‘Fuck off.’
‘No, fuck you, you lying bitch.’
They started screaming at each other. Other kids just avoided them and gave them a wide berth, heads down against the rain. A truck passed and drenched them both in a dark wave of dirt and rainwater.
‘In your dreams Mr Dean shagged you. You just make everything up. How would you even know that you’re pregnant? You always look pregnant.’
Angela punched her softly in the shoulder, where it didn’t really matter, but Jasmine recoiled and then slapped Angela’s face, really hard. It shocked her. The wet slap in the cold rain. Instead of striking her back, Angela put a hand to her cheek. Jasmine looked furious – all the whites of her eyes showing, her full lips twisted. The raindrops were resting in her hair, like small jewels.
Angela turned her back on Jasmine and started walking to school as fast as she could. She didn’t have the energy for a fight this morning.
‘He always liked me more than you. My mum saw the selfie he took with me and said it was clear he was leering at me.’ Jasmine was walking just as fast, spitting insults in her ear.
‘Whatever,’ Angela threw back, putting her hands into the pockets of her hoodie.
‘It’s true. No one fancies you, not Mr Dean, not Adam. I talked to Adam …’
Angela turned for a moment then kept walking.
‘He told me all that stuff you said about you two hanging out and making out in the park was bullshit. He said he never touched you.’
Angela hunched over even further. She hadn’t been lying. Everyone hated her and so they didn’t want to believe her. She was all alone. Walking as fast as she could, Angela ran up the steps that led up to the main building of Croydon Academy. There were twelve steps, and normally Angela took the long way round to save the effort, but today she just wanted to be inside fast. The teachers didn’t like her either, but at least they would stop Jasmine hounding her. Her weight and her school bag meant that she couldn’t climb as fast as she wanted. She was sweating and her thighs hurt as she tried to speed up. Jasmine was still behind her, like a dog snapping at her heels.
Liar. Bitch. Fatso. Dirty skank.
She was nearly at the top step, the toe of her Converse finding damp concrete. Just then Jasmine tugged at her bag again and Angela slipped backwards. Her hand reached for the railing but the metal was slick with rain. She toppled, crashing into Jasmine, who jumped to the side, then hit the steps with her back before her legs somersaulted over her head and she rolled to the bottom, the hard steps hitting deep in her side and then her forehead, the bone of her arm.
There was a puddle at the bottom of the steps and Angela rolled into it, curled into a ball on her side, not able to get up, her bag still hooked over one shoulder, pinning her arm back.
‘Are you all right?’ Jasmine said, walking halfway down the steps.
Angela had no words, or rather no air in her lungs to carry them out of her mouth. She propped herself up on one elbow. There was a sharp crushing pain in her stomach and she wondered if she had broken a rib. She put a hand to her lip and saw blood on her fingers. She had bitten her lip when she fell.
Suddenly Jasmine was at her side, taking her schoolbag and then tugging at her arm.
‘I can get up by myself,’ Angela said, moving onto her behind, then using the railing to get to her feet.
Her knees stung as she tried to get up. Her leggings were torn and black from the wet ground. It was hard to stand up straight and she wrapped her arms around her abdomen.
She couldn’t be sure, because her body was so hot now, blood pumping through her so hard that her head throbbed, but she thought her period had started. There was a heavy, aching tug on the inside of her thighs. She looked down as dark wetness flowed from between her legs, soaking her grey leggings. She parted her lips and looked up at Jasmine. Her face had changed, from hate to horror.
‘What is it? You shouldn’t have worn those leggings, you idiot.’
Angela swallowed, a strange taste in her mouth, metallic, rusty, right at the back of her throat.
‘Have you got other stuff to put on?’
Angela’s hand was a claw fast around the railing. She was freezing cold all of a sudden, trembling from her scalp to her knees.
‘You can put your hoodie round your waist. Come on, I’ll take you to Mrs Hegel.’
Mrs Hegel was the teacher responsible for pastoral care. All the girls knew that if they needed to talk, she was the person to go to. Angela had barely spoken to the woman before. Gently, Jasmine took her elbow.
‘What’s happened to you now, Angela?’ said Mrs Hegel, with that patronising voice that all teachers used.
‘I fell down the stairs.’
Jasmine was quiet, her face suddenly long and cautious.
‘I slipped. It’s wet,’ Angela sighed, not wanting to explain any more. She could feel she was still bleeding, hot and wet on her thighs.
Mrs Hegel’s face became pinched with concern and Angela thought she was appalled by the blood on her leggings, but she asked Jasmine to leave and then picked up the phone and called the nurse.
‘I’ll get the nurse to come here. It’s probably best.’
Angela sniffed and nodded. She sat beside Mrs Hegel’s desk, two hands over her stomach. She swallowed tears that ran down the back of her throat, salt and slick.
‘I know that you’re pregnant, Angela – have you been to see a doctor?’
‘No, my dad made an appointment. I’m supposed to go this week.’
Mrs Hegel winced, her lips pursing. Angela wondered if she didn’t believe her either.
‘I think when the nurse gets here, she’ll want you to go to hospital straight away.’
Angela said nothing but raised her eyebrows. She was sick of going to hospital.
‘If you’re bleeding, it might mean there’s something wrong …’ Mrs Hegel’s eyes softened and she put a hand on Angela’s. ‘Shall I call your dad?’
‘Call my mum,’ Angela said, the word mum choking her.
29
Stephen
No charges had been lodged against Nicholas Dean because of insufficient evidence.
Stephen turned on the burglar alarm and locked up his flat. He had imagined this moment over and over, but now it was time to act.
What are you going to do? Donna had challenged him. He would have felt better doing it with his own bare hands, but even this way, he would get satisfaction from knowing that justice had been done.
It had been easier than he thought. The man that Stephen contacted on a cheap Nokia pay-as-you-go phone had been easy to find. He was called Simon Hunter and registered to the address he had lived in before prison, with his wife and three children.
‘Five hundred pounds. A hundred up front.’
‘I’ll do it for a thousand, three hundred up front. I’ll need to watch him – get him when he goes out. There’s more risk in the daylight.’
‘All right, a thousand.’
‘Is it a woman? I don’t do women.’
‘It’s a man.’
‘Do you want him cut?’
Stephen had taken the cash from his bank account in five separate random amounts, just in case. Now he felt the slight weight of the notes in his inside jacket pocket, next to his heart. He was wearing sweat pants, a baseball cap and had the hood of his top pulled up over the hat. He walked away from downtown Croydon, past Norwood Junction station, frowning against the wave of marijuana smoke that dissipated as he walked by a crowd of people dominating the pavement by the bus stop. The road was narrow and busy and smells assaulted him, heavy and clinging: exhaust, kebab, dry cleaners and pizza places.
It was a relief when he saw the park and the narrow road opened up to its green expanse. He entered and walked with his hands in his pockets.
There was an ash tree with a hollow trunk near the railway line, in the far corner of Ashburton Park. Stephen had noticed it over the years, taking Angela to the swing park when she was li
ttle, or playing basketball with his colleagues. He had described it exactly to Hunter – how he could feel around the rim of the bark and then up inside the tree, the spider’s webs and leaves giving way to the dried-out darkness.
The park was perfect. People came and went, but there was the cover of the trees and no CCTV.
Stephen walked slowly across the grass, not drawing attention to himself. It was the afternoon, and few people were around – even the children’s playground was deserted. He walked past the old youth club defaced with graffiti, the tall trees swaying in the distance alongside the ripped wire fencing that ran along the rear side of the railway track. One side of the old convent library was covered in scaffolding. As he passed the building, Stephen looked up at a motto engraved in sandstone above one of the arched doors: God be our help.
The money was in a polythene bank bag and Stephen had handled it and the money inside only with gloves. He took it out from his inside pocket as soon as he entered the darkened corridor of high trees, then tucked it quickly up inside the hollow ash as he passed.
His heart thumped in his chest as he stood behind the hedgerow by the bowling club. Silently, he remonstrated with himself for the nerves. He wasn’t afraid of being found out – he had taken no chances – but didn’t like asking for help. He didn’t relish divesting his power to another person. He wanted to hurt Dean himself.
Suddenly, through the tunnel of trees, Stephen observed a man – medium height, balding, a small comfortable gut, dark jacket, jeans and trainers. He was unremarkable, apart from the fact that he stopped briefly at the ash tree and reached inside.
Stephen walked home and had just turned the key in the lock when a text in the basic phone vibrated in his pocket.
Three hundred received. Will text when complete.
Stephen went inside, hurriedly turned off the burglar alarm, and then poured himself a finger of whisky. He had taken a risk for Angela. Not for the first time, he hoped that she had been telling the truth.
30
Donna
Donna plumped the pillows and folded the duvet onto the sofa, then tucked Angela in, setting a little table at her side with juice and chocolates and her iPad. Now that she’d had a bath, Angela was pale, and with her wet hair slicked back, her face seemed blank and bloated.
Donna had had to leave work yet again to go to the school, where she had found Angela filthy and bloodied after the fall.
‘Do you want me to put a movie on for you?’
She shook her head, pillows at her back and her sketchpad on her knee.
‘Just shout if you need anything.’
Angela nodded, lips pressed together.
‘Are you in pain?’ Donna put a hand on her forehead.
She shook her head.
‘I’ll get you a sweater to put on over your pyjamas.’
Upstairs, Donna took an old sweatshirt from one of the bottom drawers, then sat down on Angela’s bed and put her head in her hands.
Grief flooded her.
Tears curled over Donna’s chin and she nudged them away with the back of her hand. Looking down, she saw a white box poking out from under the bed. Stripped of its duvet, the mess underneath Angela’s bed was clear to see. Donna leaned down and saw that it was her daughter’s old jewellery box: the same jewellery box she had loved as a little girl, watching the ballerina twirl as the tune played. Donna reached down and stroked the box with her fingers, but had learned her lesson there. Angela was entitled to her privacy. After all she had been through, she was at least entitled to that.
Donna stood and looked at her reflection in Angela’s wardrobe mirror. A tired, middle-aged woman looked back at her. How had her life turned into this? Everything she had been raised to want was now twisted and warped, mocking her. She turned away from the mirror. She was standing in the exact spot where Angela had been when she vomited after taking the pills.
Donna put a hand over her mouth. She was a terrible mother. She had been angry that morning, angry with her daughter for trying to kill herself. It had been an inconvenience. Now she knew why Angela had been so desperate.
The doctor in the emergency room had been clear.
‘I can confirm that your daughter has had a miscarriage. It may have happened naturally, but considering the circumstances in which it occurred, it is more likely that the fall caused it.’
Angela had been monosyllabic about the accident, but she had said that Jasmine had tugged on her bag on the stairs, causing her to lose balance. She closed her eyes, teeth resting on her knuckles, remembering her words to the doctor.
‘She was due to have an abortion at the clinic tomorrow. The police were aware of it … She won’t tell me who, and I need to know.’
The doctor had smiled sympathetically – a thin, weary smile that Donna imagined she had offered many times, to the dying and the distraught. It consoled without true comfort. ‘The best person to tell you who the father is … is Angela herself.’
Slowly, Donna descended the stairs, the sound of the television just audible through the closed living-room door. She watched Angela from the bottom of the stairs. She was sketching a face, head resting against the sofa. Angela had Stephen’s hair and eyes and the shape of her face was the same as Stephen’s mother, who had died shortly after their wedding. As puberty took hold in Angela, Stephen became more visible in her daughter’s face – nose and chin. It was as if Stephen was not content with claiming their daughter’s heart, he had to claim her body, too.
‘Who you drawing?’
‘No one. Just a face.’
Over her shoulder, Donna recognised the face as Nicholas Dean. It wasn’t so much that the sketch resembled the man, but rather that the sketch resembled all of Angela’s previous attempts at drawing him.
The charges had been dropped. The CPS were not going to prosecute him. Donna didn’t want to aggravate her daughter when she was so vulnerable, but she needed to know, once and for all, what had happened. She was willing to risk another disagreement and Angela running back to her father’s; she had to know.
She ran a hand over Angela’s slick hair. ‘C’mon, love, let me dry your hair.’
‘It’ll dry on its own.’
‘I know that, but come and I’ll dry it for you.’
Angela sat by the dressing table in her mother’s room, looking at herself in the mirror, while Donna sat on the bed and gently brushed her daughter’s hair, curling it under at the ends, as she had done when Angela was small.
‘That feels nice.’
Donna smiled. ‘You always liked getting your hair brushed and dried. I used to put you to sleep running my fingers through your hair. Do you remember that?’
Angela nodded and Donna moved the brush under the warm air of the dryer, careful not to tug as her daughter moved. She stroked from the root and curled the hair under, using the dryer to set it. Angela’s face in the mirror was peaceful, relaxed.
‘I remember when you were at nursery and when you first went to school. You always used to insist I brushed your hair and put it in a ponytail. You wouldn’t let your dad do it.’
‘He used to pull it. Accidentally. It hurt when he did it.’
Donna smiled, taking her time and brushing the wet strands, then working the dryer from the roots down to the ends.
‘Are you feeling better, or still sore?’
‘My legs and my back hurt, especially the first time I lie down. If I don’t move it’s OK.’
‘I can put a duvet on top of your mattress tonight. Help to make it softer.’
Angela nodded, lips pressed together.
‘Are you still bleeding?’ Their eyes met in the mirror.
‘It’s stopped now, I think.’
‘Best to still wear the pad during the night.’ The hospital had sent them away with huge, thick, sanitary pads.
Angela tilted her chin up – a strange, aggressive nod.
Donna worked the brush through her hair again, lowering the heat of the dryer to make th
e whole process last longer. Angela closed her eyes in pleasure at the sensation.
‘I was glad that you came home to me. I never wanted you to leave. Not really.’
Angela opened her eyes. ‘You said you hated me.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.’ Donna ran the brush along the nape of Angela’s neck. ‘Maybe we both said and did things that we’re not too proud of.’
Angela nodded vigorously, so much so that Donna had to loosen her grip on the brush so as not to tug the hair. ‘I’m sorry I hurt your face,’ she said, fiddling with jewellery on the dressing table.
‘That’s all right.’
Her words brought a thin-lipped smile from Angela.
‘I lost a baby, you know, before I had you.’
It was dangerous, and Donna didn’t really want to talk about it, but she needed Angela to talk to her about what she knew.
‘Not as bad as what happened to you. I had an abortion. I had planned on telling you, if you had gone through with …’ Donna stopped, watching Angela’s eyes in the mirror for a reaction.
‘You mean, like a brother or sister?’
Donna lowered the hairdryer and ran the brush through her hair. ‘No, it was before I met your dad. I try not to think about it, but it was with someone who hurt me … a long time ago. I was older than you, a young woman.’ Donna smiled at the mirror, and the image of their two faces blurred because of the tears that pricked her eyes. ‘But I don’t think it matters how old you are. It’s something that’s not supposed to happen and so it’s hard to … deal with.’
‘Did you want the baby?’ Angela was unemotional, blue eyes dark and fierce, but there was an eagerness in her voice.
‘I didn’t know,’ Donna swallowed, being honest, ‘I wasn’t ready for it. I didn’t want to be pregnant, that was all … but the abortion was hard. I did it on my own. My mum wasn’t there, as you know, and I didn’t have girlfriends to go along as I hadn’t told anyone about it.’
‘Why didn’t you tell?’
Donna turned the hairdryer back on, keeping the heat strong but the jet on low, so that she could continue styling without the noise. ‘I guess because it wasn’t a boyfriend. It wasn’t someone I was with. It was someone who … hurt me and then suddenly things were happening to my body that I had no choice about. The doctor told me I was pregnant. It was in my body and I had to deal with whatever consequences there were … but that had been forced on me by someone else.’
Little Liar Page 22
