Page 6 of The Lie
When I finished sorting the papers, he gave me a glass of red wine and had one himself. He didn’t have proper wine glasses, I remember, just Duralex tumblers. He was friendly and funny. There was a small button-back leather sofa in the corner of his room and he told me to have a seat. Then a few minutes later he came and sat beside me. I was uncomfortable and really shy; Michael was seen as a bit of a god in the chambers. I saw him as a bit of a god.
He put his hand on my thigh first. I was wearing a red cotton dress, no tights – it was very hot that week. I froze. I didn’t know what to do. Then he moved my dress up and began stroking my bare skin, squeezing my thigh. I pushed him off, but he just laughed and took my glass from me, putting it on the desk. He seemed to think I’d given him some sort of message that this was what I wanted, because he said, ‘You’re such a tease.’
He was trying to banter with me, not threatening me as such, but physically pinning me to the sofa with his arm so I couldn’t move. Then he started kissing me really hard, pushing his tongue into my mouth, squeezing my breasts, forcing me back against the end of the sofa so I was pinned under him.
I started to struggle, but he was so strong and determined. I didn’t scream, I didn’t dare … I couldn’t really believe what washappening. I know I was telling him to stop, but I don’t think he even heard me, he was so intent on his own pleasure – if it could be called ‘pleasure’, forcing someone like that, against their will.
Then the phone rang on his desk – maybe it was you? It caught him off guard. He pulled back just long enough for me to push him away and run.
I didn’t have a coat, because it was so hot. My dress was torn at the shoulder, so I borrowed the beige cardigan Wendy, the office manager, had left on the back of her chair. My mother and I lived in Sussex at the time, and I was staying the week with a school friend. She was out with her boyfriend, and her parents were at the theatre, so I was able to sneak in and never tell a living soul – not my friend, not her parents, not my mother – what had happened. In the morning, I rang Micky, the senior clerk, who’d taken me under his wing, and said I was ill and couldn’t come in.
I have spent so many hours thinking about that night in the thirteen years since it happened. I’ve wondered if I did lead Michael on, if I was giving him mixed messages. I blame myself, of course I do. I shouldn’t have stayed in the first place, shouldn’t have accepted the wine. Was my dress too short? Why didn’t I scream? Why didn’t I get up and leave as soon as he put his hand on my thigh? I still don’t know. I suppose I never believed he would do that to me.
That night still regularly haunts my dreams. Even now, I sometimes have flashbacks that make me tremble and sweat. I probably drink too much and suffer bouts of anxiety. But it didn’t kill me. I cope; no one would ever guess.
I’m not intending to go to the police or the media or anything. There was no way I could have told someone at the time and it’s too late now. I don’t have the courage, anyway. And I won’t signthis letter – it’s much too small a world. I saw red, though, the other night, watching Michael Claire, QC, crowing so smugly about getting a man off who everyone says is as guilty as sin. I just thought you should know who you’re married to, Mrs Claire – assuming you don’t already.
Romy read it from beginning to end – although she pretty much knew the nightmare words by heart, so often had she studied the letter, both in fact and in her mind. For a moment, as she sat on the edge of her bed, she had a strong desire to tear it up, burn it – as Michael had begged her to back then. But even with the future beckoning with such promise, she could not quite bring herself to destroy what she still consideredunfinished business. By doing so, she felt she would be abdicating all responsibility – finally and for ever – for the unnamed girl.
5
Finch walked the seven minutes home from Romy’s in a daze. It was pitch dark, and breezy, but he was unaware of anything except the frisson he’d felt just now, in Romy’s hall, her face almost touching his.
Arriving home, he slung his house keys onto the hall table and went through to the kitchen, turning the lights on as he went. All around him on the walls were photographs of Nell, some with her daughter, Grace, some with just himself, some of the three of them together. One photograph, in particular, framed in pale wood next to the oven, was his favourite. It was a headshot of Nell, taken on the beach at Climping on a glorious, shimmering-blue summer day. Her head was back, her short blonde hair ruffled by the breeze, her wide grey eyes squinting against the sun as she smiled exuberantly into the camera. It was the image Finch talked to – every day, after he’d first lost her – when he wanted to tell Nell something.
Finch had met Nell – a professional dancer who taught at a Brighton dance centre – on a train. She had lost her ticket and the whole carriage, especially Finch, became involved in the drama. By the time a volatile and dramatic Nell had dug it out of the zippered pocket of her bag – where she’d already looked for it a thousand times – Finch was completely hooked.
Now he went straight over to the photograph and stood, hands planted on the work surface, and stared at his wife.
‘OK.’ He took a deep breath. ‘This is serious, Nell.’ As he spoke, he could suddenly feel her all around him, hear her crazy laugh, her lively teasing, see her fluid dancer’s walk. ‘I very nearly kissed someone tonight,’ he said, almost as if he thought the woman – frozen for ever in time on the wall in front of him – might actually reply.
Hesitating, not comfortable with what he was saying, he added, ‘Her name’s Romy. You might have seen her around the village, but we didn’t know her to speak to. Tall, sort of wiry and energetic, wild dark curls … She used to be married to a barrister, but I can’t put a face to him now. They were weekenders back then.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, I’m hoping to see her again … I really like her.’
It was four years since Nell, fading in front of his eyes to a frightening echo of herself, had clasped his hand weakly as he sat beside her hospice bed. She had reached that point where she’d become almost ethereal, already not of this world, and was no longer fearful of what lay ahead.
She’d smiled at him. ‘Don’t be miserable for too long, Robert,’ she’d said, through struggling breaths, her eyes shining with tears. ‘Find happiness. Help Gracie, too …’
The thought of another woman – unimaginable at the time, of course – had never even crossed his mind until Romy.
But on that draughty, damp corner of the 10K course, with Terry in pieces between them, he had sensed a connection with her, which excited and confused himin equal measure. It was why he had held off calling her. But he had amazed himself tonight. He’d truly wanted to kiss her.
The following morning Finch had a meeting in the garden-centre café with Jenny Tully – the woman in charge of fundraising for the hospice where Nell had died – to discuss his next marathon. He had worked for them tirelessly since his wife’s death, helping to raise hundreds of thousands, either from his own marathons or from coaxing companies and wealthy individuals to donate. His thirty-two-year military career, including postings to most of the world’s hot spots, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, was a major asset, both of them agreed.
‘I’ll get these,’ Finch said now, as he and Jenny queued for their coffee.
‘You’re our number-one fundraiser, Finch. I can at least buy you the odd coffee.’ Jenny nudged his hand from his wallet. She had a lively, pretty face set off by a feathery grey pixie cut and the most beautiful grey-blue eyes – marred by a wary sadness lurking in their depths.
They talked for a while about his next run, which Finch had decided to do along the west coast of Ireland in the early autumn. But he was finding it hard to concentrate. He hadn’t slept last night, his whole being churned up about Romy. He yawned.
Jenny raised her eyebrows. ‘Late night?’
To his horror, Finch felt heat flooding across his cheeks.
Jenny had scooped him up after Nell died, as if he were a lost child. She was endlessly on the phone, on his doorstep, asking him if he was all right and if there wasanything she could do to help. Her kindness had seemed almost excessive at times, and he worried that he would never be able to repay it.
‘I’m not saying a word, Jenny. It’ll be all around the county before lunchtime if I do.’
She chuckled mischievously. ‘Ah, so there is something to tell.’
