The moral right of Tom Pollock to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 78087 010 6 (HB)
ISBN 978 1 78087 011 3 (TPB)
ISBN 978 1 78087 012 0 (EBOOK)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Also by Tom Pollock

The City’s Son

For my sister Sarah, who always finds me at the end of the day.

I
THE GIRL WHO LOOKED BACK

CHAPTER ONE

Laughter burst out over the playground. Like a lot of weapons, laughter had two edges, and the tall girl in the green hijab was intimately familiar with both. She listened to it carefully, even while she joked, wary in case it turned.

‘Honestly, I spent a week in training, then I was plunged into this network of underground cage-fighting clubs. The face came from this one girl, vicious little thing half my height – she hid these tiny nails under the knuckles of her gloves. It was totally against the rules, but nobody cared. Every time she hit me it was like getting a facial from a wolverine.’

A handful of students, bundled up against the February cold, clustered around Pen. She resisted the urge to draw the headscarf closer around her face under their scrutiny.

One of her audience, a superior-looking blonde in a fake-fur coat hissed impatiently, ‘But seriously, Parva …’

‘Seriously, Gwen?’ Pen shrugged. ‘
Seriously
, it was a jealous lover, said if he couldn’t have me, no one could.’

Laughter again, but more hesitant this time, and it quickly
petered out. Gwen Hardy’s eyes widened slightly and she said, ‘What … actually?’

‘Sure,’ Pen deadpanned. ‘Or maybe it was an angry cat – mutantly big – Catzilla, basically. Had claws out to here,’ she mimed. ‘I can’t quite remember, mind. It was a while ago—’

‘It was four months ago.’

‘Yeah, but it was only my face, it wasn’t like it was important …’

‘
Parva!
’ Gwen’s smile was achingly wide. ‘Will you just tell us already?’

Pen licked her uneven lips, wishing her current strategy involved a little less playing court jester to Gwen’s little crew. Still, she had disappeared without warning for three months and returned with a reconstructed lip and a tangled thatch of scar tissue over her cheeks. If you wanted back into school society with all that baggage, you needed the backing of somebody influential.

She made a show of sizing the three of them up, as though deciding how much truth they could take: Gwen Hardy, whom Allah in his loving wisdom had made pretty and bright and hard-edged as a diamond-cutter, stood next to her boyfriend Alan Jackson, who was just as smart, but given to speak only in soft monosyllables. Everything about him was as lean and efficient as the muscular frame zipped into his football team jacket. Next to Alan, and trying not to be too obviously excited about it, was tiny, freckled Trudi Stahl. Trudi had replaced recently graduated nightmare Harriet Williams at the crank-handle of the school’s rumour-mill,
and still seemed to be catching her breath at finding herself in such exalted company.

Pen beckoned them forward and they shuffled in, obscuring the shapes and muffling the noise of the younger kids who were kicking tennis balls across the asphalt until a breathless kind of intimacy enveloped them.

‘Well?’ Gwen demanded.

Pen drew in a deep breath and said softly, ‘I was kidnapped by a living coil of barbed wire – the servant a of a demolition god whose fingers were cranes. I was its host, and it sent me to kill Beth Bradley, but she freed me from it instead. I held the monster down with my body while she cut it off with a sharpened park railing.’

There was a long moment’s silence, then Alan made a
tchk
sound in the back of his throat and laughed. Gwen actually stamped her foot and puffed out a little condensation-cloud of frustration even as she grinned, but it was Trudi who spoke.

‘Damn,’ she said. ‘I actually thought we were going to get something there.’

The bell sounded the end of morning break and, chatting, whooping and swearing, Frostfield students converged on the doors to the main block. Anyone under sixteen was at least nominally in a blue and grey uniform. From above, Pen thought, it must’ve looked like a tide of dirty water streaming towards a plughole.

Gwen shouldered her satchel and slung an arm around Alan’s neck. She pulled him in and kissed him ostentatiously. At length she broke away and asked, ‘What’s now?’

‘Maths,’ Alan replied.

She rolled her eyes and Trudi, taking her cue, groaned along.

‘Eff. Eff. Ess,’ Gwen said. ‘With the new woman? Foreign-Chick?’

‘Faranczek.’

‘Whatever. Can any of you even understand a word she’s saying with that accent? I never thought I’d say this, but I seriously miss Salt. Did you get anywhere finding out what happened to him, Tru?’

‘Nothing solid, but a couple of the year 7s are spreading it that he’s been suspended,’ Trudi replied. ‘Apparently some girl said he touched her up.’

Pen felt her stomach muscles clench. ‘Really?’ She managed to keep her voice even. ‘Who?’

Trudi looked a little crestfallen. ‘They didn’t know.’

‘Selfish, lying bitch.’ Gwen snorted in disgust. ‘Whoever she is, she’s just out for attention, and she’s going to screw up our exams while she’s at it. Now, if some
boy
had said Salt went for him …’

She left it hanging and everyone laughed, including Pen, even though it wasn’t funny and her ears and chest were burning, even though she could feel the laughter pressing its blade against her stomach, because sometimes that was what you had to do.

‘You not coming, Parva?’ Gwen asked when Pen didn’t follow them towards the door.

Pen shook her head. She pulled a cartoon-mournful face and drew an invisible tear down one cheek with a finger.

‘Still playing the trauma card?’ Gwen said with a good-humoured
tut
. ‘Lucky cow. Still, I don’t blame you. If I could get away with skiving it, I would.’ She tucked her arm through Alan’s, and the untouchable pair sauntered inside. Trudi hung back with Pen. She tucked a coil of red hair behind one ear. ‘You will tell us, though, Parva,’ she said, her voice kind; concerned. ‘The stories are fun and all, and Gwen’s cutting you some slack, but sooner or later you
will
tell us how your face got so fucked-up.’ She tilted her head and studied Pen’s cross-hatched cheeks. ‘I just wanted to make sure you knew that.’

Pen forced a smile. She felt her scars bend: a dozen mocking, mirroring mouths.

‘Sure, Tru,’ she said. ‘It’ll be good to talk to someone.’

‘That’s what friends are for.’ Trudi rose onto tiptoes, kissed her on the cheek and headed in through the doors.

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