Friend Request Page 25

I know exactly what he means. Henry’s still so little that he tells me everything that happens to him, his life an open book, but even Polly’s daughters are much franker with her than I was with my parents. When I was a teenager, even before Maria disappeared, the life I had with my parents was completely separate from the rest of my existence – my real life, as I thought of it. When Polly asks her daughters how their day has been, she gets it all – the rivalries, the disagreements, the small kindnesses. She knows them. What my parents knew, and still know, is a highly edited version of me, a composite of who I was as a child and what I chose to show them of the person I was becoming.

  ‘Then when he wasn’t getting anywhere with that,’ Tim goes on, ‘he ramped it up. A couple of times she saw him outside our house late at night, looking up at her window. She didn’t tell Mum and Dad about that, in case they thought she was encouraging it. And then the rumours started.’

  This was what Maria had hinted at to me, but I hadn’t wanted to hear it. I am overcome, as I have been so often recently, with an impotent sense of longing to go back and change the past. Change my behaviour, at least. I am a decent person now. I pay my taxes and go to the dentist. I recycle. I care about my friends, and about the world in general. But how do I reconcile that with the things I did when I was sixteen? I’m that person too, aren’t I?

  ‘What sort of rumours?’

  Tim’s face closes up a little. ‘Horrible stuff. Sexual. But not only that she’d slept with such and such a boy, or whatever. He said she’d slept with girls too. I know that seems to be all the rage with teenage girls nowadays, but back then being called a lesbian was akin to being called a baby-murderer. Girls started to avoid her, even ones that had previously been her friends. Boys that had never even noticed her started sniffing around. And then a rumour went round that she’d slept with three boys at once. One —’ he stops to control the tremor in his voice, biting his lower lip, and then spits out the rest of the sentence ‘— one in each hole.’

  ‘But why did people believe him? If they knew her?’

  ‘If you get enough people talking about something it gathers its own momentum. And the idea that there’s no smoke without fire is a powerful one. Think about famous men who’ve been accused of sexual assault. Even if they are completely exonerated, if the case is thrown out due to lack of evidence; even if the woman withdraws her statement. What’s the first thing you think every time you see them on TV or hear them on the radio? “I wonder if he did it”. That’s what you think, every time.’

  ‘So your parents decided to move? You told them in the end?’ I remember that first day in the lunch hall; Maria explaining the cause for the move as ‘a bit of trouble’ at her old school; she was so determined not to carry it with her.

  ‘Not exactly. He did that for her. He wrote them an anonymous letter signed by a “concerned well-wisher”. Telling them about the rumours, these… things that were being said about her. Can you imagine hearing those things about your own daughter?’

  I can’t imagine it, can’t imagine the pain and horror and sorrow of it. I think of Polly at her kitchen table, her voice dripping with barely concealed hatred for her daughter’s persecutor. And of Bridget at the end of the leavers’ party when she realised Maria was missing, her unflinching stare accusing me of an unknown crime.

  ‘What was the boy’s name? Do you remember?’

  ‘Remember it? Of course. His name was Nathan Drinkwater.’

  I stop dead on the pavement and a mother with a double buggy bangs into the back of my legs, tutting as she manoeuvres round me.

  ‘Nathan Drinkwater? Are you sure?’ Maria’s only other Facebook friend, apart from me and Sophie.

  ‘I’m hardly likely to forget it, am I? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Did anyone else know his name? Anyone from Sharne Bay?’

  ‘Loads of people knew. Matt Lewis’s cousin knew someone who went to our old school. I was fuming at the time when he told everyone. We came all that way to escape what had happened, but we couldn’t. It followed us to Norfolk. I think it would have followed us anywhere.’

  ‘What happened to Nathan? Did Maria ever hear from him after you moved?’

  ‘No. I actually heard that he had died a few years ago, from a friend of a friend of someone who knew him. I don’t know if it’s true though.’

  Is Nathan Drinkwater dead? If not, he doesn’t sound like the type to give up due to mere lack of proximity. Could it really be him on Maria’s friends list on Facebook? I wonder whether Maria continued to hear from Nathan after they moved, but told no one. And more than that, I wonder if he really is dead. And, if not, where is he now?

  Chapter 31

  2016

  I had been hoping that my encounter with Pete in the café opposite Foster and Lyme would be my last; but as I emerge from the stunning Dulwich Village house belonging to one of my regular clients, Sue Plumpton, my phone rings and his name flashes up on the display. I am tempted to ignore it. There has been a comforting normality about today. I got absorbed in my consultation with Sue, and my head is brimming with ideas for one of her spare bedrooms, the latest in her house to get a makeover.

  I envy Sue in her picture-postcard corner of London, divorced from a banker, her life filled only with tennis followed by lattes with ‘the girls’, walks in Dulwich Park with her Chihuahua Lola and dinner parties where she doesn’t even have to cook the dinner. I smile, thinking of the M&S cottage pie for one I shared with Polly last time she came over – would that count as a dinner party, I wonder? I think about texting Polly to ask, and then remember with a piercing pain that we are not speaking.

  Seeing Pete’s name on my phone shunts my anxiety back into sharp focus. I am too frightened to ignore him; what if something’s happened?

  ‘Hello?’ My voice sounds wary even to myself.

  ‘Hi. How are you?’ He sounds cautious too.

  ‘OK. On my way back from seeing a client.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Walking past Dulwich College,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, that’s not far from me. I can’t get my head around the fact that it’s just a normal school to the kids who go there.’

  ‘I know! I always think that. When it’s basically Hogwarts.’

  ‘Right. I was wondering…’ He pauses. ‘Could we meet? I was going to suggest meeting in town but I’m working from home today, in Sydenham, so I could come and meet you in Dulwich – in the park maybe?’

  I had been looking forward to getting home and making a start on my ideas for Sue’s spare bedroom, but I know I won’t be able to concentrate on that now, so I agree and we arrange to meet outside the café in half an hour.

  I retrace my steps down College Road, turn right along the South Circular and five minutes later I’m in the park. Half of the well-heeled mothers of south-east London have congregated here today, and I’m in constant danger from kamikaze toddlers on scooters. Pete won’t be here yet so I stroll past the tennis courts where some ladies (probably Sue’s chums) are hitting genteelly back and forth.

  Pete is five minutes early, but I’m already there waiting. I watch him dodging buggies and smilingly brushing off the apologies of the mother of an excitable toddler who rams into his legs on a tricycle.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hello.’ I find I can’t meet his eye for too long and don’t know what to do with my hands, pushing them into my pockets to keep them still.

  ‘Do you want to get a coffee or…?’

  ‘No, I’ve had loads already today. Do you?’

  ‘No, let’s just walk,’ he says, and we head off along the path.

  ‘So, have you spoken to the police again?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, yesterday.’

  ‘And you didn’t…?’

  ‘Mention our little rendezvous?’ That sounded more bitter than I intended. ‘No, of course not. We agreed, didn’t we? You haven’t told them, have you?’

  ‘God, no. The last thing they need is another rea
son to suspect me.’

  ‘So they do then? Suspect you, I mean?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I think so, but of course they don’t have any evidence so I’m hoping they’re moving on, looking at someone else. All the time they’re investigating me, they’re wasting time when they could be looking for the real killer.’

  ‘Maybe there’s some forensic evidence that will put you in the clear? Surely there must have been something?’

  ‘I hope so.’ We walk on for a while, the sound of children’s voices fading as we get further away from the play area. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘OK.’ I push my hands deeper into my coat pockets, balling my fists.

  ‘Why are you so sure I didn’t do it?’

  ‘We spent the night together, remember?’ Anxiety makes my words ugly with sarcasm.

  ‘I know, but I could have done it before then. It was after eleven when we left, and from what the police said, nobody can remember seeing her after about ten o’clock. I had plenty of time to… I don’t know… lure her down to the woods.’

  I smile, despite the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in.

  ‘That’s partly why, to be honest,’ I say.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The way you said “lure her down to the woods”. Nobody who’d really done it would describe it like that.’

  ‘What would they say then?’

  ‘I don’t know, but luring someone to the woods is the sort of thing that would happen in a bad TV movie.’

  ‘OK, but why didn’t you suspect me before that?’

  We’re passing the lake and rather than answering straight away, I suggest sitting down on a nearby bench. One of the slats is broken at the end and I shift closer to Pete to avoid the jagged edge. He doesn’t move away.

  ‘Louise?’ Our knees are almost touching, just a fragment of space between them. His hands are resting on his thighs, the skin around his fingernails chapped and raw as if he’s been picking at it.

  ‘I know it wasn’t you, because I know who did do it.’ The words tumble out in a rush, before I can stop them.

  ‘What?’ He jumps up and takes a few paces away from me, then turns back. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? If you know who did it, why the hell haven’t you told the police?’

  ‘No, sorry, I’m explaining it wrong. I don’t know who it is, but I do know that it’s the same person who’s been sending these messages to me, and to Sophie before she died. It’s to do with what happened, when we were at school.’

  ‘What, the bullying thing you told me about? And what do you mean, what messages?’

  He sits back down, his anger subsiding. Tension flows out of me and the knot in my stomach loosens a little as I realise that I’m going to tell him everything. He’s safe, he’s got as much to lose as I have.

  ‘You’re not on Facebook, are you?’

  ‘No, like I told you, I stay right away from social media,’ he says. ‘Full of nutters.’

  ‘Well, I am,’ I say, and begin my story. When I get to the leavers’ party, I stumble over my words, watching him anxiously all the while for any sign of horror or disgust. He doesn’t react though, or interrupt, but lets me tell him the whole thing, including the part about the Facebook messages from Maria, the internet date, the incident at the park. When I’ve finished, I shift away from him a little, allowing the broken slat to dig into the back of my thigh.

  ‘So now you know. Whoever killed Sophie is the person who’s been messaging me. Which means it’s either someone who was around at the time, or… they never found Maria’s body. Do you understand now why I don’t want the police to make any more connections between me and Sophie than they have to? Why I don’t want them to know I spent the night in a hotel room with her boyfriend?’

  ‘I suppose so, but…’

  ‘And do you hate me?’ I ask, tears welling, ashamed at my childish need for reassurance.

  ‘For what you did to Maria? No, I don’t hate you. You were young. You made a bad decision, that’s all. That’s what people do when they’re young. Yes, it had catastrophic, unforeseeable consequences, but it was just a bad decision. I think you’ve probably paid for it, haven’t you?’ He takes my hand, eyes pleading. ‘But Louise, don’t you realise? This could get me off the hook. If you tell the police…’

  I snatch my hand back as if he’s tried to bite it.

  ‘No. I told you, I can’t.’

  ‘And I understand that, I do. But you could just tell them about the messages from Maria, you don’t even need to say you bullied her, let alone go into the drink spiking.’

  ‘They’ll want to know why Maria has sought me out, what I did to her. They’ll ask questions I don’t want to answer.’

  ‘But the Ecstasy, you said the messages don’t mention that – the rest of it, it’s just schoolgirl stuff. Nothing to interest the police.’

  ‘But they’ll want to know what Maria is talking about, they’ll start digging it up. They’ll find her, or whoever’s sending the messages. Whoever it is knows what I did, and they’ll tell the police… I can’t bear it. You don’t understand.’

  Sam understood. He was the only one who ever did, and part of me longs to be back there with him in our bubble; the two of us against the world, with the promise of his silence to protect me.

  Pete turns away from me and puts his head in his hands.

  ‘You know that day in the café, when we agreed to keep quiet, not to tell the police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I had another reason for wanting to steer clear of the police. When I was at university, there was this girl. We were friends, but she was… troubled, I suppose you’d say. She used to stay over in my room in halls, but nothing ever happened between us, although I think she wanted it to. Then one day, there was a knock on my door. It was the police. They said there had been an accusation, a serious sexual assault. It was her. She said I’d tried to… force her. You know. That I’d held her down, threatened to hurt her if she wouldn’t… But that she’d managed to get away before I could… you know.’ He has kept his gaze on the ground throughout this, but now he looks at me.

  ‘I was exonerated back then; there was no evidence, because I hadn’t done anything. But I know the police believed her and not me. They treated me like a piece of shit. And I heard the whispers in the corridors, felt the stares. And as for getting a girlfriend – well, no girl would come anywhere near me after that. And now I feel like it’s all happening again. I know what everyone’s thinking: Sophie and I argued, then I disappeared. There’s no smoke without fire. Please, Louise. You have to tell the police about the messages from Maria. They’ll be able to trace them. They can find out who’s really behind this.’

  ‘No,’ I say quietly. ‘They’ll want to know why I’ve been lying to them, why I didn’t tell them about the messages straight away. And anyway, I can’t. There may not be any evidence, but I’m not the only person who knows what happened at the leavers’ party. Whoever is sending those messages knows what I did. If I open the door to it, it’s all going to get out. You won’t be able to stop it. I could go to prison, lose my son.’

  ‘You wouldn’t go to prison, Louise. You’re blowing this out of proportion. Think about it.’

  Is he right? Have I built this up so much that my mind is full of it, obscuring everything else? I’ve spent so many years hiding the truth that I don’t know what’s real any more. So many years with Sam, who knew what I had done and was as adamant as I was that we needed to keep it a secret. But maybe he was as blinkered as me, as unable as I was to think rationally about it.

  Maybe; but for Henry’s sake, I need to be around. Even if the chance of being prosecuted for Maria’s death is miniscule, it’s a risk I can’t take.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘We need to carry on as we are, keep our heads down.’

  He shakes his head, refusing to look at me. I take a deep breath. There is a part of me that thought there was something between us –
just a spark maybe, but one that could be coaxed into a flame one day. But what I’m about to say will extinguish that little light entirely.

  ‘Don’t forget the Travelodge,’ I say. ‘I’m keeping a secret about you too, remember?’

  As I watch him walk away, I wonder whether I will ever be able to have a normal relationship, or if my past is going to taint every aspect of my future. It’s probably a good thing that he’s gone – at least it’s happened now, before I’ve had a chance to really get attached. It would have happened sooner or later.

  I’m too mixed up, too dark; I’m just too alone to be with anyone else.

  Chapter 32

  2016

  The last few days since my walk in the park with Pete have been very dark. I haven’t had any client meetings, thank God, so apart from the school run where I hold Henry’s hand tightly in mine all the way, I have stayed in the house, spending most of the time Henry is at school in bed. He should have been at Sam’s this past weekend, but Sam asked if we could swap as he had something on, and I was only too happy to agree.