The Girl Before(39)

“Is it true that I look a bit like her?”

She hesitates for a moment before nodding. “Yes. I noticed it as soon as I opened the door. You’re a relative, I take it? Her sister? I’m sorry.”

I shake my head. “We never met.”

She looks puzzled. “Then what’s the connection, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I live in the same house as her—the house where she died.” Now it’s my turn to hesitate. “And I’m having a relationship with the same man.”

“Simon Wakefield?” she says slowly. “Her boyfriend?”

“No—although I have met him, when he came to leave some flowers. The man I’m talking about is the architect who built the house.”

Carol stares at me. “Let me make sure I have this straight. You’re living in One Folgate Street, just as Emma did. And you’re Edward Monkford’s lover. Just as Emma was.”

“That’s right.” Edward had talked about his relationship with Emma as if it had been little more than a brief affair, but I decide not to lead the witness.

“In that case, I will tell you what Emma and I discussed in therapy, Jane,” she says quietly.

“Despite what you said just now?” I say, rather surprised to have won so easily.

“Yes. You see, there is one special circumstance in which we’re allowed to break our professional duty of confidentiality.” She pauses. “Where it can do no harm to the client, but may prevent harm from coming to someone else.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “What harm? And to who?”

“I’m talking about you, Jane,” she says. “I believe you may be in danger.”





THEN: EMMA

Deon Nelson stole my happiness, I say. He shattered my life and made me afraid of every man I meet. He made me feel ashamed of my own body.

I pause and take a drink from a glass of water. The courtroom is very quiet. Up on the bench the two magistrates, a man and a woman, watch me unblinkingly. It’s very hot, the room windowless and beige, the lawyers perspiring a little under their wigs.

Two screens have been rigged up so that I can’t be seen from the dock. I can feel Deon Nelson’s presence behind them. But I don’t feel scared. Quite the opposite. The bastard’s going to prison.

I’ve been crying, but now I raise my voice. I had to move because I thought he might come back, I say. I suffered flashbacks and memory loss and I started seeing a counselor. My relationship with my boyfriend broke down.

Nelson’s lawyer, a short, trim woman wearing an elegant little power suit under her black gown, looks up, suddenly thoughtful, and makes a note.

How do I feel about the prospect of Deon Nelson getting bail? I say. I feel sickened. Having been threatened at knifepoint by him, having been robbed and raped by him in the most humiliating way possible, I know what he’s capable of. The idea that he could be free to walk the streets terrifies me. I would feel terrified just knowing he was out there.



This last point is something DI Clarke has hinted I should include. It’s all very well for Nelson’s lawyer to argue that her client has no intention of approaching me. If I feel threatened by the very fact of his freedom, there’s a risk I might withdraw my testimony and the trial would collapse. Right now, I’m the most important person in this courtroom.

Both magistrates are still watching me. The public gallery, too, is silent. Before I started I was nervous, but now I feel powerful and in control.

Deon Nelson didn’t just rape me, I say. He made me live with the fear he was going to send the video of what he’d done to everyone I know. Threats and intimidation are how he works. I hope the justice system will treat his bail application accordingly.

Bravo, a little voice inside my head says.

Thank you, Miss Matthews. We will certainly take your views into very serious consideration, the male magistrate says kindly. Feel free to take a moment to sit down in the witness box, if you wish. Then, when you are feeling well enough, you may go.

There’s silence in the courtroom as I gather up my things. Nelson’s lawyer is already on her feet, waiting to approach the bench.





NOW: JANE

“What do you mean, danger?” I’m smiling at the ludicrousness of what she’s just said, but Carol Younson, I can see, is deadly serious. “Not from Edward, surely.”

“Emma told me…” Carol stops and frowns, as if breaking this taboo doesn’t come easily to her. “As a therapist, I spend most of my time unpicking unconscious patterns of behavior. When someone asks me ‘Why are all men like that?’ my answer is ‘Why are all the men you choose like that?’ Freud talks about something he called repetition compulsion. That is, a pattern in which someone acts out the same sexual psychodrama over and over again, with different people allotted the same unchanging roles. At a subconscious or even a conscious level, they’re hoping to rewrite the outcome, to perfect whatever it was that went wrong before. Inevitably, though, the same flaws and imperfections they themselves bring to the relationship destroy it, in exactly the same way.”

“How does this relate to Emma and me?” I say, although I’ve already started to guess.

“In any relationship there are two repetition compulsions at work—his and hers. Their interaction may be benign. Or it may be destructive—horribly destructive. Emma had low self-esteem that was lowered still further when she was sexually assaulted. Like many rape victims, she blamed herself—quite wrongly of course. In Edward Monkford she found someone who would give her the abuse she at some level craved.”