auditioning his next mistress. These men were scumbags but how far would she want to see them punished? She had refused her boss’s advances but not reported them because of the concern that it would cost her promotion. She had gone on to have mainly good sex with men who were loving and faithful until they weren’t. Was she a victim of crime or of life?
‘It’s a complex area,’ Heather said, ‘that remains a learning curve.’
At this meaningless sentence, Mrs Hessendon Castle nodded. Heather reassured her of her lifelong anonymity; she could choose to identify herself but, given the outcome of the investigation, must be aware of the risk of inviting an action for defamation by making any public allegations against her alleged attacker.
‘I understand that, Detective Sergeant.’
‘Is there anything else you want to ask?’
‘Just that my solicitor was convinced that mine was not the only allegation against him.’
‘I can only discuss your own case with you.’
They exchanged a frictionless handshake and stilted thanks.
Raîson d’être
Tom had seen marriages – Nod’s an obvious example – in which the trust had gone. He and Hells, thank God, had avoided that but he learned – returning from the hospital, wan and hoarse from the intubation and emergency emetic – that he had introduced another sort of suspicion between them.
Sleeping late after taking one of the antidepressants now dispensed every few days in miniature plastic bottles – presumably containing a total dosage that would not prove fatal if swallowed together – he would feel his wife kicking him or raising the radio volume too loud in order to establish that he was dosing rather than comatose. In the interest of regular scrutiny, he had been allowed back into the main bedroom, his alternating spells of restlessness and snoring now welcomed as evidence of continued existence.
If showering or shitting took marginally longer than the time now obviously recorded somewhere as acceptable (constipation apparently an established complication of the uppers), Helen or (if back from one of her startlingly short college terms) Becky would tweak the handle repeatedly several times, like a frustrated defecator at a railway station. ‘It’s all right,’ he shouted, when he guessed what was happening. ‘I’m wanking, not hanging myself.’ Should traffic or a phone call from Nod delay him at the supermarket, a text soon pinged in from Helen (who seemed increasingly to have a deal to work at home), checking that she had included on the shopping list an ingredient that they both knew she already had. If he failed to reply immediately, a phone call would follow. It felt too malicious to test what would happen if he failed to answer that. While he tried to work on the Bush–Clinton book in the spare bedroom, Helen was in and out like the maid in a Noël Coward play, offering another cup of coffee before the previous one had even cooled. It was a common observation that the geriatric becomes a second toddler, constantly watched as a protection against risk; but so, he had discovered, did the survivor of a suicide attempt.
After a week of this tender surveillance, as they lay in bed after Saturday morning sex that had felt like an act of medicinal charity from Helen, she said: ‘I promise I’m not going to keep endlessly checking but tell me you won’t ever try it again.’
He squeezed her hand where it rested on his chest. ‘No.’
‘Oh, Tom, I’m not stupid. I know you and your word games. No you can’t promise me or no you won’t do it again?’
‘What. Oh, I wasn’t trying to be clever …’
‘Gosh. You are ill, then.’
‘Ha ha. No, I meant: no, it’s one pill at a time for me now and, hopefully, eventually, a tablet will just be something I play Angry Birds on. When they were making me sick in A & E, I suddenly understood what the consequence would have been.’
‘Never seeing your gorgeous wife and two beautiful children again?’
Her playful tone held a serious meaning, as did his: ‘Look, I have to be honest about this …’
‘Tom Pimm, I’m warning you …’
She tweaked his nipple painfully, women oddly never suspecting how sensitive men’s could be.
‘Obviously, all that was a factor. But, actually, in the end, it was the thought of them putting out some statement about me on a press release. Special announcement. Although, at the beginning, I had that ridiculous fantasy of doing it to cause them trouble, I hadn’t factored in their still being around. Before you ask, yes it is their not them …’
‘You are getting better …’
‘I’d left a letter barring them from the funeral but I’d never thought about the obituary quotes. So you never have to worry about me doing myself in again until I’ve outlived those stolid second-raters and career-creepers.’
England
Her Majesty The Queen has chosen to confer on the following the title of Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE), the holder of which will be entitled to style himself Sir.
NEADES, Dr Kevan Michael, Vice Chancellor, University of Middle England. For Services to Business and to Further Education.
Further Action (2)
‘Are you happy for me to call you Jess?’
‘Yeah. And I call you Heather?’
‘Sure. Jess, we explained to you when you decided not to be a participant in any court proceedings that there might be other investigations in progress that could still lead to the accused facing action?’
‘Yeah. I got that.’
Like a walker plotting a course with a downhill finish, Heather had left the easier of the two non-pros conversations for second.
‘So, in the circumstances, this is just a courtesy visit to tell you that, after consideration of a range of evidence by the Crown Prosecution Service, no further action will be taken against the accused.’
‘Okay.’
The top-floor flat in Pimlico had the clean minimalism that only a kidless couple can achieve. Two pairs of Nikes – one twice the size of the other – were the only clutter beside the front door. His and hers toothbrushes and razors for face and legs stood in matching tumblers in the steel and glass bathroom she had to use when the mug of coffee pooled with the earlier cup of tea.
‘Do you think it would have made a difference if I’d been willing to testify?’
‘I can’t answer that, Jess.’
Almost all the wall space was filled with shelves containing DVDs and, ageing the residents, CDs, but mainly books. A section behind Jess’s head – Charles I, Charles II, Elizabeth I, George III – resembled a royal cemetery of gaudy gravestones.
‘And you don’t have to tell me this,’ Heather continued. ‘But would you be willing to say why you changed your mind?’
Jess caught a handful of long hair, scrunched and swung it, a nervous gesture that probably dated from childhood. ‘I … had had to be talked into it … originally …’
‘By us you mean?’
‘What? No. What I’m saying is that I had been persuaded into coming forward.’
Heather glanced at running shoes that must have been at least a size eleven. ‘By your partner?’
It was a common enough dynamic: instin
ctive jealousy of another man understandably multiplied by the violation.
‘No. No. That would have been another reason for not wanting to go to court because then he’d have to know.’
Heather gave her wow-frown.
‘No, I’ve never told Jeremy. He’s away filming a lot, which helps. He’s on a trip now. I told him the solicitors’ letters are to do with a non-payment thing. Freelances have a lot of those. You think I should have told him?’
‘A lot of women don’t.’
‘My BF, Bella, I did tell her, and she said: if you can avoid it, never let a bloke know that you’ve been … assaulted. Some of them it sort of weirdly turns on and others they suddenly won’t touch you … or daren’t, I don’t know …’
The furthest Heather could go was: ‘I’ve heard that.’
Jess swished a twitch of hair on the other side. ‘No, it was someone in The Business, as we say, who persuaded me to do something. I can’t exactly say he forced me – and, anyway, that phrase in these – but let’s say he didn’t seem to leave much choice …’
‘So why did you change your mind?’
‘That’s where it gets … I began to suspect he had … another agenda is how I’ll put it …’
Heather’s next question was reflex, rather than thought. ‘Do you need to talk to someone about … ?’
‘What? Oh, I don’t mean he … no, I think there needs to be a bit less talking to people about things, a bit more getting on with it. Look, I’m fine. I’m sorry I wasted everyone’s time.’
‘You haven’t.’ Heather was convinced that, even with two court-ready complainants, the same decision would have been made. ‘Jess, it’s very important you don’t blame yourself for what happened to you.’
‘What? Oh, no, I don’t. But nor do I think my life was ruined forever. He was a guy who thought he could have whatever he wanted. I’d be very surprised if he thinks that now. I’m going to get on with my life.’
‘Are you working on a programme at the moment?’
‘Look, I’m sort of seeing what’s around. I was working somewhere but then my contract came to an end. Occupational hazard. Still, Jeremy’s got a job on this thing that’s supposed to go on for years.’
Heather as well would be kept in long future employment by Millpond. There were rumours of hundreds of files piling up, the lives of two people redefined by an attempt to reconcile conflicting versions of a moment a lifetime ago. One complaint, corridor gossip claimed, related to an incident after a dance on VE Day.
As a detective, she followed the instructions that women alleging sex crimes should be given the sympathetic benefit of the doubt; privately, she was nervous of applying different evidential standards to one crime alone. How could you apply habeas corpus when the two bodies had walked away from the scene years or even decades before and now told contradictory stories?
Cuttings (7)
CONTROVERSIAL LECTURE GOES AHEAD
In the latest campus dispute over so-called ‘no-platforming’, UME officials have ruled that a planned lecture by a leading historian will go ahead.
Students had objected to the selection of Professor Ned Marriott to give the TB Macaulay Memorial Lecture, a prestigious event that has been hosted by the institution, based on twin sites in Buckinghamshire and Warwickshire, since 1969.
Marriott, 61, also a high-profile television presenter, recently faced two allegations of historic sexual offences, in non-academic contexts, but recently learned that no charges would be brought in either case. Student leaders complained, though, that the invitation to Marriott ‘sends the wrong signals to victims of sexual violence.’
They also cited Marriott’s admission of plagiarism in a case arising from a book based on one of his TV series, and his status as a former Rhodes Scholar, a postgraduate award named after Cecil John Rhodes, the British colonialist whose bequests and statues at several educational bodies have become a target for protestors who now condemn him as a racist.
There have been separate calls for the entire lecture series to be scrapped or renamed, on the basis that the historian and politician for whom it is named, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859), held official positions in India during the period of British colonial rule, and, in his writings, regularly differentiated the ‘civilisation’ of Britain from the ‘barbarism’ of other cultures.
But after a meeting of UME’s board of management, the Vice Chancellor, Sir Kevan Neades, released this statement: ‘The business acknowledges that there is a range of views on these issues. However, I am minded that the 2015 iteration of this lecture should go ahead. The business accepts that customers may continue to protest, but requests them to do so peacefully.’
Sir Kevan announced, however, the setting up of an inquiry into ‘the possible impact on customers’ of the TB Macaulay Memorial Lecture. Professor Andrea Traill of the Planet Directorate (a new department formed from the merging of Geography, Geology and Earth Sciences), will conduct the investigation, assisted by Jani Goswani, Senior Leader, Workplace Harmony and Joanna Rafferty, Director of History.
New Blood
‘… continues next Wednesday at 8pm. Now – don’t go anywhere for the next five years because, over that time we’ll be broadcasting – starting tonight – one hundred documentaries in our major new historical series, Who Was Who – written and presented by Dominic Ogg …’
Confession
‘Is it okay to call you Ned?’
‘I’ve given up using the joke that I’ve been called worse.’
‘Okay. Ned, do you want this to be an official or an unofficial confession?’
‘Woh! What makes you think I’m going to confess anything?’
Ned sipped, wincing at the heat, the camomile tea that the housekeeper had flutteringly discovered in a cupboard of the presbytery kitchen.
‘All I mean,’ Tony said, ‘is that you will always be speaking to a priest but I can offer you degrees of formality. The sacrament of penance or just a sympathetic listening.’
‘I’m a pretty terrible Catholic. I’m not sure I could, would call myself one at all now.’
‘Well, that can be part of the confession. It can be a way of coming back.’
Ned lowered his head. The dark, heavy cloud of hair familiar from television was greying and thinning. From his frequent appearances in documentaries to defend the Church’s handling of priestly paedophilia, Tony knew enough about make-up to understand that this was more than the difference between onscreen and off-screen appearances. The change must – shockingly – be the effect of stress.
‘I don’t think that what I have in mind is quite a confession.’
‘Okay. But you wanted to talk to me?’
‘I agreed to. The only upside of all this has been the surprising acts of kindness from unexpected people – it seems churlish not to respond.’
‘Well, let’s just have a chat, then. Although, if it helps you, I can offer you the seal of the confessional on what we say.’
‘Yes, I’d appreciate that. I’ve – probably unavoidably – become a bit paranoid.’
‘Have you tried any of the talking therapies?’
‘Not really. A friend gave me those tapes where a guy whispers at you about allowing yourself to admit how bad things are …’
‘Ah.’
‘In fact, your own voice is not unlike his. I don’t mean that rudely.’
‘I didn’t take it so. In fact, you can partly blame Ignatius, patron saint of this parish. Some see a direct link from his Spiritual Exercises to something like Mindfulness. Did you find it helpful?’
‘Not really. I think it’s about submitting and I’m probably too stubborn. It seems to work for a lot of people, but not for my friend. His wife found him having taken an overdose, with the guy still murmuring at him.’
‘Oh, I’m very sorry.’
‘He survived. And he seems to be getting his fight back, as far as I can tell.’
‘Ned, I’m interested that you used
the words stubborn and fight. Ideally, you’d get through this on your own if you could?’
‘Yes, I think so. My experience was of an actual moment of decision – that either I fought this or I went under and I was fucking … oh …’
‘Before you say sorry, I think apologizing to clergymen for swearing is best left to the Edwardians.’
‘Okay. I was fucking determined to survive it. What I can’t know is if everyone who ends up in a mess gets to that choice or if seeing that there are two options is itself a sign that you can survive. Suicide must involve seeing no other solution.’
‘Ned, I’m going to ask you the hardest question now.’
‘Sure.’
‘Regardless of what the police decided …’
‘The CPS.’
‘All right. Setting that aside, is there any aspect of your behaviour that you would have changed in retrospect?’
‘Look, Father …’
‘I’ve said: call me Tony. I know that phrase has a certain political …’
‘The thing is that answering that question involves a certain amount of … mechanical detail …’
The perfectly chosen word. Tony still smarted at the memory of an early parishioner who had snarled, when urged to abandon an adulterous relationship: ‘What do you know about love and sex? It’s like taking your car to be fixed by a lifelong bicyclist.’ During confession or counselling, he was always least at ease with sex.
Ned tested his tea again, found it cooler, took a procrastinating draught. ‘I think, if they’re honest, most guys of sixty, seventy, eighty could be hauled to court for something they’ve said or done to a woman. I suspect the younger are generally a bit better, although only in the way that, if you put up speed cameras, people will slow down. I think we know that sexual desire is hard to control – presumably you have to control it?’
Tony personally believed that the imposition of celibacy on the priesthood should be ended although, like a politician under cabinet responsibility, he continued publicly to support a policy to which he objected. He also, unlike many politicians and indeed priests, remained obedient to the strictures himself.