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‘You do want to be in our gang, don’t you, Catherine?’ Rachel asked.
The girl stared up at her. Then she took the pill, washing it down with vodka straight from the bottle.
‘And you don’t want to be the new odd one out, do you?’ Rachel asked, looking at me.
I took one too. She smiled, then kissed me in front of all the others. She stuck her tongue deep inside my mouth, and afterwards I wondered whether it was just to make sure I’d swallowed the pill. The men clapped and cheered while they watched.
Rachel took off my trainers then.
I was too drunk and cold and stupid to ask what she was doing.
She tied the laces together, then hurled them up into a tree. My shoes dangled from a branch that was too high to reach, and everyone laughed again. I didn’t like how they were looking at me.
‘Now you can’t run away from us,’ Rachel whispered in my ear.
She wanted to dance, so we did, until I felt so dizzy I fell to the ground. Even when I was lying motionless on the forest floor, the woods still seemed to spin around me. I lay in the dirt and dead leaves and struggled to keep my eyes open. I was so tired all of a sudden. She pulled the top of my dress down, and pushed the bottom of it up, then I remember the sound of her disposable camera.
Clickety-click. Clickety-click. Clickety-click.
The next thing I remember was her kissing and stroking me, with everyone watching. They were all smiling at us, even Catherine Kelly, and I felt strangely happy too all of a sudden. So much so, that I didn’t mind. When I next opened my eyes, I saw Helen on her knees in front of one of the men. He had a fistful of her shiny black hair. Another man had his hand up Zoe’s skirt, and I noticed that she was naked from the waist up. Catherine appeared to have passed out on the forest floor, and one of the men was pulling her clothes off.
Rachel put her hand on my cheek, turning my head to face her. She kissed me again, sliding her fingers between my legs. It felt so nice, but then other hands started touching me, rough ones, replacing hers. When I opened my eyes again, the man I had been sitting next to was squeezing my breast with one hand, while rubbing himself with his other. I heard someone cry. I thought it was me, but then I saw Catherine, completely naked and face down in the dirt. One man was on top of her, another appeared to be waiting.
‘Come on, don’t be a cock tease, at least suck it or something,’ said the man who was touching me. ‘We’ve all paid good money to celebrate your birthday with you. Be a good girl like it says on your nails.’
I looked down at my fingers, where Rachel had painted the words.
‘Get off me,’ I whispered.
‘You wanted to be part of our gang, well, this is what our gang does,’ Rachel said, trying to hold me down. ‘How do you think I paid for your new clothes and the highlights in your hair? Grow up, Anna. It’s just sex. It will hurt the first time, but then you’ll be fine, I promise. Try to relax.’
I didn’t want to relax. Fear flooded through my entire body as he tried to push my legs apart. Then anger. I slapped him, pushed her, and struggled to my feet.
‘Get the fuck off me,’ I screamed at them both.
‘I want my money back,’ he said to Rachel.
‘Just use the other one, I’ll give you a discount,’ she replied, looking over at Catherine.
I watched as he walked over to join the other men. They were no longer forming an orderly queue.
I know I should have tried to pull them off.
I know I should have helped her get away. It was all my fault that she was there in the first place – I invited her – but I was so scared of what was happening.
I don’t know how many of them took their turn. I watched in horror for a little while, trying to find my clothes, while Rachel took photos of them doing it.
I’m ashamed to say that I did nothing.
As soon as I found something to cover my naked body with, I ran all the way home in bare feet without looking back.
‘We’re here,’ says Richard.
I’m so tired, I don’t know whether I was asleep or just resting my eyes. He’s already turned the engine off, and as I stare out of the windows into the darkness, I see that we are surrounded by nothing but trees. It’s cold in the car, as though we might have been parked here for a while, and I realise I’ve no idea how late it is.
‘Where are we?’ I ask, taking my phone out of my bag to try and check the time.
But the battery has completely died now, and the knowledge that I am in the middle of nowhere, with no way of contacting anyone, makes me panic.
He must see the look on my face.
‘My wife’s parents’ house, remember? I promise I didn’t bring you out into the woods to murder you.’
He smiles at his own joke, but I don’t. Given the stories we’ve been covering the last couple of days, it doesn’t seem at all funny to me.
‘Sorry, I always did have a dodgy sense of humour and, like you, I’m crazy tired. The driveway is right there, see where I’m pointing?’
‘Whose car is that parked outside?’ I ask, turning to face him.
‘It’s my wife’s.’
‘Your wife’s? Did you know she’d be here?’
‘No, of course not. Do you think I want my wife to meet someone I used to cheat on her with? It’s late, we have to be on-air in a few hours. I don’t know what she’s doing here, I thought she’d be in London, but I’m sure she will have gone to bed already. We have two young children, remember? You won’t even see her.’
‘But why would she be here?’
‘I don’t know. We’ve been talking a lot about her coming down to sort through some of her parents’ things, so we can sell this dump. Maybe with Blackdown being all over the news the last couple of days, she finally decided to do it.’
‘This feels a little awkward.’
‘It’s really late. She doesn’t know what happened between us. Like I said, she’s probably gone up to bed already. I don’t see any lights on, do you?’
He reaches to open the car door but I still don’t move. I can’t. It feels like I’m in danger.
‘I’m sorry, Richard. I know it was years ago, ancient history and all that, but I still feel really uncomfortable about the idea of meeting your wife.’
‘What are you talking about? You’ve already met.’
I have one more left to go.
Finding a way to get her here, to this old house in the woods, posed a tricky challenge at first, but in the end all it took was a phone call. The solutions to difficult problems are often surprisingly simple.
I admit I’m tired now. But like my mother used to say, if you’re going to do something, you may as well do it properly. I plan to finish the job, because they all deserve to die.
Rachel Hopkins used sex to get what she wanted. When that wasn’t enough, she used other people. It started with her grooming school friends, taking semi-naked pictures of them, and selling the results to men at the local pub. The photos she sold never showed any faces. Rachel saved those for a sideline in blackmail. She earned good money and a bad reputation from both ventures, and it led to other things. When the men got bored of one girl, so did she, and moved her attention and affection to another.
