She raised the cup of coffee with a trembling hand and took a sip. She appeared lost in the memory for a moment, staring into the cup.

“And what was her reaction?” I asked.

“She asked if I’d done anything to lead him on. She’d just been fired herself-that’s why I went to work for Kloster-and now we’d both lost our jobs. She’d won some compensation so she thought we should go and see her solicitor. We agreed not to say anything to my father until it was all over. We went to see the solicitor that day. She was a terrifying woman-she scared me. Huge and fat, with tiny eyes, sitting bulging behind her desk. She looked like a union thug. She hated men, she told us; she was on a personal crusade against them and nothing pleased her more than crushing them. She called me ‘dear’. She asked me to tell her the whole story. She said it was a pity he hadn’t been a bit more insistent and that it had only happened that one time. She asked if I had any marks or bruises from the struggle. I had to tell her that there hadn’t really been any physical violence. She said we wouldn’t be able to sue him for sexual harassment but that she’d work something out, and slip the words in at the beginning just to make him nervous. The case, she explained, would ultimately be a claim for the social security and pension contributions he hadn’t paid me. What had happened between us had taken place in a closed room, with no witnesses. It would be his word against mine so we wouldn’t get far down that path. She asked if he was married and when I said yes she was delighted. She said the married ones were the easiest to scare: we could just name a figure and we’d get it out of him.