‘I think that’s probably what happened.’
‘And you think she killed that guy, Walker?’
Judith grimaced. ‘Rocky still thinks Jack Miller did it, but I think he’s wrong. I think it was Ruth.’
They were silent for a moment.
‘What’s bothering you about it?’ Katy asked eventually. ‘Apart from the obvious. Something’s getting to you, I can feel it.’
Judith was slow to respond. This was why she’d come. It was just so hard to say.
‘It’s Miriam. Rocky thinks that Jack Miller—he was Miriam’s partner, did I tell you? Well, Rocky thinks Jack killed Robert Walker because Miriam went to see Walker before she died. Rocky’s theory is that Jack feels that Walker let her down, that he didn’t give her proper treatment, because of course she went on to commit suicide.’
‘Okay.’
Judith took a deep breath. ‘He doesn’t know the whole story. No one does, except me. Miriam did go to see Walker, that much is right. She only saw him once, because he assaulted her during the session. Felt her up. She came right to us, to the station, and I was the one to interview her.’
Katy said nothing. She knew Judith well, knew that something else was coming.
‘I told her to let it go.’
Katy’s eyebrows flew up. ‘You told her tolet it go? To let an assault go? Why?’
‘Because I’d just come off a bloody awful case. A case where two sisters were raped by their dad’s best friend. Those girls trusted us, we did everything right and that bastard still got off. We had no proof. It was anotherhe-said, she-said. All those girls got out of the process was eighteen months of waiting, and then hours on the stand where they were ripped to shreds by a defence barrister. After the case was dismissed, later that night, I got a call from their mother to tell me that the older girl had to be sedated. She never went back to college.’
Katy sighed. She looked down at her wine.
‘It would have been Miriam’s word against Walker’s,’ Judith said. ‘And she was a total mess. Fragile. You know the kind of woman I mean. I thought she’d get crushed by the process so I warned her off. I thought I was doing her a favour, but she ended up killing herself, so I protected her from nothing.’
Katy was silent. Her gaze was still averted, and Judith felt a moment of uncertainty, followed swiftly by irritation. She’d wanted Katy to absolve her, she realised—to tell her that she’d done the right thing, that the legal process reallywasbrutal, that she couldn’t have known how Miriam would react. Judging by the look on Katy’s face, that was not what was coming.
‘What?’ Judith said.
Katy shook her head.
‘What, Katy?’
‘This is about your mother.’
‘My mother? Are you joking? Can we not do therapy, please?’
‘Fine.’ Still Katy wasn’t looking at her. Judith wanted to leave. To drive to the nearest bar and sink some shots and call up a friend with benefits and bring him home. She’d come for company and conversation and friendship, not analysis and bullshit. They were silent for a while. Someone inside the house turned on some music, and they heard the faint early notes of REM’s ‘Shiny Happy People’. Judith shifted her weight in her seat and looked out over the view.
‘Just say it, Katy. You won’t be happy until you get it off your chest.’
‘Piss off,’ Katy said. ‘Don’t do me any favours.’
They were quiet again, both of them wound up now, but then Katy—who’d always been the kinder, the more mature of the two of them—took a breath and started to talk, her voice steady as a metronome.
‘What happened to you when you were a kid was wrong. Your mother failed you. It was her job to protect you, and she didn’t.’
‘This has nothing to do with—’
Katy held up a hand. ‘I’m not finished. Your mother, as you see it,allowedyour stepfather to beat the shit out of her, and then, when you were fifteen, to beat the shit out of you.’
‘It’s not about how I see it, or don’t see it,’ Judith said, suddenly feeling heated. ‘It’s a matter of fact. She could have left at any time.’
‘Fine,’ Katy said. ‘I’d say it’s a little more complicated than that, but for the sake of this conversation, let’s just both accept that as true, okay?’
