Page 143 of Maybe Tomorrow

Jennifer was shaking with nerves. ‘Thank you.’

Freya pushed open the door to interview room one. Malcolm was sitting alone at the table. A uniformed police officer stood by the door. Malcolm had removed his jacket and tie. The top button of his shirt was undone, and his sleeves were rolled up. He looked drawn and pale. His eyes were red from being rubbed. He lookedup and started crying the second he saw Jennifer enter the room.

Jennifer approached the table. Freya pulled out a chair and sat her down.

‘Jen,’ Malcolm reached out to her, but she pulled her hands away.

‘What have you done?’ Her voice was quiet, but there was so much energy and emotion behind her words.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.

‘Tell me everything that happened. Leave nothing out,’ she seethed.

He nodded. ‘I used to visit a prostitute on Canal Street,’ he began.

‘What?’ Jennifer’s mouth fell open. ‘How long had this been going on?’

Freya intervened. ‘Jennifer, let him tell you what he needs to say. We don’t have much time.’

‘I’d been visiting them on and off for a number of years. Sometimes months could go by between visits. The night of the storm, you’d been away for a few days visiting your mum. You’d found that lump in your breast, remember? The results came back fine. It was a cyst, but it was a prominent lump and you said it made you feel unattractive. I said to come home and we’d have a nice meal, bottle of wine, and I’d make you feel attractive, but you said it would be a while before you’d let me see you without any clothes on.’

‘So, you went to a prostitute because of my lump?’ Jennifer spat.

‘No. It wasn’t because of you. None of this is because of you. It’s all because of me. I went down to Canal Street, but there was no one there. I should have guessed; the storm was pretty bad. But, I was… I…’

‘You were horny,’ Freya said for him. She’d heard his side of the story so knew what he was struggling to say.

‘Yes. All right. I was horny. I don’t think the storm helped. It seemed to make things worse. I needed to… I drove around and I pulled over in the woods and I… I was masturbating when I looked up and saw… and saw…’

‘Oh my God.’ Jennifer was crying. Freya handed her a tissue. ‘Alice saw you. Didn’t she?’

Malcolm wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. He nodded. ‘I didn’t see her. I didn’t notice her sheltering under a tree. She was looking straight at me. I… I wound down the window. I asked… I asked her to…’

‘Oh my God,’ Jennifer said, wrapping her arms around herself, rocking slightly.

‘She screamed. She just started screaming. I didn’t know what to do. I opened the car door and got out. I looked down and saw that I hadn’t done up my trousers. She ran off. I ran after her.’

‘Why?’

‘To explain… I don’t know why. I caught up with her. I grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around. I was still… I was still hard. The rain, the wind, the intensity of the storm… I kissed her.’

Jennifer slapped a hand to her mouth to hold in a scream.

‘I really don’t remember much of what happened next. It’s like I was taken over by something, and I don’t know what. I remember leaning back after I’d r— r—’ He struggled to say it.

‘Raped her,’ Jennifer completed the sentence for him.

He nodded. ‘I looked down at her. She was so scared. She looked so young. I couldn’t believe what I’d just done. She was crying. She said she wanted to go home.’ He was struggling to get the words out through his tears. ‘I just thought, this is where it all ends. I’m on the council. I want to be an MP. I’ve ruined everything, before it’s even started. And then there’s this massive crash of thunder and the lightning and I realise that nobody’s going to be out in this weather. Nobody will have seen me. If I could get home without being seen, I could pretend like it hasn’t happened. And I look down, and I see her looking at me and I swear to God she knows… she knows what I’m going to do. I strangled her, Jen. I strangled her.’ His words were lost to his cries.

‘All this time. When I spoke to you about representing Anthony and how much I believed him. You knew the truth, all this time.’

‘I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell you. I knew how disappointed you’d be in me. Everything started snowballing out of control. First, you were representing him, and when you lost I thought that was it, but you wouldn’t leave it alone, you wouldn’t stop. You believed in him. Then you set up the charity and you got people out of prison, but you kept going back to Anthony. Time and time again, you kept returning to that case and there was nothing I could do to stop you.’

Jennifer didn’t say anything.

Malcolm didn’t say anything.

The silence between them grew.