Karyn was lying on her back, almost entirely covered by the duvet. She looked sweet, like she’d been tucked in. But when Ellie switched on the lamp, she knew something was wrong. It was more than the spilled water darkening the carpet, more than Karyn’s shoes skewed across the room, more than the sleeping bag on top of the wardrobe where it always was, so why had Tom lied about getting it? It was something to do with angles and shadows.
‘I lifted up the duvet,’ Ellie told Detective Thomas. ‘I knew something wasn’t right.’
‘And what did you see?’
The shocking curl of pubic hair. Knickers ripped down. Legs at uncomfortable slants. Hair tangled like seaweed across the pillow.
‘Ellie?’
‘She was… she was undressed.’
‘Karyn was naked?’
‘No. Her clothes were… they were pulled up or down, depending…’
‘You’re going to have to be a bit more specific, I’m afraid.’
But her mum was listening, a tissue balled up in her hand. And the man at the laptop was listening, and this was Karyn, vulnerable. It would be written down and recorded and read out in court.
Detective Thomas tapped her pencil on the table. Detective Bryce swung on his chair. There were sweat patches under his arms.
‘Her… her knickers were down and her skirt was up and her top was pushed up as well, and she was, she couldn’t… She was…’
‘What, Ellie?’
‘She was doing this thing with her hands, like she was struggling to get up, but couldn’t, like she was in pain. I don’t think she knew… I mean, I don’t think she… I don’t think she consented.’
Detective Thomas shrugged. ‘Consented to what? Maybe she was hot and simply tried to undress herself.’
‘It wasn’t that, it was different from that. Something had happened to her.’
‘Perhaps you interrupted an intimate situation and she chose to feign sleep because she was embarrassed.’
‘No.’
‘You seem very sure.’
Because she’d given herself these same excuses for weeks and they didn’t cut it. Karyn looked like she’d crashed from the sky.
The detective tapped her pencil some more, gazing at Ellie as if she was utterly bored. ‘Have you had some kind of argument with your brother recently?’
‘No.’
‘Perhaps you’re jealous of all the interest people are taking in him?’
‘I’m not.’
‘Do you feel left out? Would you like some attention for yourself?’
‘This is ridiculous,’ Mum cut in. ‘You think what’s happening to her brother is something she wants? Do you know how crippled our family is by this?’
‘Mrs Parker,’ the detective snapped, ‘will you stop interrupting!’
‘Please,’ Ellie said, ‘you have to believe me, I’m telling you the truth.’
‘That’s what you said last time.’
‘But this time I am.’
Why weren’t they taking her seriously? This had to be worth something. The truth had to count.
‘Listen,’ she said, trying to steady her breathing. ‘There were photos. Tom doesn’t know I saw them, but he took photos.’
‘No,’ the detective said, ‘we seized his phone and laptop and there were no photos.’
‘I deleted them.’
The detective leaned forward slowly, furiously, her eyes glittering. ‘Let me get this right. You found photos of your brother assaulting Karyn and you deleted them?’
‘I didn’t want Tom sending them to Freddie… I didn’t want them on the internet. It would be terrible… for Karyn, I mean, so I deleted them and overwrote the memory.’
‘Describe these photos!’
Ellie was startled. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… I wanted to help Karyn.’
‘By destroying the evidence?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ellie whispered into the silence.
‘Please,’ Mum said, ‘don’t talk to her like this.’
The detective slapped her hand on the table. ‘Mrs Parker, if you keep interjecting, I will have you escorted from the room, do you understand?’
Mum bit her lip, nodded.
The detective turned back to Ellie. ‘Now, I asked you to describe the photos. How many were there?’
‘Six.’
‘What were they of?’
‘Karyn in different… in different positions, you know.’
‘No, I don’t know, which is why I’m asking you.’
‘They were graphic…’
‘You’re going to have to do much better than that if you want me to believe you. Were there pictures of penetration?’
Ellie cringed. ‘No! The first one, her skirt was a bit up, then the next one, it was a bit more up and her knickers were a bit… you know, down… and then on like that, until the last one, when she was undressed.’
‘You said earlier she wasn’t undressed.’
‘She wasn’t, not completely…’
‘These photos don’t prove a thing, do they? They probably never existed, and even if they did, Karyn could have posed for them. Why not? You said yourself she liked your brother, was flirting with him, kissing him. She posed for the pictures, had sex with him, then regretted it.’
Ellie looked out of the window at the sky. None of this was making a difference, none of it was counting for anything. She thought of Karyn in her flat, just stuck there. All these weeks in a world made up of shadows.
She took a breath, determined. ‘I know you think I’m making this up now, but I’m not. I told myself my brother took a few pictures to prove something to his friends, like a dare. I didn’t say anything straight away and I should have done. I’m sorry I didn’t, but those pictures definitely existed.’
Detective Thomas looked at her impassively. ‘You found out pretty quickly that your brother did a lot more than take pictures. He was arrested the following day and admitted having sex with Karyn. He said she consented and that he had no idea about her age. If you knew she couldn’t possibly have consented, if you knew he
‘I didn’t want it to be true.’
‘Withholding evidence doesn’t make someone innocent.’
‘I know.’
‘Did Tom ask you to lie?’
‘No. I didn’t see him again until he got bail.’
‘But he knows you lied? His solicitor has a copy of your first statement and will have shown him. So presumably Tom expects you to stand up in court and continue to defend him?’
‘I suppose so.’
Detective Thomas looked at her long and hard. ‘Do you know someone called Mikey McKenzie?’
‘Yes.’
‘How well do you know him?’
