Into the Water(43)

They took me into a room at the back of the police station which was not like what you see on television, it was just an office. We all sat around a table and that woman – DS Morgan – asked the questions. Mostly. Sean asked some too, but mostly it was her.

I told the truth. I bought the pills on Mum’s card because Katie asked me to, and neither of us had any clue that they were bad for you. Or I didn’t, in any case, and if Katie did she never said anything to me about it.

‘You don’t seem particularly concerned,’ DS Morgan said, ‘that they might have contributed to Katie’s negative state of mind at the end of her life?’

I nearly bit through my tongue. ‘No,’ I told her, ‘I’m not concerned about that. Katie didn’t do what she did because of any pills.’

‘So why did she?’

I should have known she’d seize on that, so I kept talking. ‘She didn’t even take that many. A few, probably not more than four or five. Count the pills,’ I said to Sean. ‘I’m pretty sure the order was for thirty-five. Count them.’

‘We will,’ he said. Then he asked, ‘Did you supply pills to anyone else?’ I shook my head, but he wouldn’t leave it at that. ‘This is important, Lena.’

‘I know it is,’ I told him. ‘That was the only time I bought them. I was doing a favour for a friend. That was all it was. Honestly.’

He leaned back in his chair. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘The thing I’m struggling to understand is why Katie would want to take pills like that at all.’ He looked at me, and then at Julia, as though she might know the answer. ‘It’s not as though she was overweight.’

‘Well, she wasn’t thin,’ I said, and Julia made a strange noise, like a cross between a snort and a laugh, and when I looked at her she was looking back at me like she hated me.

‘Did people say that to her?’ DS Morgan asked me. ‘At school? Were there comments made about her weight?’

‘Jesus!’ I was finding it so hard not to lose my temper. ‘No. Katie wasn’t being bullied. You know what? She used to call me skinny bitch all the time. She used to laugh at me, because, you know …’ I got embarrassed because Sean was looking right at me, but I’d started so I had to finish, ‘Because I’ve got no boobs. So she called me skinny bitch and sometimes I replied with fat cow, and neither of us meant it.’

They didn’t get it. They never do. And the problem was, I couldn’t explain it all properly. Sometimes, I didn’t even understand myself, because although she wasn’t thin, it really didn’t bother her. She never talked about it the way the others did. I’ve never had to try, but Amy and Ellie and Tanya did. Always low-carbing or fasting or purging or whatever-the-fuck. But Katie didn’t care, she liked having tits. She liked the way her body looked, or at least she always used to. And then – I honestly don’t know what it was – some stupid comment on Insta or a dumb remark from some Cro-Magnon at school and she got weird about it. That was when she asked me for the pills. But by the time I’d got them, she seemed to be over it – and she said they didn’t work anyway.

I thought the interview was over. I thought I’d made my point, and then DS Morgan went off on a completely different tangent, asking me about the day Louise came round just after Katie died. I was like, yes, of course I remember that day. It was one of the worst days of my life. I still get upset just thinking about it.

‘I’ve never seen anything like that,’ I told them, ‘like the way Louise was that day.’

She nodded, then she asked – all earnest, all concerned, ‘When Louise said to your mother that “she wouldn’t rest until she saw Nel pay”, how did you take that? What did you think she meant by that?’

I lost it then. ‘She didn’t mean anything, you fucking moron.’

‘Lena.’ Sean was glaring at me. ‘Language, please.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, but for God’s sake! Louise’s daughter had just died, she didn’t even know what she saying. She was crazy.’

I was ready to leave, but Sean asked me to stay. ‘I don’t have to though, do I? I’m not under arrest, am I?’

‘No, Lena, of course you’re not,’ he said.

I spoke to him, because he understood. ‘Look, Louise wasn’t serious. She was totally hysterical. Off her head. You remember, don’t you? What she was like? I mean, of course she was saying all sorts of things, we all were, I think we all went a bit mad after Katie died. But – for God’s sake – Louise didn’t hurt Mum. Honestly, I think if she’d had a gun or a knife that day, maybe she would have. But she didn’t.’

I wanted to tell the whole truth. I really did. Not to the woman detective, not even to Julia, really, but I wanted to tell Sean. But I couldn’t. It would have been a betrayal, and after everything I’d done, I couldn’t betray Katie now. So I said all I could. ‘Louise didn’t do anything to my mother, OK? She didn’t. Mum made her own choice.’

I got up to go, but DS Morgan wasn’t done yet. She was looking at me, this strange expression on her face, like she didn’t believe a word I’d been saying, and then she said, ‘You know what strikes me as odd, Lena? You don’t seem remotely curious as to why Katie did what she did, and why your mother did what she did. When someone dies like this, the question everyone asks is why. Why would they do that? Why would they take their own lives when they have so much to live for? But not you. And the only reason – the only reason – I can think of for that, is because you already know.’