panda. I remember her arguing with the guy, saying the game was rigged because the balls were extra bouncy and they wouldn’t go through the hoop or kept bouncing off the rim.”
“What time was that?”
“Just after nine.”
“Who were the girls with?”
“Nobody really.”
“Was anyone hanging around?”
“They were talking to some boys.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know their names. They were Hayden’s friends.”
“Was Hayden there?”
“No.”
“Who else?”
“Everyone from town-kids and grown-ups-it was a big deal in Bingham.”
I try to get names and to plot where the girls drifted to during the course of the evening. Emily talks, large- eyed, nodding faintly now and then.
“Was there anyone who made you feel uncomfortable,” I ask. “Someone who looked odd or stood out in some way?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about Tash’s uncle?”
“He was running the tombola. He was quite funny-some of the things he was saying. Getting people to buy more tickets.”
“Who else did you see?”
“Some girls from school… the vicar and his wife… Callum Loach was there with his family. People felt sorry for him. It’s not as though he could go on the rides.”
“Did he talk to Tash or Piper?”
“I don’t think so. I heard his father say something about Tash.”
“What did he say?”
She picks at her muffin, pulling out the blueberries. “It was pretty awful. He called her a prick-tease and a slag. Everybody knows he hates her.”
“When Piper came to your house that night, where was Tash?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Piper say anything?”
“I knew something was wrong. Her clothes were dirty. She had mud on the knees of her jeans and on her elbows. I thought she must have fallen over. She sat on my bed and left dirt on the bedspread.”
“Was she hurt?”
“No.”
“Had she been crying?”
“Piper never cries.” Emily runs her fingers through her hair, hooking it over her ears.
“You left the funfair at nine o’clock. Why was that?”
“Mum had gone to hospital.”
“Who called you?”
“My dad.”
“You said your mum lives in London now.”
“Yeah.”
“How often do you see her?”
“When Dad lets me.”
“How often would you like to see her?”
A hurt helplessness ghosts over her face. Only crumbs remain on her plate. “I have to go. I only get fifteen minutes.”
“Just one last thing,” I say. “Was there a special place where you girls used to hang out?”
“You mean like a clubhouse?”
“A favorite place.”
“You make us sound like we’re eight and still using secret passwords.”
I laugh. “It’s just that Piper and Tash took so little with them. No clothes were missing. I thought maybe they could have hidden bags. You said you were planning this.”
“We were.” She peers out into the street. “That summer we hung out a lot at the leisure center. The pool. We used the lockers. Tash used to hide stuff there.”
Emily pushes her empty cup away. She’s said too much. “I have to go.”
Without waiting, she grabs her coat and I watch her skip across the road, looking both ways. A sense of disquiet has been growing within me like the beating of a war drum, repetitive, dull, getting stronger every day.
She stops on the far side of the road and looks over her shoulder, holding my gaze for a fraction of a second as though worried about what she’s left behind, but determined to go on without it.
My dad once told me that people can sometimes do amazing things when they’re in life-and-death situations. Mothers can lift cars off their trapped babies and people have survived falls from airplanes.
When the time comes, maybe I can do something amazing. Every time I contemplate stabbing George, my throat starts closing. It feels like a heart attack, although I don’t know how a heart attack is supposed to feel. I imagine like heartburn only a million times worse because you don’t die of heartburn.
I know it’s a panic attack. I’ve had them before. Tash used to help me get through them. She would hold a bag over my mouth and get me to breathe slowly or she’d rub my back, telling me to picture something that made me happy, a place or a person.
That’s what I do now. I imagine I’m lying on the grass on a beautiful sunny day in our garden beside the pond. Phoebe is next to me and I’ve made her a clover crown and a matching bracelet and necklace. Mum is in the kitchen cooking chicken Kiev, which is my favorite.
I know it sounds corny, like a scene from a washing powder advert, but it takes my mind off my panic attack. After a few minutes I start to breathe normally again. I go to the sink and wash my face. Boiling water in a saucepan, I cook pasta and mix it with a teaspoon of oil. I can only swallow a few mouthfuls. My nerves are too bad for eating.
I look at the trapdoor and listen. If not today, maybe he’ll be here tomorrow.
I’ve washed out an empty can of baked beans, which I’m using as a hearing device. I hold it against the wall and put my ear to the base, hoping to hear Tash on the other side. I even imagine that she’s doing the same thing, listening for me. Our heads might almost be touching.
On the night we finally decided to run away our heads were touching and we made promises to each other. I thought Tash was unbreakable but that night she shattered into a million little pieces and I tried so hard to pick them up again.
Ever since Aiden Foster’s trial she had talked about running away. Getting expelled from school simply created a timetable. We had one more summer in Bingham, she said. When school went back, we’d have to leave.
The Summer Festival was on the last weekend of the holidays. There were funfair rides, stalls and sideshows on Bingham Green. The local pony club put on a display and Reverend Trevor judged the dressage competition.
The entire day was supposed to be a celebration. It began with morning tea in the gardens of The Old Vicarage-one of the traditions that Mum and Dad had to agree to when they bought the house. Apparently, according to local historians (by which I mean busybodies), the vicarage had hosted a morning tea for estate workers and townsfolk for the past a hundred and sixty-two years.
I don’t know what an estate worker is, but most of the visitors were old biddies from the church, sitting at long tables on the lawn. There were scones, sponge cakes, trifles and summer puddings under muslin to keep the
