by SJI Holliday
Thinking about what happened to Lucas Crisp makes his stomach flip again. That wasn’t supposed to happen. They were meant to stand on his stupid little patch of lawn, bang on his windows. Post a fresh turd through his letterbox. Scare the crap out of the fucker.
No one was meant to go inside.
It hadn’t taken long for the thing to get out of hand. People were hammering on the window. Battering the door. Neil hadn’t been able to see what was going on inside. He’d stayed well back, across the other side of the road. He was there because he felt like he’d no choice. But he wasn’t getting involved. They were wrong, anyway. It wasn’t him who killed Katie. He’d never have done that. But once the rumours had started – once Brooke had started them – there was nothing that anyone could do.
Guilty. Paedo. No trial required. That fucking Facebook group. Bunch of sick animals, jumping all over it. Desperate for something. Who knows what.
Once the door got kicked in, that was it. They filed in. Those angry men from outside the pub. Riled by drink and anger. Bravado. Mob rule. Katie would’ve been fascinated and horrified. They were insane, driven that way by each other.
The poor bloke didn’t stand a chance. Neil had hoped that the teacher might’ve been quick enough to leg it out the back, but he’d seen a trickle of blokes disappear round the back, just before the door went in. There was no way out.
They were armed with planks of wood, bricks wrapped in bags-for-life. Where the fuck had they got them all from? He hadn’t seen them at the pub, but then he remembered that there was already a gang in wait when they arrived on the teacher’s street. The news had spread. The proper hard men were in attendance.
‘What if it was your daughter? Your girlfriend?’ someone had shouted before they piled in. Any murmurs of dissent were ignored.
Because everyone was too fucking scared.
He wipes his hand across his cheek, getting rid of the angry tears that can’t seem to stay inside his head. Where does it come from? All that liquid? It shouldn’t be there any more. He feels like he’s dried up inside. Desiccated, like coconut. Katie loves coconut.
Loved.
He’s about to cut up the bank, to climb over the broken wire fence and head back into the playing fields, when something catches his eye.
Something is bobbing amidst the shattered ice of Digby’s Deathhole. Someone’s chucked something in there. Shards of thin, broken ice float slowly across the deep pool, catching the last of the sunlight through the bare trees. He roots around until he finds a decent stick. Rips it away from the frosty bank.
He walks to the edge. What the hell is that? He pokes the stick at a large jagged sheet, and it slides into the dark floating lump. He feels his breath quicken. Is it an animal? Has some poor dog trotted onto the ice and slipped through? Maybe someone’s gone to get help. He doesn’t sense anyone nearby. He moves closer to the edge, pokes at another piece of ice, tries to use the stick to guide the floating lump closer to the water’s edge so he can see what it is. It’s probably just a rubbish bag. People are arseholes.
The thing bobs closer to him, and with a bit of a stretch he reaches it with the stick. He hooks the stick onto the edge and pulls. Black bag full of clothes? Why would someone chuck it in here?
His mind is trying its hardest to come up with a rational explanation, but it’s a waste of time. He can see quite clearly what it is. Because it isn’t an ‘it’, it’s a ‘she’. He stumbles backwards. The thing in the water seems to swim towards him now. Hooked, still, on the stick that he’s gripping tight, so tight that he feels like his knuckles might snap and break through the pale skin of his icy cold hands. He watches in horror as the thing in the water bobs and flips, long hair swirling like tangled reeds. He sees her face now, and a strangled sob escapes his frozen lips.
Oh Jesus, no—
It’s Hayley. Katie’s best friend.
Katie’s ex-best friend.
‘Oh fuck . . . oh fucking hell.’ He falls to the ground, lets go of the stick. He scrabbles back towards the trees. He doesn’t want to look, but he can’t stop staring. She’s dead. She’s already dead. There’s nothing he can do now. He can’t risk going in the water – he’d end up drowning himself. No. He has to phone the police. That’s all. He takes a deep breath. Lets it out slowly. Fumbles in his pocket for his phone. ‘It’s OK, Neil,’ he says to himself. ‘You can do this. Keep calm.’
He’s pressing the second ‘9’ into his phone when he hears the rustling in the sparse bushes behind him. Twigs snapping and falling. He doesn’t want to turn round. He closes his eyes. Waits for the blow. It doesn’t happen.
‘She was a bad girl,’ the voice behind him says. ‘A bad, bad girl.’
He opens his eyes. He recognises the voice. He turns around slowly, finger pressing the third ‘9’ into his phone. He hears the tinny voice, far away: Which service do you require?
‘Police,’ he says into the phone. ‘I’m at Digby’s Deathhole. You better send an ambulance too, although I think it’s too late.’ He hangs up. Addresses the man standing next to the bushes. ‘Hello, Pete,’ he says. ‘It’s OK. Help will be here soon.’
Pete gestures towards Neil’s coat pocket, where the pouch of tobacco is poking out. ‘You shouldn’t smoke, you know. It’s really bad for you.’
40
Polly
After calling Louise to tell her about what Diane and Lois had said, Polly is relieved to hear that the police had already been aware of the blog. They’d set up a notification on the school magazine page and had seen the posts as they’d come in. They’d already been collaborating with Facebook about the Lucas Crisp group – which had now been taken down – and they were able to disable the school page straight away; and they’d accessed the blog server, explaining why the girls were struggling to make the updates. The police knew that someone outside the team had viewed the blog too, via the Facebook links, and they were close to finding out who that was.
Polly is glad to have this taken out of her hands, and although she’s annoyed that the girls didn’t come to her sooner, she understands why they tried to keep it all a secret. She manages a break, at last. A cheese and pickle sandwich and a hot chocolate from the machine in the staff room. She’s missed lunch, and thankfully, no one else is in there. Afterwards, she heads back to her office, feeling slightly more refreshed but more anxious than ever about what is going on in the school. She’d like to take the rest of the afternoon off, but there is a note on her desk letting her know that she’ll be getting another visitor very soon. She leans back in her chair and waits for him to arrive.
* * *
‘How are you feeling today, Brett? Mrs Cohen said you’d been a bit quiet in your classes. She was wondering if you were OK, or if you wanted to talk to someone?’
‘What about? Can I have a biscuit, please?’
Polly lifts the box of biscuits out from where they’ve been stored, on top the footstool under her desk. She pushes them across, takes off the lid. He goes for the chocolate fingers again.
‘Brett?’
He sighs. Munches on the biscuits. ‘Boggy says I’ve not to be sad any more about Katie because she’s with the angels now and she’s OK.’
‘Does he now? What else has Boggy been saying?’
‘Oh, just the usual things, really. He’s not happy with some of his insects. He says it’s too cold and he can’t wait for the summer so he can get some better ones. Also, he thinks that it’s a shame that Mr Crisp is in hospital because he didn’t do anything wrong. He says he hopes that Mr Crisp is OK and that he’ll be able to go home soon.’
‘I’m sure he will. It was a nasty thing that happened to him, but he’s awake now and recovering in bed. You can tell Boggy that, if he’s worried.’ She smiles. ‘He’s not here now, is he?’
Brett frowns, scratches his ear. ‘Who?’
‘Boggy, of course. Is he here?’
Brett barks out a strangled noise. ‘Of course he’s not here. You’d be a
ble to see him if he was. He’s not invisible.’ He shakes his head, then reaches forward for another biscuit.
Polly decides to change tack. ‘How’s your mum, Brett? Has she got anyone round, taking care of her? I was glad that she said it was OK for you and Brooke to come back to school. Sometimes it’s better to be around people when you’re sad, so that you can talk. Have company.’ Polly decides that she will go round and see Mandy later. She’s been dithering over this for too long.
‘Mum’s OK. She’s crying a lot. There’s a police lady sort of living there, in our house. She’s called Flo, or something.’
Polly smiles. He means the FLO. The Family Liaison Officer. She imagines that’s not enough, though. Not for Mandy. Mandy was always over-emotional, especially when she was meting out slaps and punches. Long time ago, though. Will Mandy want to talk to her now? Perhaps she won’t bother going round after all. What can she do, anyway? And maybe with the situation . . . her own situation . . . she doesn’t want to make things any worse.
‘Do you miss Katie?’ Polly asks.
He stares at her then, silently. She watches as he tries hard to keep his mouth tightly shut, his nostrils flaring gently as he breathes. His lip wobbles. ‘Of course I do,’ he says. A tear runs down his cheek and he sniffs, wiping it away along with his snot on his sleeve. ‘Boggy says I’ll see her again one day. He says maybe she’s with his mum, ’cause she’s with the angels too. He says his mum was really nice, and that he wishes she was still here because sometimes his dad shouts at him too much.’
Polly is intrigued. He’s invented a friend who has no mum, and a domineering father – which is the exact opposite of his own situation. She should ask about his dad, or his stepdad. But she’s not sure she wants to go down that route just yet.
‘Boggy sounds like he knows a lot. Do you speak to him often?’
‘Hmm. Yeah. Most days. Mostly not during the day, though, in case he gets in trouble. I meet him in the woods after school and we do stuff like foraging. He knows loads of things about the woods. He knows the animals and the plants and even the name of the stuff that makes up the floor, you know, that mulchy stuff? He can tell you all the things that are in it. He knows the flowers, too, and the insects. He doesn’t shoot things now, because he got in trouble before, but we sometimes make catapults and we can catch some of the flying insects in nets. The stuff that crawls on the floor and on the trees, we get that with bits of sticky tape and sometimes beakers and things. We like it when we can catch them and watch them die, instead of squishing them too much. It’s better that way, if you want to keep them and pin them to the board. But so far we’ve not had much luck with that, which is why I said Boggy could come round and talk to Katie about hers . . .’
A chill runs down Polly’s spine. ‘Brett . . . you need to tell me the truth now, and don’t be scared . . . but where does Boggy live? Is he . . . is he a special friend that only you can see? That only you can talk to?’
Brett laughs. ‘Are you mad, Ms McAllister? He’s not an imaginary friend or something. That’s for little kids! Did you think I made him up? You know him. Everyone knows him. But some people think he’s weird, so that’s why he hasn’t got any friends his own age—’
‘His own age? What do you mean, Brett? Who is Boggy? What’s his real name?’
The boy sighs. Shakes his head. ‘It’s Pete, silly. I thought everyone knew that. Pete. P-E-A-T. Bog. Get it?’
‘Pete? Not Pete, the man who helps Mr Hennessy with the school and the gardens?’
‘Yes, of course. Pete, the jannie’s helper. Who did you think I was talking about?’
41
Louise
The phone call from Polly McAllister had been enlightening. Neil sleeping with Brooke. Katie’s scratch card. Brooke stirring up trouble for Lucas. Diane and Lois – all this stuff about the blog posts . . . and Pete Brotherstone. Poor Neil. There were so many things to unpick, but the scene at the river had presented itself fairly intact. They’d been on their way to see Mandy, but that would have to wait now.
He hadn’t put up a fight. He’d looked shell-shocked. Sad. But he’d let them lead him away, put him in the car. He said nothing in the car, but as soon as they arrived at the station, the floodgates had opened. Like he knew exactly what was expected of him now.
‘Well, Pete. Do you want to tell us what’s been going on?’ Louise says. She and Davie are in the small interview room at the back of the station. There are only two in Banktoun, but the larger one has been their HQ during the investigation. This room is bleak, windowless. The walls are a dirty grey that looks like neglect rather than a chosen shade of paint. Davie switches on the recorder, says the things he has to say.
Pete sits straight in his chair, looks directly ahead. ‘Hayley was a bad girl.’
The room is silent. Outside, Louise can hear raised voices. Someone has arrived at the station. Someone that doesn’t sound happy. Pete has waived his right to a legal representative, but they have called one, nonetheless.
‘Should I?’
Davie nods. Louise walks out into the corridor, just as the solicitor turns the corner.
‘Rob Bates,’ he says. ‘I hope you haven’t started without me.’
‘What’s going on round there?’ Louise says.
‘Martin Brotherstone is what. Don’t worry, you can talk to him later. DI Reid has it in hand.’
Louise gives the solicitor a wry smile. They both know what this means. Malkie will shut him up and shut him down. Martin’s councillor credentials don’t wash with Detective Inspector Reid. Rob seems very matter of fact, and that’s not a bad thing. His name sounds familiar, but she doesn’t think she’s come across him before. Best they deal with this as quickly as possible. Of course they’re hoping that Pete is responsible not just for Hayley but for Katie too, but that seems too neat somehow. Louise isn’t convinced. She walks back into the room, with Rob following her.
‘Hello, Davie,’ he says. Louise was right – he is familiar. She makes a mental note to ask about him later on. He seems intriguing, somehow, she’s not sure why.
‘Rob, do you need to speak to Pete on his own first?’
‘I don’t need to do that,’ Pete says, before the solicitor can answer. ‘I just want to tell you what happened. It’s better that way. I thought it was good fun having all the secrets, but I don’t like them any more.’
‘Which secrets are those, Pete?’ Davie asks. His voice is gentle. He has told Louise who this boy is, and Louise’s feelings are mixed – but she knows he needs to be handled carefully.
‘About The Collection. You want me to tell you about that, don’t you?’
A shiver runs down Louise’s neck. The Collection. Louise doesn’t know what the boy is referring to, but there is something chilling about the way he said it.
Davie is calm. ‘I do, Pete. I do. But first of all I want you to tell me what you were doing down at the river today. Can you tell me that bit first?’
Louise glances across at Rob. His face is stony. Should he intervene? Tell his client to keep quiet?
Pete sighs. ‘I did a bad thing. I’m sorry. But I told you . . . Hayley is a bad girl. She hurt Katie.’
‘Katie Taylor?’
‘Yes. Katie. She likes butterflies and dragonflies and she’s got a damselfly too. I’ve looked and looked but I’ve never been able to catch one. I wanted to talk to her, to ask her how I could catch one. But I was scared to. I always get it wrong when I try to talk to girls. So I asked Brett to help me . . .’
Rob coughs. ‘Pete, can you answer Sergeant Gray’s question first of all, please? Then we can talk about the other things. If we need to.’ He gives Davie a look. Davie nods.
‘Pete? Can you tell me what happened to Hayley?’
Pete starts to clench and unclench his fists. He stares down at the table. ‘She was bad to Katie. I read the things—’
‘What things?’
‘I saw it on my phone! It pinged. I’m not meant to us
e my phone at work, but it’s OK with the stuff that’s about the school. Mr Hennessy helped me do it on my phone. So I could read the school magazine? It’s not really a magazine. It’s on the computer. My phone went ping ping ping. I think it was six times, or maybe it was more. It was on the big computer screen too, but only for a minute. I didn’t have time to read it on there. The girls were looking at it on the computer. I went in to sort out the cables in the little room between the rooms because Mr Hennessy said they were a tangled fucking mess. Sorry—’ He pauses, his cheeks flush. ‘He said the bad words, I didn’t.’
Louise understands now, at least she thinks she does. She doesn’t want to make assumptions, but it seems pretty clear that Pete has learning difficulties of some sort. This is why they are being careful with him. He is very literal in what he says, what he does. He is vulnerable. She feels sorry for him, despite what it is they think he has done.
‘The girls were playing with a laptop. It wasn’t a school one. It was black.’
‘Which girls?’
‘The American lady teacher and Diane. The ginger nut.’
‘Lois Reibach and Diane McBride?’
‘Yes. They were reading the things. Then Diane pressed a button and Lois started shouting and Diane started crying and they pressed more buttons, and then my phone started pinging so I clicked on the links, and I saw.’
‘What did you see?’
‘Things that someone had written about Hayley. Things saying she was bad. Lots of bad words. I don’t want to say them.’
Davie leans back in his seat. Louise takes over.
‘Who wrote the things, Pete? Do you know?’
He sniffs. ‘It didn’t say. But I heard Lois say “oh Katie” and then Diane was crying. I wanted to speak to them. I wanted to say “who wrote that?” But I was too scared. I stayed in the little room until they’d gone. They slammed the lid shut and when they were walking out they said, “Oh God, Hayley will go mad when she sees this” and the other one said, “Yeah, but it’s true, she did make Katie’s life hell. She’s a bad apple, that one.” And then they were gone.’
