The Victim

  He was torn by the desperation in her eyes and he did want to help her but this wasn’t the way. His marriage was more important to him than anything else in the world and the ethics of the whole situation were just wrong. He couldn’t help her.

  He stood up firmly.

  “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

  This time she chased him out of the building.

  He stopped and looked at her. She frantically took a piece of paper and a pen out of her purse and wrote a number down.

  “At least think about it,” she implored. “Take a couple of days. Then call me. If your decision is still no I will accept that and never bother you again.”

  He snatched the bit of paper from her hand and left.

  Chapter Five

  When he arrived home his anger still hadn’t subsided but when he saw his wife his anger turned to passion. She greeted him at the door and he kissed her hungrily. She was taken by surprise but didn’t protest. He made love to her with an abandon that they hadn’t had for years and she collapsed on top of him as they both came loudly.

  As she lay on top of him afterwards, her head resting on his chest and her fingers playing with the hair of his stomach she could sense that something was wrong.

  “Did something happen today baby?”

  He sighed, wondering how truthful he should be with her. They never kept any secrets from each other. He would tell her everything.

  “You remember that girl I told you about a few weeks ago? The one that had been raped?”

  “Yeah I remember.”

  “I saw her again today.”

  “Oh….did she make another appointment?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s been following me.”

  “What?” she exclaimed, the disbelief clear on her face.

  “Yep.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I’d had a feeling for a couple of weeks that I was being followed. I can’t explain how I knew, I just did. I installed some surveillance equipment at work. When I saw her there earlier today I confronted her.”

  “What did she say?”

  He took a deep breath before responding.

  “You’re not going to like what she said.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “She asked me to have sex with her.”

  She almost jumped out the bed then.

  “What the fuck!” she exclaimed. “Did you do it?”

  “No of course not!”

  “I should bloody hope not.”

  He couldn’t help it. He laughed at her. Then she snorted with laughter as well and hit him hard with her pillow.

  “So apart from you being a stunning man, what reason did she give for wanting to sleep with you?”

  “She said that she trusts me. She says that she wants to be able to have normal relationships again but that she is scared to be intimate. She thinks that I was kind to her and it has caused some weird fixation. I felt sorry for her.”

  She looked at him with kindness in her eyes.

  “Thank you for being telling me the truth.”

  She pushed him back onto the bed, straddled him and they made love again for the second time that night.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning he kissed Ruth goodbye and they went to work as normal. After a busy couple of hours he was surprised when she came in to his office just after noon.

  “Join me for lunch?” she asked with a smile.

  He met her in the same pub that he had met the raped girl the previous day.

  She waved him over to a table by the window as he walked through the door.

  She had got him an orange juice, and he took a long gulp before kissing her in greeting.

  “This is a nice surprise. We should do this more often.”

  She smiled at him and played with her straw.

  “Something on your mind?” he asked her.

  “I was thinking about our conversation last night.”

  “What do you mean? I promise I never did anything with that girl if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I’m not worried, I trust you.”

  “Ok.” He breathed a sigh of relief.

  “What do you want to talk about then?”

  “I think you should think about her offer.”

  He looked up at her, the shock evident on his face.

  “Hear me out,” she said.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “I thought about this all night. I absolutely hate the idea that I’m suggesting it but this whole thing is bigger than you and me. You’re a doctor, you have a responsibility to help this girl.”

  “By sleeping with her? Have you gone mad?”

  “I don’t think so. Look I know it’s a strange thing to say coming from your wife. I can see why you might be freaked out.”

  “No shit,” he replied.

  “I just think you need to help this girl, she’s obviously vulnerable, and for whatever reason fate has brought you together.”

  “I don’t believe in fate.”

  “When you look back on your life, how will you feel if you do what I’m asking and this girl goes on to get married, have children and live a happy life? Will you feel proud?”

  “No, because I will have betrayed the marriage vows I made to you twenty years ago.”

  “Except you won’t have,” she countered. “What is the most important thing in a marriage?” she asked him.

  He shrugged his shoulders. He barely recognised the woman sat in front of him. He couldn’t believe what she was asking of him.

  “Look will you at least think about it? You need to help this girl.”

  “I don’t need to help anyone.”

  She looked at him with disappointment evident in her face.

  “If you do decide to go through with this, I have one condition.”

  “Which is?” he asked.

  “I want to speak to her first. I need to check that what she is saying is genuine and there is no hidden motive. If I think there is something not right about her I will tell her to leave us alone forever.”

  “Ok.”

  “I assume you have a way of contacting her?”

  “Yes I do,” he replied, handing her the phone number.

  “I’ll make the arrangements,” she said.

  Later that evening they pulled up outside a hotel.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked her.

  “I’m sure,” she said. “What’s the worst that can happen? If I don’t trust her I’ll come out and we’ll never look back.”

  She leaned over to him, kissing him, her hand lingering on his upper thigh until he felt the hardness grow in his trousers. She got out then. He waited in the car.

  He watched nervously as she walked into the hotel and out of sight.

  What would happen? He wished he could be a fly on the wall.

  He tried to distract himself with his phone but couldn’t focus on anything.

  He checked his watch. She had been gone 45 minutes already. Surely this was too long. He would give her an hour and then he was going in.

  Just as he was about to get out of the car, he saw her. She rushed over to him, opened the door and climbed in.

  Her face was flushed.

  “You ok?” he asked her. “What happened?”

  “Same time, same place tomorrow. Except instead of me going in it will be you.”

  When they got home they climbed into bed and lay together silently.

  She looked deep into his eyes.

  “Whatever happens tomorrow, just remember that I love you,” she said. She cradled him in his arms, and they fell asleep together.

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning she kissed him goodbye.

  “I’ll be waiting for you when you get home. Don’t worry about anything. Remember that I want you to help this girl. I have encouraged you to do this.”
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  He couldn’t focus on anything at work. His patients must have felt neglected and they had every right to feel so.

  For once in his life he wasn’t looking forward to the end of the day, and time seemed to travel especially quickly.

  His secretary came in, put some folders on his desk and said she was finishing for the day.

  He said goodbye and he heard her close the doors on the way out.

  When he was alone in his office, he was overcome with a crippling anxiety. What the hell had he agreed to? He didn’t want to do this. He should just go home, be firm with his wife and tell her he wasn’t going to go through with it.

  But maybe she was right. Maybe this was about more than him or her, but about a girl who had been brutally attacked and needed his help to move on with her life. Maybe he should stop being so damned conscientious and enjoy the opportunity of making love to another woman without the fear of recrimination.

  He took a deep breath and felt his nerves easing. He felt like he was at a fork in the road. Whichever path he chose to take could shape how he felt about the rest of his life.

  He was going to be strong. He was going to help this girl then he was going to go home to his wife and move on.

  He arrived at the hotel, just as the sun was setting. His wife had told him that girl would be in room 302. He moved straight to the lift, smiling at the inquisitive girl behind the reception desk. She didn’t stop him. Another woman joined him in the lift as he made his way to the third floor of the hotel and along the corridor.

  Finally he arrived outside the door. His hands were visibly shaking. He knocked lightly on the door. At first there was no response, then he heard the quiet rustling of movement from inside.

  The door opened. She was as beautiful as he remembered.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said, before stepping backwards to let him into the room.

  He left just over an hour later. He wasn’t sure how to feel about what had happened. He had been gentle and tender and she had become emotional but he had gone ahead with it. He wouldn’t say he regretted it. He just had a very weird feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  He couldn’t wait to get home.

  His wife was waiting for him when he walked through the door with a glass of wine in her hand, which he accepted gratefully.

  They moved into the sitting room and he collapsed in a chair. She joined him quietly and pulled his head into her, tenderly running her hands through his hair. They didn’t talk.

  She took him by the hand then and quietly led him upstairs to bed.

  He woke early the next morning. Rolling over he found his wife’s side of the bed empty, but still warm. Her wet towel lay discarded on the bedroom floor.

  As he sat up the smell of cooked bacon wafted up his nostrils. He got out of bed, pulling on an old t shirt and some shorts and walked downstairs. She was just dishing up an enormous plate of food when he sat down at the kitchen table.

  He looked down salivating. Bacon, sausage, egg, tomatoes, hash browns, black pudding, served with lovely fresh bread. They both ate a very healthily normally but as long as he could remember a full fried breakfast had always been his guilty pleasure.

  After he had finished eating, he showered and dressed, his trousers feeling slightly tighter around the middle. He would skip lunch later.

  He arrived at the office and had a busy morning of back to back patients. Just after noon, his receptionist knocked on the door and brought with her the morning post. Mostly insurance documents, but as he flicked through them there was an envelope which simply had his first name on.

  Confused, he opened the envelope and a number of photographs fell out onto the floor. Picking them up, he recoiled in horror. They were images of him in that hotel room with the woman last night.

  They had obviously been taken with a secret security camera. What the fuck was this? Was he being blackmailed? He was so angry. He called his wife straightaway but she didn’t pick up. Probably in class.

  He paced around his office. What the hell was he going to do? He knew he couldn’t stay at work. He picked up his bag and cancelled his appointments for the afternoon. He decided to walk the six miles home to try and clear his head and come up with some sort of plan.

  He walked up the driveway and was surprised to see lights on in the house. If his wife was at home why hadn’t she answered the phone?

  He took his key out of his jacket pocket, put it in and turned the lock. The door didn’t open. Confused, he pulled it out, checked it was the right key and tried again.

  The locks must have been changed. Surely his wife would have let him know if something bad had happened. He put the keys back in his pocket and rang the doorbell. No answer. He tried again and rapped his knuckles hard on the door.

  If she was in the house why wasn’t she answering?

  He then saw movement through the blurred glass and relief flooded through him.

  However rather than answer the door, she pushed an envelope through the letterbox to him.

  He called out her name but she didn’t reply.

  With no other option he opened the envelope and his heart sank. Divorce papers. Something really fucked up was going on.

  He felt bile rise up in his throat. As he screamed out his wife’s name he threw up all over the patio.

  He took three deep breaths and tried to maintain his composure. He needed to work out what was going on. He walked down the path and headed back to his office. He needed his laptop and the video of the girl. He was being conned here and he needed as much evidence as possible to present to a lawyer.

  While his brain had started to work methodically, his heart was breaking.

  Why was his wife doing this to him? She was going to throw away 20 years of their marriage for something she had encouraged him to do. It just didn’t make any sense.

  With his mind whirring he was back at work before he had even had time to think. He knew immediately that something was wrong. He knew that his receptionist always locked up when she left and yet the door was ajar. As he got closer he could hear the alarm going off inside.

  He walked through the door, punched the four digit code into the alarm system and the room went quiet. The door to his office was open. His laptop was gone. He ran out to the trees where he had installed the cameras and they were gone too.

  Dejected, he walked to the nearest hotel, checked himself into a room for the next two weeks and called a lawyer.

  Chapter Eight

   

  “You can’t be serious.”

  David had just relayed the story to his increasingly disbelieving lawyer.

  He nodded his head.

  “That is the truth, word for word.”

  “Then you’re in a world of trouble. Let me get this straight. A woman comes to you claiming she has been raped. She is a patient. Yet three weeks later you sleep with her. Your wife has encouraged you to do this. Someone records the whole thing. You get sent pictures in the post, then later that day your wife serves you divorce papers. Jesus Christ you live a complicated life.”

  David’s chin sunk to his chest.

  “The way I see this it’s strictly damage limitation. She wants the house and half of everything you own. I say give it to her.”

  “No way. I’m being screwed here. I’m not giving her a damn thing.”

  “You’re a doctor, you need to start thinking logically here. She has you over a barrel. Even if you can prove that she consented to what you did in that hotel room there is still the small matter that the woman in the hotel was a patient. Which means your career is over. Now if you’re telling me the truth, which for some reason I think you are, then we need to track down this woman and find out what her agenda is. I suspect she’s either a con artist or a prostitute that your wife hired. If we can find her we might have a bargaining chip but I suspect she will have gone to ground.”

  There was silence in the room.

  “Look, I need to ask yo
u a couple of questions, and don’t hate me for saying them but I need to make sure otherwise I wouldn’t be doing my job properly. Is there anything you can think of that you’ve done to bring this sort of thing on? Have you ever been violent, controlling, or possessive? Anything that might have prompted her behaviour.”

  “Nothing.” David replied. “Until 72 hours ago I would have said we had one of the best marriages of anybody I know. We had our ups and downs but we always came through them. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with this woman.”

  David spent the next two weeks attempting to track down the woman who had claimed to be raped and trying in vain to contact his wife. He left her hundreds of voicemails and texts but no reply. Eventually a policeman knocked on his hotel room door and said he would have to stop contacting her as she was threatening a restraining order.

  Defeated, he gave up.

  Chapter Nine

  Six months later he sat outside a secluded hotel in his car, an open bottle of whisky half empty in his lap.

  His wife had taken him to the cleaners in the divorce. He had to sell their home which left him just enough money to buy a cramped two bedroom apartment.

  The rest of the money he had left had been spent on private investigators. Finally, after all this time, he believed he had a lead on the girl who might be able to save his life, and had purchased all the necessary equipment to enable him to do so.

  If he could find her and get her to tell the truth, he would at least be able to contest the divorce settlement, though it might put his career in jeopardy.

  Just as he was about to give up for the night a car pulled up a couple of spaces down. He slumped low in his chair.

  It was her. He watched as she got awkwardly out of the car.

  She was heavily pregnant. Could that one night stand have produced the child him and his wife had so yearned for?

  She got some bags off the front seat and walked slowly into the hotel.

  His senses were now on full alert, the alcohol having no effect as adrenaline coursed through his veins. He closed the door quietly and moved into the hotel reception as she turned down the corridor.

  He followed, maintaining a reasonable distance so she wouldn’t hear him coming.

  He thought she had seen him when she turned to open her bedroom door, but he managed to push through a fire exit just as her eyes passed over him.