It Ends At Midnight, page 19
I shrug. ‘She hasn’t told me that detail yet. I just know what I have to wear.’
‘What is it?’
‘The fucking awful bridesmaid dress that she put me in twenty years ago. I look like shit in it.’
‘Can’t wait to see that,’ he says.
The surge of energy I’d felt subsides. ‘That’s if she still wants me,’ I say. ‘She seemed pretty pissed off with me when I saw her at the beginning of the week.’
Gareth comes over and puts his arm around me again. The fact that he’s not completely repelled by my stench is warming.
‘Look, babe, she’s worried about you. That’s what she said to me when we talked earlier this week about the catering. She said she couldn’t get hold of you.’
‘She’s got my landline,’ I say, going over to the red phone in the corner that’s encrusted with dust, it’s been so long since I’ve used it. But when I pick it up, there’s no ring tone.
‘See? No way of getting hold of you, short of breaking your door down,’ Gareth says. ‘She’s probably not well enough for that, either.’
Shame eats into me, gnawing into my stomach. I remember how she looked when I left her house.
‘Why don’t you come with me?’ Gareth says. ‘Once you’ve decontaminated yourself.’
I nod, go to the shower and wash off the last days. For a flicker of a moment, I hope that Gareth will join me, but I quash it immediately. I’m lucky he’s still speaking to me, let alone trying to shag me. Would I be as tolerant if he were accused of molesting a minor?
Soon I’m out of the shower and dressed in clean clothes, the jeans uncomfortable after days of wearing my jogging bottoms. I brush through my hair and pick up the dirty clothes, ramming them into the washing machine along with the solidified blanket, putting it all onto a hot wash.
‘You look more human now,’ Gareth says.
‘I feel more human. Thank you for sorting out the flat, too,’ I say, gesturing around at the space that he’s tidied, almost transformed back to how it ought to be.
‘That’s OK. I couldn’t leave it like this. Look, can you at least give me your new number. I want to be able to get hold of you. I won’t call if you don’t want me to, I promise. I want you to be able to get hold of me, too. If there’s a problem.’
I nearly laugh. There’s nothing but problems. I nod, switching on the new phone that I’ve barely used. I take down the number he dictates to me, the one entry in my Contacts, and text him a blank message so that at least he has it. He nods, pleased, as he saves it to his own device.
‘Why don’t you come here and give me a proper welcome?’ Gareth says after he’s finished with his phone, holding his arms out to me. I go over and we start to kiss, tentative at first, but increasingly passionate. His hand is on my breast, mine at his throat, when the doorbell rings.
‘Ignore it,’ he groans, and I want to, but as when he rang, it goes on and on, not letting up at all, followed by a heavy thumping.
‘I don’t think I can,’ I say, and I walk to the door, slowly, deliberately, because I know who’s there, and I know what’s going to happen. The urgency of that summons can mean only one thing.
29
Sylvie Munro, I am arresting you on suspicion of indecent assault of a boy aged fifteen contrary to section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and on suspicion of sexual communications with a child, contrary to section 67 of the Serious Crimes Act 2015.
I don’t turn to look at Gareth. I can’t bear to see the look in his eye, the disappointment, the horror, before he withdraws from me entirely. I nod, letting the police lead me out of my flat, take me to the car. I dip my head automatically as I get in, leaning my head against the glass as they drive me to the police station at Kennington, process me at the custody suite before putting me in a cell to wait for interview.
You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention anything you later rely on in court.
It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. Someone’s setting me up. All the defences I’ve ever put forward on behalf of my clients, my scepticism growing with each denial. Now I’m one of them.
Anything you do say may be given in evidence.
I told Gareth to call Lola Adebayo, one of my best instructing solicitors, but when I arrive at the station, I decide I’d better do it myself to ensure she gets the message. He wasn’t looking as if he was registering fully what I was saying, that’s for sure. I put my one call in to her and she agrees immediately to come, though she doesn’t know how long it’ll take for her to get there.
I sit and wait in the cell, strangely calm. I know it can’t last. I know I’m facing the destruction of everything I’ve worked so hard for, that even if I don’t end up in court, it will be permanently on my record that I’ve been charged with something as vile as this. It’s almost laughable that anyone could believe that I would demean myself to this extent. But not laughable enough.
She doesn’t arrive for nearly two hours, by which time I’m fully acquainted with every crack and chip of paint in the cell. They’ve taken my new phone off me as well and I didn’t have the sense to bring anything to read with me. I’m bored, bored and tense, my spiking adrenaline calmed a little by the wait but only superficially – I know the moment there’s any action it’ll go through the roof again.
I’ve been in police stations on and off over the years. This very one, about fifteen years ago. Ironically enough to view some indecent images of children, in a magazine that had been found in my then client’s house. The photographs were so appalling they had to be kept under lock and key. I’m a mother, the police officer had said repeatedly, as if only by having children of one’s own could one understand fully the horror of the images. I didn’t need to be a mother to see how awful it was. It’s sickening that I should be accused of anything remotely similar now.
They were kinder to me when I was a child. Seventeen, sweet and innocent, my eyes wide as the police officers asked me gently what had happened. What I’d seen. They watched me like a hawk, but I kept my voice low, my head bent lower. I wish I were back there now. The problems then seemed insurmountable. I thought this was the worst life could throw at me.
I know better now.
The minute Lola is let into my cell I nearly jump on her but I restrain myself, just as she restrains her reaction, too, almost hiding the shock in her eyes at my appearance. Normally I’m slick, hair tied back, suit sharp. Now I look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. I didn’t even have a chance to dry my hair before they took me away, though I’m grateful that Gareth had made me wash. My armpits are prickling with sweat, though, and smelling the aromatic perfume that Lola is wearing, I’m reminded now that I didn’t put deodorant on. I might be clean, but it won’t be long before I’m stinking like a polecat again.
‘We don’t have long,’ she says. ‘We need to come up with a plan.’
After some discussion we decide that the best approach is for Lola to read out a statement on my behalf in advance of the interview, and I will then answer no comment to all questions.
‘We need to put them to proof,’ she says. ‘If you don’t have any explanation for what’s happening.’
‘None whatsoever,’ I say. ‘I walked past the boy on the stairs in a restaurant. We didn’t touch as we passed. We didn’t even make eye contact. As far as the photos are concerned, I have no idea what they’re talking about.’
Lola nods. ‘There’s no way that anyone could have accessed nude photographs of you?’
For a split second Gareth’s face flashes before me. I blink, hard, willing it away. ‘Lola!’ I say, sitting on my hands. ‘What do you take me for?’
‘Look, it’s blatantly ridiculous. Of course you’ve not been sending nudes of yourself to some schoolboy. I have to ask the questions, though. You know this.’
‘Of course. I understand.’
I thought it was almost laughable, before. No one is laughing now, no one at all, after Lola has finished reading out the statement we’ve prepared together in which I deny any allegation whatsoever that I have ever touched a fifteen-year-old or sent him any indecent images or words, and that the only explanation can be that the story has been manufactured because he resents the decisions that I’ve taken in the course of his trial.
Then the interviewing officers show me a series of photographs printed off from the messages folder on Philip’s Instagram account. Inappropriate as it might be, my first reaction is one of relief. They’re not any of the photos that Gareth has taken. It’s nothing to do with him. For a moment I’m almost faint with relief. But then I look again, blanching. They’re fakes, but they’re horrifically realistic. If I didn’t know my own body, I’d think it was me, not just a superimposition of my head onto these images ripped from the internet. It’s more like me almost than I am myself, stretch marks, saggy; my unexpurgated self. I look over at Lola, an involuntary movement I immediately want to take back, and she raises an eyebrow. I’m desperate to scream at her that they’re not me but I keep myself under control. I stare at her closely, hoping she can see them for the fakes they are.
Terrified she might not.
‘You’re making a face there, Sylvie,’ the interviewing officer says. ‘Do you want to tell us what that expression means?’
FUCK YOU. ‘No comment.’ I grit my teeth.
‘Because while I’m no expert, it looked like you recognised yourself in these photos. Am I right?’
‘No comment.’
Lola holds up her hand. ‘I’d ask the officer to stick to the questions rather than speculating about the meaning of my client’s facial expressions.’
‘But of course,’ he says, spreading the photographs out in a fan shape in front of him, the images facing in my direction. ‘These photographs bear a great resemblance to you, Sylvie, don’t they?’
NO NO NO NO NO. ‘No comment.’
‘So much so, that to suggest they’re fakes seems deeply improbable, don’t you agree?’
OF COURSE THEY’RE FUCKING FAKE. ‘No comment.’
‘Sylvie Munro is shaking her head,’ the officer says to the recording. ‘Now, to move on. These images were all contained in messages sent to one Philip Presley on his Instagram account with the username @presleyPhilip. They were found in the message requests folder as the sender was not following Philip who has a private account. In other words, he has to grant permission to a user to follow him. With me so far?’
I nearly forget, say yes. Remember. ‘No comment.’
‘So these messages were unsolicited, Philip states. He had no relationship with the sender and had not requested any images of this sort. Yes?’
OF COURSE HE FUCKING HADN’T. ‘No comment.’
‘On checking his messages folder two weeks ago, whilst the trial was still ongoing, he saw the first of these messages. He did not recognise the name, but on opening the images, recognised that the naked woman in question was the judge presiding over the trial. He checked the name again, and found it to be @MissSylvieMunro. That’s your name, isn’t it?’
I’m about to explode. I’ve never had a fucking Instagram account in my life. ‘No comment.’ I bite down on my inside lip so hard I taste blood.
‘Is this your Instagram account?’
NO. ‘No comment.’
‘Would anyone else be able to log onto your Instagram account?’
Jaw clenched. ‘No comment.’
‘If we go into the settings of this Instagram account, we can see that it’s been set up to a Gmail account: sylvie_munro@gmail.co.uk. Is this your email address?’
NO. My nails are dug deep into my palms. Out of the corner of my eye I see Lola twitch, a tiny movement. ‘No comment.’
‘I’m looking at your mobile phone now, Sylvie. At the email address that comes up on the Mail screen. Let me read it out to you: sylvie_munro@gmail.co.uk. Do you agree that this is the same email address as that registered to the Instagram account?’
I’VE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE IN MY LIFE. ‘No comment.’
‘Right. Well. If we can turn again to these photographs, they look as if they’ve been taken by you by way of a selfie, is that right?’
Lola interrupts again. ‘No admission has been made as to these photographs being of my client.’
‘Noted,’ the officer says.
I try not to look at the pictures. The one nearest the top is a body that isn’t mine with breasts that aren’t mine squashed together with one arm, the camera held out in the other hand. Not my body, but my face is laughing at the camera.
The image of my face has been taken from one of the three photos I’ve uploaded to Facebook. Gareth took it, snapping it on his phone as I came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped round me, my shoulders bare. I’m biting my lip so hard I can taste blood.
‘No comment.’
‘So the implication is clear that the person who has taken these photos is also the one who has sent them to Philip?’
‘No comment.’
‘Or are you able to offer any other explanation as to how they might have made their way onto Philip’s phone?’
THEY’RE FUCKING FAKE. ‘No comment,’ I say, but my brain’s exploding. The coppers are actually taking this seriously and it’s freaking the hell out of me. I open my mouth about to protest my innocence, but Lola flicks a glance at me hard as if she’d kicked me on the ankle.
‘Something to say, Sylvie?’
I clench my jaw. ‘No comment.’
After a few more passes the officers give up trying to make me cough to it. There’s no real air of disappointment, or resignation. They must have known before we even came in that I would go no comment.
The interviewing officer piles the photographs up in a heap. As he does so one of them comes loose, falling out into the middle of the table. It’s headless, a woman sitting with her legs open, the camera pointed straight up between them. Pubic hair. Labia. Not mine. He raises an eyebrow.
‘No comment.’
More questions. They’d searched my phone, my computer. OK, these photos weren’t saved in the photo library. But it didn’t mean they weren’t photos of me. That’s their line.
‘I’m going to ask you again, Sylvie. Can you offer any reasonable explanation as to how these photographs made their way to Philip’s Instagram messages via your Instagram account if it wasn’t you who sent them?’
I’M BEING SET UP. ‘No comment.’
‘Let’s move on now,’ the officer says. ‘Have you been to Trullo Restaurant in the last month?’
You know perfectly well I have. ‘No comment.’
‘You were there at the same time as the complainant, Philip, and his family?’
‘No comment.’
‘His legal representative too?’
YOU MEAN HIS GODFATHER. ‘No comment.’
‘And while you were in the restaurant, you went downstairs to the toilet. When you were in the basement, you bumped into Philip as he came out of the gents?’
‘No comment.’
‘You suggested to him that you could be persuaded to let the trial go a certain way, in return for certain favours, and you cupped your hand round his crotch, backing him up against the wall and attempting to kiss him.’
My mouth is hanging open. I can’t even mouth the words I want to say. I’m stuck in a nightmare.
‘It was only when the boy’s father came downstairs and shouted that you let go of the victim.’
The nightmare’s closing in, the walls too. My breaths are becoming shallower, my heart rate elevated.
‘I’ll read out the statement that’s been provided by the victim’s father.’
WHAT THE FUCK?
A buzzing in my ears now. I can’t hear any more.
I won’t.
‘For fuck’s sake, there’s got to be an explanation,’ I say to Lola after we leave the police station a couple of hours later. ‘They’re lying. They’re all lying.’
‘You can’t prove it, though.’
I swing round at her, stopping so suddenly that a woman behind me bashes into me and stumbles onto the pavement before moving past me, telling me to fuck off as she goes.
‘It’s not up to me to prove anything,’ I say. ‘Remember the burden of proof? It’s on the prosecution. Yes?’ I’m so cross I’m shouting.
Lola pinches the bridge of her nose between finger and thumb. She looks tired. ‘There’s no need to shout at me,’ she says. ‘It’s not my fault that there’s a witness to this. We’ll get an expert onto the photographs, at least. If they are fake, we’ll be able to ascertain that pretty easily.’
If . . . I want to shout again, but now the words won’t come out, drowned in a wave of fear, of shame that washes a red flush from my cheeks down to my chest. Charged. I’ve been charged. The next time I face that officer it’ll be in court when I make my first appearance to face this.
‘Why would I grope some fifteen-year-old? Why the fuck would I want to send naked photos to a child? I told you, they’re not of me.’
Lola just looks at me. She doesn’t reply. She has a look in her eyes that I recognise from defending only too well, the one that says it’s not my job to believe you, it’s my job to defend you no matter what. When I see that it hits me now properly, smashing through the sense of unreality that has shrouded me from the moment that I was taken to the police station and my fingerprints taken, my mugshot too, as if I were one of my clients.
She doesn’t offer to drop me home and I walk back, head down, ramming my way through any groups I encounter on the pavement. It’s early December, the shops full of gifts and Christmas lights, but I’m dark inside, oblivious to festivity. One man I run into starts to swear at me but when I turn to him in challenge, he backs off, sensing how little I care. How little I have to lose.
It’s gone.
As is Gareth when I get home. His bag is gone too, and the house is unnaturally tidy, everything put away but in fractionally the wrong place as if it’s been tilted, just a little, then returned to its axis. I’m off kilter too, discombobulated. I’ve spent over twenty years running from justice. It’s karma time. This must have been how Linda felt, being trapped in a net of dishonesty, lies told by school kids trying to save their own skins. If I hadn’t had Cambridge lined up, maybe I’d have been a better person. Philip and his family are obviously fighting for his future, despise them for it as I might.
