Goodbye, Perfect

by Sara Barnard

Sunday

  KENT SCHOOLGIRL ‘VANISHES’ WITH TEACHER

  A missing schoolgirl is believed to have absconded from her hometown in Kent, travelling with a teacher from her school.

  15-year-old Bonnie Wiston-Stanley was reported missing by her parents on Saturday morning when she failed to return home after staying with friends.

  Kent Police confirmed last night they were urgently seeking local music teacher Jack Cohn, 29, in connection with her disappearance.

  Wiston-Stanley was identified via CCTV at a Tesco petrol station on the outskirts of Kent in the early hours of Saturday morning, in a car driven by Cohn. The car was later found abandoned at a car park in Portsmouth.

  Cohn is currently Head of Music at Kett Academy, Larking, where Wiston-Stanley is a pupil.

  An initial police search of Wiston-Stanley’s home yesterday brought to light evidence that Cohn had been in close contact with the pupil.

  Speaking during a police press conference last night, Matilda Wiston-Stanley pleaded for her daughter Bonnie to get in contact with her family.

  ‘Kett Academy governors, staff and pupils are united in concern for Bonnie and simply wish her to make contact with her family, who are naturally very concerned for her welfare,’ headmistress Christine Neal said in a statement.

  ‘The school is currently cooperating with Kent Police in its investigation and therefore cannot comment further on the matter at this time.’

  GCSE exams will begin this week as normal, students were told.

  4

  Valerie

  Is that YOUR Bonnie on the news?!

  I wake up at 8.48 a.m. to this text message from Valerie, but I don’t bother replying. No doubt Valerie has already rung Carolyn by now and had the news confirmed for her, and the last thing I want to do right now is to talk to Perfection-Personified about everything that’s happening. Maybe it’s weird, but I almost feel embarrassed to be a part of this mess, even just by association, in front of Valerie. This would never happen to her, or even one of her friends. It just wouldn’t.

  I used to want to be like Valerie when I was younger. She’s the most together person I’ve ever known, and I always felt like everything would be so much easier if I was just more like her. But I realized pretty quickly that I could spend my whole life trying to be like Valerie and never come close.

  Here are a few things about Valerie, aged twenty-two years and seventeen days:

  • She’s almost finished her final year at university, where she’s on track to get a First in Biochemistry.

  • Everyone calls her Valerie – she is never, ever Val.

  • She took a gap year before uni and went travelling around Asia with her boyfriend.

  • She came back single, because she decided she was better on her own.

  • She can speak French.

  • She passed her driving test first time.

  • On the day her parents adopted me, she handwrote me a letter that started ‘Dear Little Sister’, and I still have it.

  • Her middle name is Minty, because it was her gran’s pet name, and she hates it.

  • ‘Minty McKinley!’ she shouts whenever this comes up. ‘Valerie Minty McKinley!’

  • She’s never failed at anything in her life.

  • We have absolutely nothing in common.

  It’s not that I don’t like Valerie, or that she’s mean or annoying or anything. It’s more that I don’t know who I am with her, what her role is in my life. Maybe this sounds a bit weird, but I like to know this about the people in my world. It helps me feel grounded. It helps me feel safe.

  Carolyn and Bob chose me. Daisy is my blood. Bonnie and I chose each other. So did Connor and me. That’s what makes them my people. But Valerie . . . She just got landed with me. The sister she didn’t ask for or need. Keeping a distance from her just spares us both a lot of unnecessary grief. If she knew me as well as she thinks she wants to, she wouldn’t like me, because why would she, and then where would we be? So even when she tries, I resist. It’s best for everyone. Besides, there’s six years and a whole world between us. It’s not like it’s a loss.

  I haven’t got any new messages from Bonnie, and no one’s come to wake me up, so I know she and Mr Cohn haven’t been found yet. I send ‘Ivy’ a quick message – Update? – and then lie there under the covers for a while, thinking about all the possible places they could be and things they could be doing. Are they still in Wales? Or have they gone on to that vague ‘somewhere else’ that Bonnie mentioned? If I’d told Carolyn last night about Bonnie’s messages, would they have been caught by now?

  I go downstairs for breakfast and find Carolyn and Bob, looking almost comically serious, sitting at a kitchen table covered by newspapers. It is only at this moment that the final word in Valerie’s text message registers – ‘news’. Bonnie was on the news.

  And, clearly, newspapers. I can see her face beaming out at me from at least three front pages.

  ‘Morning, love,’ Bob says, trying out a smile.

  ‘There’s some bacon left,’ Carolyn says, standing, already reaching for the cooled pan on the kitchen counter. ‘Shall I make you a sandwich?’

  ‘I can do it,’ I say. ‘What are the papers saying?’ I’m reaching for the Observer, which is lying open to a page with Bonnie’s face on it, but Bob puts a hand across it to stop me taking it.

  ‘Don’t worry about the papers for now,’ he says, his voice as gentle and calm as it always is. ‘Have some breakfast.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Valerie?’ Carolyn asks.

  ‘No,’ I say, trying not to sound as frustrated as I am. ‘I figured you would. Do the papers know anything we don’t?’

  Carolyn hands me a plate containing the bacon sandwich I’d said I’d make myself and sits back down. ‘The papers are a little behind,’ she says. ‘We know more than they do, so you’re best speaking to us rather than wasting time reading the salacious speculation in the tabloids.’

  ‘Salacious,’ I repeat, trying out the word. It’s a great-sounding word. Sall-ay-shuss. ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘Sordid,’ Bob says. ‘Sensationalist. Sexed-up.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Carolyn says, ‘I rang Bonnie’s mother this morning for an update. The investigation was going on all of last night, but they really don’t have much of an idea of where they might have gone. She’s very distressed, as you can imagine. And dealing with this level of press coverage as well . . .’ She gestures at the spread of newspapers. ‘It’s awful in its own way, but necessary. The feeling is that it’s worth identifying Bonnie, even though she’s a minor, because they’ll be found more quickly if there are two faces for the public to look for. Does that make sense?’

  I nod, even though it doesn’t really. It seems so extreme, so real, to see it in the papers. ‘What happens once they find them?’ I ask. ‘Will they be, like . . . in trouble?’

  Both Carolyn and Bob look at me like I’ve just spoken Finnish or something. ‘Yes,’ Bob says. ‘A fair bit of trouble.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ I say. ‘Like, how much trouble?’

  ‘Well, Jack Cohn will be arrested,’ he says. ‘There’ll be a trial, probably some prison time, presuming he’s found guilty. No doubt he’ll lose his job at Kett. I’d be amazed if he was ever able to teach again.’

  ‘What about Bonnie?’

  ‘Oh, no, she won’t be in any trouble,’ Carolyn says. ‘Her parents just want her home safe. We all do. She’s the victim in this.’

  I frown. ‘But she’s chosen to go, hasn’t she?’

  ‘She’s a minor,’ Bob says. ‘So no, she hasn’t. She might think she has, but the law says otherwise.’

  My head is starting to hurt. What they’re saying is so completely different to what I’ve heard from Bonnie, and I just don’t know what to do with that. She says she’s happy, that she wants this. Does it even matter what the law says? I know what she’d say to this. I know what Bob would say. But I have no idea what the answer
actually is.

  ‘So what’s actually in the papers?’ I ask. I can worry about that stuff later. ‘What do the police know?’

  Bob gives me the run-down while Carolyn sips her tea and looks worried. My biggest takeaway from the explanation is really that the police know nothing much at all. Bob keeps using the word ‘disappeared’, emphasizing that the trail runs cold after Portsmouth, and that the police are concentrating their efforts on the immediate area, particularly the port. I think about Wales and say nothing.

  ‘Abandoning the car has to be a red herring,’ Bob says. ‘To throw the police off the real destination. They’ll have wasted a lot of time checking all the ferries and boats. Why else drive all the way there when Dover’s practically on our doorstep?’

  ‘How would they have got anywhere else without a car?’ Carolyn asks.

  I cram my bacon sandwich into my mouth and chew, busying myself with the copy of the Observer.

  ‘They could have got on a bus,’ Bob says. ‘I’m sure they could have got far enough away before the alert got out. Think about how long it must have been between getting to Portsmouth and the police starting to look for them. Nearly twelve hours, at least? Plenty of time to get away.’

  ‘Away where?’ Carolyn says, shaking her head. ‘We live on an island. There are only so many places you can go. And they must have known people would be looking for them.’

  Bob doesn’t have an answer for this. Instead he says, ‘Maybe we’re being too generous with how much sense and logic has actually been applied here,’ which draws a reluctant smile from Carolyn. He turns back to me. ‘Anyway, as you may have gathered, the police don’t have much to go on in terms of logistics. But it’s not just about the wheres and the whats; the whys are just as important, and that’s what a lot of the focus is on. They want to know exactly what’s been going on between your Bonnie and Jack Cohn, because that may give them a clearer idea of what his intentions are, where they’re going, that kind of thing.’

  ‘How are they going to find out?’ I ask. If I didn’t know, then no one knew, so who can they ask?

  ‘Well, they’ll be going through anything Bonnie’s parents can find in her bedroom. Her laptop, for one thing – which they accessed yesterday, and was how they found out about the relationship – and anything else she may have written down about it, any letters or anything. And last night the police raided Mr Cohn’s flat.’

  My mind instantly conjures up an image from some detective show I must have watched once: police hammering on doors, lots of yelling. I didn’t know that was the kind of thing that really happened. ‘Did they find anything?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Lots.’

  ‘Is it bad?’ I ask, watching Bob’s face carefully, trying to read between the adult lines on his face.

  ‘It’s not good,’ Carolyn says.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Carolyn and Bob glance at each other. ‘Well, it confirms everything we feared based on what was found on Bonnie’s laptop,’ Carolyn says. ‘It seems like at least part of this whole mess had been planned. And they’ve been –’ she hesitates – ‘together?’ She says it like a question, but I don’t know who she’s asking. ‘Yes, I suppose that’s the word. Together. For a while.’

  ‘A while?’ I repeat. ‘How long is a while?’

  ‘At least a couple of months.’

  This shouldn’t be a surprise, not after last night, but somehow it is. That’s a long time to keep a secret like this from your best friend. Somewhere inside me, buried for now by the shock and worry and confusion, I can feel something like hurt stirring. All this time, she’s just been lying to me?

  ‘The main thing it shows, from a legal point of view . . .’ Bob begins, and I look up in time to see Carolyn shake her head at him. He stops.

  ‘What?’ I demand.

  ‘Eden will be able to read all of this herself when the papers get a hold of it,’ Bob says, his jaw tight. ‘It’s better that we talk about it with her, isn’t it?’

  Carolyn rubs her forehead. ‘Is it?’

  Bob lets out a sigh and leans forward. ‘What’s clear from the evidence they’ve gathered is that the relationship was sexual, which has significant legal repercussions.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. It’s all I can manage. The weird thing is, I can’t figure out if my response to this sentence is ‘Well, duh’ or ‘What the fuck?!’ even though it can clearly only be one or the other. On the one hand, I mean, of course they’ve had sex. They’ve run away together, for God’s sake. But on the other hand . . . they’ve had SEX?! Bonnie and MR COHN?!

  This is all too bloody much to take. I didn’t even know she’d had sex at all. How could she have kept that kind of information from me? We’d always said we’d tell each other. Couldn’t she have found some way to tell me, even if she didn’t say who it was with?

  And . . . wait . . .

  ‘Evidence?’ I say. ‘Like . . . what kind of evidence?’

  ‘Pictures,’ Carolyn says. ‘There were some pictures.’

  ‘Pictures?’

  ‘Of Bonnie.’

  ‘Pictures of Bonnie?’

  ‘Sexual pictures.’

  ‘Sexual pictures of Bonnie?’

  ‘Eden,’ Bob says.

  ‘What?’ My voice comes out louder than I’d intended, but I don’t care. ‘You can’t tell me something like this and expect me not to react.’

  This is the moment Daisy, still in her pyjamas, chooses to come charging down the stairs, demanding – in this order – money for the bus, breakfast, her favourite jeans and an update on Bonnie.

  ‘Everyone’s talking about it,’ she tells me, gleeful, through a mouthful of toast after Carolyn has persuaded her to sit down. ‘My phone’s, like, on fire. Everyone’s going mental. I can’t wait to go to school tomorrow.’

  ‘Ah, a silver lining,’ Bob says, deadpan.

  ‘My friends think it’s so romantic.’

  That stops me. ‘They think what?’

  ‘Running away to be together because they’re so in love and society doesn’t understand!’ Her eyes are wide and excited, her voice breathless. ‘It’s like a film or something. And Mr Cohn is so sexy.’

  ‘Oh my God, you’re twelve, don’t say words like “sexy”,’ I say. ‘And anyway, he’s not sexy. He’s kind-of-good-looking-for-a-teacher. That’s not the same.’

  ‘Whatever. Tell me everything you know,’ she commands. ‘When did they start shagging?’

  ‘Daisy!’ Bob and Carolyn gasp in unison.

  ‘Oh my God, I’m not eight,’ Daisy says, rolling her eyes. ‘And it’s not like I said fu—’

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ I interrupt before she can get herself grounded. ‘So you can tell all your little friends to mind their own.’

  Daisy looks at me for a moment, blinking slowly. The sudden calm is very unnerving. Finally she says, ‘Aren’t you meant to be best friends?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I ask, even though I know what she means.

  ‘If she really didn’t tell you anything, what kind of a best friend is that?’

  There’s a silence. Daisy, Bob and Carolyn are all looking at me, waiting for me to respond to what is clearly a pretty good question.

  And I don’t have an answer. Not for them; not even for me.

  ‘I’m going to go revise,’ I say.

  What I actually do is call Connor. I haven’t been able to talk to him properly since I left his house yesterday afternoon except for a few texts, and those were before the story hit the news. I hadn’t been able to face seeing him in the evening because I was still trying to get to grips with what was happening. Not that I’m in a much better state now.

  ‘Whoa, holy shit!’ is how he greets me.

  ‘I know,’ I say.

  ‘Holy shit,’ he repeats. ‘So the “secret Jack” was actually Mr Cohn? That is un-freaking-real. Did you know?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t know!’ I snap, rattled.

  ‘Has sh
e messaged you or anything?’

  ‘No.’ The lie slips out before I can think about it, already an automatic response after talking to the police and my family. I hadn’t really thought about whether I would tell Connor the truth, but now the decision is made for me, and so I just go with it. ‘I can’t believe any of this is happening. It’s all so weird.’

  ‘Have you been on Facebook today? Everyone’s talking about it.’

  ‘Ugh, Facebook.’

  ‘I know it’s annoying, but it’s where literally everyone is right now. Don’t you want to know what they’re saying?’

  ‘Not even a little bit.’

  He laughs. ‘They’re all waiting for you to come online and give some kind of update. They figure that if anyone knows what’s going on, it’s you.’

  ‘Is that why you’re speaking to me?’ I ask. ‘To get an update?’

  ‘Yes,’ Connor says. I can hear that he’s smiling. ‘Why else would I want to talk to my girlfriend?’

  I’m suddenly very, very glad that my boyfriend is sixteen and an actual boy instead of a nearly-thirty-year-old man. The ordinariness of our relationship is one of my favourite things about it.

  Even though we didn’t get together until Year 10, I had always known Connor in that vague way you know everyone in your year at school without actually knowing him. I knew he was the spindly ginger kid that Dean Harris – school bully, absolute dickhead – liked to pick on. But we weren’t in the same form or in any of the same sets until the start of Year 10, when we were put in the same class for Design &Tech. We ended up on the same table and became friendly in that easy way that happens sometimes, with the right people. It was still during the time when I thought his quietness was shyness and his refusal to stand up to boys like Dean Harris was weakness, though, so I didn’t know him at all, even though I thought I did.

  Anyway, we’d been friendly acquaintances for a few months when a whole bunch of us from Year 10 were sprawled over several tables in the canteen at lunchtime. A bunch of the boys, including Connor, were playing some weird teen-hybrid version of poker – think liquorice wheels and jelly beans instead of actual cash – and Dean started in on Connor, giving him a hard time.