He pulled loose the belt of her wraparound coat, seized the lapels and flung them wide apart, as if he were throwing open a pair of double doors. Katie swung her arm and hit him on the side of the neck, just below the ear, and then tried to thrust up her knee in between his legs, but he pushed her and kept on pushing her until he forced her up against the arm of his office couch and she fell over backwards.

She tried to swing herself off the couch but Brendan climbed on top of her, pressing one knee down on to her thigh and pinning down her shoulder. With his free hand he pulled up her skirt, yanking it seven or eight centimetres at a time until it was up round her hips, and then he dragged her black tights halfway down her thighs. All the time she was struggling and twisting and hitting him as hard as she could with nippon kempo blows, but in that position, squashed down on to the couch, it was impossible to give them all the force she wanted to.

‘Brendan, what in the – name of Jesus—’ she gasped. But Brendan seemed to be possessed. His eyes were unfocused. His teeth were clenched so that his breath was seething in and out between them, and every muscle in his body felt as if it had tightened up into knots. She might as well have tried hitting a wooden statue.

‘Brendan!’ she screamed. ‘Brendan! Stop it! No, Brendan! Stop it!’

But Brendan snapped her thong to one side, and then he tugged down the zip of his dark uniform trousers. He reached inside and twisted out his penis, which was already so stiff that it was curved upward, and his foreskin was pulled back over his damson-purple glans.

‘Brendan! For the love of God Almighty, Brendan! No!’

Katie lashed wildly at his face. Twice he managed to jerk his head out of her reach, but as he bent forward to push his penis up into her, she clawed at his eyes and his nose and his cheeks, digging in her fingernails as deeply as she could. He let out a scream that sounded more like a woman than a man, violently shaking his head from side to side to get free of her. As he did so he ejaculated, spattering his semen on to Katie’s thighs and on to the couch.

With all her strength, Katie hit him again and again, and then heaved herself up and pushed him off her. He sprawled back, and then climbed unsteadily on to his knees, one hand cupping his face. He had bloody scratches on his eyelids and his cheeks and the side of his chin, and his left eye was already closing up, and crimson. His shrivelling penis was still hanging out of his fly.