13 Minutes-9780575097407

by Sarah Pinborough

  Bennett swallowed and wiped sticky oat flakes from the corners of her mouth. She looked slightly awkward about having got her lunch from the school canteen and Becca almost warmed to her. A large flapjack and a BLT, and eating the flapjack first. DI Bennett would never have made a good Barbie.

  ‘Look, if this is about Aiden –’ Bennett opened the car door and dropped the coat onto the passenger seat ‘– I can’t tell you any more right now. But—’

  ‘No, no, it’s not about him,’ Becca said, breathless. ‘It’s about Jenny and Hayley.’ She waited until she had the woman’s full attention. ‘You think Jenny bought the phone that texted Tash that night, don’t you?’

  Bennett studied her. She didn’t take another bite of her flapjack. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Actually, I don’t.’

  ‘But that coat – you said—’

  ‘I know what I said. But that coat comes from Primark – Hayley was right, there are hundreds of them. This one belongs to someone at the station. And the footage we have simply shows a blonde girl wearing that coat in the shop. Not at the counter. Not with anything in her hand. There’s no CCTV footage from that area.’

  ‘Well, can’t you get it?’ Becca said. ‘I mean—’

  ‘Have you been in the One Cell Stop? To any of their shops?’ Bennett said, calm. Becca shook her head. This wasn’t what she’d expected.

  ‘They’re cheap for a reason. They skimp on everything. They’ve got a shit security camera set-up, for one thing. Now look, I know you want to—’

  ‘But there’s more,’ Becca blurted, just wanting her to shut up and listen. ‘You don’t know everything. That text said to go to the usual place, right? That’s what they call a clearing out in the woods, their usual place. Tasha hasn’t been there for months, as far as she knows, but the other night we found stuff that shows they’ve all been there recently – her, too! And there was some cut rope. Only she doesn’t remember it so it must be from that night.’

  ‘Slow down,’ Bennett said. ‘Where is this place?’

  ‘I can show you later.’ Becca couldn’t slow down. It was rushing out of her, all of it, like a tidal wave. ‘There’s more, too. Tasha said they’ve been acting weird with her for a while, like maybe they didn’t want to be her friend any more – right up until her accident. And now all they care about is if she remembers anything. You need to search their stuff, their homes and their lockers. Because if they’ve got that phone or anything else that proves they did something to Tash, then after today they’re going to get rid of it and then you’ll never know!’

  Bennett was looking at her with something close to pity. ‘Friends have spats,’ she said, and Becca felt her hope crumble with that word. Spats. What did Bennett think they were, ten years old? ‘Don’t tell me you’ve not fallen out with anyone recently. People do it all the time. It doesn’t mean they go around pushing each other into freezing rivers. Don’t let your imagination run away with you.’

  ‘Or you could just listen to me,’ Becca snapped, hoping to sound in control but knowing she sounded both desperate and like she was stamping her feet. ‘We told Hayley that Tasha was starting to remember and now they’re both freaking out. Did you look at Jenny? She’s off her face on something and she’s cracking up.’ Her hands waved madly as she ranted, as if they could add weight to her words. ‘And Hayley’s all over me wanting to know if Tasha’s told me anything or if she’s remembered any more. It’s all shit like that. I’m telling you, if you don’t search their stuff today, then as soon as rehearsals are done and they go home, anything they’ve got will be gone. Jenny might be a mess, but Hayley’s fucking nails.’

  ‘All right,’ Bennett said. ‘So where’s Natasha, then? If she thinks the same then why isn’t she here?’

  It was Becca’s turn to give Bennett a withering glare. ‘Why do you think? Because she’s afraid!’

  Caitlin Bennett stared at her, then took another small bite of the flapjack and chewed on it. ‘Go back inside,’ she said, when she’d swallowed. ‘You’ll freeze out here without a coat.’

  Becca searched her face for a flicker of hope but there was nothing. Shitting hell. She let out a grunt of frustration, turned around and stomped back into the school. The woman is a fucking idiot, she thought. She’s too focused on accusing Aiden to see the truth. Fuck DI Bennett. And fuck Natasha. If Becca had to prove it by herself, then she would. She’d find a way.

  Thirty-Six

  With Aiden’s interview suspended, Jamie had gone to the small café of a nearby supermarket to grab a coffee and return some some work calls. He was about to head back and see what was going on when the police rang him to say Aiden was being released without charge. He was on the steps outside waiting when Jamie got there, hunched over in the cold and dragging hard on a cigarette. He did manage a smile, though.

  ‘They spoke to Emma. She said she was with me. Plus she said she was too cold to really sleep and was pissed off she was stuck, so spent most of the time just dozing after I passed out. No way I could have got out of the car without her knowing.’

  Jamie grinned. ‘So that’s that, then.’

  ‘Fucking hope so.’

  ‘How did Bennett take the news? Disappointed?’ He couldn’t help but ask. He hoped the DI was above pinning it all on one person until she could make it stick, just because she’d decided it fit. She’d been warm and kind when she’d spoken to him in the hospital. So different from the cool, closed woman he’d seen today. That was the job, he guessed, but he wondered if he’d met the real Caitlin Bennett at all. Who was she when she got home and relaxed? Cat person? Dog person? Married person?

  ‘Didn’t see her again,’ Aiden said. ‘Don’t think she came back. Some uniformed bloke came in and told the sergeant, who then told me and said I could go.’

  ‘You want to get a beer?’ Jamie asked. The day was screwed anyway, they might as well write it off and start again tomorrow. ‘You look like you might need one.’

  ‘Fuck, yes. But not anywhere within sight of this place.’

  ‘Deal.’

  They parked and walked in an amiable quiet while Aiden smoked, lighting a second cigarette from his first.

  ‘They didn’t let you out for a smoke?’

  ‘I didn’t want to ask.’

  ‘So,’ Jamie said, as they stopped outside the King’s Arms, ‘what are you going to tell Becca? The truth?’

  Aiden shrugged and shuffled his feet. ‘Dunno. She’s been calling and texting all day. I might just say I’ve been working and had my phone switched off?’

  ‘Why lie again? You’re worried about this Emma girl?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Something going on there?’ Jamie was suddenly reminded of how young Aiden was. Nineteen, with a sixteen-year-old girlfriend. However grown-up she was, that might as well be ten years between them.

  Aiden shook his head. ‘Not really. A snog once, but that was ages ago. It’s not like that with Emma.’

  Something in his body language was saying otherwise, but however attracted Aiden might be to this Emma, Jamie didn’t think he’d done any more than kiss her. He had no reason to lie to Jamie.

  ‘She’s just different from Bex, you know? Becca’s so insecure all the time. Emma’s laid back. Older. Knows her shit.’

  ‘Well, if you’re just friends, why don’t you tell Becca about her?’ Oh, poor Becca, Jamie thought. This boy is going to hurt your heart.

  ‘She wouldn’t get it.’ He threw the cigarette butt down and trod on it. ‘I care about her and everything but it’s all too much sometimes. I just want to chill and have fun and play music.’

  ‘It’s your call,’ Jamie said, pulling the pub door open, ‘but if I was you I’d tell her. Maybe not the kissing bit, but that this girl is your friend and you got stoned with her that night. The truth has a habit of coming out. What if Bennett talks to her? W
hat if the press get hold of it? They knew about the police talking to you. And if Becca’s pissed off, she’s pissed off. You haven’t done anything wrong. You can’t live in each other’s pockets.’

  ‘I don’t know, man,’ Aiden said, following him into the warmth and letting the door swing shut behind them. Despite having just been released from the police, Jamie thought he had the air of a condemned man. That was women for you. Aiden was learning that fast. ‘I’m not sure the truth is worth the hassle.’

  ‘I hope you didn’t use that line on Bennett,’ Jamie said and signalled the barman.

  Aiden laughed. ‘I reckon you set me up just to spend some time with her,’ Aiden said.

  It was Jamie’s turn to look awkward and embarrassed. So it was that obvious. Great. If Aiden, stoned most of the time and

  preoccupied by his own situation, had noticed, then there was no way that Caitlin Bennett hadn’t. He groaned inside. Today was just getting better and better.

  Thirty-Seven

  Taken from DI Caitlin Bennett’s files:

  Extract from Natasha Howland’s notebook

  I don’t even know how to start writing this. I guess from where Becca whirlwinded at me in the common room. I don’t even know if I should write this. But better out of my head and on the paper. I can close the book, then. End this journal that no one will ever read. It’s purpose is done. It’s not even this stupid diary that made me remember, is it? Eat that, Dr Harvey.

  The fractures between us have proved to be fault lines we can’t repair and today has become a hellish nightmare. All that hate I never realised was there. And now this terrible thing has happened. I can’t quite comprehend it.

  I sat in the sixth form common room for a full ten minutes after the bell before I moved, and even then my legs felt heavy as I walked to the theatre. I didn’t care about the play. My world was spiralling out of control. I tasted cold, dirty water in my mouth. I remembered the fear. I wondered if Becca hated me for my reluctance to tell the police. I just wanted to go home and sleep and never leave the house again. We didn’t need the play. Everyone was already pretending to be someone else. Jenny sent the text.

  The first thing I heard when I put my bag down was the bickering. It’s always a couple of degrees colder in the theatre than the rest of the school, and that chill went well with the sheet-ice atmosphere between us. Mr Jones was enthusiastically talking James Ensor, Hayley and Jenny through the scene they were about to read. I didn’t listen in but caught snippets of what he was saying anyway.

  . . . it’s a difficult scene filled with undercurrents of emotion. Betrayal. Hurt. Fear.

  No shit, Mr Jones, I wanted to say. Welcome to our world. Hayley looked over and smiled at me. I tried to smile back. Jenny looked at the ground. Her foot tapped and I thought maybe she was high again. I felt so distant from them all. Like I wasn’t really there. Like maybe I did die in that river and I was just a ghost.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Hannah.’ Becca’s voice cut through my strange reverie. They were standing at Mr Jones’s director’s table where all his bits of paper and coffee were. Becca was wrangling a key from a heavy school key ring. ‘Stop being so moody. Why is it such a big deal, anyway? What are we? Twelve?’

  ‘I just don’t get why you lied to me, that’s all.’ Hannah was doing her best to hold her own, but she was no match for Becca. Not behind that desk. Not in school. All she was really doing was clinging to the driftwood of the wreck of their friendship and hoping Becca would pull her into the lifeboat. But Becca had me again now. Why would she want Hannah?

  ‘Maybe if you weren’t so needy all the time I wouldn’t have had to lie,’ Becca muttered. I felt that sting and it wasn’t even aimed at me. Hannah was saved from responding by Becca turning and walking away to the lighting booth, leaving Hannah’s face a cracked portrait of hurt.

  ‘Come for a smoke with me before we start,’ Hayley said to Jenny. They were speaking quietly but I’d moved closer, pretending to study the play. There’s nothing in this scene for me, though. I just stand in the shadows and wait to be lit up.

  ‘Fuck off,’ Jenny mumbled. ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you any more.’

  ‘Jen—’

  ‘I said fuck off.’ It was a hiss, but one that was desperate to be a tearful scream.

  ‘Okay, everyone!’ Mr Jones clapped his hands together. ‘Let’s get started.’

  Hayley’s smoke was going to have to wait until later.

  My stomach cramped and I sat down on a chair away from the action. James Ensor came over to dump his jumper. He grinned at me and said something, but I didn’t hear it. Jenny bought the phone. I think I smiled back. Maybe I didn’t.

  ‘As we talked about. And remember – power plays, fear, passion – it’s all here.’ Mr Jones took his seat. ‘Tasha, I want them to go through it first then we’ll set you up for Becca’s lighting test, okay?’

  I nodded through my gloom, feeling an odd relief that I wasn’t a ghost after all.

  They started and even I was drawn in somewhat. Hayley had all the cool required for Elizabeth Proctor and James had that thing that made all the girls rage about him. But Jenny . . . Jenny was always the revelation. Even there, mildly off her face and distracted, she shone on stage. She lost herself in Mary Warren. She was Mary Warren. I am rarely jealous, but I was jealous of how good Jenny was. I wondered if she had any idea how talented she was, really. Mr Jones did. He positively glowed when he watched her. Jenny and men. Bees and honey. But we’ll come to that.

  ‘Great,’ he said as they reached the end of the scene. ‘That’s really great. Let’s do it again. Give it all you’ve got.’

  Even though my skin was starting to feel hot and I was trying not to think about coats and texts and icy water, I found myself watching. Mary Warren would not be the cowed little servant girl any more. Abigail’s court – my court – had given her power.

  ‘Aye, but then Judge Hathorne said, “Recite for us your commandments!”’ Jenny owned the stage with her wild eyes and unstable passion. ‘And of all the ten she could not say a single one. She never knew no commandments, and they had her in a flat lie!’

  ‘And so condemned her?’

  ‘Why, they must when she condemned herself.’

  ‘But the proof, the proof!’

  James Ensor was good. The rational character. The earthy man who saw it all for what it was because he knew his own part in it. Jenny’s stage confidence was making them all stronger. Even Hayley, standing between them, was fully in character.

  ‘Okay.’ Mr Jones was on his feet again. ‘Brilliant work. Jenny, you’re perfect already. Now let’s move Tasha in position for this lighting test and see if we’re going to do the play this way.’ He said. ‘Becca’s getting an assistant director credit if this works.’

  ‘I’m seeing her here.’ Becca was out of the booth and standing beyond the marked corner of the stage, looking up to check that the light was actually in place. ‘And the cast on benches between their scenes around here and here – almost like a gallery in a trial – then it’ll be easy for her, and anyone else, to get to this spot. We can just seat the people we need at the ends.’

  Mr Jones looked impressed and Becca was clearly happy that he was. It was so crazy and my stomach lurched again. We are so resilient. It’s not just our bodies that are strong. A couple of hours earlier, Becca was screeching at me about the police, and now she was totally focused on getting this right. I wondered what she was thinking. I wondered what she’d said to Bennett, if she found her. My face burned.

  ‘Great. Tasha?’ Mr Jones said.

  I couldn’t. I shook my head. ‘I feel sick. Dizzy.’ My legs wouldn’t work and there was a humming inside my skull. I didn’t want to be near the stage. Near them. I willed myself to calm down, but the more I tried, the hotter my face felt. Thinking about it now makes me feel sick aga
in. What might have happened. What did happen. Relief and a terrible guilt all mixed up together. It should have been me.

  Mr Jones frowned and they gathered around me, which didn’t help. I needed air. I needed them to ignore me. I tried to apologise between deep, shaky breaths. My face was clammy.

  ‘You have to do it,’ Hayley said. ‘You’ve only got to stand there for a few minutes so Mr Jones can see.’ She was irritated with me, it was so clear. She thought I was pretending. Attention-seeking.

  ‘Do you want to go and have a lie-down, or get a glass of water, maybe?’ Mr Jones said. ‘Or call your mum to pick you up?’ All adults treat me with kid gloves. They don’t bounce back from things like the young do. They’re not hardy like we are.

  ‘I’ll be all right in a minute,’ I said, although I wasn’t remotely sure I would. ‘Just suddenly felt sick. Light-headed. If I can have a little while to catch my breath . . . I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ll be better in a minute.’

  Hayley tutted, sucking air between her teeth. ‘It’ll only take two minutes.’ She looked at Mr Jones. ‘Just tell her to get up and do it.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ A meek voice cut in and everyone turned to look. It was Hannah, with her new-found backbone. ‘I’m about Tasha’s height. It doesn’t have to be her.’

  ‘But surely,’ Hayley said, ‘part of it has to be the expression – the moment of victory on her face when Mary Warren says I’ve been accused of witchcraft. That’s what makes it so powerful, not just the lighting.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Mr Jones said, ‘but I’m not going to be responsible for Tasha fainting or something, and, to be honest, I’d expect more sympathy from you, Hayley. You’re supposed to be best friends. What’s wrong with you all today?’