The Girl I Used to Be(78)

“You might be better going outside to talk about this,” I said. “Can you do that?”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m in the car and I’ve parked somewhere quiet. What is it?”

“I should be telling you this face-to-face, Rachel. I’m sorry.”

“What?” she said. “What’s up? You’re frightening me.”

“David was at the party.”

There was silence, and then she said, “What did you say?”

“The party. Where . . .”

“Yes, I know which party. But he wasn’t there. It was just for people from Alex’s school. David was at All Saints.”

“I know that’s what it was meant to be, but he was there. I have a photo of him. Hold on a second.” I pulled my iPad to me and sent her the photo. “Check your messages.”

There was silence as she opened my message, and then she gasped.

“But how do you know this was the party?”

“See that girl in front of him? She was my best friend.” I didn’t say Lauren’s name, not wanting Rachel to realize she was the one who’d yelled at Alex in the pub, the one who made him go back to Oxford a couple of days before he died. “We went there together. She bought that dress the same day. I was with her when she bought it.”

“Yes, but . . .” She was flailing around now. “But it might have been another night.”

“There was another party in your house after that one?”

There was silence.

“He never told me he was there. And his name wasn’t on the guest list. Alex had to write it up for the police. He had to ask the school for a list of all the students in his year and use that as a guide.” Her voice faltered. “I’ve seen it. It’s still at my mum’s house. David’s name isn’t on it.”

“Maybe he just heard of it and thought he’d turn up. Who knows? But, Rachel, he was there.”

“Alex didn’t know he was there,” she said, sounding puzzled. “He couldn’t have known.”

“Maybe he was in the garden when David arrived. A lot of people were outside. It was a really hot night.” I paused; I had something to tell her and I was scared to say it. “You know I identified Alex because of his T-shirt.”

“Yes, the Glastonbury T-shirt. The Coral.”

I said nothing. I closed my eyes and waited for it to dawn on her.

When it did, her voice was unsteady. “David’s wearing a Coral T-shirt in the photo.”

And I waited again for her to make that connection.

“Does . . . Oh God. Does this mean it might have been David who . . .” I could hear the tears and the fury in her voice. “Are you telling me now that it was David who raped you?”





FIFTY-NINE


    GEMMA


I COULDN’T SPEAK. What could I say? I’d accused her brother of rape. He’d died as a result of my accusation, and her mother had died because she’d lost her son. Now I was saying it was her husband who’d done it.

“So you were lying?” she screamed. “If you weren’t sure, why didn’t you say so?”

I couldn’t answer. I sat with my head bowed, my phone clamped to my ear, listening to her outrage.

“Say something!” she yelled. “All this has happened because of you!”

And suddenly I was sick of it. Sick of taking the blame for something that had been done to me so many years before. “It hasn’t happened because of me,” I shouted back. “I was asleep on Alex’s bed and someone raped me. I looked up and saw someone of Alex’s height, Alex’s build, with Alex’s T-shirt on leaving the room. What was I meant to think?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

We sat in silence for a while, both too upset to speak. I could hear her crying, then blowing her nose. She said, “Where did you get the photo from?”

“Jack Howard. He was a boy from school who was there that night.”

“I used to know him. He was one of Alex’s friends,” she said. “He played hockey with him. We gave him a lift to matches sometimes.”

“He’s the one who showed me the photos,” I said. “He took hundreds of photos that night and David was in this one. He knew David. Well, he’d met him a few times. He was taking a photo of my friend—he was crazy about her—and he didn’t notice anyone in the background. But I talked to him last night. I asked him if he recognized the person behind my friend and he said it was David.” I hesitated. “David Henderson. That’s his name?”

“Yes, it is.” She was quiet for a few moments, then said, “I remember Alex and David going to Glastonbury. They loved The Coral. Even now . . . even now David plays their songs. I don’t like it; it reminds me of that summer when Alex would play them and he’d dance with me.” She started to laugh but I could hear the tears there. “And you’re sure this is the night of the party? Absolutely certain?”

“Yes. There’s no doubt, Rachel.”

“So Alex didn’t do it,” she said. “I knew he didn’t.”

We said nothing for a minute or two. I was looking at the photo on my iPad and I knew she was looking at it, too.