Angela and her mother followed her down the corridor. ‘Just over here. Hope you weren’t waiting long.’
‘Not at all,’ said Donna, already putting on her fake nice polite voice.
The doctor asked Angela to get up onto the bed. She lay back with one hand over her stomach.
‘All right Angela, I’m just going to press on your tummy now, and I want you to tell me if it is sore at any point.’
‘Okay.’
The doctor lifted Angela’s sweatshirt and T-shirt and pressed all over her stomach from the top to the sides and down at the bottom, near her thighs. Twice Angela said, ‘It hurts,’ but she wasn’t sure if it was because of the doctor’s hands, or if it just hurt anyway.
The doctor pulled down Angela’s T-shirt and looked at the notes on the clipboard. ‘You’re what? Twelve?’
Angela smiled. ‘I just turned thirteen.’
‘Oh. Teenager. That’s exciting.’ She smiled, showing all her teeth, looking first at Angela and then at her mother.
‘You were feeling sick earlier. Did you actually vomit?’
‘A little bit.’
‘She threw up at the cinema, but it was mostly dry retching. She hadn’t eaten much, and she said she had stomach pains.’
The doctor’s face was suddenly very serious. ‘I see you were admitted a few months ago after an aspirin overdose?’
Angela and her mother nodded. Suddenly Angela felt Donna take her hand. Angela squeezed it.
‘All right, well, I’d like to test your urine. The nurse will come and take a sample from you.’
Angela nodded.
Soon the curtain was drawn back and a large nurse with a huge smile appeared. ‘Hello, Angela. I have something for you.’
The badge on her uniform said Akwa and she had strong black arms and smelled of fresh flowers. She held out a cardboard vial and asked Angela to go into the toilet and pee into it. Angela did as she was asked, then waited with her mother behind the curtain.
‘Maybe you’ve got food poisoning. Have you eaten anything strange at your Dad’s?’
Angela shook her head. Donna rubbed the back of her hand.
After a few minutes, the curtain was drawn noisily back and the doctor stood before them, one hand in her pocket and another resting on the bed. Angela stared at her and the pens sticking out of the pocket of her white coat. Her name badge was obscured by the clipboard.
The doctor looked at her mother. ‘I’d like a quick word with Angela, and then I’ll ask you to come back in.’
Donna started, her eyes becoming very round. ‘But—’
‘Just a few minutes, if that’s all right.’
‘I’ll just be out here,’ said Donna as she left them alone.
The doctor lowered her chin and met Angela’s eyes.
‘Angela, your urine test shows that you are pregnant. Did you know that?’
Angela shook her head.
‘Do you know how it happened?’
Angela said nothing, looking at the doctor, but not moving at all, not even blinking her eyes.
‘I’m going to have to tell your mum, okay? I’ll ask her to come back in.’
When her mother returned, Angela looked down at her hands. She didn’t want to see Donna’s face when the doctor told her.
Donna sat down in a plastic chair, handbag resting on her lap.
‘The urine test shows that Angela is pregnant.’
Donna’s handbag thudded onto the floor. ‘What do you mean? That … that’s impossible.’
The doctor’s face was without expression. ‘I need to ask you both to wait here for a few minutes. I’ve contacted social services.’
Angela lay back on the pillow and began picking her nail. She didn’t want to be pregnant. She felt as if she was sinking down backwards into the bed. It felt like falling.
23
Donna
Donna’s hand shook as she slipped a cigarette from the packet. She was outside the hospital, a grim, side-less shelter designated for smokers. Most of the other smokers were patients, coats over pyjamas. It had just turned dark, the moon lurking unseen behind the Croydon skyline.
Donna turned away from the others, the cigarette unlit but poised an inch from her lips. Angela, she whispered, eyes stinging with startled tears. Donna put four fingers over her mouth and breathed through the fleshy grille of them.
Pregnant.
The horror of that word now. It was wrong, sick, depraved. It didn’t feel so very long since Angela had been growing inside her. She remembered stretching her palm over her abdomen and feeling the baby move, feeling the muscular shudder of her inside.
She had been such a good baby. Hungry for milk and waking with a smile. Love for her had consumed Donna, utter and absolute. Her smell, her softness, the sound of her laugh, intoxicating. The lazy blue eye contact when she latched onto the breast. The silky feel of her hair, her chubby knees. Gums clamping down on the knuckle of her forefinger.
It had been her duty to protect her.
Still a little girl. A little girl.
Donna’s fingers trembled and she pinched her nose between finger and thumb. The cigarette fell from her knuckles to the ground and she stooped to retrieve it but then stayed like that, hunched over, watching the cigarette dampen on the wet slabs. Images she tried to refuse assaulted her mind.
What had been done to Angela?
Croydon towered above her, crowded her, like a gang – all concrete and reflective glass and growling overpasses. The swabbed and disinfected hospital offered no solace.
She felt her face chill in the wind and only then realised she had been crying. She wiped her cheeks with her right hand.
What had been done to her?
Donna turned to look at the entrance to the hospital, knowing that she had to go back inside and face it. The weight of the news pressed on her. Her hands were leaden at her sides, pulling down on her shoulder blades. She began to walk back in, her imagination a storm of images that she blinked away with the unremitting tears. Goose-pimples prickled her skin, an unshakeable chill.
She remembered the freezer and a hand around her throat and the deep pain inside her. It had felt as if she had been severed, like a tree. The deafening crack and splitting before the fall.
In the lift, Donna caught her breath. Angela was felled, broken. She was her mother and she had to protect her.
She expected that she looked awful. She rummaged in her handbag for some make-up, but found nothing but an old lipstick. She rubbed a little on her lower lip and smudged her lips together. The police were on their way to the Sexual Assault Referral Centre at the hospital.
It was Detective Sergeant Brookes – the same woman they had spoken to last time Angela was in hospital. The detective looked tired, red hair pulled back at the nape of her neck, her grey suit hanging on her thin body.
Her breathing uneven after the tears, Donna followed the officer into a small room near the nurses’ station. There was only one chair – an office swivel with a ripped plastic seat.
‘You sit,’ said Brookes, propping herself against the desk.
Donna put her handbag on the floor and sat facing the detective, hands clasped before her. There was a salt taste in her mouth from the tears. The room was very bright, lit by a large strip light along the false ceiling, and Donna felt self-conscious, thinking her skin would be red and blotchy. She pulled on her fringe as if it would help to cover her face.
‘We will need another statement from Angela. I’ll be very gentle with her.’
Donna breathed into her palms.
‘I’d like to talk to her about whether the alleged sexual assault at her school is related to her pregnancy. It’s very difficult, I know, so we’ll go slow …’
Donna nodded, swallowing.
‘Has she told you who the father is?’
‘I don’t think she knew she was pregnant.’ Donna felt her eyes stinging, as if she were about to cry again. ‘Can’t you tell, anyway?’
<
br /> ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ Donna wiped her nose with her knuckle, ‘she’s pregnant – can’t you just do a test to see who the father is?’
‘It’s not that easy. The first thing would be to determine whether or not Angela wishes to proceed with the pregnancy. If she does, then any of the tests would be deemed invasive … taking samples of the placental cells, for example.’
‘Invasive?’
‘Tests such as an amniocentesis would endanger her pregnancy and that would be unethical, however keen we are to discover paternity.’
‘Unethical? What do you mean? We could find out her teacher raped her, that he didn’t just … didn’t just … and then she’d have an abortion? Well, of course. She has to have an abortion anyway. She’s only thirteen years old!’ Donna’s breathing was shallow and spots of light appeared at the sides of her vision, as if she might faint. She put a hand on her chest and felt her heart thudding inside her. ‘Can’t you take a sample of her blood and check that against the teacher’s?’
‘It’s not quite so simple. We took a DNA sample from Mr Dean when he was questioned, but the techniques used to determine paternity mean either conducting an amniocentesis, or else, if there is an abortion, collecting the …’ Brookes cleared her throat in apology, ‘products of conception, for forensic examination, to be cross-checked with suspects.’
‘She’s only a little girl. She can’t have a baby of her own.’
Brookes handed Donna a tissue from a box on the nurse’s desk.
‘She has to have an abortion. She has to.’
‘It is her decision. Angela needs time to come to terms with what is happening and then talk through her options with her doctor and the social worker, as well as you and her father. If she does decide to have the pregnancy terminated, we will work with the medical staff to collect the products for examination.’
Donna blew her nose hard, her mind turning with frantic thoughts.
‘It has to be that teacher. I could tell something else was going on – that she hadn’t told me everything.’
‘You know we took Angela’s phone into evidence after you found the paintings and photographs?’
Donna nodded.
‘There is another suspect.’
‘Another?’
‘Were you aware that Angela had a boyfriend at school?’
‘A boyfriend? No. Who?’
‘Her phone showed texts to and from a boy we were able to confirm is in year ten at Croydon Academy. His name is Adam Chance – do you know him?’
‘Definitely not.’ Donna raked her hands through her hair. ‘How do you know it’s a boyfriend? It could just be a friend.’
‘Forgive my characterisation. The nature of the messages suggested that there had been some physical contact between your daughter and this boy.’
‘Her father’s going to go insane.’
‘We will need to speak to Mr Furness about this too, just in case he has information.’
Donna nodded and looked at the floor, and Brookes’ brown leather shoes. ‘Angela’s been living with her dad for nearly a month. We had a fight. We were having a day out together today when this happened – first time I’ve seen her since she left home. I’m supposed to have her back at her dad’s by nine.’ She felt her pocket for her phone.
‘We would like to talk to her first. We could do it at the station or at home, but I wonder if it would be easier if we just did it now?’
‘She won’t be good at the station.’
‘As I thought. I’ll find us a room and we can take her statement here.’
‘I’ll call him. Stephen’s expecting her home.’
Brookes was silent, her eyes visibly working through implications and scenarios.
‘We will need one of you – your husband or you – present when we question her, but perhaps it is best if it’s you, because of the nature of the questions. Let’s see what Angela says about the venue and we’ll take it from there.’
*
Brookes left the office and Donna let her thumb hover over Stephen’s number. How to tell him this? She decided to wait. The door was ajar and through the blinds Donna could hear the nurses laughing. You’ll need a glass of wine after that, love.
Donna needed a glass now. Her eyes were hot and her head ached. She followed Brookes down the hospital corridor. She hated hospitals – always too warm, the sterile smell, the soundless rubber floors. It was like entering a trap, and all around you could see its victims: people with needles in their arms and masks on their faces. Donna didn’t ever want to end up here.
Angela was ready to go – shoes and hoodie back on. She looked happy. She looked just like she had yesterday: normal, pale, chubby.
Brookes was standing a few feet from Angela, awkwardly staring at a device in her hands. It was clear that she was waiting on Donna.
‘Hey, love.’ Donna approached and squeezed Angela’s shoulder. ‘Sergeant Brookes has a few more questions for you. Do you want to go down the station or talk to her here?’
Angela looked ominously at Brookes, who smiled. ‘You’re not in any trouble, but it would be good to talk to you. I know you’ve had a hard day.’
‘Here then,’ Angela said, lower lip protruding, shiny with spit.
‘Shouldn’t take too long,’ Donna tried to console, but Angela tugged her shoulder from her mother’s grasp.
Brookes led them into a clinical room, with a bed in it and plastic chairs stacked. As Brookes set out chairs for them, Donna motioned that she was going to make a call and stepped outside.
She pressed the call button and prayed that Stephen’s phone would go to answerphone. Through the window, she could see Brookes arranging the seats in a small circle and then asking Angela to sit.
After only three rings, he answered.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said right away, without even a ‘hello’. ‘You guys at each other’s throats already?’ He laughed lightly.
Donna swallowed.
‘Hello? Hello?’ he said, mistaking her pause for a misconnection.
‘I’m here. I’m at the hospital.’
‘Hospital?’
‘Angela felt unwell at the cinema. I thought it was her appendix.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘She’s fine, but … the police are here and about to talk to her again. It wasn’t her appendix. She’s …’
‘Dear God, what now? Is she all right?’
‘Stephen, she’s pregnant.’ Repeating it now, Donna was surprised that her voice did not quaver. As throughout her marriage, she waited for Stephen’s reaction before allowing her own.
‘How is that possible?’
‘I don’t know. She needs to decide what to do, but if there’s a termination – I want a termination – they can test for the father. They have Dean’s DNA, but …’ Donna caught her breath, her heart thumping in her chest, ‘they also said she might have a boyfriend at school.’
‘What?’
‘I didn’t know anything, I swear.’
‘I’m coming down.’
‘Don’t, Stephen, the police officer said she only needs one of us and it’s best if it’s me.’
‘I’m her guardian now.’
‘I’m here already.’
‘I’m coming down anyway.’
‘The police—’ Donna began, but Stephen had hung up. She put her phone back into her pocket and joined Angela and Sergeant Brookes, taking her seat between the two.
Angela was slumped in her chair, hands in the pockets of her hoodie.
Brookes spoke. ‘I want to ask you a few questions again and I’d like your mum to stay with us while I talk to you, is that all right?’
Angela nodded, face blank as a bun.
‘Mrs Furness, I know you’ve been through this before. I would ask you not to speak for Angela but feel free to interject if you think anything is unclear and … Angela … if you don’t understand anything I ask you, please let me or your mum
know. I will record this interview, take notes on your statement and read it back to you to make sure I have recorded what you said correctly. All right?’
Angela and Donna nodded.
Angela swung her legs underneath the plastic chair, back and forth, back and forth. Donna heard the creak of the chair against the linoleum floor.
‘Hopefully this won’t take very long. Obviously we’re still working very hard on our current investigation – what you told us before, about Mr Dean touching you in class. Tonight I just want to ask you a few extra questions. Okay?’
Angela nodded.
‘Did the doctor explain to you that you are pregnant?’
Angela nodded, her face devoid of any emotion.
‘Do you know how you got pregnant?’
‘I’m not fucking stupid,’ Angela sneered suddenly, folding her arms over her stomach.
‘Angela!’ Donna interjected.
Brookes held up a hand then turned smiling again to Angela, ‘I’m sure that you know that pregnancy can happen after having sex.’
Angela splayed her legs and looked out of the window onto the ward. Her stomach rose up, a gravid rebellious mound.
‘Can you tell me how you got pregnant? Pregnancy can happen when you choose to have sex with someone, or if you are forced to have sex, or …’
Angela’s eyes were still focussed on the window, unblinking, their blue seeming to darken, absorb the light.
‘Who might have got you pregnant?’
‘I don’t know.’ She fidgeted now, eyes on the floor and then inspecting her clothes, a stain on her cuff.
Donna folded her arms, still reeling, but trying to maintain her carriage even though she was caving in on the inside. She swallowed and tried to concentrate. She wanted the officer to ask about the boy from school. She needed to know the answers now.
‘You recently gave a statement about your drama teacher sexually assaulting you?’
Angela nodded.
‘Did you and Mr Dean have sex? You said he covered your mouth, and touched you between your legs, but did he put his penis inside you – that time, or another time? Or did he show you his penis?’
There was a long pause. Angela was hunched now, hands between her knees. She shook her head once. It wasn’t clear what she meant.
Little Liar Page 17
