The Accusation

by Wendy James

  For as long as she could remember, Ellie had been hungry. When she was a small child, the hunger had often been literal. But as she grew older, even though she’d been given everything she needed in a material sense, that feeling of emptiness remained a constant. By the time she was fourteen, what she hungered for had changed: Ellie didn’t want bedtime stories and birthday parties anymore, she wanted booze, boys, drugs, freedom. Not necessarily in that order.

  When her Manning High English teacher had told her that The Abbey was offering senior scholarships to bright girls from disadvantaged backgrounds and suggested she apply, Ellie suddenly realised that she was hungry again. Perhaps this could be her way out. Her way up. Perhaps this would satisfy that gnawing pain.

  And so it had. For a time, anyway.

  But the hunger had gradually returned. Now, after three years of hard slog, and considerable success – her academics were first-rate, her behaviour impeccable, her reputation stainless – Ellie didn’t want any of it. She was over the constant effort, the pretence of virtue, the wank. She was sick of having to work so hard for everything, when the other girls had it so easy. They didn’t even have to try, most of them: the good life was theirs for the taking, regardless of their efforts, their talents, their intelligence. The school motto was Laborare ut procul: Work hard, go far. What bullshit, when they would all go far, regardless.

  And Ellie knew – because who didn’t? – that there were other options available to smart, good-looking girls like her. There were other ways to get on in the world, other ways of making it. Other ways of satisfying her hunger.

  There’d been a speaker at the school at last year’s valedictory. She was some hot-shot media person . . . what was her title? Celebrity manager? Agent? She’d started out as a country town newspaper journalist. She spoke about her varied career, and then, as all their visitors inevitably did, about the great potential, the amazing lives they were heading into, the immense privilege they enjoyed, the duty they had to work hard, do good, go far. Laborare ut fucking procul. The world, she’d said, was their oyster, and they would be its pearls.

  Her speech had been lame, but it was the woman’s actual job description that had made Ellie sit up and take notice. She made people famous, made people rich. In her introduction, the head had included a list of these people – most of them famous for their sporting prowess, their acting, their beauty, while others were high-profile victims or occasionally criminals. All of them, it seemed to Ellie, had managed to succeed without the years of drudgery and sacrifice she was facing.

  After the speech, she’d been introduced to the woman as one of the school’s brightest sparks – ‘so much potential’, ‘we’re very excited about her future’. Ellie and the woman, who had some weird old-fashioned name – Faith, Hope, Chastity – had stood chatting awkwardly for a few minutes. Ellie had mouthed all the usual crap about her hopes and dreams, the bright shiny future that lay ahead of her, that gleaming oyster-world. The woman had smiled at her vaguely, murmured the expected things too: So very lucky, such an opportunity. Make sure you don’t waste it.

  Ellie had taken a deep breath. ‘To tell you the truth, what I’d really like is to be rich and famous,’ she’d said softly, giving the woman her sweetest smile. ‘Although I’m not sure how exactly. Not yet, anyway.’

  The woman had snapped to attention at that, given her a calculating look. Laughed. She’d dug in her handbag, handed Ellie a business card.

  ‘Give me a call when you finish school,’ she’d said. ‘And I’ll see what I can do to help.’

  ***

  Now, at her mother’s, Ellie changed into her tightest jeans, her highest heels. She outlined her eyes, darkened her lips, straightened her hair. She looked not only older, but different. Her eyes in the mirror looked back at her harshly, her gaze cool and hard and blank. The innocent schoolgirl was gone; in her place stood someone else entirely.

  She walked into the first pub she encountered. It was dim, seedy, and full of half-drunk middle-aged men more interested in the football that was playing on enormous screens than the company. No one had turned to look at her as she walked up to the bar, and the barmaid barely glanced at her ID when she asked for a vodka. She sat at the bar, downed the drink thirstily, ordered another. There was a man sitting alone across from her. Unlike the other clientele, he wasn’t watching the screens, but had his phone out, was busily texting. He was far more attractive than all the other men in the bar: Asian, with a full head of hair, a taut jaw, good skin, looked fit, well-heeled. He wasn’t that old, either, only in his early thirties, she thought.

  When the man noticed her looking at him and gave an expectant, knowing smile, her hunger sharpened, clarified. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked towards him.

  From then it had moved quickly. One drink, then two, and then a third, seated at a table at the back of the bar now, a conversation about nothing much. He told her bits and pieces about what he did, who he was. His name was David, he said, he lived in the city, took photographs in his spare time. It was only a hobby really, portraits mostly. She had no idea whether he was telling her the truth, but it didn’t matter. Everything she told him was a lie anyway. She said she was twenty-three, that her name was Olivia, that she was studying medicine. That she’d moved here from the Gold Coast, and modelled to support herself.

  ‘A medical student, eh? Smart as well as beautiful.’ His drink went down quickly. He wiped his hand across his mouth and bared beautiful white teeth. ‘Why don’t we head back to my studio,’ he suggested, the smile never wavering. ‘Maybe I can add a few things to your portfolio.’

  It was tempting. Ellie thought hard, did some quick calculations. She could have fun, but she needn’t burn all her bridges – she had to go to that interview. One night at her mother’s wouldn’t be that hard.

  ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘Tomorrow then?’

  ‘Why not?’

  The next morning she got up early, donned the modest A-line skirt, sensibly low-heeled boots and black cashmere jumper she’d purchased for such occasions. She pulled her hair back into a low ponytail, applied her makeup sparingly. Her mother was semi-conscious when she emerged from the bathroom. Ellie dropped another twenty on her lap, blew her a kiss, grabbed her bag and left.

  The interview was a success. She was given a tour of the college first – taken to see the accommodation, the dining hall, the common rooms and the grounds – and had been disappointed by the meanness of the bedrooms, the down-at-heel shabbiness of it all. A faint whiff of hospital – bland food and disinfectant – overlaid with a slightly musty smell permeated everything. From the little she saw of them the students were a dreary bunch – all nerdy-looking, earnest, even tamer than the Abbey girls.

  According to her guides, St Anne’s had a reputation for producing the best scholars – professors, surgeons, scientists, politicians, women who end up devising public policy, sitting on boards. Quiet trailblazers rather than celebrities. Still, it was her best bet if she wanted to go to university; none of the other colleges offered financial support that was quite as generous. And it was better than the alternative – some grubby share house with a bunch of public-school losers, and the drudgery of weekend work in hospitality to pay the bills.

  The interview panel was surprisingly tough, and there was no way to gauge their attitude towards her, but Mrs Whittaker, a college alumni and head of the charitable board that provided the scholarships, shook her hand warmly.

  ‘I can’t say too much, Ellie,’ she said. ‘But I’m confident we’ll be seeing you here next year. You’re exactly the sort of girl our program was set up for. To be honest, your school recommendation sounded too good to be true, but now that we’ve met you – well, it’s clear you’re everything they say you are. And more.’ She patted her hand. ‘Now, back to school and get those silly examinations out of the way, and we’ll be seeing you back here in the new year.’

  Ellie gave a shy smile, and her thank y
ou had been full of gush and enthusiasm, but she almost ran out of the gates at the end of the long gravel driveway, she was so relieved to escape the fusty earnestness of the place.

  It wasn’t until she climbed onto the crammed bus heading back to the city that she could breathe again, even though she had to stand, pushed up hard against a seat, a dirty old woman glaring and muttering in the corner, a couple of doped-out kids giggling, the middle-aged man behind her moving closer than was strictly necessary.

  This was a scene she could deal with, a world she could understand.

  Ellie had missed that train home after the interview at St Anne’s. But the missing had been deliberate. There’d been no coffee at the cafe, no meeting with the friendly middle-aged kidnapper. Instead, she’d made a quick phone call, changed back into her jeans in the toilets at Central, made up her face, let down her hair, and done her best to look as unlike her scholarship-girl self as possible. It wasn’t all that hard; perhaps that self was never real to begin with.

  And the man she was going to meet offered a world that, right now, felt more real than St Anne’s or The Abbey ever could.

  HONOR: JULY 2018

  INITIALLY, HONOR HAD TRIED TO PERSUADE HER TO GO BACK to school. ‘It’s not like you’ve burned your bridges,’ she said. ‘You can tell them you’ve had a difficult time with your mother, that you couldn’t get any work done.’ She even offered to call them on her behalf. To drive her down there. ‘And you’re a smart girl,’ she added. ‘A couple of weeks of not studying?’ She clicked her fingers. ‘So what?’

  But the girl was adamant. It’s not that she couldn’t go back; she wouldn’t. She didn’t want the college place, didn’t even want to go to university. It was all bullshit, anyway. Who had she been kidding? She had no idea what she wanted, but she knew it wasn’t going to be found in the hallowed halls of academia, the dull dorms of St Anne’s.

  ‘So what do you think you’re going to do, exactly?’ Honor was half-exasperated, half-admiring.

  The girl shrugged. ‘I dunno. I’ll get a job, find a place to live. I just need to rethink.’

  Honor suggested she get in touch with her guardians, or the school at the very least – just to let them know, stop them raising the alarm. Hadn’t the new term begun? The girl shook her head. Her school had an extra week off, they wouldn’t be worried, not yet. Her foster parents wouldn’t have a clue – they hadn’t been expecting her back before school anyway. And even once term began it would be a couple of days before the school got worried enough to contact her foster parents. And they’d have to check that she hadn’t run off with her mother – something she’d done once or twice when she was younger. And tracking her down could take some time. Anyway, she’d turned eighteen, so officially she was no one’s responsibility. The girl explained all this completely dispassionately, without any self-pity: it’s just how it was, how it had always been.

  The elements of tragedy weren’t lost on Honor; she was moved, almost against her will. She told Ellie that she could stay the night in her apartment – there was a spare room, her husband was away for a few days. If she got a good night’s sleep perhaps her head would be clearer and things would look different. She might change her mind.

  ‘Life’s much harder than you think, Ellie,’ she said quietly. ‘And for a girl like you, with no family, no connections, it’s even more difficult.’

  She wasn’t sure what her own motives were, exactly. This sort of spontaneous kindness was certainly out of character. Perhaps there was an element of empathetic recognition – she’d been feeling raw for the last week or so, had been cast back into the memory of her own adolescent unhappiness by Chip’s revelation.

  Honor sent the girl for a shower, and while she was in the bathroom googled her name, suddenly anxious that a search might be already underway. The girl was so young, so vulnerable, and it seemed extraordinary to her that no one had noticed her absence. But there was nothing. The only web reference to her was in the school’s newsletter, naming her a member of the year’s ‘leadership team’. There was a photo of her receiving a prefect’s badge, perfectly demure in her old-fashioned kilt, her hair pulled back into a bun, face scrubbed.

  Ellie wandered back into the room, wrapped in a towel. Honor closed the tab, and the browser opened on an old ‘Whatever happened to’ article about Suzannah Wells that she’d been obsessively reading the previous day. A publicity picture of the bikini-clad starlet was juxtaposed with a candid shot, taken five years or so after the series ended.

  ‘Hey,’ the girl said, peering over her shoulder. ‘I know her.’

  ‘Really? I’d have thought you were a bit young to have watched that rubbish.’

  ‘No, not the show, the woman. I mean, I’ve never actually met her, but I know who she is. She used to live in Manning – she taught drama at the private school there. I used to see her around the place. Do you know her?’

  ‘A little. She lives in the town where I grew up. Enfield Wash.’

  ‘Is she your friend?’

  ‘My friend?’ Honor shrugged. ‘Not really.’

  The girl was still looking at the photograph. ‘Is she still a teacher?’

  ‘She is. Why?’

  ‘She was involved in some scandal at the school and had to leave. Everyone was talking about it just before I went to The Abbey.’

  Honor’s journalist antennae was up and quivering now. ‘What sort of a scandal?’

  ‘I dunno exactly. There were all sorts of rumours. I think some girl there accused her of touching her or something. It was probably bullshit, but the parents made the school get rid of her. The girl was expelled anyway. She ended up a big fat loser.’ She gave a desolate little laugh. ‘Like me, really.’

  The girl wrapped her thin arms around her body. Her face was pinched, her eyes huge and darkly shadowed. She looked about twelve.

  ‘What the fuck am I going to do? I really don’t want to go back to school, but there’d be no point anyway. The trial exams start on Monday, and I haven’t done anything. There were assignments too. And I need crazy high marks to get into St Anne’s.’

  ‘Maybe it’s not that bad. Aren’t there extenuating circumstances? Maybe you can say that you . . .’

  ‘What?’ the girl snorted. ‘What the fuck can I say? That I forgot to study? Maybe I suddenly got amnesia, but I didn’t know it? Oh, I know – maybe I could say I was knocked unconscious for the entire break. That I was kidnapped.’

  And there it was: the seeds of a plot.

  HONOR: JULY 2018

  THE STORY CAME TOGETHER REMARKABLY QUICKLY. IT WAS bizarre, almost unprecedented, but its very improbability made it seem even more authentic. Who could make this shit up? Once upon a time they’d have needed a knight in shining armour to make it properly satisfying. At the very least, there’d have been a sweetly handsome young prince eager to wake the heroine from her slumber to administer true love’s kiss. But women, and girls too, had moved way beyond that. And the story didn’t need it. It already had all the best elements of a fairy tale – the poor girl made good, the single tragic mistake, the imprisonment in the tower, the brave and brilliant escape – without all the complications that true love inevitably brought.

  Honor might have designed the basic structure, but the girl was a natural confabulator, coming up with plot twists and diversions that would never have occurred to her. In another life, with a different kind of background, maybe Ellie would have been a novelist, a playwright.

  Under different circumstances, perhaps Honor would have been disturbed by Ellie’s enthusiasm, her willingness, her lack of compunction when it came to destroying the life of an innocent stranger. But the beautiful logic of revenge only accentuated the perfect synchronicity of Ellie’s arrival at this particular moment. She had nothing but admiration for the girl’s singularity of focus, the way she’d thrown herself into it, as if it was a school assessment, a major work for one of her final subjects. There were definite similarities, she supposed: the wh
ole thing could be viewed as a radical performance piece, or some avant-garde installation, with real-life consequences.

  And any guilt Honor might have felt on the girl’s behalf was easily dispensed with. There was no question of manipulation. Honor had been upfront about what the girl was likely to achieve in the way of fame and fortune once the story hit the media. Ellie wasn’t doing it for Honor, she was doing it for herself.

  When the girl asked what was at stake for Honor, she told her the truth, or as much of the truth as she understood herself.

  The girl nodded sagely. ‘I knew there had to be a man involved somehow. When it’s revenge, there always is.’

  Usually it was Honor’s job to fan the flames of a fire that had already been lit, to add some fuel, work hard to control the conflagration. But this time it was different – she got to build the pyre and strike the match. This time it was her fire.

  Honor had come up with the big-picture stuff, the concept, but the girl was more methodical, smarter about the details, working out who was where when, and knowing how to make sure every possible loophole was closed. She wrote down all the days, all the times. She could see all the places where things might go wrong, where there were gaps in the plot, so to speak, and worked out ways to fill them.

  It was her idea that Honor visit the house, to take photographs of the room, of the staircase, of the layout of the yard, of the house from the outside and inside, of details that would be impossible to know otherwise. Her idea that she removed some things, and planted others.

  Ellie had read accounts of other victims’ time in incarceration. Of course her imprisonment wouldn’t be anywhere near as long or as dramatic as that girl in Germany, the trio in Jackson, Elizabeth Smart. But every word she said would need to sound real, feel authentic.

  She was well aware that however genuine-seeming, her story wouldn’t be accepted as being tragic, or even all that terrifying: she’d only have lost weeks, and not years of her life. There was no way her story would be as explosive as those other girls’. Oh, there was the hideous craziness of the situation – the middle-aged woman kidnapper, the mad old lady. And then there was the girl’s own backstory – her difficult past, her heroic transformation, the near ruin of all that hard work. Her escape.