Skin Deep (29 page)

‘Don’t be so stupid, Mum. She’s about five foot one. As if she could have beaten Steven Carlisle’s head in.’

‘But if she got in a rage, she could be stronger than you think. It’s the adrenalin –’

‘This is completely stupid and over the top!’

Mum compressed her lips. ‘Well, perhaps so, but I think you need to calm down. I’ll go downstairs. But I mean it, you are not to go round there again until we’ve discussed this properly. I’ll need to meet her before I feel comfortable about you being there. I feel very sorry for her, but you’re my daughter and it’s my job to keep you safe.’

‘And a fantastic job you’ve done of that!’ I screamed as she hurried downstairs. ‘Yeah, go and tell him the latest so he can rant about it too.’

I looked for something to throw, but there was only Barney. I burst into tears instead.

Stop it, you stupid, snivelling cow. Pull yourself together. How must he feel, thrown out like that? Do something.

I dried my face on my sleeve and crept down to the kitchen to find my phone – no messages. I typed a text quickly.

He must have been waiting because almost immediately, one came back.

I sent one last text where I filled the screen with Xs. When I looked up, Charlie was standing at the door, grinning. ‘You are in so much trouble.’

‘Shut up!’

He sauntered into the kitchen. ‘You’d better be nice to me, or else. You can start by making me a milkshake.’

‘Make it yourself.’

He stuck his tongue out. ‘If you don’t, I’ll tell Dad how you stayed out all night with him and then –’

He stopped at the sight of my face. Charlie turned . . . and looked up at Dad standing in the doorway behind him.

‘Charlie, go upstairs.’

My brother shot me a ‘sorry’ with his eyes before he slunk out past Dad.

Dad’s face was white. ‘Well?’ he said, as though it killed him to speak to me.

‘Ch-Charlie got it wrong –’

‘Yes, you would say that.’

I gritted my teeth. ‘He did. Look, I went to meet Ryan one morning before he went to work and Charlie saw me coming back, that’s all.’

‘Am I expected to believe that?’

‘Ask his mum then! She’ll tell you – he was with her.’ Because she would, wouldn’t she? She’d already lied to the police about where he was that night.

‘She’s hardly reliable from what your mother’s just told me.’ A muscle twitched in his jaw.

‘She’s depressed, not a psycho!’

‘I’m going to say this once, Jenna, and I mean it – you are not to see that boy again. You are not to go near him or his mother. I am not having it.’ He turned on his heel and strode back to the sitting room.

I stormed after him. ‘You believe what you want. But you are not stopping me from seeing Ryan. You’ve got no right!’

He sat on the sofa and stared at the muted TV screen. I waited for a moment. Mum ignored me. Then I stamped upstairs so they wouldn’t see me cry.

The boat was in darkness when I got back on Thursday night
.
I opened Mum’s bedroom door cautiously. ‘Mum, do you want a cup of tea?’

‘No.’

‘Are you feeling bad?’

‘Leave me alone.’

‘Want some dinner?’

‘No.’

I gave up. I’d try harder if she wasn’t up tomorrow, but for now I couldn’t cope with much more.

I went up to the loose box and hung around outside until Jenna came to see to the ponies. Her face lit up when she saw me in the torch beam and she flung her arms round me.

‘I can’t be long. Dad’ll be home from work soon.’

‘What happened?’

I heard her anger in the darkness. ‘I’m not supposed to see you any more. But they can’t stop me and I told them that.’

It was only what I’d expected all along. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t for a few days. Let it die down.’

‘Don’t you want to see me any more?’ she asked in a small voice. ‘I wouldn’t blame you after the way Dad treated you.’

I put my chin on her head. ‘No, it’s not that. I don’t want you getting grief and anyway, Mum’s not good. I should be there now.’ And it was getting harder and harder not to tell Jenna I was in trouble and scared.

The house crackled with the static of unspoken anger as we sat in silence over dinner
.
Halfway through the meal, Charlie dropped his cutlery on to the plate with a clatter and burst into tears, something he hadn’t done for years, not since he broke his arm falling out of a tree.

Mum immediately scooped him on to her knee, as if he was still that little boy. Normally he’d have wriggled free, but not tonight. ‘What’s wrong, darling?’

‘Everything,’ he wailed. ‘Everything’s horrible. Dad’s always angry and you’re weird. And nobody will tell me what’s going on and I know something is. And now Jen hates me too, and it’s all my fault. But I didn’t mean to tell and she won’t listen and –’ He broke off, hiccuping as he tried to breathe through his sobs.

Mum glared at me.

‘The only person at fault here is your sister,’ Dad said. ‘And frankly her behaviour at the moment doesn’t give us any reason to think she’s responsible enough to be believed.’

In my head I stood up and screamed at him and threw my plate across the kitchen to shatter against the wall. I stopped myself just in time. He wouldn’t believe me any better for that.

I put my cutlery down quietly. ‘We weren’t doing anything. I took him upstairs because . . . because I wanted to show him my mask. And yes, we kissed, but that’s all.’

‘You are so naïve,’ Dad snapped. ‘He’s a sixteen-year-old boy. In your bedroom. What do you think would’ve happened next?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I know teenage boys, Jenna. I was one. They’re all after the same thing.’

Mum lifted her eyebrows. ‘Do we have to have this conversation in front of Charlie? And I think you’re doing that boy a disservice, Clive. It’s not as if we have any reason to think ill of him. After all, he obviously doesn’t care about her . . . her . . .’ She looked at me and stopped, her cheeks flushing.

‘Or he thinks he can take advantage of her because she’s vulnerable!’

That did it.

I threw the plate.

At eleven thirty on Friday morning, a police car pulled up at the boatyard
.
Two men in uniform got out.

They walked towards me. The older spoke. ‘Ryan Gordon?’

I nodded.

‘We’d like you to come with us to the station in connection with the death of Steven Carlisle.’

The spanner dropped from my hand. ‘Are you arresting me?’

‘No, we’d like you to come voluntarily and answer some questions.’

I hadn’t heard Bill hurry over, didn’t know he was beside me until I felt his hand on my shoulder. ‘Hang on a minute, he’s only sixteen. Doesn’t he have to have someone with him?’

‘We’ve been trying to get hold of his mother. We need him to tell us where she is.’

‘She’s at home,’ I said, every part of me numb.

‘There’s no answer. We’ve tried there already.’

‘She’s in bed. She’s ill.’

The man frowned. ‘Is she too ill to come down the station? If so, we’ll need someone else to act as an appropriate adult for you. Is your dad around or another relative? Otherwise we’ll have to call Social Services.’

Pete marched over too. ‘What’s going on?’

‘They want to take him in for questioning over that murder,’ Bill told him.

Pete screwed up his face, incredulous. ‘What? Him? You’re barking up the wrong tree, mate. Stop arsing about and get out there and find who really did it, because I’m telling you it’s not Ryan.’

‘Look, lads,’ Bill said. ‘Two boys having a bit of a scrap is one thing. Doing someone in is another.’

‘Just some questions, sir. Just following our orders,’ the policeman replied.

Pete stepped between me and the two officers. ‘Ryan, you got someone you can call? Someone you want me to call for you? Do you want me to come with you?’

‘There . . . is someone . . . maybe,’ I said slowly. ‘I don’t know. Can I try?’

‘Go on,’ the policeman said, stepping away to give me space.

I pulled the phone out of my pocket, fumbled, and nearly dropped it. Bill’s hand tightened on my shoulder. I found the number in my contacts and hit the ring button.

It rang and rang.

What if it wasn’t the right number any more?

What if he was tied up and couldn’t answer?

What if he didn’t want to?

The ringing went on forever.

Please, please pick up
. . .

Finally, a voice spoke in my ear. Surprised. Worried. ‘Hello? Ryan?’

‘Cole, I need . . . I’m . . . Cole, I’m in a mess . . .’

I texted Ryan at lunchtime in the cafeteria
.
No answer.

‘What if he’s getting fed up with me and I’m too much effort?’ I stared at the phone trying to make it ring, message, do anything but sit there in my hand ignoring me.

‘Maybe he’s busy. He is at work.’ Beth split her chocolate cake in half and pushed a piece over to me. ‘Here, you have some. I can’t eat it all.’

‘But it’s his break now.’

‘Something could’ve come up.’

‘You don’t understand. He’s been weird all week. And then there’s that stuff with Dad.’ I shoved the cake away. ‘What if he’s met someone else?’

‘That’s mad, Jen. He likes you a lot. It’s dead obvious.’ The chocolate cake headed my way again and she pulled a face at me. ‘And not eating that isn’t going to change anything.’

‘But there’s something he’s not telling me. I thought it’s because his mum isn’t well, but it’s more than that, I’m sure of it. Why won’t he tell me?’

‘Have you asked him?’

‘I don’t want to come over as clingy and desperate.’ I sighed. ‘I am being clingy and desperate, aren’t I?’

Beth laughed. ‘Just a bit.’

My phone vibrated and I snatched it up
.

Please don’t let this be Cole saying he can’t make it after all.

It wasn’t.

‘My girlfriend,’ I told the policewoman who’d been left to mind me.

‘Do you want to answer it?’

‘No, not now.’

I put the phone away and looked around the waiting room for the two hundredth time. Nothing much to see. Plain walls with a few posters about advice lines. I’d read them so many times now I could practically remember the phone numbers by heart. The room was bigger than any of ours on the boat, but it still felt like a cell.

‘Shouldn’t be long now,’ the policewoman said, glancing at her watch. ‘Do you want another drink?’

I shook my head. ‘Can I go to the toilet, please?’ My bladder had begged me to ask for the last hour – nerves getting to it – but I didn’t know if it was allowed.

‘Of course.’

She got up to escort me and I felt like a fool – they’d hardly leave me to wet the floor.

Back in the waiting room, another fifteen minutes ticked by until the door opened and a policeman waved Cole in.

My eyes smarted in relief at the sight of him – big, hairy, leather-clad, his presence filling the room. I scrambled up, knocking the table aside.

‘Come here, kiddo,’ he said and he grabbed me in a Cole bear-hug. ‘Bloody hell, Ryan, you’ve grown again. You’ll be taller than me soon, you great long streak of piss.’ He laughed with his ‘fuck authority’ belly chuckle and I held on to him tighter.

I didn’t ever want to be bigger than him.

‘I want a few minutes with him first,’ he said to the woman. ‘And get us a coffee, love, will you? Have you got the duty solicitor on call? He’s not doing this without one.’

She answered something or other, but I didn’t listen. Cole would look after everything now. My head was on his shoulder and I breathed in the smell of leather and safety.

‘I picked Karen up on the way. She’s outside. Had to get her in case they needed her consent to let me sit in with you. Plus I knew she’d want me to. Do you want to see her?’

‘I can’t. Not now. Is she all right?’

‘Yeah, course she is. She’s Karen. She’s fuming. Left her giving the desk sergeant full blast about persecution of children and minorities.’

‘Nooo . . .’ I groaned.

He laughed again and rocked me hard, staggering me from one foot to the other. ‘Stop worrying. Let her rant. It’ll take her mind off flapping over you.’