the results out by pressing red on the pictures of puppies and green on the pictures of riots.
My therapist was called Vernon and he asked me if I ever touched myself. I tried to think of what Tash would say. “Constantly. I use cucumbers, candlesticks, anything I can get my hands on.”
There were group sessions with other girls. Never boys. Some of them were anorexics or bulimics or were suicidal or into cutting themselves. The therapists were never specific in the group sessions. It was all about “feelings.”
“You want my feelings-I feel pissed off about being in here,” I told them. That lost me TV privileges for the evening. I told them I didn’t give a fuck about the TV, which lost me dessert privileges for a week. I lost a lot of privileges. I can’t even tell you what they were because I lost them before I had the privilege.
They gave us each a work roster. We had to set the tables or clear away dishes, or help in the kitchens. Our beds had to be made and rooms tidied. It was like being at boarding school because even our socks had to be folded in a certain way.
“Don’t knot them together-fold them with a smile,” the matron said.
“Mine are smiling like the crack of your arse,” I told her.
That lost me games room privileges.
At least they let me write. It was encouraged. I had to write lists of things I liked about myself and the things I disliked. The way I looked, for instance; my swearing; my temper; the fact that I’m crap at math…
I was allowed to make one phone call every week to Mum and Dad. I begged them. I cried. I tried to guilt them into letting me come home. My father’s voice would start to shake, but Mum would grab the phone from him before he broke down.
I didn’t have a mobile. I couldn’t talk to Tash or find out what had happened to Callum or Aiden. Days stretched into weeks. A month. Two. There were more therapy sessions and lectures on drugs and alcohol.
My parents thought I was a drug addict-or well on the way. I was “heading down the slippery slope,” they said.
After eight weeks they let me go home. They didn’t tell me until half an hour before my parents arrived. Even then, the matron just said, “Pack your suitcase.”
Mum came to the reception room. Dad stayed outside, standing by the car. That was it. We drove home in silence and I went to my room. I looked at my computer and at my mobile. I didn’t call Tash. I didn’t email anyone. I pulled out all my old toys and played with them. My Barbie dolls. I combed their hair and changed their clothes. I hadn’t done that in years.
Miss McCrudden, my English teacher-the one who loves my stories-always told me not to have passive characters when I wrote. They have to make things happen, she said, not just have things happen to them.
That’s when I realized what she meant. I was a passive character in my own life, letting things happen instead of forging my own way, finding my own path.
Not any more, I decided, never again.
23
The caretaker is easy enough to track down. He hasn’t covered his tracks or crawled into a deep hole. Nobody is far from the surface these days-not with emails and Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. They leave an electronic trail behind like mouse droppings in cyberspace.
Nelson Stokes works as a street cleaner for Oxford City Council, pushing a barrow in the pedestrianized precincts and laneways too narrow for the machines.
Thirty-eight, with long hair and an angular face, he’s wearing a plaid wool shirt and a reflective jacket. His barrow is propped outside a shoe shop while he rolls himself a cigarette. Inside the shop, a young salesgirl is standing on tiptoes, putting boxes on a high shelf. Stokes is watching her thighs and rump flexing beneath her short skirt.
“Mr. Stokes?”
He turns his head slowly. “Do I know you?”
I hand him a business card. He reads it carefully, taking a moment to decide if I’m an inconvenience or an opportunity. I’ve seen his police file, which is depressing reading. Arrested twice in his early twenties for accepting stolen goods, he pleaded guilty and was given the benefit. Before that he was studying engineering at university but lost his place for cheating in his first year exams. Odd jobs since then; married; divorced; one failed business. He worked at St. Catherine’s as a caretaker/groundsman for two years before being fired.
According to the police file, a handful of senior students at St. Catherine’s complained about Stokes taking photographs of them. It emerged that some of the girls had opted to do a quick change at the back of the sports hall after gym instead of going to the locker room upstairs. Stokes had used a digital camera to record them. Pictures of Natasha were found among the images.
The caretaker spent two days in custody and was interviewed for eight hours, but he had an alibi for the Sunday morning that the girls disappeared.
Propping his broom in the barrow, Stokes takes a seat at a bus stop and lights his cigarette.
“I was hoping we could talk about the Bingham Girls.”
“What’s that got to do with you?”
“I’ve been asked to review the case.”
“Nothing to do with me.”
“You knew the girls.”
“Found them, have they? The bodies.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Stands to reason.” He blows smoke from the corner of his mouth. “Missing all this time-they must be dead.”
He raises his eyes and glances across the street where a group of girls are chatting outside a Starbucks. I notice the heat in his eyes and his unwashed smell.
“I know about the photographs.”
“I never touched those girls. Not a hair.”
“You took pictures.”
He flicks ash. “That’s all. Why you bringing this up again? Did one of those little bitches make a complaint? Wants to sue. She can go ahead. Got no money. Can sue me for the barrow.” He laughs and nods to his brooms.
Stokes isn’t a practiced deceiver. If you’re going to lie, you show your hands, let people see you’re unarmed. And you lean forward a little to reinforce your convictions, without breaking eye contact.
“Where were you on the night of the blizzard?” I ask.
“Saturday? I would have been washing my hair.”
“Is that your alibi?”
“Why would I need one?” He smiles at me sadly, a bitter taste in his mouth. “It’s the uncle they should be looking at. I told the police. I told them what I saw.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them about that girl and her uncle, Vic McBain.”
“What about them?”
“I saw them together. He was dropping Natasha at school one day and the two of them were in the front seat of his car. She was sitting on his lap and they were kissing. Not just any kiss. Not a peck on the cheek. Open- mouthed. You know what I’m saying? At first I thought it was one of the senior girls and her boyfriend, but then Natasha got out and I saw the bloke she’d been kissing. She went skipping off to class like it was right as rain.”
“You’re sure it was Vic McBain?”
“Yeah. I talked to Natasha. She said she knew about my taking pictures and that if I told anyone she’d tell the police that I touched her. That’s a lie. I never laid a finger on any of them girls.”
“And you told the police this?”
