Career of Evil

Robin, who had already made two rounds of tea and had cooked spaghetti hoops for Zahara, was sitting on the hard floor beneath the window. She had felt obliged to stay until they could get an emergency joiner to fix the door that Shanker had shouldered in. Nobody had yet called the police. Mother and daughter were still confiding in each other and Robin felt like an interloper, yet could not leave the family until she knew that they had a secure door and a new lock. Zahara was asleep on the sofa beside her mother and sister, curled up with her thumb in her mouth, one chubby hand still clutching the sippy cup.

“He said he’d kill Zahara if I told you,” said Angel into her mother’s neck.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” moaned Alyssa, tears splattering down her daughter’s back. “Oh, sweet Lord.”

The ominous feeling inside Robin was like having a bellyful of crawling, prickle-footed crabs. She had texted her mother and Matthew to say that the police needed to show her more photofits, but both were getting worried about her long absence and she was running out of plausible reasons to stop them coming to meet her. Again and again she checked the mute button on her phone in case somehow she had stopped it ringing. Where was Shanker?

The joiner arrived at last. Once Robin had given him her credit card details to pay for the damage, she told Alyssa that she had better get going.

Alyssa left Angel and Zahara curled up together on the sofa and accompanied Robin out into the dusky street.

“Listen,” said Alyssa.

There were still tear tracks down her face. Robin could tell that Alyssa was unused to thanking people.

“Thanks, all right?” she said, almost aggressively.

“No problem,” said Robin.

“I never — I mean — I met him at fucking church. I thought I’d found a good bloke at last, y’know... he was really good with the — with the kids—”

She began to sob. Robin considered reaching out to her, but decided against it. She was bruised all over her shoulders where Alyssa had pummeled her and her knife wound was throbbing more than ever.

“Has Brittany really been phoning him?” Robin asked.

“’S’what he told me,” said Alyssa, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. “He reckoned his ex-wife framed him, got Brittany to lie... said if ever a young blonde bird turned up she was talking shit and I wasn’t to believe anything she said.”

Robin remembered the low voice in her ear:

Do A know you, little girl?

He had thought that she was Brittany. That was why he had hung up and never called back.

“I’d better be off,” said Robin, worried about how long it would take her to get back to West Ealing. Her body ached all over. Alyssa had landed some powerful blows. “You’ll call the police, right?”

“I s’pose,” said Alyssa. Robin suspected that the idea was a novel one to Alyssa. “Yeah.”

As Robin walked away in the darkness, her fist clenched tightly around her second rape alarm, she wondered what Brittany Brockbank had found to say to her stepfather, and thought she knew: “I haven’t forgotten. Do it again and I’ll report you.” Perhaps it had been a salve to her conscience. She had been frightened that he was still doing to others what he had done to her, but could not face the consequences of a historical accusation.

I put it to you, Miss Brockbank, that your stepfather never touched you, that this story was concocted by yourself and your mother...

Robin knew how it worked. The defense barrister she had faced had been cold and sardonic, his expression vulpine.

You were coming back from the student bar, Miss Ellacott, where you had been drinking, yes?

You had made a public joke about missing the — ah — attentions of your boyfriend, yes?

When you met Mr. Trewin—

I didn’t—

When you met Mr. Trewin outside the halls of residence—

I didn’t meet—

You told Mr. Trewin you were missing—

We never talked—

I put it to you, Miss Ellacott, that you are ashamed of inviting Mr. Trewin—

I didn’t invite—

You had made a joke, Miss Ellacott, hadn’t you, in the bar, about missing the, ah, sexual attentions of—

I said I missed—

How many drinks had you had, Miss Ellacott?