Witness

by Mandasue Heller

  Bex sat with Leanne again in the next lesson, and the one after that. Upset, but also pissed off by then that Bex was ignoring her because of that stupid little tiff, Holly decided to skip lunch when she walked into the dining hall and saw Bex and Leanne standing together in the queue.

  Halfway across the field at the back of the school a few minutes later, she glanced over her shoulder when she heard her name being called, and tutted when she saw Bex running after her.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked, turning to face her.

  ‘To talk,’ Bex said breathlessly.

  ‘Why? You’ve been ignoring me all morning, so why stop now?’

  ‘If you’re expecting an apology you’ll be waiting a long time, ’cos you deserved it after the way you acted on Saturday,’ Bex said bluntly. ‘But that doesn’t mean I want to see you upset.’

  ‘I’m not upset.’

  ‘So how come you’re nearly crying?’

  ‘I’ve got a cold.’ Holly sniffed to prove her point and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. Then, dismissively, she said, ‘You’d best go back to your new bestie before she starts wondering where you’ve got to.’

  ‘Nah, she’ll be too busy stuffing her face.’ Bex gave a sly grin. ‘You should’ve seen how many chips she piled on her plate back there. I swear the greedy bitch’d weigh twenty stone by now if she didn’t burn it all off shagging Gary Mottram.’

  ‘You what?’ Holly frowned.

  Still grinning, Bex formed a circle with her hand and poked her finger in and out of it.

  ‘Seriously?’ Holly asked, curiosity overriding her determination to play it cool.

  ‘Seriously.’ Bex nodded. ‘She was telling me about it earlier; reckons they’ve been at it for months. And she doesn’t even care that he’s still seeing Carla Lewis.’

  ‘Dirty cow.’

  ‘Dead cow if Carla ever finds out,’ Bex snorted. ‘But never mind her, I’ve got something for you.’

  ‘What is it?’ Holly asked, following as Bex forced her way through a clump of bushes at the end of the field, behind which was a tiny clearing where the kids who smoked hung out at break times.

  ‘Ta-da!’ Bex said, pulling a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the bottom of her bag after dusting herself off.

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ Holly reminded her, perching on a log that was surrounded by fag ends, chocolate wrappers and crushed soft-drink cans. ‘And neither do you.’

  ‘I do now,’ Bex said, sitting next to her. ‘Julie’s mum buys them off someone who smuggles them over from France, and she’s got tons of cartons stashed in her wardrobe. Ju nicks them and sells them for a fiver, but she didn’t charge me.’

  Lip curling at the mention of Julie, Holly said, ‘Might’ve known she’d be behind it.’

  ‘She didn’t force me,’ Bex said, blowing out a thick stream of smoke after lighting up. ‘And she’s honestly not that bad if you give her a chance.’

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ Holly snorted. ‘You were slagging her off the other day, saying how much she does your head in, and now you’re up each other’s arses. What’s all that about?’

  ‘I dunno.’ Bex shrugged. ‘I saw a different side to her at her cousin’s party, and we had a right laugh when I stayed over at hers. But that doesn’t mean I like her more than I like you, so you don’t have to be jealous.’

  ‘I’m not jealous,’ Holly lied. ‘But Saturday’s our day, so why did you go to the pictures with her when you could have gone with me?’

  ‘You’re always skint, so that was never going to happen,’ Bex said. ‘But it’s done now, so shut up about it and have some of this.’

  She held out the cigarette out, but Holly shook her head and stuffed her hands into her pockets. ‘You’ll get addicted.’

  ‘Nah, I’m not that weak,’ Bex said, taking another drag and blowing a smoke-ring. Then, remembering something, she said, ‘Hey, did you hear about Kell?’

  ‘No. What about her?’ Holly wafted the smoke away.

  ‘Her mum’s been sectioned,’ said Bex. ‘Ju’s mum was talking to her friend about it on the phone when she was driving us to the pictures, and she had it on loudspeaker so we heard everything. Apparently, Kell’s mum was running round Tesco on Friday night, stark naked.’

  ‘No way,’ Holly gasped, wondering if that was why Kelly hadn’t answered her calls at the weekend – and why she wasn’t in school today.

  ‘Way!’ Bex said. ‘She was proper going off her head by the sound of it, saying that God told her to assassinate Donald Trump and that he’d sent her to Tesco to find a weapon that wouldn’t set off the alarms at the airport. Someone ended up getting a duvet from the bedding section and chucking it over her, then the security guards had to sit on her till the police turned up and called the nut squad in.’

  ‘Wow.’ Holly shook her head. ‘Poor Kelly. She must be gutted.’

  ‘Nah, she’s buzzing. She’s always been a daddy’s girl, so she’s made up that she’s being sent to stay with him while her mum’s in the loony bin.’

  ‘I thought she’d lost touch with her dad?’ Holly frowned. ‘She told me she hasn’t seen him in years.’

  ‘Yeah, but only ’cos her mum wouldn’t let her after he fucked off with another woman,’ said Bex. ‘Now she’s away with the fairies, Kell reckons her dad’ll go for full custody. And if he gets it, that’ll be the last we ever see of her.’

  ‘Why? She’ll still have to come to school, won’t she?’

  ‘Yeah, but not this one,’ Bex said, taking a last drag on the cigarette before stubbing it out on the log. ‘She rang me when I was on my way home from Julie’s the other night; told me her dad’s moved to Ireland and he’s going to try and get her into a school over there.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Holly murmured.

  ‘Never mind,’ Bex said, jumping up and pulling Holly to her feet. ‘We might have lost her, but we’ve still got each other.’

  Holly nodded, but she was absolutely gutted to think that she might never see Kelly again. She and her mum had moved around so much over the years she’d lost count of how many schools she had attended, and how many friendships she’d made and lost. Her last school had been really rough and she had been badly bullied, but this one was in an affluent area, so her mum had thought she would get on much better; that the other pupils, whose parents all drove posh cars and owned their own houses, would be polite and well behaved. What her mum hadn’t accounted for was the fact that the posh kids might not want a scruffy estate brat in their midst, and Holly still cringed when she remembered the dirty looks she’d received when she turned up on her first day wearing her ill-fitting, obviously second-hand uniform. If it hadn’t been for Bex and Kelly taking her under their wings, she didn’t know how she would have coped. But now Kelly was gone and Bex was hanging around with Julie Gordon, Holly felt like her world was shrinking – and she didn’t like it one little bit.

  5

  Suzie prised an eye open and squinted at the clock. Rolling onto her back when she saw that it was almost 3.30 p.m., she yawned and stretched her arms above her head. The combined scents of sex and sweat hung heavy in the air, and she smiled at the memory of Rob waking her that morning with his head between her thighs. When things were good between them, they were really good, and it reminded her of why she’d fallen for him in the first place. Not only was he handsome and charming, but no other man had ever come close to pleasuring her the way he did when he made the effort.

  And, boy, had he made the effort this weekend.

  After talking things over, Suzie had agreed to give him another chance, and they had been in bed ever since, only getting up to nip downstairs for food and drink. She truly hoped it was a sign that they had turned a corner in their relationship. But all good things had to come to an end. She had a booking tonight, so it was time to stop indulging herself and start getting ready.

  About to sit up, she twisted her head round on the pillow when the door opened, and she smil
ed at Rob as he walked in.

  ‘Hey, tiger . . . Hope you’ve made coffee, ’cos I’m gonna need about a gallon to get me—’

  ‘Fuck the coffee!’ Rob thrust a mobile phone under her nose. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘What’s what?’ She squinted at the screen, her vision too sleep-blurred to see anything in detail.

  ‘Quit stalling and start explaining!’ he barked.

  ‘Explain what?’ She shuffled upright in the bed. ‘I can’t see anything.’

  ‘Look harder!’

  Confused, because he’d been in a great mood after they’d made love a couple of hours earlier and she had no idea why he was so angry now, Suzie blinked and peered at the text message on the screen. Mouth falling open when she realized it was her phone he was holding, not his, she said, ‘What the hell, Rob! Why are you reading my messages? And how did you get my password?’

  ‘Are you seriously that dumb?’ he spat. ‘You think I don’t know your fucking passwords? Or should I say password, seeing as you use the same one for every-fucking-thing, you thick bitch.’

  ‘How dare you!’ She tossed the duvet aside, furious that he’d violated her privacy. ‘You begged me for a second chance, and now I catch you snooping through my phone? Well, that’s it! I’m not taking this shit any mo—’

  Rob backhanded her across the face before she could finish, and she fell heavily back. Terrified when he lunged at her, she tried to roll out of the way but he was too fast, and she cried out in pain when he seized her wrists and pinned them to the mattress above her head.

  ‘Who is he?’ he demanded, his eyes blazing as he stared down into hers. ‘And how long’s it been going on? Have you been fucking him then coming home and fucking me?’

  ‘I haven’t been with anyone!’ Suzie protested, struggling to breathe with his full weight pressing down on her.

  ‘Sure about that, are you?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure, and you need to get off me before this goes too far. I mean it, Rob. Stop it now, before you do something you’ll regret.’

  ‘The only thing I regret is putting my trust in a lying whore like you,’ Rob snarled, tightening his grip on her wrists. ‘And how many more of these cunts have you been meeting up with behind my back while I’ve been grafting my bollocks off to give you a life of fucking luxury?’

  ‘I’ve already told you – none!’ Suzie yelled, trying to pull her hands free. ‘And you’ve never given me a damn penny. I pay my own way. Always have, always will!’

  ‘Yeah, and we know how you do that, don’t we?’ Rob sneered. ‘Twenty for a blow job, fifty for a shag . . . that what you’re charging these days, whore?’

  ‘Get the fuck off me,’ Suzie cried, blinking to clear the tears that were stinging her eyes.

  ‘You might as well quit struggling, ’cos you’re going nowhere till you tell me who this cunt JC is,’ Rob said, yanking her arms together and grasping both of her wrists in one hand before reaching for the phone he’d dropped. ‘Hey sexy,’ he said, as he read out the message on the screen, ‘so good to see you last night, can’t wait to do it again.’

  ‘That’s not from a man,’ Suzie spluttered. ‘It’s an old school friend. Her name’s Jenny. Jenny Corbett. I bumped into her last year and we swapped numbers.’

  ‘LIAR!’ Rob roared, his face so close to hers that his sour breath scorched her cheeks. ‘How about this one, then?’ He scrolled to a different message from the same contact. ‘You’re so hot . . . I can still taste that sweet pussy . . .’ Pausing, he glared down at her. ‘That don’t sound like no old school friend to me. Unless you’re trying to tell me you’re a dyke now?’

  ‘She was messing about,’ Suzie said, her cheeks blazing. ‘That’s what she’s like. It was a joke.’

  ‘Tell you what, why don’t I ring this number and see who answers?’ Rob said. ‘But be warned,’ he added ominously. ‘If you make me do this and it turns out to be a bloke, I’m gonna fuck you up.’

  Aware that this was going to end badly, Suzie renewed her struggle to get out from under him, but he was too big and heavy to shift.

  ‘OK, I’ll tell you the truth,’ she gasped. ‘They were from a man, but they’re old messages – I swear. I finished with him before I met you, and I haven’t seen him since.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?’

  ‘Because I didn’t think you’d believe me.’

  ‘You were right, I don’t,’ said Rob. ‘Now give me the cunt’s name.’

  ‘It’s the truth,’ Suzie cried. ‘And I don’t even care if you think I’m lying. I’ve had enough, Rob. I can’t take this any more.’

  ‘So you’re admitting it then?’

  ‘I’m not admitting anything. I’m just sick of you trying to control me! This is my house, not yours, and—’

  ‘I’ll give you one last chance,’ Rob cut in, his voice deceptively quiet. ‘I want . . . his fuckin’ . . . NAME!’

  ‘FUCK YOU!’ Suzie yelled, thrashing her head from side to side. ‘FUCK—’

  ‘You don’t get to tell me what to do, bitch,’ Rob hissed, clapping a hand over her mouth. ‘I want his name, and I ain’t leaving till I get it.’

  Unable to breathe, Suzie widened her eyes and tried to shake off his hand. But he either didn’t realize or didn’t care that he was suffocating her, because he kept it firmly in place.

  Next door, May Foster had heard the commotion through the bedroom wall and had called the police. Pacing her tiny hallway as she waited for them to arrive, she gazed at the framed photographs on the walls: the visual timeline of the work she’d done to the house since buying it at auction some years earlier. She had intended to do it up and sell it on, then invest the profit in another property in a slightly better area and do the same again. But she’d been forced to rethink those plans when, a few weeks after committing to the purchase, the company where she worked had gone into liquidation, leaving her unemployed for the first time in years. In her mid-forties by then, she had struggled to find another job in a youth-dominated market. So, ignoring the warnings from her family and friends who had told her she was crazy to consider moving to such a rough area, she had sold the flat she’d been living in at the time and moved into the house. It had been a wreck inside and out, and the repairs had swallowed every penny she’d made from the sale of the flat. But she had settled in nicely over the years, so she’d never regretted her decision.

  Until that bloody couple moved in next door.

  It was bad enough that she could hear the obscene noises they made whenever they had sex, but their frequent arguments were even worse. The yelling, the screaming, the foul-mouthed insults they threw at each other . . . It was horrendous, and the walls were thin enough that she might as well have been right there in the room with them when they were going at it.

  But it wasn’t only the noise that set May on edge; it was the feeling of dread that hovered over her during their quieter times as she waited for the next argument to erupt. When the lout had come back to the house on Saturday morning, she’d wondered how long it would be before it all kicked off again. Now, just two days later, they’d had the mother of all bust-ups, and enough was enough. The pity she’d felt for her neighbour when she’d seen the bruises on her face the morning after their last fight was long gone. And this time, if the police didn’t hold the thug and that silly girl let him back into the house, she intended to contact their landlord and demand they be evicted.

  6

  Josie woke in a cold sweat to the repetitive beep-beep-beep of her alarm clock going off. She’d had nightmares in the past, but none as vivid and terrifyingly real as the one she’d just had, in which she’d been chased, naked and clutching baby Holly to her breast, through a labyrinth of pitch-dark corridors in a huge abandoned building by a gang of hooded, faceless men.

  Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer, and her hand was shaking so violently when she snaked her arm out from under the duvet to silence the alarm that she almost knoc
ked over the glass that was standing beside it. Grabbing it before it toppled over, she sat up and swallowed the stale remnants of the vodka and coke she’d been drinking before she fell asleep that morning. Then, lighting a cigarette, she lay back against the pillows and waited for the booze and nicotine to kick in and soothe her jangled nerves.

  Her mobile phone started ringing on the bedside table, waking her from the doze she’d drifted into, and she muttered, ‘Shit!’ when she realized she was still holding the lit cigarette. After taking a last drag on it, she stubbed it out in the overflowing ashtray and reached for her phone. Straightening up when she saw that it was her co-worker, Fiona, calling, she answered quickly, hoping that the woman was ringing to tell her that she’d received a new batch of knock-off vodka.

  ‘Has it come?’ she asked, hoping she didn’t sound too eager, because the last thing she needed was for that lot at work to think she had a problem. She didn’t; she just found it difficult to get to sleep when everyone else was getting up, and a little drink helped her to drop off. That was all.

  ‘Not yet,’ Fiona said. ‘My usual guy got busted, so I’ve had to look for another supplier. But I’m hoping I’ll get word tonight.’

  Disappointed, because her supplies were running low and she couldn’t afford shop prices, Josie flopped back against the pillows and massaged her throbbing temples.

  ‘Anyhow, I’m not ringing about that,’ Fiona went on. ‘Sharon’s sacked Petra and she wants you to come in early to cover her shift.’

  ‘Why me?’ Josie moaned. ‘Can’t she ask one of the others?’

  ‘Hey, I’m only the messenger,’ said Fiona. ‘I can tell her I couldn’t get hold of you, if you want? But you know what she’s like, so don’t blame me if she cuts your hours to nothing to punish you.’

  Josie sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. She knew what Sharon was like, all right. The woman was a bitch, and she’d think nothing of doing exactly what Fiona had said if Josie dared to refuse the extra shift.