Hope you’re not working too hard. Sod coming home tomorrow X
Nick smiled to himself as he noticed that Mark and his girlfriend had matching bunions.
He held his phone at arm’s length and flicked through photos of the kids he’d been working with earlier. He had taken some group shots and then one or two of the pupils had Googled him and asked for selfies, even though they hadn’t even seen Scuttlers. It was enough for them that Nick had a Wikipedia profile.
Nick took another sip of wine, smiling wryly as he remembered being at drama school and thinking he was going to be famous one day. He shook his head and tossed his phone onto the table, and then began to stack the dishwasher with their dirty plates. He heard Marina’s feet on the stairs and turned, closing the dishwasher behind him.
She launched herself at him from the bottom of the stairs, a skip and a jump like a gymnast and Nick caught her and turned her around, shifting the weight of her and setting her on the counter. He pulled on the neck of her sweater and kissed her bare shoulder as Rusty began barking gruffly. He didn’t like it when they hugged and tried to get in between, snaking in and out of their ankles.
Marina snapped her fingers at him. ‘Quiet. You’ll wake them.’
Rusty barked once more, as if insisting on the final say.
‘Do you want to be bad with me?’ said Marina, head to one side.
Nick bit his lip. ‘Luca back to sleep?’
‘Yup and I’ve built the bed up with pillows. Come on, it’s been a week from hell.’
Marina opened the kitchen window wide as Nick stood on tiptoe and reached up to find their contraband hidden behind a large tin of pineapple slices: an old Ray-Ban sunglasses case which contained a few sprigs of budding marijuana, a thinned packet of Golden Virginia tobacco and some rolling papers.
They hung out of the window together, sharing a thin joint. Late autumn and the evening was cool. Nick inhaled, watching goose bumps rise on Marina’s brown forearm. She took the joint from him and he reached up inside her top, unhooked her bra and slid a hand around her ribcage to cup her breast. ‘Want to go to bed early?’ Dope made him horny.
She looked over her shoulder at him, brow arching, and he leaned in to kiss her cheekbone. Each of them was seeking oblivion, the dispatching of the day into pleasure. Now he wanted her, needed the assurance of her, after his day of unrealised ideas, broken communication and searching teenage questions. Her smell – the soap of the morning lost to sweat and stress and smog – and now the garlic on her fingers, the grass and a musky hollow of perfume behind her collarbone.
As he ran his thumb up her neck and tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear, the doorbell rang.
‘Who the hell is that?’
Nick glanced at the clock. It was just after nine. He was hard and he tugged at his jeans as he peered through the small kitchen window that looked out onto the doorstep. Strangers – a man and a woman were standing there. The woman reached up and the doorbell sounded again.
‘I think it’s just Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’ll get rid of them.’
Marina covered her mouth to stifle her laughter as she stubbed out the joint on the stone windowsill. Nick went to the door, kicking a rainbow-coloured My Little Pony out of the way so that he could open it. He ran a hand through his hair and smiled, thanks but no thanks on his lips. Rusty stood at his side, tail wagging uncertainly at the people on the doorstep.
Before he was able to speak, the woman – sandy-haired, a tired face without make-up – held up an identification badge that Nick didn’t even look at.
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Brookes from the police.’ She glanced at the man beside her, who was strapping, taller than Nick with a deadened expression. ‘And this is Detective Constable Weston.’
They weren’t in uniform. Nick frowned, not understanding, then a prickle of panic about the weed.
‘How can I help you?’
‘Are you Nicholas Dean?’
‘Yeah …’ Nick’s heart began to thump in his chest and he hooked a thumb into his back pocket.
‘Detective Weston and I work in child protection services. Do you know why we are here?’
‘No.’ His heart pounding and a rushing sound in his ears.
‘What’s going on?’ Marina’s voice.
His mind blank with shock, Nick opened the door and the two plain-clothes officers walked into the house. In the kitchen, Nick stood with his hands on his hips.
‘Mrs Dean?’ said Detective Brookes, forehead wrinkling.
Marina had her arms folded over her chest. ‘We are married but I keep my own name, Alvarez,’ she said, her face dark with suspicion. ‘What is this about?’
Nick motioned towards the kitchen, pulling out a chair for Marina only to discover she was not behind him, but at the edge of the utility room, quickly fastening her bra. They had been smoking out of the window, but he wondered if the smell was on their clothes or had drifted into the room.
Detective Brookes straightened and said, ‘Mr Dean, an allegation has been made against you.’
‘What kind of allegation?’ Heat at the nape of his neck.
‘A child at Croydon Academy has alleged that you committed a sexual offence against her.’
Both officers’ faces were impassive. Nick’s mouth suddenly felt dry. Tongue furred: red wine and tobacco and fresh fear. ‘What? I’ve been working at that school but …’ his eyes wide, looking from one police officer to the other, the mere accusation causing a reflex of guilt to curdle in his gut. The rice from earlier heavy inside him. ‘I haven’t … done anything wrong.’
‘What sexual allegation? Who said this?’ said Marina, her voice indignant, two thin lines of anger between her brows.
Nick reached out and put a hand on Marina’s arm.
Brookes looked from Marina to Nick. ‘Mr Dean, we are arresting you and taking you down to the station to be interviewed. You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
Nick swallowed. Court? A defence?
‘Are you serious?’ Nick pressed his fingernails into the palm of his hand.
The male officer, Weston, spoke for the first time. ‘As part of our ongoing inquiry, we would like to take a detailed look at your electronic equipment – phones, computers – for evidence.’ His eyes focussed on the laptop on the table. ‘We ask that you let us take these now. If you don’t consent we will get a warrant to take them at a later stage.’
Marina was flustered. She stood up, eyes shining and cheeks flushing. ‘We work. We both work. You can’t just take our computers.’
Nick felt a cold wave of fear wash over him. He watched Marina gesticulate, hands to her hair in anger and disbelief. ‘This is a mistake. This is all a mistake. You can’t just come in here and take our computers and tell us this … these lies.’
‘We understand this is upsetting to hear,’ said Weston to Marina, his face doughy, eyes cold and lifeless as a fish in the market.
Nick put a hand on Marina’s shoulder. ‘It’s all right.’ He handed over his mobile phone and the laptop from the table. ‘Can you get your laptop? We’ll get it back, I’m sure.’
Marina went into the other room and returned with her laptop zipped inside a grey padded carrier and the iPad that they shared. The children would miss that most. Her face was drawn, suddenly drained of all its luminosity – like the day they had briefly lost Luca in Tesco in Aldershot. She handed the laptop to Weston, who put it on top of Nick’s and tucked them under his arm.
‘When will you return them?’ Marina said, frowning.
‘It will be a minimum of four to six weeks …’
‘Four to six weeks! Why on earth do you need them for so long? We are working people. We do work from home.’ Marina had raised her voice and Nick put a hand on her waist but she twisted away from him. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘As
I was saying,’ continued Weston, slowly blinking his fish eyes, ‘it will be four to six weeks … assuming that there is no evidence of child pornography. If anything of that nature is discovered, the computers will have to be taken into evidence.’
‘This is crazy,’ Marina’s ‘r’s ripped through the room. ‘Of course there is no pornography.’
Weston nodded gravely, his voice measured and flat, devoid of all emotion: ‘Paedophiles tend to search for on-screen images before progressing to assault, so the computers are important to assess Mr Dean’s guilt … or innocence.’
The air seemed to compress as before an explosion.
Paedophile.
3
Angela
At seven o’clock the alarm sounded and Angela opened her eyes. It was a few seconds before she remembered she was supposed to be dead.
She lay on her back, blinking at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the morning: the steamy hush of the shower and her mum singing a song from the radio out of tune. She could smell coffee. Tears rolled from her eyes and pooled in her ears.
There was nothing else for it, so she got up. Carefully, she unhooked the catch on her necklace and tucked the diamond ring back in its box and slid it under her bed.
She hated herself. She couldn’t do anything right. She didn’t feel well, a strange fullness pressing upwards from her stomach, but she didn’t feel like she was going to die, either. Maybe it was because she was so fat. Maybe she should have taken more pills. Maybe it was because she had eaten all those sweets. Maybe you needed an empty stomach so the pills could work.
She took off yesterday’s clothes then spent about five minutes sitting on the bed buttoning her school shirt before she remembered that she was suspended and didn’t have to go to school. She wanted to scream but couldn’t. She just sat there in her half-buttoned school shirt looking at the floor.
She had imagined being found dead in her bed, and her mother crying, calling her father and telling him. Even though the chance was now lost, Angela still watched them in her mind, hearing the news and hugging each other like they used to when she was small. The grief for her might bring them together again.
Angela sighed, looking down at her bare feet. Even her feet were chubby. She watched the small round toes bunching up on the carpet. This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed at home. This little piggy cried all the way home.
She was that little pig, the crying one. She felt as if she were screaming inside her head all the time. She was just trapped inside, screaming and crying on the inside and no one could see.
She felt sick and wanted her mum to stay home and look after her, but there was little chance of that. She couldn’t even say she was sick because she had brought it all on herself. She couldn’t admit what she had done. Angela stood in front of the mirror and watched her pale, expressionless face.
4
Donna
Her daughter never got out of bed in the morning without coercion, so Donna was surprised that Angela was already up and staring at herself in the mirror.
Donna wasn’t sure if she was getting dressed or undressing from the night before. They had not spoken since the screaming fight in the hall after school. Last night Donna had drunk a bottle of white wine to calm herself down and now felt the metallic shiver of it on her skin, but it was Friday and she would get through. She felt better now she had had a shower.
‘I called your dad and he can come and take you to his at three. There’s some stuff in the fridge for lunch. Make yourself useful and tidy the place up a bit. Do the vacuuming. I’ll call you when I’m on my break.’
Angela said nothing, still turned towards the mirror. With her bare legs and her stomach sticking out, her daughter seemed like a miniature sumo wrestler. Donna watched the face in the mirror. Angela still looked babyish, the fat happy baby she had once been, although there was no happiness in her any longer. Donna was still not sure where it had gone, but she was sure it had to be all her and Stephen’s fault.
Donna suspected that the root of her daughter’s anger was her father being asked to leave. Donna hadn’t done it lightly. Stephen was, if nothing else, a good father, but it had been a torturous marriage. Torture was not an exaggeration – there had been no violence, but Stephen’s indifference to her had been crushing and absolute. Separation had been a relief, but it seemed Angela would never forgive her.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Donna folded her arms.
Angela half-turned and then parted her knees and retched. To Donna’s horror a gush of white foam rushed from Angela’s mouth onto the carpet. It was like something out of a horror film.
‘What on earth?’
Angela took deep breaths, hands on her knees, and then retched again. This time it was a thin white stream, almost like milk, turning green at the end.
‘What’s the matter with you?’
Angela put the back of her hand over her mouth. Tears were coursing down her cheeks.
‘I was supposed to be dead.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Donna put a hand on Angela’s back and felt the aftershudder of her stomach and ribs.
‘I took thirty pills, but it wasn’t enough.’
‘What?’ A fist of fear in Donna’s chest as she tried to process what her daughter had said.
Angela said nothing, wiping her face and looking down at the foam on the carpet.
‘What do you mean? What did you take?’ said Donna, spinning Angela round by the shoulders. Her daughter’s eyes drifted to an empty blister packet on the floor.
‘Dear sweet God.’ Donna picked up the packet. It was aspirin, only aspirin. ‘You took all of these?’
Angela nodded once. ‘I wanted to die.’
Donna didn’t know what an aspirin overdose meant. ‘I need to get you to the doctor. Put your clothes on. Hurry up. When did you take the pills?’
‘Last night.’
‘Last night, dear sweet Jesus. You’ll be the death of me, you will.’
Donna called a taxi. There was nothing else for it, as Stephen had taken the car. While they were waiting for it to pull up outside, Donna texted her colleague.
Taking Angela to A&E. Be in late.
The morning was damp and cold. They watched lashes of scarlet light easing above the roofs of the red-brick terraced houses. Angela was dressed in jogging bottoms and trainers, her white school shirt and a hoodie. She hunched as they waited, hands in her pockets.
‘Why would you do something like that? Why would you want to hurt yourself?’ Donna was aware that she sounded harsh, but that was how love was dished out in her family. She felt alone and frightened, overburdened and abandoned again. Other people didn’t have to put up with this. Other mothers didn’t have their twelve-year-olds trying to commit suicide by taking all the aspirin in the cabinet.
Angela shrugged. Her face was pale, a round, unforgiving moon.
‘You really wanted to kill yourself?’
Angela nodded once. The skin under her eyes was shaded blue. She seemed different, changed, as if all the anger in her had been vomited out onto the bedroom floor.
‘It’s always got to be about you, doesn’t it? You’ve got to be centre of attention no matter what.’ Again, Donna winced at her own harshness. She wanted to be kinder but didn’t know how. She had been brought up the hard way, when there had been no time for self-pity.
‘No.’
Tears again. Donna stiffened. She realised that it had been some time since she had seen her daughter crying tears that were not born of rage. She was reminded of baby Angela again, the little girl that liked dandelion clocks and lie-down cuddles. She had been such a sweet child not so long ago.
‘You get in trouble and so you do this to yourself just to try and get some sympathy.’
More tears. Angela wiped her chin with the sleeves of her sweater.
‘Well why, then? Why did you do it?’ She spoke more gently this time. It was hard to distance h
erself from her daughter. Sometimes Donna felt as if they were one person. She didn’t like to admit it, but Donna could see herself in Angela even when she was being hateful. It was hard to see her daughter for what she was: a separate entity, a twelve-year-old girl.
Another shrug. Donna wanted to shake her. She looked out of the window but the taxi was not yet there.
‘Why did you have to make Dad leave?’
‘So surprise, surprise, this is my fault, is it?’ Donna pressed her lips together and looked up the road in the direction the taxi would come from. She glanced at her watch. It was two minutes later than the last time she had checked. ‘I didn’t make him leave. I just told him what was what and he left of his own accord.’ Donna swallowed hard. Her own pain and anger was swirling inside her. Her head hurt and her mouth was dry and she didn’t need this today. ‘Why don’t you blame him for anything? Why can’t something be his fault for a change?’
A strange look came over Angela and Donna wondered if she was going to be sick again, or pass out. She gripped her daughter’s wrist.
‘I just wanted it to stop. I don’t want it again.’
‘Don’t want what again?’
Angela’s bruised blue eyes looked away from her. Donna felt the tension between her brows and tried to stop frowning. She consciously tried to suppress her anger so that Angela would talk to her, but it had been a long time since they had really talked. Everything had changed between them in the last year or two. She had been a little girl that loved her mum and now she was nearly a teenager, and a bully. Hands in fists of anxiety at her side, Donna tried to listen, waited for an answer.
Angela began to cry again, big, fat, heavy tears that magnified the pores of her skin.
‘I … didn’t want … him to …’ gulping, eyes blurred, ‘touch me … again.’
Palpitating, words born and dying on her lips, Donna lowered herself to face Angela.
‘Touched you? Who touched you? What do you mean?’
Little Liar Page 3
