The Girl Before(57)

I manage to say, What about the other phones you found? You said Deon Nelson had done this before. He’s hardly innocent.

It’s Chief Superintendent Robertson who answers. It used to be thought there was a link between committing burglary and watching hard-core pornography, he says. Because burglars often had unusually large collections of explicit DVDs. Then someone realized that burglars just hung on to the pornography they found in other people’s houses. Nelson did the same with phones. He kept the ones with sexual images. That’s all.



Patricia Shapton takes off her glasses and folds them up. Did Deon Nelson force you to give him oral sex, Emma?

There is a long, long silence. No, I whisper.

Why did you tell the police that he did?

You asked me in front of Simon! I explode. The tears do come now, tears of self-pity and anger, although I keep talking, desperate for them to understand, to see that this is their fault just as much as mine. I point at Sergeant Willan and DI Clarke. They said they’d found the video and it looked like Nelson, forcing me, I say. They said you couldn’t see his face or the knife. What was I supposed to do? Tell Simon I’d had sex with someone else?

You accused a man of raping you at knifepoint. And of threatening to send obscene images of that attack to your family and friends. You kept up the deception when your story was challenged. You even read a Victim Personal Statement in court.

DI Clarke made me, I say. I tried to back out but he wouldn’t let me. Anyway, Nelson deserved it. He’s a thief. He stole my stuff.

The words, so pathetic and petty, hang in the air. I catch sight of DI Clarke’s face. Written across it is a whole library of emotions. Contempt. Pity. And anger—anger that he’s allowed himself to be deceived by me, that I’ve exploited his desire to protect me by piling lie on lie on lie.

There’s another awful silence. Patricia Shapton glances at Chief Superintendent Robertson. Clearly this is some prearranged signal because he says, Do you have a lawyer, Emma?

I shake my head. There’s the man who drew up the deed of variation when Simon moved out but I don’t think he’d be much use in this situation.

Emma, I’m going to arrest you now. It means you can have access to a duty lawyer later, when we question you about this formally.

I stare at him. What do you mean?

We take cases of rape very seriously. That means assuming every woman who says she’s been raped is telling the truth. The flip side is that we take false rape allegations equally seriously. On the basis of what we’ve heard today, we have enough evidence to arrest you on suspicion of wasting police time and attempting to pervert the course of justice.



You’re going to arrest me? I go, disbelieving. What about Nelson? He’s the criminal.

We’ll have to drop the charges against Deon Nelson, Patricia Shapton says. All of them. Your evidence is totally discredited now.

But he stole my things. No one’s disputing that, are they?

Yes, actually, Chief Superintendent Robertson says. Deon Nelson claims he bought the phones from a man in a pub. We may not believe him, but in evidential terms there’s absolutely nothing tying him to you.

But you can’t think—

Emma Matthews, I am arresting you on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice and wasting police time contrary to section five point two of the Criminal Law Act 1967. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?

I can’t speak.

Emma, I need you to answer. Do you understand the nature of the allegations against you?

Yes, I whisper.

—

After that there’s a numb sense of having stepped through a looking glass. Suddenly I’m not the victim anymore, to be treated with kid gloves and sympathy and brought mugs of coffee. Suddenly I’m in a different part of the station altogether, where the lights have metal cages over them and the floors stink of vomit and bleach. A custody officer looks down at me from a raised platform behind a desk and explains my rights. I empty my pockets. I’m handed a copy of the Custody Code of Practice and told I’ll be given a hot meal if I’m still here at suppertime. My shoes are taken away and I’m escorted to a cell. There’s a bed built into one wall and a short shelf on the opposite side. The walls are white, the floor gray, the light diffused through the ceiling. The thought occurs to me that Edward would be quite at home here, but of course he wouldn’t really, it’s grimy and smelly and uncomfortable and cheap.

I wait three hours for a duty lawyer. At some point the custody officer brings me a copy of my charge sheet. Written down, it looks even bleaker than it sounded upstairs.



I try not to think about the expression on DI Clarke’s face as I left the room. The anger was gone, leaving only disgust. He’d believed in me and I’d let him down.

Eventually a plump young man with gelled hair and an over-large Windsor knot in his tie is shown in. He stands in the doorway and shakes my hand over an armful of files.

Er, Graham Keating, he says. I’m afraid the lawyers’ rooms are all in use. We’ll have to talk in here.

We sit side by side on the hard bed like two shy students who can’t quite get it on and he asks me to say in my own words what happened. Even to my ears it sounds feeble.