‘I’d been to a concert at the college. Wendy House. I was in my final year. There was a group of us. We’d been drinking a bit, but not a lot, and nothing more, you know, no drugs or anything. There was a boy who seemed interested in me. He wasn’t at the college, and he said he’d come up from Bradford to see the band. I didn’t know him, but he was fit, so we let him hang out with us in the bar later. When we all split up and went our own ways, he said he’d walk me home. I wasn’t drunk, and he seemed nice enough, so I didn’t mind, I wasn’t nervous or anything. We were just chatting like mates about the concert, music and stuff. Like I said, it was a mild night. I lived closer to the heart of the campus then, but it was an old house, much like this one. I had a bottle of cheap wine at home, and I offered him some, poured some for myself and went to the toilet. When I got back and started drinking it, after a while things started to get hazy. The next thing I knew it was morning, and I had a splitting headache, a dry mouth and... I... I felt terribly sore, you know, between my legs. I felt down there, and I was all sticky. I was also naked, and I didn’t remember getting undressed. I wasn’t a virgin, so it didn’t take me long to figure out what had happened. But it hadn’t happened with my consent. At least, I didn’t think so. I honestly couldn’t remember. The last thing I could bring to mind was walking back in the room from going to the loo and drinking my wine. I think there was some Wilco on the stereo. I just knew I hadn’t invited it, unless asking a boy in for a nightcap was asking for it, the way some people would have you believe. Maybe if he’d kissed me, I’d have let him. But no more. I wasn’t promiscuous. I didn’t even have a boyfriend at the time. We might have gone out together a few times and after a while, if we really liked each other, then we might have made love. But not like this. I didn’t have a chance for any of that. He raped me, and I didn’t remember a thing.’
‘I’m sorry, Lisa,’ Winsome said. ‘I mean it. What did you do?’
The shadows flickered over Lisa’s face. She sucked on her cigarette, and the tip burned brighter. ‘I got myself together. It took a while. The first day I just didn’t want to get out of the bath. I still hurt, and there was some blood. When I was able to, I talked to a few people who I knew had been with us that night, but nobody remembered who he was. I thought he must have come with someone, that someone must have invited him, but I got nowhere. I honestly don’t think people were covering for him. There was no way they could have known what he did. Maybe he came up with some mates and got separated, hung with us? There was only one odd thing I remembered from the bar earlier on the night it happened.’
‘Kyle McClusky,’ said Winsome.
‘Yes.’ Lisa peered at Winsome from under her ragged fringe. The hollows around her eyes were exaggeratedly dark, as if she had reverted to her Goth days and applied a heavy coating of kohl. ‘I distinctly remember the boy — I can’t remember his name, if I ever knew it, or what he looks like — talking to Kyle by the entrance to the toilets. I’d seen Kyle before at some of the same lectures I went to, but I didn’t really know him, or that he sold drugs.’
‘So you approached Kyle?’
‘Yes. Naturally, he laughed it off, denied the whole thing, said he’d no idea what I was talking about, and if I repeated any of it to anyone, I’d be in trouble. But I knew he was lying. And I talked to others. People who knew he sold crystal meth and roofies. It didn’t take me long to work out what had happened.’
‘So you went to Gavin Miller.’
‘I went to the only person I knew who I thought could help. Maybe now you can understand why I didn’t go to the police? Imagine what a fine witness I would have made on the stand, not remembering a thing, stumbling over the answer to every question, being made to seem like a slut. Even a sudden glimpse of my own shadow made me jump for weeks afterwards. Everyone knows that roofies are what nice college boys give to half-pissed slappers to get them into bed.’
Winsome didn’t like to tell Lisa, but she was probably right. She wouldn’t even have got as far as court with the flimsy story she had to tell. And even if she had, only about six and a half per cent of rape prosecutions are successful. The odds are that her rapist would have walked free. No wonder about ninety-five per cent of rapes went unreported.
‘Did you tell Gavin Miller what happened to you?’
‘No. I didn’t tell anyone that. I just told him about Kyle selling the drugs and all. But I think he might have guessed. If he did, he was gentleman enough not to say anything. He told me he’d deal with Kyle.’
So Kyle had been wrong in that Lisa hadn’t told Gavin Miller, but his assumption had been close enough to the truth. ‘But you didn’t know Kyle was connected with Beth and Kayleigh?’
‘No. They weren’t part of my scene. When I did find out, later, after the hearing and all, it still didn’t seem relevant until I settled down to think about it, the way you thought about our earlier conversation.’
‘What did you do after the rape?’
‘At first I was incapable of doing anything. I couldn’t even think straight, let alone help anyone. I didn’t deal with it well at all, especially not for the first few weeks. I drank too much, cut up wild. Life and soul of the party. That was me. But I didn’t sleep around. I couldn’t bear the idea of anybody touching me. Nobody could touch me. Not in any way. I felt dirty. Soiled. And worthless. It was a very strange time, like I was spinning wildly around something I couldn’t quite make out, a huge dark ugly mass at the centre of myself, a dark star that was trying to drag the rest of me, all the good bits, if there were any left, into itself, and it took all the energy I had to struggle against it and just keep spinning. There were times I didn’t dare go to sleep in case it sucked me in during the night. Even when I could, I always left the lights on. I still do. Anyway, after a while, a few weeks after Mr Miller’s dismissal, I realised what must have happened, what the girls must have done. I racked my brains for what to do. I felt responsible, like it was my fault Mr Miller had got fired, that it happened because he helped me. I was sure those girls had set him up, but there was no way of proving it. I only knew they were pally with Kyle because I saw the three of them at a party once, giggling in the corner, like I said. But that’s hardly evidence, is it? I wasn’t even sure how long ago it had happened then, but I knew it had been a while. Not that long, maybe, because I think it had all happened in March and it wasn’t the end of the year yet. It was April when I... I couldn’t deal with it. I just let things go, my studies, my appearance — not that I’d ever cared about it much, except, you know, the Goth look — my friends.’
‘What about your family?’
Lisa stiffened. ‘I didn’t tell them anything. They wouldn’t have been interested, anyway. My dad bailed years ago, and the string of useless, idle buggers my mother took in after that would’ve only laughed in my face and then grabbed my tits.’
Winsome nodded. Not a point to pursue, then. ‘So you were alone with your feelings?’
‘I got used to it. Am used to it. It’s amazing what you can get used to when you have to. Things are different now, in a lot of ways, but I still feel alone. When it comes right down to it, we’re born alone and we die alone, and pretty much all the time in between we’re alone, too. Mr Miller was right about that.’
‘You talked about things like that?’
‘Life, philosophy, being, religion? Sure.’
‘What did you do in the end?’
‘You already know what I did, don’t you? That’s why you’re here.’