Oh my God. OH MY GOD!
It isn’t me. It wasn’t my fault. All this time, I thought I was doing it wrong or that I’d numbed or damaged myself somehow when I was younger, but no. It just took the right person, someone who knew what they were doing, someone I felt so at ease with I could lose myself completely in the moment, so I didn’t worry about how I looked or smelled or what I tasted like or how vulnerable I felt. All that time in Tony’s garage and those sessions in Chris’s bedroom and I never could. Not once.
All it took was a little while in the back of his car, with his light, insistent touch, and, I swear, I saw stars. My whole body shook. When I finally came down, I wanted to pass out. I was so relaxed I could have fallen asleep right there in his arms.
I’d have done anything for him then. Anything.
‘Who do we think He is, then?’ asked Black.
‘She doesn’t say,’ said Beth. ‘Except it isn’t Chris or Tony. And why send us that bit now?’ she asked, almost absent-mindedly.
‘Alice’s teacher used to drive her home,’ said Black. ‘But how many people knew that, and who knew that you have been talking to Simon Nash?’
‘The whole school knew we were there, and I imagine a lot of people worked out who we were talking to.’
‘And they would have told everybody else,’ he agreed. ‘But who knew about the lifts?’
‘Kirstie told me,’ she recalled, ‘and she said the other girls teased Alice about it, so it must have been an open secret that Mr Nash drove her home after rehearsal sometimes.’
‘That car park out front is wide open. Anyone could have looked out and seen her get into his car, but was it an entirely innocent arrangement? I thought Nash might be Alice’s secret lover, too, but this arrived at the same time,’ and he handed her the other extract.