فصل 43

43

Thursday, 20 August

LENA

It started as a joke. The thing with Mr. Henderson. A game. We’d played it before, with Mr. Friar, the biology teacher, and with Mr. Mackintosh, the swimming coach. You just had to get them to blush. We took turns trying. One of us would go, and if she didn’t succeed, then it was the other person’s turn. You could do whatever you liked, and you could do it whenever you liked, the only rule was that the other person had to be present, because otherwise it wasn’t verifiable. We never included anyone else; it was our thing, mine and Katie’s—I don’t actually remember whose idea it was.

With Friar, I went first and it took about thirty seconds. I went up to his desk and I smiled at him and bit my lip when he was explaining something about homeostasis and I leaned forward so that my shirt gaped open a bit and bingo. With Mackintosh, it took a bit more work because he was used to seeing us in our swimming costumes, so it wasn’t like he was going to go mad over a bit of skin. But Katie got there in the end, by acting sweet and shy and just a little bit embarrassed when she talked to him about the kung fu films we knew he liked.

With Mr. Henderson, though, it was another story. Katie went first, because she’d won the round with Mr. Mac. She waited until after class, and while I was packing away my books really slowly, she went up to his desk and perched on the edge of it. She smiled at him, leaning forward a bit, and began to speak, but he pushed his chair back suddenly and got to his feet, taking a step backwards. She carried on, but halfheartedly, and as we were leaving, he gave us a look like he was furious. When I tried, he yawned. I did my best, standing close to him and smiling and touching my hair and my neck and nibbling my lower lip, and he yawned, really obviously. Like I was boring him.

I couldn’t get that out of my head, the way he’d looked at me like I was nothing, like I wasn’t interesting in the slightest. I didn’t want to play anymore. Not with him, it wasn’t fun. He just acted like a dick. Katie said, “Do you think so?” and I said I did, and she said all right then. And that was that.

I didn’t find out that she’d broken the rules until much later, months later. I had no idea, so when Josh came to see me on Valentine’s Day with the most hilarious story I’d ever heard, I messaged her with a little heart picture. Heard about your bae, I wrote. KW & MH 4eva. I got a text message about five seconds later saying DELETE THAT. NOT JOKING. DELETE. I texted back, WTF? And she texted again. DELETE NOW OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL NEVER TALK TO YOU AGAIN. Jesus, I thought. Chill.

The next morning in class, she ignored me. Didn’t even say hello. On our way out, I grabbed her arm.

“Katie? What is going on?” She virtually shoved me into the loos. “What the fuck?” I said. “What was that about?”

“Nothing,” she hissed at me. “I just thought it was lame, all right?” She gave me this look, one I’d been getting from her more and more, like she was a grown-up and I was a child. “What made you do that, anyway?”

We were standing at the far end of the bathroom, under the window. “Josh came round to see me,” I told her. “He said he saw you and Mr. Henderson holding hands in the car park . . .” I started laughing.

Katie didn’t laugh. She turned away from me and stood in front of the basin, looking at her reflection. “What?” She pulled her mascara out of her bag. “What exactly did he say?” Her voice sounded strange, not angry, not upset; it was like she was frightened.

“He said he’d been waiting for you after school and he’d seen you with Henderson and you were holding hands . . .” I started laughing again. “Jesus, it’s not a big drama. He was just making up stories because he wanted an excuse to come and see me. It was Valentine’s Day, so . . .”

Katie squeezed her eyes shut. “God! You’re such a fucking narcissist,” she said quietly. “You really do think everything is about you.”

I felt like I’d been slapped. “What?” I didn’t even know how to respond, it was so unlike her. I was still trying to think of what to say when she dropped the mascara into the basin, gripped its edge and began to cry.

“Katie . . .” I put my hand on her shoulder and she sobbed harder. I put my arms around her. “Oh God, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“Haven’t you noticed,” she sniffed, “that things have been different? Haven’t you noticed, Lenie?”

Of course I had. She’d been different, distant, for a while. She was busy all the time. She had homework, so we couldn’t hang out after school, or she was going shopping with her mum, so she couldn’t come to the cinema, or she had to babysit Josh, so she couldn’t come over that night. She’d been different in other ways, too. Quieter at school. She didn’t smoke anymore. She’d started dieting. She seemed to drift out of conversations, like she was bored by what I was saying, like she had better things to think about.

Of course I’d noticed. I was hurt. But I wasn’t going to say anything. Showing someone you’re hurt is the worst thing you can do, isn’t it? I didn’t want to look weak or needy, because no one wants to be around someone like that. “I thought . . . I don’t know, K, I thought you were just bored with me or something.” She cried even harder then, and I hugged her.

“I’m not,” she said. “I’m not bored with you. But I couldn’t tell you, I couldn’t tell anyone.” She broke off suddenly and pulled herself out of my arms. She walked to the other end of the room and sank to her knees, then crawled towards me, checking under each stall.

“Katie? What are you doing?”

It took until then for it to hit me. That’s how clueless I was. “Oh my God,” I said as she got back to her feet. “Are you . . . are you actually saying . . .”—I lowered my voice to a whisper—“there’s something going on?” She said nothing but looked me dead in the eye and I knew that it was true. “Fuck. Fuck! You can’t be . . . That is insane. You can’t. You can’t, Katie. You have to stop this . . . before anything happens.”

She looked at me like I was a bit dim, like she felt sorry for me. “Lena, it’s already happened.” She half smiled, wiping the tears from her face. “It’s been happening since November.”

• • •

I DIDN’T TELL the police any of that. It wasn’t any of their business.

They came to the house in the evening, when Julia and I were in the kitchen eating dinner. Correction: I was eating dinner. She was just pushing her food around her plate like she always does. Mum told me Julia doesn’t like to eat in front of other people—it’s a hangover from when she was fat. Neither of us was talking—we hadn’t said anything to each other since I came home yesterday and found her with Mum’s things—so it was a relief when the doorbell went.

When I saw that it was Sean and Detective Sergeant Morgan—Erin, as I’m supposed to call her now we’re all spending so much time together—I thought it must be about the broken windows, although I did think that both of them coming seemed like overkill. I held my hands up to it right away.

“I’ll pay for the damage,” I said. “I can afford it now, can’t I?” Julia pursed her lips like she thought I was a disappointment to her. She got up and started clearing away the dishes, even though she hadn’t eaten a thing.

Sean took her chair and pulled it round so that he was sitting next to me. “We’ll get to that later,” he said, a sad and serious expression on his face. “But first we need to talk to you about Mark Henderson.”

I went cold, my stomach flipping over like when you know something really bad is about to happen. They knew. I felt devastated and relieved at the same time, but I tried my best to keep my face totally blank and innocent. “Yeah,” I said. “I know. I smashed up his house.”

“Why did you smash up his house?” Erin asked.

“Because I was bored. Because he’s a dick. Because—”

“That’s enough, Lena!” Sean interrupted. “Stop messing about.” He looked properly pissed off. “You know that’s not what we’re talking about, don’t you?” I didn’t say a word, I just looked out of the window. “We’ve been talking to Josh Whittaker,” he said, and my stomach flipped again. I suppose I’d known all along that Josh wouldn’t be able to keep quiet about this forever, but I’d hoped that smashing up Henderson’s house might satisfy him, for a little while at least. “Lena? Are you listening to me?” Sean was leaning forward in his chair. I noticed that his hands were shaking a bit. “Josh has made a very serious allegation about Mark Henderson. He’s told us that Mark Henderson was engaged in a relationship—a sexual relationship—with Katie Whittaker in the months before she died.”

“Bullshit!” I said, and I tried to laugh. “That’s total bullshit.” Everyone was staring at me and it was impossible to keep my face from going red. “It’s bullshit,” I said again.

“Why would he invent a story like that, Lena?” Sean asked me. “Why would Katie’s little brother come up with a story like that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know. But it’s not true.” I was staring at the table and trying to think of a reason, but my face just kept getting hotter and hotter.

“Lena,” Erin said, “you’re obviously not telling the truth. What’s less clear is why on earth you would lie about something like this. Why would you try to protect a man who has taken advantage of your friend like that?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake—”

“What?” she asked, getting right up in my face. “For fuck’s sake what?” There was something about her, about how close she got to me and the expression on her face, that made me want to slap her.

“He didn’t take advantage of her. She wasn’t a child!”

She looked really pleased with herself then, and I wanted to slap her even more, and she just kept talking. “If he didn’t take advantage of her, why do you hate him so much? Were you jealous?”

“I think that’s enough,” Julia said, but no one listened to her.

Erin just kept talking, kept going on and on at me. “Did you want him for yourself, was that it? Were you pissed off because you thought you were the prettier one, you thought you should get all the attention?”

I just lost it then. I knew that if she didn’t shut up I was going to hit her, so I said it. “I hated him, you stupid bitch. I hated him because he took her from me.”

Everyone went quiet for a bit. Then Sean said, “He took her from you? How did he do that, Lena?”

I couldn’t help it. I was just so fucking tired, and it was obvious that they were going to find out now anyway, now that Josh had gone and opened his big mouth. But most of all, I was just too tired to lie anymore. So I sat there in our kitchen and I betrayed her.

I’d promised her. After we argued, after she swore to me that they’d split up and she wasn’t seeing him any longer, she made me swear: that no matter what happened, no matter what, I would never tell anyone about them. We went to the pool together for the first time in ages. We sat under the trees where no one could see us and she cried and held my hand. “I know you think it’s wrong,” she said, “that I shouldn’t have been with him. I get that. But I loved him, Lenie. I still do. He was everything to me. I can’t have him hurt, I just can’t. I couldn’t bear it. Please don’t do anything that would hurt him. Please, Lenie, keep this secret for me. It’s not about him, I know you hate him. Do it for me.”

And I tried. I really did. Even when my mum came to my room and told me that they’d found her in the water, even when Louise came to the house half mad with grief, even when that piece of shit gave a statement to the local papers about what a great student she was, how much she was loved and admired by students and teachers alike. Even when he came up to me at my mother’s funeral and offered his condolences, I bit my fucking tongue.

But I’d been biting and biting and biting for months now, and if I didn’t stop, I was going to bite clean through. I was going to choke on it.

So I told them. Yes, Katie and Mark Henderson had a relationship. It started in the autumn. It ended in March or April. It started up again, in late May, I thought, but not for long. She ended the relationship. No, I didn’t have proof.

“They were really careful,” I told them. “No emails, no texts, no Messenger, nothing electronic. It was a rule with them. They were strict about it.”

“They were, or he was?” Erin asked.

I glared at her. “Well, I never discussed it with him, did I? That’s what she told me. It was their rule.”

“When did you first find out about this, Lena?” Erin asked. “You need to go right back to the beginning.”

“No, actually, I don’t think she does,” Julia said suddenly. She was standing over by the door; I’d forgotten she was even in the room. “I think Lena is very tired and should be left alone for now. We can come by and do this at the police station tomorrow, or you can come back here, but that’s enough for today.”

I actually wanted to hug her; for the first time since I’d met her, I felt like Julia was on my side. Erin was about to protest, but Sean said, “Yes, you’re right,” and he got up and they all marched out of the kitchen and into the hallway. I followed them. When they were at the door, I said to them, “Do you realize what this will do to her mum and dad? When they find out?”

Erin turned round to face me. “Well, at least they’ll have a reason why,” she said.

“No, they won’t. They won’t have a reason,” I said. “There was no reason to do what she did. Look, you’re proving it right now. By being here, you’re proving that she did it for nothing.”

“What do you mean, Lena?” They were all stood there, staring at me, expectant.

“She didn’t do it because he broke her heart or because she felt guilty or anything like that. She did it to protect him. She thought that someone had found out. She thought he was going to be reported and that he’d be in the papers. She thought there would be a trial, and he would be convicted, and he would go to prison as a sex offender. She thought he’d be beaten or raped, or whatever it is that happens to men like that inside. So she decided to get rid of the evidence,” I said. I was starting to cry by then, and Julia stepped out in front of me and put her arms around me; she was going, “Shhh, Lena, it’s all right, shhh.”

But it wasn’t all right. “That’s what she was doing,” I said. “Don’t you understand? She was getting rid of the evidence.”