by Lauren North
I bite down on the inside of my lip, hiding my frustration. Kat had no right to let them play out alone. They’re too young to always make the right choices, but ‘I told you so’ are my mother’s words, not mine. ‘Go on,’ I say encouragingly.
‘We were playing truth and dare. Ben dared me to throw the toilet roll over the tree in the school field, and I know it was stupid, but he was saying I was boring because all I did was my schoolwork. So I did it and then the fence broke and everyone started saying it was vandalism and the person who did it was in big trouble.’ She gasps and takes a breath but I don’t tell her to slow down.
‘And then …’ She swallows, fighting back the tears. ‘I hadn’t known at the time but Ben filmed it on his phone and was threatening to share it round the class. But if he did that then I knew Mr Pritchett would find out and he wouldn’t help me with my tutoring any more and he wouldn’t write me a recommendation for the scholarship and I wouldn’t be able to go to St Benedict’s.’ Elise sobs, and the weight of what she’s carried with her for the past couple of weeks leaks on to the table, my own guilt with it. I’ve been so focused on Harrie – did I miss something with Elise?
I want to take her in my arms and tell her everything will be all right, but she’s not done yet and I know by the look on her face that the worst is still to come.
‘How did Harrie get involved?’
‘At first Harrie said she’d tell everyone it was her that did it and take the blame, but it wouldn’t have worked because I’m wearing my gymnastics hoody with my name on and you can hear Harrie calling to me to stop. So then we begged Ben to delete the video and he just laughed and said he would if I kissed him.’ Red spots appear on Elise’s face. An anger bubbles inside me. ‘I thought if he’d delete the video then it would be OK.’
‘And he didn’t?’
‘No,’ she cries out. ‘So Harrie came up with this plan to sneak into his house when he wasn’t expecting us and take his phone. Kat always keeps her back door open and makes Ben leave his phone in their spare room on charge in the evenings. We thought it would be easy to get in and out. It was just to delete the video. We would’ve given it back to him afterwards,’ she says quickly, as if I care one iota about Ben’s phone right now. If I had the thing in front of me I’d smash it to pieces myself.
Then it all starts to click into place.
‘That Wednesday we got stuck, that’s when Harrie went out?’
She nods, dropping her head. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know, but it was bad, Mum. Harrie went into Kat’s kitchen and saw a phone and took it and then something happened but she wouldn’t tell me what, but it wasn’t Ben’s phone. I’ve been begging her to tell me, but she just keeps saying she can’t. And then today just before she left she said the phone belonged to that man.’
My mouth drops open. I can’t believe it.
Elise makes a face.
‘Harrie didn’t go trick-or-treating with the others, did she?’ I ask, the panic gripping me tighter.
Elise shakes her head. ‘She went to speak to Kat to ask her to help and give Dean’s phone back, but we can’t find it. We’ve lost it, Mum.’
‘Kat?’
‘I think she was there that night. She knows what happened to Harrie.’
Something inside me breaks – a hairline fracture tracing its way right down my middle. I think of my friendship with Kat. All those cups of tea, the laughter, the support we’ve given each other. The play dates, the wine, the gossip. I trusted her with my girls and she let them play out behind my back. She told them to lie to me.
Kat’s voice rings in my head. Harrie is fine … it’s probably hormones.
I told her the day after the crash that I thought something was wrong. She tried to convince me I was worrying over nothing, while the whole time she knew what had happened to my daughter.
‘I think Mr Pritchett knows Harrie took the phone as well,’ Elise says, filling the silence.
‘What?’
‘He did this whole assembly on stealing and was looking at Harrie the whole time. Plus he totally made up that stuff about Harrie being in a fight. Why else would he do that, Mum? Harrie thinks Kat can help us, and …’ Elise drops her head. ‘She’s been sneaking out and won’t tell me where she’s going.’
I close my eyes, thinking of the argument with Harrie last Sunday. She stormed off, returning with mud covering her shoes.
‘She was supposed to go to Kat’s and then come back and I’d stay here and let her in and we’d pretend she finished trick-or-treating early. But she hasn’t come back and I think it’s because we couldn’t find the phone.’ Elise crumbles into a heap of sobbing and I reach over and wrap her tight in my arms.
‘I have the phone,’ I tell Elise. ‘I found it earlier when I was looking for the Halloween costumes.’
‘You have to give it to Kat,’ Elise half shouts. ‘Harrie was only trying to help me. This is all my fault.’
‘None of this is your fault, Elise. You should have come to me straight away, but it’s not your fault.’
There is so much of what Elise has told me that I can’t wrap my head around. I’ve always thought of myself as an observant mother. I’m here in the morning and after school. I talk to them. I’m watchful, but I’ve been clueless. Truly and utterly clueless.
‘Are you going to go to Kat’s?’
I nod, already standing up.
‘I’ll look after Molly,’ Elise says and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at her offer. Instead I say nothing. After another pleading call, June is back at my door in less than a minute.
‘Thank you,’ I say as she steps inside, still in her slippers, with a shawl over her shoulders.
I say a hurried goodbye to Molly and tell Elise to call me if Harrie comes home, and then I run from the house, my mind sticking on Kat’s involvement. I might not have known Kat as well as I thought I did, but she’d never hurt Harrie, would she?
CHAPTER 53
Harrie
The dark streets are alive with children and noise. Little kids in bright costumes sticking out from winter coats. Parents and pushchairs and dogs dressed up too. There are older kids as well. Groups of teenagers who Harrie probably knows but the paint and the masks hide their faces just as Harrie is hiding hers. Fake cobwebs and skeletons decorate people’s driveways. Huge orange pumpkins glow from doorsteps.
Nobody notices the lone werewolf walking down the road. Nobody stops to ask her why she is alone, why she hasn’t got a bucket for sweets. Harrie feels invisible as she makes her way to Kat’s house. Ben will be leaving to join their friends for trick-or-treating soon and Harrie will be ready when he does.
She feels a pang then, a deep unsettling longing. It’s not for the trick-or-treating or the sweets and chocolates they’ll collect, it’s not the jokes her friends will share without her and the laughter she’ll miss out on, it’s something else she can’t explain. She wants to undo everything that has happened and be like her friends again, be able to trust adults, and most of all she wishes she didn’t know that there’s a man lying dead in a cage.
Harrie has lied to her mum again. It feels as bad this time as it did the first time and she wishes it would all stop. But without the phone, Harrie doesn’t know if it will ever stop.
How could she have lost the phone? It was there yesterday. Harrie checked. But when she went to get it just now, it was gone. She wonders for a moment if Molly could have taken it. She’s always sneaking into their room to borrow books or hairbands. But the phone was on the top shelf of the wardrobe. There’s no way Molly could have reached it.
Harrie has played that night in Kat’s kitchen over and over in her head and she’s sure now that Kat didn’t know what was going to happen to Dean. Kat is nice. She’s a normal mum. Maybe if Harrie had gone to Kat earlier, Dean would still be alive.
An image of Dean’s body flashes in Harrie’s thoughts. Pain slices through her sto
mach. She has to make this OK, if not for her then for Elise. Elise will be OK. She can get the scholarship to the fancy school. She can be happy enough for both of them. Harrie isn’t sure she’ll ever be happy again.
Harrie slips through the gate and into Kat’s garden. She sticks close to the wall, retracing her steps from ten days ago. She hears Kat’s voice from the driveway calling out to Ben. ‘Have a good time.’ Then the front door closes and a moment later the kitchen light flicks on. Harrie steps through the back door and into the kitchen.
‘Hello?’ Kat says, her face frowning with confusion.
Harrie pulls off her mask and stuffs it into her pocket. Her face is already wet with tears.
‘Harrie?’
She nods.
‘You all right, love? Ben’s just left. You’ll catch him if you run.’
‘No.’ Harrie shakes her head and hair falls out of its ponytail, dropping over her face. ‘I need your help. Please. Dean is locked in a cage.’ The words tumble out and Harrie is crying and struggling to breathe and talk at the same time, but she can’t stop. ‘He left Dean there to die and I’ve been taking him food and water but I couldn’t unlock the cage and now he’s …’ A sob shudders through Harrie’s body. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Oh my God.’ Kat reaches out and hugs Harrie tight. ‘You poor thing. Why didn’t you say something sooner?’
‘I didn’t want to get put in the cage too. He said … he said he’d hurt my mum and Elise and Molly if I told anyone.’
‘Hey, come on now. No one is going to hurt anyone and no one is locking you in the stable. We can sort this out.’ Kat rubs Harrie’s back. ‘You’re freezing. Let me get you one of Ben’s jumpers to put on. Stay here. You’ll be all right now. I’ll help you, I promise.’
Harrie stands frozen to the spot, her body trembling with cold and fear and relief all jumbled together. Kat is going to help her. Harrie covers her face with her hands, allowing the silent tears to stream down her face. But something is nagging in the back of her mind. Harrie didn’t mention the stable, so how does Kat know where the cage is?
In three steps she’s by the kitchen door, peering through the gap into the hall. Kat is by the front door, her back to the kitchen, and she’s whispering into her phone.
‘Just shut up a minute. We need to be careful. Anna has been poking her nose in … I know, I know. I was wrong. We have to stop her. Just get here now … Fine. I will.’
For a second it feels like the floor is giving way to empty space and Harrie is going to fall right through it.
Kat isn’t going to help her.
Harrie bites down on her lip as angry tears pool in her eyes. She needs to get away before it’s too late again. She needs to escape this house, this horrible village that she hates more than anything else in the world. The promise tears at her chest. If she stays, they’ll hurt her mum and sisters and it will be Harrie’s fault. She has to leave or they’ll never be safe.
Harrie runs out the back door, out the gate. She pulls on her mask and threads through the groups of trick-or-treaters. Every step she expects to feel a hand on her shoulder.
CHAPTER 54
Anna
I head straight through the gate and fly through the back door into Kat’s kitchen. She’s standing by the sink with a glass of wine in one hand and her phone in the other. The house is warm, the kitchen tidy and bathed in the soft glow of the lights beneath the cabinets. If it wasn’t for my desperation to find Harrie, I’d find it inviting.
‘I was just texting you,’ she smiles as though it’s nothing that I’ve burst straight through her door. Like the secret group is all forgotten, like she hasn’t lied and lied and lied to me.
‘Where’s Harrie? HARRIE?’ I shout her name, moving straight to the hall and shouting again.
‘She’s not here, Anna. What’s going on?’ Kat’s face is the picture of concern and for a moment all I see is my best friend, the person who is kind and loving and makes me laugh. The moment passes and I round on Kat.
‘Let’s stop pretending. I know all about your secret group.’
She sighs and picks up a hand cream from the side. It’s one from the beauty range she sells and smells of coconuts and long-ago holidays by glistening pools. ‘I’ve explained that, Anna. Don’t make more of it than it is. You can join it right now if you want.’
‘Not that group.’
‘What then?’
I stare at Kat’s face and think I see an unease lurking beneath her cooler-than-cool facade.
‘You, Dean, Mike and the others.’ I sound vague, but I don’t know who else is involved. It could be more. ‘What is it? Sex parties? Drugs?’
Kat laughs and something in her posture relaxes. ‘You’ve got an active imagination, Anna. Jealous, are you? Well, there’s no need to be. Can you really see us all swapping partners on a Friday night? Steve and Bev? Me and Mike? Please. I’m afraid you’ve got this all wrong. We’re a close friendship group, a close community – surely you’ve figured that out by now. There’s nothing else going on here. Listen to yourself, Anna. You’re always worrying—’
‘No, don’t you dare do that,’ I snap. ‘I know there’s something dodgy going on. Is this about Dean’s business? Anthony wanted him to sell it to him and you’re helping Anthony.’
Kat stiffens. It’s a game of find the missing object. Colder or hotter, and I’ve just got hot. Kat and Anthony. Anthony and Kat. For a moment I wonder if they’re having an affair. Is she helping Anthony for love? It doesn’t fit somehow. I might not know Kat as well as I thought I did, but she and Steve are rock solid. An affair isn’t Kat’s style.
Anthony, Kat, Dean. Mike.
How are they connected?
They’re all on the Parish Council except Mike. He isn’t, but Bev is. Is that the link I’m missing? Frustration courses through my veins but I keep coming back to one thing – Harrie. She is all that matters in this.
‘Where is Harrie? I know she came here.’
Something in Kat’s face changes. I see a fear I’ve never seen before. ‘I don’t know. I thought she went home.’
I sigh through gritted teeth and fight back the surge of rage. I want to ask what happened that night, but I’m sick of the questions. Everyone is lying. I must find Harrie.
My phone buzzes in my hand and I pray it’s Elise calling to tell me Harrie is home, but it’s not. It’s a message from Gina.
Hi Anna, have you found Harrie? I think I just saw her running up towards the river. Tried to call to her but she disappeared. Let me know if she’s OK! xx
‘What is it?’ Kat asks, leaning closer and trying to look at my phone. ‘Let me see.’
I lock the screen and slip it into my pocket as Kat reaches out, grabbing my arm.
‘Let her go, Kat,’ a voice says from behind me as I yank myself free from Kat’s grasp. I spin around, my jaw dropping. And I see it. The silver car pulled up outside my house. I thought it looked familiar because I’d seen it before. It’s Sandra’s car.
It’s not Anthony Kat is helping. It’s Jack Briggs.
He’s a policeman, a father. He’s supposed to help people, but he’s involved in this.
More questions pummel my thoughts, but I ignore them and run.
CHAPTER 55
The night of the crash, 9.10–10.30 p.m.
Harrie
Kat reaches for a bottle of wine. She twists off the lid and pours a glass before taking three long gulps.
Harrie wishes she could change her trousers. The blood on them is stiff and sticky. It’s making her feel sick.
The man moves closer then and Harrie shrinks down in the chair.
‘Do you know who I am?’ he asks.
She shakes her head.
‘I’m Jack Briggs.’
‘Tyler’s dad?’ Harrie asks, thinking of the blond-haired boy in her class. Harrie gets on well with most of the boys at school, but she doesn’t like Tyler very much. He’s always bragging about the holidays he goes on and the
stuff his parents buy him, like he’s trying to make Harrie jealous. Sometimes it works. Plus, Tyler was mean to Elise last year when she forgot her lines in the school play, and Harrie hasn’t forgotten that nasty snigger, even if Elise has.
Harrie looks at the man again. It’s always Tyler’s mum at the drop-off with Tyler and his little sister, but there is something familiar about the man now that Harrie looks at him again.
Then it hits her.
Of course she knows him. Her mind is all jumbled and she didn’t recognize him without his uniform. He came into the school once to talk to them about internet safety. He was at the summer fete too, talking for ages with her mum and dad.
Tyler is always bragging about his dad, another thing he does just to annoy Harrie. My dad can run a marathon. My dad is building me a tree house. My dad is taking us to Barbados next year. My dad is a police officer. He can arrest you.
But police officers are supposed to help people, not beat them up. Harrie’s eyes flick to the body on the floor as though she’s expecting it to have disappeared, as though she might have imagined the whole thing. The man is still there. He’s moved a little. His hand is resting on the top of his head.
‘You’re a police officer,’ she whispers.
‘That’s right, Harrie, I am.’ Jack nods and smiles at Harrie. His tone is different now. More official than it was a minute ago. ‘So you don’t need to worry about any of this, do you?’
Harrie wants to shake her head and agree with Jack but she can’t. The man on the floor groans. The blood on Harrie’s trousers is sticking to the hair on her legs. She rubs at it and wishes she was at home, wishes she’d never left the house.
Jack leans against the counter and folds his arms. ‘Look, you’re not a little kid any more. I’m going to tell you what happened so you understand why I hit him. I think you’re old enough to understand that sometimes grown-ups do stupid things.’ Jack pauses, waiting for Harrie to agree and so she nods.