‘So?’
Jess turns towards her sister. She and Amber are sitting on the thick grass, heels up to their bums, the brightly coloured rations placed between them. They found the nature reserve on Chinnor Hill – a small clearing surrounded by tall trees a mile or so up from the village – soon after they moved to Chinnor, and it’s become their favourite place to hang out. ‘So, what?’ she asks, although she knows exactly what her sister is asking.
‘She’s in your year,’ Amber reminds her, already impatient. ‘So have you seen her? Do you have any lessons with her?’
Jess pulls at the grass. When Amber confided in her about her big master plan – the one she’d come up with on that Saturday she disappeared, the day after she got wasted with Sean and he’d told her there was only one way she could earn his forgiveness – Jess was so shocked she could hardly breathe. Everything had seemed okay at first, Amber told her. Sean had invited her to his flat, given her wine and a spliff, talked about his mum and all the side effects of her chemo. But then he turned. Bang. Like Tyler used to do. Told Amber that if she didn’t find a way to pay for Jess’s fuck-up, he’d kill them both. He said that Rose needed to suffer, and if Jess was too chickenshit to go to court, then Amber needed to find a less legal way to make him pay.
And then he gave Amber Mr Rose’s home address – she still doesn’t know how he got hold of it – and chucked her out of his flat.
Amber can be resourceful when she wants to be, and she got up early the next day, worked out which bus went to Chinnor, and got on it. Finding the house was easy, she said, but she still had no clue how to go about making Rose pay. She was 13 and short for her age. Rose was in his forties and built like a brick wall. But she watched the house, saw the family come and go, and slowly the plan formed.
When Amber first explained it, Jess wondered if the plan started with jealousy – although she didn’t dare suggest it to Amber. The perfect family – two daughters with a mum and a dad who loved them. Just like her and Amber in some ways, and completely not like them in others. But Amber said it was the way Rose acted around the younger, skinnier one. Like she was a precious doll that he adored and needed to protect. She realised that he might be too difficult for a 13-year-old kid to punish, but his daughter wasn’t. And if he loved her like that, wouldn’t hurting her hurt him even more?
Amber asked around in the village, worked out that all the kids went to Lord Frederick’s in Thame, then looked it up. She found out that it was the only school in Oxfordshire that offered Arabic GCSE, and then told Colleen that she had a burning desire to study the language. Of course the sad fuck social worker loved the idea of Amber having ambition, and began looking for a foster home in the catchment area. That their new foster carers turned out to live in the exact same village as the Roses was just a mad coincidence – or a sign, Amber said, that someone was on their side, looking out for them.
Maybe their mum.
Jess and Amber have been students at Lord Fred’s for one week so far. There are a similar number of kids overall to their last school, but the Lord Fred’s site is bigger with different blocks dotted all over the place. Jess has spent most of the week getting lost, but she does have good news for her sister. ‘Yeah, she’s in my Art class. She’s called Lucy.’
‘That’s amazing, sis, well done.’ Amber’s eyes shine with a mix of excitement and relief. ‘Have you spoken to her?’
‘Not really.’
Amber nods slowly. ‘Okay, don’t. Not yet anyway. I’ll talk to Sean first, then tell you what to do next.’
Jess is so used to being bossed around by her baby sister that her instruction barely registers as one. ‘Do you feel bad at all?’ she asks quietly. ‘What we’re about to do to Rose’s daughter? It’s not like she punched Sean. It doesn’t really feel fair.’
Amber gives her a dark look. ‘Is it fair that our mum got killed? Or that your dad is too mental to look after you?’
Tears threaten. Jess widens her eyes, prays for the cool air to dry them. ‘I guess not,’ she whispers.
‘Her dad should be in prison, remember. For what he did to Sean. But because he’s got a good job, wears a suit, lives in a little cottage with his perfect family, he gets away with it. Yeah, you fucked up, pulling your statement, but the police could have believed Sean anyway, couldn’t they? Except they never would, because Rose is a saint in their eyes and Sean is a scumbag. Like us. And that’s why we need to stick together. Take matters into our own hands.’
‘Maybe,’ Jess whispers. What Amber says does make sense, but she was hoping that this new start in Chinnor would mean she didn’t have to think about Sean’s assault, or her screw-up. That she could start afresh. ‘I guess I was hoping I could move on from all that,’ she admits quietly.
‘But this is the only way that’s going to happen. We make Lucy Rose’s life a fucking nightmare, or Sean will come for us. It’s that simple. Think of it as survival.’
Jess considers that. It’s true that Lucy’s much luckier than her, that she’s never had to deal with rejection or death. Why the hell should she feel sorry for a girl like that? ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ she concedes. ‘But we’ve only been there a week – what if we get in trouble?’
Amber pulls out another Jelly Baby. ‘Don’t worry about that. I know exactly how to play the foster kid card with that snooty head teacher. And there’s after school too.’
‘But what if her dad sees us?’
‘He never taught either of us; he’s got no clue who we are.’
‘Pearson might have told Rose that I was the witness,’ Jess says, airing the worry that’s been rumbling around her head since Amber first explained her plan.
‘No way,’ Amber says. ‘Pearson pretended to be cool, but he loved rules. Especially all that safeguarding stuff. He knew you had a right to anonymity. He wouldn’t have broken it.’
‘Sounds like we’re doing this,’ Jess murmurs.
‘Yeah.’ Amber nods her head slowly. ‘Watch out, Lucy Rose, we’re coming for you.’
AFTER
Monday 13th May
Rachel
Jess is Witness A. The mystery student who said she saw Matt hit Sean Russo and then changed her mind. Who ruined Matt’s career, pushed his mental health to the limit.
And who is now missing.
With Matt the last person to see her.
My dad will kill you.
It can’t be a coincidence that Jess and Amber targeted Lucy. Maybe they saw Matt around the village and recognised him, and then attacked his daughter, like predators preying on the weakest of the pack. Or was there more scheming involved than that? If they hated him enough to make up a false claim about him hitting a student, did they also orchestrate a move to his neighbourhood? In a perfect world, perhaps Matt’s address would be flagged, a danger zone drawn around it in Colleen’s search for new foster carers. But police and council databases don’t align like that. And Jess had her anonymity, so protection from Matt wasn’t something Colleen needed to factor in.
And it’s true that the witness’s identity was never revealed during the investigation. But Matt might have become suspicious after Lucy told us about being bullied by two new girls. If he did some digging around the village, he could easily have found out that Amber and Jess had moved from Oxford. His old school – Oxford Comprehensive – isn’t the only secondary school in the city by a long stretch, but it’s one of the biggest. If he reached out to an ex-colleague, the story could have unravelled from there.
I close down Jess’s file. Log out of the database. Turn off my laptop. Slam down the lid. I pause for a moment, then do everything in reverse. I need to print a copy. Of both their files. See the truth in black and white.
I walk over to the printer to grab the warm sheets of paper, then physically jump as I hear a noise. I look wildly for somewhere to hide. This is my office – I’m perfectly entitled to be here – but there’s no way I can come into contact with another human being right now – make conversation, pretend to be fine.
All this time I’ve been questioning my daughters’ involvement in Amber’s death, but it’s Matt who’s embroiled in this tragic mess. Jess lied to the police to get him charged with assault. He lost his job – the career he loved – because of it. He’s got plenty of reason to hate her. I think back to Friday night. How Matt wanted to deliver the money. And when Milla wouldn’t back down about taking it, he decided to follow her. Was it all a lie, his wanting to keep her safe?
Was it really about following Jess in the dead of night?
A series of images flood my mind. His pale, tear-stained face when he returned on Friday night. Our bedroom ceiling as I lay next to him in the near darkness, listening to the story of his traumatic night. The apologies. His black mood on Saturday. His distracting explanation of why Milla didn’t see Jess by the old train carriages.
But there’s no image of the badger who lost its life.
Because I never saw it; I only have Matt’s word.
Bile collects in my mouth, and I dry-heave.
The noise has stopped, and no one has appeared – a false alarm, thank God – but next time it won’t be. It’s seven o’clock and I know plenty of my colleagues who like to start early. I need to get out of here. I shove my laptop and the printouts into my bag, push my chair under the desk, and scurry back to the car park. I unlock my car door and sink into the fake leather seat. But it only gives me a few seconds’ reprieve before I realise that I could still bump into someone I know. I imagine the tap on my window, the small wave as they wait for me to join them. I push my key into the ignition and drive away, my tyres spinning with desperation.
I stir my cup of tea. I don’t take sugar so it’s a pointless endeavour, but I like watching the liquid swirl in a smooth circular motion. It’s calming. But then a drop spills, breaking the flow, and I reluctantly lift my gaze.
Despite the early hour, the small café is half-full. There’s a group of four men in dusty clothes and high-vis jackets eating bacon rolls and drinking fancy iced coffees. Another man is alone. Smartly dressed, drinking Lucozade from the bottle, and frowning at his phone. The rest of the clientele look to be students – their final pit stop after a night of partying on their way back to their tatty student houses. People always associate Oxford with its famous university – dreaming spires and cerebral students navigating cobbled streets on old-fashioned bicycles. But the reality is mostly different. Especially around here, where cheaply built post-war housing sits alongside 1960s tower blocks, and all of it is covered in a thin layer of grime from the factories that line the city’s ring road.
‘Mind if I wipe your table?’ A woman’s voice wafts into my brain. I look up, nod, then lift my mug as she smears a cloth across the laminate. ‘Ta,’ she says, then moves on to the next table, oblivious to my problems. Of course she is. That’s how the world works.
But I can’t deal with this on my own. It’s too much. Matt and I have been together since we were 18 years old. We’re a team – for better or worse, that’s what we said on that sticky August day with our friends and family watching on. Our marriage isn’t perfect, Matt isn’t perfect, but he’s still my soul mate. The only person I confide everything in. In the past, we’ve always talked through our problems, and I want to do that now. Go home, confront him. But what would I say?
Did you know Lucy was being bullied because of you?
