by SJI Holliday
Louise takes a mouthful of tea. ‘Will you try Mandy again please, Jamie?’
‘Call me Quinn. It’s just Quinn.’
‘Sorry, yes . . . can you try to talk to her? She might talk to you. There might be things she’s too scared to tell us, or things she doesn’t think are important. She’s in a bad way. But she needs someone. I understand you haven’t been together for a long time, but, from what Davie’s told me, you were close for many years. It’s times like this she’ll need all the friends she can get.’
‘Mandy only likes friends who she can rely on to give her things that she wants. That’s her way. She relied on me for the sex, mainly. Oh, and her Friday night eighth to see her through the weekend.’
‘As in an eighth of an ounce of cannabis, is that what you mean?’
‘Aye. Other stuff too. It was all fine with her as long as it was on her terms. She wasn’t keen on me taking smack. Can’t say I blame her. Anyway, it worked out better for everyone when Mandy was on the blow. It was the only thing that kept her consistently calm. That and the mind-blowing sex, obviously.’ He gives Louise a wry smile and lifts a tin of tobacco from a fruit bowl in the centre of the table.
‘When you say it kept her calm . . . you mean she had a temper?’
Quinn takes out the packet of cigarette papers, slides one out, sprinkles in tobacco. She watches, entranced as he rolls it back and forth between his fingers. Runs his tongue along the edge. Her grandfather used to do this. The sweet smell of the tobacco takes her back to her childhood. He lights the cigarette, sucks it in. Blows out a neat stream of smoke. He turns to Davie. ‘What do you reckon to that, Davie? Our Mandy? A temper?’
Davie sighs. ‘You could say that. She was a feisty one, Lou. Still is. You’re not really seeing her in full-on Mandy mode right now, but she was well known for her temper, that’s for sure.’
Quinn turns back towards her. He holds the cigarette between his teeth, closes one eye as smoke snakes up towards his face. ‘See this?’ he says. He pulls up the sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal a patch of shiny scar tissue. It looks old, healed. But wide and ragged, as if it wasn’t stitched properly, if at all. ‘She did this to me, with a Stanley knife I’d been using to rewire the plugs on her toaster and kettle. I took too long, apparently. She wanted a cup of tea. Wanted it right away. Fucking thing wouldn’t stop bleeding. Katie came in just after it happened, when Mandy was pale-faced and rocking in a kitchen chair, muttering sorry sorry sorry . . . Katie patched it up as best she could, but it needed stiches. I couldn’t go into the hospital though, could I? Tell them how it happened. She tried her best, Mandy did. I couldn’t have the social getting involved, know what I mean?’
Louise glances across at Davie, as Quinn rolls his sleeve back down and taps the ash off the end of his cigarette.
‘Would you call her back tonight, Quinn? See if she’ll talk to you. We’ve very little to go on at the moment, so anything you can do to help.’
‘Sure,’ he says. ‘But I wouldn’t hold out much hope. Mandy might fly off the handle now and again, but she’s fierce loyal. If she knows who did this – I mean, if it’s someone close to her – she’ll protect them. She’ll never grass. You know that, right?’
Louise lays a business card on the table. ‘Give me a call if you hear anything. Day or night.’
Quinn nods. His eyes are shining again. He stubs out the cigarette, looks away. ‘I meant to ask, did you talk to that teacher of hers? Katie always said they were just friends, but I’m not so sure. Katie’s very different from Mandy, we all know that, but you know . . . For every teenage girl who thinks she’s “mature”, there’s a man who’ll take advantage of that. Ken what I mean?’
Louise puts a hand on the back of the chair opposite. ‘Are you saying you think something was going on with Katie and Lucas Crisp?’
‘I never said that. I’m just saying . . . Mandy used to try it on often enough, when she was Katie’s age. Some folk reckon Katie’s dad is one of Mandy’s old teachers. Anyway, it’s not Katie you need to worry about here. It’s Brooke. She’s the one who planted that seed. About Crisp, I mean. I’m assuming you’ve seen the stuff on Facebook? I’m surprised it’s not been taken down yet—’
‘Thanks,’ Davie says, cutting him off. Louise can see the panic flashing in his eyes. They need to get out of here. They need to go back to see Lucas Crisp.
The dog pads behind them as they walk out of the kitchen. Louise bends down to rub its ears before they walk out of the door and leave Quinn to his sleep.
LucasCrispIsAPaedo
Secret Group
375 Members (100 new)
Lou Peters
3h
Right, seeing as you bunch of pussies are too shy to sort this out, how about I take control, eh? Ootside the Rowan Tree, 8.30 p.m. (but whoever needs a wee livener can meet inside before – I’ll be there fae six, when the work’s van drops us off.)
Likes(310) Comments(95)
Big Jim Nailor See yous there.
Al Samson Maybe we shouldnae say we’re going, case the polis see this?
Big Jim Nailor Fuck it.
Joe Crow
Luke Crust OMG I cannae believe it’s really happening! Cheers for sorting this, Lou Peters.
Gary Niven *thumbs up*
Pete Reed
Kev Mason F’kin A!
Dave Simon Ace.
Mike Sullivan YA BASS.
. . .
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32
Neil
Neil is standing outside the Rowan Tree, waiting. A small crowd has already gathered outside the pub, huddled together in the recess between the wide pedestrian boulevard and the entrance to the pub car park. People are wrapped up warm in thick coats, gloved hands grappling with cigarettes and lighters. It’s hard to tell who is smoking and who isn’t, with the chilled air making everyone’s breath into an icy mist.
Where is she?
He is already feeling jittery. Starting to wonder if this is such a good idea. But she was insistent. You have to be part of it. You can’t miss out on something like this, she’d said. This is going down in history.
He rubs his hands together, trying to keep warm. Through the steamed-up windows of the pub he can see the silhouettes of bodies, crushed together in the warmth. Occasionally, the door opens and he hears the sounds of laughter. Raised voices. The incessant whine and rattle of the fruit machine.
He pulls out his phone to check the time. 20:20. Still time to change his mind. Still time to disappear into the darkness. Pretend he has nothing to do with it. He’s almost made up his mind to leave when he spots her. She appears through the alley off the little side road that leads to the High Street. She’s in a thick black coat, hood up. Scarf pulled tight. Only her eyes are visible, the rest of her face obscured by the scarf and the furry edging of her hood.
Even from here he can see that she’s smiling. The impish grin that she can change to a frightening scowl in an instant.
Fuck. Too late to back out now.
He shoves his hands into his pockets, trying to give off the impression that he’s totally fine with all this. With what they’re about to do.
He checks his phone again. 20:28.
He’s only just dropped it back into his pocket when the door of the pub swings open and a long, steady stream of bodies makes its way outside. The laughter has gone now. No one’s smiling. Their faces are fixed in steely determination. No one’s smiling now. He envies them. At least they’ve had a bit of alcohol to ready them for this. Not like him. He’d tried to buy two cans in the Spar garage, but they weren’t having it. Old biddy behind the counter gave him a look of disgust when he’d laid the cans on the counter. You’re not old enough, son. I know your mother.
Fucksake.
The men and women from the pub merge into the crowd that’s already outside. There are a few murmurs now. A nervous tension hangs in the air, as thick as their freezing breath.
Brooke appears by
his side. Trailing along behind her, faces down as they frantically stab angry words into their phones, are several other kids. Some he knows, some he doesn’t. Hayley is there, of course. She might be skiving off school, but she’s not going to miss this. She refuses to catch his eye. She’s turned into Brooke’s sidekick lately. He wonders how she feels about Katie? She was Katie’s best friend until a few months ago, when she let Brooke poison her mind. He knows how that feels. He always thinks he knows everyone until it comes to something like this. People seem to appear out of the woodwork. Out of the grimy little hovels they spend their time in.
These are the kind of people who were made for something like this.
Fuck it. He wants to talk to her. ‘Hayley—’
Brooke steps in front of the other girl, cuts him off. Clearly she doesn’t want them talking. Worried about what he might tell? She shoves him in the arm. ‘What’s wrong wi’ your pus? Thought you’d be excited.’
He shrugs. ‘Dunno. Second thoughts, I s’pose. Starting to wonder if I can be arsed. There’s plenty of other folk here . . .’ He lets the sentence trail off when he sees the expression on her face.
‘That bastard killed my sister. Your girlfriend, in case you’d forgotten her already. She was a pain in the arse, but fucksake. She didnae deserve to be killed. No by that freak.’ She rolls the ‘r’ on the word freak and the small group behind her sniggers.
‘Dinnae worry, hen. We’ll sort oot the dirty nonce. Won’t we, no?’
There are a few mumbled ‘aye’s’. People glance around at each other. Neil can tell there’s a few others who are as scared as he is, but now they’re here, and they’re all together. And no one’s got the balls to leave.
Funny. No one would have the nerve to do something like this alone, but get a few together and all the bravado comes out. He’d been shocked when Brooke had first told him what they were going to do. That phone call, early afternoon. He hadn’t wanted to pick up. Had almost turned off his phone after all the messages from earlier.
You’re off your heid, Brooke. Just leave it to the polis
They’ve no’ got a clue. They’ve got that erse of a counsellor helping them oot, but she’s clueless anaw. It’s taking too long. My ma’s bloody devastated. She’s no’ sleeping. They’ve got her on vallies, but even wi’ them and the drink she’s up tae high doe!
I know that. Do you think I don’t? I’m fucking devastated too. I loved her . . . don’t fucking smirk, you know I did . . . I want this bastard caught as much as you do. But
But what?
What if you’re wrong? What if it’s no’ him?
Somebody seen him. They seen him outside our house. What else was he doing there?
I’m sure the polis are trying to find that oot . . .
Then what? He’ll go to prison. Maybe. He’ll get a few do-ings in there, right enough – but that’s no’ really enough, is it? He needs to know what he’s done. He needs to know you cannae dae things like that in this toon and expect to get away wi’ it.
He won’t get away wi’ anything. He'll be lucky to survive in prison.
Well, this way at least he’ll understand.
They’d gone back and forth for half an hour before Neil had given up, defeated. He just wanted her to shut up. He hated that girl. Regretted getting involved. What had he been thinking? He had to go and see what was happening though, didn’t he? What else was he going to do?
OK, I’ll come.
And now here he was, standing outside the pub. Part of the mob that was heading to visit his biology teacher. The man who’d become a suspect after someone said they’d seen him outside Katie’s house the night before she was found dead. The man who’d been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with the girl. But Neil wasn’t convinced about any of it. He knew how much Katie liked the man. He’d been the one to encourage her to go to university. To escape her toxic roots.
He wasn’t a paedophile, was he? Besides, Katie wasn’t a kid. Not really. Crisp hadn’t done what they were all saying he’d done? No way. Katie could never have kept that from him.
Well, he was in on it now. Nothing he could do. He’d follow them up there, but he wasn’t taking part. No way. And if things went wrong, he had the number for that lady copper, Louise. She’d given him a business card round at Mandy’s house. She’d seemed all right. Wanted to help. He should tell her about Brooke. About Hayley. But he was scared. Scared of looking like a complete shit. Not that it mattered much now. Not now that Katie was gone.
Fuck it.
It was OK, he tried to convince himself. No one was going to get hurt.
Just scare him a bit, that’s all.
33
Louise
Davie waits until they are back in the car before he erupts. ‘Shit. SHIT. Lou, get on Facebook. Why haven’t we been alerted to this already? We’ve had IT scouring social media from the word go. How the fuck have they missed it? Get searching for anything to do with Lucas Crisp. We need to see what we’re dealing with here.’
Louise starts tapping on her phone. She can almost guess what she’s going to find. She’s seen the sort of thing before. People setting up pages right after something like this. She types his name into the search bar. Waits while the connection speed catches up with her typing. Nothing. Nothing public, that is.
This is bad.
She realises it now, more than ever. Lucas Crisp is not safe.
The man is scared, she gets that. Louise knows what it is like to be a seventeen-year-old girl, although it seems like a century ago now. From what the others said, he’s a popular teacher – just on the right level of geek not to seem like a real threat to anyone. But Louise had seen him for herself. He was smart. Cute. Looked young. Mix that in with some pubescent hormones and you have a potent cocktail.
Teenage girls always like older boys. Men. It’s a fact. Girls mature quicker than boys, and it’s not long before the boys in your year seem like children and you’re ready for something more. Louise knows all this. Her first boyfriend was six years older than her. It caused a fair bit of jealousy from the other girls. She can understand why Katie might’ve been getting trouble from her friends, and her sister, if it seemed like she was hanging out with this older guy.
Nothing to do with him being a teacher. That’s not how girls think. They see an older man. A good-looking one. Giving attention to someone. Attention that they want. It’s jealousy, pure and simple. There aren’t many girls who would turn down attention like that.
As for Crisp – he was naive, at best.
Louise hopes that is it. Hopes that he, perhaps, had a bit of growing up to do. He is only twenty-five: a young man being a young man. Had he overstepped the mark? Louise wasn’t sure. It’s funny how opinions differ on this. It’s not black and white. It’s fine for people to say he’s the adult and he should know better, and a seventeen-year-old girl doesn’t know her mind. But really? These girls are smart. Especially someone like Katie. Jesus, her own mother had her when she was barely sixteen. She knows what she’s doing. Knew. Shit.
Louise glances at Davie. He’s been silent since his small tirade when he got into the car. They’ve been driving in the dark for five minutes, and with some of these streets without streetlights (typical council cost-cutting measures) Louise has no idea where she is. Or where they’re going. Davie does, though. He could navigate these streets in his sleep. She stares at the bright screen on her phone. Almost can’t believe what’s staring her in the face.
‘Found anything?’ he says.
No, and that’s the scary part. That means it’s hidden. A secret group, non-searchable. You need to be invited. She needs to call IT. Maybe they’ve already requested full access to the secret groups on the system, but there’s always a delay. Always a bloody delay. And someone has been fast. And clever enough to hide it. Fuck.
‘How far is it?’ she says.
He turns to her and gives her a strange look. ‘We were here earlier. Don’t you recogni
se where you are?’ When she doesn’t reply, he continues: ‘Not far now. A couple more streets.’
‘Do you think we’re too late?’
Davie smacks his hand on the steering wheel. ‘What have you found? What makes you say that? You don’t think he’s going to do anything stupid, do you?’
Not him, maybe. Someone else might though. She doesn’t even want to imagine what people have been saying. She taps out a quick text to her contact in IT, asking for an update.
What is wrong with people? What makes them so quick to judge? So nasty. She thinks about Polly – supposed to be a counsellor – a psychologist. What was she thinking, letting Lucas go home? Maybe if they’d spoken to him sooner they might’ve arranged for him to be elsewhere. As it is, he’s at home, alone. A sitting duck. She doesn’t want to think about it. Can’t do anything until they get there.
‘Polly’s an interesting one,’ she says. ‘So you know her?’
‘Not really. She went to school here. She used to be friends with Jo . . . Well, not really. Friends with Claire. You know all about that, right?’
‘Some of it. I know that Jo did something to the guy she reckoned pushed Claire in the burn when they were kids. That’s right, isn’t it? I don’t know the full story.’
‘I’ll tell you all about Black Wood another time, Lou. It’s a bit of a tale. I seemed to get myself entwined in the whole thing, somehow. Polly looked a bit scared when I arrived, didn’t she? Not sure what she thinks I’m going to do. It was twenty-odd years ago, and really it’s Jo and Claire she needs to be talking to. Anyway . . . back to Crisp, just round this next corner . . .’