Bitter Edge

by Bitter Edge (retail) (epub)

  ‘I can’t remember the figures. I’d have to look.’

  ‘Right. You do that for us. And the two kids who took their own lives, Jake Trent and Laura Briggs: they were happy?’

  ‘Now they were tragic cases, but nothing to do with us at all. Jake was a drug addict and Laura was abused by her father. They were very unhappy children.’

  ‘But all was well at school? They didn’t attract negative attention?’

  ‘Well, it was ruled at the time, by people much cleverer than me or you, that their mental health problems were extra-academic.’

  ‘But those problems don’t cease to exist because children are at school.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong. Often unhappy children lead separate lives at school because it’s where they feel safe.’

  Emma looked at the head, trying to read her. She spoke like a politician: confident and self-assured, even when the ship was clearly sinking.

  ‘Thank you for your time. That’s us done, I think.’ Emma held out her hand, and the head took it, visibly relieved.

  ‘I’m glad you got what you wanted. I’m looking forward to returning to normal.’

  ‘It’s not really normal, is it, when you’ve got a member of staff suspended and a child missing. Plus three suicides.’

  The head blushed and was clearly about to say something, but thought better of it and turned to go, heels clicking on the laminate floor. It was only then that Emma noticed that the caretaker had listened to the whole exchange.

  A young man approached him, and they high-fived.

  ‘Is this your son?’ she asked.

  The man nodded and introduced him.

  ‘She wants to talk about Jake,’ he added.

  ‘Dad!’ The boy was angry, but more than that, he was hiding another, more potent emotion – pain.

  ‘I don’t want to upset you. I just wanted you to tell me about Jake, that’s all,’ Emma said.

  Emma was thirty years old, but she looked much younger, and the perceived small age gap helped. Her warmth made the boy relax, and he looked between her and his dad, then down at his feet.

  ‘OK,’ he said, and sat down.

  He spoke to Emma for over an hour. She caught Kelly Porter on her mobile phone at five o’clock.

  ‘Guv, did we pull the Jenna Fraser’s mobile phone records?’

  ‘No, why?’ Kelly said.

  ‘I think we need to.’

  Chapter 36

  Sadie Rawlinson was on a downer.

  She approached her home with the usual trepidation about seeing her mother, but something else was shaking her ordinarily hard and impenetrable exterior.

  Sadie couldn’t remember the first time she’d found her mother slumped in a chair, or passed out on the floor, or staggering into a piece of furniture. It had always been so. It was her mother who’d encouraged her to try her first joint. She’d been eleven years old.

  She couldn’t remember her father, either. There’d been plenty of men who hung around the house, but none who stayed for any length of time. They were usually dealers or scroungers. Sometimes they slept in her mother’s room; sometimes they tried to sleep in Sadie’s. She hoped that today, her mother would be alone. Passed out would be even better, as well as being highly likely. Sadie needed to get high, and to do so in peace, with no shouting matches, no harassment and no one trying to cut in on her gear. Her head was banging and she was desperate to drift away from the demons threatening to derail her. She knew that she was a statistic, and a bad one at that. She wasn’t stupid. She was perfectly aware that her spiralling addiction was ruining her life. But she didn’t care. She needed the high more than she wanted to break the cycle.

  She opened the door.

  The top-floor maisonette, courtesy of the local council, was silent.

  She checked the kitchen and the sitting room. She’d been jittery since she’d filed charges against Mr Blackman. Then she went to her mother’s door and pushed it open. The room stank. Her mother lay slumped on the bed, and for a moment, Sadie felt pain. It was in her chest, and she imagined it to be her heart. There was once a time when her mother would be surrounded by cans of Special Brew or Breaker. Now it was tiny plastic bags, mirrors covered in powder residue, and the smell of burning heroin. Brown sugar.

  The stupid fuck had left the needle in her arm again. Her mother would kill herself one day, Sadie knew it. Maybe then she’d be free to start over. Fat chance. She removed the needle and released the elastic strap cutting off the blood supply. Her mother groaned and rolled over. Sadie pulled up the covers and left her to her slumber. Now she could isolate herself and blot out the images plaguing her mind.

  She didn’t want to think any more. Thinking hurt, because it made her feel. She’d lied to the police and they knew it. She’d tried hard to keep it together, and for a while it had seemed to work. The plan all along had simply been to get Tony Blackman off their backs. But it had spiralled out of control. He wanted too much, he demanded too much and he wouldn’t leave them alone. She regretted going to the party with him and getting involved in the first place. Now he could use it to control them.

  At first it had been fun: the parties, the free gear, the thrill of being treated as part of something, hanging out with the coolest teacher in school; but then it grew risky and she was the first one to defy him. His temper shocked them all. It wasn’t a game any more. Mr Blackman wasn’t the man they thought he was, and they became scared. They were in over their heads and couldn’t think of a way to get him to leave them alone. It had been Faith’s idea, bless her. She was always the bright one.

  Before Sadie faced the toughest decision of her life – whether to tell the truth – she was going to get high and forget. The truth was something she was unfamiliar with. She’d need to sit on it for a while.

  She went to her room and put her bag on her bed. Her pulse rate quickened as her thoughts turned to the small plastic bag in her coat pocket, and her hands shook as she unwrapped it. In these moments, something inside her just took over, and she allowed it to. It was like the most intense kind of need she’d ever felt. It was better than childhood Christmases; better even than outsmarting the police.

  In her drawer, she found a lighter and her mirror. It was already covered in the residue of powder long crushed and snorted. It was never cleaned. She carefully began breaking the little pill apart with the butt of the lighter until it resembled fine crumbs. Saliva filled her mouth. The tablet should really be completely crushed, but she couldn’t wait, her need was too great. She discarded the lighter and searched for a banknote, finding a new tenner. These plastic ones were epic for snorting.

  A moment of time took her away from herself, and Faith’s face filled her mind. Her friend had tried the odd joint, a bit of PCP, even an Ecstasy tablet, but she’d never got hooked. She said she needed to try stuff to give her the knowledge to dismiss it. And she did. That was why Sadie hated her, though, at times like this, the hate turned in on itself and self-loathing took over: the real cause of her pain.

  Tears stung her eyes as she bent over the mirror and used the edge of the tenner to order the powder into two lines. She took a deep breath and snorted one line, and then the other. Her nose tingled instantly and she rubbed it. Her eyes watered and she shook her head.

  It was good stuff.

  Her body numbed and she began to smile. She curled her legs up onto the bed and lay down. Her eyes flickered and closed as the drug entered her brain quickly, thanks to the tiny vessels of the nasal membrane, which made the pathway to the bloodstream almost instantaneous. But the biology didn’t really matter. Only the deadening of thought and sense mattered.

  The line between life and death no longer existed; only the escape from the noise.

  Chapter 37

  Kelly walked towards the centre of town, passing groups of kids throwing snowballs, and hardy walkers soaked from their day on the fells. The weather showed no sign of improvement; in fact, more snow was predicted. She liste
ned patiently to Emma as she briefed her on what the caretaker’s son had said. He’d agreed to sign a formal statement.

  Jake Trent had first come to befriend Mr Blackman at a party. It was usual for the teacher to turn up at parties; it added to his reputation as a statement teacher with swagger. It hadn’t taken long for Jake to begin to show all the signs of being a full-blown addict. The caretaker’s son claimed that it was Mr Blackman who’d given Jake Trent his first opiate pill.

  Kelly swirled the information round her head as she headed to the restaurant she’d agreed with Johnny. An officer had been sent to confront Mr Blackman with the accusation, and he’d strongly denied it, meaning that if Kelly wanted to pursue that particular angle, they’d have to investigate it separately. Not only that, but when his flat had been searched when the computer was seized, no drug paraphernalia had been discovered. But at least it gave her a new idea about why Sadie Rawlinson might have been at the teacher’s flat. Though if he was her supplier, what was she doing accusing him of sexual assault?

  She’d assigned Emma the task of further digging, but they were already stretched, and resources were buckling under the strain. Her whole team was putting in longer and longer hours as the Blackman case and the search for Faith intensified.

  She spotted Johnny and Josie across the road and waved. The Skiddaw Bistro was a new addition to the town; it served funky Mediterranean food that was supposedly healthier than a standard Italian or Spanish restaurant, or that was how it was advertised. Kelly just loved her food. So did Johnny. Josie was a little trickier to convince.

  ‘I’m on the bikini body diet,’ she said.

  ‘What’s that?’ Kelly asked. Johnny flashed her a look that said, ‘Behave.’ She winked.

  ‘I follow this vlogger from New York. She’s amazing, but I’m finding the vegan bit hard.’

  Johnny covered his face with one hand and made himself busy asking for a table. As the waitress led them away, he glanced at Kelly.

  ‘Vegan? Why would you do that? You need protein.’ They wove in and out of chairs and Josie tutted. Kelly checked herself. The evening was supposed to be about bonding as a threesome, and it had got off to a bad start. ‘And there are no beaches in New York.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s the point,’ Johnny said.

  ‘You have a fabulous figure, Josie.’ Kelly tried flattery.

  ‘You old people always say that. Look – she has a figure.’ Josie held up her phone and showed Kelly a picture of a woman in a bikini. She was tanned and glorious; she had clearly had work done, and the photo had been airbrushed. It made Kelly desperately sad for these teenagers.

  ‘God, she looks like she needs a big fat steak,’ she said. Johnny winced.

  ‘She’s got five million followers on Instagram.’

  None of these kids lived in the real world. They just didn’t compute the difference between reality and fiction. Kelly knew she’d said enough.

  ‘So what are you allowed to eat? Is this menu all right? There’s salad,’ she said.

  Josie studied the options. Kelly watched her. Josie was fairly grounded and resilient. If she was racked with this perverse sense of perfection, more fragile kids didn’t stand a chance. She remembered what she and her team had come to perceive Jenna Fraser: perfection on the outside; dying on the inside. But thoughts of the dead girl didn’t help and she pushed them away.

  The investigation had been thorough: there was no foul play, and no one else was involved. The parents had been asked specifically if they thought Jenna was coerced or bullied into her decision, and they’d stated categorically that they didn’t believe that had been the case.

  Case closed. ‘I’m starving. It all looks lovely,’ Kelly said.

  Johnny was always quiet when he played umpire between the two women in his life.

  ‘I’ll have a Diet Coke, the no-dressing Caesar salad with no bacon or chicken, and a strawberry sundae,’ Josie announced.

  Kelly opened her mouth, but Johnny squeezed her knee under the table. She got the message. She ordered squid, and Johnny went for paella.

  ‘How’s school, Josie?’ They settled into a typical parents-take-teenager-for-dinner conversation. Kelly laughed at Josie’s anecdotes, and Johnny relaxed.

  ‘You know I was asking you about the way kids speak to each other?’ Kelly asked.

  Josie nodded, tucking into her plate of lettuce.

  ‘I was amazed. I had no idea. Doesn’t it hurt? I mean, in between all the insults online, and the crushing necessity to conform, where’s the fun?’ Kelly shovelled in a mouthful of carbs loaded with Parmesan cheese and seafood.

  Josie looked confused. ‘We don’t conform,’ she said.

  Kelly didn’t know what to say. All she could see from social media searches was a bunch of identical robots acting like sunflowers, turning their heads to the latest star with three million likes.

  ‘Right. So what are you into at the moment, Josie? What’s the latest thing?’

  Josie looked horrified. ‘There isn’t a “thing”. That would be weird.’

  ‘So what happens if you don’t like Love Island, or Ariana Grande?’

  ‘How can anyone not love her after Manchester?’ Josie said in disgust.

  ‘Of course, very brave. Er, I mean, what if someone likes different music?’

  ‘It’s not about her music. She’s an icon.’

  ‘Right.’

  Johnny was going purple trying to keep a straight face. Kelly sipped her glass of wine and realised glumly that her questions were falling off Josie like blossom in summer. The whole premise of the conversation was useless. She worried that if she asked any more, she’d completely lose the girl, and she was supposed to be here to improve their relationship, for Johnny’s sake. She changed the subject.

  When Josie’s sundae arrived, Kelly had to bite her lip. The temptation to give her a lecture on veganism was strong, but she resisted. Almost.

  ‘How’s your cream?’

  ‘Yum.’

  Johnny squeezed Kelly’s leg again.

  ‘Can Dad stay at yours tonight? I’m loving his sixty-inch TV, and I’m not a kid. Kelly, tell him, he’s suffocating me!’ Josie pleaded.

  Kelly felt flattered that the girl was asking for her help. It was touching. She looked at Johnny. ‘You’ve been told.’ She turned to Josie, ‘You know he only cares about you. The missing girl hasn’t been found yet. It’s serious, Josie.’

  ‘I know, God! But I’ve got you two down the road. If anything ever happened to me, Dad would kill them!’ Josie giggled. It wasn’t funny, but Kelly and Johnny pretended to see it for the quip that was intended.

  ‘What about a compromise?’ Kelly suggested. Father and daughter both looked at her. ‘Your dad can come and stay if you answer your phone every hour and then he comes and checks the locks before you go to sleep.’

  ‘Deal,’ Josie said.

  Chapter 38

  ‘Where are you taking me, Ted?’

  ‘It’s a surprise.’

  Ted held the door for Wendy while she fastened her coat. The air was fresh, but both of them were prepared for it. She wore a hat and she’d applied her make-up carefully. Her handbag matched her silk scarf, which she tightened round her throat.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked. She nodded.

  Ted had turned into a kind man. Not that he ever hadn’t been, but some men hardened with age and regret, while others, like John, fell ill and became impenetrably cantankerous. Ted, though, had mellowed and matured. The lines round his eyes were soft, and the portals they framed were twinkly and bright. His speech was as deliberate as his hands, and he was even more of a gentleman than before. The night they’d met, at the fountain on the earl’s estate, he’d shown the same qualities, but then they had been accompanied by a cheeky wickedness. They’d been attracted to one another straight away, and it had scared her. She’d never strayed from John, and never thought she would. It was only when she was presented with an opportunity so delicious that
she even contemplated it.

  She hadn’t set out to hurt anyone, least of all her husband; it wasn’t like that at all. To Wendy, the fact that John had never noticed the change in her spoke a thousand words. Guilt wasn’t something she’d felt until she’d faced her daughter, and even then it was momentary, and she’d prepared to be unapologetic should Kelly challenge her morally. To Wendy’s surprise, she hadn’t. Despite being childless, Kelly was wiser than she’d allowed for, and she felt sad about that. Wendy always figured that Kelly would do her growing up when she had a family of her own, but that had never come, and now, even if it did, she was unlikely to see it. The drugs could only keep her alive for so long.

  She had read about miracle cures for cancer in magazines. In Florida, a woman had eaten plates of steaming broccoli and cured her breast cancer. In Russia, bread products made by hand with local wheat had cured a man’s bowel cancer. In Canada, a woman had cured her leukaemia by only consuming raw milk. The list was as endless as it was extraordinary. Wendy had no time to dedicate to such quackery; she was ready to be off, and she was determined to enjoy herself until her time came. She’d lasted much longer than anyone had predicted. Her initial prognosis had given her six months, something she’d kept from her daughter. Then she’d started the trials. That was over a year ago. Her body ached more these days, and she was on a break from drugs, letting nature take its course. The deterioration had begun almost straight away, but it was her choice and hers alone; she hadn’t discussed it with the girls.

  When Ted had turned up out of the blue, and Kelly had found out the truth, Wendy had known this day would arrive. Kelly was her father’s daughter all right: her analytical brain, her desire to seek answers, her unshakeable belief in herself; and those kind eyes, full of naughtiness. She felt a twinge of shame when she thought about John, the man who’d brought up her daughters. But she’d said sorry enough. Neither of them had been saints; goodness, if they were courting nowadays, they’d both be caught red-handed on those iPhones that were everywhere.