by R. G. Adams
Out at Cliffside, Kit had kept their old habit of swimming in the wilder, colder water. It had felt like a ritual, a way to keep her connection with Tyler and Danny, with those days on the beach when they’d been able to act like all the other kids, nothing to show that things wouldn’t be normal for them when they walked home as late as they could, sandy and exhausted, but reluctant to go. When Menna and Huw had seen how much swimming mattered to her, they’d bought her a wetsuit, so that she could carry on all year round. But Tyler hadn’t kept swimming, once she’d gone. She was surprised to hear him mention it now. He was eyeing her closely.
‘So, what happened at work?’ he asked.
‘Just the usual. Stress.’
Tyler turned the TV to a music channel, opened two more cans and sat back down, looking at her expectantly.
‘Go on then, tell me about it.’
‘I can’t, you know that. It’s confidential.’ She didn’t want to get into this with him, not now.
‘That’s bollocks, you can tell me, just don’t say any names.’
She could have made something up, but the idea was exhausting, and her head was so full of Steph and Nicolette that she couldn’t get past them to think up a convincing lie.
‘It’s just this family I’m working with. These two women went to the police. They knew the dad before he was married. They reported him for things they said he’d done. So now I’ve got to try and work out if his kids are safe. That’s it really.’
‘What things?’
She might have known he wouldn’t let her get away with that. He was way too sharp. ‘Sexual stuff,’ she admitted.
They both stared at the TV, uncomfortable. ‘Do you think he did it?’ Tyler asked quietly.
‘I really don’t think he did. Or I didn’t think it. Now I’m not sure. Christ, I don’t know, I’m just scared of getting it wrong.’ She was on dangerous ground here. This was exactly what she’d hoped to avoid, but she was tired and a bit drunk and she’d walked right into it.
‘So, these two girls say he did it to them?’
‘Women. But yeah.’
‘Well, he did then. Why would they lie about it?’
‘Well, one of them’s withdrawn her statement. So now everyone wants to drop the case. No one believes it anymore.’
‘Yeah. That’s about it.’ He was annoyed now, looking at her, his face animated and his voice louder. ‘No one believes it. You try and tell people and you see it coming, as soon as they get an idea what you’re going to say, they do this thing with their faces, like close them up or something. I dunno. Or they just kind of blank you. Then you know not to bother.’
She knew at once that this moment was crucial. That this was a hint, the kind Ricky had told her to look for with the Cooper kids. She knew that what Tyler needed now was for her to open the door. She’d heard his hints before, she had an idea what it might be about, and she’d tried and tried to avoid it, because she didn’t want to hear it. It was too hard. But she knew that if she pushed him away this time, he’d never forgive her. She didn’t have many friends, she didn’t have Danny anymore, she didn’t have Jem. She needed to keep Tyler in her life even more than she needed to escape what he was about to say. She drew a breath before breaking the silence.
‘Is that what happened to you?’
He looked at her with surprise. ‘Yeah. Yeah, it was. Danny told me from the start not to tell, said no one would believe it. I tried a couple of times, but he was right. He knew, see, because he’d tried to tell someone, too. Danny tried to tell one of the social workers a few years after it all happened.’
‘Which one?’
‘Angela something. Maynard, was it?’
‘I don’t know.’ Kit didn’t remember her, but that was no surprise. There had been so many. ‘What happened?’
‘He wasn’t doing great by then and he needed help. But she blanked him, changed the subject. I think maybe that’s why he did it, you know? Why he topped himself, in the end. He felt bad, guilty, and he needed to talk to someone.’
‘What do you mean?’
He hesitated, but then he pushed himself on. ‘We’d been going to this bloke’s house.’
‘What bloke?’
‘Micky Winter. Remember him? All the kids went there.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘No, you didn’t. That was you, though, wasn’t it? Always staying in to do your homework, never bothering with drugs and that. You weren’t what anyone would call normal really, were you?’
‘No, I guess not. Who was he?’
‘Just some bloke who lived up near us. Not on the estate, though, down the hill a bit, one of those massive houses on The Avenue. He ran the youth centre. We’d started going to the centre to hang around and after a bit he asked us back to his house. He used to choose certain kids to take back there. Everyone knew if you got invited back, you’d get fags off him. After a while he started giving us cans and money. Pills or weed sometimes, too. He was dealing, I think.’
‘Why do you think that?’
He shrugged. ‘If we were at his house, there would be blokes coming to the door all the time. Sometimes we’d see them in the hall giving him money, he was giving them something back. I never saw what but it was obvious.’
‘Sounds likely.’
Tyler was staring at the floor. She waited and finally he started speaking, so quietly that she struggled to catch his words.
‘He’d touch us sometimes, nothing much, he’d stroke our legs, stuff like that. It made me feel sick as fuck but we always went together so we weren’t worried. We were cocky, us two, we thought we were clever. But then there was this one night, Danny was up the park with Cassie. Remember her?’
Kit nodded. Cassie had been Danny’s one and only decent girlfriend. Kit had loved her. She hadn’t seen Cassie since the funeral.
‘They were off their faces already, but they wanted more cans. Danny asked me to go up and bring some back for them. He texted Winter and told him I’d be up. Winter said for me to meet him at the centre instead, he’d sort me out there.’
‘Why?’
Tyler shrugged. ‘Like I said, there were always blokes back and forth at his house. I guess he was avoiding them.’
‘OK, so what happened?’
‘I got up there, the centre was empty. He said he had stuff for me. He gave me some cans, some weed, he asked me to have a drink and a smoke with him before I went. Then he took me into this room. Like a sitting room. It had chairs and a coffee table with plants on it and a big mirror.’
He was going into unnecessary detail to avoid talking about the next bit, she knew that. But his recollection of the mundane details of the room tore at her heart, too, telling her that the memory of that night was frozen deep into his mind. He’d stopped again now and, although she dreaded what would come next, she encouraged him on again. ‘Go on. I know it’s really hard and I haven’t always got it right, but you and me have always tried to look after each other, haven’t we?’
‘No, I don’t want to say no more.’ This wasn’t like him at all. He lacked her stubborn streak; any stroppiness was a front, part of his banter. Underneath, Tyler was eager to please her and would usually let her take the lead.
‘OK, just nod or shake then?’ It was a favourite trick that she’d used with lots of kids when they couldn’t get words out. But she hesitated then, not able to get the words out herself. She knew that what Tyler needed was for her to say it as it was, to not be afraid.
‘Did he rape you?’
He sat for a moment looking at the floor. Then came the nod. ‘I ran to Danny after, and he knew straight away. So that was it, I reckon. Danny felt bad for letting me go on my own. That’s why he topped himself. And because he’d tried to ask for help later and he didn’t get it. It was in his head all the time, about Winter touching us, and about wha
t he ended up doing to me. He thought it was his fault, like he’d let it go on and then he’d sent me up there.’
‘Why didn’t Danny go after Winter, though?’ She couldn’t help herself. It didn’t add up and it irritated her mind. It was not sounding like Danny at all.
‘I talked him out of it. Like I said, Dan was mental, I thought he’d kill Winter. He’d have gone down for it, for life probably. I didn’t want that.’
But something about Tyler’s face told her that wasn’t the whole of it. ‘Come on, Ty. Danny didn’t just walk away and leave it. He wouldn’t.’
Tyler looked her in the eye then, daring her to disapprove. ‘He burnt the youth centre down. He went straight there the night it happened and he just did it.’
She remembered as soon as he said it. The youth centre had sat in the middle of town, a tall Victorian building painted a weird dirty yellow. She remembered hearing fire engines one night when she was in bed, and the next day an acrid smell had risen up to hang over the hill. On the way to school she’d seen the blackened wreckage. It had been burnt to the ground.
‘Christ. How did he get away with that?’
Tyler shrugged. ‘It wasn’t hard. No one was around, no one who was going to tell on him anyway, just the boys. He worked out where the blind spots were on the CCTV, climbed up on the roof and smashed the cameras from up there. Then he lit the fire really good. Danny knew how to do it. We were right pyromaniacs as kids, me and him. Burning it down made him feel better, I think – for a while anyway. Didn’t make much odds to me.’
Her stomach was churning now. ‘No one got hurt?’
‘It was empty.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Certain. He promised me he hadn’t hurt anyone.’
‘So what are you going to do now?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We need to report it. I can arrange something for you, I know a few police officers now and—’
‘No.’ His face was firm and his chin set. ‘I am not going through that.’
‘Ty, you have to. What if he does it to other kids?’
‘Winter’s dead.’
Kit felt the churn again. ‘How did he die?’
‘What, you think Danny did it, do you? No, he died of cancer, while I was away in secure. Dan told me. Said I didn’t need to worry about him anymore, he’d got what was coming to him. But I couldn’t have done it anyway. Going through all that in front of people, having it all out in court, people blaming me, trying to make out I was the pervert because I didn’t stop it.’ His face was in his hands now and she couldn’t see his expression. His voice came quiet, all the anger gone. ‘When I got Miss Morrison for my probation officer, I felt like I could trust her. So I told her about it, because I just wanted to feel better, not feel so shit inside all the time, even after all these years, you know?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And I told you because I wanted you to believe me. That’s all. To have an idea what happened, and to believe me, straight away, no questions asked, no need for the details. No doubts. Because you’re my twin sister. You have to believe me, even if no one else does.’
A wave of guilt and regret washed over her. She realised the last thing she should do now was lie to him. ‘Look, I know I didn’t handle all this very well. But it’s more complicated than you think, Ty. I always knew something wasn’t right with you, and with Danny, but I never asked you. I had an inkling and I was avoiding the whole thing. It was too hard for me to hear, but that was just me being selfish, I’m sorry.’
He didn’t ask how she’d known, and she didn’t volunteer it. The truth was that she’d felt the shape of it that day with Danny in the café, enough to know she didn’t want to hear anymore, that she wouldn’t know what to do, how to handle the full story. There was no need for Tyler to know how badly she’d let him and Danny down.
Tyler rubbed at his eyes. ‘I’ve got to talk to Christine about it, too.’
‘Christ. What the hell for?’
‘I need to confront her, Miss Morrison says. See what she knew. It’s part of my counselling. I’m going over tomorrow.’ He looked up at her and his face was full of hope. She knew exactly what was coming. ‘You want to come with me? About eleven?’
‘OK. I’ll have to take time off work. I’ll check if I’m free.’
‘Don’t worry about it, I can go on my own. It’s not like it’s a big thing. I can handle her.’
She knew then that she couldn’t get out of it. She wouldn’t put herself in Christine’s way for anyone else’s sake, but Tyler needed her. There was no way she could let him go on his own. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I think the morning’s pretty clear tomorrow. Text me when you’re on your way and I’ll meet you there, OK?’
‘OK.’ He smiled at her and she could see the relief in his eyes.
Chapter 11
Kit got in to work as early as she could the following morning, before even Vernon was likely to be there. She had been awake most of the night thinking about what she could do to help Tyler. She’d finally come up with a plan, and needed to get it done without the risk of Vernon spotting she was up to something and deciding to poke his nose in.
After dropping her bag at her desk, she went down to the reception area. As she arrived, she saw that there was a very drunk woman there already. She watched the woman make several attempts before managing to tear off a ticket from the machine. Once this was achieved, the woman staggered across the reception area and flopped onto a chair, where she immediately fell asleep. The few people sitting around her picked up their belongings and moved to other seats.
Kit looked over at the receptionists behind their glass barriers. She saw that Rita and Carol were on duty, both experienced staff who weren’t likely to let her up into the archives alone without checking she had been authorised to do so. But she could see a young man on duty, too. He was quite new, and she saw he was still having to ask the others for help with each person who came up to his desk. She hung back, waiting for him to come free. She considered whether to undo the top buttons of her shirt, but she would have felt ridiculous. Instead, she rummaged in her bag and found a pink lipstick, left over from one of Jazz’s attempts to make her over. Kit drew out her mirror and scrubbed some of the dry lipstick onto her lips. That would have to do.
The drunk woman’s number flashed up on the screen and rang out on the tannoy at the same time. Miraculously, she came to and stood up straight away. Then she weaved across the reception area to the counter, where she started to shout incoherently at Rita. As far as Kit could gather, she wanted to speak to the Chief Executive personally about her council tax bill. She wanted to know what he was spending her money on.
Kit saw that she was in luck; the young man’s counter was free. She walked up to it before any of the people in the queue had the chance, ignoring their glares. She saw from his ID badge that his name was Rhodri.
‘Hi, Rhodri, sorry to queue-jump, can you buzz me in? I need to pop up to the archives. I’m here to view a file. I arranged it with Amanda Jones last week.’ Kit knew that Amanda Jones was on maternity leave, so it was a safe bet.
‘I’ll just ring through to her.’
‘OK.’
Rhodri made the call, his long thin face becoming anxious as it progressed.
‘I’m awfully sorry,’ he said. ‘Apparently, she is off until September and they have no record of your authorisation. Can your manager sort it out for you?’
Kit did her best to look surprised. ‘Perhaps I got her name wrong. But I definitely arranged it with someone for today. My boss isn’t in.’ Kit forced tears to come into her eyes; a handy trick that she’d learnt in the homes. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have a court report due in on Friday. My boss is going to go mad if it’s not in for checking by the end of today.’
‘I’m not sure what we can—’ H
e started looking around for help. Kit knew she needed to stop him from doing that. She leant forward, as close as she could to the glass barrier, and lowered her voice.
‘Look, I can pop in and get it. It’s only one document I need. If you buzz me in and give me the door code, I’ll soon find it and get it copied. I’ll be in and out in five minutes.’
He hesitated. He looked around, but the other two receptionists were both trying to appease the drunk woman, who was now leaning heavily on the counter and raising her voice even more. As Kit and Rhodri watched, the woman started to wobble, before falling sideways off the end of the counter, hitting the floor with a resounding smack.
‘Rhodri!’ Carol shouted. ‘We’re going to need some first aid here.’
‘That’s me.’ He looked at Kit, his face terrified.
‘I guess you’re needed over there then, Rhodri. I don’t want to take up any more of your time.’
He threw another glance at the drunk woman, who was now face down on the floor making retching noises. ‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘The code’s nineteen forty-five.’
She gave him another smile. ‘Thanks so much. You’ve saved my life.’
Kit left before he could change his mind. She crossed quickly to the security door by the stairs, and, after Rhodri had buzzed her in, made her way up to the second floor, where she found the archive room and punched the code in on the keypad. She saw a computer terminal in the corner but knew she couldn’t access it without leaving a footprint on the system. Anyhow, she was fairly sure most of Danny’s records would predate computerisation. She moved across to the paper files and started working her way along the stacks.
It didn’t take her long to find the Goddard family files. A bundle for each of them: Jasmine, Josette, Krystal and Tyler. And there was Danny’s. She pulled it out from the shelf. It had ‘Deceased’ written across the cover of the top file in heavy black marker. Of course it did. What had she expected? But it still took her breath away. She knelt on the floor and put his files down in front of her.