‘Either she lives with me or I need to know everything that’s going on. All the time.’ He was speaking in that strange officious voice he had, that she knew he used at work. His police-officer voice, authoritative, hierarchical. It would be the voice he used handing out speeding tickets or asking people to step outside the car to be breathalysed.
‘What do you think this is?’ Donna screamed, feeling strain at her temples. She remembered Angela was upstairs in her bedroom and lowered her voice. ‘Yesterday morning I learned that our daughter had been …’ she pressed her lips together, ‘and tried to kill herself. I spent all day at the hospital dealing with it, and today I’m telling you—’
‘Why didn’t you call me last night?’
‘Because she’d had enough. Because I wanted to tell you face to face. We’d both been through the wringer. I told you already. Don’t you understand? They had a specially trained police officer talk to her, and she was examined at a specialist sexual assault unit. It wasn’t the time and Angela was embarrassed. She didn’t want me to tell you. In the taxi on the way to the hospital, before I even knew the half of it, she kept saying …’ Donna inhaled hard, ‘please don’t tell Dad.’ Dad brought the smoke from her lips in a cloud.
Stephen caught a tear on his cheek with the heel of his hand. Donna stubbed out her cigarette on the roughcast wall of the house and put the butt in a little plant pot that she used as an outdoor ashtray.
He took a deep breath and sat back on the couch, both hands on his head in a strange gesture of surrender. Donna slid the door closed.
‘I’m just saying I need to know. I’m her father.’
‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked, folding her arms.
He met her eye.
‘They let him out, you know. They arrested him, took him to the police station, interviewed him and then they just let him out. The police say it will take weeks – months maybe – to be patient until they’ve completed the investigation. He could do it to someone else.’
Donna inhaled slowly, watching the thoughts turn in her husband’s mind. ‘He goes round schools teaching drama. And he’s got two kids of his own.’
‘How do you know? Did the police tell you?’
‘They didn’t have to tell me. I looked him up. He’s an actor. He’s on bloody Wikipedia.’
Stephen pitched forward, hung his head in his hands. When he finally looked up, they met each other’s eyes. It had been months, perhaps years, since they had looked at each other with such unguarded honesty.
‘You know I can’t get involved. I can look into who’s dealing with the case, but there is absolutely no way they will let me get involved in the investigation. It’ll be CID. It’ll be plain-clothes. And it’s my own daughter – I can have no influence.’
Donna sat back in her chair. ‘And you wonder why I didn’t call you …’ She twitched her lips in a downwards smile.
The colour came to his face again. ‘You’re unbelievable. You really are.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll go up and talk to her.’
As she heard his feet on the stairs, Donna slid another cigarette out of the pack. She opened the patio door and lit up, leaning her head against the stone of their house.
She inhaled deeply, remembering that night when she was a child, the blood of her parents on her face and arms. She had only been worried about her father.
‘Daddy,’ she whispered, breathing smoke into the yard.
It had been a head-on collision with a lorry. Her mother had died two days later.
Donna breathed smoke down her nose as she heard the floorboards shifting above and Angela laughing as her father entered her room.
7
Nick
‘Why would the girl say such a thing? I mean why would she say it?’ said Betty Dean, her voice low so as not to be heard by the children in the other room.
‘I don’t know, Mum,’ said Nick, nudging his plate away.
He watched his mother, the kindness driven deep into her face. He had let Marina tell his parents – allowed her to choose the words. She had done well – handled it with her usual professional consideration: allegation, teenager, touched. She had managed not to say sexual, twelve-year-old girl or assault.
There was strain behind his eyes and so Nick pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyebrows. He wanted to pour another glass of wine, but everyone was watching him. Since he had left the police station on Friday night he had just wanted to shut it all out, make it go away. Now he felt suspended between his desire to escape and the expectation of his family’s gaze. The whole family was here, at his parents’ house on Church Lane, not far from Nick and Marina’s home. His father had been mostly silent, sitting far back in his chair with his arms folded. Nick found it hard to look at him.
It had been Marina’s idea to tell the family – the main reason being that they would need help with childcare as a result of the bail conditions. Nick had argued at first. How am I supposed to tell them this? Marina had been insistent: You’re innocent and we need their support. Besides, his brother Mark knew and would have at least told his sister Melissa, and if she knew there was a chance his parents would soon know anyway.
It wasn’t so unusual for Marina, Nick and the children to be at Nick’s parents’ for Sunday lunch but when the whole Dean clan was present as they were now, it was usually a cause for celebration – Christmas or a special birthday. Mark and Juliette were just back from Thailand, and even his sister Melissa was there with her brood. She was a keen runner and often had races on a Sunday but had made it here.
There was no celebration today, but Betty had still made a feast. The main course had been roast lamb with three different types of potatoes (boiled, mashed and roast), baby corn and green beans. She had made a green salad with artichokes and for dessert there was homemade rhubarb pie, as well as ice-cream and fruit salad. Betty believed that most things could be made better by a square meal and a good night’s sleep. Nick wondered if he was now testing that assumption.
The children had eaten in the living room and were now upstairs.
Melissa’s kids were older: Rebecca was in secondary school, Jack was not far behind her and Jennifer was just eight. The older kids helped to look after Ava and Luca and so they had not been disturbed, although the sounds of their voices were audible downstairs.
Everyone else was talking about Nick as if he wasn’t even there – making proclamations to the table. Under the table, Nick held Marina’s hand.
‘Bob Faldane’s a good guy,’ said Mark, his face and neck obscenely tanned from his holiday. His arms were pale brown, more normal, but his face looked like it had been slapped several times. His teeth and eyes shone white. ‘He’s always been a really bright guy,’ he said, addressing their father, who raised an eyebrow.
Thomas Dean was still powerful even in his late seventies, broad shoulders and long back, thicker around the waist but still trim. His hair was greying at the sides but was still remarkably dark. He had brown eyes and a face that had reddened with age, hinting at his fondness for whisky and the quickness of his temper.
Tom nodded slowly. ‘You need someone good,’ he said, glancing at Nick.
Nick assented. He felt embarrassed, a child again, caught out, needing direction.
‘It was just a precaution, to get the lawyer,’ said Marina to Betty, who was nervously smoothing and folding her napkin. ‘It’s good to have someone there from the start, guiding us through it.’
Tom frowned deeply. ‘But you know this girl … the one that’s made this accusation?’ Again, he didn’t meet Nick’s eye, but glanced in his direction, touching a teaspoon and turning it in his fingers.
Nick let go of Marina’s hand. ‘Well, I worked with her class for a couple of weeks. I know her that much, but no … of course I don’t know her. She was just another kid in the group.’
‘And do you think …’ Tom cleared his throat and turned to Nick for the first time, pointing the spoon at him, ‘you touched her s
ome way that she could have misinterpreted?’
Touched.
The word settled on the table, gentle but alien, like dandelion spores blown inside.
‘No, of course not.’ Nick felt heat rising to his face and fought to control it. Here he was, thirty-five years old, a husband and father and yet still that child of his parents, facing inquisition, feeling shamed.
‘You know what girls are like at that age,’ said his mother.
‘What does that mean?’ said Melissa, turning to her mother, a sharp frown between her brows. She was like their father – tall and broad – the same wide forehead and indignant lips. ‘This girl’s about the same age as Rebecca, right?’
A febrile silence fell on the table. Nick felt Marina’s fingers again on his thigh, offering support.
‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Betty, defensive. ‘I mean, she’s a teenager. It’s that difficult couple of years, isn’t it, all new hormones … that’s all.’
‘She’s twelve,’ said Nick, tensing his stomach muscles, daring to look up and see each face around the table. The skin on his mother’s face sagged. He sighed as he mustered the strength to continue. ‘And what she’s accused me of couldn’t really be misconstrued. She alleges that I put my hand over her mouth and then …’ he couldn’t say the words, ‘assaulted her.’
There was a hot silence, long enough for a bar of music, and then there was a rush to speak, to console, to fill the void.
‘Do you mean … she’s accused you of rape?’ said Mark, his red face still somehow managing to look blanched, fearful of the reply.
Nick shook his head. ‘I’m told she said that I … touched her sexually.’ He swallowed and turned his palms up on the table. ‘It couldn’t be misinterpreted,’ he couldn’t look at his father, ‘as Dad said.’
‘That’s just absurd,’ said Graham, Melissa’s husband. ‘I mean, quite apart from the fact that you’re one of the nicest guys I know – it’s just ridiculous, makes no sense whatsoever – how could you do that while you were teaching a workshop?’
He was large and boyish and a good addition to the family. Graham was like a spirit level, tempering the emotions of each family member. Melissa was incisive and emotional, a sting in the tail like their father, but Graham could always be relied upon to steer arguments away from their molten core. The Christmas before last, Nick and his father had argued about his acting and the new business. Graham had smoothed things over when Tom had made the hurtful those that can’t do, teach remark.
Nick shrugged. His neck ached from the build-up of tension. He reached to massage the muscle between his neck and his right shoulder.
‘So what’s the next step?’ said Tom, arms folded on the table, as if this was a negotiation he was handling. He had done well for himself – left school at fourteen and after his national service had gone into haulage, worked his way up and then bought the company when he was in his forties. He was CEO now – board meetings on Friday mornings and business conducted over golf.
‘Well, we just need to wait,’ said Nick, quietly. ‘I wish there was something else to do.’ It wasn’t an answer that his father liked. Tom Dean liked action, not waiting. ‘My bail’s for several weeks so I hope that by the end of that we’ll have some good news.’
Mark cleared his throat. ‘Yeah, Bob said the investigation can take quite a while. I guess we just need to sit tight.’ He folded his arms and leaned on the table. Nick wondered if his elder brother did it deliberately – mirroring their father’s body language.
‘Well, then I suppose you need to try and put it out of your mind,’ said Tom, corners of his mouth turned down. ‘I assume the school have pulled your contract?’
Nick nodded, grateful for Marina’s warm fingers in his. ‘Yes, they emailed yesterday to say that pending the investigation the course would be cancelled.’
‘So you can’t work while this is going on?’ his father said, frowning. ‘I mean, most of your contracts are with schools, aren’t they?’
‘Tend to be.’ Nick sighed heavily. ‘There’s a couple of media training sessions and I can still audition – actually there was a thing just a couple of days ago …’ Nick let his sentence fade.
Tom shifted his weight in the chair and wiped a hand over his mouth, as if to catch an unpalatable truth.
‘Did the school pay upfront?’ said Mark, eyes unblinking.
Nick shook his head. ‘I invoice when the course is finished.’
‘That’s hardly the point,’ said Melissa, ‘I mean this … this is horrendous.’
Everyone turned to look at her. Silence fell on the table, each and every one of them acknowledging the truth in what she said but not knowing how to respond.
Betty began to stack the dishes, and Nick got to his feet to help. Action – any action – was absolving. ‘Yes, it is,’ he said to his sister as he took the plate from her place before following his mother into the kitchen. ‘No doubt about that.’
Betty began to tidy up the kitchen and soak the pots, stacking the dishwasher with a swift, anxious focus.
The Sunday papers were unread on the kitchen table and Nick glanced at the headlines: professional footballers coming forward to say their coaches had groomed them, historical child abuse in the Catholic Church. It had been an onslaught for months, if not years. Savile. Cosby. Operation Yew Tree. Skeletons and confessions.
He glanced again at his mother, sensing the brittle energy in her. He put two hands on her shoulders. ‘Leave it, I’ll do it.’
‘I’m best keeping busy. You go and sit down. I’ll make the tea.’
Nick filled the kettle and put out the cups and saucers. There was a burning behind his eyes that was partly the wine and partly the strain of the dinner table confession. He didn’t know if he felt worse or better now that everyone knew. He was grateful that he was in the kitchen. Hiding was solace.
The clatter of the dishes stopped for a moment and Betty said something Nick couldn’t hear over the sound of the kettle. He turned and his mother was looking out of the window.
‘What did you say?’
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ she said softly, eyes watering.
Betty opened the back door and snapped open a pink leather cigarette case, slipped a cigarette between her lips and took a long drag before exhaling towards the open door.
‘Don’t say that,’ said Nick, moving towards her. ‘I trust your intuition.’
‘It’ll be her word against yours.’
‘Mum, I didn’t do this.’
‘I know that.’ She reached out and squeezed his elbow. Her hands were icy cold against his bare skin. ‘I know that, but it’s like me with that bloody school.’ Betty’s cheeks hollowed as she inhaled again.
Nick pressed his teeth together. His mother rarely mentioned it. After decades of hard work as a maths teacher, she had been sacked a year before she was due to retire, for assaulting a pupil. She had escaped prosecution but lost her pension.
‘Mud sticks sometimes,’ she said, a column of fragile ash trembling on the top of her cigarette as she watched his face. ‘Don’t let this stick to you. You fight this.’ Betty stubbed out her cigarette in a small crystal ashtray on the windowsill and then stood on her tiptoes to hug her youngest son. ‘Don’t let them say these things about you.’
Nick held his mother, feeling the bones of her spine through her silk blouse; the smell of her – perfume mingled with cigarette smoke – remembered from his childhood, kissing him goodnight. ‘I’ll do my best,’ said Nick heavily. He wanted to fight, wanted to speak his mind, but the lawyer was only advising patience. And even if he was to fight, he didn’t know how he would do that. How could he fight a twelve-year-old girl?
‘You’re a good boy,’ said Betty, her eyes shining.
Nick dipped his head, feeling his throat tighten.
‘Daddy,’ Nick heard Luca call from the den.
He kissed his mother’s cheek and walked upstairs slowly, hearing the sound
of Ava crying. Luca met him at the top of the stairs and pulled him by the hand into the room. Rebecca was lying on the couch prodding her phone, while Jack was playing a video game. Ava was standing distraught, tears streaking down her face.
Luca pulled on Nick’s arm to bring him down closer so that he could whisper in his ear. ‘Jennifer wouldn’t let Ava play her flute and she freaked out.’
‘She would have broken it,’ said Jennifer sulkily, without looking up.
‘I wouldn’t rompio,’ Ava choked, using the Spanish for ‘break’.
Nick ruffled Luca’s hair. ‘She’s just tired.’ He lifted his daughter into his arms and almost immediately the cries stopped. He felt her head butt his neck and he rubbed her back, knowing that she would sleep in his arms if he let her.
‘Stay and play this car game with us, Uncle Nick,’ said Jack, agitating the joystick.
Nick stood in the middle of the room, swaying side to side to sooth Ava. A sick wave of realisation washed over him. He wasn’t allowed to be here. He was in a room alone with his children, his nephew and nieces and that was now forbidden. He was breaching his bail. Breaking the law. He was no longer trusted with children.
‘Please?’ Jack urged, turning to look up at his uncle.
‘Another time,’ said Nick, turning and carrying Ava downstairs.
He pressed her small body into him for comfort. Marina was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. She reached up and rubbed Ava’s back.
‘Is she asleep?’ he asked, turning so that Marina could see Ava’s face on his shoulder.
‘Close. She missed her nap today.’
He looked hard into Marina’s eyes.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know if I can take this,’ he whispered.
Marina reached up and put a hand on the back of his neck. ‘We are going to get through this together. You are the most wonderful man I know. I love you and I trust you. I know that we’re going to be fine.’
Little Liar Page 6
