I wondered if the police and lawyers felt like this sometimes. If it was simply too exhausting to even imagine building a case again, and going through all the evidence, the pages of text and sad little bags of bodily fluids, if they ever wanted to just throw up their hands and say, guys, you’ll have to sort it out between you. Because how did you solve this kind of crime, which when you open one eye is sex, two old friends having drunk sex on a lawn, a laugh and a shameful giggle, then you open the other and it’s a terrible assault, it’s years in prison. It’s lives ruined. It’s a woman who can’t sleep in a room with a window any more. I tried to let it all sink in. This happened. Karen felt this. It was done to her. ‘Cal . . . you have to tell the police,’ I said, and I tried to sound reasonable, like I was talking to a sane person. ‘Mike might go to prison.’

‘But he shagged her! He shagged her for years! That day he shagged her! Saw it when we got there, look on their faces.’

‘I know. But she . . . she wanted him to. It’s not the same.’

He pouted. ‘How was I meant to know she didn’t? Never said so.’

And there it was – the attitude I’d been fighting so hard against for years. That it was on us to say no, even if we were too drunk to move or speak or too afraid or couldn’t breathe. And for Karen, I’d been the one to say: she was drunk. And, look at her dress. And, well they’d had sex before.

‘So – Mike didn’t do it.’ My voice was low, calm.

He shook his head.

‘And – Cal, what about Martha? Did you – do you know what happened to her?’

He stared at the ground, and I thought he was going to say of course not, it was some stranger like we always thought. Then he made a noise, some kind of bellow of guilt and relief and exasperation. ‘I never MEANT to! She was so pissed! They always get so pissed and then they scream and you have to stop them! Jesus, she made so much noise. Everyone would – people would hear. Had to stop her. Never meant to.’

I swallowed. My mouth was so dry. ‘Mike wasn’t with her.’