Dark Spaces

by Black, Helen

  ‘Put me down,’ Lilly screamed.

  ‘Who says romance is dead?’

  ‘You’ll break your back,’ Lilly laughed.

  He took a step forward. ‘My lady is as light as a feather.’

  ‘My lady weighs not much less than a donkey,’ said Lilly. ‘Now put me down, you daft sod.’

  Undaunted, Harry staggered forward, Lilly kicking her legs. When he reached the bed he dropped her unceremoniously, where she landed with a bounce and collapsed into another fit of giggles.

  ‘And you call me a one-off,’ she said.

  He crouched beside her, his face serious. ‘That’s because you are.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Lilly answered softly.

  They looked at one another for a second and, as he moved towards her, Lilly closed her eyes.

  Then his mobile rang.

  Lilly opened her eyes.

  ‘I’ll ignore it,’ said Harry.

  ‘Okay,’ said Lilly.

  But they both knew what one another were thinking. What if something was wrong? What if there was a problem with Chloe?

  The ringing stopped and Harry smiled. ‘Obviously wasn’t important.’

  The mobile rang again.

  ‘I think you’d better take it,’ said Lilly.

  Harry pressed his lips together and answered. ‘Harry Piper. This had better be good.’

  Lilly watched him as he listened. His face remained impassive, giving nothing away.

  ‘I see,’ he said a number of times. ‘I understand.’ Then he put his phone away.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Lilly asked.

  Harry smiled, but this time there was no certainty in it. ‘I don’t think it is, Lilly,’ he said.

  ‘Chloe?’

  Harry nodded. ‘She’s had a complete breakdown and had to be sedated.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Harry exhaled and looked away. ‘She’s saying that someone came into her room after lights out.’ He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. ‘She’s saying she’s been attacked.’

  As Lilly pulled up in the Range Rover outside the Grove, she put her hand on Harry’s arm.

  ‘We don’t know the full story yet,’ she said.

  Harry’s face was stony. ‘I told her I would keep her safe. I made a promise.’

  They got out of David’s car and hurried through the snow, Lilly wobbling in her high heels. Once inside, they were met by Elaine Foley.

  ‘How is she?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Not great,’ Foley replied.

  ‘Do you think she’s telling the truth?’ Lilly asked.

  Foley looked her up and down with a knowing smile. Lilly’s pencil skirt and heels told the nurse what she needed to know.

  Lilly jutted out her chin, determined not to worry about the judgement of others. ‘Could it be a delusion?’

  ‘It could be,’ said Foley.

  ‘I need to speak to her.’ Harry’s tone was urgent and he swept away, up the corridor.

  Lilly tottered after him, cursing her shoes. Finally, he stopped outside a door and punched in a code. Inside, Chloe was on the bed, lying on her side, one arm dangling, motionless, over the side. Though she was wearing a T-shirt and hoody, her bottom half was naked. Mountains of white dimpled fat, punctuated by a flash of black pubic hair.

  ‘Talk to me, Chloe.’ Harry crouched down beside his patient. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

  Chloe didn’t reply but blinked her recognition that he had spoken.

  ‘Chloe, it’s me, Harry,’ he said. ‘Tell me you’re okay.’

  She blinked again and this time a single tear coursed down her cheek.

  Lilly entered the room, her heels clicking an annoying rhythm. She kicked them off and padded her way to Chloe. At the bottom of the bed was a discarded sheet, which Lilly retrieved and placed over her client.

  ‘Thank you,’ Chloe whispered.

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Lilly kept her voice soft. ‘Do you need anything else? A drink?’

  ‘Water.’

  Lilly nodded and went to the sink to fill a plastic cup.

  ‘There you go.’ She held the cup to the girl’s lips and let her take a mouthful. ‘Enough?’

  When Chloe nodded, Lilly removed the cup and wiped the girl’s chin with her finger.

  ‘Please tell us what happened, Chloe,’ Harry said, his voice jarringly loud.

  Chloe just shut her eyes, so Lilly went back to the sink, poured away the remaining water and waved Harry over.

  ‘I don’t think Chloe is going to want to discuss this with you,’ she told him.

  He looked shocked. ‘I’m her doctor.’

  ‘You’re also a man,’ said Lilly. ‘Think about it.’

  He opened and closed his mouth, then looked back at Chloe on the bed. ‘Do you think she’ll talk to you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll certainly try my best,’ Lilly replied.

  He went back to the bed and took the limp arm in his hand. ‘I’m going to leave you with Lilly. You can trust her.’

  When Chloe didn’t answer, he held her hand a little longer, then left them alone. Without Harry, the room seemed empty and when Lilly spoke she half expected an echo.

  ‘I need to ask a few questions, okay?’

  Chloe nodded.

  ‘Did you tell Nurse Foley that someone came into your room after lights out?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And is that true?’

  Chloe’s voice was small but clear. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Chloe said. ‘It was dark and they drugged me.’

  ‘How did they drug you?’ Lilly asked.

  Chloe pushed back the sheet to reveal the flesh of her thigh and tapped her finger. There amongst the pockmarked skin was a red dot. It was fresh.

  ‘What happened then?’ Lilly asked.

  Chloe shook her head. ‘It’s hard to remember.’

  ‘Just try.’

  Chloe pushed the bridge of her nose with her thumb as if she were trying to force her memory to work. ‘They definitely took me somewhere.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was pitch-black and small and smelled like something.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Lilly. ‘What did it smell like?’

  ‘Soap.’

  It was a hospital, the whole place smelled like soap.

  ‘What next?’ Lilly asked.

  ‘It’s all jumbled up,’ said Chloe. ‘There was something cold against my face. Then my arm was pulled tight behind my back.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Then something was inside me, stretching me, pulling me.’

  Lilly kept her words deliberate. ‘Are you saying you were raped, Chloe?’

  ‘I thought I would break in two.’

  ‘Can you be sure?’ Lilly asked. ‘You said yourself that it was confusing.’

  Chloe sucked in a breath and hauled herself up, so that she was sitting on the bed, her legs over the side, covered in the sheet. Slowly she removed the sheet and opened her legs. The smell of sweat hit Lilly. Along with the smell of blood. And the smell of sex.

  ‘It hurts,’ Chloe said. ‘It really hurts.’

  Jack’s mobile woke him. He checked the time. Who in God’s name would ring at this hour? He checked caller ID and panic gripped him. It was Lilly.

  ‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’

  Kate sat up in bed next to him, her eyes full of concern.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ said Lilly. ‘At least not with me.’

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Did I wake you?’

  Irritation gave way to the old-fashioned feeling of being mightily pissed off. ‘Of course you bloody well woke me!’

  He waved at Kate to go back to sleep and got out of bed.

  ‘I need to talk to you about Chloe,’ said Lilly.

  Jack closed the bedroom door behind him. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ He real
ized he was shouting and dropped his voice. ‘You’re calling at four in the morning to chat about a case.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Jack hissed. ‘Then what exactly? Because this can’t go on, Lilly.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I mean you and I are no longer together, that there is nothing between us.’

  There was silence on the line.

  ‘We have a daughter between us,’ said Lilly at last.

  Jack groaned in frustration. ‘Yes, we do, but that is all. The rest is over. You ended it remember?’

  ‘As I recall, you had some part in it,’ she said.

  Jack snapped his mouth shut. He refused to be drawn into another discussion as to what he had supposedly done. He hadn’t got anywhere during the eight hundred other similar discussions, had he? He was sick and tired of defending himself.

  ‘Ancient history, Lilly,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t matter who said what and who did what, we’ve both moved on.’

  ‘I know that, it’s just—’

  He interrupted her. ‘Why on earth are you calling, Lilly? I’m a copper and you’re a defence lawyer so we can’t have cosy chats about our cases. Especially not in the middle of the night.’

  There was a pause and when Lilly spoke again her voice was cold and distant. For once it didn’t sting.

  ‘I was calling to inform you about something urgent,’ she said. ‘Something that couldn’t wait for you to get your beauty sleep.’

  ‘Such as?’ Jack snapped.

  ‘Chloe has been raped.’

  It was a sucker punch. Full-fisted.

  ‘You’re joking,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Jack. Chloe was drugged and sexually assaulted, so I suggest you get yourself and a rape team down here pronto.’

  She hung up, leaving Jack shivering in the shadows.

  I creep back to bed, forcing a smile away. Honestly, I have to push the corners of my mouth down with my fingers, like I used to do to my baby sister.

  Everything is working out beautifully.

  When Jack comes back into the bedroom, his face is white.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ I ask.

  ‘I need to get over to the Grove,’ he says, pulling on the T-shirt he discarded earlier. ‘Chloe’s been raped.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I say.

  Jack’s face tells me I didn’t get that one right. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Bit disorientated.’

  His face softens and he touches my cheek. ‘Is it okay to leave you in charge of Alice?’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  When he leaves, I snuggle into his pillow and inhale him. It’s a bit disappointing that she actually did have a genuine reason to call him, but it’s his reaction that matters. And Lilly’s reaction to his reaction.

  I think I can safely predict that by the end of today they will wish that they had never met.

  * * *

  Lilly’s head whirled. It was imperative that she concentrate on Chloe, but she was still reeling from her conversation with Jack. Yes, it had been difficult to navigate their separation, but she’d always assumed that whatever happened, they’d retain their respect for one another.

  The door to Harry’s office opened. It was the man himself.

  ‘Did you call the police—’ He stopped mid-sentence. ‘You look awful.’ When Lilly didn’t answer he rushed to her side. ‘It’s a shock, I know.’

  She couldn’t tell him it wasn’t just the rape that was making her spin. ‘I’m fine,’ she murmured.

  He took her face in his hands, pushing her hair back from her forehead. ‘We’ll get through this.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘All of us.’

  She grabbed hold of his waist and held on tight as if the world had begun to crack beneath her feet and she were afraid of falling through the fissures.

  ‘Listen to me, Lilly.’ He made her name sound like a musical note. ‘If we stick together, we can do this.’

  He was right. Let Jack think what he liked. She didn’t need his good opinion.

  ‘I have to get myself together before the rape team arrive,’ she said. ‘Splash my face with cold water and what have you.’

  Harry nodded and released her. When she got to the door, she turned and found him watching her.

  ‘You, me and Chloe,’ he said.

  ‘You, me and Chloe,’ she repeated.

  In the ladies’ room, Lilly cupped her hands under the tap and brought water up to her face. Then, her cheeks still dripping, she leaned against the sink.

  Her reflection in the mirror made her grimace: skin winter-pale, eyes ringed with smudged mascara. With her untamed hair, she looked like the Joker from Batman. As for the outfit, could anything be less appropriate than a pencil skirt and heels?

  ‘Pack it in,’ she told herself. This was going to be hard enough without worrying about how she looked. Harry understood. They had to batten down the hatches and pool their energy.

  Outside the toilets, Lilly bumped into Jack.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said.

  Politeness stiffened Lilly’s mouth. ‘Good morning. What did you do with Alice?’ she asked.

  ‘I left her alone with a bottle of bleach and a packet of matches,’ he replied.

  Lilly sighed and they walked together towards Chloe’s room, where the rape team were waiting.

  ‘This is Doctor Hicks,’ said Jack.

  Lilly shook hands with a woman in her fifties, grey hair cropped in a boyish style.

  ‘And DI Crofton,’ Jack continued.

  The second woman was younger, her handshake less firm, the palm clammy. Probably nervous.

  ‘Lilly Valentine. I’m Chloe’s solicitor.’

  ‘Can I verify the details?’ Hicks pulled out a notebook and Crofton scrambled to follow suit.

  ‘Chloe is a patient here,’ said Lilly. ‘She’s held under the Mental Health Act and has been for some time.’ She let the women write it down. ‘A few days ago she informed her doctor and I that she and at least one other patient were being habitually abducted from their rooms and raped.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call us then?’ Hicks asked.

  It was a question, not an accusation, but it stung all the same.

  ‘Chloe isn’t well,’ she said. ‘She sometimes says things that aren’t true. I didn’t believe her and I let her down.’

  ‘But you’re in no doubt this time?’ asked Hicks.

  Lilly shook her head.

  Hicks put away her notebook and picked up the small plastic case at her feet. It was time.

  Lilly knocked on the door and they entered. Chloe was lying on the bed, clutching the sheet under her chin.

  ‘This is Doctor Hicks and DI Crofton,’ Lilly told her, then she shut the door on Jack. ‘They’re here to gather any evidence they can about what’s happened to you, Chloe. They want to try to find out who did this.’

  ‘Hello, Chloe.’ Hicks’s voice was professional but not intimidating. ‘I’ll explain what I’m doing as I go along, but if at any time you need to stop or ask a question please do.’

  When Chloe didn’t answer, Hicks bent to her suitcase, unsnapped the locks and brought out white forensic gloves for herself and Crofton.

  ‘Let’s start with your hands,’ she said. ‘Do you know if you scratched your attacker?’

  Chloe gave a shrug.

  ‘She thinks she was drugged,’ Lilly explained. ‘She remembers very little.’

  ‘Not a problem.’ Hicks moved seamlessly to the bed. ‘Forensics can fill in lots of gaps.’ She took Chloe’s right hand. ‘Let’s cut the nails and swab the fingers. If there’s anything there, I’ll find it.’

  ‘Like what?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘Skin, hair, blood.’ Hicks brandished a pair of nail scissors and Crofton moved forward to catch the clippings in an evidence bag. ‘You name it, I can trace it.’

  Hicks stopped and let out a little puff of air. Chloe’s nails were already bitten to the quick. No chance
of finding anything under there.

  ‘We’ll scrape instead.’ Hicks slid away the scissors and produced a wooden stick, which she used to scrape around the nail and cuticle of each finger, dropping it into the bag when she was finished. Crofton immediately sealed the bag and labelled it.

  Armed with a cotton bud, Hicks then wiped each finger from tip to knuckle. The room was so silent Lilly could hear her own breathing. At last Hicks finished and the bud was bagged away.

  When Hicks next spoke, it seemed impossibly loud, though Lilly knew she was keeping her voice deliberately low. ‘If you’re ready, I’ll begin the intimate samples.’

  Chloe didn’t reply.

  ‘Do you understand what I’m going to do, Chloe?’ Hicks asked.

  Lilly felt sick. Chloe was a child. This was all very, very wrong.

  ‘Let me explain,’ said Hicks. ‘First, I’ll wipe the whole area, then I’ll comb through your pubic hair. Finally, I’ll take a vaginal swab as gently as possible.’

  Lilly inhaled through her nose in an attempt to quell her nausea. It didn’t work.

  ‘Is that okay, Chloe?’ Hicks asked.

  When no answer was forthcoming, Hicks moved forward to peel away the sheet, but Chloe clung to it.

  ‘What’s wrong, Chloe?’ Hicks asked.

  Chloe gulped, her throat bobbing. ‘I’ve wet myself,’ she whispered.

  ‘Not an issue,’ said Hicks. ‘I’ve seen a lot worse.’

  Chloe didn’t move but hung on to the sheet.

  ‘Can I hold her hand?’ Lilly asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Hicks replied.

  Lilly prised away one of her client’s hands and threaded her fingers through. The girl held on tight.

  ‘It’s going to be just fine,’ Lilly told her.

  Chloe nodded but her grip told Lilly she didn’t believe it. It tightened again as Hicks finally removed the sheet and got to work. Lilly tried not to look too closely. It was enough to see Hicks dropping bloodstained wipes and swabs into evidence bags with alarming efficiency.

  ‘Almost there, now,’ Lilly said, as much for her own benefit as for Chloe’s.

  At last, Hicks straightened. ‘Vaginal exam complete.’

  Chloe allowed herself a tiny sigh. But Lilly had caught the look on Hicks’s face. There was a but. And a big but at that. A but as dark and as ominous as a rain cloud.

  ‘But looking at the tissue damage, I should do an anal exam too,’ said Hicks.