Of course I ended up googling myself. Of course the first thing that came up now were the links to the pictures. On some sites the stars had been removed, or else they were the original pre-star ones that Trev had made sure were out there in the public domain. The only slight relief was that there didn’t seem to be any more than the same repeat three. I tried hard not to read the stuff written about me near the images. But even the few sentences I accidentally absorbed when scrolling to see if there were any other smutty pictures had an impact.
By the time Chetsi got home I was a mess. She came and sat beside me on the sofa and gave me a hug. “I’ll make us a drink and then you can tell me all about it,” she said.
She sat with an arm around me and listened as I explained in detail what was happening. Last night I’d only told her a quick summary. She made lots of gently sympathetic remarks and prompted me with questions if I stopped.
“So how am I ever going to face anyone again?” I sobbed at the end.
“It’s a tough one, Eve,” she agreed. “But you’re going to have to. You can’t let this horrible man ruin your life can you? You need to be able to get on with your job, and get on with the documentary and get on with your racing. If you let him spoil it all for you then he’s won, hasn’t he?”
I tried to haul back on the tears. She handed me a box of tissues. “We’ll need to see how they handle it on the show, but it sounds as though they’re going to fight your corner, and I think you’ll find that most people will be very shocked and sympathetic and far fewer people than you ever imagine will have seen the photos because most people out there are far more decent than you think. And listen Eve, once you’ve survived this one you’ll be fireproof, you really will be. And although it’s unpleasant right now while it’s happening, you’ll no longer have to keep this incident a sordid shameful secret will you? And don’t underestimate how sordid shameful secrets eat you away from the inside and spoil your relationships.”
I sniffed and listened to her without looking at her.
“Now, you’re not suicidal are you?”
“I don’t know why everyone instantly assumes I’m suicidal about everything,” I said rather snappishly.
“Well it’s a common reaction to severe stress like this,” she rationalised.
“Well, I’m not, ok?”
“Good,” she said calmly. “So tell me the worst thought you’ve had today when you’ve been crying?”
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “You really don’t want to know – it’s definitely about ways to kill someone, but definitely not myself!”
On Tuesday evening on the telly they started running trailers about this week’s Thrills and Spills. I dug my nails into my palms. They weren’t saying what it was about, but they were making a big deal about it being on at the later time of 10.30pm.
“After the watershed,” Chetsi commented.
My stomach churned. “Taib won’t be here will he? I don’t want to watch it with Taib here…”
She looked thoughtful. “We can sort that out.”
The evil hour approached. I felt sick. Chetsi made me drink a cup of scalding tea. We put the TV on. The adverts beforehand.
“Do you want me to hold your hand?” Chetsi asked.
I shook my head and sat on the sofa with my knees pulled tightly up to my chest, gripping them like a vice.
They always started with three teaser clips before the thumping music came up with the footage of Stocks racing round the track. Today they flashed up Jaimi, her red hair straightened perfectly and her freckles foundationed out, “Eve was raped.” Then Entwistle looking down at his desk, “I blame myself.” Then some bloke who’d I’d never seen in my life before saying, “Everyone round our way knows the guy’s a paedophile.”
Chetsi and I glanced at each other. I shrugged.
They started with a picture of Luke Trevelyn – the one from the newspaper. The voice over said very solemnly. ‘Four days ago this man appeared in a newspaper claiming that far from Pete being Eve’s first partner, Eve had entered a drink and drugs fuelled orgy with him months before, and he released several explicit and very disturbing photos to prove it.’ They didn’t show any of the photos of me, but let everyone have a good look at Trev. ‘But this story didn’t seem to ring true of the Eve we’ve all grown to know so well over the past few months, so the Thrills and Spills team decided to do a bit of investigating into what really lies behind the headlines.’
‘Eve’s best friend Jaimi, tells a completely different story.’ Jaimi looked nervous, her hands screwed together in her lap, but her speech was clear and concise.
“Eve was raped. Trevelyn worked at the same garage as her. He asked her out for a meal so she went with him but made it clear to him that she wasn’t interested in sleeping with him. He took her on to a bar and she kept saying she wanted to go home and started to ring for a taxi. He said he’d take her home but put one last drink in front of her and insisted she drink it up before they left. She tried to drink it just to shut him up and get him to take her home but said she only drank part of it because it tasted so weird and disgusting. Then she came over all woozy and could barely walk. She asked him to take her home, but he took her back to his flat and raped her. She’d never had sex with anyone before, so she was quite severely injured. She had finger mark bruises up her arms and on her wrists and on her thighs – I saw them. She is certain that he must have drugged that last drink as she was fine up until that point, she’d not been drinking much as it was a work night. She was in a desperate state. She wasn’t on any contraception so I went and got her the morning after pill, and then I took her to an STD clinic to get checked over.”
“This is a very distressing story,” the interviewer commented. “Did she report it to the police?”
Jaimi lowered her eyes. “She had no proof. She didn’t feel she’d be listened to.”
The voice over, ‘So given the work connection, we felt we needed to ask Eve’s boss Mr. Entwistle a few questions.’
Mr Entwistle was pictured in his office. He looked unhappy. “Yes Eve did tell me that Trevelyn had raped her.”
“Why did she tell you, her employer, such personal information? Are you sure she wasn’t just saying it to get the guy in trouble?”
Mr. Entwistle looked shocked. “Eve’s not like that! She nothing if not straight. Besides she had finger mark bruises all up her wrists and arms…”
“So can you tell us what passed between you then?”
Entwistle looked distressed. “One morning, Eve didn’t turn up for work which is very unlike her and Trevelyn was walking around boasting that she’d been knocking back the vodkas last night and he’d left her still asleep in his bed at his flat. Well I was furious so when she rang in at midday pretending to be sick, I told her I knew what had been going on and if she didn’t get her arse into work within the next half an hour I’d sack her. I saw Trevelyn approach her as she came towards the office and there was some sort of violent heated exchange and then she walked in to me and gave in her notice.” He shook his head. “I was shocked. I’d just wanted her to learn not to mess her work colleagues around, so I remonstrated with her about not leaving a good job over a lovers’ tiff and she told me he’d raped her.”
“But she didn’t report it to the police?”
“Well I put that to her as well, as it seemed suspicious. But she told me that as soon as woken up, she’d come home. And as soon as she’d got home she’d rung me. And then I’d insisted she came straight in, so she’d showered and so forth to come into work. So basically there wouldn’t be any evidence now. I felt terrible when she said that. She’d begged me not to make her come in but I was so angry with her I’d just ignored it. So I sent her home and tried to find out from the men what had been going on. It transpired that they’d all had a bet that Trevelyn couldn’t sleep with her by the date our old head mechanic was leaving. So I sacked Trevelyn and put the men on a disciplinary. I blame myself. I knew they’d
given her a really hard time in the beginning, but I didn’t put a stop to it. I thought they needed to sort it out for themselves.”
He slapped a hand down on the desk. “I was completely negligent as a manager. She was here as a trainee and I knew she was working till all hours every night, but I didn’t enquire closely enough to find out that the men weren’t giving her any pointers at all, just giving her the most difficult jobs and telling her they had to be done by eight am the next day. I just told her she had to speed up. She never made a murmur. Just got on with it. And then one night I came past the garage at some ungodly hour and wondered why the lights were still on and I found her lying in a pool of blood in sub-zero temperatures. If I hadn’t found her, she might not have survived the night. But because she couldn’t tell me why three drug dealing night club bouncers had beaten her up, I thought she must be trouble and I’m pretty certain I put her on a disciplinary for it.” He frowned. “Or was that the other GBH incident? Anyhow, I knew perfectly well that our head mechanic had deliberately dropped an engine on her foot because Bolton told me, but did I do anything? No! I didn’t get out on the forecourt and sort the culture out and that’s what led to this final appalling behaviour. And frankly, I can’t say sorry enough to her. Sorry Eve,” he looked straight at the camera, “I let you down.”
They cut to the adverts.
“Phew,” Chetsi said. She was nearly as tense as me. “I think they’re doing a good job on your behalf! They’re not leaving any room for doubt are they?”
I felt drained, and we were only half way through. Chetsi got up and put the kettle on. Probably just for something to do, as I don’t think either of us actually wanted a drink.
The programme started again. The voice over said, “After the serious things we heard about how Eve was treated when she first started at the garage as a trainee mechanic, we thought we’d talk to her work colleagues.”
They cut to Dewhurst and Bolton sitting awkwardly on a bench outside the workshop.
“So what happened when Eve first started work here?”
They didn’t look at each other. “We had a bit of a misogynistic head mechanic at the time,” Dewhurst said heavily. “He utterly humiliated her at her interview. I was quite surprised when she actually turned up to work here. Must have taken some guts.”
“And then we didn’t talk to her for several months,” Bolton reported, looking ashamed.
“What? Not at all?
“Nope. Absolute silence. Pointed at cars and told her to get on with them. Which she did, bless her.”
“Every day I thought she couldn’t possibly last out,” Dewhurst put in, “but she doggedly arrived back the next day.”
“Then Bowker broke her foot for her and we’d had enough then.” Bolton glanced at Dewhurst. “That was a step too far. One day Dewhurst here asked her if she wanted a cup of tea and she looked up with this beautiful relieved smile and I thought, ‘we’ve been complete shitheads’.”
“So then Luke Trevelyn was employed?”
“Yes.” Dewhurst’s tone was abrupt.
“Tell me about Trevelyn.”
“Bit of a mistake if you ask me.” Dewhurst wrinkled his nose. “We thought Eve would be pleased to have a younger bloke around but he was the sort who thought he was God’s gift and Eve took against him the moment she set eyes on him.”
“I feel terrible now,” Bolton confessed. “Because quite shortly after he arrived she came to me for help because he was persecuting her – you know sexually harassing her – handling her all the time and I could see she was dreading coming into work every day. And I just told her to ignore it and wait for him to get bored. I guess I thought she must like it really – you know – the attention. It must be secretly flattering.” He grimaced and spread his hands, then took up again. “Then Bowker and Trevelyn took up a wager against me and Dewhurst where they bet that Trevelyn could get her to sleep with him by Bowker’s last day, and we bet he couldn’t. And he got nowhere at all with her. Eventually he changed tack and stopped the inappropriate stuff at work and just asked her out every night as she left, and on the very last night put heavy pressure on her to come out to celebrate the leaving of Bowker and she finally agreed. We’re not sure what happened then. He came back in the next morning crowing about his success. But by the end of the week he was sacked.”
“What happened was that he drugged her and violently raped her,” the interviewer said with no expression in his voice.
Dewhurst and Bolton looked away in different directions. They had recoiled at the words.
“Well we knew it had to be something really serious…” Dewhurst said uncomfortably.
“I did try to apologise to her and ask her what happened, but she just told me to piss off,” Bolton said. “Not surprisingly,” he added miserably.
Pete next. He was in his work gear. He looked forbidding, his brow lowered.
“Yes, I knew,” he said abruptly. “She told me at the start of our relationship.”
“Why did she tell you do you think?”
“Why do you think?” He snapped.
“How did you feel about it?”
“How do you think I felt about it? Jeez!” He looked angry and impatient. “But a few things fell into place… Like that arrogant tosser who approached her at Belle Vue who she swore at and I ended up punching. Turned out it was him. She never said at the time why she was so upset when he turned up, but it all made sense after. Then there were those rape threats. We were both pretty worried about those. Wondered if some of them came from him. And then he turned up at Quinn’s birthday gig, remember? Presumably looking for her. Quinn wouldn’t tell her what exactly he said, said it was too awful to repeat, but whatever it was it sent Quinn apeshit as you know… Now the bastard’s done this to her! He’s a complete fucking (they bleeped the last word out).”
The voice over carried on. ‘So we thought we’d look further into Trevelyn’s background and something very interesting came to light. We went back to the street he was living on at the time he assaulted Eve. And every person we asked had the same thing to say to us…’
They went to a shot of an aggressive looking balding middle aged man. “Oh yeah, him, everyone round our way knows the guy’s a paedophile.”
They showed several clips in a row. A younger woman snapping, “What that paedophile? Once I found out about him I kept my kids in for weeks!”
“No it doesn’t surprise me - man’s a total pervert. Who knows what he’s capable of? We made sure he didn’t stay long in our street, I can tell you!”
Middle aged woman with her arms folded over her ample chest. “She was only seventeen wasn’t she? Poor little love! That’s not much more than a child herself… Men like him should be castrated!”
‘In the interests of balance,’ the voice over commented, ‘we approached the police and asked if he was a known sex offender and they told us that he wasn’t on any register, and that they’d had to investigate a complaint made by him to them about severe abuse and harassment from the residents in his street who had all received an anonymous letter claiming that he was a paedophile. We put this to the people we interviewed…’
“No smoke without fire…” A sharp opinionated nod of the head.
“Not on any sex offenders’ register – yet.” Ominous tone.
“Doesn’t mean he isn’t. Just means the police haven’t caught him yet. Someone obviously knows something about him don’t they? And they were doing their civic duty by putting us on our guard!”
‘Meanwhile,’ the voice over took up. ‘Concerns are growing for the welfare of Eve herself. No-one has seen or heard from her since the pictures were published in the paper this Sunday. Her friends and family are all very worried. They report that she hasn’t been seen at her flat and she hasn’t come into work. Her bike is missing and her phone just goes to voicemail. We would like to take the opportunity to urge the media to think carefully about what effect it could have on such a young person to hound th
em in this way and urge our viewers to commit to supporting Eve in every way they can so that she can feel able to resume her life again. If you’re watching this Eve, get in contact with someone so that we know that you are safe, and please come back to us soon.’
And then the music started and the credits rolled.
Chetsi used the remote to flick it off. “Phew!” She said again. “What did you make of all that about him at the end?”
I shrugged.
“What did you think of the programme overall?”
I chewed at my lip. “Dunno.”
“Do you think you should at least ring your family?”
I shook my head. “Media’s going to go berserk tomorrow. I need to keep out of the way a bit longer…”
She moved along the sofa to be closer to me and gave me a bit of a hug. “I think they did it rather well. Got out all the salient points, showed how badly treated you’d been throughout, and allowed no lingering doubts whatsoever as to whether or not you’d been raped. You’ve been firmly moved in the nation’s eyes from salacious slut to innocent victim…”
Tears sprang at last into my eyes. “I’ve got to face everybody! The whole world! With everyone knowing I’ve been raped and with those pictures in their heads!”
“It’s completely appalling, Eve, I know,” she said sympathetically. “But you’re got a backbone of steel, I know you have, that’s why Nasim came to you. So you’re going to have to screw up all your courage and just outface them all. Be defiant. This doesn’t define you! You want to win one of those racing championships don’t you? You want to be the first woman to do so, don’t you? Well this is the sort of thing that men have done to women to keep them down for centuries, and when all else fails they rape them – you heard me tell you our family history – there are thousands and thousands of women out there that this has happened to – and you need to prove to the world that even this is not going to keep women down! They can do their worst but you’ll still come out fighting, and you’ll win.”
Thrills and Spills Page 25
