‘I believe you,’ said Jack.
‘I believe you,’ I said, but I didn’t, I couldn’t. ‘If you kissed him, you were letting him know that you liked him,’ I went on. ‘Help me understand. Did you want to sleep with him?’
‘Maybe. I thought that one day in the future he might leave his wife, and we could be together, but I wanted it to happen slowly. I know it was stupid, I know it probably would never have happened. It was a silly crush.’ She was too young to be out in the world. Now I understood why Jack had objected to her skipping a year in school and had really wanted her to take a gap year before she went to college. She was academically brilliant but hopelessly naive.
‘But I woke up this morning on the floor of his bedroom, not even near the bed, and I’m covered in bruises and bite marks. I don’t remember anything. He was in bed snoring away like nothing happened. There was a used condom on the floor too. And a wine bottle. I think he may have used the wine bottle to … I ran out the door and came home.’
‘Darling,’ said Jack and went to hug her again. ‘We’ll go to the police if you want, Lucy. Any way you want to handle this, we will support you.’ He looked to me for reassurance. I shook my head at him. Lucy wasn’t looking at me.
She wanted to take a shower. She knew that taking a shower would mean the erasure of evidence, but she opted not to go to the guards. Jack said, ‘You know this means there’s a rapist out there who can target other people? Don’t you want to stop him? Where does he live? I’m going to go and beat the living shit out of him.’
I turned on Jack. ‘Why should it be Lucy’s responsibility to stop him?’
Jack was annoyed. ‘I can’t say anything right. You can at least let me go and sort him out?’
‘No, Dad, please don’t. He’s younger than you. Stronger. He could hurt you.’
‘Just give me the address.’ Jack was shouting now.
‘We all need to calm down,’ I said.
‘But, Ruby –’ Jack started.
‘Shut up, Jack,’ I cut across him.
Lucy burst into tears again. Jack backed down then. ‘I’m sorry, pet. The only thing we are doing today is looking after our girl. Lucy, love, do you mind if your mum takes photos of the bruises and the bite marks?’
I didn’t like where this was going. ‘Why?’
He ignored me and directed himself to Lucy. ‘Do you want to keep working there? For ComStat Holdings?’
‘Not if he’s there.’
‘Fine. I will go and meet him. It’s Simon … Preston, isn’t it? I won’t lay a finger on him, but he has to be warned.’
‘Simon Perry. Dad, what are you going to do?’
As he asked her these questions I went up to her bedroom, and I fetched towels from the airing cupboard. I needed to get away from both of them, but I could still hear them.
‘I’m going to gather evidence. What restaurant were you in?’
‘L’Étoile Bleue.’
An upmarket place where the tables were in booths separated by silk hand-painted screens. Jack and I had been there. We had joked that it would be the ideal place to go if you were having an affair.
‘I’m going to see if they have CCTV inside or outside. He must have carried you out. Someone will have noticed.’
‘Why would they hand over CCTV to you?’ Lucy asked.
‘Because I will tell them that they will be part of a rape story in the newspapers if they don’t hand it over. Don’tworry, I’ll only say it to make them cooperate. Where is the apartment?’
‘In the Docklands, the Zevon Building, number 902. It’s a penthouse apartment. He stays there sometimes during the week. His family home is in Wicklow somewhere.’
Of course it was. Lucy wouldn’t have fallen for the mailroom guy.
‘I will pay him a visit in the office on Monday and show him the photos, screenshots, whatever I can get.’
‘Dad, he’s going to lie to you.’
