13 Minutes (24 page)

Aiden laughed. ‘I reckon you set me up just to spend some time with her,’ Aiden said.

It was Jamie’s turn to look awkward and embarrassed. So it was that obvious. Great. If Aiden, stoned most of the time and

preoccupied by his own situation, had noticed, then there was no way that Caitlin Bennett hadn’t. He groaned inside. Today was just getting better and better.

Thirty-Seven

TAKEN FROM
DI CAITLIN BENNETT’S FILES:

EXTRACT FROM NATASHA HOWLAND’S NOTEBOOK

I don’t even know how to start writing this. I guess from where Becca whirlwinded at me in the common room. I don’t even know if I
should
write this. But better out of my head and on the paper. I can close the book, then. End this journal that no one will ever read. It’s purpose is done. It’s not even this stupid diary that made me remember, is it? Eat that, Dr Harvey.

The fractures between us have proved to be fault lines we can’t repair and today has become a hellish nightmare. All that hate I never realised was there. And now this terrible thing has happened. I can’t quite comprehend it.

I sat in the sixth form common room for a full ten minutes after the bell before I moved, and even then my legs felt heavy as I walked to the theatre. I didn’t care about the play. My world was spiralling out of control. I tasted cold, dirty water in my mouth. I remembered the fear. I wondered if Becca hated me for my reluctance to tell the police. I just wanted to go home and sleep and never leave the house again. We didn’t need the play. Everyone was already pretending to be someone else.
Jenny sent the text.

The first thing I heard when I put my bag down was the bickering. It’s always a couple of degrees colder in the theatre than the rest of the school, and that chill went well with the sheet-ice atmosphere between us. Mr Jones was enthusiastically talking James Ensor, Hayley and Jenny through the scene they were about to read. I didn’t listen in but caught snippets of what he was saying anyway.

. . . it’s a difficult scene filled with undercurrents of emotion. Betrayal. Hurt. Fear.

No shit, Mr Jones
, I wanted to say.
Welcome to our world
. Hayley looked over and smiled at me. I tried to smile back. Jenny looked at the ground. Her foot tapped and I thought maybe she was high again. I felt so distant from them all. Like I wasn’t really there. Like maybe I
did
die in that river and I was just a ghost.

‘For fuck’s sake, Hannah.’ Becca’s voice cut through my strange reverie. They were standing at Mr Jones’s director’s table where all his bits of paper and coffee were. Becca was wrangling a key from a heavy school key ring. ‘Stop being so moody. Why is it such a big deal, anyway? What are we? Twelve?’

‘I just don’t get why you lied to me, that’s all.’ Hannah was doing her best to hold her own, but she was no match for Becca. Not behind that desk. Not in school. All she was really doing was clinging to the driftwood of the wreck of their friendship and hoping Becca would pull her into the lifeboat. But Becca had me again now. Why would she want Hannah?

‘Maybe if you weren’t so needy all the time I wouldn’t have had to lie,’ Becca muttered. I felt that sting and it wasn’t even aimed at me. Hannah was saved from responding by Becca turning and walking away to the lighting booth, leaving Hannah’s face a cracked portrait of hurt.

‘Come for a smoke with me before we start,’ Hayley said to Jenny. They were speaking quietly but I’d moved closer, pretending to study the play. There’s nothing in this scene for me, though. I just stand in the shadows and wait to be lit up.

‘Fuck off,’ Jenny mumbled. ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you any more.’

‘Jen—’

‘I said fuck off.’ It was a hiss, but one that was desperate to be a tearful scream.

‘Okay, everyone!’ Mr Jones clapped his hands together. ‘Let’s get started.’

Hayley’s smoke was going to have to wait until later.

My stomach cramped and I sat down on a chair away from the action. James Ensor came over to dump his jumper. He grinned at me and said something, but I didn’t hear it.
Jenny bought the phone.
I think I smiled back. Maybe I didn’t.

‘As we talked about. And remember – power plays, fear, passion – it’s all here.’ Mr Jones took his seat. ‘Tasha, I want them to go through it first then we’ll set you up for Becca’s lighting test, okay?’

I nodded through my gloom, feeling an odd relief that I wasn’t a ghost after all.

They started and even I was drawn in somewhat. Hayley had all the cool required for Elizabeth Proctor and James had that
thing
that made all the girls rage about him. But Jenny . . . Jenny was always the revelation. Even there, mildly off her face and distracted, she shone on stage. She lost herself in Mary Warren. She
was
Mary Warren. I am rarely jealous, but I was jealous of how good Jenny was. I wondered if she had any idea how talented she was, really. Mr Jones did. He positively glowed when he watched her. Jenny and men. Bees and honey. But we’ll come to that.

‘Great,’ he said as they reached the end of the scene. ‘That’s really great. Let’s do it again. Give it all you’ve got.’

Even though my skin was starting to feel hot and I was trying not to think about coats and texts and icy water, I found myself watching. Mary Warren would not be the cowed little servant girl any more. Abigail’s court –
my
court – had given her power.

‘
Aye, but then Judge Hathorne said, “Recite for us your commandments!
”’ Jenny owned the stage with her wild eyes and unstable passion. ‘
And of all the ten she could not say a single one. She never knew no commandments, and they had her in a flat lie!
’

‘
And so condemned her?
’

‘
Why, they must when she condemned herself.
’

‘
But the proof, the proof!
’

James Ensor was good. The rational character. The earthy man who saw it all for what it was because he knew his own part in it. Jenny’s stage confidence was making them all stronger. Even Hayley, standing between them, was fully in character.

‘Okay.’ Mr Jones was on his feet again. ‘Brilliant work. Jenny, you’re perfect already. Now let’s move Tasha in position for this lighting test and see if we’re going to do the play this way.’ He said. ‘Becca’s getting an assistant director credit if this works.’

‘I’m seeing her here.’ Becca was out of the booth and standing beyond the marked corner of the stage, looking up to check that the light was actually in place. ‘And the cast on benches between their scenes around here and here – almost like a gallery in a trial – then it’ll be easy for her, and anyone else, to get to this spot. We can just seat the people we need at the ends.’

Mr Jones looked impressed and Becca was clearly happy that he was. It was so crazy and my stomach lurched again. We are so resilient. It’s not just our bodies that are strong. A couple of hours earlier, Becca was screeching at me about the police, and now she was totally focused on getting this right. I wondered what she was thinking. I wondered what she’d said to Bennett, if she found her. My face burned.

‘Great. Tasha?’ Mr Jones said.

I couldn’t. I shook my head. ‘I feel sick. Dizzy.’ My legs wouldn’t work and there was a humming inside my skull. I didn’t want to be near the stage. Near them. I willed myself to calm down, but the more I tried, the hotter my face felt. Thinking about it now makes me feel sick again. What might have happened. What did happen. Relief and a terrible guilt all mixed up together.
It should have been me.

Mr Jones frowned and they gathered around me, which didn’t help. I needed air. I needed them to ignore me. I tried to apologise between deep, shaky breaths. My face was clammy.

‘You have to do it,’ Hayley said. ‘You’ve only got to stand there for a few minutes so Mr Jones can see.’ She was irritated with me, it was so clear. She thought I was pretending. Attention-seeking.

‘Do you want to go and have a lie-down, or get a glass of water, maybe?’ Mr Jones said. ‘Or call your mum to pick you up?’ All adults treat me with kid gloves. They don’t bounce back from things like the young do. They’re not hardy like we are.

‘I’ll be all right in a minute,’ I said, although I wasn’t remotely sure I would. ‘Just suddenly felt sick. Light-headed. If I can have a little while to catch my breath . . . I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ll be better in a minute.’

Hayley tutted, sucking air between her teeth. ‘It’ll only take two minutes.’ She looked at Mr Jones. ‘Just tell her to get up and do it.’

‘I’ll do it.’ A meek voice cut in and everyone turned to look. It was Hannah, with her new-found backbone. ‘I’m about Tasha’s height. It doesn’t have to be her.’

‘But surely,’ Hayley said, ‘part of it has to be the expression – the moment of victory on her face when Mary Warren says I’ve been accused of witchcraft. That’s what makes it so powerful, not just the lighting.’

‘That’s true,’ Mr Jones said, ‘but I’m not going to be responsible for Tasha fainting or something, and, to be honest, I’d expect more sympathy from you, Hayley. You’re supposed to be best friends. What’s wrong with you all today?’

Our broken landscape hadn’t gone unnoticed.

He turned around and smiled at Hannah. ‘That would be great.’

‘But I think—’

‘Enough, Hayley! Let’s just do it.’

Cowed by Mr Jones, Hayley stared at me for a long moment and then went back to the stage. Mr Jones turned to check Becca was at the lighting panel and she gave him a thumbs-up.

And so they began, the scene unfolding, but this time getting further into it. I knew the line was coming:
I saved her life today.
The moment when Abigail/Me/Hannah would steal the scene from Jenny as the light rose, but still I found I was caught up in the drama. They were that good.

The crescendo built, Proctor moving in on Mary Warren in frustration at her tales from the court, threatening to beat her, and then—

‘
I saved her life today!
’ Jenny, cowering, pointed at Hayley.

The light shifted. A figure emerged. Hannah doing her best to look manipulative. Triumphant.

And then it all changed. I felt underwater again. I stared. We all stared. Hayley said her next line and then everything stopped. Long seconds of
wrong
.

Becca had been right. It looked amazing. For a second. Maybe two. Then the light changed again. Into a momentary falling star. A hollow thud. An empty sound as it landed, heavy, on Hannah’s head. Not a big enough sound to warrant the effect. She let out a surprised
oh
before she crumpled. An instant of confusion, not even enough time to raise her hand to her skull, to feel the pain, before her face was empty and her legs gave way.

She was gone. I could tell. I saw the switching-off in her eyes.
Is that all it is? Is that all it takes?
I was stuck in my chair. I think my mouth was half-open.

No one was moving apart from Mr Jones. He was on his knees, his hands over Hannah, unsure what to do. I think he was shouting, but all I could hear was the river in my ears. Jenny had her hand over her mouth. Becca rushed out of the booth and then stopped near Mr Jones. She stared. I knew why she was staring. Why we were all staring. It wasn’t the small pool of blood under Hannah’s head. It was her eyes. They were open. And they were empty.

Hannah has left the building
, I wanted to say, in that way my mum does sometimes, and then I wanted to giggle so badly, to laugh out loud, and I didn’t know why and I’m not even sure I should write it down, but it’s how I felt. I was on the verge when the doors swung open.

They strode in without seeing her, at first. The Head Teacher, DI Bennett and another man and woman who must have been police, too. They walked straight past me. Bennett held a piece of paper in her hand. It had been crumpled and then smoothed back out. A receipt. It was level with my eyes when they come to a halt. I could read
The One Cell Stop
at the top.

Suddenly there was movement everywhere but I was in a bubble. It was all distilling. Everything. I gasped. My mouth moved but I couldn’t get the words out. I found myself standing. I gulped like a fish torn from water until eventually they burst out of me. I was loud even in there, amidst the crying and the shouting and the man and woman taking Hayley’s and Jenny’s arms. My own words were sharp in my ears, making my eardrums ache.

‘I remember,’ I said, too loud. ‘I remember!’

Part Three

Thirty-Eight

EXCERPT OF
CONSULTATION BETWEEN DR ANNABEL HARVEY AND PATIENT REBECCA CRISP, FRIDAY 29/01, 09.30

REBECCA:
The doctor gave me sleeping pills but I don’t want to take them.

DR HARVEY:
Why not?

REBECCA:
Just don’t want to.

DR HARVEY:
Are you afraid to sleep?

REBECCA:
No.

DR HARVEY:
Then you should take them. You look tired.

REBECCA:
(Pause)

I was a bitch to her. Right before. For a few days before. But in rehearsal I was mean. I really snapped at her, you know. I called her needy. I hurt her feelings. I know I did.

DR HARVEY:
You didn’t know what was going to happen.

REBECCA:
Doesn’t make it any better. It’s still in my head. It still happened. I’m still the one who was in the control booth. I moved the slider to tilt the light.

(Pause)

I should have moved it myself. Technically, I killed her. That sound when it hit her head—