He Said/She Said(56)

‘I want this,’ she said, and it was clear she didn’t mean the photograph but what it represented. I straightened the photograph on the wall and walked two paces to the kitchen, where I dropped teabags into hot water. ‘How long before we know if the appeal’s going ahead?’ I said.

‘Months rather than weeks, apparently.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘You know where I am now.’

‘Indeed I do,’ she said, looking around her, like she was trying to memorise everything about our little flat.

Kit darted from the bathroom to the bedroom, emerging seconds later in his work clothes: Adidas Gazelles, jeans and a lumberjack shirt; the young man’s equivalent of corduroy and patched elbows. He grabbed a slice of dry bread from the worktop and shoved it between his teeth.

Beth picked up another photograph, one of a rainbow over the common, a seven-lane highway in the sky.

‘Where did you buy this?’ she asked me.

‘Kit took it,’ I said.

‘Seriously?’ said Beth. ‘What with? I know a bit about photography, I did it for art foundation.’

‘An old Nikon Prime,’ he said, thawing at last. ‘They’ve fallen out of favour, but I still love them.’

‘The Prime’s a good machine,’ she agreed. ‘Have you got a super-telephoto lens? They’re really good for shooting the sky.’

‘Yeah, well, one day, when we win the lottery,’ he said. He wasn’t friendly, exactly, but at least he wasn’t rude. ‘Laura, come on, we’re going to be late.’

I was in and out of the shower in ninety seconds. I Febrezed a dress with no visible stains and then gave my hair the same treatment. Kit was halfway down the first flight, his tuts amplified by the echo chamber of the narrow stairwell.

‘Let’s go,’ I said to Beth, stepping into my work shoes.

‘I don’t suppose I could grab a shower?’ she asked. I looked at the clock. Ten to nine. I was cutting it fine as it was.

‘It’s ok, I can see myself out.’

My hesitation was momentary. I wouldn’t normally leave a virtual stranger alone in my flat; but then I reasoned that this friendship was on fast-forward.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘There’s a spare towel on the back of the bathroom door. Hang it over the banister when you’re done.’

I caught up with Kit at the entrance to Clapham Common Tube.

‘Where’s Beth?’ he said, looking over my shoulder.

‘Having a shower.’

He raised his eyebrows in reply.

When I got in at half past five, Beth had done the washing up and tidied the flat so thoroughly that it almost looked rearranged, although a glance at the bookshelves told me they were ordered as they had been that morning, only straight and somehow cleaner. The bookshelves disturbed me even more than the gleaming glasses or the made bed; I got the feeling she’d been through them too, read them, like she was trying to read us. At six, a text came through.



Hope you don’t mind me doing the full Cinderella on your flat.

My way of saying thank you, for all of it.



You don’t need to thank us – but thank you, I sent back.



When Kit got home, very late, with a sagging satchel of essays to be marked, he interpreted the tidying as a peace offering on my part for bringing Beth into our flat, and I didn’t correct him.





Chapter 28





LAURA

20 May 2000

I would have been easy to track down in those days. Langrishe is an unusual name; I have never chanced across another Langrishe. When the letter came, a jaunty diagonal on the tatty doormat, I knew what it was at once; not just its origin, although the prison frank told me he was now in Wormwood Scrubs, but its contents. He could have only one reason to write. He had written on – oh, irony – lined, yellow legal paper.



Dear Laura,

I write this in my cell at Wormwood Scrubs. Next door there’s a serial child rapist. Last week he threatened a female warden’s life with a razorblade embedded into an old toothbrush handle. This is my life now. These are the kind of men you have condemned me to live with. The only thing keeping me going, apart from Antonia and my family on the outside, is that I know I do not deserve to be here, and that I will doubtless be released when my name is cleared.

Why, Laura? I am still at a loss as to why you lied in the witness box at my trial. You know that you did not hear my accuser say no. I know you know it. You might have fooled the jury, you might even have persuaded my accuser you were telling the truth; but you and I know. How do you live with yourself?

You will have heard by now that we are appealing the verdict. I am confident that before long we will meet again in a court of law, and this time my counsel will expose you. Isn’t it better to do the decent thing now, to contact the police, or any of my representatives, and correct your testimony rather than have it happen in court? Of course there will be repercussions for you. But wherever they send you cannot be as bleak as where I find myself now.

I will keep writing to you. If I write to you enough – and I have time on my hands – I believe the gravity of what you have done will sink in. I saw you in Cornwall and I saw you in court. I recognise passion and principle when I see it, and I am sorry that these qualities have guided you to the wrong conclusion. But your conscience must be pricking and I make no apology for exploiting that. So please, please: take back your lies and give me back my freedom.