Chapter 7: What Victoria Chose
Victoria Hayes lived in a flat in Marylebone that Julian paid for, in a building with a concierge and a keypad entry and the kind of quiet that money buys in central London.
I went alone.
Eleanor had advised against it.
I had listened to her advice and gone anyway, because there are conversations that cannot happen in the presence of lawyers.
Victoria would close down the moment she saw Eleanor.
She might close down when she saw me.
But there was a chance — a small one — that if I came without armor, she might come without hers.
The concierge called up.
A long pause.
Then he said, "She'll see you."
That surprised me.
The lift opened onto a carpeted hallway.
Victoria was standing in the doorway of her flat.
She was in a gray sweater and no makeup, and she looked younger without the courtroom fragility.
She also looked tired in a way that was different from Diane's tiredness.
Diane's was guilt.
Victoria's was something else.
She stepped back to let me in.
The flat was neat and almost bare.
A child's drawing was pinned to the refrigerator.
Crayon.
A house, two figures, a sun.
I looked at the drawing.
"She's three," Victoria said from behind me.
"Her name is Stella."
I turned around.
Victoria sat on the sofa with her hands between her knees.
She did not offer me a seat.
I took one anyway.
"You came to tell me about the retraction," she said.
"You already know."
"Julian called me twenty minutes ago." She looked at the window.
"He told me to file a counter-affidavit.
Confirm the original statement.
Say Diane was lying now, not then."
"Are you going to?"
She was quiet for a long time.
"The miscarriage was real," she said.
"I want you to know that.
I didn't fabricate that."
"I know," I said.
"I never pushed you.
I was in Chicago."
"I know you were." She said it simply, without apology.
"Julian told me you had done it.
I believed him because I wanted to believe him.
Because if you had done it, then everything that happened after — the trial, your conviction — was justice.
And I could live with it."
"But you couldn't."
She looked at the child's drawing on the refrigerator.
"Stella looks like him," she said.
"She has his eyes.
I used to think that was a good thing." A pause.
"He hasn't visited in four months.
He sends money.
He doesn't come."
The room was very quiet.
"Victoria," I said.
"I'm not here to make a deal.
I'm not here to threaten you.
The appeal is already in motion and the FCA investigation will proceed regardless of what you do." I looked at her steadily.
"But if you file a counter-affidavit, you will be filing a document you know to be false.
And when the conviction is overturned — and it will be — that document will be part of the record."
She pressed her lips together.
"And if I don't file it?"
"Then you're a witness who gave testimony based on information provided by Julian Sterling.
That's a different position than someone who continued to lie after they knew the truth."
She stood up.
She walked to the window and stood with her back to me.
"He told me you were cold," she said.
"He said you didn't feel things.
That you were all numbers and strategy and that he had been lonely for years."
"He was lonely," I said.
"So was I.
That part was probably true."
She turned around.
Her eyes were wet, but she wasn't crying.
She was holding it back with the same effort I recognized from my own face in mirrors.
"What do you need from me?" she said.
"A statement.
What Julian told you about March fourth.
What he told you about my role in the miscarriage.
In your own words, on record, to Eleanor Thorne."
Victoria looked at the drawing on the refrigerator for a long moment.
Then she picked up her phone from the coffee table.
"Give me Eleanor's number," she said.
I gave it to her.
She dialed.
It rang twice.
"This is Victoria Hayes," she said.
"I need to make a statement."
I stood and walked to the door while she talked.
I did not listen to what she said to Eleanor.
That was hers to say.
In the hallway, waiting for the lift, my phone buzzed.
A message from a number I didn't recognize.
*You should know what Julian is planning for tonight.
He has a journalist.
The story runs tomorrow morning unless you stop it.
— M.O.*
M.O.
Mrs.
Adaeze Okafor.
The housekeeper.
The lift arrived.
I stepped in.
I called Eleanor.
"Victoria is calling you," I said.
"Let her talk first.
Then I need five minutes."
"What's happened?"
May you like
"Julian has a journalist," I said.
"And we have until morning."
