emergency.’ The operator’s greeting is sing-song and chirpy, as if she’s working in a dress shop and I’m a potential customer.
I don’t know what to say. I manage ‘Hello,’ though I’m breathing heavily. I must sound like a nuisance caller.
‘What is your emergency, please?’
Queen Charlotte aims her gentle gaze at me from her high portrait, as if to offer encouragement. ‘At work this morning … A colleague …’
‘Has there been an incident in your place of work?’
I try to explain. He sat next to me in a meeting when I didn’t want him to. He whispered suggestively. He invaded my body space. He made me feel upset.
‘Right. Is this man with you now?’
Queen Charlotte’s eyes follow me in concern as I circle the room. ‘No. But he’s stalking me all the time. I can’t get rid of him.’
‘Did he physically injure you?’
The Drake Family are too happy in their ornamental golden frame, posed in their manicured eighteenth-century landscape with their perfectly behaved children. ‘No.’
‘Has he ever physically abused you?’
The sweet Drake baby, sitting on its mother’s lap, should not be hearing this. ‘No,’ I say again, after a long pause.
‘Has he ever directly threatened you?’
Once more I hesitate. ‘Not directly, no. But he makes me feel threatened.’
‘Are you in any danger at this moment?’
I look up, up, up, above the elegant frieze of curling tendrils, craning my neck. Captain William Wade poses in his red Master of Ceremonies coat and stares disapprovingly at me. ‘No.’
‘I can see you’re very upset, and that’s understandable. But this isn’t a life-threatening matter. 999 is really meant for life-or-death emergencies.’
The room seems smaller, as if the tastefully muted yellow walls are drawing closer together. ‘I’m sorry.’ The high ceiling doesn’t seem so high any more. There isn’t enough oxygen in here.
‘You don’t need to be. But I think you’d be able to help yourself better if you calmed down.’ She clearly thinks I’m hysterical.
There are four pairs of brown double doors in the Great Octagon. One pair bursts open. A middle-aged tourist blunders in, takes one look at me, and quickly backs out, shutting the doors behind him.
‘I am calm.’ The words come out as a squeaky croak.
‘I can see you made this call in good faith.’ She clearly thinks I’m a crazy time-waster.
My face is red and hot. ‘I didn’t know who else to turn to. I thought that was what you were there for.’
‘You’re obviously distressed. Have you thought of going to see your GP?’ She clearly thinks I’m just plain mad.
I press my temple against the jutting plasterwork of one of the chimney-pieces. ‘My GP isn’t going to make him leave me alone.’
Her voice is kind, even apologetic. ‘The police cannot act unless there is evidence that a crime has been committed. From what you are telling me, there hasn’t been a crime. I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but you have no evidence. And as much as I’d like to help, you are not in mortal danger, so I can’t send anyone out to you in these circumstances.’
George III looks off to the side. ‘Are you saying he has to hurt me before you’ll help?’
‘I’m saying that nothing can be done at this stage. There are specialist organisations and helplines that can advise you on how to document persistent harassment from a stalker. You’re going to need to be proactive about gathering evidence, if you want to put a stop to what he’s doing. Get in touch with them. That’s the best course of action you can take right now.’
I press end on the call and sit for a few minutes in the middle of the scuffed wood floor. Above me is the huge crystal chandelier. I think it might just fall on my head. I get to my feet, my knees stiff and sore, and hurry from the Great Octagon, casting one last look at Queen Charlotte before they find me and throw me out.
She was relieved to be torn from these recollections by the sight of the court building. Somehow she’d made it, despite being so distracted by bad memories she’d missed the left turning and walked on for twenty minutes before seeing she’d have to backtrack. It was only day two, but she worried that the judge might be so strict about lateness that he’d kick her off before the trial had even begun. Again she practically stumbled into the jury box.
A ring binder lay on the desk she shared with Annie. Together, they opened it and read the charge sheets. Kidnapping. False imprisonment. Rape. Conspiracy to supply Class A drugs. Shocking, dramatic words. Words that made her wonder how she’d ended up in such a place.
The prosecuting barrister couldn’t have been more than fifty. The lines beneath his eyes had the slant of a good-humoured man, but Mr Morden looked deadly serious as he turned to the jury box. ‘I’m going to tell you a story,’ he began. ‘A true story. And not a pretty one. It’s the story of Carlotta Lockyer, and what happened to her was no fairy tale.’
Four of the five defendants were studiously looking down, as if trying, politely, not to eavesdrop on a conversation that had nothing to do with them.
‘A year and a half ago, on the last Saturday of July, Samuel Doleman took a ride with some friends.’
Doleman’s grey eyes were military-straight before him, though his face turned pale. His red hair was cut so close Clarissa could see his scalp. It made him look vulnerable. So did his freckles.
‘He drove them from London to Bath in a van. They were on a hunt. Their prey was Carlotta Lockyer.’
Clarissa remembered exactly what she was doing then. She wondered if anybody else in the courtroom, other than the defendants, could. She had just finished her fourth attempt at IVF. Twenty-eighth July was the date of the last pregnancy test she’d failed. She replayed the tense drive to London early on the Saturday morning to get to the lab for her blood draw. Perhaps she and Henry had even followed the van along the motorway as they returned to Bath that afternoon, Clarissa sobbing wretchedly after the clinic’s call to her mobile, Henry brooding and silent.
‘If you turn to the screens, you will see CCTV images of the defendants taken outside the entrance to Miss Lockyer’s flat.’
Clarissa tried to shake herself back into concentration, willing her heart to slow down. She knew that flat. The building was a ten-minute walk from her own. If Rafe had caught her a few minutes later the previous morning they’d have been standing in front of it.
Despite the jerky, grainy footage, she could see the men moving about, fidgety and circling, peering through the glass door, banging on it with their fists, shaking the handle.
She imagined Rafe doing that to her door. Miss Norton would have something to
