The Girls (29 page)

‘Hardly,’ said Fern, finding a new piece of dry skin to tug at. ‘There was, like, one bottle. We all had, like, a mouthful.’

‘That’s not the point. You should have told me. It’s relevant.’

‘We all said we wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘So I was just going along with that. It was supposed to be, like, this big secret.’

‘Catkin also mentioned some teasing going on: Tyler telling Grace that she should be “giving Dylan what he wants”? I find that quite disturbing.’

Fern shrugged. ‘Well, that’s Tyler, isn’t it? She
is
quite disturbing.’

‘Is she?’

Fern shrugged again. ‘I guess. I mean, she’s not your average thirteen-year-old, is she?’ She turned her hands palms up and started looking for shreds of skin there amongst the patches of eczema.

Adele put out a gentle stopping hand. ‘Isn’t she?’

‘No. Course she’s not.’

‘And what is an average thirteen-year-old?’

Fern considered the question. ‘I don’t think there’s any such thing,’ she said eventually.

Adele stared out of the window for a moment, trying to work out what the essence of this situation actually was. ‘Now, the police are coming back later and I really don’t want weird stuff coming out unexpectedly. So, please, whatever happened, whatever you saw or heard, tell me now. Hm?’

‘There’s nothing to tell you. I was in the playground with the others. The whole time.’

Adele stilled herself for a moment before bringing herself back to life. ‘Did you see Dad?’ she said. ‘During that hour between nine and ten?’

‘I think so,’ said Fern. ‘I saw him walking Scout.’

‘Where did you see him going?’

‘I saw him going to Grace’s house, then a few minutes later he walked past us and went up the hill.’

‘Did you see him come back again?’

‘No.’

‘Did you see him with Grace?’

‘What?
No
.’ Fern looked at her curiously. ‘Why are you asking me that, Mum?’ She began picking again at the eczema on the palms of her hands. ‘You’re acting really weird.’

‘Am I?’ Adele tried for a normal smile but didn’t quite get there. ‘Sorry. It’s all just – very unsettling and it’s making me feel very weird. You know?’

‘Yeah. I guess.’ Fern looked up suddenly from her hands and into Adele’s eyes with those red-rimmed eyes of hers and said, ‘Do you think it had something to do with Dad?’

‘What? Oh, God, no. Of course not.’

‘It was Tyler,’ she said abruptly.

Adele stared at Fern, aghast. ‘What?’

‘It was Tyler who pushed Willow off the swings.’

Adele exhaled. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Right. And why was that?’

Fern shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She just did it. And you know,’ she said quietly, so quietly that Adele had to strain to hear her, ‘Tyler said something last night about Puppy. She said that she thought he had something to do with Phoebe dying.’

Adele flicked her gaze at Fern. ‘She said what?’

‘I don’t know. It didn’t make any sense at the time. And everyone was being really crazy. But she said her mum had said that Puppy killed Phoebe. Gave her an overdose.’

Adele laughed. ‘Well, that’s the biggest lot of nonsense I’ve ever heard. And as you know, between Cece and Tyler lies an infinite sea of fantasy and conjecture.’

‘I know,’ said Fern. ‘I know. That’s what I said. It was so obvious she was making it up. Just to get attention.’

‘Exactly,’ said Adele. ‘Lovely as Tyler is, she’s always been a bit of an attention-seeker.’

‘I only said it because you were asking all those weird questions.’

‘I know.’ Adele stroked the dirty-blue tips of her daughter’s hair. ‘I know.’

But as she got to her feet, she felt herself wobble a little. Lurch slightly. Because she really didn’t know. She didn’t know anything any more.

Adele called Leo at three thirty. ‘Are you nearly home?’ she asked.

‘Nowhere near,’ he said in his ‘I’m-in-a-meeting’ voice.

She tutted and sighed. ‘I can’t do this by myself,’ she said.

‘Do what?’

‘Keep asking all these questions,’ she snapped. ‘You do know that, according to all the witnesses, you were probably the last person to see Grace before she was attacked.’

There was a beat of silence at the end of the line.

‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s not true. It was Dylan.’

‘Well, that’s not what Dylan is saying.’

‘Of course that’s not what he’s saying. Like I told you, he’s the most likely culprit.’

Adele sighed. It didn’t matter how far she stretched her own credulity, she could not bring herself to believe that Dylan had anything to do with this. Beautiful Dylan who respected his weird mother and cared for his learning-disabled brother and bought girls champagne for their birthdays to be
romantic
. ‘Also,’ she said, ‘you should probably know that Tyler’s been shooting her mouth off about Phoebe’s death. Telling your children that Gordon had something to do with it.’

‘
What?
’

‘She’s told your children that Gordon gave Phoebe an overdose.’

In the silence that followed she heard the true significance of things filter up through her husband’s consciousness. ‘I’ll wrap this up now,’ he said. ‘I’ll be home within the hour. I promise.’

She saw Tyler appear at the top of Virginia Crescent. It was 3.45 p.m. She was in her school uniform, battered rucksack swinging from one shoulder, PE bag from the other. Her hair was pulled back in a half-hearted ponytail. One sock up, one sock down. She looked nothing like the pristine girl of old.

‘Tyler,’ said Adele, stepping into her path. ‘How are you doing?’

Tyler smiled. ‘I’m good,’ she said.

‘Listen. The police have been here today. I know they’ve been looking for you and your mum. There’ve been some developments regarding Grace.’

‘Is she OK? Is she …?’

‘She’s still in a coma. But no change, so …’

‘Have you seen her?’

‘No. No. Not yet.’

Tyler nodded, looking around herself.

‘Can I have a word, Tyler? Now?’

‘Er, yeah? Where?’

‘At your flat? Maybe? Or we could go to the café on the corner. I can buy you a muffin or something?’

Tyler’s eyes lit up at the mention of a muffin. She rubbed her tummy and said, ‘I didn’t have lunch today. Mum didn’t top up my card.’

Adele sighed, confused as ever by the fact that Cece spent her days caring for other people’s children, yet let her own go without lunch money or company.

‘Come on then,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you a jacket potato if you like?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tyler, eyes shining with gratitude. ‘I would like that. Thank you.’

Adele watched as Tyler fiddled with the cutlery, the salt and pepper pots, the menus, then the paper tubes of sugar in a metal pot. She took them all out, rearranged them by type, put them back again.

She was so like Willow, Adele thought. So much nervous energy, all channelled into such inane activities. Maybe one day girls like Willow and Tyler would rule the world, but for now they were just compulsively fiddling about with bits of it.

‘So, how was school?’

‘OK.’

‘Did you say anything to anyone, about Saturday?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No one knows Grace, so it wasn’t like anyone would be interested.’

‘What did your mum say?’

‘I don’t know. Not much.’

Adele pulled the salt and pepper pots from Tyler’s hands, set them back on the table, brought her gaze up to meet hers. ‘Tyler,’ she said, ‘I’m hearing a lot of weird things about Saturday night. Things about stolen champagne. About teasing Grace and Dylan. About pushing Willow off the swing. And, kind of most worryingly of all, accusations about Gordon?’

Tyler shook her head and cast her eyes back to the tabletop. ‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No. I didn’t say anything about Gordon. Why would I say anything about Gordon?’

‘And why would someone say you had if you hadn’t?’

‘I dunno. People just say stuff, don’t they?’

‘They do, yes. That is true. So why don’t you tell me some stuff. About Saturday. About what
you
think happened?’

‘I have
no idea
what happened. I swear. We were just in the playground, then Pip came running by, then it all went crazy.’

‘And what were you doing in the playground?’

‘Just what we always do. You know. Hanging out. Mucking about.’

‘Pushing people off swings?’

‘Yes. Well. She was annoying me.’

‘And what was she doing that annoyed you?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘You can’t remember?’

‘No.’

Adele sighed, remembering innumerable situations over the years where she’d had to question Tyler about her involvement in childish scraps. She’d always been evasive to the point of genius. ‘She’s got a terrible bruise, you know.’

Tyler shrugged, squaring the menu up against the corner of the table. ‘Sorry,’ she said.

The waitress brought Tyler’s potato, steaming through a mountain of cheese and baked beans. Tyler immediately picked up her fork and began to eat, blowing the steam of the too-hot food from a mouth made into a circle.

‘Where was your mum on Saturday?’

Tyler unfolded a paper napkin and wiped her mouth with it, picked up her Coke and took a slurp. ‘At his.’

‘Who’s “his”?’ She remembered the date Cece had been going on when they’d met in the street a couple of weeks back.

‘Her boyfriend. She’s there all the time.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘And who’s looking after you?’

‘No one. Me.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘He’s all right,’ she said, her fork suspended by her mouth. ‘He’s not very chatty. And he’s a bit ugly.’

Adele sighed. She could not imagine. She really could not. ‘Anyway,’ she continued. ‘Going back to Saturday night. Do you remember seeing anyone else, apart from your friends? Anyone you wouldn’t expect to see in the garden at that time of night?’

‘Saw Gordon,’ she said, ‘hobbling about. Saw Leo. With the dog. Saw Rhea on her balcony. Didn’t see anyone else. No weirdos lurking in the undergrowth.’

‘You know, Tyler,’ she said. ‘They’ve run blood tests on Grace. She was given an overdose. That’s what caused the coma.’

She watched Tyler chewing a mouthful of food, loading up her fork again, putting it in her mouth.

‘You don’t look very surprised.’

‘Not really. It’s just history repeating itself. Isn’t it?’

Adele turned her teacup around on the saucer. ‘You mean Phoebe?’

‘Yes. Phoebe. And Gordon. My mum told me that it was him. That he’d been abusing her. And she threatened to tell. So he killed her.’

Adele felt anger building within her. ‘Right. Tyler,’ she said, firmly, ‘it is absolutely
not OK
to talk like that about people. I have no idea where your mother got this ridiculous notion from, but it’s utter rubbish. And neither of you should be going around saying things like that.’

‘Yes, but it’s
relevant
, isn’t it? Grace was drugged. Phoebe was drugged. Gordon was in the garden.’ She shrugged as if to say:
Dur
.

‘Right. Fine,’ said Adele. ‘Let’s just drop this for now. But seriously, Tyler, when the police come to talk to you later, you have to be very careful what you say. Because if you start shooting your mouth off with all this nonsense about Gordon, you’ll be distracting them from the real issue. And the real issue is Grace. And what on earth would Gordon have to do with Grace?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe he’s a paedophile?’

Adele’s thoughts returned to Rhea’s words the other day: that she wouldn’t feel happy having Gordon in her home with young girls. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘Of course he’s not.’

‘How do you know that? How do you know anyone’s not a paedophile? How do you know
Leo
’s not a paedophile? I mean, he went out with my mum when she was only thirteen!’

Adele recoiled. ‘God, Tyler,’ she said, aghast. ‘How on earth do you know about that?’

‘Because my mum told me,’ she said. ‘She told me everything. That she was obsessed with him. For years. I know all that. And you know something else?’ Her eyes narrowed and she put down her fork. ‘I used to think that Leo was my dad. I really, really did. Because my mum let me believe that he was. She let me believe that for years and years and years. She never said he was. But then she never said he wasn’t.’

She slid her fork back and forth across the side of her plate. Adele could see a film of tears across her eyes. The fork was moving faster and faster, making an irritating, rasping sound. She resisted the temptation to grab Tyler’s hand and stop it. There was something colossal happening here and she didn’t want to scare it off.

‘But why?’ she began gently. ‘Why would you think he was your father?’

‘Because—’ She stopped. She looked up at Adele. ‘Because once, when I was really little, when I was about four, five or something, I saw them kissing each other.’

Adele laughed. She couldn’t help it.

Tyler looked at her, affronted. ‘I don’t know why you’re laughing. It happened. It really happened.’

Adele cast her thoughts back through nearly a decade of memories. Nine years ago. Willow was one. Fern was four. Catkin was six. Leo’s consultancy was just taking off. Adele was not yet used to juggling a baby with two home-schooled children. Life had been quite stressful. Things between Leo and her had been almost dark. She’d wondered back then if Leo might be tempted to find some light somewhere out of their home. Find someone to be nice to him when she was incapable of doing so. But still – Cece Rednough? She was hardly a ray of sunshine. She was a whole other kind of dark.

‘Does your mother know you saw them?’

‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘It was in the Rose Garden. I was looking for Dylan. I don’t know if she saw me. I never talked to her about it.’

‘Are you sure that’s what you saw, Tyler? Because you know Leo, he’s very touchy-feely, very affectionate. Maybe he was just hugging her?’

‘I don’t know. I was
four
. I know what I think I saw and how what I think I saw made me feel. And it made me feel like Leo must be my dad because only dads kissed mums and it was the best feeling I ever had because I wanted it so much. Because I wanted to be part of your family more than anything.’