Blood Sisters(70)

After that, I stopped visiting altogether. More time passed. Months and then years marked by notches on my arms. Of watching Mum getting older and sadder, though still making her visits every Friday on her day off from the charity where she now worked. Of wondering how Crispin was doing in his northern prison. Of being incarcerated in a jail of guilt, self-doubt and anger.

Then Fate played its hand. The poster. Lead Man. My resumed visits to Kitty. Martin. The end of the road.

Is it finally time to tell the truth?





54


June 2017


Alison


It’s our second meeting, and things have just got a lot worse.

Kitty is staring up at me from Robin’s file, open on the desk between us. The right eye is lower than the other. One side is twisted as if she’s making a sideways grimace in a fairground mirror. Her face is plump: you can just see the rolls of fat in her neck. She wears a plastic helmet to help keep everything in place. Dark curls are poking out beneath. Neither Robin nor I need to say what we are each thinking.

This Kitty is a very different person from the little girl that we remember. And I’m terrified.

But there’s no time to think. Robin is steaming ahead.

‘There are several issues to deal with here. First, Crispin Wright has now launched an application for his case to be retried in the light of your written confession.’

‘But he’s in prison. And he’s going to be tried himself for attacking me and Stefan.’

‘That doesn’t mean he can’t accuse you of lying over the accident.’ Robin turns to the next page in the file. ‘Then there’s the incident in the prison. Why did you take a piece of glass into the classroom?’

‘It must have been in my pocket from one of my outside workshops,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know it was still there. Anyway, Security should have picked it up.’

Robin’s expression indicates he agrees. Then he gets to the thing we’ve both been skirting around. ‘And how do you explain the discovery of your so-called written confession, in the sanitary bin of the Ladies?’

Yes. They found it. I’m still reeling from the fact. Still, what did I expect in prison? They’re experts at ferreting out crime. Or at least they are sometimes.

‘I … I’m not sure.’

Robin’s eyes have a wary look about them. ‘You wrote that you pushed Kitty into the road. Is that true?’

I get ready to deliver the lie I’d already told the policewoman. How Crispin had made me write down things that weren’t true.

Yet Robin’s good, kind face makes me stop. Despite my intentions a few moments ago, I feel my mind doing a U-turn. I try to pull it back. I could succeed if there was a different solicitor sitting opposite me. But this is my old friend. We go way back. I hurt him once. I owe him the truth.

‘Yes,’ I say softly. ‘I did push her.’

Robin shakes his head again. ‘Look, Ali. I see this again and again with clients. They blame themselves for accidents that happen to other people because they think, somehow, it might help. Call it an overdeveloped conscience or survivor guilt if you like. But we know Crispin was driving too fast. His car mounted the pavement. All of that has been proven beyond a doubt.’

It would be so easy to let him carry on. To allow Crispin to take the whole blame.

‘We were having an argument,’ I cut in. ‘Kitty kept saying … she kept saying that she knew my secret.’

‘What secret?’

This is the difficult bit.

‘I can’t say,’ I whisper.

Robin twists his wedding ring again. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to. That’s if we’re going to have any kind of a chance in getting you off.’

He’s right. ‘Kitty saw me in the summer house at the Wrights’ party,’ I blurt. ‘She saw me having sex with … with Crispin.’

Robin’s face looks as though someone has delivered a punch to it.

‘I didn’t want him to. I didn’t say he could. He just went ahead and did it.’ The tears are pouring down my face now. ‘I only went to the summer house with him because he said you were there, waiting for me with a drink.’

This last bit comes out as an anguished cry. For a minute, I think it’s from Robin’s mouth and not mine.

‘He raped you?’

‘I … suppose so. But I didn’t see it like that at the time. I thought it must have somehow been my fault. It’s only as the years have gone by and I’ve got older that I’ve realized.’

‘Did anyone else know about it? That it was non-consensual sex?’

I shake my head. I can see, as I do so, the doubt in his face. ‘You are aware,’ he says slowly, ‘that it’s very difficult to prove an historic rape.’

I gulp. ‘Yes,’ I croak.

‘And there are countless cases where women who claim to have been raped are torn to shreds verbally in court and discredited.’

I swallow. ‘I’m prepared to handle that.’

He is looking at me. Hard. I can see he believes me – just about. At least, I think so.

‘So you pushed her because you were terrified of it coming out.’

I nod, unable to speak.

Silently Robin nudges a box of tissues on the desk towards me. ‘I’d have killed the bastard if I’d known,’ he says softly.