I had everything a child could wish for. A house in an area with security guards, our evergreen garden shut off from the hardship of normal people that we only ever saw when the chauffeur bypassed the traffic jams on the way to our private school. Then we would peer through the tinted windows of our limousine at the ordinary houses where people lived who’d never be able to afford the mobiles and computers that my dad made.

My life as a young teenager consisted of ballet, golf and English lessons. And sex.

Or ‘cuddling’, as my mum called it.

‘Her mother?’ Elena interrupted him in disbelief. She was so unsettled she bit her bottom lip.

‘Yes,’ Martin confirmed. ‘Apparently it wasn’t the father who abused Shahla.’

Most people would find that unimaginable. But as a detective Martin knew that the sexual abuse of children by their mothers, although a taboo subject, wasn’t completely uncommon. According to estimates, ten per cent of all sexual abusers were women. Children’s organisations spoke of much higher unreported figures, as only very few victims ever took action against their mothers and, if they did find the courage to do so, would come up against the same disbelief shown by Elena:

‘Shahla was raped by her mother? How’s that possible?’

‘She describes it a little later. Here…’

Martin scrolled down three paragraphs.

Mummy knew what she was doing and what she demanded of me was wrong. Whenever my father was away for a period of time she came to ‘comfort’ me, as she called it. I didn’t think anything of it to begin with. I even liked it. The way she stroked and caressed me felt nice. But later her hands started to wander, her fingers touched me in places I found embarrassing. She said it was okay. And that she would kiss me down there. It would help me grow up, she said. A perfectly normal occurrence between a mother and her child. But then she got pushier. When she forced me to put on the condom…

‘Wait. A condom?’ Elena asked, now even more incredulous. Her voice was squeaking with tension.

Martin, who’d already read the next couple of sentences, was able to explain the apparent contradiction.

‘In this exchange of messages, Shahla describes her own experiences of abuse to extract a confession from Anouk’s mother,’ he told Elena. ‘And now she reveals another bombshell.’ He grabbed his throat, which had just started to constrict. ‘We’ve already heard that it was the mother rather than father who jumped into bed with her. Now Shahla tells Naomi’ – he cleared his throat – ‘that she was born a boy.’

63

Julia Stiller opened the door to her cabin. The room seemed alien. No, she felt alien inside it. She didn’t belong in this environment. Not in the cabin, nor on the ship. Not even in her own body.