Cold Revenge (Willis/Carter #6)(65)

‘I want protection. I don’t want to lose my baby. Please, believe me, I never did anything wrong. If I tell you what I know, you have to protect me.’

‘We will,’ said Carter. He took her silence for agreement and started to caution her.

‘No, I’m not telling you this under caution, not yet, not till I’m safe.’

Carter nodded. ‘Go ahead.’

‘I remember this man.’ She tapped on the photo. ‘Tony.’

Carter and Willis held their breath as they waited for her to tell them what she knew.

‘You promise you’ll protect me and Bonny?’ Carter nodded. ‘I’m telling you, I did nothing wrong.’

‘What happened, Yvonne? Tell us,’ said Willis.

‘It was a Saturday night. Millie wanted me to go with her to the bungalow that night and hang out. Nicola was going to put on a barbecue, we were going to drink some beers.’ She looked up from her thoughts. ‘They drugged me – put something in my cider, I know it. I was fine one minute then I tried to stand but I couldn’t and then the next thing I felt the weight of someone on me. I remember screaming but no noise came out.’

‘Do you know who it was?’

‘I knew there was more than one. I saw all of them, their faces – Nicola, Stephen and Gav. They were causing me so much pain but I couldn’t move.’ Yvonne began scratching at her arms that bore the scars of self-harm. Willis held on to her hands to stop her.

‘Was Douglas one of the people who assaulted you?’

‘Could have been, I passed out, I think, because I don’t remember anything more until I came to really early. It wasn’t even light.’

‘Where were you then?’

‘I was in Stephen Perry’s room, in his bed.’

‘On your own?’ asked Willis.

‘Yes, I couldn’t make it out, what had happened. I felt really crap, everything hurt, I felt sick, my head was pounding. I was bleeding. I remember thinking, shit – I’ve made a mess in the bed. But another part of me was thinking, it can’t be because I’d just finished my period. I was really sore and not just there, my arse was ripped, I could hardly stand, let alone walk. I began thinking I’d been raped. I went into the sitting room, Nicola was there, she was cleaning and Millie was crying. Cathy was there too, she just kept staring at me, it was like a dream. It was all really weird. Stephen walked in from outside, everyone was quiet, no music, no partying. I looked over in the corner and there was that guy Tony. His head was twisted to the side. I started screaming. I remember just standing there looking at him, he was all distorted, his eyes were open, just staring at me. His mouth looked like he was screaming at me and I was screaming back. He had this stuff coming out of his mouth. Nicola tried to stop me screaming. She shook me and she said to me: “We had to do it for you. We did it for you. He went mad, he started hitting out. He attacked you.” I looked at Millie and she just kept crying.

‘I was listening to it all, desperately trying to remember, and I kept getting flashbacks but the person attacking me wasn’t that guy Tony, it was the others. Nicola told me he’d attacked Millie and Cathy as well. Millie was just crying, she couldn’t look at the head. Cathy didn’t say anything. Stephen was hugging her.

‘After a while Douglas came in with Gavin and he said to me, “We’re going to take care of this for you. We are going to take care of it all. He attacked you, did Nicola tell you?” I remember just looking at Millie and thinking this isn’t real. Douglas told me Gav could tell me what I did, and Stephen too. They told me I started having sex with this guy and he got nasty. They told me he kept hitting me and he raped me. Douglas had to use all his force to pull him off me, they said. I remember looking at the body and saying, “I don’t remember it.” Then Douglas told me we were off our faces and when I said we had to call the police he said, “And tell them what? It was self-defence? They’re never going to believe you. Look, this man is just no one, he’s a nothing, he’s not worth you worrying about. You’ll both get life sentences for it and he’s just worth nothing. We have a place we can take him, no one will find him. We are prepared to do it for you.” I remember looking at Stephen and Gavin and they couldn’t even look me in the eyes. Millie looked at me and just shook her head. Nicola came and hugged us both and Douglas said, “I was trying to pull him off you, me and Stephen, and you were forcing his head back, I don’t know who actually caused it, but we all share it; we’re all in this together, the chain keeps us safe. We’re stronger than any chain, no one breaks it, we’re all in this together.”

‘I went and sat on the toilet and I still couldn’t understand what was happening. I heard Ash talking to Douglas and then the sound of the van starting up. I think they must have moved the body then, it was just beginning to get light. Nicola said she had to look after Elle, Ash’s mum, and she’d give her a bath. She asked me to run it and we all helped wash her. It was unreal. We pretended like nothing had happened. When Jimmy came back Nicola did our tattoos. It took all day and I remember thinking, oh God, please let me go, let me go home, and Millie was walking around in a daze but every time she started crying again Nicola or Douglas would just start telling her we should be grateful, and we were, in an odd way.

‘After the tattoos we sat around drinking beer, while Nicola lit the fire pit and burned Tony’s clothes. We stood around and watched. Jimmy took me home in his van; we didn’t speak all the way. He stopped to let me throw up, that was all. As he dropped me off he told me not to worry about a thing, it was all taken care of and only the boys knew where the body went. That way they shared in our guilt. We all shared it, that’s what he said. I went to bed and stayed there till the next morning. I kept trying to remember what had happened. I kept getting flashbacks; I remembered looking across and seeing this weird shape, like some kind of weird-shaped animal, and then I realised it was Douglas riding on someone, fucking someone from behind. Cathy was there somehow too but I just couldn’t get it clear in my mind. Millie and I never spoke about it again. The tattoo was a reminder to us that we’d done something with the others, something terrible.’