Into the Water

Maybe. When I told Julia that Mum didn’t jump, I expected her to tell me that I was wrong or crazy or whatever, but she just accepted it. Without question. Like she knew already. Like she’d always known.

I don’t even know if the shit Mark told me is true, though it would be a pretty weird thing to make up. Why point the finger at Mrs. Townsend, when there are more obvious people to blame? Like Louise, for example. But maybe he feels bad enough about the Whittakers, after what he’s done to them.

I don’t know whether he was lying or telling the truth, but either way he deserved what I said to him, what I did. He deserved everything he got.

JULES

When Lena came back downstairs, her face and hands scrubbed clean, she sat at the kitchen table and ate ravenously. Afterwards, when she smiled and said thank you, I shivered, because now that I have seen it, I can’t unsee it. She has her father’s smile.

(What else, I wondered, does she have of his?)

“What’s wrong?” Lena asked suddenly. “You’re staring at me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, my face reddening. “I’m just . . . I’m glad you’re home. I’m glad you’re safe.”

“Me too.”

I hesitated a moment before going on. “I know you’re tired, but I need to ask you, Lena, about what happened today. About the bracelet.”

She turned her face from me towards the window. “Yeah. I know.”

“Mark had it?” She nodded again. “And you took it from him?”

She sighed. “He gave it to me.”

“Why did he give it to you? Why did he have it in the first place?”

“I don’t know.” She turned her head back to face me, her eyes blank, shuttered. “He told me he found it.”

“He found it? Where?” She didn’t answer. “Lena, we need to go to the police about this, we need to tell them.”

She got to her feet and took her plate over to the sink. Her back to me, she said, “We made a deal.”

“A deal?”

“That he would give me Mum’s bracelet and let me go home,” she said, “so long as I told the police that I’d lied about him and Katie.” Her voice was incongruously light as she busied herself with the dishes.

“And he believed you would do that?” She raised her skinny shoulders to her ears. “Lena. Tell me the truth. Do you think . . . do you believe Mark Henderson was the one who killed your mum?”

She turned around and looked at me. “I’m telling the truth. And I don’t know. He told me he took it from Mrs. Townsend’s office.”

“Helen Townsend?” Lena nodded. “Sean’s wife? Your head teacher? But why would she have the bracelet? I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” she said quietly. “Not really.”

I made tea and we sat together at the kitchen table, sipping our drinks in silence. I held Nel’s bracelet in my hand. Lena sat loose-limbed, her head bowed, visibly sagging in front of me. I reached out and grazed her fingers with my own.

“You’re exhausted,” I said. “You should go to bed.”

She nodded, looking up at me with hooded eyes. “Will you come up with me, please? I don’t want to be by myself.”

I followed her up the stairs and into your room, not her own. She clambered onto your bed and lay her head on the pillow, patting the space next to her.

“When we first got here,” she said, “I couldn’t sleep by myself.”

“All the noises?” I asked, clambering up next to her and covering us with your coat.

She nodded. “All the creaking and the moaning . . .”