The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(80)

‘Is Madame ready?’

He was wearing a jacket – smarter than the occasion merited – and the cuffs of his shirt pushed out from beneath the navy sleeves. Ffion stared at a gold cufflink and felt the ground shift beneath her, felt her hand reach out and slip into its expected place, felt her feet move right left right left. She felt her heart pound with fear.

‘I’ve had enough of being with all those kids, haven’t you?’

‘Yeah.’ They walked through the back streets to the Lloyds’ family home, and each step was heavier and more hopeless. Ffion was so much more mature than the others, he told her – so why did she feel so much younger?

‘We can make our own fun, can’t we?’

‘Yeah.’

Ffion feels Leo’s breath against the top of her head, warm and reassuring, urging her to speak as much of her truth as she feels able to share. What happened that night has existed only in pictures – haunting and terrifying, keeping her awake and driving her to places which scare her, even now. Now she’s trying to shape it with words that hurt to handle.

‘I said yes.’ Ffion clasps her hands together, the tips of her fingers still white with cold. ‘I said yes to everything.’

It had felt impossible to say anything else. This was what she had pretended to want, after all. What she’d thought she wanted, even. She had flirted and pouted, and spoken loudly of clandestine meetings with older boys from out of town. She had asked for this. It was unstoppable.

‘No!’ Fleetingly, Leo tightens his grip on her, only to release her instantly, as though scared she might break. He moves her gently away from him, holding her shoulders so she’s facing him. He wants her to look at him, but her head is heavy and her shame heavier still. She stares into the footwell and wishes she could stop her tears.

‘Ffion, this wasn’t your fault,’ Leo says, insistent yet patient, telling Ffion what she can’t yet believe. ‘You didn’t ask – you couldn’t ask for it. Fourteen, Ffion. Fourteen!’

He takes a breath. He rubs his hands up and down Ffion’s arms, and she isn’t sure if he’s trying to calm her, or himself, but it does both. Slowly, she lifts her head, chin wobbling, and looks at him. She swallows.

‘If you dealt with this at work,’ Leo says gently. ‘A fourteen-year-old who’d been raped—’

‘He didn’t rape me.’ But she remembers the torn button on her jeans; the bruises on her shoulders, her thighs.

‘—what would you say to her?’

Leo waits, keeping his eyes locked on Ffion’s as she shakes her head, remembering how still and quiet she was on Rhys’s sofa, how she didn’t move away, or say no, or fight back.

Rhys had whispered in her ear, hot and damp as the pain tore through her. ‘You’ve wanted this all summer, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she heard herself say.

‘What would you say to her?’ Leo repeats. His eyes are urging her onwards, and she knows, she knows what she’s supposed to say, but she was Ffion Wyllt, Rhys knew that and so she had to expect—

‘I’d say it wasn’t her fault,’ Ffion whispers. Her voice cracks, and she’s crying again. ‘It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault.’





THIRTY-SEVEN




MID-AUGUST | CALEB


By rights, Caleb should be bored out of his skull. His mum says by next year The Shore will have a games room, with a bar and coffee shop, and a crazy-golf course in among the trees. Right now, there’s none of that, just the deck and the lake and the shadow of the mountain. Cwm Coed village is less than a mile away, but there’s nothing to do there either.

There are hardly any people around. The morning after they’d arrived at The Shore, Caleb had taken one of the resort’s forest-green bikes and cycled around the lake without seeing a single car. He had felt his shoulders, usually hunched up to his ears, slowly returning to their correct position. He’d pedalled faster, the wind whipping a grin on his face. He felt alive.

‘I know you’ll be missing your mates,’ Mum said, but all Caleb felt was relief. Relief that when his phone beeped with a message from the lads he could ignore it, knowing that when they came looking for him, they wouldn’t find him.

It had started when Caleb moved schools halfway through the first year at secondary. Everyone already had friendship groups, and Caleb was grateful to be taken under the wings of Brett and Jamil. It was fun at first – even the shoplifting was a laugh – but then people started getting hurt, and Caleb got scared. He took it out on his mum, knowing he was being unfair, but at the same time unable to stop himself lashing out.

‘They’re a bad influence,’ she’d say, and Caleb would slam his bedroom door and hide from the truth.

Now, Caleb stares at his phone. Two doors down, Rhys Lloyd is singing, and even though Caleb hates classical music it sounds right for this place, with the sun sparkling on the water. Tabby and Felicia are messing about on pink flamingos.

‘Caleb!’ one of them shouts. ‘Are you coming in?’

He ignores them. He’s scrolling through his contacts, systematically blocking each number in turn. Brett, Daz, Jamil. With each one, he feels as though he’s shedding a skin.

‘Oh, my God, Tabs, you just flashed a nipple, I swear!’ Felicia’s voice carries through the still air. Caleb looks – he’s fifteen, after all – but sees nothing.