Текст книги "You Against Me "
Автор книги: Дженни Даунхэм
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
Tom stood in the doorway. Ellie could feel him there and knew she should stop crying. He padded across the kitchen in his bare feet and squatted next to her.
I’m scared of you, she thought. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and tried not to look at him. But he tipped her face to his with the flat of his hand. His cheeks were scorched, like there was a fire stoking his gut.
‘Where have you been?’
‘The baker’s.’
‘Bit early for that.’
She showed him the plate with the croissant on it. ‘See?’
‘Did you get me anything?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Don’t you like me any more?’
He wasn’t kidding. He was actually saying it. It was like something under the floorboards rearing up and showing itself. She didn’t know how to answer, or even if he expected her to speak.
He said, ‘Freddie saw you yesterday. It was early, he reckoned, around six in the morning.’
‘I went for a walk.’
‘Where?’
Her heart slammed in her chest. She’d walked across town, over to the estate, with the sole purpose of looking up at the windows and seeing if she could guess where Mikey and Karyn lived.
‘Nowhere. Just walking.’
A beat. Then, ‘Why do I feel like you’re not on my side any more?’ He turned and walked slowly to the door, stood there for a second before turning back to her. ‘Please don’t give up on me.’
Thirty‑one
The curtains billowed like sails. Sunlight flickered on the carpet. On the bed, Tom lay with his eyes shut listening to his iPod. Ellie stood on the landing watching him. He looked like a perfectly ordinary boy in a perfectly ordinary room. No padlock, no police tape, the door open wide.
Tom Alexander Parker, who she’d grown up with for years, and surely he wouldn’t let anything terrible happen?
He must’ve felt Ellie there, because he sat up suddenly and looked right at her. He took off his headphones. ‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Why are you standing there staring at me? You trying to creep me out?’
‘Dinner’s ready, that’s all. Mum said to tell you.’
Ellie kneeled at the dog’s basket, stroked her muzzle, stared deep into her milky eyes, said, ‘How are you, my beautiful grey nose? How’s my lovely old girl?’
‘Eleanor,’ Dad said, ‘will you please sit back down at the table and leave the dog alone?’
She sat down. Mum carried a dish of lamb chops across to the table and Tom stabbed two of them up with a fork. Mum went back to the oven and turned peas and carrots into bowls. Tom passed the chops to Dad. Mum put the vegetables on the table and Tom helped himself. Mum went back to the oven and pulled out a tray of roast potatoes, using a tea towel as a glove.
‘Any mint sauce?’ Dad said.
‘Yes, yes, it’s coming.’
‘Gravy?’
‘That too.’
Dad tapped his fingers on the table to get Ellie’s attention. ‘Are you going to help your mother, or are you just going to sit there?’
‘I suppose,’ Dad said, ‘we have to understand she must be very damaged to make up such a story in the first place. She comes from a very under‑privileged background – single mum on benefits, three kids, no prospects for any of them. No wonder the girl was attracted to Tom.’
Tom waved his lamb chop in agreement. ‘She was pretty impressed with the house.’
His lips shone with grease, his fingers too. He ripped meat from the bone with his teeth as though he hadn’t eaten for days.
Ellie said, ‘What was the food like when you were locked up?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Was it worse than school dinners?’
Tom glared at her. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘Did you get three meals a day, or only one?’
‘Ellie, I’m not in the mood.’
‘Did you share a cell, or were you put in isolation?’
Dad slammed his fork down. ‘That’s enough!’ A spatter of gravy flew across the table and landed on the cloth. ‘If you can’t be civil, then go to your room. What the hell’s got into you, Eleanor?’
‘Take your plate out, please,’ Mum said quietly, ‘and put it in the dishwasher.’
Ellie pushed back her chair, stood up and walked out into the garden.
The grass on a warm April day smelled luxurious. Ellie lay facedown and raked her fingers through it. It reminded her of the holidays they used to have camping, how the grass by the sea tasted salty, how she and Tom would lie in the dunes and chase sand bugs with their fingers.
Mum came out and sat next to her. ‘Why are you doing everything conceivably possible to annoy your brother?’
Ellie twisted onto her back, crossed her arms under her head for a pillow. ‘Is Dad the love of your life?’
‘Of course.’ Mum frowned gently.
Behind her mother’s shoulder, the house looked like a fancy cake on a pale green lawn. Sunlight reflected in the windows, like tiny fires behind every pane of glass.
‘Come on, Ellie, talk to me. These last few days, you’ve been so quiet.’
But how do you say unspeakable things to your very own mother?
‘Before you met Dad, who were you?’
‘I was a secretary, you know that.’ She smiled fondly at the memory. ‘Dad asked me out the first time we met. I was seeing someone already, so I said no, but whenever he came to my office he’d ask again. He was very persistent. Once he waited by the lifts at the end of the day and followed me home.’
‘He sounds like a stalker.’
‘No, it was romantic! You’re always so hard on your dad, Ellie. He was lovely to me – bought me presents, told me I was special. He said fate meant us to be together. Eventually, I gave in.’
‘What happened to your boyfriend?’
‘He found someone else.’ She made a shrug with her hands, as if there was no alternative. ‘Dad wanted me more.’
The lounge was empty. Ellie turned on the TV, put the remote on the table and settled back to watch a re‑run of Friends. Food and TV were very comforting. Three minutes later, Dad and Tom came in.
‘What’s this rubbish?’ Dad picked up the remote and switched channels.
‘I was watching that.’
‘The golf’s on.’
‘But I was here first.’
He gave her a tired smile. ‘You’ve got a TV in your room, haven’t you? Come on, Ellie, give us a break, there’s two of us.’
Tom shook his head, as if to say, What we have to put up with, eh? Then he sat down and put his feet up on the coffee table.
Dizzy behind her eyes, sharp stabbing pains in her head, like holding her breath underwater, as she reached for the door handle. You can do this, she thought. You have to face it some time. She pushed the door open a few inches – enough to see the new laptop, new duvet, new bed sheets, new mattress. Everything the forensic people took away that night had been replaced. It was as if nothing had happened.
She shut the door and went back to her room to revise.
Tom came in without knocking. He stood in the doorway and Ellie studiously ignored him. ‘You’re depressed,’ he announced, ‘so I bought you a Creme Egg.’
He left it next to her revision books on the desk and sidled out.
Easter eggs were officially swapped the next morning. Ellie ate both of hers for breakfast. In the afternoon, the neighbours had a barbecue and invited them. Ellie didn’t go. She lay on her bed with the window open, listening to laughter drift across the fence. She revised the collapse of Communism and ate three hot cross buns.
Later, she walked into her father’s study.
‘Ellie,’ he said, ‘I didn’t hear you knock.’
‘When you and Mum met all those years ago and you asked her out, she didn’t say yes straight away, did she?’
He turned from his desk, frowning. ‘What is this?’
‘What would you have done if she kept saying no?’
He sighed. ‘I’ve got things to do, Eleanor. Please shut the door on your way out.’
After underwear, Mum rolled on her tights, rolling them so slowly that Ellie knew she was distracted. After tights, she pulled on her skirt, then her new blouse from Boden, carefully doing up the buttons, as if care and tidiness would get them all through. After shoes, a chain for her neck. It had been a week since Easter and Ellie had something to say, had been trying to say it for days, but her courage was waning.
‘I went to look at you and Tom in your beds this morning,’ Mum said. ‘I haven’t done that since you were babies.’ She turned to Ellie. ‘Your bed was empty.’
‘I went for a walk.’
A pause, then, ‘You’re becoming a stranger to me, Ellie.’
Mum, I have something to tell you – you better sit down.
Ellie swilled the words around her mouth. How would it feel to say them out loud?
Dad kissed one of Mum’s shoulders – lovely and surprising on the stairs. ‘I popped into town and got your mother an egg,’ he told her, ‘hand‑crafted and half price from that sweet shop, look.’ He showed her the box. Gold foil dazzled their faces.
‘That’s kind of you, Simon,’ she said.
‘A bit after the event, but she won’t mind, will she?’ He smiled. ‘Whenever you’re ready, we’ll be off to see her, eh?’
Ellie, in the hallway looking up at them, thought, I am wrong, I am wrong, I am wrong.
The dog could barely flap her tail. Ellie carried her outside in the basket and set her on the lawn so she could feel the sun. She sat next to her to keep her company, gave her new names – Beauty, Poor Lamb, Sweet Girl – stroked her grey nose, told her she remembered her being a puppy when Gran first got her, all those summers running together on the beach.
The dog looked at her as if she too remembered these things – such a sweetly puzzled look that Ellie leaned in to kiss her.
‘That dog’s beginning to smell,’ Tom said, coming up silently behind her.
Go away, Ellie thought. I don’t want you near me.
A perfectly ordinary room – no padlock, no police tape, the door open wide. Tom was downstairs watching TV, but here was his desk and new laptop, his chair, his laundry spilling from its basket. His wallpaper was blue. So were his curtains and duvet and pillows.
Blue for a boy.
Ellie took five steps inside and touched the edge of the bed with one finger. She closed her eyes and let memories leak in.
*
‘She’s drunk!’
Dad’s jaw clicked with fury and Ellie laughed. Mum and Tom looked on in horror, which made her laugh even harder.
Dad said, ‘Breathe on me, Eleanor.’
She huffed right in his face.
He frowned. ‘Apples? I don’t even have any cider.’
‘Punch.’ Ellie demonstrated with her hands – the apples she’d chopped, the little oranges she’d peeled, the vodka she’d poured, glug, glug, from his best bottle, the juice from the fridge. ‘Lots of juice,’ she slurred, pointing a finger at Tom, ‘hides the taste.’
‘She should go to bed,’ Tom said. ‘Shouldn’t she? Sleep it off.’
Ellie laughed again, arms open wide. ‘Gonna carry me up?’
The room spun, like it’d got caught in the wind, as Mum unbuckled Ellie’s belt, pulled down her zip and yanked off her jeans.
‘Silly girl,’ Mum said.
Ellie clutched at her. ‘I have to tell you‑’
‘No talking.’ Mum pulled the duvet over her. ‘Try and sleep. I’ll check on you in a while.’
Lights smeared the ceiling as the door shut behind her and the room whirled faster and faster.
Thirty‑two
Ellie sat at the kitchen table and watched her mother whisk eggs and milk into a bowl of flour. She looked furious with it. Her hips, her waist, the wings of her shoulders through her cotton dress were all twisting and pounding at it.
‘What are you making, Mum?’
‘Batter for Yorkshire puddings.’
‘Why are you always making stuff?’
‘We’ve got to eat, haven’t we?’
‘But only like once a day or something. Does it have to be three times? Don’t you get sick of it?’
Her mum stopped whisking and looked down at her with a frown. ‘When you get married and have a family of your own, you can hire yourself a cook, but until then, can you keep your criticisms to yourself?’
‘I wasn’t saying anything bad.’
Her mum ground salt and pepper into the mix, covered the bowl with a tea towel and slid it to the back of the counter. She stood hands on hips for a minute, as if wondering what to do next, then took a bottle of wine from the rack above her head, opened it up and poured herself a very large glass.
She’s scared… and I’m about to make everything worse…
‘Would you like a drink before lunch?’ Mum said. ‘There’s some Diet Coke in the fridge, unless of course you’d prefer a double vodka?’
Ellie pulled a face and Mum half smiled at her. It had been days since the drinking incident and no one was letting her forget it.
‘What about a cup of tea then?’ Mum said.
‘No thanks.’
Ellie didn’t want anything to interrupt them, though she would actually have liked a drink.
The windows were steamed up and Mum opened the back door and stood on the step with her wine glass. Cold air shivered its way into the kitchen, bringing the smell of bacon and onions from somewhere. The dog snuffled in her basket, deep in a dream. Ellie wondered when Dad and Tom were going to get home.
‘I love this garden,’ Mum said, and she stepped right outside. Ellie followed her and they stood on the edge of the lawn together.
Mum said, ‘Sometimes I think it was a mistake moving here from London. Dad kept going on about what an opportunity it was, and being close to Gran made sense at the time. But it was this’ – she gestured with her hand at the lawn, the trees, the river – ‘this seduced me.’
She smiled at Ellie, and her face was so warm and open. Say it, say it, go on. Give it to her. She’ll know what to do.
Ellie bit her lip, words stuck on her tongue.
Her mum suddenly looked up, shielding her eyes with a hand. ‘Look at that. Isn’t it beautiful?’
Three geese flew across the sky in a straight line. Around them the clouds were swelling and darkening. There was a smell of electricity in the air. Even the birds rushing through the sky seemed aware of it.
‘See what I mean about being seduced?’ Mum said. She sighed then checked her watch. ‘Now, do you think Barry’s expecting food? I haven’t a clue. Dad’s invited him round to steady our nerves, but maybe he’s only expecting a glass of wine or a cup of tea. I don’t want to embarrass the man by offering him lunch. What do you reckon the etiquette is?’
‘I don’t know, Mum. I didn’t even know he was coming and I don’t know anything about etiquette when it comes to lawyers.’
Her mum smiled wearily. ‘No, I don’t suppose you do.’ She leaned against the door frame, the wine glass to her cheek, cooling her down.
‘Mum, there’s something I need to tell you.’
Her mother nodded, but she looked so tired. ‘You can talk to me about anything.’
Standard response.
One, two, three drops of rain, heavy and fat, splashing on the path. Ellie fiddled with a button on her dress – buttoning, unbuttoning it.
‘Karyn McKenzie is telling the truth.’
She could tell by the stillness and the sudden clench of her jaw that her mother had heard.
‘I suggest you think very carefully before you go any further, Ellie.’
‘I’ve thought carefully for weeks. I can’t stop thinking.’
Her mum shook her head very slowly, as if it was a physical thing Ellie had flung at her, a stick that was caught in her hair.
‘Tom’s whole future is at stake. Don’t make this worse than it already is.’
‘But I keep going over and over that night in my head and more stuff comes back to me, more things fit into place. I keep thinking about Karyn and how hurt she is and how it’s not fair if I don’t say what I know.’
‘Not fair?’ Her mother turned to her; wine stained the corners of her mouth. ‘Your brother’s reputation is in tatters. His A‑level year’s been ruined, his confidence is at rock bottom. You think any of that’s fair?’ Her voice was tremulous, her eyes wide and fearful. ‘This isn’t the time for misgivings.’
‘So what am I supposed to do with the stuff I keep thinking?’
‘You’ve had every opportunity,’ Mum hissed. ‘You’ve been interviewed by the police and you’ve made a statement. You told the police everything that happened that night.’
Not quite. Not even the beginning.
‘So, you’ve never doubted him, Mum?’
There was a pause. It had weight to it, like you could hold it in your hand, like a rock from the garden.
‘Answer the door, Ellie.’
‘What?’
‘That was the door. That’ll be Barry.’
‘But this is important!’
‘So we leave him standing on the doorstep, do we?’ Her mother’s lips were trembling as she knocked the last of the wine back. ‘Go on, go away if you’re not going to answer the door. And don’t bother coming back until you’ve learned to control yourself.’
Ellie’s breath came hot and quick as she ran across the lawn. She felt like she had a fever, like that time she had tonsillitis. Perhaps she was sick, properly sick, in her body as well as her head. Maybe this is what a nervous breakdown felt like – feelings spilling out of you. She sat on the bench under the walnut tree fighting back tears.
There was a boy in her school called Flynn whose parents had been woken by the police at three in the morning and told that their son had been arrested. They said there must be a mistake, he’s safe in his bed. But when they checked, he was gone. He’d climbed out of his window and gone tagging. He was caught with spray cans and a load of weed in his coat pocket.
Parents don’t know their children at all.
No one knows anyone, in fact. Her brother could be a rapist. Mikey could be a hero.
It was raining heavily now, splattering off the leaves above her. Even the grass, dark blue in the half‑light, looked like water rippling. She pulled her knees up and hugged them, closed her eyes and tried to think of nothing.
It was only a few minutes later when Barry appeared on the lawn.
‘Mind if I join you?’ he said.
He had her mother’s little fold‑up umbrella, which he closed when he reached the shelter of the tree.
‘I was given special permission to smoke in the house, but I didn’t feel comfortable doing that. You OK if I smoke here?’
Ellie nodded, too stunned to say anything. He pulled a pack of Silk Cut and a Zippo from his coat pocket and sat beside her. He lit up, and together they watched the smoke curl away into the rain. Ellie’s heart was beating fast.
‘I’ve just been talking to your mum,’ he said, ‘and she thought it might be a good idea for me to have a little chat with you about the court case.’
Hadn’t Mum told Ellie to shut up and stay away? And now she’d sent the lawyer out to talk to her. What the hell was that about?
He said, ‘I think the most important thing to remember, Ellie, is that you’re the expert. You were the only other person in the house when the alleged assault occurred, so you already know all the answers to any questions you’ll be asked in court. That might be a useful way of looking at it, don’t you think?’
She shrugged. She didn’t want to hear how easy it was going to be, or how she simply needed to stick to the truth. Those things wouldn’t help her at all.
‘What about if I fill you in on procedure a little bit?’ He tossed his fag end across the grass and twisted himself round to see her better, taking her silence as consent. He talked about her statement, which would be read out in court, about the witness box and how she’d have to stand in it, about the barrister and all the very easy questions he’d ask – who came back to the house, what time she went to bed, if she heard any noises in the night. As he spoke, his face faded to darkness as the sky got gloomier and the rain fell more heavily around them. It was like hearing someone talk through a fish tank. He said, ‘You simply have to repeat what you said in your statement, that you heard and saw nothing suspicious. That seems pretty straightforward. You think you can manage that?’
At the other end of the garden, through the window, she could see her father in the kitchen. He was standing by the sink looking out and his mouth was moving, like someone on TV with the sound turned down. Her mum was behind him with a pacifying hand on his shoulder. If Ellie was close enough, she’d be able to see the alarm in her mother’s eyes, her desperate need to make everything all right. Let Barry deal with it, she’d be saying. Ellie’s feeling a bit nervous. No need for you to get involved.
She thought she’d sorted it. She thought Ellie’s words were a temporary blip, that she merely needed a talk with a professional and everything would be fine.
Stamp it out, ease it down, glue it back together.
‘It’s hard for you,’ Barry said, ‘we all see that, but it’s important for your brother that you help him. No one else can help him as much as you can.’
He was fiddling with his Zippo, running it up and down his trouser leg so that the little lid at the top opened, then shut again.
Ellie felt strangely calm as she turned to him. ‘I told Tom that Karyn was only fifteen.’
To her surprise, Barry smiled. ‘Is that what’s been bothering you – that Karyn wasn’t old enough to give consent?’
‘He’s going around saying he thought she was sixteen.’
Barry’s face fell into something she recognized from her father when he wanted to explain a concept she might find particularly complicated. ‘Ellie, people often forget things they’re told, especially when it’s late at night, or they’ve been drinking. It was noisy, the music was loud, it’s not impossible he didn’t even hear you.’
‘He definitely did.’
‘Well, he clearly has no recollection, so I think we can safely rule it out as a piece of evidence.’
‘You mean, let’s pretend I never said it?’
‘It wouldn’t stand up in court, Ellie. You’d get a grilling from the prosecution for no reason. Tom would simply say he didn’t remember you telling him, and anyway, unless Karyn can prove he forced himself on her the age difference is so small between them it becomes immaterial.’
There was something in his eyes, a way of looking at her blankly through a smile, as if he was adapting what she said to suit him. She hated him suddenly.
‘Karyn was really drunk,’ she said. ‘She was so drunk that when the boys carried her upstairs between them, she couldn’t even speak. Did Tom tell you that?’
The solicitor frowned. ‘Carried her?’
‘And shoved her on Tom’s bed.’
‘Do you mean the other witnesses, Freddie and James?’
‘Yeah, them. James had the stick that opens the blinds and was lifting her skirt up with it. She was completely trashed and the three of them stood around laughing and taking pictures of her on their phones.’ Ellie’s voice sounded loud – the rain didn’t dampen it, but made it ring clear. She wondered if she could be heard from the house. ‘I told them to leave her alone.’
She felt Barry tense beside her. He leaned forward and stared down at the grass, as if something amazing had appeared there.
‘Freddie and James went home, but Karyn was too drunk to move, so we left her on the bed and Tom went downstairs to sleep on the sofa.’
She wanted Barry to react. She stared at him, willing him to understand that Karyn couldn’t possibly have consented to what happened next. But instead, he turned to her, a tight smile on his face.
‘This is obviously quite an awkward situation for me,’ he said, ‘so I’m going to stop you there.’ He stood up, hands in pockets, a shadow between her and the house. ‘I don’t want to be getting information from you that could compromise your brother’s position.’
‘So I can’t talk to you?’
‘Why, was there something else?’
Her hands on her lap were startling, not quite her own, lying there so passive while her head was whirling.
‘There’s a lot more.’
‘Ellie, you told the police you saw and heard nothing all night.’
‘I didn’t want to get my brother into trouble.’
He sighed deeply. ‘Then I suggest you seek legal advice.’
‘You mean get my own lawyer?’
‘I think that would be a good idea.’
‘But you asked me to talk to you. You came out here and asked me questions.’
‘I’m your brother’s solicitor and I can’t get into any situation where it looks as if I may have advised you.’
‘So, you’re not going to do anything?’
‘I’m going to talk to your brother. Then I’m going to advise the barrister we don’t call you as a witness.’
Hot waves of fear broke in her chest. ‘You mean you don’t want me going to court in case I blurt all this out and Tom goes to jail?’
‘I mean I’m your brother’s solicitor and I have to look after his best interests. There’s no way we’ll call you to the stand under these circumstances.’
She nodded dumbly.
‘I’m going inside now, Ellie.’
She wanted to stop him, to force him to listen to the rest of it. But she didn’t move. What was the point? Instead, she watched him stride back across the grass, go through the French doors and wipe his feet on the mat.
Let’s just forget it, Mikey had said. No more texts, no more anything.
Help me, Mikey, she wanted to say. I’m afraid. More afraid than you’d ever believe.
And he’d take her hand and they’d fly across the rooftops and up into space and sit on some planet and watch a double sunrise or maybe a star being born or some other event that no human had ever seen, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. And she’d tell him everything.
Her mother appeared on the step. She had her gardening shoes on and the same umbrella she’d loaned to Barry. She picked her way across the grass as if the sky was about to fall on her head.
‘What did you say to him?’ she said when she got close enough. ‘He wants to talk to Tom alone in the study and even Dad’s not allowed in.’ Her eyes clutched at Ellie’s. ‘Did you tell him what you told me?’
‘It’ll be all right,’ Ellie whispered.
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘I’m sorry, Mum, I can’t do this any more.’
Her mum called, ‘Where are you going?’ as Ellie sprinted away. ‘Come back here right now!’
Round the side of the house, through the gate and out onto the lane, kicking her way through puddles, her feet spattering mud, her legs pounding distance between her family and the world beyond them. She hadn’t run for weeks. She hadn’t moved for years, it felt. She would run for ever. Her limbs were strong and healthy. She felt like an animal. She ran and ran, past trees dripping with rain, past other people’s houses and gardens, along the muddy lane towards the town.
Thirty‑three
Mikey banged out of the door and down the stairs. Never mind the lift, stairs were quicker, racing down five flights, his heart pounding. Just before the bottom, he stopped, because there she was outside, her face pointing up to the rain. He slammed through the doors and marched up to her.
‘What are you doing?’
Her dress was wet, her jeans were wet, even her eyelashes were dripping with rain. ‘I had to see you.’
‘You can’t just text and demand I come down or you’re coming up. Who do you think you are?’
‘I’m sorry. I wouldn’t really have come up. I don’t even know which flat’s yours.’ She scanned the block of flats above them, shielding her eyes against the rain. ‘Which one is it?’
He shook his head. ‘You have to go.’
Her eyes travelled the length of the balconies, door after door. ‘Does Karyn know I’m here?’
‘Are you crazy?’
Ellie looked sad then, and confused. ‘Please don’t send me away. You’re the one who came running after me in the beginning, remember?’
That was true, and he felt a bit rubbish then. To make up for it, he pointed out the flat. He wanted her to know he didn’t hate her. It wasn’t about that.
‘Blue door,’ he said, ‘with the Christmas tree outside.’
It was a dead stump of a tree, no needles, but still decorated, still covered in tinsel. It was nearly May and they’d only managed to drag it as far as the balcony. He felt foolish, like he was pointing out their chaos.
‘My little sister likes it,’ he said. ‘She thinks it’ll grow back. I’ll swap it for a new one in December and hope she doesn’t notice.’
Ellie looked at him, a strange, deep look. ‘That’s kind.’
He hadn’t thought of it as being kind. It’s just what you did if you wanted Holly to be happy – you pretended there was magic in the world.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You have to go. Serious, I’ve got work in half an hour and Jacko’s picking me up. My life won’t be worth living if he sees you here.’
He led her round the corner, by the lift, where it was sheltered from the rain. She grabbed her hair with one hand and twisted it, wringing it out. He peeled off his jacket and offered it to her.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Take this, or you’ll get pneumonia on the way home.’
She put it on without a word and did up the zip. She shoved her hands deep into the pockets. He hoped there weren’t any scaggy tissues in there, or packets of condoms, girls’ phone numbers…
‘You’re the nicest person I ever met,’ she said.
She must know some total shits if she was impressed by a coat.
‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘I’m going now.’
She put a hand on his arm. ‘I have to tell you something.’
‘I don’t want to know.’
‘Please,’ she begged. ‘You’re the only person I can tell.’
She looked like she was tempting a bird to feed from her hand, seeing how close she could get to him. It was weird being chased.
‘Two minutes,’ he said.
They sat on the wall together, the lift doors in front of them. It stank of piss, but this was the best they had for now.
‘So,’ he said, ‘did you get in another argument with someone?’
‘Not really.’
‘Was it your brother?’
She shook her head, looked down at her shoes.
‘To be honest, if it is about your brother, I don’t even care. Anything could be true and it wouldn’t surprise me. Maybe Karyn’s lying.’
‘She’s not.’ She turned to him slowly. Fear dipped in and out of her eyes. ‘I wanted to believe Tom was innocent. For weeks I wanted it. But I think he did it and I’m not going to be his witness.’
‘So?’
She frowned at him, puzzled. ‘That’s massive! I’m supposed to stand up in court and say I didn’t see or hear anything. I’m supposed to say my brother is lovely and couldn’t possibly have hurt your sister. And now I’m not going to.’
It wasn’t like she had video footage or anything. Plenty of other people would stand up in court and defend her brother, even if she didn’t.
‘It won’t make any difference, Ellie.’
She let out a little sob, which shocked him. He’d thought girls like her didn’t cry. Weren’t brains supposed to be in charge of feelings?
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Hey, are you OK?’
He put an arm round her and she leaned against him for a minute. She was embarrassed, tried to hide her face from him, kept wiping below her eyes to check her mascara hadn’t run.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to diss you.’
She looked up at him, her cheeks flushed. ‘Why are you being nice to me now?’
‘I like you.’
She started to laugh. He did too. It was great, the sound of it.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘You want to go somewhere? We could if you like.’
