From his manner I gather no one’s told him, but the women are another matter. No one meets my gaze. Heads lower toward computer screens whenever I look around.

Then I see Amanda striding toward me. Quickly I get up and head for the loos. I know there’s going to be a confrontation but it’s better we do it somewhere private than out here with everyone gawking. I just make it—the door hasn’t even shut behind me before she’s banged it open so hard it bounces off the little rubber stopper.

What the fuck? she shouts.

Amanda, I go, wait.

Don’t fucking give me that, she yells. Don’t tell me you’re sorry or any of that bullshit. You were my friend and you screwed my husband. You even kept a video of you giving him a blowjob on your phone. And now you have the fucking nerve to make a complaint about him. You evil, lying bitch.

She’s waving her hands in my face and for a moment I think she’s going to hit me.

And Simon, she continues. You lied to him, you lied to me, you lied to the police— I didn’t lie about Saul, I say.

Oh, I know he’s no angel but when women like you throw yourselves at him— It was Saul who raped me, I say.

That stops her. What? she goes.

This is going to sound really weird, I say urgently. But I promise you this time it’s the truth. And I know I’m partly to blame. Saul got me drunk, so drunk I could hardly stand. I shouldn’t have let him do that—I knew why he was doing it but I didn’t realize how far he was going to take it. I think he may even have spiked my drink. Then he said he’d walk me to my room. Next thing I knew he was forcing himself on me. I tried to say no but he wouldn’t listen— She stares at me. You’re lying, she says.

I’m not. I have told lies, I admit that. But I swear I’m not lying about this.

He wouldn’t do that, she says. He’s been unfaithful but there’s no way he’s a rapist.

But she doesn’t sound quite so certain anymore.

He didn’t even seem to think it was rape, I say. Afterward, he kept telling me how great it had been. And I was so confused, I wondered if I was somehow remembering it all wrong. But then he sent me the video. I hadn’t even realized he was recording it—that’s how out of it I was. He said how much he’d been enjoying watching it back. It was like a reminder that he could tell Simon anytime he liked. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked.

Why didn’t you tell anyone? she says suspiciously.

Who could I tell? You seemed so happy then, I didn’t want to be the one to break up your marriage. And you know how Simon’s in awe of Saul. I wasn’t sure he’d believe me, let alone whether he’d be able to handle knowing his best friend had done that to me.

But you kept the video. Why would you do that?

As evidence, I say. I was trying to work up the courage to go to the police. Or to HR, at least. But the longer I left it, the harder it got. When I looked at the video, even I could see it was ambiguous. And I was ashamed to let anyone see it. I thought maybe it was all my fault. And then the police found it on my phone and assumed in front of Simon that it was Deon Nelson and everything just got so complicated.

Jesus, she says disbelievingly. Jesus. You’re making this up, Emma.

I’m not. I swear I’m not.

I add, Saul’s a bastard, Amanda. I think deep down you know that. You know there’ve been other girls—girls in the office, girls in clubs, anyone he can get his hands on. If you back me up, he’ll get what he deserves, maybe not all of it but at least he’ll lose his job.

What about the police? she says, and I know she’s starting to believe me.

The police won’t get involved unless there’s concrete evidence of a crime. This is just about him losing his job, not going to prison. After what he did to you, don’t you think that’s only fair?

At last she nods. There are at least two girls in this company I know he’s slept with, she says. Michelle in accounts and Leona in marketing. I’ll give HR their names.

Thank you, I say.

Have you told Simon any of this?

I shake my head.

You ought to.

At the thought of Simon—kind, adoring, trusting Simon—something strange happens. I no longer feel quite so contemptuous of him. I used to hate him for being Saul’s friend, for going on and on about what a great guy Sauly was, when all the time Sauly was actually just a selfish, aggressive prick. But now I don’t. Now there’s a part of me that remembers how nice it felt to be forgiven.

To my surprise I find I’m crying. I swipe the tears away with a paper towel from the dispenser.

I can’t go back, I say. Simon’s over. When something’s gone that wrong, you can’t ever put it right.

NOW: JANE

“Just some gel that may feel a bit cold,” the sonographer says kindly. I hear the ketchup squelch of K-Y jelly, then the gel gets smeared around my stomach by the probe. The feeling takes me back to Isabel’s first scan: the stickiness on my skin that lasted all day, like a hidden secret beneath my clothes; the curl of printer paper in my bag that showed the ghostly, fern-like curve of a fetus.