Ed groaned. ‘I need a beer.’
‘You can have a beer when we’re done. Now come on, concentrate, this is your future we’re saving here.’
Ed sat back in his seat and took a deep breath. ‘OK. So she had been at the club, and told me she couldn’t get home. She was going to stay at her friend’s but she didn’t have enough money for a cab. I offered to let her share mine. I felt sorry for her. We got to her friend’s and she knocked and called the friend, but no answer. I stupidly said she could stay in my spare room.’
‘Did you want to sleep with her at this stage?’
‘No, not at all, when I first saw her I thought she was pretty but far too young and tarty for me.’ He put his hand to his head. ‘If I’d been sober I would have just walked away, I know it.’
‘So, go on,’ Cynthia Princeton urged.
‘I was just dropping off to sleep – I might have been asleep. But then I woke up to find her in bed with me, playing with my, you know…’
‘Your cock, Ed.’
He was quite astounded at the barrister’s frankness. He nodded. ‘It felt good… I had sex with her.’
‘At any time did she say “no” to you?’
‘Quite the opposite, she came on to me. I was half asleep and obviously still a bit drunk, but I even remember saying something like, “Are you sure, because you’ve had a drink and you might regret it in the morning?”’
‘And can you remember what she said to that?’
‘This is embarrassing… She said something about giving me the best blow job I’d ever had in my life. I’m a man, Cynthia. Obviously, a weak one, sex was on a plate and I took it. But there was not one moment I would have hurt her, had sex against her will. I have the utmost respect for women. This is just a bloody living nightmare.’
‘OK, you wake up to find her gone and fifty pounds stolen from your wallet. Tell me again exactly what she said when she called. Actually, how did she get your number?’
‘I didn’t give it to her, but I do have business cards in my wallet. The bitch probably took one when she took the money.’
‘You can’t be saying words like that in court, Ed.’
‘I know, I’m not that stupid.’ Ed’s face contorted in anguish. ‘Do you think I have a chance of getting off with this? I swear I did nothing wrong.’
‘I do, but you have to listen to everything I say,’ Cynthia replied firmly.
Ed shuffled slightly in his seat. He just wanted this nightmare to be over. He also couldn’t bear to see how upset Gracie had looked. The last thing he wanted was for her to go off on holiday unhappy and thinking the complete worst of him, when he couldn’t be any more innocent.
‘Ed, concentrate now, please.’ Cythia could see his mind wandering. ‘Carry on with what happened again, please.’
‘So she, Trudi, called late the night after. Woke me up. And said that, if I didn’t meet her on the corner of Duncan Street in an hour with a thousand pounds, she would say I had raped her. I told her not to be so stupid, that we had had fully consensual sex and I hung up. I had to be up early for work, so I went back to sleep and thought nothing of it. The next thing I know, first thing in the morning, the police are at my door. I mean, what has she got to gain from this?’
‘I really don’t know, Ed. This sounds like a scam to get money out of you. I have heard of a case like this before. And I bet a lot of men do pay up, just in case, especially if they were drunk.’
‘I wish I bloody had now.’
‘And take the chance of her crying rape anyway, with a grand in her hand? If it was just your word against hers, then the Crown Prosecution Service might have thrown it out of court. But a bouncer from the club has made a statement which incriminates you, saying that you were making crude remarks about Trudi to him. Is there anything else you can think of – anything else at all that may help your cause?’
‘I don’t think so, nobody else saw us together, apart from the cabbie. I don’t get it with the bouncer. I just got in the cab with the girl. I didn’t make one crude remark, I’m sure I didn’t. I’m a joker but… In fact, I remember now… I steadied her and helped her in. I didn’t say anything that might have suggested I would even have sex with her. I was just being a bloody gentleman.’
‘OK.’ Cynthia nodded. ‘We can hopefully get the cab driver as a witness. He can say that nothing untoward went on in the cab.’
‘Yes! And we did try and get into her friend’s house, that’s in my favour, surely.’
‘It is helpful, but the alleged crime was committed behind closed doors.’ Cynthia shut her file. ‘OK, that’s enough for now, Ed. I’ll do my best for you, but if there is anything else at all that you think of, however small, then call me.’
‘Of course. Thank you so much, Cynthia.’
Ed drained his beer, and swiftly ordered another one. He had learnt a very expensive lesson with this woman. He was thirty-two, a grown-up. It really was time he started thinking about his future. This nightmare would hopefully be over soon and he could get on with his normal life.
