“You bastard! You sick bastard!”
I don’t know how many times I slammed his head against the hard wooden floor, but he finally fell silent, and I suddenly fell back from him, trying to absorb what was happening. I turned to Julie, who was curled up in a ball facing away from us, silent, her torn clothes clutched tightly to her.
“What the fuck happened?” Marco charged into the house, Lenore right behind him.
I stared up at them, barely seeing them through tears.
“He… he was… Julie…”
Lenore crouched beside Julie, talking quietly to her, while Marco dragged me to my feet.
“Did he rape her?”
I pulled at my hair. “I… don’t know. I think… Jesus. How did this happen?”
Marco pulled his phone out, calling someone on speaker.
“Ey up, bruv. What’s the sitch?”
“Yeah, we need clean-up at Julie’s. We have a body.”
“Fuck. Tell me it’s not Julie.”
“Jeff Clarke. And look…” He wandered away with the phone, while I stared helplessly at Julie, curled up on the floor, with Lenore stroking her hair. She glanced up at me.
“Get a blanket or something. Now.”
I swallowed hard. I can do that. Turning to the living room, I grabbed the blanket from the sofa. The same one she’d covered me with. Fucking hell. I stopped seeing anything, as I held the blanket, blinded by tears. Stunned into disbelief. How had this happened?
Someone snatched the blanket from my hands, and then I felt big hands guide me to the sofa, sitting me down. I felt sick. Numb. Poor Julie. That bastard had… I couldn’t even process the thought.
“Adam. Hey! I need you to snap out of it, come on.” A big hand patted at my cheek.
“I should have stayed.” I said finally. This was entirely my fault. In fact, when you considered every contributing factor, everything pointed at me. I’d lied to them. I’d helped weave a whole mess around that man’s son, so that we could all lie about what happened. And this was the result. And I’d left her. If I’d stayed. If I’d stayed here last night. Or come back earlier.
“Jesus… this is my fault.”
Marco squeezed my shoulder. “Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody could have foreseen this. The man’s record is fucking squeaky clean.”
“He raped her, Marco. I should have been here, and I let her down.” I felt a wave of nausea, and stood up, staring around me, but seeing nothing. “I need to be… fuck… I need to call the police.”
Marco grabbed my shoulders, shaking me. “You killed him, man. You can’t call the police.”
I stared into the hallway, where Lenore was holding on to Julie, crying with her, the blanket tightly wrapped around her.
“She needs a hospital. She needs help, Marco. We need the police.”
He shook his head. “We have a private ambulance on the way. She’s going to a clinic. She’ll be looked after, man. If you get the police in here, you’ll get banged up. You won’t get to be with her, and she’s going to fucking need you.”
“What? What clinic… Jesus.” I dropped to my knees, puking on the floor. I felt so much guilt, like a physical weight on my chest. I should have protected her, and I failed. I failed her.