Hell Hath No Fury Read Free

years. One of an excited crowd of teenagers all clamouring around the notice board in the hall at Benbury Secondary School trying to read their A-level results.
    She had been the only girl on the list. The other girls had all been bitterly disappointed. They began teasing her, deriding her achievement, calling her a ‘swot’. Boys who had failed, equally jealous of her achievement, had joined in.
    The boys whose names were listed alongside hers had insisted she went with them for a celebration drink.
    She’d never been in a pub before. They had downed pints of beer or lager, but they’d bought her a whisky and lemonade followed by a gin and tonic. Unused to drink of any kind, she had been legless by the time they left the pub.
    The boys were in high spirits. A few blocks up the road five of them had bundled her into a disused shed on the edge of some waste ground. At first they’d been content to force kisses upon her, but it didn’t stop at that. As they bantered and teased each other, they’d grown more and more aroused. Egging each other on, the lustful, drink-inflamed teenagers had raped her one after the other, leaving her bruised, battered and almost unconscious.
    â€˜Since then, I’ve avoided men,’ she told Philip Harmer in a shaky voice as she finished her account of the incident. She gave a tremulous smile as she looked across at him.
    The look of horror on his thin face brought her sharply back to the present as though she’d been doused in cold water.
    â€˜Are you telling me you were gang-banged?’ he asked incredulously.
    â€˜That’s rather a crude way of putting it, but in essence I suppose that was what happened,’ she admitted hesitantly.
    He shuddered. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this!’
    She stiffened as she heard the revulsion in his voice. ‘It was a long time ago. And it certainly wasn’t my fault!’ she defended hotly.
    Philip Harmer avoided her eyes, but she was acutely aware that he was deeply disturbed by what she had told him.
    â€˜Will you excuse me for a moment?’ Scraping back his chair he stood up and made for the toilets.
    Maureen shook her head like a boxer recovering from a well-aimed punch. She couldn’t believe that she had been so stupid. All these years she had never breathed a word to a living soul about what had taken place in that shed on her last day at school. And to blurt it out now! To Philip Harmer of all people! The one person she was most anxious to impress.
    The pain deep inside her was like a knife turning in her chest. She felt physically sick. Tears pricked behind her eyelids. She blinked them away, determined not to break down. That would be the final humiliation.
    She had almost regained her self-control by the time he returned to the table, but her head was spinning, and she suspected it was because she had drunk too much champagne.
    â€˜Could I have a coffee?’ she asked muzzily.
    There was an uncomfortable silence while they waited for the waiter to bring it.
    â€˜When are you planning . . .’ Maureen fumbled for the right words. She didn’t think ‘for us to get married’ were appropriate at the moment so she changed it to: ‘To leave on this visit to the Far East?’
    Philip Harmer frowned, his mouth pursed. ‘I’m not sure. I haven’t finalized the exact date of my trip yet.’
    â€˜It will be quite soon?’
    â€˜Oh yes!’ He gave a thin smile. ‘No point in delaying matters . . . no point at all.’
    She relaxed a little. Now the initial shock had passed it seemed he was taking her revelations in his stride.
    Her spirits lifted. That must mean that everything was going to be all right between them, and she had nothing to worry about after all. It had been something of a bombshell for him, but now she’d confessed he would be able to forget all about it, just as she had done all these years.

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