Into the Water(51)

‘He said he’d been waiting for you after school and he’d seen you with Henderson and you were holding hands …’ I started laughing again. ‘Jesus, it’s not a big drama. He was just making up stories because he wanted an excuse to come and see me. It was Valentine’s Day, so …’

Katie squeezed her eyes shut. ‘God! You’re such a fucking narcissist,’ she said quietly. ‘You really do think everything is about you.’

I felt like I’d been slapped. ‘What …?’ I didn’t even know how to respond, it was so unlike her. I was still trying to think of what to say when she dropped the mascara into the basin, gripped its edge and began to cry.

‘Katie …’ I put my hand on her shoulder and she sobbed harder. I put my arms around her. ‘Oh God, what’s wrong? What’s happened?’

‘Haven’t you noticed,’ she sniffed, ‘that things have been different? Haven’t you noticed, Lenie?’

Of course I had. She’d been different, distant, for a while. She was busy all the time. She had homework, so we couldn’t hang out after school, or she was going shopping with her mum, so she couldn’t come to the cinema, or she had to babysit Josh, so she couldn’t come over that night. She’d been different in other ways, too. Quieter at school. She didn’t smoke any more. She’d started dieting. She seemed to drift out of conversations, like she was bored by what I was saying, like she had better things to think about.

Of course I’d noticed. I was hurt. But I wasn’t going to say anything. Showing someone you’re hurt is the worst thing you can do, isn’t it? I didn’t want to look weak, or needy, because no one wants to be around someone like that. ‘I thought … I don’t know, K, I thought you were just bored with me or something.’ She cried even harder then, and I hugged her.

‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘I’m not bored with you. But I couldn’t tell you, I couldn’t tell anyone—’ She broke off suddenly and pulled herself out of my arms. She walked to the other end of the room and sank to her knees, then crawled towards me, checking under each stall.

‘Katie? What are you doing?’

It took until then for it to hit me. That’s how clueless I was. ‘Oh my God,’ I said, as she got back to her feet. ‘Are you … are you actually saying …’ I lowered my voice to a whisper, ‘there’s something going on?’ She said nothing but looked me dead in the eye and I knew that it was true. ‘Fuck. Fuck! You can’t be … That is insane. You can’t. You can’t, Katie. You have to stop this … before anything happens.’

She looked at me like I was a bit dim, like she felt sorry for me. ‘Lena, it’s already happened.’ She half smiled, wiping the tears from her face. ‘It’s been happening since November.’

I didn’t tell the police any of that. It wasn’t any of their business.

They came to the house in the evening, when Julia and I were in the kitchen eating dinner. Correction: I was eating dinner. She was just pushing her food around her plate like she always does. Mum told me Julia doesn’t like to eat in front of other people – it’s a hangover from when she was fat. Neither of us were talking – we hadn’t said anything to each other since I came home yesterday and found her with Mum’s things – so it was a relief when the doorbell went.

When I saw that it was Sean and Detective Sergeant Morgan – Erin, as I’m supposed to call her now we’re all spending so much time together – I thought it must be about the broken windows, although I did think that both of them coming seemed like overkill. I held my hands up to it right away.

‘I’ll pay for the damage,’ I said. ‘I can afford it now, can’t I?’ Julia pursed her lips like she thought I was a disappointment to her. She got up and started clearing away the dishes, even though she hadn’t eaten a thing.

Sean took her chair and pulled it round so that he was sitting next to me. ‘We’ll get to that later,’ he said, a sad and serious expression on his face. ‘But first we need to talk to you about Mark Henderson.’

I went cold, my stomach flipping over like when you know something really bad is about to happen. They knew. I felt devastated and relieved at the same time, but I tried my best to keep my face totally blank and innocent. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I know. I smashed up his house.’

‘Why did you smash up his house?’ Erin asked.

‘Because I was bored. Because he’s a dick. Because—’

‘That’s enough, Lena!’ Sean interrupted. ‘Stop messing about.’ He looked properly pissed off. ‘You know that’s not what we’re talking about, don’t you?’ I didn’t say a word, I just looked out of the window. ‘We’ve been talking to Josh Whittaker,’ he said, and my stomach flipped again. I suppose I’d known all along that Josh wouldn’t be able to keep quiet about this for ever, but I’d hoped that smashing up Henderson’s house might satisfy him, for a little while at least. ‘Lena? Are you listening to me?’ Sean was leaning forward in his chair. I noticed that his hands were shaking a bit. ‘Josh has made a very serious allegation about Mark Henderson. He’s told us that Mark Henderson was engaged in a relationship – a sexual relationship – with Katie Whittaker in the months before she died.’