55. Now

‘Nothing?' says the policeman.

‘I don't remember anything from then until I was back out, in the woods.'

‘You had the tape?'

I shake my head. ‘No, I'd hidden it.'

‘Hidden it where?'

‘There was a vent, in the girl's bathroom on the ground floor.'

‘You know you hid it, but you don't remember hiding it?' His forehead creases.

I close my eyes and let myself slide back towards the black hole at the centre of my universe.

The tape is in the secret vent and I'm running home, faster than I've ever run, through the trees. I trip but I get up and start running again. The branches scratch my face and the pain helps me focus: I must catch up, make sure Mina and Lydia know what to say if they speak to the police.

Did I do the right thing with the tape? Mother told me to destroy it. But where and when? I couldn't risk being caught with it on the way home. What if Lydia or Mina saw it? No one knows about the vent.

Apart from the one person who might most want the tape. My ex-best friend.

But Georgia will never set foot in PES again. Not after this.

What would I say, if Georgia finds it? If she takes it to the police and my parents discover I haven't got rid of it?

It'll never happen. No point in thinking about that. In thinking about any of it.

The furrows in the field behind Shorthorn Lodge have dried hard and treacherous. In the fading light of the sunset I see two heads, one russet, one dark, nearing the gate. They'll cross the lane and find the broken bit of the old wall hidden in the hedges and climb through.

I pump my legs harder, ignoring the burn. ‘Lydia! Mina!' I call, slowing, hauling in air, as they reach the hole in the wall.

They turn. There's a ten-foot gap between them, and I wonder if they've been arguing. They've both put on their blazers while mine is tied around my waist and keeps dropping.

‘I'm sorry,' I say, panting.

Lydia puts her hands on her hips.

‘Is Tristan okay?' Mina asks.

‘He'll be fine, I think,' I say, knowing he won't.

‘Is Miss Smith okay?' asks Lydia.

I shake my head, keep shaking it, try to stop, but can't, and then I sit down on the hard earth.

‘Not okay… how?' says Lydia.

I close my eyes. I have to protect my brother. ‘She attacked him,' I say.

‘I don't buy it, Frances. I don't,' says Lydia. ‘He was saying all that stuff before he went in, and earlier, with Georgia… He's a fucking liability.'

‘No, he was just… That was just bravado.' I try to remember his story while we were waiting for Mother. ‘He… he did flirt with her. But he didn't expect her to be… up for it.'

‘Yeah, right,' says Lydia.

‘Yeah,' I say. ‘Right.' I stare at her until she looks away. ‘He tried it on a bit, but then she, like, went for him, and he tried to say no, but she just kept going.'

‘This is true?' Lydia squints at me.

‘It was just like we'd said. She had it planned.' I think about the tape sitting in the vent. ‘She wouldn't even let him start the camera. And then he tried to get away but she was, like, on him.'

Lydia crosses her arms. ‘So he, what? He hurt her?'

I swallow.

‘He killed her?'

I crush a nodule of dirt between my fingers. ‘I don't know. My mum went in to look and she wasn't moving.'

‘Jesus. Fuck. Christ.' Lydia stalks off towards the gate.

‘Get back here,' says Mina.

‘What? Why?'

‘Because this is going to look bad. Because Tristan needs his friends right now.'

‘Isn't this a bit beyond that?'

I need them both. I can't back up my brother's stories. I need someone else to verify that Miss Smith has been flirting with him, making advances. Someone needs to have seen something.

I start to cry. The thought of my brother going to prison is like being asked to lie still in a grave. ‘You don't believe me?'

‘He literally just… I don't even know what that was earlier, with Georgia.'

‘He went too far but he was never actually going to do anything – you know that. And he probably went too far with Miss Smith too but he wasn't going to have sex with her either – he's seventeen and she's, what, forty? Fifty? He's seventeen. She wasn't saying no. She was saying yes and he… What would you do? What if you came on to, I don't know, Richard Gere, but in real life, and in real life he put his hand on your thigh and asked you back to his? I mean, really?'

It was a scenario we'd discussed after watching Pretty Woman.

Lydia walks back towards us.

‘Except you're alone in a room and you don't need to go anywhere else for it to happen and he pushes you up against a wall – then what?'

Lydia sits down next to me and Mina follows.

‘She tried to rape him?' says Lydia.

I nod.

‘Fucking bitch,' says Mina.

I nod again.

Mina puts her hands on her hips. ‘We'll tell them. If the police ask us. We'll tell them everything everyone's been saying.'

I squeeze Mina's arm, but I see Lydia putting her head on one side, watching Mina. All of us have told stories about Miss Smith. Mina said she saw her cup Tristan's bum as she went past. Lydia said she saw her reach onto his tray in the canteen and take a bite of his apple. I said I saw her blow him a kiss as he was leaving her classroom.

But none of us have ever discussed whether each other's stories are true.

And there are the things everyone has seen. Miss Smith's short skirts. The way she sometimes climbs up onto a chair to adjust a poster with everyone watching when she's wearing one of them. Her winks and jokes and habit of toying with the pendant between her breasts when she speaks.

And she really did go into the storeroom after sending Tristan in once.

And there are all the stories from other people. The time she apparently groped our head boy on a field trip. What she supposedly said to Alex Dory when she caught him smoking in the woods. The boys she's rumoured to have slept with in years gone by.

I can see Lydia thinking. She made her story up, but what about everyone else?

‘Tristan thought…' I start, wanting to mention Tristan's story about them seeing Miss Smith holding him back after class, trying to kiss him, but I feel like it's too soon. Lydia still isn't certain. ‘Tristan just wanted a bit of fun. He likes to push things – that's why you like him, right? He's fun. But we're all just kids, really, still, aren't we? He's never even had sex before. Not really.'

Lydia frowns at me. ‘What?'

I shake my head. ‘He hasn't.' This is true, actually. It was his biggest secret, until now. All of his previous girlfriends have protected it.

‘Bloody hell,' she breathes.

‘He thought you might have seen it, after we gave her that necklace, when she got him to stay behind. He thought you might have seen her trying to kiss him.'

Lydia looks into her hands and shakes her head.

Mina scowls at her. ‘I didn't, but I'll say I did,' she says. ‘And so will you, Lydia. Along with everything else. You saw her eat his apple, didn't you? You said you saw her take it off his tray and stare right into his eyes as she took a bite.'

Lydia shrugs. ‘I didn't really see that.'

Mina rolls her eyes. ‘But all the rumours – I know we started them, but we didn't make them up out of nothing, and we didn't make up all of them.'

‘Why would she have stopped him from starting the camera?' I ask.

Lydia tugs at some grass.

‘It was self-defence,' I say.

She shrugs again.

‘It's just, I don't want my brother to go to prison. And what if the police don't believe him?'

‘Don't be shitty, Lydia,' says Mina. ‘Tristan is our friend. He doesn't deserve to go to prison.'

‘Unless it wasn't self-defence.'

‘But it was,' Mina says.

Lydia rubs her face. ‘Miss Smith tried to rape Tristan?'

I nod.

She picks up a stone and throws it. ‘Okay,' she says. ‘Okay.'