Ayesha takes out eighteen books. It’s more than the maximum, but I let her anyway.
When she leaves, Ed touches my arm very lightly. ‘You okay?’ he says softly. ‘Must be tough thinking about Wilf.’
‘I’m fine,’ I say.
‘You’ve lost so much weight.’
‘I know.’
Later, I should be meeting Laura for our Friday-night tradition. It’s still raining, and I’m sheltering in the doorway outside the offices. The air has that grey quality that only February seems to have; like everything is filtered by Inkwell through Instagram.
She said she would text me when she was finished. There’s no point walking home when I could get the tube from here, and so I’m standing, outside our offices, even though Ed has locked up. I’ve told Ed I don’t want a lift home, but now I think I do. I can’t be bothered to go. What’s the point?
She didn’t ask to meet; she just presumed we would. We see each other almost every Friday. It would be strange if I cancelled. We won’t go to a bar, I decide. We’ll go to a café instead.
I picture Laura finishing whatever she’s doing – she and Jonty are always doing random things with their collection of people who occasionally live on their boat with them. Dropping them at airports and travelling to Stoke Newington to buy a car for a man called Erik who lived with them for a few weeks. That kind of thing.
But she’ll text. I know she will. She’s reliable like that, and she’ll have been looking forward to it all day. I feel distracted and insane about Ayesha’s visit to the bus. Maybe she’s keeping tabs on me. Maybe she knows. I’ll have to lie to Laura about why I’m distracted, putting up barriers where they haven’t existed before; new, ugly, sixties-style concrete blocks in the middle of my most important relationships.
I’ve got to get home. Away from everyone.
I’ll go home – to Reuben. The thought of that curdles my stomach more. Maybe I can avoid him, too. Avoid lying to him. Where could I go?
I don’t go to see Laura. I cancel on her. And I don’t go home, either. I go to the cinema, alone. I watch some Will Smith film, staring at the screen, not blinking, until my eyes sting. I can’t follow the plot, but I don’t care. I want oblivion.
Reuben texts me at eleven. Good time? he says, and I feel a dart of pleasure. He’s been texting me more, recently. Trying to reach me, I guess. And then another appears. Two in a row. I’m tired. In case you’re not back. No. 2,650 – the way you prioritize time with Laura.
I stare at the closing credits of the movie blankly. He is even wrong in his love for me.
It’s half eleven when I get home. This time two months ago, I am thinking. It was happening. It had just happened. That decision that would change everything forever.
Sixty days on. And what have I done to help myself? My clothes are at the library, soon to be laundered through a system designed to get rid of them forever. I wonder if December-me would be pleased that I am getting away with it. I don’t think so. There’s no pleasure in it. It’s not my choice, not truly. Like women who have abortions being described as pro-abortion by the press. There’s no truth in it. We are making the best of a bad situation.
I let myself silently into our bedroom, but Reuben’s sitting up, with the light on. I stop, like a burglar, caught, my body language freezing mid-step.
‘How was Laura?’
‘Annoying,’ I say. I don’t know why I say it. To add flavour to a night out that never happened. Because I do feel annoyed with her, maybe, and with him – irrationally – for expecting our relationships to stay exactly the same when everything has changed.
‘Don’t bitch,’ Reuben says softly. ‘She’s not even here to defend herself,’ he adds needlessly.
‘Sorry,’ I say, meeting his eyes eventually.
It’s not the worst thing I’ve done, that bitching. Not even close.
I recognize their knock, somehow, when it comes the next day. Reuben is at work, and I’m about to leave. It’s an early knock, designed to catch me off guard, I expect.
It’s the same two men again. Short and tall. Blond and dark.
‘Joanna,’ Lawson says.
He lets himself in, really, or perhaps I step aside. I don’t know. My limbs are shaking and my ears are rushing and my vision feels blurred. Here they are.
‘Hi,’ I say.
They go through to the living room and I follow them. Their crisp suits look strange amongst my soft furnishings.
‘We have spoken to this Sadiq of yours,’ Lawson says.
‘Yes.’ Fear moves outwards from my stomach and down my arms and legs.
‘He says he didn’t harass you. He says nothing happened.’
I stop and think for a moment. Of course. Of course he won’t just admit it. God. I’m so stupid. ‘Well, he’s hardly going to say so to two policemen, is he?’
‘Maybe not. We could check the CCTV? If he was behaving so obviously badly towards you, maybe he’s our man for the attack.’
‘Maybe,’ I say faintly, thinking, Surely they know the difference between a sexual predator and a random attacker? Sadiq may be the former, but I am the latter.
‘So, things definitely happened as you said?’ he observes casually. ‘Sadiq’s behaviour in the bar? And … after?’
‘Yes,’ I say, trying to look indignant, as I would be if I were innocent. ‘Yes, just as I said.’
‘Okay.’ Lawson waits, sitting on my sofa, looking at me. ‘And your route?’ he says.
‘Just as I said. To avoid Sadiq.’ I stand up, ready to assert myself, to see them out.
‘Let us know if you remember anything else,’ Lawson says.
‘You’ll be the first people I call,’ I say.
Lawson stops at the door. It must be his trick.
‘Thanks so much for putting yourself forward. You’re the most important person in this investigation. See you again soon.’
22
Reveal
I meet Sarah in a sterile Costa off a wet high street in Hammersmith. There are winter drinks for sale – bizarre concoctions – and shoppers fuelling themselves mid-trip. Sarah arrives just a few minutes after me.
‘Hi,’ she says simply. ‘Brace yourself,’ she adds, which strikes me as a strange thing to say. She stands over me, folding up her umbrella and putting her bag under the table. ‘What do you want?’ she says.
‘Just a tea.’
She lays a small stack of papers in a cellophane wallet, which she’s been carrying under her arm, on the table. ‘Read while I buy,’ she says. She’s got a dark, plum lipstick on, but it ages her, showing up the lines around her mouth.
I inch the wallet over to me, then open it.
I flick to the back, to our expert’s report on the victim’s injuries. It’s full of incomprehensible words.
Coup. Contrecoup. Frontal-lobe injury.
Sarah returns. She’s in wide-leg trousers that collect the contents of the floor as she strides over.
‘I don’t understand this,’ I say to her.
‘Don’t worry about that.’ She takes the papers off me. ‘Experts’ reports are always complicated. Imran is awake,’ she says.
Something in her expression troubles me. It’s only momentary, but I see it. It’s the slightest of frowns. Her gaze goes down, then up again as she looks at me.
‘Is he – recovered?’ I say.
‘Getting there,’ she says shortly. ‘This is what I want to go through with you.’
She takes the front statement off and passes it to me. The back page comes loose, marked SUH1, and I see it’s a photograph. She lays it face down on the table and hands me the statement.
I scan the first three sentences, then stop. ‘This is Sadiq,’ I say. ‘Sadiq from the bar?’
‘Yes,’ Sarah says, a slim hand moving gently across the table towards the statement. She reaches out a fingertip and neatens up the papers. ‘I met with Sadiq. But I’m afraid he approached the police, after he spoke to me.’
‘But … why?’ I say.
‘He didn’t agree with your version of events. He offered to help them. I’m guessing some sort of deal was done. He didn’t want them to accuse him of harassing you. So he helped them. He’s produced this statement.’ She wordlessly turns the photograph over.