My anger backed and died, dragging my shoulders down with it. I didn’t need to ask him to explain any further than that. I knew exactly the lie I’d told him, if not in so many words, then certainly by omission.
“How did you find out?” I asked in a small voice. I couldn’t entirely keep out the bite as I added, “Madeleine?”
Sean threw me a warning glance. “No, as it happens,” he said and his grim tone told me that Madeleine’s silence on the subject had not met with his approval either. Then he let his breath out hard through his nose. “Does it matter how I found out? What matters is that I know and
It was the note of accusation in his voice that did it. The pain in my body now extended right the way to my soul. Before I knew it I’d pushed Sean roughly against the stone at his back, with my arm across his throat and my face close in to his. He could have stopped me, but he didn’t do it.
“What did you want me to tell you, Sean?” I hissed. I wanted to hurt him, like he was hurting me. I bunched my fists into his T-shirt at the shoulder, gripped until my hands ached.
“Did you want me to just come right out with it? That the four of them beat me up, and then they held me down and they raped me, one by one?” I said, deliberate, my eyes fixed on his face. “When would have been a good time to break that kind of news, hmm? You tell me. Over a quiet drink perhaps? Dinner?”
He made an impatient gesture, a shrug like a horse trying to twitch off flies, then he stilled and I felt his muscles give.
“I don’t know how you should have done it, Charlie, OK?” he said, sounding unbearably tired, as though he’d been holding out some last slim hope that it had all been a mistake. “All I know is that you kept it from me. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I let go of him, stepped back not meeting his eyes. It suddenly struck me how cold it was. My jacket wasn’t enough to keep it out and when I wrapped my arms around my body I discovered I was shivering.
“How could I bloody tell you?” I said. “At the time I thought you’d abandoned me, and then later you thought
“I didn’t abandon you, Charlie, you know that,” he said in a perfectly reasonable tone. “But how could I not believe them when all the evidence at the time was pointing that way?”
The anger clawed back up my throat like bile.
“Oh well, if you were working on evidence alone, I would have been twice damned, wouldn’t I?” I threw at him. “After all, the
I swear I saw him flinch, but I could have been mistaken. He hid it fast and rounded on me.
“So how did they explain you getting your throat half cut?” he bit back. “Did that not count against them, or was it just dismissed as part of some bizarre sexual game?”
Scorched and wounded, we were just aiming to score points. It was the way I’d feared it might go when I’d walked through the possibilities of coming clean with Sean, of telling him everything. It was precisely why I’d never had the courage to do so.
My temper subsided, leaving me hollow and shaky in its wake. “They didn’t cut me,” I said, weary myself now. “That happened last winter. Somebody tried for a repeat performance.”
“What happened?” Sean said. There was an odd note in his voice, as though he’d realised what we’d been doing, too. I glanced at him, but could read nothing in his face.
“They didn’t succeed,” I said, my voice flat.
“So this is the final version of this story is it, Charlie?” he said softly. “No more nasty little surprises in store?”
“No. No more surprises,” I said, bitter. “What is it, Sean? You think I
“You were good enough to have stopped them, Charlie,” he said, close to vehement. He was staring out across the Manor grounds to the far tree-line, avoiding my gaze. “I know you were.
It sounded like a recommendation, but underneath it his ultimate lack of trust burned like a needle in my arm. I shook my head. “Not when it mattered I wasn’t. I froze up. I panicked, OK? And you forget – they knew exactly the same moves I did. Exactly the same counters. They were one step ahead of me all the way.”
“I’ve seen you in action. You didn’t freeze up then.”
“No, I didn’t,” I agreed, “but there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then.” I paused, then offered quietly, “Maybe knowing exactly what the penalties are for failing makes it easier to be brave.”
He turned so abruptly it almost made me start, moved in close. He put his hands on my shoulders tentatively, as though afraid I’d break. “I’m just so sorry that I wasn’t there for you, Charlie,” he said, and I realised that all his anger and revulsion had been directed inwards.
The unexpected relief caught me off guard, crumbled me. Tears sprang into my eyes, rolled down my face. Sean took one look at them, gave a sound that might have been a sigh, and gathered me into his arms.
Just briefly, I struggled against him, but he tightened his grip, almost crushing me. In the end I gave in and simply clung to him, my cheek pressing wetly against his shoulder.
He held me so tight I could hardly breathe, but I didn’t care. We stood like that for what seemed like a long time, not speaking. The whole school and Gregor Venko’s private army could have descended on us, and still I doubt we would have broken apart.
Eventually I felt Sean’s head lift, felt his chin graze against my hair.
“I am. So. Damned. Sorry,” he said, and I heard the anguish ripping through his voice as I registered that he’d been masking his own overspill of emotion as much as my own.
He let me go then, stepped back from me, letting his hands drop away as though he couldn’t bear to touch me any more. “And it’s not enough, is it? Not nearly enough to even begin to heal what you went through because of me.”
A cold dismay clutched at me. Sean’s anger I could deal with, anything else terrified me. I reached forwards and grabbed his arm, spinning him to face me.
“Either you take me as I am today Sean, or you get out of my life and you leave me alone,” I said, my voice low with feeling, close to breaking altogether. “Make a choice, because I won’t have half measures from you.”
And with that I turned my back and stalked away from him, not knowing if I’d just opened up the future for us, or cut it off at the knees before it could even begin.
***
I found I was heading for the back of the Manor and having started in that direction, I kept going. There were the customary gaggle of smokers on the terrace, stamping their feet as they cupped their cold hands around their cigarettes. A grabbed opportunity to feed their addiction before the next lesson.
As usual, Elsa was among them, even though I’d never actually noticed her light up. I saw her head lift as soon as I rounded the corner of the house and she watched my progress from there intently, hurrying to intercept me as I climbed the terrace steps. Her eyes darted over my face.
“So, Charlie, what is this between you and Mr Meyer?” she asked right away. Loudly.
I cursed inwardly even as I forced a smile between stiff lips.
“What do you mean?” I asked, playing for time so I could move closer, force her to lower her voice a little. Even so, it was clear we had the full attention of everyone present. Romundstad and Craddock had edged nearer with barely disguised curiosity.
“Oh come on, Charlie,” Elsa said, recognising my stall for what it was and giving me an old-fashioned look from behind the tinted lenses of her glasses. One that said, clearly, you’re going to have to do better than that.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I said, shrugging. “I did a course he was instructing on once, in the army. From what I can remember he was a right bastard back then, too.”
“But apart from that, you don’t know him?” she insisted.
