Woman of the Hour (17 page)

I found the link to Sapphire, the specialist unit run by the Met. I wondered if this was set up in the wake of all the complaints about how the police treat rape victims. There was a list of frequently asked questions and definitions of assault. Sexual assault was defined as if someone intentionally touches another person, the touching is sexual and the person does not consent. Serious sexual assault entailed penetration so what Julius did to me with his fingers that night would count as that.

There was also an interactive graphic called My Decision. This was a step-by-step guide to what you should do if you had, or knew a person who had been sexually assaulted. I clicked on the button:
I know someone who has been assaulted
. This took me through to questions like:
How can we preserve evidence?
Too late for that, I thought. There was a button on
Information about the Havens
and I clicked on this. The Havens turned out to be three sexual assault referral centres in London. They were open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and were managed by King’s College Hospital. They were independent of the Met and it said that they would not share information with the police unless the victim wanted them to. I took down the details.

It was time for the morning meeting and I was dreading walking into that room with Julius at the head of the table. Harriet’s allegation and my memories were scouring my mind. I was going to find it a huge challenge even to look at him. I reached the meeting room and slid into my seat, busying myself with the running order of the day’s show. I’d called down to the gallery when the credits were rolling and the director told me that the show had gone according to plan. Tim Cooper was there today. He rarely attends these meetings as he’s not a programme maker. He is the person who will have to deal with this when Harriet reports her allegation. He is a company man through and through and not big on sensitivity.

Julius, who never misses a thing, asked me why I had missed the show and I mumbled that a pressing staff issue had arisen. Then I raised my eyes to his face and held my look, even though my heart was swooping and dipping. He didn’t react in any unusual way at all.

‘As I predicted, StoryWorld is all over the papers,’ he said with satisfaction.

He had spread a pile of newspapers on the meeting table. Fizzy and Bob were turning the pages and she was elated at the number of them which featured her looking pert and the former Labour cabinet member looking murderous. How could Julius be acting so normally when he had assaulted a young girl? He pushed
The Times
over to Fizzy.

‘That’s a good shot,’ he said.

Thoughts were knocking around my head like a ball in a squash court. Perhaps he didn’t do it? It was only an allegation. Perhaps Harriet had lied?

‘I like this one best,’ Fizzy said, holding up the
Daily Mail
.

But why would she make up something like that? And she had been dreadfully upset, almost deranged. The headlines above the pictures of Fizzy were all anti-Labour except for the
Daily Mirror
which was more critical of Fizzy’s line of questioning. I was expected to coo at all this coverage but could not say a word. Harriet had already lied to me, hadn’t she? She said she was going to visit her granny in hospital when she was actually going to a film premiere. But this was a lie of a different order. Surely Harriet wouldn’t, couldn’t, lie about something as serious as this. It could be career-ending for Julius if it was true. It could mean prison!

‘All good PR for the station,’ Julius said. I remembered how he wouldn’t take no for an answer when he had come on to me. That was seven years ago. Now he was an even more powerful man and Harriet was twenty years his junior. If I had found it difficult to push him off me how much more intimidated would she be? I recalled the sound of her sobbing. Something very bad had happened.

Now Julius was saying he had asked Tim to join us because we needed to start a process of cutting the budget for the next six months. Bob and I exchanged glances at this; it was so like Julius to spring this on us.

‘Ad revenues are down again this quarter,’ he said.

‘I thought you’d made some good deals on sponsorship,’ Bob said.

‘I have but I can’t work miracles. Over to you, Tim.’

Tim said cuts had to be made across the board and he had come along to update us on the process of identifying what those cuts should be. I have a decent amount of money to hire in freelancers and without it I couldn’t produce the amount of TV we do with my tiny in-house team. Every year I have to fight to retain this particular pot of money. Tim had opened a folder of spreadsheets and he pulled out my features budget and laid it in front of me.

‘The features freelance budget will have to be cut, Liz,’ he said.

‘No!’ I said.

I’d said it loudly and Tim looked pained.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I can’t accept
any
cut if you expect me to produce the same amount of output. I need every penny I’ve got to keep us on air.’

Tim shot a look at Julius.

‘The news budget is getting cut too,’ Julius said.

‘Oh, is it?’ Bob said.

‘Bob’s team is three times the size of my team. I
have
to be able to hire in freelancers.’

‘And you think I don’t?’ Bob growled.

Julius put up his hand.

‘I’m not going to continue with this now. We wanted to give you a heads up that a cut in budget is required from
all
teams. I will have one-to-one meetings with you this week and we can go through the figures in detail then.’

‘Good plan,’ Tim said.

‘Fine by me,’ Bob said.

My face was hot and I did not trust myself to say anything. The men were closing ranks as they always did. I remembered their smart executive toilet with the three hand dryers and the ladies’ toilet last night with Harriet searching for a paper towel to dry her face. Julius picked up his papers; his signal to us that the meeting was over. I rushed from the room. I could hear Bob and Tim talking about last night’s football. I was not ready to face my team so I walked downstairs and out of the building.

I strode along by the river away from StoryWorld, sat down on a bench and thought about Julius and Harriet and Julius and me. Seven years ago I had not reported him. The only action I had taken was to write him a letter. It was Christmas and I was in Glasgow with Mum and Flo and I had spent the days agonising over what words to use. In the end I wrote as truthfully as I could about how his actions on the night of the party had made me feel. I acknowledged that I had responded to his kisses at first but then he had tried to push things too far, too fast and he should have stopped at my first ‘No’. His roughness and his insistence had frightened and upset me. I read the draft over the phone to Fenton. She said I was taking on too much responsibility for what had happened but I had been as direct as I could and it was how I felt. I put the much amended letter into an envelope, wrote
Private and Confidential
on the front and sellotaped it shut. Then I slid it under the door to his office on the morning I knew he was returning to work. My Christmas had been ruined.

The first time we saw each other was excruciating. I did not know how to respond to his laconic greeting as a group of us were sitting down for an ideas meeting on our second day back. The other people around the table were sharing tales of their Christmases, of family rows and food catastrophes and there was lots of laughter and I couldn’t join in. All day long I was on tenterhooks that he would be aggressive or embarrassed towards me or something, but he never made any reference to my letter or to the night of the party. Slowly, gradually, it became easier to be in a room with him and after about a year I no longer felt awkward. I never forgot the incident, how could I, but I stopped thinking about it all the time. We went on working side by side as colleagues. I pulled out my mobile and texted Harriet:

I hope you got my message this morning. Look after yourself and please text me you are OK. Liz

Back at base I called the team in for our regular meeting. Ziggy had joined us, which she does once a week. She had shaved her hair very close that weekend and Simon had been teasing her about it, calling her a suede-head. It made her look more vulnerable, almost ill, and she was looking strained and anxious, I thought. I told them that Harriet was poorly and wouldn’t be in.

‘But she is coming back?’ Ziggy said.

‘Yes,’ I said, although I didn’t know if that was true. Would Harriet come back to StoryWorld?

I kept the meeting short. They got up to leave and Simon hovered by the door, holding it open for Molly and Ziggy to go out.

‘You OK, Liz?’ he asked.

Simon picks up when I’m not all right and there was no point in pretending everything was fine.

‘I had a bad night last night and I’m feeling shaky today.’

‘You were here late, weren’t you?’

‘Very late.’

‘Anything I can do to help?’

My mobile pinged and it was a text from Harriet. I clicked on it at once. All it said was:
Got yr msg. I’m OK. H

I stared at the screen for a moment. Then I became aware that Simon was waiting for me to say something.

‘Will you do the recipes with Ledley? I don’t feel up to it. I think he said he wanted to do a spicy soup.’

‘Sure thing.’

I reached for a post-it note and wrote down the name of the oil which Julius had banned.

‘And check he doesn’t use this brand of cooking oil. Do it discreetly but he mustn’t use it.’

‘No problem. You should try to get away early. You look knackered,’ he said.

Chalk Farm flat, 11 p.m.

I feel so low tonight. I had a horrible row with Flo. She asked again about going to the Cat and Mouse with Paige and I said no way was she going. I said it far too emphatically. I should have been more diplomatic and given my reasons. The truth was that I hadn’t even checked the venue out; I just had the strongest feeling that I did not want her to go there with Paige. She is fourteen and has no idea how predatory some men can be.

I listened at her door and all was quiet within. We hadn’t spoken since she’d screamed at me. I went into my bedroom and called Fenton and it all came tumbling out.

‘Horrible, horrible day. I’m feeling paralysed by guilt and shame and unable to focus on anything. I have a fourteen-year-old daughter. What if a man had sexually assaulted her? I would do something then, wouldn’t I? But Harriet has made this accusation and I’ve done nothing.’

‘But there’s nothing you can do until Harriet makes a complaint,’ Fenton said.

‘I know, and I must speak to her, explain that to her.’

‘Did you see Julius today?’

‘He seemed completely normal this morning. I told him I was dealing with a staff issue and there wasn’t a flicker on his face; not a flicker.’

‘You’ve often said he’s a complete chameleon.’

‘But would he honestly assault the daughter of Edward Dodd? He’s such an operator. He knows how power works. Wouldn’t his instinct for self-preservation kick in?’

‘He nearly raped you.’

‘I was a woman without power,’ I said.

‘Oh, darling, you sound so low.’

‘I am low. I feel like I want to run away from this, from everything, really.’

‘Is everything else OK?’

‘Flo and I had a screaming match. She called me a hideous hag!’

Fenton laughed. ‘Sorry, love, but that girl of yours does have a way with words.’

I smiled in spite of myself.

‘What was the row about?’

‘I won’t let her go to a music club with this sixteen-year-old who lives over the road. I’m not keen on this girl but I didn’t handle it well.’

‘Why aren’t you keen on her?’

‘She’s very knowing and she treats Flo like she’s her little follower. And Flo is so grateful if Paige pays her any attention. Her parents are out all the time and I get the impression that she’s allowed to do pretty much what she wants.’

‘Difficult; the glamorous older girl...’

‘I wish Flo had never met her. And this thing at work, I don’t know, I just didn’t want Flo going out with her.’

‘Your Flo loves you to bits no matter what she says when she’s angry.’

‘She loves you, her aunty Fenton. Will you come and stay soon? I’m in serious need of your good sense.’

‘I can come this weekend if that suits?’

‘I’d love that.’

We agreed she would come on Friday night. I know I am leaning on Fenton too much, calling her all the time about my problems and not asking her about hers. I’m not sure I have the capacity at the moment to be needed back if she did confide her troubles. Some friend that makes me. I heard a noise coming from the garden and Mr Crooks darted through the cat flap with a clatter. It was the foxes again; they were having a fight in the garden next door and one was trying to scrabble up onto my wall. I saw the fox’s pointed face as it reached the top looking for a route to escape. It ran along the wall and disappeared into darkness. Mr Crooks wound himself around my legs and I stroked his head.

StoryWorld TV station, London Bridge

I have rarely felt so little like coming into work. There was a feeble part of me that wanted to call in sick and lie in bed under the duvet with a good novel and read myself out of this feeling of horrible anxiety. But home is not an easy place either as there is near silence from Flo. The Cat and Mouse gig is happening tonight and she feels deeply aggrieved that Paige will be going along without her and that she will be missing the event of the year! I told Flo that Fenton was coming for the weekend. Flo loves Fenton but I got no reaction from her this morning. When Fenton comes to stay I put her in my room and I get in with Flo. When she was little she loved to share a bed with me but this time I thought I should make up a bed for myself in the sitting room.

I put in a call to Harriet first thing and there was still no pick-up from her. I asked her to call me mid-morning when I would be out of the meeting and we could talk confidentially. There was guidance I needed to share with her, I said. As I put the phone down I reminded myself that it is my duty to encourage her to go to the police and when she does all the bricks will come tumbling down. I dread what lies ahead. If Julius is accused he will lash out at me just as much as at Harriet. The phone rang and I picked it up fast thinking it would be Harriet. It was Henry, our floor manager.