“Hello?” I call tentatively. “Bean?”
“Effie?” comes Joe’s voice, and I feel a lurch. Joe?
He clambers down the ladder, wearing a smart linen shirt-and-trousers combo which screams, brunch outfit.
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
“Hi,” I say at last, trying to sound cool. “I was just—”
“Of course.” Joe seems equally discombobulated. “Sorry. I’ll get out of your way.” He hesitates, then adds, “Actually, I was writing you a letter. Trying to. But I haven’t finished it. In fact, I’ve barely started.”
“A letter?” I swallow. “What about?”
“About…everything,” says Joe slowly, as though choosing his words carefully. “I have a lot to say. Now that I’ve decided to say it. But it’s hard to know where to start.”
He sounds genuinely perplexed, and I feel a flash of impatience. I want to say, Is it so hard? Start anywhere. Anywhere would do.
But that might sound confrontational.
“I’m here now,” I say. “So you don’t need to put it in a letter. Why not start with where you were that night. With another woman?”
Joe’s face jolts with what looks like genuine shock.
“Oh my God. Is that what you think?” He’s silent for a few moments, his face heavy—then he looks up. “OK, Effie, here’s the truth. I was in Nutworth that whole evening.”
“What?” I stare at him.
“I was parked in a side street. When Mum phoned to see where I was, I was only minutes away. Holding the steering wheel of my car. I was…” He closes his eyes briefly. “Frozen.”
“Frozen?” I echo blankly.
“I couldn’t move. I couldn’t tell Mum where I was. Let alone you.”
“But…why?” I stare at him, utterly bewildered—then I catch my breath. “Wait. Is this related to what you told me last night? About being anxious?” As he nods, I feel a wave of distress, because I’m suddenly—too late—working this all out. “Joe, what went on while I was away? What haven’t you told me? What is it I don’t know—” I break off, breathing hard, desperate to put this story together. Every piece. Because it never made sense. It never made sense.
“Something happened at work while you were in the States,” Joe says, and I see a flicker of pain deep in his eyes. “It wasn’t great. For a while I thought I was going to lose my job. Be struck off. Maybe even prosecuted.”
“Prosecuted?” I echo, horrified. “But…but what…”
“There was an incident at the hospital,” says Joe, in level tones, as though he’s explained this story quite a few times. “I came across a chief surgeon…” He hesitates. “Using.”
“Using what?” I say dumbly, before I realize. “Oh. Right.”
“He was injecting himself with drugs,” Joe clarifies. “Before operating. I was concerned, obviously, so I raised it with him. Privately.”
“What did he do?” I ask nervously, and Joe’s face twists.
“To my face, he told me how glad and relieved he was that I’d called him out. He took me out for a drink. Said I was a responsible young man, clapped me on the back.” There’s a long pause. “Then, two weeks later, he stitched me up. He reported me for prescribing drugs wrongly to a patient. Falsified the paperwork before I had a chance to prove my case. Encouraged the patient’s family to sue. Floated the word negligence around.” Joe’s voice tightens. “He tried to destroy me.”
I stare at him, unable to move. My whole body is in shock. Someone did that to Joe?
“I was powerless,” Joe continues after a pause. “And I fell into a spiral of panic. I wasn’t thinking straight. I was already knackered from working and studying, and my brain went into a kind of emergency shutdown.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I manage, my voice tangled.
“Because I couldn’t tell anyone.” His dark eyes meet mine frankly. “I couldn’t, Effie. I couldn’t tell a soul. It was too big. Too catastrophic.”
“Not even your mum?”
“Especially not Mum.” His face twists again. “She’d helped me to get into medical school. I couldn’t tell her I was going to lose it all. Sometimes I thought I’d have to leave the country. I actually googled places I could live. I thought maybe Costa Rica.”