Under the Harrow: by Flynn Berry Page B

to pat her down. When the womanasked her to turn around, Rachel smiled at the sight of the men motionless on the queue. In the sunlight, the cotton of her top turned sheer in the triangle between her breasts, showing the skin beneath it.
    As we walked down the marble corridor, I pulled on a loose jumper and put my hair back. I knew why the defendants were here and what they had done.
    Today’s defendant was accused of following a girl into the toilets at a pub and raping her. He said it was consensual and pled not guilty at his magistrate’s hearing.
    It wasn’t him, Rachel knew as soon as she saw him, but neither of us considered leaving. The victim was a fifteen-year-old girl. The public gallery was empty except for us, and when the girl went onto the stand, she stared as though hoping to recognize us.
    It was the second day of the trial. We didn’t know what had happened on the first day, so we didn’t know why she looked so desperate. The defense barrister started with a simple line of questioning about where she had been the day of the assault, and with whom. He was in his forties, with round wire glasses and a crisp accent. I was relieved for her sake that he wasn’t aggressive like some of the other barristers we had seen, or the detectives who’d visited Rachel in hospital.
    The girl was shaking, I thought from being in the same room as the defendant, an older teenager who ignored everyone in the room except his barrister and the judge.
    The barrister gave a name and asked the girl if she knew him. She said yes, they were friends.
    “Did you send photographs of yourself to him?” he asked in a level voice.
    The girl hunched. “Yes.”
    “What was in the photographs?”
    Rachel leaned forward. She wasn’t looking at the barrister. She was intent on the judge. He had to stop this. The judge calmly regarded the girl, and the barrister. His face was so pale it seemed to have a layer of dust or chalk.
    “I’m in them.”
    “What are you doing in the photographs?”
    The jury appeared interested in this development. None of them frowned at the barrister. Their expressions showed only focus, an eagerness to take this new information into account.
    She didn’t answer.
    “Are you nude in them?”
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Why did you send the photographs?”
    “I liked him.”
    The barrister was quiet for a long moment, as though deflated by this revelation about her. Then he straightened. “How many boyfriends have you had?” he asked, and his voice sounded confident and refreshed.
    This continued for another hour. A few of the jury members finally started to appear uneasy, but most of them seemed sunk in disapproval, their minds made up about her. The judge wasn’t surprised. That might have been what worried me most. He watched a middle-aged man ask a child how many times she’d had sex and if she masturbated often and if she took topless photographs, and never showed any discomfort. It must happen all the time.
    The prosecutor showed photographs taken in hospital of bruises on the girl’s wrists and legs, but the jury’s faces didn’t turn sympathetic. The bruises didn’t mean it wasn’t consensual, the defense barrister argued. It might have been rough sex.
    Rachel and I didn’t speak as we left the court. The defendant was declared not guilty. Later we tried to find the girl, but her name had been starred out of the court records because she was a minor.
    That evening we rode home in silence. The sky was still light above the shadowy trees and utility lines. The air was balmy and soft. Cow parsley grew high along the road.
    “I can’t do this on my own after you leave,” I told her. She was moving to Manchester in September for her nursing course.
    “Why not?”
    “I’ll be too busy. I have to study for my A levels.”
    She didn’t look at me.

24
    T HE LIBRARY IS ONE of the painted-wood buildings on the high street in Marlow. I still have Rachel’s library card from the last time I