Truth Be Told

Zara smoothed the Estée Lauder serum on her skin, taking care not to rub too hard in the hollow beneath her left cheekbone. The bruises had long healed but it was still delicate and she often felt a faint pain when she pressed it absentmindedly. Five months had passed since the attack and though she had clicked back into her heels and pulled on her armour of poise, she still felt a queasy vulnerability whenever she ventured from home. She had to harden herself to do it, as if she were duelling with the very act of existing.

It all started with Jodie Wolfe, a sixteen-year-old girl from East London who walked into Zara’s office last July and accused four classmates of rape. In what would become a tabloid frenzy, Jodie – white, disabled, beleaguered – named her attackers as Muslim. The firestorm that followed took something from them both.

Zara, herself a Muslim, was denounced a traitor – rhetoric that led to a physical attack. It was on the most banal of evenings, during a late-night trip to pick up dry cleaning, that she had heard those fateful footsteps – two sets echoing her own. Her memory held the next moments in a murky midnight blue: her scream snuffed by the force of a palm, the crack of her cheek on brick, the giant flowers blooming in her vision, her body jolting upwards. A kick to her stomach when she fell to the ground and, then, the single most terrifying moment of her life: a bottle of clear liquid emptied on her face with the threat that it was acid. She had blacked out then, sinking into dark relief. When she woke, the doctors told her it was vodka, not acid, but the horror of that moment – the sadism in her attackers’ eyes – changed something permanent inside her.

Ten days later, a video clip surfaced that seemed to prove the four boys’ innocence: Jodie whispering to Amir, the ringleader, entreating him to touch her. Disgraced, Jodie said that she had lied and the case was swiftly thrown out of court.

Weeks later, a second clip emerged showing the events that followed the first. This one proved indisputably that the boys were, in fact, guilty. The case was reopened but Amir was set free and his friends were issued nominal sentences given their young age and clean rap sheets.

Zara had no way of knowing if it was this final infraction that led her to the precipice, or if she would have arrived there regardless following her attack. She found herself taking Diazepam with more zeal than ever before, mixing it with alcohol with dangerous frequency if only to collapse into dreamless sleep, free of violent memories.

She reached her nadir in February when she roused in her car one day to the blare of horns deep inside Rotherhithe Tunnel, a narrow, suffocating tube that burrowed beneath the Thames. She had veered out of her lane into the path of oncoming traffic – extraordinarily lethal in such a small space. She snapped to rigid attention and drove home with a manic focus. Once safely inside her Greenwich flat, she let herself dissolve. It was shame that she felt more than anything – not only for being so weak but for putting someone’s life at risk.

Safran had forced her to take a break after hearing what had happened that day. He had bundled her into his car and driven her to Dartmoor. They took long, bracing walks in the February cold and saw wild horses gallop on the moor. The memory of that week made her well with sorrow. Sharing a home with her friend made her see how lonely she was. There was comfort in knowing there was heat in the house, in seeing the grains of salt fanned across the table, in the curtain that wasn’t folded quite the way she wanted, or the haphazard way he left his shoes on the landing. They had spent evenings in front of the fire, eating comfort food and watching TV. Every laugh from her he took as a small victory.

Their colleagues from chambers had often wondered if their friendship went further given their easy manner and the way they looked together: he, tall and athletic with sleek good looks; she with her haughty cheekbones and naturally full lips. Their chemistry was never sexual, however. They were more like comrades in arms.

Over the course of the week, they had watched the first season of Breaking Bad – he appalled that she hadn’t yet seen it – and in the bright, warm tones of the Albuquerque desert, she found a strange and calming comfort. Perhaps nothing was elemental and everyone was in danger of change. Perhaps that’s why she, Zara the Brave, still felt this strange anxiety even at home on a Saturday evening.

She paced to the kitchen and poured herself a cool glass of water. She sat on her large cream sofa, legs tucked beneath her thighs, and watched the hand on her large wall clock as it counted down the minutes to night.

Were those gunshots? Kamran wondered idly. There was no way to tell over the riotous noise. The babble of boys mixed with tinny music that played from someone’s phone. Shouts and screams rose like flares that joined to form a din. Kamran felt unsteady on his feet, but where he’d usually stop, he carried on drinking, knowing that tomorrow he was free from duties.

Besides, he had never been truly drunk, not stinking drunk. He felt a tinge of envy when his friends would talk of hunching over a toilet bowl, the sheer abandon of knowing what was coming but going ahead and doing it anyway. It felt like an important part of living, a rite of passage to adulthood, and the fact that he’d never done it needled him unduly like it might if he’d never kissed a girl or not yet lost his virginity. Thankfully, that wasn’t a worry. He thought of his family’s cruise at Christmas and his fumbles with Maya, the ballet dancer. He thought of her long legs, shiny from the buttercream that she kept in a jar in her cabin. He thought of her lithe thighs and ready lips, her warm mouth and the downy film above it.

‘She certainly taught me a thing or two,’ he had joked with Jimmy on his return to Hampton, his voice gruff with newfound swagger. In truth, he had weaved with nerves and trembled beneath her fingers. She, a year older than he, had lulled him into security, telling him over and over how handsome he was, how desperately she wanted him. He didn’t care that she was bored or looking for something to do that might annoy her wealthy parents. He succumbed to her that evening and every evening for the rest of the trip, begging Adam to cover for him.

He hadn’t been with a woman since. The girls from the comp nearby certainly made him flutter, but given his schedule at Hampton, he had little chance to indulge. There was plenty of time for that, he supposed. He was approaching his final year of study and would soon be starting at Oxford. All those girls from their single-sex schools – what an utter treat.

Kamran knew the sort of man he aspired to be – a strong and faithful one, loyal and fair like his father – but first he wanted to have some fun; to drive it all from his system. He would give himself ten years, he’d decided – from eighteen to twenty-eight – to sample the fairer sex. After that, he would look for a wife and have three kids and buy a nice car like his dad. Until then, he would seize his youth with all his might.

Kamran accepted another beer, its hoppy smell mingling with spring wisteria. It was warm and gummy in his throat but he chugged it down regardless. A group of juniors rode by on bicycles in close pursuit of a small white rabbit, its bushy tail flashing a desperate SOS. Kamran willed it to escape and was pleased when a boy wobbled and fell, his legs tangling in the cold blue metal. Giddily, he stood and remounted the bike, wobbling down the hill towards his quarry. Nearby, a separate group of boys dipped a pint with various body parts to feed to one of their friends. Further on, a group was pouring a keg straight into the mouth of a boy lying prone. Above the noise and chaos, the night took on a certain romance: strange and heady, sweet and surreal.

Kamran accepted another beer and the sky began to spin. He laughed out loud at something absurd. He heard the Hampton anthem and a chorus soon joined in. He loved this place. He really, truly did.

The night bled into a snatch of memories: him walking giddily home, fumbling for his keys, the jangle as they fell to the floor, the jarring sound making him giggle. The way his head pulsed as he brushed his teeth and how the room seemed to stretch and contract. Pulling off his clothes, falling into his sheets, swiping at some crumbs and then sinking into sleep.

It was deep and dreamless until he felt a body against his, the powerful arm curled around his chest, the hot whisper in his ear, the eager hand encircling him. It seemed inky and unreal, with the opiate quality of an erotic dream. Each touch, in isolation, felt entirely unthreatening: a fingertip brushing against his navel, dipping inside so slightly; lips on the curve of his shoulder blade, warm and hypnotic. It was only when he felt the full heft of weight that something triggered inside him: a distant alarm or warning that this might really be happening. But where his subconscious might have roused him, it lay only mute and submissive, blunted by the alcohol coursing through his bloodstream. He felt a bewildering mix of pain and pleasure and heard sounds in a voice that was somehow familiar. He tried to reach for meaning, to latch onto reality, but only sank back to a deep, dark sleep.

Sofia Hadid read the email with a febrile sense of defeat. Jonathan Walmsley, the CEO of her father’s company, had dispatched her ideas with a cold and clear diplomacy. He appreciated her input, he wrote, but it wasn’t the direction the company was heading. If she should have any similar ideas, however, then she should please feel free to contact him.

She knew he disliked her meddling, that he wondered why she couldn’t keep quiet like her sister, Noreen, and the other silent partners. What he didn’t know was that Sofia had been her father’s first choice as successor at Arshad Steel. It was only after she got married and pregnant that his preference seemed to shift. What hope did women have when their own fathers eschewed them for men?

For years, she had tried to prove her worth, sending him plans and proposals and strategies for improving efficiency. ‘Focus on family,’ he would tell her. ‘It’s the most important job in the world.’ A gentle way of saying that she was no longer needed.

She took her thwarted ambitions and applied them to her role at home. She created a project called ‘Hadid Family’ in Basecamp, the project management software used by Arshad Steel. She added profiles for Kamran and Adam, her brows creasing at the lack of poetry in the order of those syllables.

She created a space where her children could share what they needed, as well as their goals, ambitions and worries. She even interviewed them bi-annually for a ‘deep dive’ into their lives. Mack thought it ludicrous, but why couldn’t motherhood be approached like a job? If managers cared enough to formally check in with staff, why couldn’t a mother follow suit? All too often, parents lost sight of their children; assumed that because they saw them every day, they would spot a private aching. This is how children slipped from their grip and she refused to let that happen.

Besides, Basecamp was useful in other ways. It helped her keep track of her staff, especially since they worked different days and patterns: Julio the gardener on Monday, Magda the cleaner on Wednesday, Oliver the driver whenever he was needed since he was on full-time hours, and Nevinka the cook who was there every day.

Sofia used to have a live-in housekeeper when the children were small but now it seemed a tad indulgent. It would be useful though when the boys came home and the house-clean was already two days old.

She had received a message this morning, a taciturn text from Kamran saying he would not be going to Barrett’s after all and would now be arriving with Adam – news that pleased her immensely. Her children were her greatest joy and biggest achievement. They had to be. What else could she show for her wealth?

When she heard the door rasp open, she swept over to them with open arms and ushered them in with a kiss.

‘Hi, Mum.’ Adam hauled his suitcase inside.

Sofia frowned. ‘Where’s Oliver?’

He shrugged. ‘We told him we’d get our own cases.’

A cut of annoyance tightened her smile. ‘Well, that’s fine but it’s two flights to your room.’

‘Mum, we can handle it.’

There it was: that spike of impatience. She was only trying to help. ‘So!’ she said brightly, a two-letter palate cleanser, making way for warmth. ‘How are my boys?’

Adam nodded. ‘Yeah, fine.’

She looked to Kamran and noticed the film of sweat that glossed his upper lip. ‘Are you ill?’ she asked.

He tugged at a collar uncomfortably. ‘No, I’m just tired.’

‘You don’t look well.’ She grasped him by the elbow and turned him to the light. ‘Shall I call Dr Hepenstall?’

He pulled away from her grip. ‘No, I’m fine, Mum.’ He gave her a listless smile. ‘Honestly. I just got too hot in the car.’

Sofia was wary of pressing further so let them take their leave, listening as the twin creaks of their feet traced a path upstairs. One door closed and then another.

She checked her watch. It was approaching lunchtime so she headed to the kitchen to prepare their meal. She unwrapped the intricate platters of food prepared by Nevinka: chana chaat, a flavoursome mix of chickpea, mint, yoghurt and tamarind combined with onions and pastry; succulent lamb kofta meatballs; layers of biryani; and kheer for dessert, rice pudding topped with almonds and pistachios. Her sons loved homemade South Asian cuisine and it was important to her that they were connected to their culture. She arranged the platters on the large oak table and set out plates and cutlery. She drew three glasses of icy water and placed them neatly to the right of each setting. She took another glance at her watch, then settled down to wait, ignoring the airless press of boredom.

Kamran sat on his bed in a daze, a sturdy king-size with a sumptuous white duvet, goose down pillows and four extra cushions in burgundy and gold. He remembered pleading with his mother in Liberty to leave the cushions behind, but she had firmly insisted. ‘It looks nice,’ she’d said. ‘You’re barely home anyway and when people come round, they want a tour. It’ll look nicer this way.’

He lay back on the cushions now to stop his stomach churning. Was he hung over, or was this the noisome texture of disgust? He could scarcely believe it had happened – was briefly convinced it had not – but the numb-white glaze of shock told him he couldn’t be sure. Lying there, he felt his mind cut away from itself, so that even as he succumbed to paralysis, some stronger authority inside himself rose to marshal his strength.

It dived down for memories, grasping at them like seaweed from silt. The dull twinkle of stars in the sky, high-pitched jeers and raucous shouts. Adam playing beer pong and laughing in that nervy, restrained way that he did. Jimmy or maybe Nathan pushing another drink at him and Kamran glugging it freely, buoyed by youth and liberty.

He traced his walk home: passing beneath a Victorian lamplight, pausing to watch a hundred mites dance in the glow it cast to the ground. He’d seen one of Hampton’s peacocks and hoped it would splay its feathers, knowing it would not. He had stumbled along the path, a sliver of safety in the baleful dark. He was drunker than he’d ever been, drunker even than that last night on the cruise when Maya had traced her tongue down the curve of his back, wrapped him in her mouth and did things with her delicate fingers he would never have dared imagine. He’d got hard thinking about it, swaying on the green. At West Lawn, he had thumbed in his key code, his fingers leaving five smudges of sweat. He had grappled with his keys outside his bedroom door, then slammed it shut and flinched at the noise before remembering that most of the boys had gone. He’d pulled off his shirt and trousers, and climbed into bed in a stupor.

He tried to draw outlines in his mind and fill in the inky blanks. He remembered a hand tugging at his underwear, the black band of his Tom Ford boxers skimming across his buttocks, hot breath in his hair, a heady, intense feeling and the murk of a vital question: had he wanted it? Had he known what was happening and relented anyway? Did a dark, perverse part of him react to the transgressive nature of it? He remembered asking a question if not out loud then in his mind: what is happening? The answer was swallowed by darkness and the fact that he hadn’t fought. He knew he hadn’t fought.

‘Boys,’ his mother’s singsong voice called up, snapping him from his thoughts. Kamran stood and lightly slapped each of his cheeks, bolstering himself for battle. He looked in his mirror and smiled, dialling the wattage up and down until it looked easy and natural. ‘Coming,’ he called and joined Adam on his way down.

At the table, he picked up a kofta and popped it in his mouth. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ he said between bites, feeling the gummy meat settle between his teeth.

‘So – talk to me,’ she said.

He nodded, assuring her he would as soon as he finished his mouthful. He remembered being fifteen and a conversation in their car. He and Adam were coming home from school and she had asked them how they were. ‘Fine,’ said one. ‘Yep,’ said the other. She had pulled up on the side of the road. ‘We’re not doing this, okay?’ she’d said. ‘We’re not going to be a family that doesn’t talk to each other. We’re going to communicate. So I’m going to ask you again: how was your day?’

Kamran had humoured her, not telling her that he too had seen that movie where Ethan Hawke pulls over his kids and gives them a similar speech. Perhaps cinema was as good a place as any to learn the nebulous art of parenting.

He swallowed his mouthful, knowing he couldn’t fluff this performance. ‘Things are good,’ he said. ‘I got a send up in fencing class. Mr Storr said I’m winning more pressure points than any other pupil. He might even select me for Grenoble.’ He segued to a monologue, changing his voice here and there like an actor on a stage: plummy for Mr Morewood, a trill for Mrs Brodie, a Dutch lilt for Nathan and a cut-glass accent for Jimmy. Beneath it all, his stomach dredged with nausea. He took another bite and imagined what would happen if he blurted it out now.

‘I think I was raped.’

‘Mum, I think I was raped.’

‘Hey, Mum, by the way, I’m pretty sure I was raped.’

He gulped a mouthful of water. ‘Mr Wycombe said I’m on course for top boy in his class.’

His mother reached out and ruffled his hair. ‘My boy. I’m so proud of you.’

He prayed she would look away, for his smile was a filament about to break. She held his gaze and he pretended to work something loose with his tongue to explain the strange contorting of his face. How does one deal with grief that wasn’t caused by death?

She continued to ask him questions and Kamran dutifully answered, silently second-guessing himself – the angle of his elbow on the table, the fullness of his laugh – as if he’d forgotten how to be her son. He wanted to confide in her, needed surely to tell someone, for if he continued pretending now, he would have to pretend for the rest of his life.

Chapter Two

Zara sensed someone watching her and glanced up from her screen. Sure enough, there was a boy in the doorway: mid-teens, lean but athletic with fine-boned features that verged on feminine.

She stiffened in her seat, an involuntary reaction to this Asian male stranger. The last one that found her alone had smashed her face against a wall.

‘Ms Kaleel?’ he asked hesitantly.

‘Yes,’ she replied, also a question.

‘My name is Kamran Hadid.’

‘How may I help you?’ She relaxed a little beneath his mild manner.

‘May I shut the door?’ he asked.

She studied him. ‘If you tell me what this is about.’

He paused, a nervous shimmer of energy. ‘Something happened to me.’

She recognised the wilt in his speech. ‘Okay,’ she said gently.

He shut the door and pointed at a chair in query.

Zara nodded.

He sat down and pressed his palms into the soft black pleather. ‘I think I was raped,’ he said.

Zara exhaled. She reached for a pen and a light blue form. ‘Okay. Kamran, I work as an independent sexual violence advisor here, also known as an ISVA. What I’m going to do is take a few details and then we can assess the best way to help you.’

‘Okay,’ he said with a hesitant catch in his breath.

Zara discreetly glanced at the clock, knowing that her next client was due. She took some basic details, then asked Kamran if he identified as trans.

‘No,’ he said with a crease on his brows.

Zara placed an ‘X’ on the form and then set it on the table. ‘Okay, in that case, what we need to do, Kamran, is refer you to our sister clinic which is also a SARC, a Sexual Assault Referral Centre.’ She caught his spike of doubt. ‘The clinic has facilities to help boys like you.’

He grimaced. ‘But… can’t I tell you?’

Zara smiled sympathetically. ‘I’m afraid this clinic is specifically designed for women but, Kamran, you will receive the same level of care from them. If it’s easier for you to confide in a female counsellor, I can organise one for you at the Paddington SARC.’

‘It’s not that.’ A flush laced across his cheek. ‘I know you worked with that girl last year and I know that you’re Muslim so…’ He shrugged with the slightest lift of a shoulder. ‘You’ll understand what this means.’

Zara felt a jolt of unease. She had no interest in identity politics – not after Jodie’s case – but also bore a sense of duty.

Kamran gathered his hands in his lap. ‘I told myself to forget it; it’s only been two days and I need time to work things out, but…’ He blinked. ‘Things like this don’t just go away. You have to deal with them. That’s true, isn’t it?’

‘I believe so,’ she said. ‘Kamran, I can see if they have a Muslim counsellor at Paddington. I’m really sorry but we only work with women here.’ She watched the cold drain in his eyes. ‘Listen, I’ll put you in a cab right now and have you there in no time.’

A knock on the door startled them both. ‘Zara, your eleven o’clock is here,’ said Monica, an Artemis House administrator.

She nodded her thanks. ‘Kamran, let me get you a cab.’ She handed him the filled-in form. ‘I’ll call Lisa at the Paddington SARC. Give her this when you get there. I promise you they’ll be discreet.’

He nodded dumbly, then remembered his manners and added, ‘Thank you, I appreciate it.’

She hated to do it, but Artemis House was a women’s facility. Their entire support structure and funding was based on the fact that this was a safe space for women and trans women. They just didn’t have the infrastructure to assist men as well.

She picked up her phone but then set it down again. ‘I’ll be back in one moment,’ she assured Kamran. She strode to Stuart’s office and knocked on his open door. ‘Hi, just a very quick one,’ she said. ‘I have a seventeen-year-old boy here reporting a rape. I know what our policy says but I wondered if there was any scope for exceptions. He’s Muslim and said he’d like to speak to a Muslim counsellor.’

Stuart grimaced, his cheeks rounding in regret. ‘Sorry, Zara, no cigar. Legally, we just can’t do it given the terms of our funding.’

She nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’ She thanked him and headed wearily back to her office.

The acrid smell of the pine tree made Kamran feel queasy. He pressed a fist against his nose to try to block it out.

‘Paddington, is it?’ asked the cab driver.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Kamran. He had wasted an hour journeying across London to go and see Zara in Whitechapel. Now, they headed west on City Road and he watched mutely as the red-white-blue storefronts of shoebox chicken shops morphed to the racing green of artisanal crêperies. The hum and beat of life outside seemed foreign and unknowable. There was a value, wasn’t there, in knowing the pattern of your days; in knowing the pattern your life? He had it all mapped out for him: Oxford, an MBA, a high-ranking role at his father’s company, marriage, three kids and a manicured lawn. He was about to upend his life for what? An illusory chance at justice?