by Jane Casey
‘It’s not funny any more, Sarah. This is ridiculous. Forget whatever Charlie told you to say – I want the truth.’
I drag my eyes up from my lap and look at Mum. She has dark marks under her eyes, as if someone had dipped their thumbs in ink and jabbed them into her face.
‘You’re not in trouble,’ my father says softly. ‘Just tell us.’
‘Tell us where Charlie is.’ Mum’s voice is tight. She is tired too. ‘You’d better start talking, young lady. Don’t make it worse for yourself and your brother.’
I don’t say anything. I have already said that I don’t know, that Charlie said he would be back soon and nothing more. This is the first time I have ever told the truth and not been believed. I have been crying on and off all evening, wishing Charlie would come home, wishing they would leave me alone. Now I have settled into silence.
I concentrate on folding the hem of my cotton skirt into pleats like an accordion – wide pleats at first, then narrow pleats, then I smooth them out and start again. The material slides back over my knees. They stick up, the skin stretched thinly over the bone of my kneecaps. Sometimes I like to draw faces on them or pretend that they are mountains, but today they are just knees.
‘Come on, Sarah, for God’s sake. Just tell us.’ Mum is crying again, and my father stands up. He wraps his arms around her and whispers in her ear, softly, so that I can’t hear what he’s saying. I don’t care. They are both looking at me, I can tell, the way they have been looking at me all evening, since Mum realised that Charlie was gone. There is a part of me – a very small part – that is almost enjoying it.
On my right knee, there is a blue-white scar the size and shape of an apple pip. I fell and landed on a piece of glass when I was little. Mum and Dad were watching Charlie play football, and they didn’t notice what had happened to me until the blood from my knee had turned my sock bright red. I got in trouble for dirtying my new summer shoes, but it wasn’t my fault. They hadn’t been paying attention.
Not like now.
Chapter 3
IF EVER THERE was a day for calling in sick, that Tuesday was it. I sat in my car and checked my appearance in the rear-view mirror, noting the greenish pallor and heavy shadows under my eyes, the result of seriously disturbed sleep. I had slept badly, waking every hour or so to stare into the dark with wide eyes. The events of the previous evening seemed so unreal when the alarm woke me up that I had actually gone to the cupboard in my room to check the pocket of my jacket, and didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when my fingers touched the little rectangle of card with DS Blake’s contact details on it. And I had watched the morning news as I choked down some cereal, seeing the Shepherds, as yet unidentified by the media, as they went in the pale dawn to see where their daughter’s body had lain. Mrs Shepherd’s hair was all over the place, straggling in strawberry-blonde rats’ tails rather than the sleek bob I remembered. As they reached the edge of the woods, Michael Shepherd looked back over his shoulder, straight into the camera, with red-rimmed, haunted eyes. I put my cereal bowl down, suddenly nauseated.
In the rear-view mirror, my eyes were red too. I definitely looked sick. But staying at home was even less appealing than going to work. Last night Mum had been asleep when I had come home, and hadn’t surfaced while I was getting up. But it couldn’t last. If I stayed, I’d have to see her sometime. Speak to her, even.
I started the car and put it into reverse, but then sat, immobile, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles bleached white. I couldn’t go to school, but I had to, and in the end I said aloud, ‘Fuck it. Fuck everything,’ and let the handbrake off, letting the car roll down towards the road. The next second I jammed on the brakes, as a motorbike roared past me with a loud, indignant blast on the horn. I hadn’t even seen him. I hadn’t even looked. My heart pounded and I felt weak as I pulled out on to the main road, checking obsessively that I wasn’t endangering anyone else. Get a grip … come on, don’t fall apart …
What made it worse – what made it absolutely bloody intolerable – was that I knew exactly who the motorcyclist was: Danny Keane, who had been Charlie’s best friend. I couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t lived across the road from us. He might as well have lived on the moon. We were well beyond the point where I could start up a friendly conversation with him; I avoided him deliberately, and he knew it, and it was a long time since he’d smiled or nodded in my direction or indicated in any way that he knew of my existence. It wasn’t his fault that I associated him with some of the worst moments of my life, that I wasn’t able to break the connection in my head between Danny Keane and despair. I usually left early and got home late; our paths rarely crossed, but I still knew him, and he would remember me. Knocking him off his bike would have been a pretty bad way to start making friends again.
The roads were busy and traffic was slow, much slower than usual. Cars were queuing at all the junctions, backing up the side roads, and I wondered what was going on. Human nature at work, it turned out. All along the main road, skirting the woods, the verges were rutted and scarred where the wheels of the news vans had bitten into the soft earth. Their roof-mounted satellite dishes were beaming the Shepherds’ misfortune all over the world. Each van had its little group of attendants, a cameraman, soundman and reporter. It was the other side of what I had been watching on my television at breakfast. It was also Surrey’s latest tourist attraction. The drivers slowed down to a crawl. It was better than a car crash; there was a chance of seeing genuine celebrities in the shape of one or two of the better-known reporters. There was even the possibility that a panning cameraman might catch a slow-moving motorist on film for a second or two. Fame at last. No wonder the traffic was virtually at a standstill. I drove as close to the car in front as I dared, edging forwards without looking too closely at the temporary news village that had mushroomed on the verge.
At the school gates, I noted an increase in the numbers of parents who were gathering there, talking earnestly to one another, but I ignored them, sweeping past without slowing down. Even a cursory glance in their direction told me that the only topic for discussion was the body, and I didn’t want to hear their speculation about what had happened and who it was and was it true … I could see from a mile off that the rumour mills were in overdrive.
And so were the professional gossips. In the staff car park, I pulled into a space by the wall. As I switched off the engine, there was a sudden rat-tat-tat on my window that practically sent me into orbit. I whipped around, ready to snarl at whoever had crept up on me, assuming it would be a colleague. But the face peering in at me through the window didn’t belong to any of the other teachers. I frowned, trying to place the woman who was standing there. She was middle-aged, with a puffy face that was coated in a slick of tan foundation. Her pale pink lipstick made her teeth look yellow, and she wore a drab brown coat that did nothing for her figure or her colouring. Although she was smiling, her eyes were cold. They scanned the interior of the car, including me, missing nothing. With great reluctance, I rolled down the window.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Carol Shapley, chief reporter from the Elmview Examiner,’ she said, and leaned into the car, practically touching me. ‘Are you a teacher here?’
I looked pointedly at the sign on the wall that said ‘Teachers’ Car Park’ in letters about a foot high, roughly ten feet from where I was parked. ‘Were you looking for someone in particular?’
‘Not as such,’ she said, and smiled even wider. ‘I’m reporting on this murder that’s happened, one of your students, and I’ve got some information that I’d like you to confirm.’
She spoke quickly, reeling off her little speech with great fluency, giving the impression that she knew everything there was to know about it already. My alarm bells were ringing so loudly, I was surprised she couldn’t hear them. I remembered seeing her before at various school performances, fundraisers and local events, barrelling around self-importantly. The Elmview
Examiner was the most local of local papers; parochial was not the word. And calling herself the chief reporter was a bit rich. As far as I knew, she was the only reporter.
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can help,’ I said sweetly, and started to roll up the window again, in spite of the fact that she was leaning on the edge of it. For a second, I could see her struggling with the urge to insist on speaking to me, but she backed off a foot or two. Not far enough.
I gathered my things together and opened the car door to find that she had left me just enough room to get out.
‘I only have a couple of questions.’
I straightened to my full height and discovered she had a couple of inches on me; not for the first time I regretted that I wasn’t tall enough to look down my nose at anyone. But I didn’t need a height advantage when I had the moral high ground.
‘Look, I’ve got to go in and speak to my students. I’m afraid I don’t have time to talk at the moment.’ I summoned up a smile from somewhere. ‘I know you’re just doing your job, but I have a job to do too.’
‘Oh, I do understand. Can I ask you your name?’ She waved an A4 sheet at me. ‘I’ve got a list, you see. It’s always nice to put a face to a name.’
I couldn’t see a way to avoid telling her. ‘Sarah Finch.’
‘Finch …’ She ran her pen down the list and put a tick by my name. ‘Thanks, Sarah. Maybe we can have a chat some other time.’
Or maybe not.
I started to walk towards the school, but of course she wasn’t finished. ‘I’ve heard from sources in the police that the body was found by one of the teachers from this school. That wasn’t you, was it?’
I stopped and turned, mind racing. Obviously I didn’t want her to know that it had been me, but I wasn’t sure I could get away with an out-and-out lie. ‘God, how awful,’ I said in the end.
‘Yeah, dreadful,’ the journalist said, looking anything but bothered.
I gave Carol another meaningless little smile and half-shrug, then headed for the staffroom, aware of her eyes on me as I crossed the car park. I had to hope that Carol would categorise me as bland, unquotable, totally uninteresting, because if she started to dig, there was every chance that she might put it all together. And not just about Jenny. If she was looking for an angle for a follow-up piece on what was undoubtedly going to be the story of the year, she might think to compare the circumstances of Jenny’s death with other local murders and mysteries. Charlie’s disappearance was an obvious one to drag up out of the archives. Not for the first time, I was glad I had changed my surname and that none of my colleagues knew anything about Charlie. It wouldn’t be so easy for Carol to make the connection. And after all, why should she? The only thing the two cases had in common was me.
Even though the staffroom was as crowded as I’d ever seen it, the assembled teachers and staff were almost silent. It seemed every employee of Edgeworth School was there. Everyone was on time today. I looked at the drawn, worried faces that surrounded me and felt unutterably wretched. We were all involved in this now; there was no way to opt out.
Elaine Pennington stood at one end of the room, DCI Vickers beside her. Next to him there was a young woman with a clipboard and immaculate make-up, who had introduced herself as the police press officer. The head teacher had been talking for some time now about Jenny, cooperation with the police and answering parents’ questions. She was making a brave attempt to seem as decisive and in control as normal, but the piece of paper she was using as a prompt sheet vibrated in her hands. One side of her narrow face looked frozen, palsied, with a twitch that tugged at her eyelid intermittently. I hoped she was planning to stay away from the media until she’d clawed back some of her composure. Her voice was uncharacteristically reedy, and as she spoke her eyes slid about the room. I forced myself to pay attention to what she was saying.
‘So in consultation with the police, bearing in mind the disruption that is likely to affect all of us in the coming days, I have decided to suspend classes for the time being.’
A ripple of disturbance ran through the assembled teachers. Elaine’s neck became mottled with pink patches, the traditional sign that she was about to lose her temper.
Stephen Smith, a sweet-natured man and one of the longest-serving teachers at the school, raised his hand.
‘Elaine, don’t you think the girls might need the routine of classes and work to keep their minds off what has happened?’
‘I did consider that, Stephen, thank you. But I am led to believe that the next couple of days are going to be a write-off from the point of view of concentration. Already it is impossible to work with all the noise and disruption that is going on.’
As one, we turned to look out of the window, to where the news crews were setting up, their vans parked along the school wall. They had started to move on from the woods. The media would need a new backdrop for the lunchtime news and it looked like the school was it.
‘I don’t know if any of you have been in the school office this morning, but it has been chaotic to say the least. Janet has been fielding calls from worried parents since she arrived. They are concerned about their children’s safety, even though no one has suggested that the school is in any way involved in this terrible tragedy.’ Elaine’s voice broke a little over the last few words. I wondered, perhaps unfairly, if her grief was for the school’s reputation rather than Jenny.
‘We have a duty to guarantee the safety of the girls, and I don’t feel comfortable about making that sort of promise to the parents. It’s not that I think they are at risk of being attacked. I’m simply aware that the press are going to be very intrusive, and that sort of publicity can attract the wrong sort of attention. I don’t want them to be exposed to that sort of atmosphere.’
Which was fair enough.
Elaine darted a look at Vickers, who looked even more desiccated than he had the night before. His eyes were hooded and I found it hard to guess what he was thinking. ‘Also, Detective Chief Inspector Vickers has asked if he can use some of the school facilities, so I want us to be able to give him free access to the school.’
‘Very kind,’ Vickers said. He straightened a little, straining to pitch his voice so that everyone could hear. ‘Our main incident room is at Elmview Police Station, but we’ll be doing some interviews here. We’re interested in talking to Jennifer’s friends and classmates, and we don’t like to conduct interviews of that sort in a police station. We prefer to keep them in familiar surroundings. We’ll also be using the school hall for a press conference later on today as it’s got all the facilities we’ll need.’
I couldn’t understand what Elaine was thinking. If I had been her, I would have wanted to keep the school as far away from the investigation as possible. From the way she kept looking to DCI Vickers for guidance, he seemed to have conquered her completely. It was all very inconvenient, particularly given the fact that I wanted to stay out of the investigation, off the radar, out of the loop.
‘So can we all go home or what?’ Geoff Turnbull spoke from the back of the room, as unruffled as if this sort of thing was routine, predictably crass. I didn’t bother to turn around to look at him, though I could picture him lounging there, all blue eyes and biceps and carefully groomed black hair. He was one of the PE teachers at Edgeworth, and I liked him not at all.
Elaine bristled. ‘No, Geoff. I would like the teachers to make themselves available to the police and the girls, even though no actual teaching will take place. Given that we are going to have a lot of students hanging around, waiting to be picked up by their parents, it’s more important than ever that you should be here. We will divide the girls up into groups and supervise them until their parents or guardians arrive to collect them. I’m afraid I will be asking you to stay on after the end of the school day also. I’m going to need your support today, so I would ask you all to bear with me.’
Jules Martin said, ‘How long is this going to take? When are we going to get back to normal? S
ome of the girls are preparing for exams at the moment and I don’t want their work to be disrupted.’
I shot a cynical look at her and got a bland smile in response. If I had a friend in the staffroom, it was Jules, and she was about as dedicated as I was. Her concern was laudable, and almost definitely faked.
‘I’m very much aware of the exam students,’ Elaine said. ‘For them, this will be a study week. Janet will help by sending out revision plans for the relevant classes, which I expect all of you to supply to the school office by lunchtime today. As for how long this will take …’ She turned to Vickers.
‘I can’t give you an estimate at the moment. Based on my experience of previous investigations, the media interest will die down over the next few days unless there are significant developments. We’ll do our best to minimise the disturbance and hopefully everything will run as normal here next week. We should have finished our interviews by then anyway. I’ve got a big team here, so we should get through everyone quite quickly.’
Elaine checked her watch. ‘OK, everyone. I’d like you all to go to your form rooms and take the register, then send the girls to the school hall. I’ll tell them what’s going on. I think it’s important to involve them in this and keep them informed.’
‘But what will we say if they ask us questions?’ Stephen asked, looking troubled.
‘Think of something,’ Elaine said through gritted teeth, clearly teetering on the edge of her last nerve.
The staffroom emptied in record time. I slid out past DCI Vickers, making eye contact for a split second. He nodded discreetly – almost imperceptibly – in return, to my relief. The last thing I wanted was for everyone else to work out that I’d met DCI Vickers before, and recently. The identity of the person who’d discovered Jenny’s body had been the main topic of conversation when I got to the staffroom. If nothing else, Carol Shapley was thorough – she had interrogated pretty much everyone before they got through the door.