by C. L. Taylor
C.L. TAYLOR is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Accident, The Lie, The Missing and The Escape. Her books have sold over a million copies in the UK and have been translated into twenty-one languages. She lives in Bristol with her partner and son.
By the C.L. Taylor
The Accident
The Lie
The Missing
The Escape
For my niece Sophie Taylor
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Acknowledgements
Copyright
Chapter One
They’re still following me. I can hear their footsteps. They think I can’t hear them because I put my headphones on the second I walked through the school gates. But they’re not plugged in. I heard every word they said as I walked down Somerset Road.
‘Why are you walking so fast, Drew? Don’t you want to talk to us?’
‘She can’t hear us.’
‘Yes she can.’
‘Oi, Drew. Andrew!’
Lacey and her gang of sheep think it winds me up, calling me Andrew, they think it’s funny. I don’t. My dad gave me my name because my hazel eyes and chubby cheeks reminded him of the child actress in the film E.T. He thought it was a pretty name, unusual too. Drew Finch. My name is all I’ve got to remember him by other than a folder of digital photographs on my computer.
Mum doesn’t talk about Dad any more – she hasn’t since she married Tony. Mason, my fifteen-year-old brother, refuses to talk about Dad too. Not that Mason’s here to chat to. He’s been sent to a school hundreds of miles away, hopefully to learn how to stop being so irritating. It’s weird, my brother not being at home. He was never much of a conversationalist but God was he noisy. He’d bang and crash his way into the house, kick his shoes off, stomp up the stairs and then slam his door. Then his music would start up. It’s eerie how quiet it is now. I can hear myself breathe. I think the silence unsettles Mum too. She’s always tapping on my door, asking if I’m OK. Or maybe she feels guilty about sending Mason away.
I speed up as I reach Jackson Road. It’s the quietest street on my walk home and if Lacey and the others have followed me this far it can only be because today’s the day they go through with her threat. Lacey’s been saying for weeks that they’re going to pin me down and pull up my shirt and skirt and take photos of me with their mobile phones. I’ve tried talking to her. I’ve tried ignoring her. I’ve spoken to my Head of Year and we’ve been to mediation, but she won’t leave me alone. She’s clever. She never says anything in front of any of the teachers. She hasn’t posted anything on social media. She hasn’t touched me. But the threat’s still there, hanging over me like a noose. Whenever I go into school I wonder if today’s the day she’ll go through it. It’s not about hurting me, or even about humiliating me (although there is a bit of that). It’s about fear and control. We were best friends in primary school and I was the one she opened up to when her parents were getting divorced. She’s the big ‘I am’ at school but I know where her vulnerabilities lie. And she hates that.
I slow down as I reach the High Street and my heart stops double thumping in my chest. I’m safe now. The street’s full of shoppers, drifting around aimlessly or else speed walking madly like they must get an avocado from the grocer’s before it closes or the world will end. Someone brushes past me and I tense, but it’s just some random man with a beanie and a swallow tattooed on his neck. I glance behind me, to check that Lacey and the sheep aren’t following me any more, then I reach into my pocket for my phone, select my favourite song and plug in my headphones. Just two terms of school left and I’m free. No more Lacey, no more lessons, no more –
My breath catches in my throat as my arms are pinned to my side and I’m half carried, half shoved into the side alley between Costa and WHSmith. A hand closes over my mouth as I’m bundled past a skip and forced to sit on a pile of bin bags. They’ve got me. They’ve finally made their move. But it’s not Lacey or one of her cronies who forces me to the ground as I thrash and squirm and try to escape.
‘It’s OK. Don’t be afraid.’
The woman keeps her hand tightly pressed to my mouth but her grip on my shoulder loosens, ever so slightly. Her pale blue eyes are wide and frantic and her long brown hair, pulled into a tight ponytail, is damp with sweat at the roots. There’s a deep crease between her eyebrows and fine lines on either side of her mouth. She’s probably as old as my mum but I’m too shocked to hit out at her. All I can do is stare.
‘Drew? It is Drew, isn’t it?’ She glances at her hand, still covering my mouth. ‘Promise me you won’t scream if I take it away.’
I nod tightly, but the second she lifts her palm a scream catches in the back of my throat.
‘Drew!’ She smothers the sound with her hand. ‘You mustn’t do that. I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to help Mason.’
I tense at the mention of my brother’s name. How the hell does she know who he is? He’s over two hundred miles away and we haven’t heard from him in over a month.
‘My name is Rebecca Cobey. Doctor Cobey,’ the woman says, shuffling closer on her knees. We’re completely hidden from view behind the skip but she keeps glancing nervously back towards the street as though she’s scared that someone will discover us. ‘I worked at the Residential Reform Academy. I was Mason’s psychologist. He gave me something to give to you.’
She lets go of me and reaches into the pocket of her jeans. There’s a loud bang from the street, like a car backfiring, and all the blood seems to drain from her face. I’ve never seen anyone look so scared. For several seconds she does nothing, she just listens, then she pulls her hand out of her pocket.
‘Here,’ she says in a low voice, as she thrusts a folded piece of paper at me. ‘I’ve got to go. I can’t talk. It was a risk just trying to find you.’ She scrabbles to her feet and pushes a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She glances towards the street then back at me. ‘I would have got him out if I could. I would have got them all out.’ The word catches in her throat and she presses a hand to her mouth. ‘I’ve said too much. I’m sorry.’
She darts out from behind the skip, sprints down the alley towards the street and turns right, disappearing
from view.
I sit in stunned silence for one second, maybe two, surrounded by split bin bags and the smell of roasted coffee beans and then I launch myself up and onto my feet.
‘Wait!’ I shove the piece of paper into my pocket. ‘Doctor Cobey, wait!’
***
I can see her long, dark ponytail bobbing above her khaki jacket as she speeds down the street ahead of me, weaving her way through shoppers, briefly stepping into the road when there are too many people to overtake on the pavement.
‘Doctor Cobey!’ I shout as the distance between us decreases and a stitch gnaws at my side. ‘Wait!’
I am vaguely aware of people staring at me, of toddlers in buggies gesturing, of car drivers slowing to gawp, of cold air rushing against my face and my heart thudding in my ears. I don’t know why I’m chasing the woman who just grabbed me, smothered me and terrified me. I was lucky she didn’t hurt me, but I can’t shake the feeling that if I let her get away I’ll never see her again. She knows something about Mason. Something she was too afraid to tell me.
I see the car before she does. I hear the engine rev and the black flash of the bonnet as the lights change from green to amber at the crossing and Dr Cobey steps into the road. One second the car is a hundred metres away, the next it’s at the crossing. The engine roars and there is a sickening thump as Dr Cobey’s body flies into the air.
Chapter Two
‘He didn’t stop. I can’t believe he didn’t stop.’
‘Did anyone get the registration number?’
‘Don’t move her! She might have broken her back.’
Within seconds a crowd gathers around Dr Cobey’s body and I am shoved and pushed further and further away. I don’t push back. I don’t shout, cry or explain. Instead I stare at the back of the man standing in front of me. But it’s not his black woolly jumper I see. Imprinted on the back of my eyelids is Dr Cobey’s broken body; half on the pavement, half on the road, her legs twisted beneath her, her neck lolling to one side, her blue eyes wide and staring, a single line of blood reaching from the corner of her mouth to her jaw.
‘She’s not breathing.’
‘I can’t find a pulse.’
‘Can anyone do CPR?’
The driver of the car aimed straight for her. He revved the engine. He wanted to hit her.
‘She was scared. She thought someone was after her.’
‘What was that, love?’ A heavy-set woman in her fifties with wiry bleach-blonde hair and bright pink lipstick nudges me.
I glance at her in surprise. Did I just say that out loud?
The woman continues to stare at me but my lips feel as though they have been glued shut. She loses interest when the man on the other side of her starts shouting into his mobile phone.
‘The High Street. Near M&S. Road traffic accident. It was bad. I don’t know if she’s breathing or not. Someone’s doing CPR. He said he was a doctor.’
The crowd presses against me on all sides, gawping, commenting and speculating.
‘There’s still no pulse!’ shouts someone near the road. ‘Where’s that ambulance?’
As I take a step to the side to try to force my way through the crowd someone grabs hold of my left hand. An elderly woman gazes up at me as I twist round. She’s so short I can see the pink scalp beneath her fine white hair.
‘My boy,’ she says, squeezing my hand tightly, ‘my boy was killed the same way. She will be OK, won’t she?’
I’m torn. I want to check on Dr Cobey but people have started to shout the word ‘dead’ and the old lady holding my hand is quivering like a leaf. She looks like she’s about to faint.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask.
She doesn’t shake her head. She doesn’t answer. She just keeps staring hopefully up at me, tears filling her milky eyes.
‘Is there someone I could call for you? A relative, or a friend?’
She continues to look at me blankly.
I don’t know how to deal with this. I glance to my right, to where the woman with the bleach-blonde hair and pink lipstick was standing but she’s disappeared, replaced by a couple of scary-looking builder types. What do adults do in this situation?
‘Would you … would you like to sit down somewhere and have a cup of tea?’
The old woman nods. Tea, the magic word.
***
I hear the wail of the ambulance sirens as the owner leads us to a table at the back of the café. The old lady is resting her weight on my elbow, telling me that I’m ‘kind, so kind’. I want to tell her that I’m not kind. That I’m selfish and ungrateful and lazy and all the other things Tony and Mum accuse me of being. I want to tell her that someone deliberately ran over Dr Cobey but I can’t, not when there’s a bit of colour in her cheeks and she’s stopped staring at me with that weird freaked-out expression.
I wait for her to drink half a cup of tea, my feet tap-tap-tapping on the wooden flooring, as she sips, rests, sips, rests and then, when she reaches for the slice of carrot cake the café owner brought her and takes the tiniest of nibbles, I excuse myself, saying I need to use the ladies’.
I slip into the single stall toilet at the back of the café. I hold it together long enough to close the door and lock it and then I rest my arms on the wall and burst into tears. I’m still crying when I sit down on the closed toilet lid and reach into my pocket. Tears roll down my cheeks as I pull out the note that Dr Cobey thrust into my hands. They plop onto the paper as I carefully unfold it. I read the words Mason has scribbled in blue biro. I read them once, twice, three times and the tears dry in my eyes.
I’m not sad and confused any more. I’m terrified.
Chapter Three
Help me, Drew! We’re not being reformed, we’re being brainwashed. Tell Mum and Tony to get me out of here. It’s my turn for the treatment soon and I’m scared. Please. Please help.
My hands shake as I reread the words my brother has written. Two weeks ago he was sent to the Residential Reform Academy in Northumberland after he was excluded from his third school in as many years. My brother is a gobby loudmouth, always out with his mates causing trouble, while I like being on my own with my books and music. He speaks up, I keep my head down. We couldn’t be more different. Tony, our stepdad, said the RRA was the best place for him. He said that, as well as lessons and a variety of activities, Mason would be given a course of therapeutic treatments to help him deal with his issues. He didn’t mention anything about brainwashing.
As soon as I read the note I rang Mum but the call went straight to voicemail. By the time I’d got myself together enough to leave the toilet cubicle the old lady’s friend had turned up at the café to take her home. She tried to offer me a tenner, to thank me for my help, but I said no and hurried out of the café, pressing my nails into my palms to try to stop myself from crying. I ran all the way home, only to find that the house was empty when I let myself in. It always is when I get back from school.
I put the note on my desk and run my hands back and forth over my face to try to wake myself up. I feel fuzzy-headed and tired after everything that’s happened but there’s no way I can sleep. I need to talk to someone about Mason, but who? There are a couple of girls at school that I sit with at lunch but I wouldn’t call them friends. Friends trust each other and share everything. Lacey taught me what a bad idea that is.
I pull my chair closer to my desk and open my laptop. I’ll talk to someone on the Internet.
But which ‘me’ should I be? I’ve got four different names that I use. There’s LoneVoice, the name I chose when I was fourteen. It’s a crap name, totally emo, but there was a song in the charts with a similar name and it was going round and round my head. LoneVoice is sociable me. He/she chats on music forums about singers, songs in the charts, that sort of thing. XMsZaraFoxX is feistier. She’s the kick-ass main character in my favourite PS4 game Legend of Zara and she wades in if someone’s being out of order on the gaming site. RichardBrain is serious and academic. I log on as him
if I want to talk about psychology. Then there’s Jake Stone. I invented him to mess with Lacey’s head. She thinks he’s nineteen and a model and she’s a little bit in love with him.
I never set out to be a catfish. I just wanted to be anonymous, you know? I wanted to be able to chat to people without them making assumptions about me based on how I look, how old I am, where I live and what my gender and sexuality are. The first time I joined a forum I didn’t say anything. I didn’t ask any questions or join in with the chat. I lurked and worked out who the funny one was, who was controversial and who was a bit of a knob. I watched how they interacted with each other, just like I watched the kids in the canteen at lunchtime.
It was my dad who got me into people watching. If I got bored in a restaurant or train station he’d gesture towards people on a different table, or standing in a huddle on the platform, and he’d ask me to guess who liked who, who had a secret crush and who felt left out. He taught me about body language, micro expressions and verbal tics. He showed me how much people give away about themselves without realizing it. I didn’t realize at the time that was he teaching me psychology. That’s what he did for a living. He was … is … an educational psychologist. He’d probably have a field day if he knew about my different internet ‘personalities’.
I log onto the psychology site where I hang out as RichardBrain. If anyone can help me make sense of what just happened with Doctor Cobey it’ll be them.
Actually, no. They’ll ask me what I know about her which is precisely nothing.
Dr Rebecca Cobey
I type her name into Google and click enter. The first link is to a LinkedIn profile so I click on it and scan the page. She’s a psychologist … blah, blah, blah … she worked at the University of London as a Senior Lecturer … responsibilities blah, blah, blah and … I frown. It says she left three months ago but there’s no mention of where she went. No entry that says she worked at the RRA.
Were you lying to me, Dr Cobey? You had a note from Mason. How could you have got that if you weren’t at Norton House too?
