table. “You never told me about what it was like going to court,” he said.
“No. In many ways it was worse than the actual assault.”
“I guess it would be,” he said.
“I didn’t last through the whole trial. I think it was the third day I didn’t make it into the court; the day after that I was sent to the psych ward. But from what they told me afterward, they had an internal investigation and decided that he was going to be charged with grievous bodily harm. And something about perverting the course of justice, because they proved that he’d lied about something the first time they interviewed him.”
“Surely he tried to kill you, though? What about doing him for attempted murder?”
“Lee was a detective sergeant. He’d been working as a covert operations officer for nearly four years. Before that he’d worked in their intelligence unit providing technical support for covert jobs. Before that, he was in the military, although he never told me what or where. He had a completely spotless record. When they investigated what I’d told them, he provided a whole counterstory about how I’d stalked him, how I was making things difficult for him, how he should really have reported me before now but he felt sorry for me, all this crap.”
Stuart shook his head slowly. “That’s—but what about your injuries?”
I shrugged. “He said most of them were self-inflicted after he’d walked out. He admitted that he’d restrained me, for my own safety and for his, and he admitted that he’d gone about things in the wrong way but said that he’d only done it because he genuinely cared about me, didn’t want to see me getting into trouble for what I’d done. He said I must have broken my nose when I’d tried to head-butt him. It wasn’t much of an explanation, but all it needed to do was sow the seeds of doubt in their minds.”
“And they had Sylvia backing up his story?”
“Exactly. And before they called me to give evidence, I was committed. They never got to hear what actually happened. They never heard my side of it.”
“Even so—didn’t anyone give medical evidence?”
“The only medic who gave evidence was the nice psychiatrist who told them that I couldn’t come and give evidence because I’d been forcibly taken away for my own safety and was in a closed ward having a breakdown.”
“But physically—not mentally. You were injured, for goodness’ sake . . .”
“When they first took me to the hospital I weighed ninety-two pounds. They estimated I’d lost four pints of blood through more than one hundred and twenty lacerations on my arms, legs and torso, and through the miscarriage that was already starting.”
He shook his head slowly. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me for one moment. “How the hell could they even think that it was self-inflicted?”
I shrugged. “Once he’d finished with the knife, he wiped it down and then put it into my hand. None of the cuts were in places that I couldn’t have reached on my own. In the end, the only injuries that he admitted to were the bruises on my upper arms where he’d gripped me, and the bruises to my face that he’d said were made in self-defense when I’d come at him with the knife. Oh, and he admitted we’d been enjoying what he called ‘rough sex’ before he said I’d flipped and started attacking him.”
“But anyone who knows anything about self-harming could tell that the cuts weren’t made by you. Nobody self-harms like that. They just don’t.”
I reached across him for the bottle, and sat cross-legged on the bed, taking a drink. This was harder than I’d thought it was going to be.
“I know it sounds ridiculous. I’ve been over this whole thing countless times in my head—how unfair it all is, how they could do this to me. But it doesn’t help. When you break it down, it was his word against mine. And he was there, wearing a spiffy suit, in his own comfortable law enforcement environment, using their language, telling them how it all went wrong but his intentions had always been good, and how sorry he was. And I was in a secure ward having a breakdown. Who were they going to believe? It’s a wonder they prosecuted him at all, really. It’s a wonder they didn’t send him away with a fucking medal.”
Even through the pleasant, warm haze of more than half a bottle of wine, I could tell