‘Then why wasn’t her body in his basement with the others?’
‘Even if Thorne didn’t take her, he may know something. Somebody may have bragged to him. These kinds of people do that.’
‘In movies, maybe. He’s clever. He doesn’t reveal anything he doesn’t want to.’
‘Not that clever. They still found the women.’
‘Okay. Let’s say for argument’s sake that she did talk to Thorne. That doesn’t mean he’s responsible for taking her. You accept that, don’t you? Never assume. If you really want to think about what happened to her, you need to be open-minded.’
‘You’re right. I need to remember that more. I might sleep better if I do.’
‘Good.’ He pulls me into his arms. ‘Don’t go. Don’t visit Thorne.’
‘I still need to try to talk to him, Ted.’
‘I don’t want you near him.’ I can feel him gulp into the top of my head. ‘I want to protect you. Why won’t you let me?’
My anger has blown away. I disentangle myself from Ted as gently as I can. I touch his cheek lightly. ‘I need to be able to protect myself. You know that.’ Despite my speaking with what I thought was tenderness, he looks as if I have struck him.
‘It’s all I have ever wanted to do, protect you. Since the first time I saw you.’
His words take me back twenty-six years, to the day we met.
We were four years old and it was our first day of school. I fell in love with Ted during playtime for punching a boy who’d been teasing me about the birthmark on the underside of my chin.
I stood beneath the climbing frame beside my brand-new friend Sadie, but she was slowly moving away to watch the excitement from a safe distance. I was covering my face with my hand, blinking back tears as the boy jeered at me, laughing with some of the others. ‘Look at the baby crying. Bet she still wears nappies.’
‘Leave her alone,’ Ted said. That was the first time I ever heard his voice. Even then it was calm but forceful, the policeman’s tone already there.
But the bully boy didn’t leave me alone. ‘She’s a witch,’ the boy said. ‘It’s a witch’s mark.’ Looking back now, it was rather poetic for a child’s taunt. I later learned his father was some sort of writer, so maybe they talked like that all the time at home. But I didn’t think it was very poetic then. ‘Let’s see it again.’ The boy made a lunge towards me and I jumped back. ‘Take your hand away, witch.’
The boy moved again, reaching towards me. That was a mistake. His fingers only managed to brush my wrist before Ted grabbed the boy’s arm and hit at his face. I don’t know if Ted’s childlike blows really sent the boy to the ground, or if the boy threw himself there to try to get Ted in trouble. But there was no mistaking the blood and tears and snot smeared over the boy’s nose and mouth.
Ted ignored the boy’s screams and sobs, coming from somewhere near our feet. He touched my hand and said, ‘Don’t cover it up.’
It was only a few seconds before a teacher was at Ted’s side to scrape the mean boy up and drag him and Ted off to the headmaster. Ted looked over his shoulder as he moved, and I only vaguely noticed that Sadie had returned to my side to put her arm around me. All I could think about was Ted, and how glad I was that he could see me take my hand away from my chin.
That night, when you asked about my first day of school, I told you about Ted and the boy and my birthmark. ‘Your magic is in it,’ you said, kissing it.
The birthmark has faded now. It is almost invisible. A mottled pink shadow the size and shape of a small strawberry.
When it first started to diminish, not long after Ted’s fight with the boy, I worried that my magic would dwindle away too.
‘The magic goes more deeply inside you,’ you said. ‘It grows more powerful because it’s hidden so nobody knows it’s there. It’s your secret weapon.’
Remembering this, it strikes me that Ted has now been in my life for longer than you. So has Sadie.
I try to reassure him. ‘There are guards everywhere in that hospital, Ted. Nurses. Syringes full of tranquillisers. Thorne must be drugged up to his eyeballs anyway as part of his daily routine, to keep him sluggish and slow and harmless.’
‘Nothing can make Jason Thorne harmless. You know better.’
‘They wouldn’t let him have a visitor if they didn’t think it was safe. They are constantly assessing him.’
‘There’s a gulf between what counts as safe behaviour for Thorne and safe behaviour for ordinary people.’
‘He will need a long record of good behaviour before they let anyone near him. Not a few hours or days. I’m talking years of observing and treating him – they’ll be confident that he’s capable of civilised interaction. They know what they are doing.’
‘Nice to see you put your faith in authority figures when it suits you.’ He slings his bag over a shoulder. ‘Luke will be hurt if you get his hopes up.’ He starts to walk away but then he halts and turns. ‘Have you thought about what it would do to him if something happened to you? There are real dangers.’ He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them with a jerk of his head, as if he does not really want to. ‘The women are waiting. This conversation is over.’
‘This conversation has only just begun.’
‘You need to stop stirring things.’
‘Stirring things is exactly what I want to do. It’s what I should have done long ago. The ten-year timer is about to go off.’ I push past him, determined to have the last word. If he has anything further to say, it will have to be to my retreating back.
The women shift around to make the circle wider and create an empty space for Ted on the grass beside my towel. Ted nods thanks and drops into place, saying hello.
This is the second time he has come to help the group – the first time was last month. The police think it is a good thing for officers to do volunteer work in the community, and I made sure that the women were all happy for him to join us.
‘I want to thank Ted for being here. He has come on his day off to let us kick and punch him, which is extremely kind.’ To my relief, everyone laughs, including Ted, who is doing a good job of pretending that we are not furious with each other.
I always worry about making jokes, even though the women and I agree that we must. Telling jokes is a way of defying the things that were done to them. They are all here because they have been victims of sexual assaults and they are determined not to lock themselves away forever in the aftermath of what happened to them.
‘Ella’s been beating me up since we were four,’ Ted says, and they all laugh again, though my laugh is a half-hearted mask for sadness and guilt, as well as fury and distrust. He and I both hear the complex history behind this comment, including our recent argument, though thankfully they cannot.
Ted leans over to unzip his duffle bag, then pulls out what looks like a puffy astronaut suit. His predator costume. It is navy blue, a poor mimicry of a man’s jeans and T-shirt. Only his forearms and hands remain bare – he will need to use those hands. He stands up, talking as he steps into the suit, and the others stand up too.
‘Here’s the thing,’ Ted says. ‘It’s not about size. Ella’s barely eight stone but she can floor a man more than twice her weight.
‘Slap