of the memory back. Flashes of it.'
'Are you saying you don't believe me?'
'What about his wrist, Helen? What can you tell me about his wrist?'
'There's nothing to tell. He had his watch on.' She shook her head angrily. 'I don't understand why you are talking like this.'
'Because he had his wrist tattooed, Helen. The day after he moved out of the house.'
'He's lying.'
'To me? At that time, why would he? You made no mention about his watch in your police statement. It was only to me you mentioned it and that was after he told me about the watch. Only I didn't remember at the time.'
Helen Archer seemed to slump, she sat back on the chair and looked up at Kate, pleading with her sad eyes. 'What if it didn't happen that night? Not that one time. But what if it happened a lot before, when we were married? Does that make him any less guilty?'
Kate sighed. 'I don't know, Helen.'
'What if he made my life a living hell?' Her voice was more strident now and she stood up again. 'What if he phoned every day after he moved out? What if he kept leaving messages on the answerphone? Not threatening messages. Not anything you could take to the police. But I understood what he meant. I understood the subtext. With Paul it was his way, always. You didn't tell him it was over.'
Kate remembered the whispered words Paul Archer had said to her.
'So you set him up, you invited him over and let him have sex with you?' she asked.
Helen tore at her thumbnail. Her voice on the edge of manic. 'What are you going to do?'
'That was why there was no evidence of drugs,' said Kate. 'There never were any, were there?'
Helen looked at her, the desperation naked in her eyes. 'What are you going to do?' she said again.
But Kate couldn't answer her.
Back in the entrance foyer of the courthouse, Delaney stood up gratefully from the long wooden bench he had been sitting on as Kate approached. He could see how tense she was.
'What did she say?'
'She lied to me, Jack. She lied to everyone.'
'What are you going to do?'
'I have to do what's right. I'm going to have to testify. I'm an officer of the court.'
Kate Walker felt a tickle in the back of her throat. She coughed into her hand a little and realised she was sweating. She had been in court many times before, but this time felt different. She looked across, reassured to see Jack sitting in the public gallery. He gave her a smile. But she couldn't get the muscles in her face to smile back. She placed her hand on the Bible and promised to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
'Can you tell us in your own words what happened that night?'
Kate blinked, she had been lost in thought and had missed most of what the barrister had been asking her.
She looked across at Paul Archer. He was sat with his arms folded, looking at her with a calm, self-assured expression.
'We had been drinking. I had been drinking quite a lot, in fact. It was late. It was cold and I thought it unlikely Dr Archer would flag down a cab easily.'
'And so?'
'And so I offered him the use of my sofa.'
