The Girl from Lace Island

by Joanna Rees

  ‘So, how was the aftermath of the incident on that flight?’ he asked her.

  ‘Not good,’ she admitted, before explaining that she’d been fired. She’d told him too about Claire and what had happened in training and how that had counted against her.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Andrew Browning said, pinching his lips. She was amazed he was listening to her, as if he was genuinely concerned.

  ‘The thing is,’ Jess continued, ‘I don’t think they realize how hard I’ve worked for this. It’s not like it’s been handed to me on a plate.’

  Andrew smiled. ‘I realize that. Don’t be embarrassed about having – as you put it on your CV here – “humble” beginnings. In my long experience in recruitment, it’s the people who start with nothing who achieve the most. What is important is that a future employer will see you as you are now. A beautiful, smart, streetwise young lady with – if you don’t mind me saying – lots of potential for success.’

  Jess flushed at his flattery, feeling a rush of emotion once more in his presence. A future employer? He seemed so sure there would be one. How could he be so nice? So able to say all the right things? They chatted some more, and he asked her about her motivation for flying.

  ‘Tell me, are you trying to run away from something?’

  Jess laughed, amazed that she was so obviously transparent. ‘More a case of running away to something, if I’m honest. Although I’m not sure what. I just don’t want to get sucked down into the life that some of my friends have. That’s why I trained to be cabin crew. Someone once said that we travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us. That’s what motivates me, anyway.’

  Andrew Browning nodded and scribbled something in his leather-bound notebook.

  ‘Where would you like to be in, let’s say, two years’ time?’ he asked. His eyes were beady and Jess realized that this was her opportunity. That he was waiting for her to say something groundbreaking and clever.

  She froze. How could she explain to him that she’d only got this far in her future planning? As in this moment being the most daring she’d imagined. That her sitting on this chair meant everything to her. That he was her one lifeline. That if he didn’t see the best in her or what she was capable of, then she was finished.

  But just at that moment, Jess’s phone rang and she cursed, apologizing as she pulled it from her bag. It was Angel. Of course it was Angel. Calling at the worst possible moment. She declined the call and apologized again.

  ‘Two years’ time . . .’ she mused, trying to cover the embarrassment of the call and forcing herself to focus and not think about Angel, but a mixture of panic and relief reared up in her. If Angel was finally answering her messages, then she must be OK, right? She’d finally developed a conscience and realized that Jess had been out of her mind with worry. Well, she could damn well wait. It would do her good to get a taste of her own medicine.

  ‘Where are you aiming?’ Andrew asked her, his gaze entirely focused on her.

  Jess felt years of conditioning grating against her. It was unthinkable to voice any kind of ambition in a care home, or to her peers. You dumbed down. Fitted in. Did what you could to appear as normal as possible. She wasn’t used to articulating her desires to herself, let alone thinking about voicing them.

  ‘I want to go all the way. Well, as far as I can, at least,’ she added. ‘But most of all, I want to travel. I want to see everything. Have amazing adventures. Go everywhere.’

  ‘I always tell my clients to aim for the top. Someone has to fill the top slots. It might as well be you.’

  He wrote something in his notebook before giving her a gentle smile. It might as well be you. Those simple words. As if it were that easy. But maybe it was for someone like Andrew Browning and the people he mixed with. Maybe stuff just happened. It didn’t have to always be a fight. Could life really be like that for her too?

  Now, sitting in the launderette, Jess felt foolish for getting swept along by his enthusiasm and can-do attitude, for falling for his sales ruse. She was canny, yes, but she’d never really be able to beat the system. The only people who ever got to have that kind of life were the type who went to public school. Who were born rich. Who had class in their DNA. Like Andrew Browning.

  No. Keep positive, she cautioned herself. She must never give up. That’s what losers did.

  She stared across at the huge drum of the washing machine, the suds whooshing inside and the red flash of her uniform skirt flapping inside like a flag. She might as well give it back clean. She checked the emails on her phone once more. Nothing from Andrew’s office yet. But there would be. Of that she’d been assured.

  The door of the launderette burst open, bringing Jess back to the present with a blast of cold air. Two young guys bustled through. They were from the tower block. The ones that hung out the front on their ridiculous bikes.

  ‘You Angel’s friend?’ one of them asked, standing in front of her. Jess took her earphones out, already rising to her feet, a sickly feeling rushing through her as she met the kid’s dark stare. ‘You’d better come.’

  Jess sprinted after the two guys as they ran back towards the tower block, but she knew, even before they reached the stairwell, that something dreadful had happened.

  She could feel her heart racing as she followed them down the concrete corridor to an unfamiliar flat with a reinforced steel door. The stink made her retch and she covered her nose with her sleeve as she pushed open the door. Inside, the air was putrid, thick with dog excrement and stale bodies. The windows were covered with newspaper, casting a sickly yellow glow from the street light outside across the room towards where a lone body was slumped on the sofa.

  Even from the door, Jess knew it was Angel and that her recent medical training was going to be of absolutely no use. She forced herself to walk inside, until she was standing above Angel. Her head was lolling against her chest, vomit staining her grey T-shirt. A needle was still stuck in a vein in her arm. Jess’s knees crumpled and she screamed a silent ‘No’ as she saw the phone on the floor next to Angel’s hand. She didn’t need to pick it up to know that the call she’d declined this afternoon was the last one that Angel had ever made.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Surrey, 1990

  The sound of the girls singing the hymn rang out in the sun-filled school chapel, but Leila was only pretending to sing. She could feel everyone watching her, as if she had a neon light pointing down on her.

  It was the start of the new term and Mrs Grayson-Smith stood up in the pulpit as the rousing organ music faded.

  ‘Welcome back, girls,’ she said.

  Leila felt someone beside her nudge her and she was passed a note. She opened it up. All it said was, Snake.

  She glanced along the row, but all the girls were staring forward, pretending to listen to the headmistress.

  Leila crumpled up the note and shoved it into her blazer pocket with the others. She tried to keep any sign of emotion from her face, but inside she felt hot tears rising up.

  This was all so unfair. Since she’d got back from Judith’s house, any hope that she’d started to fit in at school had been dashed. Judith had stubbornly refused to listen to the truth about Harry, and now Leila was so sick of her not believing what had happened, she’d stopped talking about it altogether.

  But Judith refused to let it go and had spread rumours about Leila. Worse, she was delighting in being part of Edwina’s gang, parading around the dorm in Edwina’s Benetton jumpers and whispering about Leila behind her back.

  Three whole days had passed since they’d been back at school and Leila had hardly spoken to anyone, apart from her teachers, so it came as a surprise when she was asked to wait after the assembly had finished. She saw everyone giggling as they left to go to lessons and she wondered what kind of trouble she was in now.

  She waited at the back until the chapel had cleared; then Mrs Grayson-Smith walked down from the stage, her heels clicking over the parquet flooring.r />
  ‘I need to have a word with you, Leila,’ Mrs Grayson-Smith said, holding a letter Leila had written to Bibi by its corner.

  Leila stared at the letter and then at the headmistress. How dare she read her post?

  ‘I hope you are not intent on slandering the reputation of this school,’ Mrs Grayson-Smith said, ‘after we have been so generous in accommodating you.’

  ‘It’s a private letter,’ Leila protested, furious she’d been spied on. ‘I can say what I want to my mother.’

  ‘We don’t encourage girls to express any homesickness. Their parents are the ones who suffer. They are the ones missing their children and doing all the work to afford the fees here. Do you not think your poor mother is missing you dreadfully, hmm?’ she asked.

  Leila felt her lip trembling.

  ‘And do you think it’s fair to send this snivelling letter telling her that you don’t have any friends? Is that what she needs to hear on the other side of the world?’

  ‘No,’ she replied in a small whisper.

  ‘I’m glad you agree,’ the headmistress said, ripping up the letter and putting the quarters of the tear-stained paper in the pocket of her jacket.

  ‘What you need, Leila, is some good English fresh air,’ she declared. ‘Miss Sussman has kindly said she’ll make room for you in the training squad. You can report to her after lessons.’

  Leila was still smarting about the letter as she joined the others on the playing field after school. She could see Edwina and Georgina nodding at each other, as if they were readying themselves to take her down.

  Leila felt sick with dread as she ran onto the pitch, joining in with Miss Sussman’s warm-up routine. She stood halfheartedly stretching and then touching her toes, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Lac was so violent. She could almost feel Judith scraping her foot like a bull, ready for the charge. Ready to legitimately run Leila down. Which is when she realized that everyone had stopped and was pointing at her.

  ‘Er, Leila, I think you’ve had a bit of an accident,’ Edwina said, before bursting into laughter.

  Leila felt humiliation wash over her as she looked down and realized that she’d started her period. Red blood had seeped through her gym shorts to the top of her thigh. She stared down, feeling hot tears of mortification fill her eyes. How could she have not known that her period was going to start today? She was always regular as clockwork, but she’d been so miserable in the aftermath of everything that had happened with Judith, she’d barely noticed her stomach cramps.

  Miss Sussman blew her whistle to break up the commotion.

  ‘You’d better clean yourself up,’ she told Leila, leaning in close. ‘Go and take a shower.’

  Leila raced to her dorm and rummaged through the dirty laundry for some spare school uniform, then grabbed a towel and headed for the showers. It was weird being here all alone in the day, but at least there was no one around to steal her towel or her clothes.

  She stepped under the stream of water, which for once was hot and not tepid, and washed her body down with soap, but she couldn’t shake the cold feeling of dread inside her. It was bad enough to be an outsider, then to be cast out by her only friend, but now, the news of her humiliation would be all over the school.

  Ever since she’d stepped foot in England, everything that could go wrong had, and things kept on getting worse and worse. She should never have left Lace Island. She should have insisted that she stayed, because, contrary to what Bibi believed, the world wasn’t full of lovely people; it was full of bullies and liars.

  Leila pushed her face into the shower, her tears mingling with the hot water. Then the sound of footsteps made her suddenly still. Leila tried to peek over the cubicle, but she couldn’t see anyone in the steam. Had Edwina come to make her humiliation complete?

  ‘Hello?’ she called.

  But there was nobody there. She redoubled her efforts to wash quickly. She couldn’t bear anyone to find her in the showers, especially Edwina. She listened above the hiss of the water, but there was nothing. Maybe she was just being paranoid.

  Quickly, she turned off the water, and in the sudden, dripping silence, she gasped and turned as a large body reared towards her.

  Miss Sussman.

  Leila wrapped her arms across her chest, recoiling in shock.

  ‘You need to hurry it up in here,’ Miss Sussman said, staring at Leila’s wet body.

  ‘I will. I’m finished,’ Leila said. ‘One minute. I’ll get dressed right away.’

  But Miss Sussman didn’t take the hint. She stood blocking the cubicle, staring at Leila, who felt herself flush all over.

  ‘You have a nice little figure going on there, don’t you,’ she said in a quiet, creepy voice. Leila cowered away as Miss Sussman stepped closer, into the puddle of water on the shower floor. What was she doing?

  Leila barely had time to work out what was going on before Miss Sussman had reached out her arm. Leila froze as her hand touched her hip and slid over Leila’s wet skin. Miss Sussman made a low noise that sounded to Leila like a wolf’s growl.

  Terrified, Leila began to tremble. She stared at the whistle on Miss Sussman’s chest, willing herself to grab it and blow it. But no one would come. And if they did, no one would believe her.

  ‘Don’t be scared,’ Miss Sussman whispered, closer now, stepping fully into the shower and towering over Leila.

  ‘Please. I just want to get dressed,’ Leila whimpered, shrinking into the corner, her back pressed against the slimy, cold tiles.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to look,’ Miss Sussman said, pulling Leila’s arms away so that her breasts were exposed. Leila felt her eyes fill with fresh tears of humiliation as the teacher stared at her.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, willing this not to be happening. She could feel herself trembling all over. She could feel cramps in her abdomen and knew the blood was coming again, dripping down the inside of her leg. She waited, knowing that Miss Sussman would touch her again, but she didn’t. Leila opened her eyes and the teacher was gone and she was left alone, shivering and naked.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  London, present day

  Jess blew her nose as she stepped out of the chapel onto the steps of the crematorium, the walkway in front of her covered in flower tributes for the last person who’d been cremated. There had hardly been any flowers for Angel. She took a deep, shuddering breath and looked up at the clouds scudding across the dull sky. At least it had stopped raining, she thought, before remembering that today was her birthday. She turned, waiting for Tony and Maeve, his wife, to come out of the building behind her, but she already knew she wouldn’t share this realization with them. Today was just too sad for any sort of celebration.

  She dabbed the wodge of tissues against her eyes, glad that Maeve and Tony had come out to support her. And Kai had come too, shyly kissing Jess’s cheek when he’d arrived. She still felt bad about the night they’d spent together, and she regretted hurting his feelings, but none of that mattered now.

  It was two weeks since Angel’s death, but it felt like Jess’s life had stopped. Everything seemed to be in limbo, and each day had been a hellish slog of tough decisions. There’d been the paramedics, then the police; the press had even been involved. Numb with grief, Jess had been questioned again and again, but there was only one question that actually mattered: if Jess had known Angel had a problem, why hadn’t she done more?

  It was a thought that had tortured Jess ever since she’d found Angel. She should have gone to the police ages ago and reported Weasel, or sought a counsellor to help out with Angel, but instead, she’d turned what amounted to a blind eye. Sure, she’d sent that last text to her friend, but she’d said, Love you. Not, I love you. Not, You’re my family and mean the world to me and I’m worried that something terrible is happening to you and you might feel alone and scared. None of those things.

  Her attempt at emotion had been glib. Worse than if she’d said not
hing at all. And then she’d rejected Angel’s last call. And now it was too late.

  Of course, Weasel had gone. Jess had searched all over the estate for him, but he’d vanished. As had Maisie and the baby. Perhaps he’d just been using Angel all along. It was so cowardly to disappear, and it made Jess irrationally furious. People like Weasel were scum. Dealing in misery. Wrecking lives. If she’d hated drugs before, she now felt a personal vendetta against anyone involved with them.

  Who made heroin? That’s what she wanted to know. How had that muck even found its way into Angel’s veins?

  She stared out at the mourners queuing to go in for the next funeral, amazed to see one guy taking pictures with his camera. Why would you take pictures at a funeral? she wondered. She stared at him, alarmed that he was pointing his camera in her direction, but when she looked again, he was checking the screen on the back.

  Maybe the next person was famous, Jess thought. Whoever it was certainly had a hell of a lot more mourners than Angel’s death had mustered. It had been a shock to realize how few people actually cared at all about Angel. She saw the man who’d ushered them out earlier greeting the next mourners, his manner sincere but his eyes immune to the shocking conveyor belt of death over which he was presiding. Coffins in. People out. In the distance, the cars roared round the South Circular road.

  It filled Jess with terror. Who would have come to her funeral if she’d been the one who’d died? The same people, maybe. Nobody else. How had she made so little impact in twenty-five, no, twenty-six years? It was terrifying to be so near to the edge of life. Where she could just drop off, like Angel had, and hardly anyone would notice. It made her want to claw away from it as fast as possible.

  ‘It was a nice service,’ Tony’s wife, Maeve, said, in her lilting Jamaican accent, joining Jess on the steps and touching her elbow. She was a large woman, her soft skin hardly lined at all. She was wearing a purple flowery dress, which Jess suspected she always wore to church. Tony looked uncomfortable, as if he couldn’t breathe in his done-up shirt.