by SJI Holliday
Louise turns round to get a better look at the whiteboard. Sees Davie. He has a grim expression on his face. The others are moving into their smaller teams, sitting on the edges of desks, chatting quietly, working out what they need to do. The buzz is building up. Louise has been teamed with Davie. They’re to go to the school and start talking to the children. But their first job is on there, circled in red. Twice.
Talk to Lucas Crisp. If he doesn’t answer the door this time, they’ll have to escalate things.
‘Hang on,’ Davie says. The room falls silent. ‘You’ve missed a couple of people off this list, Malkie.’ He walks over to the whiteboard. Draws a box in one corner. Katie’s dad???, he writes. In another box he writes: Jamie Quinn.
‘Care to expand?’ Malkie says.
‘Katie’s dad has always been one of the town’s biggest mysteries. Mandy was under-age. There were plenty of rumours, but nothing ever stuck. People got bored with it eventually. Plenty of other gossip to be getting on with. Might be worth revisiting this now, though. Someone must know who he is and if there’s any possibility that he might be involved in this.’
‘Have you any idea?’ Malkie asks him.
Davie frowns. ‘I wouldn’t like to speculate, but I’ve always had my theories. I’ll talk to you about this after the meeting, if that’s OK?’
Malkie makes a ‘hmmph’ noise that Louise reads as his assent. ‘And the other one – Jamie Quinn? Who’s he, then?’
‘Jamie Quinn, generally known as Quinn, is a chef at the Rowan Tree. He’s lived here all his life, bar a couple of years at Her Majesty’s pleasure.’
‘And? He got form?’
‘Not for this. Drugs. Petty offences when he was younger. He went into rehab. Sorted himself out.’
‘Right. So what’s he got to do with this?’ Malkie’s voice makes it clear that he is running out of patience. People are shuffling again, anxious to get on with their work.
‘Well, possibly nothing,’ Davie says. ‘But he was with Mandy Taylor for a good few years. Lived with her when the kids were little. He was pretty much their stepdad, as far as I’m aware.’
A ripple of interested noises again.
‘Right then,’ Malkie says. ‘You and Jennings need to talk to him too.’
LucasCrispIsAPaedo
Secret Group
289 Members (130 new)
Luke Crust
6h
As far as I know, Lucas Crisp still husnae been arrested. Does he have to kill another innocent girl before they do anything? Mind what happened last summer with those things up at the Track – nothing was done until it was far too late and that poor Laura got attacked. The polis are no doing anything here, are they? Has anyone got any updates?
Likes(189) Comments(77)
Big Jim Nailor I heard they went round last night and he wouldnae let them in.
Al Samson Bollocks, they’d huv kicked the door in.
Big Jim Nailor Not if he’s no really a suspect.
Al Samson Whole thing’s a joke – who else do they think might’ve done it?
Joe Crow Has anyone seen him?
Big Jim Nailor Nah – he’ll be lying low.
Al Samson I say we get round there . . .
Luke Crust And do what? What’re you suggesting, Al Samson?
Lou Peters Stop fannying aboot, lads.
Gary Niven I heard the polis wanted to talk to Quinn aboot it.
Pete Reed Fucksake. Quinn’s sound. Nothing to dae wi him.
Big Jim Nailor Mind, he was inside for a bit . . .
Pete Reed For trying to rob the post office wi a fake gun in a Tesco’s bag.
Big Jim Nailor Oh aye. Haha. Where’s the lassies gone? Have they all left the page? They’ve no reported it, though, cuz it’s still here.
Lou Peters That’s cuz they dinnae think we’re serious aboot this.
Joe Crow And ye’s are serious, aye?
Big Jim Nailor Aye.
. . .
see 60 other comments
25
Neil
Neil turns over and yanks the duvet up angrily, covering his face. For a split second, he doesn’t remember. It’s just a normal Tuesday morning. Then it comes back. Thoughts of yesterday’s events swimming into focus. He’s sure he hasn’t slept. It’s been one of those sleeps where you’re convinced you’ve been wide awake all night, staring at the wall, dreaming yet not dreaming. He screws his eyes tight. Wills himself to sleep. And he drifts off, just for a moment.
The buzzing of his phone wakes him out of whatever kind of trance he’s been in. He wishes it was a dream. Wishes that the last thirty-six hours could be erased, that he could live them again. But he can’t. Katie is still dead. He rolls over and picks up his phone. Bloody Facebook message notifications. He needs to turn the vibrate off. He opens the first chat thread, not wanting to but knowing he has to read it. Fuck. FUCK.
You can’t keep ignoring me forever, loverboy
Fuck off. I’m not in the mood. And don’t call me that.
Aww come on, just a wee joke.
How can you joke at a time like this?
What do you expect me to do? She’s not coming back, is she?
Have some respect, Jesus Christ.
Like she respected me? She fucking hated me.
I’m not surprised. You’re a bitch.
Now, now . . .
Go away.
I need to tell you something.
FFS. What?
Go on Facebook. There’s a group . . .
There’s loads of groups on there, fuckwit. What am I looking for?
???
Patience!!!! Mr Crisp . . .
Mr Crisp? What the fuck about him?
Well, we all know he’s a dirty paedo.
Says who?
Says everyone. Wake up, you twat.
Look, I’m not in the mood for one of your stupid games.
My heid’s like mince.
Go to: lucascrispisapaedo – I’ve already approved you so you can join the group . . .
Wow.
??
Just fucking wow. Don’t tell me you came up with that?
Just get on there, Neily-boy. It’s already got 500 members . . . there’s loads of comments. People are getting right fucking ratty about it!
You’re sick.
Not me that’s sick! Anyhoo, I only did it for a joke, didn’t expect so many people to get in a right huff about it.
A joke? Another one of your brilliant jokes? What the fuck is wrong with you??
You didn’t think there was much wrong with me the other night . . .
. . .
. . .
Oi. You there? You need to go and look at that group. It’s gonna happen, whether you like it or not.
What is?
The battering, stupid. That dirty wee stoat's gonnae get it good.
He throws his phone across the room. It bounces on the carpet, slides under his desk. That girl . . . that fucking girl. She’s not even a girl. She’s a monster. She’s spent most of her existence making life hell for Katie, and for anyone else who doesn’t agree with everything she says. What was he thinking? A moment of madness. Extreme madness. And now this? What is he supposed to do? He’s too scared to look at the Facebook group. He should tell someone. Mr Poole. His mum. The police. But if he does that, he’ll have to tell them about how he found out, won’t he? He doesn’t want to search for the group on Facebook. Doesn’t want to go anywhere near social media. He can already imagine the outpourings of fake grief . . . the little shits who couldn’t stand Katie coming out of the woodwork to say how upset they are now that she’s gone.
No, he’s not getting involved in any of that. Fuck the lot of them. It’s not like the bunch of dicks are actually going to do anything to Mr Crisp, is it? They can’t be that stupid. Besides, Facebook will close the group down as soon as someone reports it, or maybe it’ll get picked up in one of their scans, even if it is supposed to be secret. Surely the w
ord ‘paedo’ is on their hit list. You can’t go around accusing people of things like that when you’ve no idea what you’re talking about. It’ll all blow over before it starts. No one’s going to actually hurt anyone. Nothing bad is actually going to happen. Keep telling yourself that, Neil . . . And if you’re lucky, you might be able to keep your head buried in the sand for as long as you want.
26
Polly
Despite everything, Polly had slept well. She’d woken on the sofa, a blanket lain neatly over her and tucked in. A glass of water on the small table beside her; underneath was a note:
Didn’t want to wake you. You looked so peaceful. I’m here if you need to talk to me xxx
She did want to talk to him. She knew he must be hurting too. But Mandy. How was she going to deal with Mandy?
She sits at her desk and waits for the first student to be brought to see her. The first one’s going to be tough, she knows it. Sergeant Zucarro is with her, and she will be recording the interviews and taking notes. If there is anything that needs to be discussed further, the pupil will be taken to the police station and formally questioned. It seems quicker this way, and Polly is happy to do it. Apart from anything else, it is giving her time to get to know each one a bit better. To get to know them, full stop, since she has barely spoken to any of them yet. The other policewoman, Constable Evans, is spending time in the break-out areas and in the playground. Keeping an eye on things – again, hoping to hear something that might be investigated further. Polly is not convinced that any of the children are going to be able to help. Despite their fights and falling outs, she can’t imagine that anything more sinister could have happened. She trusts Lucas, too. Even though there’s no sign of him again today. This is a worry, but she’s going to leave Jon to handle that for now. Besides, maybe he’s better off at home. She’s already heard the stirring of rumours in the playground. The tiniest specks of dust have been kicked up into a whirl of dirt and rubbish. She’s still giving him the benefit of the doubt. Why would he come to them so quickly and tell them about his friendship with Katie if he wasn’t telling them the whole truth?
So if it wasn’t one of the kids, and it wasn’t Lucas, then it was someone else. In many ways, she would prefer it to be a stranger, someone who would just get caught and punished. Not someone that Katie knew and trusted. The thought of that makes her feel unbearably sad. Even though that is likely to be how it turns out in the end.
The school nurse, Mrs Blackhurst, has agreed to go and collect each child from their classroom and bring them to Polly for a chat. Polly is about to try and start a conversation with Karen Zucarro, who has been scrolling through things on her phone since she arrived in the office, but she doesn’t get a chance. A knock on the door puts paid to that.
‘Come on in,’ she says.
The door opens slowly and a small face appears in the gap. ‘Ms McAllister? Mrs Blackhurst said you wanted to see me.’
Polly hears a quiet click as Karen switches on her voice recorder.
The boy is small and pale. He is wearing a huge parka with a brown furry lining on the hood. He looks like he wants to disappear inside it and never come out again.
She hadn’t expected this child to be in school today, but Jon had left her a note explaining it all. He’d wanted to come to school, and Mandy had let him. It made some sort of sense, she’d supposed. If the kid wanted to do what he could to take his mind off things, and his mum was happy to let him, then who was she to stop him? Besides, she knew exactly what his mum was like. She would be struggling to focus on anything right now. Reading between the lines, it was clear that Mandy’s children did exactly what they liked.
So here he was.
‘Brett, isn’t it? Come in, please. Sit down. I’ve got some squash, if you like. And some biscuits.’ She nods towards the jug of water and the bottle of Robinson’s orange barley on the top of the filing cabinet. She shakes a box of biscuits at him. She’d stopped at Tesco's on the way in to pick them up, hoping it might make the atmosphere more informal. Hoping it might help the kids speak up. She needed them to see her as a friend, an ally. Not a teacher. Not for this.
He eyes her suspiciously before taking a plastic tumbler and filling it with juice. Then he sits in the chair opposite her and helps himself to a handful of biscuits, chocolate ones mostly. He doesn’t remove his coat, and when he sits down his head disappears halfway inside, like a tortoise.
‘You like chocolate?’
He nods, stuffs a chocolate finger into his mouth. ‘Katie liked these ones,’ he says. Tears form in the corners of his eyes. She hands him a tissue.
‘I’m so sorry about your sister, Brett. It must be very difficult for you.’
He sniffs. ‘Yeah. Well, I was really sad at first, and I will miss her, but Boggy says it’s OK because she’s an angel now.’ He takes out another chocolate finger and crunches it in two bites.
Polly shifts in her seat. She has to remember that he is only a young boy. It probably hasn’t quite sunk in yet. She doesn’t want to push him too hard, but she hopes that he understands death, and that angels aren’t real, but that’s a conversation for someone else to have. ‘Who’s Boggy? Is he a friend of yours?’
Brett looks over Polly’s shoulder and smiles. ‘Sort of. I talk to him sometimes. We go in the woods together, hunting and stuff. Not really hunting, just playing. You know. He’s good fun. I don’t see him all the time, you know. But he likes to play with me sometimes.’ He pushes a jammy dodger into his mouth and starts chewing.
Polly feels a tickle of something across the back of her neck. She shivers. The way he looked over her shoulder . . . she wants to turn round, but that would be ridiculous. Karen is sitting to her right. Brett is in front of her. There is no one else in the room. Something tells her that Boggy might not be real. It’s not uncommon in boys of this age, and it’s not a name she’s seen on the student transcripts or heard anyone else mention. Plus, with his mention of angels . . . Polly knows this boy has had a difficult childhood. Imaginary friends are a way of dealing with that.
‘Is he here now, Brett? Boggy, I mean.’ She turns and glances quickly behind her chair, can’t stop herself. She sees Karen do the same. The weather has turned gloomy, the air grey with a threat of a storm. She sees herself reflected back in the window, Karen too; the small shape of Brett behind her. She turns back to face him.
Brett coughs and pieces of biscuit fly out of his mouth. ‘No,’ he laughs. ‘Not now. He was, though, a minute ago.’
Polly feels the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. ‘OK,’ she says. She’ll investigate this more later on. No point in spooking herself, or Karen, for that matter. The woman has gone a strange colour of pale that could almost be blue. ‘So, do you want to talk about Katie? Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything that might help us to find out what happened to her?’
He shakes his head and looks down at his lap. ‘A bad man hurt her. That’s what my mum says.’ He sniffs again, wipes his nose on his sleeve.
‘Did your mum say anything else?’
‘No. Can I go now?’
Polly frowns. Wonders if it might be better to leave this to the police after all.
‘Sure. Look – you know you can come and talk to me anytime you like, Brett? If you think of anything. Will you do that? If you want to talk about Katie, or Brooke . . . or your mum. Anything at all. We need to help the police catch the bad man. Make sure he can’t hurt anyone else. What do you think?’
‘I can talk to Boggy. He understands. I don’t think I need to talk to you. I don’t even know you.’ He stands up, sniffs again. ‘Can I have another biscuit, please? To take with me? We never have this many kinds of biscuits at home.’
She pushes the box closer to him. He takes a handful and drops them into his coat pocket. A small smile plays on his lips. He glances over her shoulder again, and she spins round on her chair to see what it is he is looking at.
There’s nothing there. No one.
>
When she turns back, the boy has gone.
27
Louise
The street is quiet, but Louise senses that there were people around not long before. Their essence hangs in the cold air. The appearance of the patrol car has caused them to skitter back under their rocks, like the cockroaches that they are. The officers who did the door-to-door on Katie’s street said that there had already been murmurings. Suggestions that ‘That Mr Crisp’ had something to hide.
Does he?
Lucas Crisp should have stayed at the school yesterday with the others. Disappearing was a bad move, makes him look more guilty. Poole and McAllister should’ve done a better job of keeping him there until they arrived, but what could they do? Tie him to a chair? Lock him in an office? She hopes that they made the right call last night, leaving it alone when he hadn’t answered the door. It was late, the man had gone home sick. Jon Poole had confirmed that it wasn’t unusual – Lucas suffered from migraines.
Louise could relate to that.
It’d been years since she’d had one, but she’d gone through a bad spate where she had started to think she was going to have to give up her job. She was spending days on end in her darkened bedroom. Her GP was sick of seeing her. Started to question her on it. Was job stress to blame? Was she depressed? Codeine was the only thing that would touch the pain. Initially, the stuff you can buy over the counter in the chemist. Later, stronger stuff. Straight up. Prescribed by her GP. Then the rebound headaches had started and she had been forced to go cold turkey. Seek alternative treatments. Incredibly, it had been an osteopath who’d fixed her in the end. She still remembered the sheer terror when he had twisted up a towel, grinned at her and given her a knowing look – ‘Yes, I know I look like I’m about to murder you . . .’ – before he’d placed it under her neck and given her a short, sharp twist. She could still hear the crack. Like he’d broken her neck. He hadn’t, though. He’d re-aligned something at the top of her back, a facet joint, where her spine met her neck. Something she must’ve thrown out years ago, not realising the damage it would cause her in later life. ‘Many people’s migraines aren’t migraines at all,’ he’d explained. She’s never had a problem since. Touch wood.
