‘I left them to see you. But now, after everything you’ve just said—’ Pain overtakes me, I grasp the table. ‘—I don’t think you’re worth a second away from them.’
‘Wait a minute, wait—’
‘—For what? For you to deny everything? I don’t need that.’
Two students enter the building; a gust of air blows in with them. He slides on his blazer. Excitement flutters high in my ribs. This is going to work.
‘You know, because of what I felt for you once . . .’ I pause to let him feel the blade of that, ‘I came to see you when I got your letter, I thought this is the chance I’ve been waiting for, speak to him, confront him, show him what he’s done, find out once and for all if he’s different from the others.’
‘The others?’
‘Other men who do this to children.’
‘Lauren—’
‘—But you’re not.’
He rubs the back of his neck slowly, then stares at his fingers, trying to figure out why his skin is on fire.
‘There’s a hobby I have, harmless really.’ A lie. None of my hobbies are harmless. ‘I follow news stories, read articles, listen to podcasts, watch documentaries, there are so many scandals now in every industry. You know what’s interesting?’ I pat the flat of my spoon against the tea bag. ‘They sound exactly like you. It wasn’t rape, I didn’t force her or trick her, she wanted it, she asked for it, she started it.’
He breaks off touching his neck to glare at me. Distantly, the waitress takes another order, the coffee machine blasts steam, two more students settle down to work but he and I are completely still, rapt by the other’s next move.
‘Are you finished?’ he asks.
I clench my jaw. I’m confronting him, poisoning him, hurting him, and still, he can make me feel simple and fourteen, walking into the Natural History Museum with a sketchbook under my arm. ‘Depends,’ I say in my iciest voice. ‘Are you going to say anything new?’
‘You’ve made that impossible.’
‘I haven’t made anything impossible. I didn’t write the law.’
‘The law isn’t the only measure of what happened.’
‘It’s the only measure of whether you’re a criminal.’
‘I’m not particularly interested in whether I’m a criminal,’ he says, and I glimpse, for a second, the insanity of the story he is telling himself –he thinks he didn’t deserve to go to prison. Doesn’t matter that he killed a boy or that the jury convicted him of gross negligence manslaughter or that the judge gave him the maximum sentence. To him, only his conscience matters. A chill runs up my arm.
‘Butyourfeelings, whetheryouthink I’m like those men, that matters to me more than anything else in the world.’
Elation jolts through me – it’s only me that matters – but the shame that follows is swift and tidal. How has his flattery worked on me, even for a second? The thought makes me cruel. ‘Those men,’ I say slowly, ‘they’re monsters?’
‘Yes.’
‘Deviants?’
‘The worst of the worst.’
‘You realise the only reason you even know about them is because you were inprisonwith them.’
‘That’s different, that’s—’
‘—Did you share a cell with one of them? Did they whisper to you over food trays? In the shower—’
‘—Stop it, stop!’ He slams his palm against the table. Teaspoons jump, cups clatter, students stop their conversations to stare at him but I don’t care. Because finally, we can all see him. Scratch beneath the confident, thirty-year-old lepidopterist he’s pretending to be and this is the real Daniel – a forty-eight-year-old ex-con who’s lived almost half his life behind bars, who’s spent more time studying inmates than butterflies.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ His voice is trembling. ‘I just can’t—’ He grasps the edge of the table. He is barely holding it together. One wrong move and he might shatter. ‘Iamdifferent from them,’ he says quietly. ‘You know I am.’
I am silent.