‘How so?’ Harry asked.
‘She would wake in the night screaming,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘She started to wet her bed, and that was something she had never done before. Every night, too. It was awful for her. She would be sick before going to school, and when we did get her there, she would hide from the teachers, hide from everyone. You wouldn’t believe how many places there are for a small girl to hide in a school like that!’
‘And Capstick?’ Harry asked.
‘He singled her out,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘Picked on her at every opportunity. Made fun of her. Encouraged all the other children to do the same, and they did, because they were scared of him, scared of being victims themselves, I shouldn’t wonder. Then winter came, and the cold. It was like nothing we had ever experienced.’
‘Did the bullying stop?’ Jenny asked.
Mr Rawson shook his head.
‘Sally loved the snow. I think it was because it made the world so quiet, you know? And it is magical, isn’t it? The way a blanket of snow can just quieten everything, silence the world, make everything pure for just a while. Like Sally, really. She was pure, in her own way. And for such a short time.’
Harry couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a decent snow fall. ‘If the bullying didn’t stop, what happened?’ he asked. ‘What did you do?’
‘In the end, we pulled her out of the school,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘Didn’t have any choice. It got that bad. But we made sure the school kept it as quiet as possible. I forced the head teacher to let me look at the records myself, just to make sure there was nothing in there that would follow her, you see? I didn’t want anything to haunt her, to turn up at her next school and be used as a rod to beat her with.’
‘You read the logbooks?’
Mr Rawson nodded. ‘Of course I did! Obviously it wasn’t allowed but I wasn’t having any of it! There wasn’t much in there to worry about anyway. Except for one bit which was all about how we had taken her out of the school because of her reaction the film a couple of months previous. I had that scrubbed from the records. Did it myself actually. And rather enjoyed it, too.’
Harry remembered then the crossed-out section in the logbook.
‘That Capstick lad was suspended a few times,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘Never expelled though. Don’t ask me why. I guess it was because there was never anything physical as such. He never beat her up. Nothing like that. But the verbal abuse, the way he had others rally against her, pick on her, make fun of her, ridicule her. It was awful. And his father? God, now if there was anyone to blame for anything, it was him!’
‘You had words then, I’m assuming?’ Harry suggested.
‘Words? Ha! I went round there and threatened to burn his house to the ground!’ Mr Rawson said. ‘I stormed in, wading through all that shit and muck in his yard, kicked his door open, and I had him! I had him with my hands around his throat, the bastard!’
Harry watched as the old man reached out with his hands and squeezed them around an invisible neck, the fire in his eyes terrifying, despite his age.
‘He would’ve deserved it, too, for what his son had done to my girl! I wanted to kill him! Just choke the absolute bloody life out of him!’
‘What stopped you?’
‘He did,’ Mr Rawson sighed, slumping back into his chair. ‘Look at me; I’m not a big man! Never have been. Anger only got me so far, and the element of surprise. He was drunk, but it didn’t matter. He was strong. Threw me out on my arse. Chased me across the yard with a stick. Threw a few rocks at me. But I wanted to go back, I tell you that for nothing. And you know why? Not because of what his son did to my daughter. No. But for what he said about her, to my face.’
‘When was this?’ Jenny asked.
‘The school arranged for a sort of parlay I suppose,’ Mr Rawson said. ‘Tried to get the parents together, to discuss what could be done. He turned up in his tractor, waltzed in, three sheets to the wind, and just started on at me, at my wife, at the head teacher, about how some kids just weren’t worth the effort, how some shouldn’t even be allowed to live. And he didn’t just mean our Sally either, but his own son! Can you imagine it? Evil, he was. The worst.’
Harry had been wondering for a while just where all this was going. It was quite the story, for sure, and it was very clear that it had all been terrible for Mr Rawson’s family. But he still wasn’t any clearer about what it was that had led them to where they were now, years later, and with three dead men lying in freezer drawers in the mortuary down dale.
‘You’ve got that look,’ Mr Rawson said, glancing at Harry.
‘What look?’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
Harry breathed deep, folding his arms across his chest. ‘Whether I believe you or not is irrelevant right now,’ he said. ‘I’m just not sure how all of what you’ve said so far brings you to us, now, to confess to three murders. It’s a tragic tale, yes, but three murders, Mr Rawson? That’s a whole world away from a kid being bullied and you having a scuffle with a drunk farmer.’
Mr Rawson nodded thoughtfully. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘But the story isn’t finished, is it?’
‘Only you know that,’ Harry replied.
‘Like I said, Sally loved the snow,’ Rawson continued. ‘She loved to go sledging, to go exploring with her brother.’
Harry sat up. ‘Brother? What brother? You
