Mesmeris (15 page)

I shut the kitchen door behind me. ‘Jack walked me home.’

‘Very gentlemanly of him, I’m sure.’

I swallowed, thought of Jack. Maybe I smiled because Mum went crazy.

‘Glad to see you’re so pleased with yourself.’

‘Mum . . .’

‘Glad it amuses you to nearly kill your parents with worry. Glad you find it funny to keep them awake all night.’ Mum’s voice got louder with every word.

‘Glad you don’t mind me thinking you were DEAD all day.’ She started crying and had to stop to catch her breath.

‘What?’

‘I’ve been ringing you ALL DAY.’ She screamed and cried at the same time. ‘Did you not think about us, at all? We thought you’d been MURDERED.’

I looked at my phone. It must have run out of charge. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘DON’T. Don’t talk to me. I’m so angry, I could kill you myself - and as for that - coward!’ She shook all over, her fists clenched. I really thought she might hit me.

‘Don’t call him that, Mum. He’s not a coward.’

‘Is that right? How come he’s not here, then? Could he not face us?’

‘No. He had to go.’

Mum stopped crying. Her hands unclenched and her shoulders slumped. ‘How could you?’ she said, quietly. ‘How could you do this to me? What’s happened to you?’

I stared back at her, could think of nothing to say.

Someone knocked softly on the kitchen door and Dad poked his head in. ‘Is it safe to come in yet?’

Mum smiled weakly. ‘I think so,’ she whispered. ‘Sorry. Did Jim hear me?’

‘The whole town heard you,’ Dad said, with a smile. He walked over and lifted her chin. ‘It’s okay, Sweetheart, our baby’s safe.’ He kissed her gently on the forehead. Mum wept on his shoulder while Dad rubbed her back. ‘It’s all right, lovely,’ he said. ‘Everything’s all right now. Hush now, sweetheart, hush.’

I was appalled at how much I’d hurt them.

‘Pearl,’ Dad said, his voice cold, distant. ‘Jim’s in the study. He wants to talk to you.’

‘I don’t need to talk to Jim, Dad. This is none of his business.’ The thought of it made my skin itch.

Dad gave me a hard stare. ‘You will talk to him - and you’ll do it now.’

‘But this is ridiculous. I can’t believe you called him in. For God’s sake.’

‘It’s not all about
you
,’ Dad said, in a voice he’d never used to me before – sharp, clipped. ‘Jim’s here because the church has been desecrated, graves disturbed, filth scrawled everywhere. You just happened to turn up at the right time, okay? And I want you to talk to him. Is that too much to ask?’

‘Fine,’ I said.

‘Thank you.’ The disgust on his face almost made me cry but I didn’t. I held it together because I had to, for Jack’s sake.

I knocked at the study door.

‘Come in.’ Jim sounded as if it was
his
study. The door opened and there he was, full of himself, sitting in my Dad’s armchair. I pulled my hair to cover the bruise on my forehead.

‘Ah, Pearl.’ He took a good look at me and frowned. For once his eyebrows didn’t amuse me. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine, thanks,’ I said. ‘Can’t wait to have a bath.’ I pulled my mouth into a smile.

‘Have a seat for a minute.’ He pointed to the chair next to the desk, the hard plastic one no one ever sat on. ‘Just for a minute Pearl, please.’

I sat down. Unease made me fidgety. Did he know anything? Could he have found out about the phone call so quickly? Could he possibly know it was me? I knew he couldn’t. My thoughts made no sense at all. I knew that, and yet I couldn’t stop them.

‘You know you frightened your parents half to death, don’t you?’

‘I don’t see what it’s got to do with you,’ I said.

‘Why so defensive?’ Jim raised his eyebrows and smiled.

‘I’m tired.’

‘I bet you are,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t keep you long.’ He sat back, folded his arms over his chest. ‘So, who’s the boy?’

‘Just a boy.’

‘Name?’

‘What?’

‘What is his name, Pearl?’

‘Why?’ I stared at him, my uneasiness growing.

‘I’m interested,’ he shrugged. ‘I’m always interested when something unusual happens. Call it copper’s instinct.’ He smiled at me but his eyes were cold and hard. ‘So, is it a secret?’

‘No.’

‘Well?’

‘Jack Cooper.’

‘There – not too hard, was it? And how long has this Jack Cooper been in Gloucester?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Well,’ he said, impatiently, ‘how long has he been in your school? How long have you known him?’

‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged. ‘A week or so?’

‘A week.’ Jim tapped his finger with his pen, making an intensely irritating noise. He watched me with narrowed eyes.

Now I could see how good he was at his job. He was positively terrifying when you had something to hide, and I did have something to hide.

‘Where’s he from?’

‘I don’t know. Look, Uncle Jim, I’m really tired. Can we leave this for another time?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘No.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘I don’t know!’

It was obvious we both knew I was lying. He pursed his lips and looked around the room. ‘You don’t seem to know much about him, do you, considering you spent all of yesterday, last night and the whole of today with him? Am I to assume that you were too busy for talking?’

‘You can assume what you like.’

Jim smirked but his eyes were sharp. ‘I believe Matthew Tipper was on that trip to London.’

My stomach lurched. Sweet saliva rushed into my mouth. I swallowed it, hoping I wouldn’t throw up all over the carpet. ‘Yes.’

‘Did you see him at all, after the Tate Modern tour?’

‘No.’

‘Your dad said you had some trouble.’

‘Nothing to do with him.’

‘No?’

‘Girl stuff, Uncle Jim. Bitching, that’s all.’

‘Because Matthew had a serious accident.’

‘Really?’ I couldn’t think how to react. Every pore on my skin pumped out sweat. ‘That’s awful.’

‘Yes, Pearl, it is. No one has the right to do something like that to another human being.’

Don’t think about it, I told myself. Don’t even think about it. ‘I thought you said it was an accident.’ My underarms were soaked, my bum soggy on the plastic seat. A trickle of sweat ran down my temple. It tickled. I didn’t dare wipe it away.

‘I’m not convinced about that,’ Jim said. ‘To me, it looks like the work of a warped mind.’

I couldn’t look at him. My neck throbbed, as if the veins were too narrow for the blood being forced through them.

Jim sighed, heaved himself to his feet. ‘Let me know if you remember anything, Pearl, would you? I have a really bad gut feeling about this.’ He patted my head as he went past. ‘I’d hate anything to happen to you.’

After he’d gone, I stared into space, my brain numb.

Mum poked her head around the door. ‘I’ve run you a bath.’ She didn’t sound angry any more, just disappointed, which was worse. Still, disappointed was better than knowing the truth.

I dragged myself upstairs, muscles aching with fatigue and sank gratefully into the warm water. Multi-coloured bruises stood out against my clean skin, arrayed there in all their glory. I thanked the Lord Jim hadn’t seen them. I covered the one on my face and, dressed in my pyjamas and dressing gown, went downstairs. I pulled my sleeves down as far as possible, checked that nothing suspicious was visible.

Dad sat at the kitchen table, a glass of red wine in his hand. Mum was nowhere to be seen.

‘Sit down, Pearl.’ He sounded so, so weary.

I sat facing him, my trembling hands folded in my lap. I looked at them, looked at the table, looked everywhere except at my father. I didn’t want to see what I’d done to him.

‘Pearl, I know you’re seventeen,’ he said, ‘but this boy - you’ve only just met him. You disappear with him, stay with him all night. What were you thinking?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Even your friends were worried. None of us could get in touch with you. Anything could have happened.’

‘I know, Dad. I’m sorry.’

He waited.

My head full of murders, I could think of nothing to say to make him feel better.

‘Pearl,’ Dad said, ‘sweetheart, you can’t trust people. Boys, some boys, will say anything to get what they want.’

I almost laughed at his naivety, at his innocence. ‘Nothing happened, Dad,’ I said, nothing except attempted rape, assault, car theft, torture and murder. ‘Nothing at all.’

Dad smiled. An eerie quietness filled the house.

‘Where’s Lydia?’ I said.

‘We thought it better if she stayed at a friend’s,’ Dad said. ‘We weren’t sure, you know, how you’d be - or even if . . .’ His voice caught. ‘You wouldn’t believe the things that go through your mind. When we couldn’t contact you . . .’ His face suddenly looked so sad, so defeated.

‘Dad, I’m so sorry.’ I got up and went to hug him. ‘Really, I am sorry.’ And I was. I wanted to be his little girl again, wanted him to love me, be proud of me, instead of this awful disappointment. ‘And I’m sorry about the church too.’

‘Thank you.’ He drained his glass. ‘It’s been one of those days today. It’s not so much the graffiti. Suppose they think that’s clever – or funny – even though it’s neither. It’s desecrating the graves that . . .’ He shook his head. ‘No respect, even for the dead.’

I knew people who would do something like that without a qualm.

Dad patted my hand and smiled. ‘Well, at least you’re home now, and you’re okay, and you’re still our Pearl, so all’s right with the world.’

All wasn’t right with the world though, all was wrong. Tucked up in my clean, warm, comfortable bed in the dark, I curled up and cried for what I’d lost, for the person I used to be. Dad had been wrong. I wasn’t okay, and I certainly wasn’t their Pearl any more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

When I awoke, for a few minutes it felt as if nothing had changed. My bed felt the same, smelled the same - clean, warm, comfortable. I was me, the old me, the one who had no secrets and no guilt. Then it began, the trickle of adrenaline that grew and spread. Everything felt wrong. Even the fire that spread through my body at the thought of Jack - his eyes, his mouth, his body - was wrong.

Act normally, he’d said, and I tried. A weekend wasn’t long. They usually raced by. One minute it was Friday night, the next, time to pack my bag for school. Not this time.

Mum had her head in one of the kitchen cupboards when I went downstairs on Saturday morning. Saucepans, colanders and frying pans covered the worktop. I poured myself a cup of tea and sat down, watched her banging pots onto the work surface. Still angry then.

‘So, what happened?’ she said, from inside the cupboard.

‘Nothing.’

‘You said that boy rescued you.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I stood up.

‘Is that right?’ She turned around, did that sarcastic little laugh that meant she was absolutely furious. ‘You don’t want to talk about it?’

I could so easily have cried, broken down and told her everything. I wanted to. My secrets tried to push their way out of my mouth. I was almost scared to open it. ‘Not now, Mum – please.’

‘Fine,’ she said in a way that meant the exact opposite.

I hid in my room for the rest of the morning, staring out of the window, trying to recreate Jack’s face in my head. It always went wrong, turned into someone screaming, or whimpering, or hanging upside down with their throat cut. Jess and Abbi rang. I rejected the calls, then texted to say I was fine, that I’d see them in school on Monday. I checked out Mesmeris on my laptop. Nothing but definitions of the word ‘mesmerise’. Four Howard Pitts in the UK – none of them Papa.

At lunch, Mum and Dad were frosty. Lydia babbled on, talking rubbish to fill the awkward silence. By dinnertime, they noticed my lack of appetite and my silence. Worried frowns replaced their annoyed ones. I tried to eat, tried to force down the mouthfuls but they stuck at the back of my throat and would only go down with a gulp of water, followed by a shudder. Even Lydia stopped trying to wind me up when all she got was a blank look and a ‘what?’ to everything she said.

After dinner, I laid my books out on my desk, held a pen in my hand and stared into space. I wondered what Jack was doing, if he was missing me, if he was safe. I checked my phone every few minutes even though I knew he wouldn’t text. I constantly refreshed the BBC news website, my stomach lurching each time just in case there was something about Brighton. There was nothing. Maybe Jack was right. Maybe they
were
being recruited. It was all so civilised, after all – the party – except for the dead body above the altar. And perhaps I had imagined that. Stress does funny things to your mind, and God knows, it had been a stressful few days.

I thought Sunday would never come but it did, and with Sunday, came church. Two coppers stood guard at the lych gate, like sentries, their eyes looking straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to the people walking between them. Once inside the churchyard, the damage was obvious – gravestones smashed, knocked over or daubed with inverted crosses. Red paint dripped like blood over the inscriptions. People gasped and murmured, shocked at the vandalism. The porch was relatively unscathed and the door had been
scrubbed clean. Bright new wood stood out against the aged, stained oak, its message as glaringly obvious as the red paint had no doubt been – Papa. I held onto the wall, my head swimming.

‘Pearl.’ Mum clutched me around the waist. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘I’m taking you to the doctor’s tomorrow.’

‘It’s fine, Mum. I just need to sit down.’

‘You’re green, girl,’ she said.

‘I’ll sit here for a minute,’ I said, ‘and then I’ll come in.’

‘Then, I’ll stay with you.’

‘No, Mum. Don’t be silly. I’ll be fine.’

I sat in the porch until the last person had gone in and closed the door behind them. I waited a bit longer, until the organ groaned into life and the tuneless singing started. The word ‘Papa’ seemed to me a good enough reason to contact Jack. Anyway, the longing for him had become a physical pain. Even if my life wasn’t in danger, I couldn’t wait any longer.

I hurried to the track, huddled into my coat, and walked through the copse of trees. The wetness clung to the branches, to the grass, shining like silver. The wasteland seemed even more bleak and grey than before. A sheet of plastic had been draped haphazardly over the saggy sofa, its corners held down by bricks. The plastic shone silver too - cold and lonely. I stopped and stared at the garages, at the flats rising up behind them. Four blocks of flats, three floors each – and no idea which one was Jack’s.