And one of the last things Lizzie thought, with a bizarre kind of detachment, just before she lost consciousness, was that he must have taken something, some kind of drug, because after the amount of alcohol he had consumed all through that day, from lunchtime onwards, it wasn’t possible, surely, for any man to be able to sustain such a powerful, brutal onslaught without the aid of something.
‘You’re okay.’
His voice.
She came to with a terrible jolt – shock first, then pain, bad pain.
It was light in the room, and she could see him, wearing his black silk dressing gown, his eyes concerned, no hint of violence in them, just fear now, being brought under control with a great effort.
‘You’re going to be all right, Lizzie.’
Husband again now. Doctor. Not rapist.
‘Get out.’ Her voice had no strength. She tried to move, found it hurt too much, and she moaned. Something else, too, something very wrong.
Bleeding.
‘Oh, my God.’
‘I’m going to take care of that, Lizzie. Don’t be scared, darling.’
Darling.
She wanted to scream, wanted to call Gilly, beg her to make him get away from her, get the children out of the flat, get her a doctor, another doctor, but the boys and Sophie would hear, too, and anyway, she couldn’t scream, couldn’t do anything, was much too weak, and she was fading out again.
The next time Lizzie woke, she was lying in a bright, harsh, strange-smelling room, and Christopher was bending over her, wearing a green gown and mask, telling her again that she was going to be just fine, and her throat was sore now, and her mouth too dry, and she couldn’t get any words out.
‘I’ve stopped the bleeding, found the problem and fixed it, so you can stop worrying, Lizzie, all right?’
You’re the problem, she said in her mind.
A nurse was standing nearby.
He’s the problem, Lizzie said to her, in her mind.
‘The children know you’ve been poorly, but you’re going to be fine now, so you don’t need to worry about them either. All you have to do now is rest.’ Christopher kissed her forehead. ‘Sleep, darling.’
She did.
She woke again, in a bedroom this time, in a hospital bed, a needle in the back of her hand, a tube running from it to something hanging from a contraption nearby, and more tubes from further down.
Pain.
‘Hurts,’ Lizzie said.
‘It will,’ a female voice said, ‘for just a bit.’
Lizzie turned her head, saw a nurse sitting on the other side of her bed – the same young woman she’d seen earlier in the recovery room, brown-haired and pretty and smiling reassuringly, blandly.
‘Where is this?’ Lizzie asked fuzzily.
‘The Beauchamp, Mrs Wade.’ The nurse reached for her needle-free hand and patted it kindly. ‘You had an operation.’
‘Blood,’ Lizzie said.
‘Your husband did the surgery himself,’ the other woman said, ‘so you have absolutely nothing to worry about.’
‘DIY,’ Lizzie said, faintly.
There was a tiny pause as the nurse tried to make sense of that, and failed. ‘Anyway, Mrs Wade, if the pain gets too much for you and if you’re alone, all you have to do is adjust your on-demand drip feed or press your call button, and I’ll be with you right away because Mr Wade has asked me to take the greatest possible care of you.’
‘Has he?’
‘Oh, yes,’ the nurse said.
And Lizzie, still trapped by the remnants of anaesthesia and surgery, could only imagine how the other woman’s face would change were she to ask her to telephone the police so that she could have her husband arrested.
Do it, she told herself.
But of course she wouldn’t, couldn’t do that to Edward or Sophie, certainly not to Jack – not to any of them, not this.
And anyway, this young woman with her bland smile – and Lizzie hadn’t seen anyone else, had she? – was probably one of Saint Christopher’s disciples, and this was his clinic, after all, his territory.
And she didn’t think she could face not being believed.
Chapter Thirty-Two
On Monday morning, Tony Patston, in the midst of working on a motor bike at the garage, went to answer a phone call from a man named Eddie Black in Chigwell who said he owned a small fleet of BMWs and had been told that Tony was reliable and no cowboy. And that if Tony was prepared to drop everything and come over to his house to fix one of his cars that same morning, he’d have a line of profitable, legitimate business more or less guaranteed for the foreseeable future.
‘If you do a good job, that is,’ Black said. ‘Obviously.’
‘It might take me an hour or so,’ Tony said.
‘An hour, tops,’ Eddie Black told him.
‘You got it, mate,’ Tony said.
‘This is Patston Motors. We can’t get to the phone right now, but leave a message, and we’ll get back to you soon as we can.’
Joanne waited another few seconds, then put down the phone, pleased with herself for remembering to dial 141 so he wouldn’t know it had been her who’d tried the garage three times now.
Funny the things you learned when you had to.
‘Come on, my darling,’ she said to Irina, who was sitting at the kitchen table eating a banana. ‘We’re going to the library.’
‘Libaree.’ Irina looked pleased. ‘Going for books.’
‘Exactly,’ Joanne said. ‘My clever girl.’
Within a minute of getting Irina settled at the table by the window with a little pile of books, Joanne saw the man browsing among paperbacks near the computer desks, and knew it had to be him. He was dressed casually, nothing like a solicitor, in beige cotton trousers with a navy blue sweater, but he still looked somehow out of place.
Rich.
Joanne threw one more look at Irina, happy for now with her books, then walked slowly towards him, stopping about a yard away.
‘Mrs Patston?’ Allbeury asked quietly.
‘Yes.’
He smiled at her. ‘Where would you like to talk?’
There was a table with three chairs near the entrance, empty at present, but too exposed for Joanne’s liking, so she moved, without speaking, to a spot between two stands from where she and Irina would still be able to see one another.
‘Is this all right?’ she asked.
Allbeury glanced at the titles – pet reptiles to his left, romances to his right – and smiled again. ‘Perfect.’ He paused. ‘I need you to understand,’ he said, ‘to really believe that you’re under no pressure from me, Mrs Patston, that the whole point of this is to help you regain any control of your life you may feel you’ve lost.’
‘How do you know about me? Was it the hospital?’ Joanne had to know that before she went on. ‘I asked Mr Novak, but he didn’t really answer me.’
‘One of the nurses, a friend, was worried about Irina and you,’ Allbeury said.
‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘Oh, God.’
‘It’s all right. She didn’t make it official.’ He paused. ‘Is your fear somehow linked to Irina’s adoption?’
‘Why do you say that?’ Joanne asked warily.
‘Because Mike Novak was trying to find out a little more about you, and when it came to the adoption, there seemed to be a few blanks.’ He paused. ‘Please don’t worry. Mike’s very good at what he does – he didn’t make any waves.’
Joanne took another moment, half of her wanting to grab Irina and run away.
You have to trust someone.
‘It wasn’t legal,’ she said, and felt as if she’d jumped off a bridge.
The library remaining quiet, hardly anyone around except the librarians – all engrossed in work, exchanging the odd bit of chatter and displaying no interest in Joanne or Allbeury – they moved, after a while, to the table, opened books and newspapers and spoke in very low voices. Allbeury, Joanne found, was a good listener. She su
pposed that in his job he had to be.
‘I know I should hate Tony,’ she said. ‘But I’ve never been able to, not really, because he did it all for me, getting Irina the way we did, spending all that money, taking all those risks.’ She cast another swift look at the child, went on very quickly. ‘I don’t think he can help the drinking any more, and the violence happens because of it, and maybe because she reminds him about not being a real father. That’s how he’s always seen it, you see. And it makes him angry.’
‘What do you think,’ Allbeury asked, ‘might happen if you stay with Tony?’
‘I don’t know.’ Tears sprang to her eyes, and she rubbed them away.
‘You’re very afraid, aren’t you?’ Allbeury said.
‘Yes.’
‘What are you most afraid of, Joanne?’
‘Irina getting badly hurt,’ she said.
‘And losing her to the authorities?’ he asked.
‘That’s not just me being selfish,’ she said, desperately, and over by the fiction hardbacks, a woman looked up at her. ‘She needs me too—’ Joanne lowered her voice again ‘—just as much.’
‘Of course she does.’ Allbeury paused. ‘If you could find a safe place for yourself and Irina to move to, Joanne, a place where neither your husband nor the authorities could find you—’
‘I haven’t got any money,’ she said quickly.
‘What I’m offering wouldn’t cost you a penny,’ Allbeury said. ‘You’d be safe in a whole new environment with new identities. And in time, with Irina in school, you could get another job, if you wanted to, become independent.’
‘Isn’t that what they sometimes do with witnesses?’
‘It would be something like that,’ Allbeury agreed. ‘Except no one would be asking you to bear witness against Tony, because we accept there’d be a real risk of your losing Irina if you did.’
Over by the window, Irina got off her chair.
‘I have to talk to her,’ Joanne said.
‘Go on,’ Allbeury said. ‘I’ll wait.’
He watched her go to the child, talk to her for a moment, saw the little girl’s sweet, earnest expression as she absorbed what her mother was telling her, saw her go with her over to the children’s shelves, then back to the table with another small pile of books, and sit down with them again.
A good, unusually patient child. It was hard even thinking about what had made her so exceptionally well-behaved.
‘I’m sorry,’ Joanne said, sitting down again. ‘I can’t be much longer.’
‘I can see that,’ he said. ‘You must have questions.’
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why do you want to do this for me?’
‘Because I can,’ he replied simply. ‘Because you and your daughter need help, and I think I can help you.’
‘How do I know I can trust you?’ Joanne asked.
‘I don’t suppose you can know that,’ Allbeury answered. ‘But then again, do you have any real alternative?’ She didn’t answer. ‘I know I can’t begin to imagine what being faced with this kind of choice must be like,’ he went on. ‘And as I told you at the beginning, it is all down to you. You’re in control.’
‘But that’s not really true, is it? If I say yes to this, I won’t be in charge of anything, will I?’
‘Not to begin with, no.’ Allbeury paused. ‘But later.’
‘Maybe.’ She thought of something. ‘What about my mother?’
He’d been ready for that, of course. ‘Unless you want your mother to come with you – which is not impossible, though it would, obviously, add some complications – then no, you wouldn’t be able to see her, at least not for the forseeable future.’
‘I don’t know,’ Joanne said.
‘Of course not,’ he said.
‘Could we meet again? Talk some more?’
‘We could, of course,’ Allbeury said. ‘Though we’d have to see that Tony was occupied again, and we don’t want to make him suspicious.’
‘But if Irina and I just vanished,’ Joanne said, ‘he’d get terribly angry. He’d come looking for us.’
‘He wouldn’t find you.’
Joanne looked again at Irina, who had turned around in her chair and was now watching them. ‘She and my mum really love each other.’
‘I know it’s hard,’ Allbeury said. ‘But nothing about a situation like this can possibly be perfect.’ He paused. ‘Safer, Joanne, if no one else knows. For Irina.’
‘Oh, God,’ she said, close to tears again.
‘Careful,’ Allbeury cautioned.
‘I know.’ She bit her lip, brought herself under control.
‘Well done,’ he said.
‘I’ll have to do a lot of thinking,’ Joanne said.
‘You certainly will.’
‘What happens next?’
‘If you decide against,’ he said, ‘then you don’t have to do anything. If you have more questions, or the answer’s yes, then all you have to do is phone Mike Novak again and tell him.’
‘And if it’s yes?’ Joanne asked, her eyes on his.
‘Then the arrangements will be made,’ Allbeury said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
‘Just a little vaginal tear,’ Christopher had told her soon after her surgery. ‘Be fine again soon, you’ll see.’
That’s all right then, Lizzie had thought, ironic but still dazed, and after that he’d been so tender with her, first there in the clinic and then, a few days later, taking her home to Marlow, just as he’d been with Edward after his accident, the way he’d been all those years ago with her mother – the way he always was with Jack. And it was a little like being mad, she felt, because it would have been so very much easier to believe him, in him.
Except that she was not mad.
Wound and stitches still sore, but strength returning, she made herself confront reality. She no longer had any choice but to tackle Christopher head on. If she did not find the nerve now, she realized, she would end up like too many battered wives, too defeated to stand up for herself.
She planned time alone with him. No trickery, no messing about, simply asking him to come back to Marlow mid-week at a time when the children were at school and Gilly was occupied elsewhere.
It was Wednesday, September the eighteenth, just ten days after her surgery, ten days and several hours since Christopher had raped her, but it felt – a cliché, but nonetheless true – like a lifetime.
She chose her study for the confrontation, her territory rather than his or the whole family’s, asked him to sit down in the leather chair on the opposite side of her writing desk.
‘I feel,’ he said, ‘like an interviewee.’
‘It’s been a long time,’ Lizzie began, her mouth dry, ‘since I threatened to leave you. But what you did to me on the night of your birthday, what you have since done to me, has made me see that I owe it to our children as well as myself to—’
‘You must know—’ Christopher interrupted with passionate distress ‘—you must surely know I never meant you to be hurt. I would never, deliberately, have done such a thing, and dear Christ, if I could take back what I did that night, I would.’
‘Rape is what you did. Hitting me and raping me. Brutally enough to injure me. And you can’t ever take it back.’ Lizzie made sure her tone was practical. ‘But at least getting over the operation gave me some time to think. I’ve decided a number of things, Christopher.’
‘Don’t,’ he said.
‘I’m still prepared to stay with you, for Jack’s sake. Not Edward’s or Sophie’s, I don’t think, not any more, because I think they’d both get over it in time. But I’m really not sure that Jack would.’ She took a breath. ‘Even so, I’ll only be staying if you agree to certain conditions.’
‘Anything.’
‘You say that so easily,’ Lizzie said dryly. ‘But we’ve been here before, remember? Before we found out I was expecting Sophie. You said “anything” then too.’
‘Yes.’ He remo
ved his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, shut his eyes, then opened them again and looked at her. ‘Your conditions.’
‘You will never come near me again in any way more intimate than a kiss on the cheek or a hug, and those only in the presence of others.’
Christopher was silent now, grim-faced.
‘I have written a letter detailing your various assaults and my injuries, minor and otherwise, as well as your recent gross abuse of your profession—’
‘God, Lizzie.’
‘I’ve sealed it and given it to a solicitor – not David Lerman or anyone there.’ Lerman was a partner at Allbeury, Lerman, Wren, who’d acted for Christopher and HANDS for years. ‘But you can relax in the knowledge that it will remain sealed unless I personally direct it to be opened, or if something happens to prevent me from speaking for myself.’
‘That’s not just melodramatic,’ Christopher cut in angrily, slamming his glasses back onto his nose, ‘it’s outrageous to imply that I’d think of stopping you telling anyone in such a way.’
‘After what you’ve done to me—’ Lizzie was trembling, but still in control ‘—after the sheer atrocity of that whole charade in the clinic, let alone what went before, nothing seems impossible to me any more.’
‘Lizzie, please—’
‘I’m aware I might not be instantly believed, but the contents of that letter would certainly be more than enough to encourage my solicitor and my mother to make every effort to have the children taken away from you.’
‘I don’t believe you’d do that to Jack.’
‘It’s the last thing in the world I’d ever want to do,’ Lizzie agreed. ‘But if you don’t go along with these conditions now, Christopher, I will have no choices left, so I suggest you do believe me.’
‘What else?’ he asked quietly.
‘Same as before, more or less. You seek psychiatric help.’ She had an urge to stand up, walk around, but she was still in some pain, and the last thing she wanted to show right now was weakness.
‘And?’
‘Are you on drugs, Christopher?’
He blinked, twice, said nothing.
‘I strongly suspect that you were on something the night you raped me, and I want you to know that I’ve included that suspicion in my letter.’
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