On the way back, we go on the beach and throw pebbles into the sea. Cal loves doing that. And I throw my necklace in as well. I should never have kept it. Should have thrown it away years ago. I knew that. But I had nothing when I was little. I wanted one thing to keep. I made a hole in my little anorak and pushed it inside, in the stuffing. I started to wear it only when I got back to Ebbing. When I felt safe.
But I’m not now. Elise says she won’t tell anyone but she’s a cop. She’ll tell someone one day. We need to move. I’ll have to tell Cal tomorrow. There’s too much going on.
I’ll just pack up and go. I can now that I know they’ve arrested Toby and Kevin for what they did to Charlie. And I’ve said as much to Elise. She won’t come looking. She’s got her story now. About Dee the victim. I dreaded it but it was easy in the end. I told her what I wanted her to believe and she heard what she wanted to hear. Lots of it was true. The stuff about Phil and Stuart being way out of their depth.
And I told her enough so she didn’t feel she had to press me on what had happened that night.
I shouldn’t have been there but Phil had left me with the boy in the next room that night. Stuart, the boy who let us boil water.
“Can you watch her for an hour, mate?” Phil said. “I’ll be back in plenty of time for tonight.”
I remember we sat on the floor in the dark and I watched Stuart messing around with his phone.
It got late and I started looking at the door. I was hungry but Stuart was sniffing stuff. He suddenly stopped and stood up. He looked like he was standing in a big wind, swaying all over the place.
“I’ve got to go to work,” he said. “Where’s your brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you’ll have to wait here for him.”
“No,” I said, and started to cry. “Don’t leave me on my own. Please.”
“For fuck’s sake. Okay, put your coat on.”
I ran after him, clattering down the stairs, and walked in his footsteps. He didn’t speak to me. I think he forgot I was there.
He climbed through a window at the back of the house and I did the same. It was all dimly lit and so warm. I remember the carpet felt like a mattress under my feet. Stuart went into a room off the hall and told me to stay quiet until he was done. But I got bored and wandered farther down the big hallway. I wanted to see. And I heard a voice—a girl’s voice—and followed it.
She was lying on the sofa when I walked in. I’d never seen such a beautiful room—it had a glass chandelier and everything was shiny. And the girl shouted when she saw me. “Christ, what are you doing here?”
And Stuart came running in and tried to grab me to go but she started screaming and he got hold of her. And it was too late to leave.
She was shouting for someone to help her. And we heard a door slam and someone running. And yelling, “Sofia.” Stuart picked up a poker from the fireplace and hit the man when he rushed in. I stood in a corner and saw it all playing like a video game, the blood splashed in neon colors, the screams digitally manipulated. The man didn’t say anything after that. Stuart tied up the girl with her belt and sat her on a chair. He kept shouting, “Where’s the silver stuff? The jewelry?” And there was spit coming out of his mouth. But she wouldn’t say. He put a clear plastic bag over her head and said he would take it off if she told him. And he got me to hold where he’d twisted it while he put a computer in his backpack. I was supposed to stand at the back of her but she twisted her head and I could see her face through the plastic. She was wearing a really pretty necklace and I reached to touch it. Her eyes were bugging out, her mouth sucking the bag in. “Tell him,” I whispered to her. But she didn’t. She just stopped sucking the bag in.
“Stuart,” I remember saying. And he came over and pulled the bag off.
“Fuck,” he said.
“Can we go home now?”
“Go, get out of here!”
And I went out the front door and stopped at the bottom of the steps. I couldn’t remember where I was for a minute. Then I saw the gardens opposite and ran.
Phil wasn’t there when I got back to the squat. He crawled in beside me later. He smelled really badly of drink and wasn’t making any sense. I clung to him as he snored and tried to go to sleep.
When I woke up, the police were all over the squat. Stuart had gone—he’d been captured on CCTV on the way home. Phil couldn’t look me in the eye. He said he’d got drunk with mates and forgotten the time. He’d been blind drunk when he’d rolled in. He’d fallen on the bed and gone to sleep.