The Marriage Act(84)
‘My bracelet has a panic button,’ Harrison replied as she turned to face Corrine. Her finger hovered above it. ‘The flat will be swarming with police by the time you reach the lobby.’
‘Don’t let me stop you. I’m sure they’ll be interested in the footage I filmed that night.’ Corrine removed a burner phone from her pocket and threw it across the room to Harrison. ‘Open the media folder. It’s the only clip.’
She watched carefully as a narrow-eyed Harrison viewed it in its entirety. Her expression remained stoic.
‘This doesn’t mean anything,’ she responded. ‘I’ll say it’s Deepfake.’
‘I have sworn statements from the young man in that clip and others who you also drugged and sexually assaulted.’ It wasn’t the complete truth but Harrison wasn’t to know that. ‘It doesn’t matter if not everyone believes us because there will be enough people who do to ensure your position in the education department is untenable. By the time the police arrive, you will be viral.’
Corrine’s awareness of Harrison’s predisposition towards younger men began when two boys in their late teens had confided to friends in different Freedom for All branches that they thought they might have been assaulted by her. They had been waitering at separate business functions attended by Harrison, and she had invited them back to her New Northampton apartment under the guise of participating in an informal think-tank on how the Government could improve its education system. There would be others there too, she told them. Only when they arrived, they were alone with her.
They had accepted the alcoholic drink she’d offered, unaware it was spiked with a combination of drugs that had left them anaesthetized, hallucinating, incapable of fending off her advances, yet physically aroused. Later, they had been too ashamed to report their assaults to the police for fear there was no proof and that they wouldn’t be believed.
Corrine’s branch was tasked with exposing her. Their youngest member, Nathan, was a slim, dark-haired lad who resembled the two boys Harrison had previously assaulted. He had volunteered to infiltrate the agency used to hire waitering staff for local Government functions. Then, on confirmation of Harrison’s planned attendance at one, Corrine had been tasked with recording evidence from a bodycam Nathan wore, as well as ensuring his safe transport to the event and evacuation from Harrison’s apartment if required. Once an attempted assault took place, FFA’s tech team would upload footage of it to all social media outlets and news sites before Harrison’s lawyers could threaten them with injunctions and cease and desist orders.
However, their plan went awry soon after Nathan entered Harrison’s home. Corrine, watching, thought he was already behaving oddly. Only later did she assume that Harrison had spiked his drink at the bar earlier and incorrectly measured the doses of the two drugs. Instead of arousing and suppressing him, they’d combined to make him uncharacteristically aggressive.
Having watched in horror as Nathan had begun shouting and screaming at a terrified Harrison, Corrine had raced into the building, letting herself in with the code she’d seen the MP input via Nathan’s bodycam. She’d run up three flights of stairs to find Nathan crouching over Harrison’s unconscious body, the woman’s forehead bloody.
‘No!’ Corrine had gasped and in shock, Nathan had turned around, face contorted and irises wildly dilated. He’d then punched Corrine in the mouth, sending her spiralling into an armchair. Despite his strength, she’d managed to drag him to the front door where he’d dropped to the floor, his body twisting and his mouth foaming in the first of a series of convulsions. Even now as she recalled it so vividly, it made her queasy.
‘Who are you?’ asked Harrison now. ‘A journalist?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t look like a vigilante so you must represent someone.’
‘I am a member of Freedom for All but I’m not here on their behalf.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I want your help in return for my silence.’
Harrison looked surprised. ‘You’re here to blackmail me?’
Corrine hesitated. And as much as she hated herself for it, she nodded.
67
Anthony
Although only separated by the width of a garden table, the distance between husband and wife felt wider than the Grand Canyon. Anthony wanted nothing more than to approach Jada, hold her tightly in his arms and, once again, apologize profusely. But he knew her inside and out, and a hug and yet another ‘sorry’ wouldn’t come close to making up for the hurt he’d caused. Forgiveness was out of the question for now. If at all.
Anthony had waited until their son was asleep before offering selected highlights of his meeting in London a day earlier with Eleanor Harrison and how he had little choice but to return to the career he detested if he wanted to protect his family. If Jada knew the details of why he was so desperate to quit his job, perhaps she might be a little more understanding. But he was bound by contracts that guaranteed his silence. And Jada didn’t deserve to be burdened by his knowledge.
‘So that’s it?’ she said when he finished. ‘We weren’t being recorded, then we were and now we aren’t again?’ Anthony nodded. ‘And why should I believe you? You’ve been happy to lie to me for the last three years; why should I trust a word that comes out of your mouth?’