by John Marrs
‘Come on, that’s not fair. I thought I’d drawn a line under this, too. I made amends with Effie and put her grades back up after you made me see what I’d done to her. As far as I was concerned, it was all over.’
‘Until you turned up at Laura’s house threatening to kill her.’
‘I was angry and upset! What would you have done?’
‘Called the police and let them handle her.’
‘I told you, that’s not an option.’
‘Because you don’t have the balls to man up and admit your part, you’ve made things a shitload worse for yourself.’
Johnny shook his head as we pulled up outside the flat.
‘This has to be the end of it,’ he added. ‘No matter what she says or what she does from here on, you have to accept the consequences. As much as you hate it, Laura has won. The end. All you can do is hope she sees it that way too.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LAURA
Effie and I sat outside her head teacher Mr Atkinson’s office, waiting to be called in.
The school secretary was photocopying papers in a room opposite us, and cursed under her breath when the machine jammed. Effie looked anxious and nibbled at the skin around her fingernails. She got that habit from me. I brushed her hand away from her mouth.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
She nodded, but I wasn’t convinced. She needed a final pep talk.
‘You know how proud of you I am, don’t you?’ She gave a slight smile. ‘I’m so glad you’ve been able to trust me to help you. It’s meant the world to me. We are doing the right thing, so please don’t be worried. I’m right here by your side.’
The door to Mr Atkinson’s office opened and he ushered us inside. I sat up straight and cleared my throat.
‘I’ll get straight to the point. One of your teachers has been making sexual advances towards my daughter.’ I squeezed Effie’s hand and she nodded. ‘I’m not sure where to begin,’ I continued, making myself sound like I was on the verge of tears. ‘Effie’s form tutor, Mr Smith, has been behaving inappropriately towards her and has launched a campaign of terror against me.’
‘Mr Smith? Ryan Smith?’ The poor fool looked utterly bemused.
‘I assume the police have informed you he was arrested three days ago for breaking into our house?’
His eyebrows knotted and he shook his head. ‘No, they haven’t. As far as I was aware, he’s been poorly with the flu.’
‘I’m a volunteer for the charity End of the Line, and somehow Mr Smith has become convinced that our organisation played a role in the tragic death of his wife. It’s quite ludicrous, of course, but it appears that for some reason he has singled me out for blame. And on Saturday he broke into our house and began hurling threats at me. I hate to think what would’ve happened had the police not arrived.’
‘Well, Mrs Morris, um . . . I can’t comment on this until I know the full facts—’
‘These are the facts, Mr Atkinson,’ I interrupted, and passed him my mobile phone so he could see the footage of a raging Ryan for himself. ‘I thought he was going to kill me.’ I blinked hard and dabbed at the corners of my eyes, as if tears were forming. ‘When my daughter arrived home, she was so scared by what had happened that she told me Mr Smith had been behaving inappropriately towards her. She’d been too frightened to say anything before now.’
Mr Atkinson turned to Effie.
‘I appreciate this must be difficult, but can you tell me a little about what happened?’ He took a pen from a pot and began writing on a pad.
‘He’s been keeping me behind in class a lot,’ Effie said, slowly and quietly.
‘Speak up, darling,’ I said. ‘You’re safe now.’
‘He takes me into that office at the back of his class where nobody else can see us, and he talks to me like we’re friends. It was nice at first. He really seemed to care about me.’
‘Right,’ said Mr Atkinson. ‘He probably shouldn’t have been alone with a pupil—’
‘Then recently, when he gave me a lift home in his car, he told me he wanted to have sex with me and started rubbing his hand up and down my leg and touching himself. As he started to pull the zip down on his trousers, I managed to open the door and escape.’
I swelled with pride, a little surprised that she’d embellished the story so convincingly. She looked to me for approval and I nodded.
‘And this happened in his car, you say?’
Effie nodded. ‘I was terrified.’ Now she was crying. They looked like real tears, too.
Mr Atkinson scratched his chin, as if trying to recall what to do to set in motion an investigation. He knew he had a duty of care to all his students, even one branded a troublemaker.
‘This explains why Effie has been acting out in class,’ I added. ‘Her marks only started going downhill when Mr Smith returned to school. Look at her records and you’ll see how the dates line up. It appears to me that Mr Smith has been – oh, I hate this word – “grooming” my daughter.’
‘This is quite an accusation, Mrs Morris, which of course I will be taking seriously. Effie, do you have anything you can give me to back this up? Any eyewitnesses or any evidence at all?’
She nodded. Now it was her turn to remove her mobile phone from her pocket. She opened an app on the screen, and pressed play. A minute later the colour had drained from Mr Atkinson’s face.
‘Would it be possible get a copy of the recording . . . ?’ he said.
I passed him a memory stick. ‘I’ve put the sound file on here for you. So what do you intend to do about this? I wanted to come to you first rather than go to the police or local education authority.’
‘No, no,’ he replied quickly. ‘You did the right thing.’
Half an hour later, Effie and I were driving towards her father’s house.
‘Did I do okay, Mum?’ she asked.
‘You did brilliantly.’
‘How much trouble will Mr Smith be in?’
‘I won’t lie to you. He’ll probably lose his job.’
She paused for a moment to process the magnitude of her accusations. ‘But he didn’t actually touch me, like I told Mr Atkinson . . .’
‘Darling, what Mr Smith did to you was just as bad as what he didn’t do. He led you on, he brainwashed you and he left you humiliated, didn’t he? He let you believe he was interested in you physically. He might not have said it, but the implication was certainly there. What if he’d gone further with the next girl he picked? What if he’d raped her? How would you feel knowing you could have prevented it if only you’d spoken up? We have bent the rules a little but sometimes that’s what needs to be done for the sake of others. I don’t expect you to understand just how serious Mr Smith’s behaviour is, but when you get older, you’ll look back and realise that we have done the right thing.’
‘What you told Mr Atkinson about Mr Smith’s wife and End of the Line . . . Was that true? Did you ever speak to her?’
‘I speak to a lot of people, so possibly, yes. But quite why he singled me out, I don’t know. He’s also been harassing my manager for weeks now. I don’t think you’ve ever met Janine, have you?’
Effie’s eyes fixed on the road ahead. She didn’t know whether to tell me Janine was her father’s girlfriend or remain silent. For now, I let her off the hook.
‘Well, Mr Smith has been bothering her too. She even met with him in the office to explain his wife’s death was not our fault.’
I parked close to Effie’s new house, but not so close as to be seen. I noted Janine’s green Astra parked a little further down the road.
‘Okay, well, why don’t I talk to your dad in the next few days to see if I can take you and Alice out to Nando’s one weekend?’
She nodded. ‘Mum,’ she asked hesitantly, ‘are you, you know, okay now?’
‘In what way?’
‘After Henry.’ She looked away, unsure whether to have brought up the subject.
‘Yes, I’m fine. A
nd Henry’s doing very well. I know he’d love to see you again.’
‘Dad said we aren’t allowed.’
‘You are your mother’s daughter, Effie. When has not being allowed to do something ever stopped you?’
She grinned and gave me a peck on the cheek before leaving the car. When she turned around to wave, I felt my heart skip a beat. I had one child back. Now there were just two more and a husband to go.
CHAPTER TWENTY
RYAN
I locked my car and hitched up my trousers.
I hadn’t put the weight back on that I’d lost after Charlotte’s death, so my belt was cinched to the tightest hole. The stress of the past few days had nulled my appetite further. I caught my reflection in the car window and I looked drawn. I patted down a stray clump of hair sticking out from my crown that resembled an antenna.
Fake flu or no fake flu, Bruce Atkinson had left me several voicemail messages urging me to return to school for an important meeting as soon as possible. He must have been told about my arrest for threatening a pupil’s parent. Whatever he was about to say wasn’t going to be good.
I’d left messages for Janine. She had a smoking gun in her hands with my Dictaphone, and I still didn’t know for sure if she’d put it to good use yet. If not, what was she waiting for?
I made my way into the school foyer and glanced at my watch. I was a little early but he was already waiting for me in the staffroom. The other teachers watched as he led me into his office, where Bruce’s deputy Sadie Marks and Dave Proudlock from Human Resources sat. Both looked as uncomfortable as each other.
‘I’ve asked Sadie and Dave to join us as witnesses,’ Bruce began. ‘I’ll get straight to the point, Ryan. An accusation has been made by a parent and student about inappropriate behaviour.’
‘Who?’ I asked, but I already knew the answer. Laura had got to him, too.
‘Effie Morris and her mother.’
‘What have they told you?’
‘They accuse you of behaving in an unprofessional manner towards Effie. Mrs Morris used the word “grooming”.’
The bitch. So that was her game now – she was trying to brand me a paedophile. She wasn’t going to tar me with that brush and get away with it.
‘It’s rubbish,’ I replied. ‘I’ve gone to great effort to try to help Effie and improve her grades, even using my own time to counsel her.’
‘Behind closed doors in your office.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘But you know school rules discourage being alone with any pupil for precisely this reason.’
I nodded. ‘But I can categorically say that I never behaved inappropriately with Effie, let alone “groomed” her.’
‘Were you ever alone with her in your car?’
‘My car? No, of course not.’ I hoped my flushed cheeks wouldn’t expose my lie.
A moment passed while Bruce looked me dead in the eye. He leaned over his desk and pressed a button on his keyboard. Suddenly I heard a recording of my own voice.
‘About what happened that afternoon. It was completely inappropriate and I want to apologise,’ I heard myself saying.
Shit. Effie had recorded our last conversation.
‘I shouldn’t have given you a lift, I shouldn’t have said the things I did and I – well, we both took things too far. I’m your teacher and I should have known better. I blame myself for giving you the wrong signals. I won’t put either of us in that position again, I promise.’
Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
‘Have you told anyone else?’ my recorded self asked.
‘No.’
‘So we can keep it between ourselves?’
There was an awkward gap before I spoke again. ‘Have you noticed your grades have improved?’ I asked.
‘Is that your way of shutting me up, Mr Smith?’ Effie replied. ‘Giving me better marks so I’ll keep quiet about what you did?’
My silence only added to my guilt.
‘Thought so. Can I go now?’
My stomach felt as if it had dropped forty floors.
‘No, no, no, this has all been taken out of context,’ I said. ‘This isn’t what happened at all!’ I looked at Sadie and Dave in the hope of gaining their support, but doubt was written across their faces.
‘What were you apologising to her for?’ Bruce asked.
‘Effie thought I was attracted to her and she tried it on with me, but I turned her down.’
‘Where was this?’
‘In my car.’
‘The car that you told me a few moments ago that she hadn’t been inside?’
‘Yes,’ I muttered.
‘I’m sorry to do this, Ryan, but I’m going to have to suspend you and ask you to leave the building with immediate effect.’
‘But it’s Effie’s mum. She has a vendetta against me . . .’
‘I note that you failed to tell me you were arrested for breaking into her house and threatening her life on Saturday.’
‘If you can just let me explain what happened—’
‘I’m sorry, but no. You can explain it to your union representative when I launch an investigation.’
Bruce escorted me through the building and into the car park. I felt many eyes watching me as the children entered the school at the first bell of the morning, wondering what was happening.
‘You are forbidden to set foot in the school grounds or school buildings until this matter has been resolved,’ Bruce advised quietly. ‘I ask that you don’t contact me, or any of your colleagues, pupils or their parents. And I suggest you get in touch with your union at the earliest opportunity.’
I remained rooted to the ground, unsure of which way to turn. I opened my mouth to try to defend myself one last time, but I wasn’t an entirely innocent party. I had led Effie on, and while I didn’t groom her sexually, I had groomed her nonetheless.
‘Could you please leave now, Ryan?’ Bruce added. ‘Let’s not make this any worse than it is.’
I climbed into my car, slipped the keys into the ignition and drove away, utterly humiliated. Laura was destroying me and I had no idea how to stop her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LAURA
I followed Janine’s green Astra from End of the Line’s offices into a familiar car park.
She remained seated and held a phone to her ear. Tony eventually appeared from his building and joined her. My stomach did somersaults when, once inside the car, they gave each other lingering kisses. I wanted to run over to them, open the door and drag Janine out by her cheap hair extensions, my fists pummelling that stupid, ugly face of hers. But now wasn’t the time to act on impulse. I had a plan I was working towards, and beating her half to death in front of my husband wasn’t part of it.
I trailed them as they picked up Effie and Alice from Tony’s house, then they drove half an hour to a multiplex cinema in Milton Keynes. There were two similar cinemas in Northampton to choose from, but I assumed they didn’t want to be seen by anyone they knew. They were quite content playing happy families, just as long as it was covertly.
I watched from outside as Janine bought the tickets, a family-sized bucket of popcorn, family-sized fizzy drinks and family-sized nachos and cheese. I followed them inside, and from the shadows of a seat fifteen rows behind them, I spent a couple of hours watching them behaving like every other family. They threw their heads back and laughed along to the comedy, and shared their drinks and snacks. But my anger soon made way for resolve. I hoped Janine was making the most of this moment, because it wasn’t going to last. Once Tony remembered the woman he’d fallen in love with all those years ago, he’d be on his knees begging me to take him back. I was the girl he loved, not the one he’d read about in my records.
It had been my own fault. I’d removed the lid from Pandora’s box. It had all come to a head one day when Tony accused me of not loving the girls. He claimed I devoted all my time to Henry, while his sisters’ emotional needs were neglected. Some o
f what he said was correct, but that was his fault. I’d close my eyes and listen to the close relationship he’d formed with the girls, and there was no room for me. He was doing the same thing to me that my father had done with my sisters – and they’d both left me out in the cold. That made me want to push Effie and Alice further away, or risk being hurt by them like I’d been hurt by my family as a girl.
Our row had been brewing for days; I could smell it in the air like the coming of a storm. Ever since we’d moved into that house and work had commenced renovating it, it had taken over our lives. Everything was always covered in dust or smelling like fresh plaster, and there were workmen constantly traipsing around, speaking in foreign languages. I could see no end to it and I began to hate that place. If we’d stayed in our last home, everything would have been all right.
‘Are you even capable of love?’ Tony spat out the words as if they were contaminated.
‘Of course I am!’ I replied. ‘I love every one of you equally.’
‘Sometimes I look at you when you’re with the girls and I don’t see anything in your eyes. It’s like they aren’t even in the same room as you. I think what happened to you as a kid has broken you.’
‘Why are you being so cruel?’
‘I’m just trying to work out in my head what the hell is going on in yours. I don’t even know if you know how your mind operates.’
During my first year in foster care, social workers didn’t know what to do with me. I’d been appointed therapists who’d tried to break through my shell, but none succeeded. My brain had been prodded and poked at, but nobody had thought to inform me if there was anything wrong with me or offered me treatment. Then, much later, after Nate killed Sylvia while trying to protect me, there’d been no effort to find me another foster carer or family. I’d been downgraded from damaged goods to unsellable. Group children’s homes were the best it would get.
Tony’s accusations tapped into a long-standing fear that there was something very wrong inside me, something deep-rooted that prevented me from loving my daughters as a mother was supposed to. So I made the decision to apply to view my records.
