Yesterday I posted an extract in which two people discuss the possibility that a third might be a paedophile. In this second extract the accuser recalls an incident involving a radio DJ when she was 14.

“He was staying in a small guest house just off the promenade. He invited us in. Got us dancing. I didn’t like the way he started groping us. We were lucky. He didn’t try to stop us when we ran out.”

She resumed that business with the front of her jeans. Smoothing, scratching, smoothing. He guessed there must be something else. A memory too painful to put into words.

“But that’s not the end of the story. I wish it was. I learned much later that Gillian went back. She missed her purse, thought she’d left it at the B&B.”

There was another long pause. Roger heard her swallow hard. Wanted to reach out to touch the hand that was fretting her jeans. His voice low, he asked, “Had she?”

Her head was silhouetted against the copper glow from the car-park lighting and he saw her nod. “He made her do something horrible to him before he’d give it to her.”

She sniffed. He handed her a tissue. “She told you this?”

She nodded again. “In a letter. After she hung herself. Swore me to secrecy. Said she couldn’t tell her parents.”