A Bad, Bad Thing

by Elena Forbes

  The intervening period had been filled with a series of nightmares, familiar stuff dredged up from deep down, distorted, terrifying images spiralling out of her subconscious. Voices, screams, the whip-cracking rattle of gunfire, people running, panic, breathlessness. She saw slaughtered animals come alive on a butcher’s slab, two little boys in pyjamas clawing their way up through the dark, wet earth, then everything spontaneously combusting and melting into ash. She felt an explosion, smelt burning in the air. Where’s the girl? Find the girl. Amongst a swirling mist of images, she saw a woman’s pale, oval face morphing into an unknown man’s, then a hooded, cloaked skeleton, the images rippling and swelling and changing like ink splashed on oily water, then she saw the face of a different man, with long hair and deep-set, mocking eyes, then Harry’s face, smiling, Gavin’s face, worried, a man she had talked to at the party. Was he the vet? Then Stuart Wade … Damon Wade … The faces went around and around in her head. She felt a hand clamped over her eyes, lips hard on hers, a tongue in her mouth as a hand moved between her thighs. She felt the weight of someone strong and muscular holding her wrists, pressing down on her until she almost couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t cry out. He forced her arms and legs this way and that, turning her over, turning her back, like a lifeless doll, something over her face and mouth, all through it her skin dead to his touch. It was as though it wasn’t her body at all and she was floating, detached, looking down, from somewhere else. Had she died? Was it some vision of hell?

  She still felt the residue of paranoia that came with drugs, but she knew exactly what had happened. Breathing deeply many times, she tried again to shake off the images that still filled her mind. She had never been raped before, never even come close, but rage was pointless. It wouldn’t get her anywhere. She needed to try and hold herself together and focus on what had to be done. If they thought she would give up and go home, they were wrong. When you had lost everything that had ever meant anything to you, there was little left to care about and nothing to fear. Wiping away tears, she tried to think back to the sequence of events the day before, re-imagining her every movement from the time she arrived at the party to when she started to feel unwell. Most so-called date-rape drugs were fast acting, usually twenty to thirty minutes and sometimes less. Whether in powder or liquid form, they were easy to add to somebody’s food or drink and generally undetectable until it was too late. She had left her glass unattended on the lunch table on various occasions, the last being when Harry took her to meet Stuart Wade and his son. Wade had sent Damon off to get her another drink and a waiter had brought over a tray with a fresh glass. It had all happened very quickly, almost in front of her eyes, but that meant nothing. There was no point calling the police, she decided. What could they do? She had no idea who had raped her – there had been a good hundred or so men in the room – and they would laugh at her if she told them it had something to do with the Sean Farrell case. Nor did she want any word of what she was up to in Marlborough getting back to the Met. She knew exactly what must be done and she could do it herself, if only she could summon the energy. Hopefully the drug, whatever it was – some powerful fast-acting sedative, with psychotropic properties – would still be in her bloodstream, but she had to act quickly.

  Holding onto the edge of the bed, waiting for each little wave of dizziness to pass, she slowly got to her feet and stumbled over to the window. The smell of him was all over her and the room reeked of what he had done. She wanted to vomit. She wrenched back the curtains, fumbled with the catch, then threw it open as wide as it would go. The curtains flapped and pulled against the little painted rail, as the freezing wind blew into the room. She stood for a moment looking out at the dark fields across the lane and the fading moon, which hung low on the horizon. She filled her lungs with gasp after gasp of fresh air, then yanked the window shut again, went into the bathroom and switched on the light. It dazzled her and she shielded her eyes as she peered into the shell-framed mirror that hung above the basin. Her pale, tired face stared back at her, remarkably untouched apart from the deep, dark circles under her eyes. For a moment, she saw her mother and two little brothers standing beside her, looking at her. It was a glimpse of the hidden world that was always there. She saw the ghost of herself, the girl she might have been if things had been different, the what-if that had haunted her whole adult life. Not for the first time, she wished she could step into the mirror and become that girl.

  She remembered another time, some twenty years before, when she had looked at herself in a different mirror, wondering why she had survived. What was so special about her? Why had she been chosen to live? It was a curse, not a reward. She was standing on a chair in the safe house, dressed in purple velvet tracksuit bottoms and a matching top, with big, glitter stars on the front. It wasn’t at all the sort of thing she would have picked, but she hadn’t been given any choice. She always preferred boys’ clothes to girls’, but nobody listened. All her things were gone and it was the best they could do. The outfit had come from a local charity shop. She was very small for her age and it was difficult to find things to fit her. She was nearly thirteen, for God’s sake, but she looked like a stupid child. She had stared at her pathetic reflection, with her round, baby-doll face, long mess of dark hair, scraped back in an Alice band, and scrawny, unformed little body, and felt like dying. What was there to live for? One of the police had come into the room behind her. They had helped her off the chair and comforted her as best they could until eventually she stopped crying. She remembered the exhaustion she felt afterwards and the sense of complete emptiness. Twenty years on, the image was still vivid and raw.

  Eve fetched a chair from the cottage bedroom, climbed unsteadily onto it and examined herself in detail in the mirror, checking every inch of her body. Apart from a little soreness around her wrists and the inside of her thighs, and a dark, angry red mark on one of her breasts, there were little outwards signs of what had happened. She wanted to rinse out her mouth, stand under the shower and scrub herself clean but she knew she mustn’t. Samples must be taken. They needed to be professionally analysed and documented. It was the only way of catching whoever had done this.

  She was about to get dressed when she heard a knock at the front door downstairs, then a moment later the sound of a key in the lock, followed by a woman’s voice.

  ‘Hello? Eve? It’s Melissa. Are you awake?’

  She heard the door close and Melissa’s light footsteps in the hall.

  ‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ she called out quickly. She didn’t want Melissa coming upstairs.

  She put on her dressing gown and went out onto the small landing. Melissa was staring up at her.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Holding on tightly to the banister, she sank down onto the top step, as a wave of dizziness hit her. ‘Who brought me home?’

  ‘I did. With Gavin. You passed out.’

  ‘You brought me home in the car?’

  ‘Yes. Gavin carried you upstairs and we put you to bed.’

  ‘In my clothes?

  ‘Yes.’ She heard the note of surprise in Melissa’s voice. ‘Sorry, but I didn’t want to undress you. In case you were cold, I mean. I just put the duvet over you.’ She spoke quickly, sounding embarrassed, as though perhaps she thought she should have done more. Like everybody else, she no doubt assumed Eve had been drunk.

  ‘Then what did you do? I need to know exactly what happened.’ Her tone was a little abrupt and she saw a look of surprise cross Melissa’s face. ‘I don’t remember anything,’ Eve added. ‘I just want to fill in the gaps.’

  ‘Well, Gavin had to go back to London. Somebody was giving him a lift and the man couldn’t wait. He was hanging around outside in the lane, which was a bit awkward. I stayed with you for about half an hour after they left, just to make sure you were alright.’

  ‘This was what time?’

  ‘Nearly six o’clock, I guess. You were, well … out for the
count. I thought it best to let you sleep it off. Then I went back to the yard to help clear up. Most people had gone, or were going, and Harry and the staff had everything under control, so I took the boys home to give them their tea.’

  Again it sounded as though she wanted to justify why she and Gavin had left so quickly, but there was no need. Drugs like the one Eve had been given lasted for hours, sometimes days. Whatever had been used to spike her drink, she was at least thankful she had had no alcohol with it. It would have made everything ten times worse and she might even have died. It was ironic that, after everything she’d survived in her life so far, she might have been killed by something as simple as a Mickey Finn.

  ‘Thank you for doing that, for looking after me. I’m beginning to feel a lot better.’ It wasn’t true. Her head was in a fog and she still felt nauseous, but she wanted Melissa to go. There were things she needed to do. Somehow, she had to get herself to London, although she certainly wasn’t fit to drive. She would use some of Duran’s money to pay for a taxi.

  Melissa was still hovering below looking concerned. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  Eve had the impression that Melissa felt responsible in some way.

  ‘Honestly, I’ll be fine. Apart from Gavin, was anybody else with you last night?’

  ‘In the cottage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No. Just the two of us.’

  ‘Did anybody else know I was ill? At the party, I mean.’

  Melissa hesitated, again looking a little uncomfortable.

  ‘Please. I just need to know.’

  ‘Well, there were quite a few people around at the time. They were obviously concerned for you. But I don’t think anybody will remember much about it. They were all quite drunk themselves.’

  One of the last things Eve remembered was Gavin saying loudly and forcefully to somebody ‘Eve doesn’t drink’, but maybe nobody had been paying attention, or had believed him. Probably nobody cared. Part of her – her stupid pride – wanted to explain, but it was easier to leave Melissa with the impression that she had been drunk, than go into what had really happened.

  ‘How did you get in?’ Eve asked. ‘I thought I took the key with me.’ She had removed the key from above the front door after the incident the previous night with the so-called poacher.

  ‘I found it in your handbag. I put it back where we keep it, above the front door, just in case I needed to let myself in again. In case you needed anything …’

  So, somebody else had let themselves in. Somebody who knew, or who had been told, where the key was kept. She heard hurried footsteps outside, followed by a loud rap at the door. She hoped it wasn’t Harry. Melissa went to open it, but instead of Harry, Dan stood outside under the porch. A gust of freezing air blew into the hall and Eve shivered, wrapping the dressing gown even more tightly around herself.

  ‘Eve, I’ve been calling you,’ he said, stepping inside and slamming the door shut behind him, his tone urgent and full of emotion. ‘I kept getting your voicemail.’ He stared up at her, his arms dangling at his sides.

  ‘I got your message. I tried calling you back, but I’ve got no signal here. What’s the matter?’

  He glanced at Melissa, then back at her. ‘Several things, in fact. We need to talk.’

  ‘Dan’s with 4Justice,’ Eve said to Melissa. ‘He’s helping with Sean Farrell’s appeal.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure there’s nothing I can do, Eve, I’ll be off,’ Melissa said briskly. ‘I left my mother doing the school run, which she loathes, and I have to meet Harry now down at the yard for a run through on yesterday. The yearling sale went very well, apparently.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Eve replied firmly.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Dan asked, as soon as Melissa closed the front door behind her.

  ‘No. I’m not. I need to go to London right away, but I’m not fit to drive a car. Can you take me?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Where to?’

  ‘A hospital. Central London. I’ll give you the address on the way.’ She saw the alarm on his face.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I’ll explain in the car. Really, I’ll be OK, don’t worry. Tell me first why you’re here.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘We’ve had a tip-off that the CCRC are going to rule on Sean’s case next week. They apparently want to get it out of the way before Christmas. Basically, we’ve run out of time and they’re looking to throw the case out.’

  ‘Oh, Dan. I’m very sorry.’ Surely that couldn’t be the end of it? There had to be another way. Holding onto the bannister, she slowly got to her feet. ‘It was always going to be the most likely outcome. But you say we have a week? That may be enough. We mustn’t give up just yet. If we can come up with something new, they’ll be forced to change their minds.’

  Her words had little effect. ‘How the hell are we going to do that?’

  What could she say? She didn’t believe in God, or magic, or the Fates. You were on your own in life. You had to make things happen. Even so, it was wrong that a man like Farrell should waste his life away in jail because the system was flawed.

  ‘Was that it? Or is there something else?’

  He looked even more uncomfortable. ‘There is something. But I’ll tell you about it in the car.’

  ‘You’re not in any trouble, are you?’ she asked, remembering Andy Fagan’s message.

  He sighed. ‘No more than usual. And nothing I can’t handle, I guess.’ He looked down at his feet, avoiding her gaze.

  The words ‘I guess’ said it all and she wondered what could have happened.

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s a long story. But it can wait until later and it won’t change anything much, at least not as far as poor Sean is concerned.’

  ‘OK. Make yourself a cup of coffee while I get dressed. I’ve just got a few things I need to do before we go.’

  THIRTY

  ‘Do you have any idea who did this to you, Eve?’ Dr Margot Alexander asked, meeting her gaze with penetrating eyes, her pencilled brows arching a fraction over the rim of her glasses.

  Eve shook her head. ‘No. And, as I said, I don’t want the police involved, at least not yet. But I do need the results back as soon as possible. I’m happy to pay whatever it costs myself.’

  Margot pursed her plum-coloured lips and gave a precise, little nod. ‘Understood.’

  They were in her office in the basement of one of London’s vast teaching hospitals, where she worked as a pathologist. She had examined Eve and taken all the necessary swabs and samples, including blood, all of which would be sent off to an independent lab for analysis. With her dark hair neatly pinned up in a bun, she looked bright and fresh in her white lab coat. Her rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the linoleum as she moved quickly around the small room, bagging up samples, filling out the necessary forms and tidying up. They had known each other professionally for the best part of ten years, since the first murder case they had worked on together, and occasionally met for a drink outside work. Margot could be trusted to be discreet, as well as very thorough. Although horrified at what had happened, and possibly even more shocked that Eve appeared to be so outwardly calm, she had finally accepted that Eve didn’t want to go into any of the details or involve the police. But she kept darting Eve little concerned looks from time to time, as though she expected her to fall to pieces at any moment and must be ready in an instant to pick them up. Thankfully, whatever her views, she had the sensitivity to keep her mouth shut. Eve had no wish to discuss how she was feeling. She didn’t even really understand it herself. She had worked for a while in one of the Met’s Sapphire Units, dealing on a daily basis with crimes of a sexual nature, the victims both male and female. Each crime, each circumstance, each reaction was unique. It was impossible to generalize. Yet still she felt completely inadequate in her response. Maybe it had been easier for her to distance herself from what had happened, as she hadn’t been fully awake. The
vague memories were like fleeting dreams, melded with nightmares from the past and she wasn’t sure what was real and what was not. She hadn’t known terror, or desperation, or humiliation, or had feared for her life and there had been little physical violence other than the act itself. Moments of blind, senseless fury and a desire for revenge were the only emotions that punctuated the drifting fog of numbness that had set in. The distancing, the feeling of being an observer was her ‘coping mechanism’, according to one of her psychotherapists. ‘It’s how you survive, Eve. It’s how you deal with the bad stuff.’ How bad did it have to get, for her to rage and scream and cry like a normal person about what had been done to her? Maybe she was still in shock. Maybe at some point the full horror of what had happened would suddenly come crashing down over her. In the meantime, she had to keep going as best she could.

  ‘When can I expect the results back?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll fast track them. The semen analysis will take a couple of days but, as you know, the tox results could be weeks. I’ll also write an official report. As and when you need it for evidence, everything will be properly documented.’

  ‘I’ve got a few more things that need testing, both for prints and DNA.’

  She handed Margot a shopping bag, which contained, separately bagged, the mug and glass Harry had used the night he took her out for dinner, which she had retrieved, still unwashed, from the dishwasher, as well as his many cigarette butts from the kitchen bin.