* * *
She made him watch the video in the kitchen, turned her back so that she wouldn’t have to see it again. Not that she’d ever stop seeing it. She walked to the sink on unsteady legs, and poured herself a glass of water, forced herself to drink it slowly. She still felt sick. Didn’t want it all to come back up again. When she was ready, when she’d steadied herself as best she could, she turned around.
And saw Robert, not frozen in place, guilt-ridden and ashamed, as she had expected, but instead leaning into the laptop screen, examining the footage with close attention. It was too much. It was all too much. Vanessa’s grip tightened around her glass of water, and then she threw it, as hard as she could, against the wall.
The act shocked her—she hadn’t known she was going to do it until it was done—but the sound of the glass shattering was disappointing. It was too quiet. Too meek for the moment.
‘Vanessa!”
She stood there breathing. Couldn’t look at him. Because it was all beginning to flash through her brain. Everything that was to come. The press camped outside their front door. The questions. The horror of it.
Bad enough that he’d had an affair—multiple affairs?—he’d obviously slept with his patients. At least one patient, but there could be more. And that detective, that woman. She’d been, even in that short moment in the corridor, so clearly formidable. Frightening even. She wasn’t going to go away. Would Robert be arrested?
Oh god,Lachy. She’d have to tell Lachy. Henry had his own life. He lived in a high-rise in Sydney with security and a full-time concierge. His life would go on. But Lachy lived with them. She’d have to make other arrangements, she’d have to—
‘Vanessa! That’s not me!’ Robert said, pointing at her laptop.
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. She felt hysterical. The chorus of that god-awful noughties song started playing in her head. The one where the singer is caught screwing other women again and again, caught red-handed on camera, and he keeps denying, in the face of all logic, that it was him.
‘Listen to me. That’s not me!’ Robert said.
Vanessa kept laughing because she couldn’t stop, and then she was crying. She wanted to leave the room, to take Milo—who was whining now, curled into the corner, distressed by the raised voices— and leave the house. But somehow that wasn’t happening. Instead, Robert had taken her by the hand and was dragging her back to the laptop and forcing her to look at the screen.
‘Look.Reallylook at it, okay? What do you see?’
Chapter Five
As soon as her Tuesday show was over, Vanessa Walker went straight to her dressing room and waited. She sat in her chair at her mirror, reading a book, or rather, holding a book, because she wasn’t capable of concentrating on anything. After a minute her position started to feel staged and unnatural, so she stood up and paced the room, and then that started to feel horribly dramatic, so she sat down again. She was contemplating pouring herself a drink to take the edge off when the knock finally came.
Vanessa opened the door,
‘Craig, thanks for coming.’
‘It’s not a problem.’
‘Will you sit?’ She pointed him towards the small two-seater couch and armchair that sat in the corner of the room. The furniture had seen better days, but she loved it, because she’d bought it herself when she’d been promoted to lead presenter and had been given her own dressing room. The furniture must be what, nearly twelve years old now? The number made her shiver.
‘Sure.’
He took the armchair. She took the couch. She regarded him. Craig was the show’s video editor. He’d worked at the network for longer than she had, and he looked his age. He had six years on her, she knew that, so he must be fifty eight. Vanessa didn’t have to check the mirror to know that they looked like members of a different generation. Acknowledging that fact had nothing to do with vanity. She had poured serious resources into maintaining and improving her looks, because she had to, whereas Craig had treated his body like shit. They’d all done it, in the early years. Hit the bar after every broadcast, hit the clubs after every bar. The social scene was part of what made the job fun. But most of them grew out of the partying by the time they hit their thirties, whereas Craig had just doubled down. He was an alcoholic. Off the booze now for nearly five years, but he’d screwed up royally more than once before he’d finally got sober.
‘What’s up?’ he asked now.
‘I need your help.’
Those were not easy words for Vanessa to say. She liked to be the one giving help. She liked to feel needed. Asking for help made her feel vulnerable and exposed and she’d worked too damn hard for far too long to easily open up a chink in her armour. But that was the benefit of age. You knew yourself. Knew your own weaknesses and foibles and you could overcome them, if you had to.
Vanessa handed Craig the USB drive.
‘What’s this?’
‘Blackmail material, I think.’
It took him a beat. ‘Against you?’
‘No. Maybe. I’m not sure. It was sent to me. When you look at it you’ll see a video of my husband—of Robert—in his consulting rooms. In the video it looks like he’s having sex with a patient. The video is fake.’
Craig gave her a look. A look that Vanessa thought she was likely to see again and again.