‘It was just a play on my name. It didn’t mean anything.’
But Xander acted as though he hadn’t heard her again. ‘You lied to Mr Hayes about the ending of your relationship, didn’t you, choosing to lay all the blame at his door rather than taking any responsibility yourself. You blamed him for his one-night stand, when in fact you were having an affair with Angus Metcalf.’
‘I’ve already said I regret that.’
Xander turned from the witness box and walked towards the jury. ‘Would you say you have a face you present to the world and a face you wear in private, Mrs Metcalf?’
‘Objection, your honour,’ Petra said.
‘Sustained,’ Justice Smithson replied, which surprised me.
‘All right then,’ Xander said. ‘Will you please explain to us why on earth you didn’t tell your husband that Mr Hayes came to meet you from work after you received those emails on honeymoon which you said upset you so much? You went for a drink with him and you failed to mention that to your husband.’
‘It was stupid of me. I was trying to protect both Mike and Angus.’
‘Or were you perhaps thinking about rekindling your relationship? Perhaps Mr Hayes isn’t as delusional as you keep implying, but actually a pretty good judge of character and motive. Perhaps he was able to see that you were keen to restart what had been a very intense relationship in which you were both clearly very attracted to each other?’
I felt myself getting hard and had to put my hands in my lap.
‘That is absolutely not true,’ V said.
‘Which part?’
‘All of it.’
‘So you weren’t ever involved in an intense relationship and you weren’t ever very attracted to each other?’
V’s chin dipped. ‘No, that’s not what I meant. I meant I wasn’t thinking about rekindling anything and I do think Mike is delusional.’
By now, I wasn’t even troubled when V said these things because I knew what she was doing and I love her for it. I love that she is trying to preserve our life. I love that we are still working towards the same goal, just in different ways.
‘But an easy mistake for Mr Hayes to make considering your past and the fact that you were again involved in a secret communication?’
‘It was hardly a secret communication.’
‘It was if no one else knew about it.’ Xander turned and walked back across the room. ‘Mr Hayes is very confused by your assertion that he assaulted you the night he came to your house when Mr Metcalf was away. He says the kiss you shared was entirely consensual and that when you asked him to stop he did. Is that true?’
V’s eyes were pleading. ‘It’s true that he stopped when I asked him to, although I had to say no a few times before he got off me. I had to shout at him. And he probably thinks the kiss was consensual because I wanted him to believe that, so I could make him stop.’
Xander frowned. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow. You kissed him to make him stop.’
‘I didn’t want to make him angry. I was scared. All I was focused on was getting him to leave. I thought he might rape me.’
‘So, let me get this straight. You were so scared of Mr Hayes you played along with his sexual advances to make him go away, even though you have an intricate, highly sexual history with each other. Then you get him out of your house and you don’t immediately call the police, or your parents, or anyone?’
V’s eyes were now swimming in tears. ‘I know it sounds strange, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know if the police would take me seriously if I did call them.’
Xander puffed out his cheeks as if he couldn’t get his head round anything V was saying. ‘Mr Hayes says that when you went for a drink with him after work you told him Angus was going to be away and he took it as an invitation to come round.’
V reached out and grabbed the edge of the stand, her knuckles white. ‘Oh God, don’t be ridiculous. I told Mike Angus was away because I didn’t want him to try to contact me until he got back.’
Xander raised an eyebrow. ‘But you still let him in when he turned up on your doorstep?’
‘I told him it wasn’t a good idea, but he’s much stronger than me.’
‘But he didn’t break down the door or anything to gain entry, did he?’
‘No. But I made it clear I didn’t want him there. And I tried to shut the door, but he pushed it open so he could come inside.’
‘But if you’d minded that much you could have shouted at that point, or pushed back. I don’t think there is any suggestion you fought each other.’
‘No, of course we didn’t. I thought maybe I could talk some sense into him.’
‘After you shared a kiss, Mr Hayes says you talked for a quite a while about you leaving Angus and coming to live with him.’ Xander paused. ‘Mr Hayes says you said you wished things had worked out between you both.’
V’s eyes were so filled with tears they looked like they were shaking. ‘Yes I did. And every moment made my skin crawl. I’ve explained why I did all those things. It was to get him to leave.’
‘It’s a strange thing to say to someone though, you must admit. That you wished things had worked out between you, when you were trying to get rid of him, and married to someone else.’
‘It’s not a strange thing to say if you know Mike like I do,’ V said and with those words my whole body relaxed, as if it had been held upright by string which had finally been cut. Nobody knows anyone the way we know each other, and now V had admitted it in court, in front of all these people.
‘Did you ask Mr Hayes to help you get out of your marriage? To help you get rid of your husband?’ Xander asked.
‘No, of course I didn’t. I didn’t want my marriage to end.’
Xander sighed. ‘Perhaps, Mrs Metcalf, you could tell us what you did when Mr Hayes left after the alleged assault?’
‘It isn’t alleged, he assaulted me.’ She shook her head and another tear escaped. ‘After he’d gone all I could do was shower and get into bed and then I started being sick in the night and I couldn’t stop. I don’t know what happened. It was horrible.’
‘Perhaps you were feeling like you were heading for another breakdown?’
V looked up, her tears suddenly dried. ‘A what?’
‘A nervous breakdown?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did you take anti-depressants for a year after leaving university?’
V looked round the court and a sound like a laugh escaped from her. ‘Are you serious? Half the country is on anti-depressants. It doesn’t mean anything.’
Xander opened his eyes as wide as they would go and looked at the jury. ‘So by your estimation six of these good people are currently taking anti-depressants. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind raising your hand if you are.’ They all stayed still; a couple even looked quite upset.
He shook his head at V. ‘Mrs Metcalf, I have to say, the part of this whole story that I’m finding hardest to get my head round is how you were found by the police in the arms of Mr Hayes, whilst your husband lay dying on the floor.’
V gasped. ‘Oh God, I’ve explained that.’
‘You’ve said you don’t know how it happened,’ Xander said. ‘But that seems unlikely when you remember everything else so well.’
‘But I don’t remember clearly,’ V said, her voice pleading.
‘Perhaps it happened because you and Mr Hayes are in love, as he says? Perhaps you were comforting each other because you were both shocked and upset that your game-playing had ended in this tragic way?’
‘No,’ V said, but her voice sounded as thin as water.
And that is one of the major flaws in V’s plan: nothing she said on the stand today really added up. What I am starting to understand is that quite apart from the fact that we can’t be separated, we also must remain true to who we are. We must make sense and nothing makes sense if one of us denies our love.
‘Why did you call Mr Hayes to warn him your husband was on his way round to Mr Hayes’s house on the night of the murder?’ Xander said and it all felt relentless.
‘I wasn’t warning Mike. I was trying to protect Angus.’
‘But if that was true why on earth didn’t you call the police?’