Good Girl, Bad Girl(65)

Most are dressed in tight black leggings and fitted tops. Training wear. I recognize Bryan Whitaker. He’s wearing an official-looking tracksuit and yelling instructions to a couple of the girls, who look to be thirteen or fourteen. Other coaches are working with their own students.

Whitaker claps his hands, signaling the girls to the side of the rink. He issues instructions. One of them shakes her head. He puts his hand on the back of her neck, pulling her face to his, touching foreheads, whispering, his eyes bright, a gold bracelet winking on his wrist.

The girl nods and skates away, pulling up at the far end of the rink. After taking a few deep breaths she sets off, swinging her arms as she builds up speed. She switches direction, skating backwards, and then switches again, leaping off one foot and spinning twice through the air with her arms across her chest before landing on her opposite foot and gliding in a graceful circle, unfurling her arms like wings.

Whitaker claps. The girl beams. He nods to the next skater, who sets off across the ice, accelerating with less confidence. Stiff. Nervous. I can see her steeling herself, telling herself to jump, but at the last moment she pulls out of the attempt and circles back, hitting her thigh angrily. She collects herself and tries again, her face a mask of determination, ice flicking from her skates, but she doesn’t have the speed when she leaps and spins. Her arms don’t cross. Her legs tangle. Balance lost, she lands heavily and shoots across the ice, thudding into the hoardings.

Whitaker goes to her. He picks her up. She’s crying. Hurt. He wipes her tears away and strokes her back like he’s petting an animal.

“Do you want to try again?”

She nods.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

She brushes ice from her knees and hips before skating back to her position. She tries again, looking even more determined. I don’t want her to fall. Neither does Evie.

“She should do one spin,” she whispers. “Two is too much.”

The girl launches herself forward, caught in a truncated twirl, before crashing and sliding across the ice. She gets up, ready to try again. Whitaker stops her.

“That’s enough for today, Lara. You’ll get it tomorrow.”

The girls glide towards the gate, chatting to each other. Whitaker goes to the side of the rink, where he picks up a clipboard and makes a note.

“You stay here,” I tell Evie, who seems fascinated by the display.

Walking around the rink, I approach Bryan Whitaker. He’s a small man, with delicate hands and the posture of a ballet dancer.

“Dr. Haven,” he says, glancing up at me quickly and going back to the clipboard. “Bear with me.” He scribbles a further note. “Felicity said you’d dropped by. I heard that some of Tasmin’s friends were there.”

He steps through a gate and sits down to unlace his skates.

“A tough session,” I say.

“Not really. If Lara can’t land a double axel, she’ll never land a triple. And without a triple she’ll never compete at the top level.” He moves to his other boot. “Figure skating may look graceful, but the falls are brutal on body and soul.”

“Was it like that for Jodie?”

He seems to relish the question.

“Some skaters take two years to master a double axel. Jodie took a month. It’s a rare thing to find someone who can take the most difficult jump and within days make it look routine—like she could do it in her sleep.”

“Did you know Jodie was pregnant?”

Shock registers on his face. Perhaps Evie could tell if his reaction was genuine.

“She didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“What would you have done?”

“Arranged an abortion.”

“Without telling her parents?”

Whitaker pauses for a moment, glancing past me at the ice-resurfacing machine that is moving back and forth across the rink. “Maggie is very Catholic. She wouldn’t have agreed.”

“What about Dougal?”

“He would have found the bastard who got her pregnant and broken him in half.”

Several ice dancers are circling the rink, waiting for the machine to finish. Whitaker watches them move in tandem, arm in arm, kicking and gliding.

“Eight years ago, one of your students made an allegation that you photographed her while she was in the shower.”

“There were no photographs. I knocked. I didn’t think anyone was in the changing room.”

“Why were you even there?”

“One of the girls called me. She thought she’d left her wallet in the changing room. I went to check. I knocked. I thought it was empty. I apologized to the girl in question.”

“Why did she say you took photographs?”

“That was her father. He thought he could get money out of me.”

“Where is the girl now?”

“Her family moved to Leeds.”

“Another rink?”

“Just so.” He pauses. “Why are you asking me about her?”

“The pathologist thinks he can get a DNA profile from Jodie’s unborn child. They’ll be able to identify the father.”

He shrugs ambivalently.

“Aren’t you interested?”

“Not particularly.”