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Hey, it's Carl.

Before we start, I just wanted to let you know that this episode includes an allegation of rape.

Okay. It's late October, five days before Halloween, and Melanie Vian is at home getting dressed for work.

Her dark blonde hair is pulled back in a tight bun and her fingers nervously fumble with the buttons on her crisp white uniform.

She's 23 and worked as a waitress at Luxelcelior, a posh brasserie, where she serves customers

lobster, steak and champagne.

The restaurant sits on an elegant street corner in Nonsei, France.

It's a baroque small city with winding medieval passageways.

An atmospheric setting for a story about the voice of one woman

and how hard it was for her

to be heard, about how institutions, the state, the police can be deaf, even when the victim

is doing everything they can to raise the alarm.

It's a story that, in some ways, begins on this day in Melanie's flat.

The reason she's so nervous is that she's resolved to break up with her boyfriend for good.

Melanie is determined that before she leaves for her shift,

she will tell Ahmed that it's all over between them.

She faces him and tells him.

I'm fed up, it's over. I'm going to work, and then I don't want to see you ever again.

It's taken every ounce of courage that Melanie has to say those words to Ahmed.

And now that she has, she's scared that there could be consequences.

...