Follow Me Down

by Tanya Byrne

  ‘You found me,’ I muttered, and I was surprised, not because I’d found a particularly surreptitious hiding place, but because I didn’t think he would look for me.

  ‘Mrs Delaney has been looking for you everywhere.’

  I brought my knees up to my chest and closed my eyes, letting my head fall back against the gravestone. ‘Did you know that if an Igbo woman dies and she doesn’t have a son, her body is thrown into a bush?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘If an Igbo woman dies, she is buried at the home of her son, but if she doesn’t have a son, her body is thrown into a bush.’

  ‘Come on, Miss Okomma. Let’s go.’

  I looked up at him with a frown. ‘Doesn’t that upset you? Knowing that in Nigeria, they’d just throw Scarlett in a bush?’

  ‘I’m sure they wouldn’t be so callous,’ he said with an impatient sigh, and he sounded harassed, as though I was drunk and wouldn’t get into the back of a cab. ‘Besides, Scarlett isn’t a woman, she’s a child.’

  Child.

  The word dropped to the grass between us like a stone.

  When he told me to come along, I didn’t budge, I just stared at him, at his neat suit and neat shirt and neat hair and thought of the girls at Burnham, chins up and ponytails swinging as they walked through the village to the funeral, concealer caked to the dark patches under their eyes so that no one would know that they’d been crying. I couldn’t be so cool, so contained. I wanted people to see it, to dance around, to embarrass people with it, make them look away. I wanted to be like Dominic, splashing my grief around like red paint.

  ‘Come along?’ I said, fresh tears burning the corners of my eyes.

  ‘Please, Miss Okomma.’ He held a hand out. ‘We have to go to the cemetery.’

  I turned my face away, playing with my necklace. ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I said,’ I raised my voice and looked at him again, ‘Leave me alone.’

  He was a quiet for a moment, then said, ‘Excuse me, Miss Okomma?’

  ‘Excuse me, Miss Okomma?’ I parroted, then rolled my eyes.

  I could feel him staring at me, but I ignored him, clambering to my feet and brushing the grass from the back of my skirt with my hands. He took a step towards me, closing the gap between us, but I turned away and looked at the back of the church with my arms crossed so he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes.

  I hoped he’d take the hint and leave me alone, but he sighed again. ‘I know that you’re upset about Scarlett, Miss Okomma,’ he said and that was it.

  ‘My name is Adamma!’ I spun round to face him, a tear skidding down my cheek as I did. ‘It’s OK to say it, you know? Why do you always talk like someone from a Jane Austen novel?’ I threw my head back and screamed at the sky. ‘Jesus. Even Mrs Delaney calls me Adamma sometimes!’

  When I looked at him again, I felt another hot tear roll off my jaw, but he was unmoved. He took a deep breath. ‘As I said, I know that you’re upset about Scarlett –’

  ‘Upset? Scarlett was murdered! The question is: why aren’t you upset?’

  ‘Will you calm down? Of course I’m upset – everyone is – but I am still your teacher –’ he looked nervously around – ‘and this is beyond inappropriate, Miss Okomma.’

  ‘Inappropriate?’

  ‘Calm down,’ he said through his teeth before I could say anything else, looking over my shoulder in the direction of the photographers. ‘This isn’t the time.’

  ‘This isn’t the time?’ I laughed, quick and bitter. ‘Her funeral isn’t the time?’

  He didn’t respond, just fussed over a piece of fluff on his jacket, and I lost it.

  ‘I’m in pain! Is that too untidy for you? Is that inappropriate?’ I took a step towards him. He took one back. ‘I know everyone is being so strong and brave, but I’m not strong or brave and I just need a minute where I don’t have to pretend to be. So just let me cry and scream and say that I’m not OK and be a human being about it. I know you can. I’ve seen you be human. So just say something real.’ I balled my hands into fists so that I wouldn’t shove him. ‘Say my name!’

  ‘You want me to say something real?’ he said, stepping forward and finally looking me in the eye and I saw it, at last, a flicker of emotion, the tiniest tug of annoyance at the corners of his eyes. ‘You’re behaving like a brat.’ He leaned in, his brown eyes suddenly black. ‘Today isn’t about you. It’s about burying Scarlett, so pull yourself together.’

  ‘You told me not to tell the police,’ I spat and I shouldn’t have. As soon as I did, I wanted to take it back, like a child sweeping spilt marbles back into a jar.

  He frowned. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I shook my head. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘Well, you have, so go on. I assume you’re referring to our conversation about your friend who was attacked in Savernake Forest.’

  The way he said attacked made my nerves tighten. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that your friend is lying.’

  Something kicked at me and I shook my head. ‘No she isn’t.’

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘And how would you know?’

  He sighed and put his hands on his hips. ‘Because it was me.’

  ‘What was you?’

  ‘It was me who offered to give Chloe Poole a lift that night.’

  I laughed. I don’t know why, it wasn’t funny, but I guess the thought of it was so ridiculous that my body rejected it and I laughed. ‘No you didn’t.’

  He licked his lips and lifted his chin defiantly.

  ‘No.’ I had to stop myself taking him by the lapels and shaking him. ‘No.’

  I waited for him to deny it – waited and waited – but when he didn’t, I turned away from him and walked over to one of the gravestones, putting my hand on top of it to steady myself as I felt each of the bones in my legs turn to dust.

  ‘No,’ I said again, but then I thought of his car – a dark blue Triumph Stag with its wind-down windows that might look like something James Bond would drive in the dark – and something in me came undone. ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t lay a finger on her,’ I heard him say, and I wanted to cover my ears with my hands. I couldn’t listen. I couldn’t listen to any more.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Listen to me,’ he took me by the arm and spun me around to face him.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Listen. All of this is Chinese whispers so just listen to what happened.’ I tried to wriggle away, but he wouldn’t let me, his fingers digging in so hard it hurt, even through my blazer. ‘I didn’t see her in the forest, it was on the road. I went out for supper with friends and when I was driving past on my way back to Crofton, I saw her staggering out, too drunk to walk, and I stopped, but she wouldn’t get in.’

  ‘Let go.’

  ‘That’s all that happened.’ He shook me so hard it felt like my bones rattled. ‘I watched her stumble back to Crofton like a newborn foal, and when I was content that she’d made it back safely without falling into a ditch, I carried on.’

  ‘Let go,’ I hissed, finally pulling away, but as I did, I staggered back and fell against a gravestone, yelping as it struck my hip. He reached for me, but I put my arm out. ‘Don’t!’

  He looked horrified. ‘What is wrong with you?’

  ‘Olivia thinks it was Dominic, but it was you!’ I covered my hands with my mouth.

  ‘I’d choose your next words very carefully, Miss Okomma.’

  He said it slowly, deliberately – Miss Okomma – and I registered the threat, my scalp shivering, but I couldn’t stop. ‘It was you. You raped Orla.’

  ‘Orla? What does she have to do with this?’

  I shouldn’t
have said it, but it didn’t matter, I’d tell her and she’d tell Bones. But then he realised what I was saying – that she was the other girl I’d told him about – and he grabbed my arm again. ‘Are you insane?’ It was already tender from the last time and the shock of it, of the flare of his nostrils and his breath against my cheek as he pulled me to him, made my stomach turn. ‘I didn’t touch her, either of them.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ And I didn’t; but when I thought of him, tripping over his laces in class and making lame Shakespeare jokes, and being so gentle with me the morning he drove me to the airport in the snow, the thought was so absurd that I recoiled from it as though it was a foul smell.

  ‘Why not?’ He suddenly looked inconsolable. ‘It’s me, Adamma.’

  ‘Molly told me!’ I roared, and I don’t know where it came from, this blast of anger that made my jaw judder. I guess it scared him, too, because he let go of my arm. ‘She told me that Orla was in love with you,’ I said more calmly, even though I wasn’t at all calm. ‘I thought she was making it up, but she wasn’t, was she?’

  ‘So you’re believing Molly Avery now?’

  ‘You’re too smart.’ I jabbed at my temple with my finger. ‘You wouldn’t have offered Chloe a ride unless you wanted her to get into your car. No male teacher in his right mind would offer a girl a ride, especially at night.’

  ‘You didn’t see the state of her. She could barely walk.’

  ‘There were Crofton kids everywhere that night. If anyone had seen Chloe getting into your car you would have been fired before you pulled into the car park.’

  ‘I didn’t think!’

  When I saw his cheeks flush, I remembered the story he’d told me, the one about his friend Charlotte who was raped when she walked home after a party, and it made sense, so I should have softened, but it made me more mad. I could feel my cellphone ringing in my pocket again, but I ignored it.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? You told me about Charlotte. I would have believed you.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. I hardly knew you then.’ He took a step forward and when he saw me back into the gravestone, he stopped. ‘I was scared. All I did was offer a girl a lift back to her boarding house and by Monday I’d raped her.’

  ‘I told the police. They’ve been looking for a man in the forest.’

  ‘Exactly.’ He looked at the photographers again. ‘I couldn’t have my name attached to that rumour. What if I was arrested? Stuff like that sticks. Even if it wasn’t true, I’d still be known as the teacher who raped a student. I’d never work again.’ He leaned in, suddenly too close, his chest almost touching mine. ‘If I lose this job, I lose everything. My home, my book deal, my reputation. What am I going to do then? Go back to Sheffield and become a mechanic like my dad? Have three kids by three different women like everyone else I used to go to school with? I have worked too long and too hard to lose everything for a stupid rumour.’

  ‘And you’d do anything to protect yourself, right?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Dominic’s car was impounded because a car that “kind of” looks like his was seen in the forest on Sunday afternoon and your car “kind of” looks like his.’

  He didn’t smile, but he didn’t flinch, either. ‘Say it if you’re going to say it.’

  ‘Did you do it?’ I asked and I don’t know how my voice sounded so steady because his nose was almost touching mine, his eyes beetle black, and it made everything in me shake. ‘Did you hurt her?’

  I didn’t have to say her name, he knew.

  My heart was beating so hard that he must have been able to feel how scared I was, to feel the rise and fall of my chest as I struggled to catch my breath, but when he took a step back, I still lifted my chin and looked at him, right in the eye. He walked away and when he did, I thought I might collapse into a boneless heap on the grass, between the gravestones, but I had to find Orla. When I got to the front of the church, everyone was still outside waiting for the cars to take them to the cemetery. Then I saw her and ran, down the path and into the road, forgetting about the photographers as I saw her walking away by herself, her head down and her arms crossed.

  I ran towards her, calling her name and she stopped.

  ‘Adamma,’ she said with a sob, wiping her cheeks with the heel of her palm. ‘I’ve been trying to call you. Where’ve you been?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I started to say, assuming that she was upset about the funeral, but when I saw her shoulders shudder, I realised that it was more. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I remembered,’ she said with a heave and a sob.

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘Just now, in the church. It came from nowhere, like you said. He went to hug me and –’ Another sob broke out of her and I waited for her to catch her breath. ‘When I couldn’t get hold of you, I called Lisa and she told me her husband was working here,’ she nodded towards the police station, ‘on Scarlett’s case.’

  ‘You’re going to tell the police?’ And I couldn’t believe it, my heart stuttering with relief as I hooked my arm through hers. ‘Come on. I’ll go with you.’

  ‘But what about the funeral? Don’t you want to go to the cemetery?’

  ‘Scarlett has the whole village with her. You shouldn’t be on your own.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She smiled weakly. ‘I just feel so stupid.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I thought it was some pervert.’ She shrugged, eyelashes batting stickily.

  When Orla put her hand to her stomach, I knew what she was thinking: that knowing who did it was worse, that he’d seen her every day – in class, walking down the stairs, hugging a folder to her chest – and he knew what he’d done. He must have noticed that she’d stopped wearing make-up, that she’d let her blond bangs grow out so that when they fell forward, they covered most of her face. He must have noticed and he didn’t say a word. He was disgusting.

  Worse than disgusting.

  ‘I can’t.’ She stopped suddenly, looking up the road at the police station then put her hands up. ‘I know what you’re going to say, Adamma, but I can’t.’

  ‘Orla—’

  ‘What if I—’ she interrupted, then stopped to cover her mouth with her hand as she let out another hiccup of a sob.

  I knew what she was getting at and shook my head at her. ‘You didn’t.’

  She took her hand away from her mouth and pressed it to her forehead. ‘He knew that I wanted to wait, but I was so drunk. What if I told him we could?’

  That threw me, my heart spinning, like a weathervane in a sudden gust of wind. Molly was right – there was something going on between Orla and Mr Lucas – and I’ll admit to feeling a stab of betrayal, even though I had no right to. Orla and I barely spoke before she admitted what happened to her that night. I’m the one who’s been lying to her for the last five months.

  ‘That doesn’t matter, Orla,’ I said and I wonder if she heard it, the sudden hardness in my voice as I tried to compensate for the shiver of shame. ‘Knowing who did it, doesn’t change a damn thing. He still hurt you, he still took advantage of you.’

  ‘But there’s no way I can prove I said no, is there? He’ll just say I didn’t. And even if I could, the police won’t be able to do anything now. It’s been months.’

  She turned and started walking back in the direction of the village and I knew she was right, but I felt a surge of anger at how resigned she was to it. It wasn’t fair.

  It wasn’t fair.

  I caught up with her and stepped in front of her.

  She stopped, then crossed her arms. ‘I know what you’re going to say and don’t,’ she warned, her brow tightening. ‘I’m not putting myself through that for nothing. I’m not going to sit there while the police ask me how much I had to drink and what I was wearing so t
hey can tell me there’s nothing they can do.’

  ‘But what if he does it to someone else?’

  ‘I said don’t,’ she barked. ‘I can’t, Adamma. If I tell the police it’ll be my word against his and if the police believe him, then it will have been for nothing. Everyone would know – my friends, my dad, Molly bloody Avery – and I’ll have to see him every day and—’

  ‘It’s OK.’ I rubbed her arms as she started sobbing again. ‘I’m sorry.’ I waited for her breathing to settle then said, ‘Why don’t we tell Mrs Delaney? She won’t tell anyone.’

  She looked confused. ‘Mrs Delaney?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe she can tell Ballard what happened, find a way to get him fired without anyone finding out why. I’m sure Ballard will be more than happy to make all of this go away as quickly and quietly as possible.’

  ‘Fired?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. This is his fault. He should have thought about that.’

  ‘Fired from what? Sam doesn’t have a job.’

  I stepped back and stared at her. ‘Sam?’

  ‘Yeah. Who did you think I was talking about?’

  ‘But Sam couldn’t have murdered Scarlett.’

  ‘He wouldn’t!’ she said with a fierce frown, then caught herself. She looked mortified and I wanted to hug her, tell her that I got it – she’d loved him, it was an instinct to defend him – but she wouldn’t look at me. ‘Look. I don’t know what Sam’s capable of any more, but his arm’s in a sling so, and I can’t believe I’m saying these words,’ she shook her head, ‘he can’t have murdered Scarlett. Unless he strangled her with one hand.’

  She was right and with that, everything in my head dislodged and ended up in a different place. All that remained was one question that circled my skull like a fly:

  So who did?

  104 DAYS BEFORE

  FEBRUARY

  You know how Charles Dickens said that it was the best of times, it was the worst of times? Well, it’s been the best six weeks of my life, and the worst. The worst because I was sure that after what happened at Edith’s wedding, everyone would side with Scarlett and I would be the bitch who threw away her best friend for a boy. But when I got back to Crofton in the new year, girls – not all of them, but some, more than I expected – began to gather at my end of the table in the dining hall. The next day there were a few more and the day after that a few more and, by the end of the week – when she made a nasty quip about me in class and not everyone laughed – I began to realise that Scarlett was more infamous than popular.