#YouToo

by Candy Denman

  ‘Do you think she’s behind Mervyn’s latest disaster too?’

  ‘Yes, and some others. The head of the CPS; a corporate lawyer from London.’

  ‘There was an incident at the firm she worked at in London, I re- member,’ Mrs Townsend told Jo. ‘When she joined Townsend Bart- lett she’d had some time off. She explained it away as some sort of a belated gap year, but when I asked where she’d been, what she’d done in that year, she was always evasive. That’s what made me think she’d had a breakdown before.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember the name of the firm she worked for in London, do you?’

  ‘Let me see.’ Mrs Townsend thought for a while.’ It was a person’s name, a family name, I seem to remember, which is unusual for a cor- poration in this day and age; everyone nowadays seems to be a three letter acronym, even though no one probably remembers what the letters originally stood for. That or something totally bland and inoffensive in any possible language, and that has absolutely no meaning in any of them. It’s only small firms like Townsend Bartlett that still use family names.’

  Jo agreed wholeheartedly, although she thought that shortening the firm to TB probably wouldn’t bring in the sort of custom they were hoping for. She said nothing because she didn’t want to disturb the older woman’s train of thought.

  ‘Walker, Williams? No, it was a longer name than that.’

  Jo desperately wanted to help her by suggesting the name she was hoping it was, but bit her tongue.

  ‘Warlingham?... No. Westerham, no. Got it!’ She clicked her fin- gers and shouted out so suddenly that both dogs jumped up and barked. ‘Wendlesham’s. I’m sure it was Wendlesham’s.’

  Jo could have cheered.

  ‘Who, coincidentally, have recently had a senior lawyer murdered and another collapsed in a gay sauna – oh, and some very damaging emails were sent to their clients. Do you believe me now when I say that I think Fiona is behind all this?’

  It was clear from her expression that Mrs Townsend did indeed believe her.

  ‘My God! When I think of all I’ve gone through because of her!’ Jo didn’t like to remind the woman that Fiona had gone through quite a bit courtesy of her husband as well.

  Chapter 27

  Having made plans to spend her Sunday with Billy, Jo was disappointed to wake up to see that the rain had set in, making a walk across the cliffs a non-starter. Instead, they spent the day in her flat, talking, making love, talking, eating takeaway Thai and talking some more.

  They had talked about the case, about sexual harassment, careers and casual racism. And much, much more. He had told her his full name was Bilal Iqbal and she had admitted to Jocasta and even to a middle name of Harriet, although they both probably knew each oth- er’s full names from checking the medical register, LinkedIn and other lists. In Jo’s case, not just checking out Billy’s medical background, but checking for any mention of a wife, having been caught out that way before, but she wasn’t about to admit that to Billy. When Billy had finally left, at five o’clock, Jo had spent a fruitless half hour trying to get hold of Miller, leaving messages around the police station and on his work phone that she was sure would never reach him. She did have his personal mobile number, because he had once rung her from it and she had saved it, but she was reluctant to use it because she shouldn’t really have it – it was for emergency use only. At least, that was what she told herself. She knew all too well that he had a difficult relation- ship with his pregnant wife and the last thing she wanted to do was stir up trouble for him at home.

  ‘That man can be very elusive when he wants to be,’ she grumbled to Kate on the phone later that evening. ‘Have you managed to find out about the will?’

  ‘Give a girl a chance.’ Kate laughed. ‘I spent the afternoon at the gym.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Jo asked suspiciously, knowing that Kate rarely went to the gym to exercise.

  ‘I’m meeting him later,’ her friend confided. ‘You see? You aren’t the only one with a date.’

  The call was necessarily a short one, as Kate had to get ready to meet her latest conquest. Suddenly at a loose end, Jo wondered what to do with the rest of her evening. She could microwave a dinner and watch television, she could have a long bath and an early night, catch up on some housework, although one person doesn’t really make much of a mess and there wasn’t a great deal to catch up with, or she could carry on with her detecting as she waited for Miller to respond to her messages. Whatever, she needed to do something to stop her- self from compulsively checking her phone for messages from Billy, or worse, messaging him every five minutes when she knew he was at a family dinner.

  The driveway outside Mervyn Bartlett’s modern detached house on the outskirts of Hastings was empty. The house looked every bit as closed and empty as Doreen Ponting’s had done. The curtains were drawn tightly shut at every window and not a single chink of light could be seen from any of them. Hoping that, like the prosecutor, that simply meant he was hiding in the back of the house rather than that he had left the area, Jo parked in the driveway and approached the door.

  Mervyn was a tougher nut to crack than Ms Ponting, it seemed. It took Jo several knocks on the door as well as holding her finger on the bell for a full minute as a final resort before he came to the door and shouted through it that she should stop harassing them and that he was calling the police.

  ‘Mr Bartlett. It’s Jo. Jo Hughes? I am with the police? Do you re- member? I was at Giles Townsend’s flat when you were there and again at the inquest opening.’

  There was silence for a few moments.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked through the door.

  ‘To talk to you about Fiona Hutchins and why she’s set you up,’ Jo told him and was rewarded after a short while by the door opening a few inches. Mervyn’s face stared out from the small gap and checked she was who she said she was and that he couldn’t see anyone else anywhere around.

  ‘I’m here alone,’ she reassured him and was rewarded by the door closing as he unlatched the chain and then opened it wide to let her in.

  As soon as she was inside the hallway, he closed the door, locking and bolting it and hurrying back to the rear of the house. Jo didn’t know his personal circumstances, but the furnishings and dried flow- er display on the hall table suggested at least a Mrs Bartlett, while the assortment of trainers on and around the shoe rack, and the games console attached to the TV in the living room suggested there might be children too, but the strange stillness of the house told her that if so, they had all moved out for the time being.

  He led her into the spacious living room, which had a pleasant, lived-in feel to it. Mervyn sat, stiff and awkward, in an armchair, con- stantly wringing his hands. The haunted expression that had been on his face when he first opened the door had now been replaced by one of quiet desperation.

  ‘What makes you think this is all down to Fiona?’ he asked and Jo went through the same story she had told Mrs Townsend, adding in the details that she had learnt from her.

  Mervyn let his head sink in his hands and groaned quietly. ‘I told Giles not to do it!’ he finally said.

  ‘Not to do what?’ Jo asked.

  ‘Not to try it on with her, not after what happened in London, but he didn’t listen, he never listened to me.’

  ‘What did happen in London?’ She asked gently.

  ‘From what I was told by John Dixon, it was just a bit of horseplay that got out of hand. A drunken celebration when they closed a big deal; you know what those city types are like. Work ridiculous hours under great stress, and when they let their hair down, well, they party hard and Fiona was, well, as I say, things went too far.’ He couldn’t look her in the eye as he said this.

  ‘She was raped?’

  ‘Let’s just say, she didn’t say no but she might not have been in a fit state to give her consent.’

  ‘She was raped then,’ Jo said clearly and firmly. She hated the mealy-mouthed way that he was avoiding sayi
ng that word: horseplay that went too far, she didn’t actually say no. Rape was still rape, no matter how you phrased it.

  Mervyn just shrugged, and said ‘Technically, yes.’ He looked at her for a moment before his eyes slid away again. ‘What made it worse, I imagine, was that she only knew about it when pictures circulated in the office the next day.’

  Jo sighed. This was just awful, she thought, far worse than she had imagined and it made her angrier than ever. The poor woman.

  ‘And I suppose the man who technically raped her was Adrian Cole?’

  Mervyn looked up, startled. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Oh, the fact that he was found dead in Mr Wendlesham’s swim- ming pool a few days ago might have been a clue,’ she said harshly. ‘What did John Dixon have to do with it?’

  Mervyn was too shocked to hear of Cole’s death which hadn’t made the news in any big way, to answer for a moment.

  ‘Adrian? Dead? How did that happen?’

  ‘It’s a long story with lots of suspicious circumstances. But you see why I think Fiona is involved now?’

  He gave a deep sigh and nodded.

  ‘John said she wanted to lodge a formal complaint, and go to the police, which would have been very bad for the firm. So he dissuaded her, for her own good, and organised the NDA and payoff,’ Mervyn admitted. ‘Oh God! She must have set him up in the massage place as well. She did, didn’t she?’

  ‘I rather think he went there himself, although she may have drugged him and organised for the press to be there when he was car- ried out. That seems to be the pattern,’ she told Mervyn. ‘The rapists have both been killed and the people who helped them to keep it quiet and get away with it have all been humiliated in some way.’ Jo re- frained from adding: like Fiona was humiliated by the pictures of her drunken state and sexual assault circulated with the morning coffee.

  Mervyn dropped his head in his hands again.

  ‘Humiliated? That doesn’t even begin to cover it. We should never have taken her on.’ His self-pity was nauseating.

  ‘I did wonder why on earth you did.’

  ‘It was a favour to John. Apparently she’d had a bit of a breakdown after the event,’ he was still unwilling to call it rape, ‘and took some time off which she could afford to do as the payoff was very hand- some,’ Jo clenched her teeth to stop herself from asking him exactly how handsome a payout had to be to make rape and public humilia- tion acceptable, ‘and that gap in her employment meant most places wouldn’t touch her.’

  ‘And Giles’ past history of sexual harassment didn’t raise any red flags for you?’

  Mervyn did at least look a little guilty at that.

  ‘He always denied it. I mean, he admitted he touched the girl, but not in a sexual way, he said.’ Jo again stopped herself from saying, well he would do, wouldn’t he?

  ‘I did tell him to leave her alone.’

  ‘You thought telling a sexual predator to stop would be enough?’ ‘I didn’t think of him as a predator; I just didn’t want him upsetting

  Fiona and setting her off again.’

  ‘So flashing the receptionists is fine but I am pleased to hear that you do draw the line at him coercing more senior staff into having sex with him.’

  ‘He didn’t mean any harm with the junior staff. He was always a bit of a character.’

  ‘A bit of a character? I can certainly see why Fiona might think you facilitated Giles’ sexual harassment of staff.’ Jo could hardly control her anger. It was people like Mervyn who allowed sexual predators and bullies to get away with it for so long.

  ‘I did not facilitate it.’

  ‘But you did absolutely nothing to stop it, did you?’

  Mervyn couldn’t reply to that. He looked beaten. He must have realised that his actions, or rather inaction, was what had led to his current situation.

  ‘Do you know which psychiatric unit she was admitted to?’ Jo asked him.

  ‘Gable Leighs’ he told her. ‘It’s a private clinic. We paid,’ he added, as if paying for the treatment made up for driving your employees into a breakdown. ‘But she left there about four months ago.’

  ‘And you don’t know where she is now?’

  ‘No.’ he shrugged. ‘You could always try her mother’s house in Markwick Terrace,’ he suggested, not knowing that Jo had already been there and knew Fiona no longer lived there and that the house had been sold.

  It was a tired and thoughtful Jo who finally arrived home at eleven o’clock and flopped on her sofa. She rubbed her forehead in an effort to dispel the headache that was fast taking hold. She knew there was no point trying to sleep with all these thoughts whirring through her head. She needed to think things through before she would be able to drop off.

  She had sympathy for, and empathy with, Fiona Hutchins. They had a lot in common. Good-looking, clever and career-minded, but Jo acknowledged that when it came to looks, she probably wasn’t in the same class as Fiona – after all, everyone had said the lawyer was stun- ningly beautiful – but there were enough similarities for Jo to under- stand that it could make life more difficult. Fiona could have craved af- fection and perhaps that came across as being available, of wanting sex even. Not that that was in any way an excuse for her treatment by the two men, or for the lack of support she was shown by their colleagues. To be treated so badly, and then to have the final blow, being forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement meaning that you could never tell anyone what had happened, never say why you had had a breakdown, why you were unable to work for so long, why you could never trust a man again. That must have been doubly, impossibly hard. Theoretically Fiona should not have even told her therapist what had happened if she had signed an NDA but Jo hoped to goodness she had done.

  In the past, Jo had had difficult moments with regards to sexual harassment herself. There had been a tutor who wanted to sleep with her, and suggested it might help her grades, but when she refused, he didn’t mark her down, or up, in case she reported him; at least she hoped not. He accepted that he’d tried it on and failed. And she’d had to change driving instructors when the first one kept putting his hand on her knee, and not in an avuncular way. She’d never reported these incidents, or these men, and thought now that she should have done. At the time she had argued that to ruin their careers over something that small would be harsh, but what about the students who came after her? The ones who were perhaps less strong? Less able to shrug off their advances as easily as she did. Perhaps she might have stopped anything from happening to them.

  Unlike Fiona, she had never been raped while drunk and incapable, or forced to have sex just to keep her job, but she realised that perhaps being beautiful was as much of a curse as a benefit.

  At last, Jo began to feel tired. She had been over the terrible story of Fiona’s rapes enough and she was left with an overwhelming sense of pity for a woman whose life had been ruined.

  Finally she felt she could try going to bed, and got up from the sofa. It was then that she noticed that the light on her answerphone was flashing, which meant another dilemma: she would never be able to sleep knowing there were unheard messages, but equally, listening to the message might have the same effect of ending all hope of sleep. And standing there debating whether or not to listen to the message wasn’t helping either.

  Irritated, she jabbed at the play button. If this was another message from her mother making suggestions about how she could find herself a husband, Jo would scream.

  ‘Hi, it’s me.’ Miller’s voice came out of the machine. The sound quality was poor. He was obviously using handsfree while driving. ‘Sorry about not getting back to you earlier, but things are really busy. Look, there’s something I should tell you..’ There was a noise in the background and it sounded like Miller had come to a halt and was switching off the engine. ‘I’ll try to get back to you again when I have some time. Bye.’

  Jo sat back down on the sofa. And pressed the play button to listen to the message again and tried t
o analyse the words, and the tone in which they were said.

  What did he mean by busy? With the case? Or with his wife? Was he sad? Did he sound tired? No, she decided, he’d sounded irritated. Presumably at having to deal with her calls and messages when he had better things to do. He clearly didn’t understand that she was trying to help, that she could help. And now he’d made her angry and if there was one thing that was guaranteed to stop her from sleeping, it was being angry!

  Chapter 28

  It was Monday morning before she tried to get hold of Miller again. She was already in danger of running late for work but she tried to reach him on his work mobile before leaving her flat, tea cup in one hand, taking a last sip of Earl Grey.

  ‘Hello, you’re through to Detective Inspector Miller, please leave a message after-’ She hung up, dropped the phone into her bag and picked her car keys up from the table. Detective Inspector Miller would have to wait. She was in too good a mood after her lovely day with Billy on Sunday. It wasn’t until she took a late lunchbreak that Jo had time to try calling him again, and got an answerphone message again.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ she told herself before grabbing her bag and heading off to the police station. If he wouldn’t answer his ruddy phone, she had no choice but to try and beard him in his den.

  Having waited quarter of an hour at the front desk with her temper slowly rising, Jo was relieved when Jayne Hales finally came down from the incident room to collect her.

  ‘Sorry about that, Dr Hughes; we’re all at sixes and sevens today.’ ‘Has something happened with the case?’ Jo asked sharply.

  ‘Not as such,’ Jayne said as she held a door open for Jo. ‘It’s just that we seem to have mislaid the boss.’

  Jo was unable to comment, partly because she was struck dumb by the news and partly because they had arrived in the incident room. She could see DS Jeffries in Miller’s office, with an older man she recognised as Superintendent Orde. Jeffries was looking flustered and Orde... well, Orde was looking downright furious.