All Adrian wanted to do was climb into the shower and wash himself clean, inside and out. The police officer inside him knew he needed to preserve the evidence, but his overriding thought was that no one must ever know about this. He walked into each room and methodically put all the lights on; he couldn’t stand this darkness, even though dawn was breaking.
Adrian went into the bathroom and shivered as he undressed, wanting to be rid of those clothes but not wanting to be naked at the same time. He put his clothes into a bin bag that he had brought upstairs with him. There was so much blood. He didn’t know what he was going to do. In terms of reporting it, he couldn’t. He wanted to erase himself completely. Telling someone would mean saying it out loud. Reporting it would mean talking about it over and over again. No. Aside from the shame and humiliation of having people know what had happened to him, he was a police officer. He was supposed to keep people safe. How would anyone feel safe with him again knowing that this could happen, that he could let this happen?
He cut his fingernails down and deposited them in a smaller plastic bag, stuffing that one into the black sack as well, preserving as much evidence as he could. Even if he didn’t use it now, there was a possibility he might change his mind later on – people do. He knew there wouldn’t be anything under his fingernails, though; he hadn’t fought back. Not even a little. He had to hope that was enough. Without going to the hospital and being examined properly, this was as far as Adrian was prepared to go.
Climbing into the shower, he turned it on as hot as he could bear without flinching. His skin burned under the pulse of the concentrated heat. He sat in the bottom of the shower tray with his knees pulled to his chest, staring at the stream of filthy water as it ran into the drain – a dirty deep red. The soap dissolved as he rubbed it against himself until it was nothing but a paper-thin wisp in his hand.
The water ran clear. He didn’t suppose he would ever feel clean again, but this would have to do. Used. Stripped of his identity, of everything that made Adrian who he was, reduced to nothing but a vessel for the man to abuse. He had become nothing but a body in that van. A piece of meat to be pushed around a plate and discarded when the man had had his fill. Was it that easy to erase someone so completely?
Shaking off the feelings of disgust with himself, he got out of the shower and patted himself with a towel, wincing as the rough fabric scraped against the parts of his body that were grazed and bruised. He pulled on a hooded sweatshirt and loose tracksuit bottoms before climbing into bed and pulling the covers around him. It was light outside, but he needed to be asleep if he could; he couldn’t face being awake right now.
Adrian was alone when he woke. He reached across the bed but there was no one there. His head hurt and his mouth was dry. A sadness came over him, a sadness he couldn’t quantify. The hard swelling in his lip and his aching body brought home the nightmare that he had endured. He gasped aloud in anguish, unable to keep the grief inside him.
He realised his phone was ringing. He picked it up and looked at it. Imogen. There was a smear of blood on the screen. He dropped the phone as if it were burning his skin. An hour late for work. He couldn’t go in, not today. He wiped the screen with a pillowcase before throwing the pillow across the room. Then he dialled the DCI.
‘DS Miles, we’ve been looking for you,’ DCI Kapoor said.
‘I have a temperature,’ Adrian rasped, sounding rougher than he had imagined he would. He didn’t need to fake it – he sounded pathetic without even trying. Just hearing his own voice set his teeth on edge. ‘I feel rotten. I’m so sorry, but I can’t come in today.’
‘You do sound terrible. I’ll let Imogen and Matt know you won’t be in.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, hanging up before he began to cry. He could feel it coming.
What was he doing? He should report this, but the thought of it made him feel bilious. His phone rang again: it was Imogen. He couldn’t face talking to her right now. He was completely lost inside himself. Nothing existed outside his own mind. He couldn’t think about his responsibility to report what had happened.
The moment he had realised what the man was about to do to him replayed over and over in his mind, as though if he could erase that one moment then none of it would have happened. He was in that van for over five hours, but he didn’t remember it. He remembered bits, but there was a lot that was unclear. Was it because he had been drunk? He was drunk at the start, but his adrenaline was coursing so quickly he sobered fast. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking about it; there was nothing else. He closed his eyes, praying that sleep would take him again.