by Serena Lyons
And the way she spoke about Millie, that wasn’t a wily journalist trying to touch a nerve. There’s something else going on, I just need to figure out what it is. The only thing I’m certain about is that it’s all to do with Millie and it’s personal for Faith.
“Earth to Cal,” Nina prods me.
Her cup has disappeared out of sight. Not this again. But now isn’t the time for arguments about her avoiding food. It always ends the same way anyway, her feeling even more upset and alone. None of us knows what the answer is.
“It’s something to do with Millie.” I jump up, pacing the front room. “That’s what this is all about. Her entrance essay was copied from Millie’s, they must’ve known each other. Do you know where Faith’s from?”
“Er the north?” Nina tucks her legs underneath her, pulling a cushion close to hide her body. “That’s all she said when I asked about her accent.”
“There’s a surprise… but maybe I can check.” I’m already halfway out of the room before I finish my sentence, running to my study to get my laptop. When I got the TA job Professor Headley sent me the details of all of the incoming class of students. I have their application forms and personal statements.
I’m out of breath when I return.
Nina hasn’t moved. “What’s your genius idea then?”
I sit down next to her and flip open my laptop. “I’m looking at her application form, that should give us some answers.” I search my computer, Nina biting her lip as she watches my screen. I obviously haven’t filed anything properly, so I resort to searching through my email inbox to find the files.
“Talk about slow.” Nina prods me with her foot. “God, Mum and Dad really paid for you to get in, didn’t they?”
“It’s worth doing things properly.”
“Alright, grandad.”
“Someone’s got to be sensible given you happily started hanging out with the first weirdo who latched onto you.”
“Er didn’t you make out with her?” Nina arches her eyebrow.
“Like that means anything. I’ve made out with a lot of girls.” Despite my second statement being true, the first is a lie.
“Of course, how could I forget you’re a man whore just like Dad?” Nina sticks her tongue out at me, but I know Dad’s adultery hurts her as much as it does me. Watching Mum getting sadder and sadder as he spends more time in our London house with bimbos for company while she’s alone in the country. “Anyway, I don’t think Faith’s a complete weirdo, she—”
“Nina, I caught her snooping through my belongings. And you heard what she just said about Millie.”
“I know, but…”
“But what? You believe her when she says I killed my ex-girlfriend who died, while I was in another fucking country?”
“Of course I don’t believe her, but… I don’t know, I think she believed what she was saying.”
“Because she’s crazy!”
Nina’s quiet. “Being crazy doesn’t mean she’s wrong—”
“Nina—”
She holds up a hand to silence me. “I don’t mean about you, but even you said that it seemed completely out of character for Millie to have committed suicide.”
“Ugh, sometimes I wish mum and dad hadn’t paid for your education,” I murmur as I find the folder I want. “But look what I found. Faith Davies, Calstone Comprehensive, Northumberland.”
“Where the hell’s that?”
“In the same county Millie. Let’s ask Google.” Even as I type the school name, I’m sure that they’ll pinpoint somewhere near Millie’s family estate. Her father is Lord Charrington and his ancestral home has been in Northumberland for generations.
The map loads slowly, but the pin for Faith’s school is exactly where I thought it would be. Two miles from the seat of Lord Charrington. “I knew it, she grew up near Millie. Something very weird is going on.”
“Do you think they knew each other?”
“I guess they must have.” I think back to Millie and I chatting about our childhoods. “Millie never even went to the local primary school though—her mum insisted on her attending the closest private school even though it involved nearly an hour’s journey each way.”
“Maybe they knew each other from when they were tiny, the same toddler group or something?” Nina suggests.
“Maybe…” I’m not convinced, Millie always complained about how much of a snob her mum was, not letting her play with anyone who didn’t come from a ‘good family’. “But seeing as though Millie’s mum told her that I came from too down-market a family to date, somehow I don’t see her letting her attend the local kids playgroup.”
“She called us down-market?” Nina sounds amused.
I nod and can’t help the grin on my own face. “Lady Charrington was the biggest snob you’ve ever met, kept making snide comments about Dad the one time I went up to visit Millie’s home.”
“Ha, she sounds charming.” Nina’s smile straightens into a more serious expression. “But if Faith is, I mean was, friends with Millie maybe that’s why she’s acting so crazy. She just can’t except her friend did this to herself. Or maybe she’s got some evidence someone else was involved?”
“There’s no reasonable explanation.” I snap. “She fucking seduced me just to snoop through my things and then she befriended you to—”
“I believe her when she says she didn’t know I was your sister. She never even mentioned you.” My sister’s eyes blaze passionately. “She was my friend for me, as crazy as that may sound to you.”
“She’s a psychopath, you can’t believe a word she says. You’re not seriously thinking of making friends with her again are you?”
“No, of course not, there’s no excuse for her calling the police on you and rifling through your stuff, but I’m just saying there’s no reason for me to be scared of her. I can move back to college.”
“No, you can’t. I forbid you.” I speak without thinking. I daren’t think about how Faith might take advantage of Nina if she’s not under my protection twenty-four seven. Living on the same staircase, Faith will easily inveigle her way back into my sister’s heart. Nina is too soft. Too trusting. Just like Mum.
“You’re not my keeper, Cal.” Nina glares at me and folds her arms over her chest. “I want my freedom.”
“Promise me you’ll stay here for at least the next two weeks, just while we figure out what Faith’s story is?”
My sister scrutinises me. “Two weeks and not a second longer? You promise?”
“I promise.” There’s no way my sister is living in the same staircase as that psycho. If Nina insists on going back to live in college, then I have to make sure that Faith leaves.
And I know exactly how to get her thrown out. It shouldn’t even take two weeks.
26: Faith
The week starts slowly after the drama of the weekend. It’s like I’m operating on a different plane to the rest of the freshers. They flit about college, giggling like small children and casting admiring glances at each other, while I feel like an ancient bore with the weight of the world on my shoulders.
With Nina ghosting me, my lack of friends is even more apparent, and I take to being the first person at every mealtime so I can quickly grab some cheap food and wolf it down before the masses come in. When I linger a few minutes too long, Callum’s crowd look at me with daggers in their eyes. He must have told them I’m crazy, and they make it clear I’m not welcome if King Callum wants me gone.
On Wednesday I have an early breakfast before our nine am tutorial. Luckily for me, Tuesday is a big night out at the coolest club in town, so the most popular members of college—meaning all of Callum’s crew—are nowhere in sight.
I haven’t seen Nina since our horrible confrontation on Sunday. I bet Callum’s forced her to stay in the house with him. Another thing for me to feel guilty about, forcing her hand in living with him, when she wanted to stand on her own two feet.
My bag vibrates noisily on the wooden
bench beside me. I pull my phone out; it’s my police liaison officer.
“Hello?”
“Ms Davies? Is now a good time to talk?”
“Of course.” I look around to check there’s no one close enough to overhear, then hunch over the table. “Have you got any evidence it was Callum?” I keep my voice low.
“As we told you over the weekend, we’re not pursuing that line of inquiry. Both CCTV footage and witness testimony prove that he is not a suspect.”
“Well then he paid someone to do it for him.” My pulse is already racing. Why won’t the police believe me?
“We don’t have any rational evidence to believe that. Can you even give us a reason why Callum Carter-Wright would pay someone to attack you? That’s very risky behaviour, especially for such a publicly known figure.”
Something about his pause before the words public figure tells me the policeman is a fan of Callum’s father’s music, and can’t believe his hero’s offspring would ever do anything wrong.
“Well who do you think did it then? If you’re so certain it wasn’t him?”
“I’m afraid we’re drawing a blank at the moment, we’re reviewing all the CCTV in the vicinity and looking for witnesses, but as you know the towpath itself is very quiet after dark.”
“So why did you call?”
“We just wanted to reassure you that we’re continuing to investigate and taking this very seriously.”
“Great, so seriously that you’re completely ignoring the victim’s opinion.” I end the call before he can respond.
I force myself to take a few deep breaths staring at the wall opposite me. Getting angry isn’t going to help me get justice for myself and Millie. I need a new plan, but first I need to get through breakfast and my tutorial.
My cereal has congealed into a soggy paste that looks disgusting. I dump it on the cleaner’s trolley. I’ve lost my appetite, anyway.
There’s five minutes until my class starts. I dawdle across the quadrangle to the ivy-trimmed door to Professor Headley’s office, I don’t want to get there a moment too soon and suffer an awkward silence with the others in my tutorial. Funny how right now I’d rather be in the concrete monstrosity of sixties architecture that was my crummy secondary school, than in this beautiful building where I constantly feel out of place.
“You okay?”
My head jerks up at a soft voice. Can those kind words be directed at me. It’s Samir smiling softly.
“Your head looks sore,” he points as if I might not know I have a nasty wound on my forehead.
“It’s not too bad, apparently head wounds bleed a lot.”
“Ouch, what happened?”
I hesitate. “I don’t know, someone attacked me on the towpath.” I pause, unsure whether dropping a hint about what I suspect is crazy or clever. The need to do something, anything wins over. “The police don’t know who it was, but Callum Carter-Wright found me.” I let my words hang heavy with subtext.
Samir stops walking to gape at me. “You think…?” He points at my head again.
“I don’t know, but he knew exactly where I was hidden in the dark. It makes you think.”
I have no idea if Samir is the right person to tell—he doesn’t exactly seem like the world’s biggest gossip—but something tells me he doesn’t need to be. This is salacious enough that he’ll mention it to at least one person, who’ll mention it to at least one other person and within hours the entirety of college will know.
“Thanks for making sure I’m not the last one.” Eloise strides past us, smiling a smug grin as she pulls open Professor Headley’s door.
“Come on,” I tell the still gawping Samir. “We better go in too.”
“Good afternoon, everyone.” Professor Headley leans back in her chair as we take our seats, the last two people to arrive. The bright light from the window turns her into a shapely silhouette. “Today we’re talking about the Ancient Greeks but before I forget, Faith, please stay behind afterwards to talk to me.”
Her statement causes everyone else to shift in their seats and look at each other curiously.
Great, I’m standing out, yet again.
Luckily, we quickly get into a debate about Plato vs Socrates and I lose myself in learning. Even though medicine would have been my first choice if I hadn’t need to come here to avenge Millie, I can’t deny that there’s something alluringly decadent about this philosophising. It’s such a treat dedicating our minds to thinking about what the meaning of life and humanity is. Every tutorial I can almost feel my synapses firing as my brain learns new ways of thinking.
By the time our hour tutorial is up, I’m getting up alongside my classmates.
“Faith, remember that I wanted to speak to you.” Professor Headley’s tone is sharp and once again the rest of the tutorial group turn to look at me, a kind of rapt horror on their faces. Only Samir smiles warmly at me, the rest of them can’t get themselves out of the room quickly enough.
“First of all, I heard about your attack.” She smiles at me in a sympathetic, but annoyingly patronising way.
“Wrong place wrong time, I guess.” Or more likely you picked the worst choice of TA possible. I can’t say it out loud and make an enemy of her, she clearly has a soft spot for Callum.
“I wanted to check that the welfare support from college has been sufficient?”
It’s the kind of rhetorical question where you know somebody is just expecting you to nod and say yes. I’m not going to though. “What welfare support from college?”
Her chin drops, and she quickly manoeuvres it into a frown. “There’s been no liaison with the Dean’s office?”
“No. I didn’t even realise college knew what happened. Nobody contacted me at all.” It’s the truth, but she’s looking at me like I’m lying.
“Well I’ll speak to the Dean about that. Is there anything you need?”
I look at her, not answering. “Like what?” I say finally.
“Counselling, medical attention, other forms of support. We take the welfare of the students very seriously here at Westforde.”
“Thanks I’ll, err, I’ll think about it.” Is it inappropriate to ask for extra cash? God knows how long it’ll take for this scholarship to materialise. “Was that all?”
“Well, there is also something slightly more, er, delicate that I wanted to talk to you about as well.”
More delicate. I can’t help but raise my eyebrow, my getting clobbered over the head and college not giving a damn was less of an issue to her?
Her lips tighten again changing the whole shape of her face, making her look less like a glamorous TV anchor and more like an upcoming politician about to take down the Prime Minister at PMQs.
“Now this is quite concerning. If it wasn’t so serious, then I wouldn’t dream of bringing it up when you’ve just been through such a traumatic experience.”
I swallow. This doesn’t sound promising.
“Well, there’s no sense beating about the bush. It has come to my attention that your entrance essay may have been plagiarised.” Her words run together in a blurred single whole, so that it takes me a second to unpick what she’s said.
“What? Who said that? I spent hours writing it, I—”
She holds up a hand to silence me. “I’ve received an email containing an essay that is over ninety-five percent identical to yours when I run it through our plagiarism software. An email that was sent a full fifteen months before you applied to college. I have to follow up on this, Faith. This is serious.”
Fucking Callum. I manage not to curse Millie, although it would be a different story if she was still here.
“Sorry, someone sent you an email and you think that’s sufficient proof that I’m a cheat? They easily could have faked an email.”
“It was from a source I wholeheartedly trust.”
“That source wouldn’t happen to be Callum Carter-Wright, would it?” Frustration makes me want to scream, she’s supposed to be cleve
r, she’s an Oxford professor for christ sakes, can’t she see through Callum’s act?
Her jaw drops again. “I think we both know it is, he’s the one who’s been looking at your essay recently. There is no need for me to deny it.”
“He’s just making trouble for me, and maybe more. Did you know he was the one who found me hidden in the undergrowth? It’s almost like he knew that I was there.” My words are similar to what I said to Samir, but they don’t have the same effect.
Instead of looking horrified, but sympathetic, Professor Headley looks horrified and angry. “Be very careful what you say, Faith. You’re skating on thin ice here. Those sorts of unfounded accusations could ruin a man’s life.”
“Getting attacked could have ended mine.” I snap back.
“And I am very sorry this horrible attack happened to you, but the principal spoke to the officer leading your case. They’ve assured us there is zero chance that Callum could have been your attacker.”
“Of course everyone would believe King Callum.” I roll my eyes. “His parents gave how much money to the college? I wonder what they gave to you and the police?”
“Faith!” Professor Headley admonishes. “That is more than enough, I’ll let that slide because of the traumatic experience you’ve just had, but I will not allow you to speak to me like that again without going to the dean.”
“Sorry,” I mutter, even though I’m not.
“Good, now let’s return to the matter in hand. In this college plagiarism is something we take very seriously.”
“I didn’t plagiarise the essay. I wrote it all myself.”
“That doesn’t explain why Callum received it over email fifteen months before you submitted your application.”
I think about continuing to argue that Callum could have faked the email, but the truth is I know the email Millie sent him was real, so I can’t demand they investigate it. I need to half-confess.
“I showed it to a friend, she needed some inspiration for her own entrance essay.” Ugh, the half-truth sounds so lame. “I can show you the email I sent to her, that’ll prove to you the essay started with me.”