Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, my feet argue for a moment, curling inwards and not wanting to press flat on the rug. I have to concentrate, forcing my toes to the floor, then my heels. Slowly the spasms ease and I can reach the bathroom.
The mirror is cruel this morning. I pull at the skin beneath my bloodshot eyes and examine my tongue. For the past two nights I have had a black Range Rover with blazing headlights chasing me in my dreams. Each time I’ve woken with my heart pounding and my fists clenched on an imaginary steering wheel.
Strawberry is weaving between my bare legs, nipping at my toes, wanting to be fed. I follow her downstairs and fill her bowl, listening to the sound of Gunsmoke beating his tail against the back door and whining with excitement. At least one creature celebrates my getting up each morning.
The phone rings. Ruiz shouts to be heard above aircraft noise.
‘Hey, Professor, you ever wondered why when you park in a totally empty airport car park someone always comes and parks next to you?’
‘It’s one of life’s great mysteries.’
‘Like pigeons.’
‘What’s so mysterious about pigeons?’
‘They’re always the same size. You never see baby pigeons or old-age pigeons.’
‘You don’t get out enough.’
‘I’m just a thinker.’
The jet has passed. A boiled sweet rattles against his teeth. ‘Hey, there’s someone I want you to meet.’
‘Where?’
‘In Edinburgh.’
‘Who is it?’
‘I’ll explain when you get here.’
A part of me wants to resist the idea. I don’t want to travel. I want to stay close to home - particularly after what happened two nights ago - but I set Ruiz on the scent and he wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.
‘I’ll book a flight and get back to you.’
Firstly, I call Bill Johnson at the local garage and ask him to pick up the Volvo and find me a new door. I tell him that I’ll leave the keys under the seat. Hanging up, I turn on my laptop and go online to book a flight to Edinburgh. Finally, I call Julianne and ask if I can borrow her car.
‘What’s wrong with yours?’
‘It doesn’t have a door.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s a long story.’
I can imagine her eyes rolling towards the ceiling in a well-worn expression of un-surprise.
‘One more thing - I’m going away tomorrow. Just for the day. I won’t be back in time to pick up Emma.’
‘I’ll get one of the other mothers to take her home.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
Fifteen minutes later, I let myself into the cottage. Breakfast dishes are rinsed in the kitchen sink. Julianne’s car keys are on the mantelpiece. I’m about to leave when I remember that I wanted a photograph of Sienna. Charlie used to have one pinned to the corkboard above her desk. I hope she won’t mind me borrowing it.
I climb the stairs and open her bedroom door, which has a ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ sign with a note written underneath: ‘That means you, Emma!’ Given that Emma can’t read yet, it seems rather superfluous, but I’m sure the message has been passed on orally.
Charlie’s pyjamas are pooled on her unmade bed. Her desk is near the window. Her laptop is open. I scan the corkboard and spy a strip of passport-sized photographs taken at a photo-booth. Charlie and Sienna are sitting on each other’s laps, pulling funny faces. The last picture is of Sienna leaning towards the lens as though reading the instructions, unsure if the camera is going to flash again.
Elsewhere the noticeboard is decorated with Post-it notes, pictures, newspaper clippings and reminders. One snapshot shows Charlie and Sienna on a Ferris wheel at the Wessex Show. It was published on the front page of the Somerset Standard.
Charlie’s laptop is ‘sleeping’. I press the spacebar and the hard drive begins spinning. The screen illuminates. I know I shouldn’t be doing this. I should respect her privacy. At the same time, I keep thinking of Sienna and her secrets and of Charlie crying at school and of our post-game conversation on Saturday.
Clicking open the history directory, I scan through the websites Charlie has been ‘surfing’. Most of them I recognise: her Facebook page, iTunes, YouTube, Twitter . . .
She has set up a profile on MSN, a message application that allows her to communicate with friends online. There are no text conversations recorded. Charlie must have ticked a box in the settings to delete old messages.
I look at her Facebook page - the photo albums. There are shots of her last school camp, a friend’s party, our weekend in the Lake District, chasing Gunsmoke through the garden after he stole one of her trainers. Some of the photographs make me smile. Others tug at unseen strings in my chest.
Opening a new ‘album’ I discover two photographs where I don’t recognise the context. Charlie is lying on a large bed, playing with a young boy. Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, she is lying on her front, resting on her elbows. The collar of the T-shirt dips open at her neck, revealing little yet I still find it disconcerting.
The next image shows her lying on her back with the little boy balanced on her knees. I wonder who took the shots. Someone she felt comfortable with. Someone she trusted.
Looking at them, I can imagine Charlie as a young woman, a mother, married with a family. It’s strange because, normally, I still picture her as being a little girl in her Dalmatian pyjamas and red cowboy boots, putting on ‘shows’ in the garden.
Clicking off the site, I close the lid of the laptop, sending it back to sleep.
Shepparton Park School. Mid-morning. The headmaster Derek Stozer is a tall, slope-shouldered man with a lumpy body and the makings of a comb-over. I’ve only met him twice - including at a prize-giving day when he mumbled through his formal welcome speech and made fifteen minutes last longer than a wet weekend in Truro.
His secretary, Mrs Summers, is like an over-protective wife who dotes on him.
‘You should have called for an appointment,’ she says. ‘He’s a very busy man.’
‘Of course, I’m sorry.’
‘What’s the nature of your inquiry?’
‘It’s personal.’
She blinks at me, expecting more. I smile. She’s not happy. Leaning across her desk, she whispers into an intercom. Eventually, I am escorted down a carpeted corridor, past honour boards and trophy cabinets.
Derek Stozer rises from his chair and hitches his trousers before shaking my hand.
‘Professor O’Loughlin, how can I help you? Is this about Charlotte?’
‘No.’
‘Oh?’ He gazes at me along his nose.
As soon as I mention Sienna Hegarty his mood changes and he mumbles something that might be ‘terrible business’ or could be ‘ermine fizziness’. He points to a chair and resumes his own.
‘I’ve been asked to examine Sienna and to prepare a psych report for the court. In the course of interviewing her family, I became aware that Ray Hegarty made a complaint to the school a week before he died. I believe it related to a member of your staff. I’ve since learned that this same member of staff has complained about harassing phone calls from Sienna.’
The headmaster doesn’t react immediately. After a moment of reflection, he clears his throat. ‘From time to time parents and students have issues with teachers. It’s not uncommon.’
‘Mr Hegarty claimed he saw this particular member of staff kissing his daughter.’
There is a longer silence. Mr Stozer stands and stretches his legs, wandering between the window and his desk, clasping his hands behind his back.
‘Mr Hegarty was mistaken. I have talked to the member of staff involved, who assures me that nothing untoward occurred. This member of staff admitted failing to appreciate that a student had developed a crush on him. It was a harmless infatuation. The member of staff immediately distanced himself from the girl and submitted a report.’
‘Did he kiss her?’
‘No, that’s not what happened.’
‘What did happen?’
‘I am led to believe that the girl tried to kiss him. He spurned her advances and reported the matter immediately. I was aware of the incident before Mr Hegarty raised it with me.’
‘Sienna was his babysitter.’
‘And he should never have allowed this. It was a mistake. He admitted as much. It was a failure of judgement.’
‘You investigated?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did you talk to Sienna?’
‘I organised an internal review of the staff member’s actions and performance. I delegated the task to a senior member of staff - the school counsellor.’
‘Miss Robinson?’
‘She’s trained to talk to students about delicate issues.’
Why didn’t Annie tell me any of this?
Mr Stozer continues: ‘Sienna denied anything had happened. She said her father was mistaken.’
‘And you believed her?’
‘Yes, Mr O’Loughlin, I believed her. And I believed Mr Ellis and I believed Miss Robinson.’
The last statement is delivered with far more authority than I thought Stozer capable of.
‘I don’t see what relevance any of this has,’ he adds. ‘Sienna Hegarty was a model student. She wasn’t being bullied. She wasn’t struggling academically. She enjoyed coming to school. She was a healthy, happy teenager—’
‘If Sienna was so healthy and happy, why did Miss Robinson suggest she see a therapist?’
‘Many young girls experience problems when they go through adolescence - I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that. I’m led to believe that Sienna Hegarty was having difficulties at home.’
‘But not at school?’
‘If you’re trying to suggest that her state of mind or her actions had anything to do with this school, I would take serious issue . . .’
He doesn’t finish the statement but the steel in his voice seems to stiffen his resolve. Marching to the door, he turns and says, ‘I have a staff meeting to attend, Professor. If you have any more questions I suggest you put them in writing to the school governors.’
When I cross the river, I don’t turn on to Wells Road but continue along the south bank until I reach Lower Bristol Road. Keeping to the inside lane, I drive slowly and try to pick out the signs on the cross streets.
Danny Gardiner said he dropped Sienna on the corner of Riverside Road and Lower Bristol Road. I pull up a little past the intersection, parking in the forecourt of a used-car dealership. A balmy wind, smelling of the river, sends litter swirling in the gutters.
There are shops and businesses on both sides of the road - a video store, a fish and chip shop, a British Gas showroom, a hairdresser, a florist, sex shop, a minicab office and an off-licence. According to Danny Gardiner this was the first time he’d ever dropped Sienna here.
‘Spare some change, guv?’
A stick-thin black man in a woollen hat holds out his hand with a fingerless glove. Nearby is a shopping trolley of his possessions. I fumble in my pocket. Find a pound. He looks at the coin as though it’s an ancient artefact.
‘You lost?’ he asks.
‘No.’
‘You have a good day.’
‘You too.’
Stepping around his shopping trolley, I push open the door of the hair salon. A young woman in her mid-thirties is washing a customer’s hair in a sink.
‘Excuse me.’
‘What do want, petal? I don’t do men’s hair.’
Moving closer, I show her a passport-sized photograph of Sienna. I’ve folded the strip of images so that only one is showing.
‘Have you seen this girl?’
She dries her hands on a towel and studies it for a moment.
‘Who is she?’
‘A friend of my daughter’s.’
‘Is she missing?’
‘She’s in trouble. Do you work on Tuesdays? She was here a couple of weeks ago - about six o’clock, wearing a black dress.’
The hairdresser shakes her head. ‘Don’t remember her.’
‘Thanks anyway.’
I step outside. The flags are snapping above the car dealership. Next door at the florist shop, a dark-haired woman in jeans and a flannel shirt is moving buckets of flowers, arranging them to best effect. I show her Sienna’s photograph but she says that she closes early on Tuesdays.
‘Maybe you’ve seen her on other days?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she says, looking at me suspiciously.
I move from business to business, hoping somebody might remember Sienna. She looked quite striking in her flapper dress, still wearing her stage make-up. The sex shop is closed up, barricaded behind metal shutters. A sign says it opens late, seven days a week.
Next comes the minicab office on the corner, which is little more than a waiting room with half a dozen plastic chairs and a control booth behind a plywood partition and small glass window. A woman is waiting. Dressed in a long overcoat and high-heel shoes, she’s young. Pretty. She’s wearing too much make-up and has lipstick on her teeth.
The controller is on the phone. Morbidly obese, he has three chins and has to sit two feet from the desk to accommodate his stomach.
He meets my gaze. Keeps talking.
‘. . . yeah, the skinny faggot wanted three-to-one . . . yeah . . . fucking dreaming, I told him so . . . yeah . . .’
He screws a finger into his opposite ear and examines his fingertip.
‘. . . that’s my point, Gaz, you can’t trust the fuckers . . . you got to show them who’s boss, you know . . . otherwise someone’s gonna get seriously fucked up . . . later, Gaz.’
He hangs up. Talks on the two-way radio.
‘. . . yeah, Stevo, it was George Street . . . number eighteen . . . bottom buzzer.’
The controller looks past me at the young woman. ‘Five minutes, love.’ His gaze lingers on her short skirt and her rangy legs. I can almost smell his torpid lust.
Finally, he turns to me and we reciprocally decide to hate each other.
‘I’m looking for this girl. You might have seen her a couple of weeks ago. Tuesday, late afternoon.’
I slide the photograph through a gap in the glass security screen. The controller holds the photograph up to the light like he’s looking at a high-denomination banknote.
‘Who is she?’
‘A friend of mine. I’m trying to help her.’
‘A friend? How are you trying to help her?’
‘She’s in trouble. Have you seen her?’
I want to take the photograph back. I don’t want him touching it.
‘Can’t say I have,’ he wheezes. ‘But if you leave it with me I’ll ask some of the drivers.’ He pushes a scrap of paper towards me. ‘Jot down your name and number. I’ll call you if I come up with anything.
‘I can’t leave it with you. I don’t have any more photos of her.’
The obese controller has unfolded the strip of shots and now he’s studying the pictures of Charlie and Sienna together. He runs his thumb over Charlie’s face.
‘So who’s this other girlie?’
‘Nobody important.’
A smile extends across his face. ‘I’m sure that she thinks she’s important.’
‘Just give it back to me.’
Again that same predatory leer. Pinching the strip of photographs between his thumb and forefinger, he extends his arm towards me. I have to tug it once, twice, three times before he lets it go.
A car pulls up outside, the engine running.
‘That’s your car, love,’ says the controller.
The woman rises and straightens a skirt beneath her coat, checking out her reflection in the darkened front window. I hold the door open for her but she doesn’t acknowledge me. It’s as though she’s trying hard not to be noticed despite how she’s dressed.
The minicab driver gets out of the car and opens the door for her. He’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with a slogan on the back: ‘Happy Hour - Half-Price Sex’.
When he turns I can see his pale, narrow face and the tattoos running down his cheeks like black tears dripping from his chemical green eyes. It’s the same man I saw standing outside the restaurant when I had lunch with Julianne.
The minicab controller interrupts my thoughts. ‘He’s got a photograph. He’s looking for a girl.’
The driver doesn’t answer, but takes a step towards me. Every instinct tells me not to show him Sienna’s photograph, but he takes it from me, cocking his head to one side and studying the image as though committing her face, her hair, her budding body to memory.
Then slowly he raises his face to mine. I can smell his aftershave and something else, lurking beneath.
‘What’s this girl to you?’
‘It’s not important.’
‘Really? Try me.’
‘No, that’s OK.’
I reach out for the photograph.
‘Maybe you should leave this with us,’ he says. ‘I’ll keep an eye out for her.’
As he says the words, he raises two fingers to his face and traces the dripping tattoos down each cheek, dragging his flesh out of shape. Something inside me shudders.
‘Forget I asked,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry to bother you.’
‘No bother. What’s your name?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yeah, it does. You should leave your name and number - in case she turns up.’
He’s in front of me now. What is that smell? Reaching out, I take the strip of photographs from his fingers, not wanting to touch him. Lowering my gaze, I step around him and keep walking, not looking back. I don’t want to think about this man. I don’t want to know his name or where he lives or what he’s done.
The minicab pulls away from the kerb and accelerates along the street past me, carrying the sad-eyed girl and the crying man. As I watch the car turn the corner, voice inside my head is whispering that I’ve been wrong. This is bigger and darker and more complex than I imagined.