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is there?' She looked at me. 'It happened, Tom.'

'I know ... and I'm so sorry. I'm sorry it happened, Luce.'

'Me too,' she said sadly.

'Can you ...? I mean, do you want to ...?'

'What? Talk about it?'

'Yeah.'

'What for? What's the point? I mean, talking about it isn't going to change anything, is it?'

'No, I suppose not...'

She looked at me, her eyes wet with tears now. 'I can't, Tom. I can't do it. I know I should, but I can't.'

'What do you mean?'

'I can't say anything ... you know, to the police. I can't tell anyone. I just can't...'

'Yeah, I know.'

I wasn't just agreeing with her because it was the easiest thing to do, I was agreeing with her because she was right. If she knew who her attackers were — and I was pretty sure that she did — her life wouldn't be worth living if she gave those names to the police. She'd have to endure an endless nightmare of threats, abuse, verbal and physical assaults ... maybe even worse.

'And the thing is,' Lucy said quietly, her voice trem­bling with tears, 'the thing is ... even if I did, you know ... even if I did tell the police who did it, they'd still get away with it, wouldn't they?'

'Well . . .

She shook her head. 'Come on, Tom, you know how it works. Even if I could identify them, give the police names ... I mean, it doesn't matter how much evidence the police have got. DNA, fingerprints, whatever ... none of it makes any difference.' Her voice was still trembling, but now it was tinged with anger too. 'All they'd have to say was that it was consensual... I agreed to it. You know, because I'm a slag ... I mean, it says so on my door, doesn't it?'

She was getting really upset now, and I was tempted to get up and put my arms round her, just hold her for a while, but — again — I didn't know if it was the right thing to do.

'What about Ben?' I said to her.

'Ben?' she said, almost spitting out his name. 'What about him?'

'Well, they can't say that he agreed to being beaten up, can they?'

She shook her head. 'Ben won't say anything. He's too scared. He's already told the police that he couldn't see their faces because they were all wearing hoods or bala­clavas.'

'Were they?'

'What?'

'Wearing hoods?'

She looked at me, hesitating. 'Some of them were ... but not the ones who actually did it.' She sniffed back tears. 'They wanted me to know who they were ... and they wanted me to know that they didn't care that I knew, because they knew there was nothing I could do about it.'

She was crying silently now, mute tears pouring down her face, and all I could do was sit there, trying hard not to cry myself, feeling more helpless than I'd ever felt before. I just didn't know what to do. Should I try to comfort her? Would she want to be comforted? Was comfort even the right thing to consider? Or should I just sit here, listening to her cry ... should I just be here for her?

As I thought about all this, I could feel my wound throbbing, and I guessed there was something going on inside my head, some cyber-connected part of me that was trying to do what it thought was the right thing ...

But, just for the moment, I didn't want anything to do with that. Whatever it was, whatever it was doing, it wasn't right for now.

'Is your head all right?' Lucy asked me, sniffing back tears and giving me a baffled look. 'Why's it doing that?'

'Doing what?' I said, suddenly embarrassed.

'I don't know ...' She was frowning at me, her eyes wrinkled with puzzlement. 'It's stopped now. It was kind of...'2 She put her hand to the side of her head, just where my scar was, and waggled her fingers. 'It was glowing, you know ... like, it was all shimmery ...' She looked at me. 'Honestly, Tom ... it was really weird.'

I shrugged. 'It was probably just a trick of the light or something.'

She shook her head. 'I don't think so.'

'Well, it feels perfectly all right,' I said, carelessly rubbing the wound, as if somehow that proved there was nothing wrong with it. 'So, uhh ...' I started to say, trying to think of a way to change the subject, but I couldn't think of anything that seemed OK to talk about.

'So ... what?' Lucy asked me.

'Nothing ...' I smiled awkwardly at her. 'I was going to ask you when you're going back to school ... but, you know ... it's a pretty stupid thing to ask.'

'Yeah, I don't know ...' she said distantly. 'I haven't really thought about it. I suppose I'll have to go back at some point ... maybe after the Easter holidays ... but at the moment, I just can't face it. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to face it, to tell you the truth. I just... it's like I don't want to do any thing. I don't want to see anyone or talk to anyone or think about anything. All I want to do is stay in here, with the curtains closed ... no, I don't even want to do that.' Her voice was a broken whisper. 'They ruined me, Tom. They totally fucking ruined me.'

'Yeah ...'

'Look, you'd better go ... I'm sorry, I just...'

'It's OK,' I said quietly, getting to my feet.

'Maybe another time ...'

'Yeah, yeah, of course...' I looked at her. 'I could come round tomorrow, if you want ... or not. I mean, whatever you want. . .'

'Yeah,' she muttered. 'Tomorrow. I'd like that... I just need to be on my own for a bit now.'

I nodded a2t her, then turned and headed for the door.

'Thanks, Tom,' I heard her whisper.

I turned back and looked at her.

She smiled sadly at me. 'I mean, thanks for ... I don't know. For just listening and everything. It was ... it was ... well, you know. Thanks.'

'No problem,' I said. 'See you later, Luce.'

'Yeah ...'

111

There are men so godlike, so exceptional, that they naturally, by right of their extraordinary gifts, transcend all moral judgement or constitutional control. There is no law which embraces men of that calibre. They are themselves law.

Aristotle

When I went back into the sitting room, Ben was still slumped on the settee, watching TV, and I could hear his mum in the kitchen doing the washing up. I went over and sat down next to him.

'All right?' he grunted, without taking his eyes off the TV.

'No, not really,' I said.