she’d felt as she listened to Maria coming back to loosen the words in her mind. ‘The stories I heard out there have made me intensely impatient with women in countries like this – and the States – who may have had a bad time in bed, or drunk more than they meant and regretted making love, then gone on to claim they’ve been raped. However unpleasant, uncomfortable or humiliating what’s happened to them, it’s not the same.’
What a speech, she thought, as she heard the pontifical note in her voice and forced herself to stop.
‘And what about Rohypnol?’ said Annie with deceptive gentleness. Ginty wished she’d kept her mouth shut.
‘That’s different,’ she said, hearing the power in her voice diminish. She felt as she always did when arguing with her mother, outmanoeuvred and under-informed. ‘Giving someone a drug covertly is forcing them. It’s not like one drink too many, taken knowingly – of your own free will.’
‘A lot of people have fought hard – are still fighting – to establish the fact that “No” means “No”,’ Annie Kent said, making it clear whose side she was on, so Ginty had to answer.
‘I’m not suggesting for one moment that a woman can’t go out with a man and still decline to have sex with him. Of course she can. Women must be allowed to dress attractively, flirt, kiss or behave in some other way that leads men to think they’re going to get lucky, and still refuse. Of course they must. But if a man then persuades a woman against her better judgement, or encourages her to drink so much that she loses her inhibitions and does sleep with him, calling what’s happened “rape” diminishes the real thing and short changes the real victims – like the women in those camps. The word “rape” implies violence – or at least the threat of it.’
As she spoke, she saw surprise on Annie Kent’s face, but she didn’t comment then, turning instead to Doctor Murphy to ask whether he thought his theories meant that men who rape were less culpable than those who committed other kinds of violence – against women or men. Ginty listened crossly, wondering if he was being deliberately provocative. She kept a tight hold on her reactions, and answered the last few questions as calmly as she could without backing down.
Annie Kent wound up the programme, inviting her listeners to call in with their views. The red light went out, and she pulled off her heavy-looking headphones, saying cheerfully:
‘We’ll get a lot of calls about that. You were very brave, Ginty, denying the existence of date rape. You’ll have the PC brigade all over you now, not to speak of date rape victims. It’s a subject that always gets people going.’ She looked pleased.
‘Oh, God,’ Ginty said. ‘That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t thinking. I was just so shocked by what some of those women out there – children really – have been through that I … Damn! When will I learn to think before I speak?’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Doctor Murphy casually. ‘It made a good programme. Listeners like a bit of controversy.’
‘Do they?’
‘Of course. I used to shade what I said, put both sides of every case, and ended up boring everyone. There’s nothing most people like more than an excuse for outrage. You’ll have done a public service this morning, letting them get rid of some of their spleen. You don’t have to look as though you’ve just murdered your grandmother.’
Ginty managed to laugh.
‘That’s better. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?’
‘I’d like that. Thank you,’ Ginty said before checking her watch. ‘Oh, no! I can’t. I’m really sorry. But I have to be in Hampshire by eleven-thirty, so I’ll have to go now.’
Harbinger hit the button on the top of his kitchen radio with a triumphant pop of his fist. No wonder he’d sent little Ginty out to interview Rano! No wonder he’d had this idea that he’d met her for a purpose, that she had something he needed! He could have kissed her.
‘Calling that rape diminishes the real thing and shortchanges the real victims,’ he recited, practically dancing over to the espresso machine.
Good for Little Ginty Schell. His heroine. He’d buy her a bloody good dinner on Monday. And he’d see what he could do to get her the career she wanted so much.
Freshet House was a small Queen Anne box, built on a gentle incline above untouched, old-fashioned water meadows. Its red brick façade had been pitted and faded to a rosy softness, but the pristine paint on the cornice and windows gleamed in the sunlight as Ginty turned into the drive two hours later.
Square, safe, and very English, the house sat in ravishing gardens that had just reached their annual moment of perfection. She looked and admired and wished she felt part of it all. Now that she’d probably alienated half the world by what she’d just said on air, it would have been nice to find a refuge here.
Luckily neither of her parents listened to the radio, unless of course there happened to be some incredibly important music on Radio 3. She parked her Ka neatly between their Volvos, checking that she’d left enough space for them to open their doors, and that she hadn’t allowed her front wheels to slip over the edge of the gravel on to the grass, both sins for which she’d been castigated in the past.
To one side of the house were the old stables, where Louise Schell had her working library and offices; to the other was the startling, modernist music room Gunnar had had built when he bought the place thirty years ago, in the days when planning officers let that kind of thing through. Ginty sometimes thought that the arrangement was typical of their lives: screened, separated, and selfcontained.
As always in good weather, the back door to the house itself stood open. Ginty walked past the laundry and the store rooms, down the long black-and-white-floored passage towards the kitchen. In the pantry a strange young man in white trousers and T-shirt was counting piles of plates. Crates of glasses were stacked up on the floor beside him, with cases and cases of wine. Dozens of champagne bottles lay on their sides in the wine bins. In the dim light, the rows of dark-green glass looked like Rano’s guns.
The kitchen smelled of yeast and raspberries. Mrs Blain was very much in charge, standing in a white overall with a clipboard in her hand. Three other women were working for her, dressed in similar overalls and mesh hats. One was making what looked like brioches, another picking over trays of soft fruit, and the third was standing at a separate worktop trimming whole fillets of beef. Her hands were bloody, but all the kitchen surfaces were of gleaming stainless steel and there were no ungainly gaps or chips to collect grime and microbes.
Ginty had a moment’s guilty pleasure as she dropped her purchases on one of the draining boards. The plastic bags had almost certainly collected germs from her car.
‘I’ll take care of those,’ said Mrs Blain, looking up from her clipboard. ‘Thank you. Your parents are in the garden. And …’
And you are in the way, Ginty supplied, understanding the polite tones with ease. She nodded, moved on to the garden room to collect a floppy straw hat from the pile by the door, and set out to find them.
There was no wind to stir the hot air. Nothing moved. Even the birds had ceased to flop in and out of the dovecote. A pair of rooks squatted on the shaven lawn, beaks open and wings hanging out from their bodies like stiff black screens. The mower had left a faint petrol smell to spike the richness of cut grass and lavender.
Over the top of the yew hedges, Ginty could see the pinnacles of what looked like an elaborate marquee. She was amused to see that the peacocks were not in evidence. After the last concert they’d ruined with their screams, her father must have insisted on their removal.
She followed the distant hum of voices, between the borders, through the walled garden, and down the yew walk towards the river. The sounds became inaudible words, then distinct syllables, then real language:
‘… think so. It’s too much responsibility. If one of them should drink too much,