by Paula Daly
‘Which direction did she go?’
‘Towards Droomer. Away from Brontë’s friends.’
‘What else?’
‘There were other small groups. People I recognize, but I don’t know their names. There were some kids on the skate park, a few playing cricket, lots of children on the playground. Too many to remember, really.’
‘No one struck you as strange?’
Verity gave a nervous kind of laugh. ‘No one except Dale.’
‘Dale?’ said Joanne.
‘I was joking. Dale’s not strange. But most people think he is.’
‘Who’s Dale?’
‘Dale’s just a kid. He’s over here a lot. He’s friends with Ewan. He works for the council, removing litter, cutting hedges and stuff. That’s what he was doing yesterday…at the rec.’
Noel watched Karen. She was staring at Verity, processing what she was hearing.
Noel felt he should say something. Give some sort of explanation about Dale’s learning disability but—
‘Dale Brokenshire was there?’ Karen cut in. ‘Dale was at the rec, yesterday, and you’re only telling us this now? Why didn’t you tell us before?’
Verity was perplexed. ‘Why would I?’ she said. ‘It’s only Dale.’
Karen looked to Noel. ‘Jesus,’ she said, and at the same time she lurched to one side, losing her balance. She grabbed the work surface, trying to steady herself. ‘Jesus,’ she said again. ‘What has he done to her?’
Noel got to his feet. ‘Karen, wait, we can’t go jumping to—’
‘Where is he?’ Karen yelled. ‘Is he here? I bet he’s here. He’s always here. Christ. Isn’t that what they say? Someone known to the family. Someone under our own bloody roof?’ She put her hands to her face. ‘Noel, go and get him,’ she said. ‘Go and find Ewan and get them both in here, now.’
—
Noel took the wooden steps two at a time to the flat above the garage and looked through the window. He could see the two boys asleep on the sofas. He rapped on the door before turning the handle and entering. The television was on. A film was playing: Donnie Darko. Something to do with a giant rabbit?
Gently rousing first Ewan and then Dale, he told them, ‘You need to come to the house right away. The police are there.’
He neglected to say it was Dale, specifically, they wanted to talk to, worried the kid might bolt, and instead played it down. Everyone else had been interviewed, and now it was just their turn to be questioned.
‘I still feel kind of stoned,’ Ewan murmured, trying and failing to pull on his right trainer.
Noel took the shoe from him and loosened the laces, widening the top, as he would have done back when Ewan was ten years old. Ewan’s father had taken off when Karen was pregnant with him. She had always been sketchy about the details, not wanting to return, she said, to a time when she was at her lowest. ‘What’s important is what’s ahead,’ she would say, and Noel supposed it suited him not to know the details.
Perhaps if Karen had been his first wife he would have needed her to fill in the blanks. Perhaps he would have wanted to know more about the man who came before him. The man who’d cruelly left his lover high, dry and pregnant. As it was, he had enough of his own shit to deal with – what with leaving Jennifer – and he didn’t feel the desire for any more drama.
Ewan had gone through a stage when he was fifteen, a stage when he wanted to trace his real father. But Karen had given him nothing. She told him if he wanted to go there, that was his choice, but she would have nothing to do with Ewan, should he make that decision. Ultimately, he didn’t. Noel suspected it was probably laziness on Ewan’s part that prevented him from taking further steps to find his dad, rather than any loyalty he felt towards Karen. Though, who knew? The lad had never been very forthcoming about his feelings.
Quietly, Noel suspected that he’d not been the best substitute father. He had always got along with Ewan, but they didn’t talk much. Did that really matter, though? When Noel was a teenager, he had had a friend, Alan, who lived around the corner. It was Alan’s dad who ran them to rugby practice, Alan’s dad who ran them to football in the summer, Alan’s dad who stood silently on the sidelines. There had been a kind of comfort in Alan’s dad’s steady silence, and Noel wondered if he’d modelled his relationship with Ewan on it: staying on the periphery, letting someone else do the talking.
Noel handed the trainer back to Ewan.
‘Thanks. Will they…you know…the police, I mean, will they…?’
‘Arrest you for smoking weed? Least of their worries, I should think. You might want to wash your face, though. For your mother’s sake.’
‘They figured out what happened to Brontë?’
Noel shook his head.
‘Shit,’ said Ewan. ‘I really thought she’d be back.’
‘They’re drawing a blank. That’s why they need to talk to you two. Make sure they’ve not missed any of the small details.’
Dale had still not spoken, and it was only now that Noel noticed he didn’t look too good. The skin of his face and neck was a bloodless white and he was staring down at his knees.
‘Dale?’ Noel said, upbeat. ‘You ready to roll, my friend?’
And Dale rose to his feet. His expression was one of undisguised sorrow.
20
JOANNE RECOGNIZED THE boy as soon as he walked in.
Dale. The name had triggered a memory of something – she wasn’t sure what – but when she saw him it came back to her in a rush.
He trudged in, following Ewan. Both their heads down, both smelling of teenager: sweaty hair, trainers riddled with athlete’s foot. Joanne once had a boyfriend who had had a perpetual case of that particular fungus. The smell had never quite left her.
Joanne tried to remain impassive as Dale Brokenshire raised his hand to her by way of a greeting.
‘Dale,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
‘Very well, Mrs Aspinall. Very well, indeed, thank you for asking.’
Joanne didn’t dare look at what was going on with Karen Bloom after this exchange. Instead, she kept her eyes focused straight ahead, requesting both boys to sit at the kitchen table, asking them if they were happy to answer her questions.
‘We are, Mrs Aspinall. We will answer, won’t we, Ewan?’ Dale said eagerly, and Ewan nodded his head at his friend in a kind way.
Oh, Dale, Joanne thought. Please don’t be involved in this.
Rarely did she actively will a person to be innocent, but today was one of those days. Looking at Dale’s face – his open, trusting, face – she felt her stomach fold in on itself, because Dale didn’t look good on paper.
Should she take him away with her now and continue with this at the station?
‘I want you to know I didn’t do anything wrong, Mrs Aspinall,’ he said, and Joanne smiled.
‘Good, Dale. I’m pleased to hear you say that.’
‘Not like last time. That was wrong,’ he said, and he sat back in his chair and shook his head from side to side as if to emphasize the point.
Ewan gave him a quick dig with his elbow and told him to shut up. But Dale, baffled by this, nudged him back and said, ‘I always tell the truth. Don’t I, Mrs Aspinall?’ and Joanne said, ‘Yes, Dale, you’re very good at telling the truth.’
Karen was no longer able to hold it together, and there was the sound of a cup slamming down hard on to the draining board, and Karen advanced towards the table. ‘Would someone mind telling me what the hell is going on?’
Dale flinched.
Ewan said, ‘Say nothing, Dale. Not. One. Word.’
And, for a moment, nobody spoke.
Joanne had met Dale around a year ago, when he was eighteen. He’d had underage sex with a girl of thirteen, whom he had believed to be sixteen. To the rest of the world, Chloe Swift looked like a girl of thirteen trying to appear sixteen. But to Dale she absolutely was sixteen— because, as Joanne found out, Dale took everyone at their word and didn’t
always have the ability to distinguish fact from fiction. Dale slept with her a number of times, over a two-month period.
Then Chloe Swift’s mother became aware of the situation and called the police.
Trying to wade through the considerable number of texts and messages that passed between the two of them in an attempt to figure out the truth, Joanne had wondered how the girl had time to attend school at all. There were literally thousands. And the sexts – though not as pornographic as they might have been (mostly, young breasts thrust high and proud in a selection of push-up bras, naked selfies taken from above; a lot of Chloe’s bare bottom, which flummoxed Joanne, as she couldn’t work out how she’d got such a good shot) – were also too numerous to count.
Dale’s mother had accompanied him to the station. She was a slow-witted, smelly lump of a woman who thought that bossing Dale about, loudly, in the presence of an officer, would give the impression that she was a good mother. It didn’t. She kept telling Dale to own up to what he’d done and take the punishment he deserved, which really didn’t help Joanne, because all Dale could do was cry into his tea, unable to get the words out.
Eventually, after picking through the evidence, Joanne found many instances of Chloe purporting to be older than she was. And after informing Chloe’s mother of this, she decided to drop the charges. Dale did not get a criminal record and, judging by Karen’s expression now, the situation had not become public knowledge in Windermere.
Now it seemed as though that might be about to change.
‘How does he know you?’ Karen asked, and Joanne said she wasn’t at liberty to say.
‘Dale,’ Karen said, ‘tell me how you know this detective. What did you do that was wrong? You said you did something wrong. What was it?’
Dale looked to Ewan for guidance. And Ewan was staring back at him, mouthing, ‘Say nothing,’ when suddenly Karen slapped her son hard across the back of the head, shouting, ‘Stay out of this!’
Then she slapped Dale, too.
Not quite as hard. But shocked by her actions, Joanne, Oliver and Noel jumped forwards, each making towards Karen.
Dale waved them off. ‘I’m okay, I’m okay,’ he said quietly.
‘Dale,’ Karen said again, ‘if you don’t tell me right now what you did, you will never set foot in this house again. Is that what you want?’
‘No, Mrs Bloom.’
‘So speak.’
Dale shifted uncomfortably in his seat before taking a breath. ‘I don’t want to say it in front of her.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Karen.
He gestured towards Verity. ‘I don’t want Verity to hear, if that’s okay, Mrs Bloom.’
‘Why ever not? What’s Verity got to do with this?’
Dale dropped his head.
‘Dale, speak or I’ll…’
He cast a quick glance at Verity before looking down again, examining his hands.
‘Dale, I mean it,’ Karen said.
At this, Verity spoke up. ‘Dale,’ she said gently, ‘I already know.’
He lifted his head.
‘It’s okay,’ Verity said. ‘I know about it. Go ahead, tell her.’
And so he did. In his own words, he relayed what had happened for Karen’s benefit, and it wasn’t easy for any of them to hear. Clumsily, he explained how he’d come to have sex with a thirteen-year-old girl, and how he was very sorry for doing something so wrong.
‘What the hell have you done with Brontë?’ Karen yelled when he had finished. ‘Where is she, you backward fucking pervert?’
‘I promise, Mrs Bloom,’ he answered, ‘I haven’t done anything with her.’
‘Get him away from me. Somebody – Jesus! – somebody get him out of here!’ she screamed.
And Joanne probably would have gone ahead and removed Dale from the Blooms’ kitchen, just to get the kid away from Karen, when in walked Brontë.
In walked Brontë Bloom. Not a scratch on her and, it turned out, unwilling to tell anyone where she’d been.
Part Two
21
Monday, 5 October
Verity could hear classical music playing in a faraway room. She had no idea who the composer was but she recognized the piece from a car-insurance commercial. After gawping at Jeremy Gleeson’s set of watercolours for what felt like the hundredth time, she decided he must be running late and so she pulled out Educating Rita from her rucksack. She may as well do something useful. And the play needed to be read by the end of the week. She was up to the part where Rita returns from poetry summer camp and Frank’s not sure if he likes her any more. Verity wasn’t sure if she liked the new Rita either.
Jeremy Gleeson’s elderly receptionist with the tight curls had been replaced by a sullen girl not much older than Verity herself. Verity wondered if she read the patients’ notes when no one was looking. She would, if she were left alone with them.
She flicked through the pages of the play until she found her spot, then she sensed movement from within Jeremy Gleeson’s room. Previously, he staggered his clients. Verity assumed he did this to protect client confidentiality, so she felt a small stir of nervousness as she heard the sound of a chair being scraped across the floor, a nose being blown, footsteps approaching.
The door opened and Verity held her book up high, not wanting to make eye contact with the person leaving. When Jeremy Gleeson said, ‘Are you coming in, Verity?’ she was a little stunned to see him standing there alone, eyes red-rimmed and watery.
‘Sorry to keep you so long,’ he added.
He had clearly been crying, and Verity was hesitant to peer at his face. She had never seen a man cry. It was very unsettling.
Should she ask if he was okay?
She didn’t have the nerve. Instead she made a bit of a fuss organizing her bag, pulling up her school socks, before settling herself on the narrow couch so she didn’t have to look at him.
‘Again, apologies for keeping you waiting,’ Jeremy said.
‘It’s no bother.’
‘I believe you’ve had quite the week.’
Verity turned her head towards him briefly. ‘You could say that.’
‘How’s Brontë doing?’
‘Brontë seems to be A-okay,’ she said. ‘It’s everyone else that’s having difficulty. No one knows how to act around each other.’
‘I imagine your stepmother is rather upset.’
‘ “Uptight” would be more accurate.’
‘How are you two communicating?’
‘We’re kind of not.’
‘Why is that, do you think?’
Verity shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s just easier, I guess.’
Jeremy Gleeson paused long enough for Verity to know there was something big coming. She stole a quick look his way and saw that he was making notes with his big, fat, fountain pen. She wondered if she should get up from the couch. She did feel a bit exposed, lying there, her school skirt riding up.
Jeremy placed his pen by the side of his notes and sat back in his chair. He made a tent with his fingers, something her English teacher did when he wanted to appear more intelligent than he actually was, and said, ‘Do you ever have feelings of rage towards Karen?’
Verity tried not to laugh. Only every single day.
Brontë had returned home perfectly fine, as far as anyone could tell. She was examined by a police doctor who pronounced her to be fit and well and said there were no signs of assault or trauma. Which seemed to Verity like a very positive result. It was a positive result, wasn’t it?
Karen appeared to think otherwise. She bombarded Brontë with questions. She wouldn’t accept her story of wandering off and hiding out in her friend’s father’s shed for the night (more of a garden room than a shed, apparently. ‘It had a TV, a PS4, a fridge and everything.’) Karen just couldn’t comprehend why Brontë would want to be alone for a day.
‘Alone?’ Karen yelled at her. ‘You’re ten years old. Ten-year-olds don’t seek solitude!’
> But if there was more to Brontë’s story, she wasn’t telling. Not even when Verity got her on her own and said she would never divulge anything her stepsister told her. Not even when Verity said she could confide in her, and she would never tell Karen where she had been and with whom.
Brontë stuck to her story and remained tight-lipped. Even when the kind detective sat her down and said how important it was that she tell the truth about her whereabouts. If someone had helped her, if someone had hidden her on purpose, then the police absolutely needed to know. It wasn’t a game, the detective said, running away like this. It was incredibly serious.
Still Brontë wouldn’t tell. Still she stuck to her version of events.
Of course, this sent Karen totally out of her mind. Because if no one had taken her daughter by force, then what did that mean?
That she had left of her own accord? That she had left on purpose?
Karen couldn’t accept this, and so she spent every spare second grilling Brontë, bargaining with her, promising all manner of treats if she’d only reveal the truth.
So yes, you could say that Verity felt rage towards Karen. Because it was pretty clear to everyone that Brontë had run away precisely because of Karen.
But since these counselling sessions were in place because Reid’s Grammar had requested them to cure Verity of the rage she felt towards her stepmother, she said to Jeremy Gleeson, pretend-innocently, ‘I just feel really sorry for her.’
‘Sorry for her? Why?’
‘Because she’s had her feelings hurt. She can’t understand why Brontë would leave. She’s humiliated and can’t face the fact that it might’ve had something to do with her.’
‘Do you think it had something to do with her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has Brontë confided as much to you?’
‘She’s staying quiet on the subject.’
‘Why do you think that might be?’
‘She’s not an idiot. She knows the repercussions would be massive if she admitted she ran off because of Karen’s punishing regime.’
‘Does your father have an opinion?’
‘If he has, he doesn’t share it.’