‘That film doesn’t prove I consented. It shows you hitting me.’

‘It does. And your brand-new search history on your laptop is full of all sorts of dirty goodies, nasty little video clips of women begging for things like that. And Rav threw in some extra search terms, too, which make it look like you’ve been obsessed with me.’

She turned at the squeak of the patio door opening. Rav stepped out into the garden, a resigned look on his face.

‘It’s done,’ he said quietly.

She looked at Rav, searching his face for something that would help her understand, but he was staring at the ground.

‘Why would you do that?’ she asked, because there were so many questions and it was almost impossible to know which one to ask first. ‘You want to work for him that badly?’

‘No,’ said Rav, finally making eye contact. He pulled up a chair, sharing Max’s painful slowness. ‘It’s not about that.’

‘Then what? Why the fuck would you do something like this to me? He beat the living shit out of his girlfriend and left her on the floor, bleeding. Why are you protecting him, Rav? Why?’

‘It wasn’t Max,’ he said.

Chloe’s gaze flicked between Max and Rav, back and forth. ‘What?’ she said, breathing heavily.

‘It wasn’t me,’ said Max. There was no pleasure in his voice. ‘I told you back then. I told you when you came to dinner, when you came over the other day. It wasn’t me.’

‘Then who was it?’ asked Chloe.

‘It was me,’ said Rav quietly. ‘I did it.’

28

Then

‘Take me to your room,’ said Zadie, her voice heavy. ‘There’s a torch in my drawer.’

‘What? Why?’

She started to get up, wobbling slightly. ‘Please. Come on.’

It took them a long time to make it up the stairs, Chloe holding the torch in one hand and helping Zadie with the other. When they got there, Zadie sat tentatively down on the bed. All the blinds were open and the sun was starting to come up. She stared at Zadie’s ruined face in the blue light. ‘Zadie, what happened? Was it Max?’