'What do you want to know' she asked resentfully once he had redressed the wound on her arm and presented her with a mug of coffee, rather humiliatingly prepared in a plastic cup giving her nothing that she could turn into an impromptu weapon if she decided to stage a repeat performance of her earlier antics.

'Why don't we start with what it is that makes you wake up screaming in the middle of the night' he suggested gently and gave her hand a soft squeeze 'you had no problem with me touching you before the nightmares started; tell me about them'

'What about them?'

'What is it that you dream about?' he pressed and to his immense surprise tears snaked down her unwilling cheeks and fell onto the back of her hand.

'It's more like a flashback than a dream' she started tentatively 'it happened over twenty years ago, and yet I can recreate it in such detail that it feels like I'm reliving it in its entirety'

'Your mothers death?' he frowned slightly and she slumped a little in her chair, taking a large mouthful of coffee before replying

'Who told you about my mother?' she asked eventually, well aware that someone had exposed her lies and more to the point, that for the past three weeks he had known that she had told an appalling lie and carried on as if nothing had happened.

'Someone mentioned it at the funeral' he shrugged 'not Leah – I think it was your aunt'

'She always was a loose lipped old…' for a moment the venom of the woman he used to know returned but all too quickly it dissipated 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have lied to you like that; it was a terrible thing to do'

'So why did you?' he asked, not disputing the wrongness of her actions but not able to bring himself to blame her either 'I don't understand Connie'

'The nightmares aren't just about mum's death, although that's part of it' she shut her eyes for a moment, composing herself before continuing 'I dream that I'm in the car with her and they're cutting me out and then the scene changes and I'm with him'

'Who? Michael?' confusion was etched on Ric's face and she looked away, unable to bear to see his reaction to what she was going to tell him, terrified that he would be appalled by her. Michael's reaction hadn't exactly reassured her that people would be accepting of what had happened to her; he had balked at the idea, disappearing for a couple of weeks that she strongly suspected he spent with his secretary before coming back with an unstoppable desire to save her soul.

'No, not Michael' her voice fell to a whisper as she struggled to carry on speaking, resentment dripping from every word that she spoke only because he had left her no option 'In my first term at university there was a man. I was a first year, he was a fifth year; he was exotic and so mature compared to most of the boys in my year and I suppose I fell for him. Really it was nothing more than a schoolgirl crush but he decided that he wanted more and he didn't take no for an answer'

'He…' for a moment Ric groped for the least emotive term for what had been done to her, not wanting to distress her further by exaggerating the point more than was absolutely unavoidable, all the time feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. This certainly wasn't the first time he'd had this conversation; he vividly remembered sitting with Diane as she told him about the older man she'd met when she was a wide-eyed, naïve student and recalled the sick feeling in his stomach that he felt when she'd told him that the man hadn't taken no for an answer; the same feeling as he felt now.

'Forced himself upon me' Connie flinched as she spoke the words that she had always dreaded staying, feeling nausea rise within her but somehow she managed to stifle it 'That's what the nightmares are about; twenty years later I can still smell the alcohol on his breath and feel the sickness that came from whatever he'd put into my drink'

'He drug raped you?' Ric frowned slightly having presumed that what had happened had involved more violence than she described, although that didn't make what had happened to her any less appalling.

'They weren't very good drugs' she stated bitterly 'they did the job; knocked me out sufficiently that I was in no state to fight him off but that made it worse. He was on top of me doing all of the filthy things that he wanted to with me and I couldn't do a damn thing about it – I didn't even have the strength to struggle but I was aware of every fucking move that he made. I wish that I had been unconscious'

'Did you report it?' he asked eventually, resisting the urge to put his arms around her and hold her, knowing that her reaction to such affection would probably be aversive

'No, that's the really good part' she emitted a bitter laugh and for a moment he wondered how much worse it was going to get 'His father was the Dean of Medicine at the university and he made it abundantly clear that if I made any sort of complaint about it, he would use his father's connections to have me thrown off my course. I couldn't take that risk; he'd already taken too much from me – he wasn't going to steal my ambition as well'

'No, I'd say your ambition was still very much alive' Ric replied with a small laugh and to his relief she glanced up from where her gaze had been fixed on the bottom of her coffee cup and gave a timid smile.

'I should have reported him though; it was selfish of me to leave him free to do the same to countless other students time and time again, just for the sake of my career. I mean I was intelligent – there'd have been other medical courses and now I have to wonder whether he had as much power as he made out but then I was young and naïve, not to mention completely destroyed. I fell for it hook line and sinker'

'You're concerned that he did the same to other women after you?' Ric frowned, again feeling as though he was reliving a conversation with Diane shortly after Dominic's death in which she comprehensively beat herself up about what had happened to Emma, utterly convinced that had she spoken out about what he'd done to her she could have saved countless other students the same fate that she had suffered.

'I was concerned about that' she admitted slowly 'For years all I could think when I closed my eyes at night was that he was out there somewhere doing the same to another unsuspecting eighteen year old'

'What changed?'

'I found out that he had raped at least two other women and probably dozens and dozens that I don't know about' she took a deep breath as Ric felt an unpleasant sense that he knew exactly where this conversation was going and he desperately hoped that he was wrong 'after that it was the guilt that kept me awake at night'

'Who was it' he asked dully, almost entirely sure that he knew the answer and not for the first time feeling immensely glad that it had been partly his medical blunder that had led to the death of the monster that she described.

'You know who it was' she sighed, looking into his eyes sadly 'I could have prevented Diane going through what she went through, not to mention every other girl he's taken advantage of in the last twenty years'

'You shouldn't blame yourself' he finally managed to reassure her having been rendered temporarily speechless by her revelation and by loathing for the man who's life he had watched slip away six month's earlier.

'You haven't heard the punch line yet' she stated humourlessly and he felt his heart sink; how much worse could it possibly get?