Into the Water 11 страница

Eventually, he looked up at me. ‘Whatever I do, ’ he said, ‘someone is going to be upset with me. ’ Then he shook his head. ‘No, actually, that’s not right. If I do the right thing, everyone is going to be upset with me, and if I do the wrong thing, they won’t. It shouldn’t be like that, should it? ’

‘No, ’ I said, ‘it shouldn’t. And I’m not sure you’re correct about that. I can’t think of a situation in which doing the right thing will make everyone upset with you. One or two people, maybe, but surely if it’s the right thing, some of us will see it that way? And be grateful to you? ’

He chewed his lip again. ‘The problem, ’ he said, his voice trembling again, ‘is that the damage is already done. I’m too late. It’s too late to do the right thing now. ’

He cried again, but not like before. He wasn’t wailing or panicking, this time he cried like someone who has lost everything, lost all hope. He was in despair, and I couldn’t bear it.

‘Josh, I must get your parents here, I must, ’ I said, but he clung to my arm.

‘Please, Mr Townsend. Please. ’

‘I want to help you, Josh. I really do. Please tell me what it is that’s upsetting you so much. ’

(I remembered sitting in a warm kitchen, not my own, eating cheese on toast. Jeannie was there, she sat at my side. Won’t you tell me what happened, darling? Please tell me. I said nothing. Not a word. Not a single word. )

Josh, though, was ready to speak. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose. He coughed and sat up straight in his chair. ‘It’s about Mr Henderson, ’ he said. ‘About Mr Henderson and Katie. ’

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 they 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 half-heartedly, 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 any more. 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 a 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 any more. 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 were 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 for ever, 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 any more. 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. ’

FRIDAY, 21 AUGUST

Erin

THE COTTAGE BY the river, the one I saw when I went running, is to be my new home. In the short term, at least. Just until we sort out this business with Henderson. It was Sean who suggested it. He overheard me telling Callie, the DC, that I’d almost run the car off the road this morning I’d been so knackered, and he said, ‘Well, we can’t have that. You should stay in town. You could use the Wards’ cottage. It’s just upriver and it’s empty. It’s not luxurious, but it won’t cost you anything. I’ll get you the keys this afternoon. ’

As he left, Callie grinned at me. ‘The Wards’ cottage, eh? Watch out for mad Annie. ’

‘I’m sorry? ’

‘That place by the river that Patrick Townsend uses as his fishing cabin – it’s known as the Wards’ cottage. As in Anne Ward? She’s one of the women. They say, ’ she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, ‘that if you look hard enough you can still see the blood on the walls. ’ I must have looked nonplussed – I had no idea what she was talking about – because she smiled and said, ‘It’s just a story, one of the old ones. One of those ancient Beckford stories. ’ I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to century-old Beckford stories – I had fresher ones to concern myself with.

Henderson hadn’t been answering his phone, and we’d taken the decision to leave him alone until his return. If the Katie Whittaker story was true, and if he got wind that we knew about it, he might not come back at all.

In the meantime, Sean had asked me to question his wife, who, as head teacher at the school, is Henderson’s boss. ‘I’m certain she never had the faintest suspicion about Mark Henderson, ’ he said. ‘I believe she thinks rather highly of him, but someone needs to talk to her and it obviously can’t be me. ’ He told me she’d be at the school, and that she’d be expecting me.

If she was expecting me, she certainly didn’t act like it. I found her in her office on her hands and knees, her cheek pressed to the grey carpet as she craned her head to look under a bookcase. I coughed politely and she jerked her head up, alarmed.

‘Mrs Townsend? ’ I said. ‘I’m DS Morgan. Erin. ’

‘Oh, ’ she said. ‘Yes. ’ She blushed, putting a hand to her neck. ‘Lost an earring, ’ she said.

‘Both, by the looks of it, ’ I said.

She made an odd sort of huffing noise and indicated that I should sit. She tugged at the hem of her blouse and smoothed her grey trousers before sitting herself. If I’d been asked to picture the DI’s wife, I’d have imagined someone quite different. Attractive, well dressed, probably sporty – a marathon runner, a triathlete. Helen wore clothes more suited to a woman twenty years her senior. She was pale, and her limbs soft, like someone who rarely went out or saw the sun.

‘You wanted to speak to me about Mark Henderson, ’ she said, frowning slightly at a pile of papers in front of her. No small talk, then, no preamble – straight down to business. Perhaps that’s what the DI likes about her.

‘Yes, ’ I said. ‘You’ve heard the allegations made by Josh Whittaker and Lena Abbott, I take it? ’

She nodded, her thin lips disappearing as she pressed them together. ‘My husband told me yesterday. It was, I can assure you, the first I’d heard of such a thing. ’ I opened my mouth to say something, but she continued. ‘I recruited Mark Henderson two years ago. He came with excellent references and his results so far have been encouraging. ’ She shuffled the pages in front of her. ‘I have specifics if you need them? ’ I shook my head, and again, she started speaking before I could ask the next question. ‘Katie Whittaker was conscientious and hard-working. I have her grades here. There was, admittedly, some slippage last spring, but it was short term, she’d improved again by the time … by the time she …’ she passed a hand over her eyes, ‘by the summer. ’ She sank a little into her chair.

‘So you had no suspicions, there were no rumours …? ’

She cocked her head to one side. ‘Oh, I didn’t say anything about rumours. Detective … er… Morgan. The rumours that fly around the average secondary school would make your hair curl. I’m sure, ’ she said, a twitch around her mouth, ‘that if you put your mind to it, you might be able to imagine the sort of things they say and write and tweet about me and Ms Mitchell, the PE teacher. ’ She paused. ‘Have you met Mark Henderson? ’

‘I have. ’

‘So you understand, then. He’s young. Good-looking. The girls – it is always the girls – say all sorts of things about him. All sorts. But you have to learn to cut through the noise. And I believed I had done that. I still believe I’d done that. ’ Again, I wanted to speak, and again, she pressed ahead. ‘I have to tell you, ’ she said, raising her voice, ‘that I am deeply suspicious about these allegations. Deeply suspicious, because of their source and because of the timing. ’

‘I—’

‘I understand that the allegation came first from Josh Whittaker, but I’d be surprised if Lena Abbott isn’t behind all this – Josh dotes on her. If Lena decided that she wanted to deflect attention away from her own wrongdoing – purchasing illegal drugs for her friend, for example – I’m sure she could have persuaded Josh to come up with this story. ’

‘Mrs Townsend—’

‘Another thing I should mention, ’ she continued, permitting no interruption, ‘is that there was some history between Lena Abbott and Mark Henderson. ’

‘History? ’

‘A couple of things. First, that her behaviour could at times be inappropriate. ’

‘In what way? ’

‘She flirts. Not just with Mark either. It seems she’s been taught that it’s the best way to get what she wants. Many of the girls do it, but in Lena’s case Mark seemed to feel that it went too far. She made remarks, touched him …’

‘Touched him? ’

‘On the arm – nothing outrageous. She stood too close, as the song goes. I had to speak to her about it. ’ She seemed to flinch slightly at the memory. ‘She was reprimanded, though of course she didn’t take it seriously. I think she said something along the lines of He wishes. ’ I laughed at that, and she frowned at me. ‘It really isn’t a laughing matter, Detective. These things can be terribly damaging. ’

‘Yes, of course. I know. I’m sorry. ’

‘Yes. Well. ’ She pursed her lips again, every inch the school marm. ‘Her mother didn’t take it seriously, either. Which is hardly surprising. ’ She coloured, an angry flush of red appearing at her neck, her voice rising. ‘Hardly surprising at all. All that flirting, the endless batting of lashes and tossing of hair, that insistent, tiresome expression of sexual availability – where do you imagine Lena learned that? ’ She took a deep breath and exhaled, pushing her hair from her eyes. ‘The second thing, ’ she said, calmer now, more measured, ‘was an incident in the spring. Not flirting this time, but aggression. Mark had to send Lena out of his class because she was being aggressive and quite abusive, using foul language during a discussion about a text they were studying. ’ She glanced down at her notes. ‘Lolita, I believe it was. ’ She raised an eyebrow.

‘Well, that’s … interesting, ’ I said.

‘Quite. It might even suggest where she got the idea for these accusations, ’ Helen said, which wasn’t what I’d been thinking at all.

In the evening, I drove out to my temporary cottage. It looked much lonelier with dusk looming, the bright birches behind it now ghostly, the chuckle of the river not so much cheerful as menacing. The banks of the river and the hillside opposite were deserted. No one to hear you scream. When I’d come past on my run I’d seen a peaceful idyll. Now I was thinking more along the lines of the desolate cabin of a hundred horror films.

I unlocked the door and took a quick look around, trying, as I did, not to look for blood on the walls. But the place was tidy, with the astringent smell of some sort of citrusy cleaning product, the fireplace swept, a pile of chopped wood neatly arranged at its side. There wasn’t much to it, it was more of a cabin than a cottage really: just two rooms – a living room with a galley kitchen leading off it, and a bedroom with a small double bed, a pile of clean sheets and a blanket folded on the mattress.

I opened the windows and the door to get rid of the artificial lemon smell, opened one of the beers I’d bought at the Co-op on the way down, and sat on the front step, watching the bracken on the hill opposite turn bronze to gold with the sinking sun. As the shadows lengthened, I felt solitude morph into loneliness, and I reached for my phone, not certain who I was going to call. Then I realized – of course – no signal. I hauled myself to my feet and wandered about, waving the phone in the air – nothing, nothing, nothing, until I walked right down to the river’s edge where a couple of bars appeared. I stood there a while, the water just about lapping my toes, watching the black river run past, quick and shallow. I kept thinking I could hear someone laughing, but it was just the water, sliding nimbly over the rocks.

I took ages to fall asleep and when I woke suddenly, feverishly hot, it was to inky darkness, the kind of deep black that makes it impossible to see your hand in front of your face. Something had woken me, I felt sure: a sound? Yes, a cough.

I reached for my phone, knocking it off the little bedside table, the clatter as it fell to the floor startlingly loud in the silence. I scrabbled around for it, gripped suddenly by fear, sure that if I turned on the light it would reveal someone standing there in the room. In the trees behind the cottage I could hear an owl hooting, and then again: someone coughing. My heart was beating too fast, I was stupidly afraid to pull back the curtain above my bed, just in case there was a face on the other side of the glass, looking back at me.

Whose face was I expecting? Anne Ward’s? Her husband’s? Ridiculous. Muttering reassurances to myself, I turned on the light and flung back the curtains. Nothing and no one. Obviously. I slipped out of bed, pulled on tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt and went through to the kitchen. I considered making a cup of tea, but thought better of it when I discovered a half-empty bottle of Talisker in the kitchen cupboard. I poured myself a couple of fingers’ worth and drank it quickly. I slipped on my trainers, put my phone in my pocket, grabbed a torch from the counter and unlocked the front door.

The batteries in the torch must have been low. The beam was weak, reaching no more than six or seven feet in front of me. Beyond that was perfect obscurity. I angled the torch downwards to light up the ground in front of my feet, and walked out into the night.

The grass was heavy with dew. Within a few steps my trainers and tracksuit bottoms were soaked through. I walked slowly all the way around the cottage, watching the torchlight dancing off the silvery bark of the beech trees, a cohort of pale ghosts. The air felt soft and cool, and there was a kiss of rain in the breeze. I heard the owl again, and the low chatter of the river, and the rhythmic croak of a toad. I finished my circuit of the cottage and started walking towards the river bank. Then the croaking suddenly stopped, and again, I heard that coughing sound. It wasn’t nearby at all, it was coming from the hillside, somewhere across the river, and it didn’t sound so much like a cough this time either. More of a bleat. A sheep.

Feeling somewhat sheepish myself, I went back into the cottage, poured myself another shot of whisky and grabbed Nel Abbott’s manuscript from my bag. I curled up in the armchair in the living room and began to read.

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