13 Minutes-9780575097407

by Sarah Pinborough

  Okay, I fess up. I’m not

  watching it. But it’s still

  on here. You know it.

  I know it.

  She waited.

  It’s perfectly explainable.

  Fragile memory. Maybe I

  filmed it that night and

  forgot.

  Tasha was so arrogant. She was clever, but she’d never been quite as clever as she thought she was.

  Possible but unlikely, Becca responded. How was Tasha feeling now? Sweaty? Irritated? Not so nice when you were the one being played.

  Probable and likely.

  She was always so confident. Becca wished she could see Tasha’s face when she realised how one small detail on the film could unravel her whole version of events. It all came down to Hayley’s accident. Her damaged wrist. The timings. Natasha was a planner. And the first part of her plan would have been to create something concrete she could keep and use. The film. She’d have made that before she dyed her hair and bought the phones. Which meant if Hayley was in it then her wrist was injured. Her cast didn’t come off until right before Christmas. She’d be wearing it in the film.

  Becca sent another smiley face, sure it would wind her ex-best friend up. Then after a moment, she added:

  Rethink that. If you

  haven’t figured it out in

  five minutes then you’re

  not as bright as I

  imagined.

  She put that phone down and picked up her iPhone. She went to Aiden’s number.

  Thought u should know,

  Tasha will be dumping u

  within the hour.

  She pressed ‘send’ and then tossed the phone down. She didn’t bother checking for a reply. Aiden wasn’t important any more.

  Fifty-Nine

  I take four deep breaths and I hate that each of them is shaky and my hands tremble. I sit on my bed and stare at the phone. I’m missing something. Becca is never this confident. What does she know that I don’t? What could she possibly be so sure about without seeing the film?

  I run through it all in my head as I pace, needing to get rid of the nervous energy in my legs. I want to head to the woods for a run, but I can’t. Be calm, I tell myself. This is still just a game. A dangerous one, but a game all the same. More than that, it’s my game. And at least I’m not bored any more. I try to smile but I catch sight of myself in the mirror and I look slightly deranged. What could she know?

  I took the film in the Asda car park. Same car, same man, same girls. I didn’t upload it to mum’s laptop until that Friday night, so it could easily be a glitch in my memory that I forgot about it. It wouldn’t be great, but I can cover it.

  So what is it? Oh, Becca, Becca, Becca, little fat Rebecca who still carries all those wounds around with her as if the flab still sticks, what have you thought of that I’ve missed?

  I imagine her sitting at home, smug, waiting for me to answer. I hate being behind someone else. I’m always two steps ahead. I refuse to ask.

  Was it something in the weather? No, both were clear, dark evenings. Nothing was different. Nothing!

  And then everything stops for a moment. Even my heart. I know what it is. I know why Becca is all smiley-face-smug and patient.

  Hayley’s wrist.

  If I’d taken the film on Thursday night, when I said I’d found out about Jenny fucking Mr Garrick, the night before I went in the river, then Hayley’s wrist would be fine. But I took the film way earlier, when I really found out. And back then Hayley’s wrist had that hard support on it.

  I stare at the phone and want to stab Becca in the eyes through the crappy screen. This is enough to ruin me. It’s proof and Becca knows it. If Bennett finds out that I knew about Jenny and Mr Garrick for months before I went into the river then everything changes. It might not explain why, but it sure as shit proves that I lied about my memory loss. And lied a lot. It’s a thread that could unravel everything. It turns the tables.

  A cool calm washes over me as I think about the bigger picture. Becca hasn’t taken this to Bennett. She’s come to me instead. Why?

  Because locking me up can’t be what Becca wants.

  I stare at the chessboard in the corner, the pieces raring to go, and then send back a text.

  Congratulations. Well

  thought out. What’s that,

  a bishop you’ve taken?

  This is still my game.

  Oh come on! It’s defo your queen! ;-)

  I grit my teeth. My tolerance of the smileys is starting to wear thin.

  So what do you want?

  I wait

  To start with, I want

  you to dump Aiden.

  I almost laugh aloud at that. Really? Surely this is worth more than that?

  You still want him???

  The answer came back fast.

  No. But I think he’s better

  off the board. He’s served

  his purpose, hasn’t he?

  I feel something close to impressed. Perhaps I’ve underestimated Becca. She’s right, too. It would be good to be free of him. I grab my normal phone and type out the text, almost cringing as I do so. Feel sorry for Becca, this is too soon, blah blah sweetness and light. I press ‘send’. Then I text Becca on the other phone.

  Done.

  I almost want to thank her for freeing me from him and his potential fingering but I’m not sure she’s ready for that yet. She was fond of him, after all.

  What else?

  A pause. She’s doing it for dramatic effect which is irritatingly obvious but I let her have her moment. This game is far from played out.

  I want my life back.

  Before I have time to read it, the phone buzzes again. And then again.

  My better life.

  I want to be your

  best friend.

  I smile, sink back against my pillows and look at the tree outside my window. Of course. This is all Becca has ever wanted. This is manageable.

  Let’s talk.

  Becca’s made her point with the phones. She’s clever. She’s figured me out. Now we need to get rid of them and the film. God, in some ways she’s so ingenious and in others so predictable. It will take some doing, this demand of hers, if I decide to play along. Restoring her to popularity. Maybe I should for a while. It might be more interesting than the current dullness, but there are other directions I could take this game. Whichever way it goes, I intend to win.

  At least now I know her aim. My other phone buzzes but I ignore it. It’ll be Aiden and he’s already forgotten as far as I’m concerned.

  It’s good to have something to mull over. To plan.

  I grin harder when I realise I haven’t tried to count any thirteens since Becca’s first text. She’s better therapy than Dr Harvey ever was.

  Sixty

  Jamie opened the red wine and let it breathe. It was past eleven but he’d prepared a late supper of cheese and biscuits and cold meat for when Caitlin arrived. One thing this budding relationship had in its favour was that neither of them kept normal hours. Other people in Brackston might be thinking of going to bed now, but Jamie was still wide awake and had only just stopped working in time to shower and make himself look as presentable as he could manage.

  He heard the car pull up on the gravel and his heart sped up a little. He hated himself for feeling so nervous but it was a while since he’d been on a date, and although they hadn’t planned for her to sleep over tonight, there was a sense that it was implied. She lived on the other side of town and was coming straight from work, and there was no way she’d drink and drive.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. She looked good. She always wore trouser suits when working, dark and serious, how she liked to present herself, but now she was wearing jeans and a red blouse with matching
lipstick. Her hair was down, too, falling glossy around her shoulders. He took a deep breath. It was definitely a date.

  ‘Can I come in?’ She was hesitant on the doorstep, reaching down to pat an eager Biscuit and then holding up a bottle. ‘Just in case you’ve run out.’

  ‘No danger of that.’

  He stepped aside to let her in and took her coat. As they headed – both a little nervous, he decided – to the sitting room, Aiden came down the stairs. He immediately tucked the joint he was carrying into his pocket, but Jamie doubted Caitlin had missed it.

  ‘I thought you had plans tonight?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘Sorry, they were cancelled. I’ll stay out of your way, though – just grabbing a drink.’ He looked despondent, and Jamie poured them all a glass of wine. It was good having Aiden there for a moment – he broke the tension and gave the two awkward adults a focal point. Jamie couldn’t help but wonder how long it was since Bennett had been on a date. It became harder to meet people as you got older, and it was easier just to live on your own.

  ‘You look miserable,’ he said. ‘Everything okay?’

  Aiden shrugged, the half-energy move that usually meant so much more. ‘Tasha dumped me.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’ And he was, although Aiden could probably use some of the single-man time Jamie had experienced too much of. ‘Bit sudden, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Aiden paused. ‘I think Becca had something to do with it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It’s weird. She texted that Tasha was going to dump me – not a raging crazy text, just said that Tasha would dump me within the hour, and then next thing I know I get a text from Tasha doing just that.’ He sipped his wine. ‘I’m not bothered or anything, not really, but it came out of the blue. She’d been texting me earlier and everything looked pretty good.’

  ‘Maybe Becca and Tasha have made up,’ Jamie said. ‘You know what girls are like.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’ Aiden turned back to the hallway. ‘Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. Going to watch some TV in my room.’ He nodded at Caitlin. ‘Have a nice evening.’

  Given how stooped Aiden’s shoulders were as he left, Jamie thought maybe Aiden was finding it more painful than he was letting on. He was learning the hard lesson that women were not so easy to understand after all.

  ‘I don’t think they’ve made up,’ Caitlin said, pulling a grape free from the cheese board and popping it into her mouth before sitting down on the sofa. ‘Becca and Tasha.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  She took her shoes off and curled her legs up, and suddenly Jamie felt more relaxed. It felt natural somehow, that she should be here, relaxing in his home. He sat beside her.

  ‘Becca came to the station. She basically said she thought Natasha had done it all herself. The fall in the river. Hannah’s death. She thinks Tasha orchestrated the whole thing.’

  ‘Natasha? That’s crazy. I mean, I know Becca was upset and everything, but what would even make her come up with that?’

  ‘She was talking about the CCTV footage of Jenny buying the phones. Wanted to know if we’d watched where she went after. Said Natasha was the last one in the theatre the day Hannah Alderton died.’ Caitlin looked up. She was thoughtful. ‘She said it had all been wrapped up too neatly, and she’d delivered it to me.’

  ‘Crazy talk. Poor girl. She needs more therapy, I think.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Caitlin leaned back, catlike, against the sofa, looking into her wine glass. ‘But she did make a few valid points. We’d not looked at where Jenny went after the phone shop. I’ve had someone digging the CCTV footage out this afternoon. Poor Marc is still at work.’

  ‘You don’t believe her, though?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘But we do need to dot our i’s and cross our t’s before the court case.’

  Jamie watched her. She was with him but not entirely with him. ‘Is something bugging you about it?’ he asked.

  ‘Only about the phones. Because Becca had a point. Why did Jenny and Hayley stop using them after that night? Why did they keep them, with all that incriminating evidence on them?’

  Jamie leaned back beside her, their arms touching. ‘Teenage girls, I guess. Maybe they just never thought they’d get caught.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. That’s what I figure.’ She looked over at him and smiled. ‘Enough about work. How’s your and Biscuit’s day been?’

  Sixty-One

  Usual place? Midnight?

  Becca sent the text at ten and then sat there, in her room, weighing up all the ways it could play out until her parents turned the lights off downstairs and went to bed.

  By the time she’d sneaked out of the house, backpack on, she was wondering for the thousandth time if she was being ridiculous. Or stupid. It could all be over now. She might not be able to get into the computer but the police could. But that would mean convincing Bennett to try to unlock it rather than just arrest Becca for theft, and the pay-as-you-go text conversation didn’t make a strong enough case. Bennett thought she was crazy as it was. She could easily argue Becca was sending both sets of texts herself and dismiss it. Which was all too ironic since it was exactly what Tasha had done in the first place.

  The woods were dark and she turned the torch on to find her way. She tried to ignore her nerves. She wasn’t alone in the woods. Tasha would be at the clearing – the usual place – already. She’d probably been there for ages. She’d want to be sure Becca hadn’t set traps of any sort, or maybe she was setting traps of her own. And Tasha wouldn’t be afraid in the woods alone at night. Most people worried about monsters or psychos. Tasha was the psycho.

  Becca tried to stay confident as trees started to crowd around the narrow path and dark branches jagged on her clothes and scratched at her face. The torch was a weak David against the Goliath of the night and her stomach jittered. She should have just gone to the police. She should have, she knew that. But this wasn’t only about justice. This was about finding out why Tasha had done all this, and she was never going to share that with Bennett. She might come up with some reason, something plausible, but it wouldn’t be the truth. Perhaps tonight, with just the two of them, Becca had a chance of getting it out of her. She owed it to Hannah. She owed it to Hayley and Jenny. She owed it to herself. This wasn’t about Bennett. This was about all of them.

  There were four torches in the clearing, one in each corner, creating a lit stage around Natasha, who was sitting on the fallen log, a bottle of wine open by her feet. As the last trees parted, Becca flicked her own light off. It was redundant.

  ‘Slight overkill, don’t you think?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t like the dark.’ Tasha got to her feet and raised her plastic cup. ‘Here’s to you and your clever brain, Bex.’ She sipped and then sat back down to pour one for Becca. ‘Come and sit with me.’

  It was all strangely calm as Becca took off her rucksack and Tasha held her out a drink. She looked at her ex-best-friend for a long moment until Tasha laughed, and then took a sip from both and gave Becca the choice.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s not poisoned.’

  Becca took a cup, drank, and bubbles fizzed in her nose. ‘Is this champagne?’

  ‘I thought we’d earned it.’

  We. Suddenly it was we. As if Becca was part of all this madness. Becca lit a cigarette – she’d splurged the last of her cash on ten Marlboro Lights for the occasion – and they sat in quiet for a while as she smoked.

  ‘So you agree?’ she said. ‘We’re best friends again?’

  Tasha’s blonde hair was spun gold in the light. Even now, with everything Becca knew, she still looked perfectly beautiful. A breeze rustled the trees. It was as if they were the last people alive.

  ‘Yes,’ Tasha said. ‘Yes, I think we are. To be honest, it’ll be a relief. The others are dull. Like bad photocopies of Hayle
y and Jen.’

  ‘And you didn’t exactly like them.’

  Her head whipped around to face Becca. ‘That’s not true! There were moments when they pissed me off, for sure, but I loved them. They were my best friends.’ She paused. ‘They just didn’t behave.’ She sipped her drink and grew thoughtful as she focused on the immediate situation. ‘But we’ll have to manage it carefully so it doesn’t look too odd. I’ll stage an argument with Vicki and Jodie. And I’ll make up some shit about you on Facebook that’s good. People love me. Right now they all love me more than they ever have before. They’ll accept it.’

  Still reeling slightly, Becca wondered just how Natasha’s mind worked. Did she realise how crazy she sounded? There wasn’t even a hint of self-awareness when she said she’d loved Hayley and Jenny. After everything she’d done framing them for murder and attempted murder and destroying their lives, she could still say that with a straight face?

  Tread carefully, Becca thought. Tread very carefully on this dangerous ground.

  ‘The green dress,’ Natasha said, with a rueful smile. ‘I’d forgotten all about it. I loved that dress. I hated that you had it.’

  ‘I’d forgotten about it, too, until I saw a picture and it all came back to me. I nearly killed Hayley when that nail varnish was spilled all over it just before my birthday.’ She paused, remembering. ‘All that set-up you did. Telling me how jealous Hayley was of my dress. Planting the nail varnish bottle in her room days before so I’d see it there. I think you created the biggest fight me and Hayley ever had.’

  ‘And that’s why you got suspicious this time.’