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I’m so confused.
He looks me straight in the eye. ‘You do know what I’m talking about?’
I nod and swallow. ‘I destroyed it.’
He nods, smiling ‘I know. Of course you did. I just… What did you do with it?’
I frown. ‘I pulled all the tape out and burnt it in the Aga the moment I got home from school that evening. I threw away the cassette in some bins near the hospital, when I came to see you later that night.’
‘You didn’t write about it in a diary or…’
I shake my head, seeing my trembling hands as I stood before the Aga that evening. They were empty. But not because I’d stuffed the tape inside. It was hidden far away.
‘Tris?’ I feel my lips pulling further down.
I love my brother. I study the mottled red scar like a poppy on his right cheek. The wound that left him confused and drowsy, had him hiding in bed for a month, changed his ambitions from the stage to politics.
We told everyone he’d had a horse-riding accident. But at the time most people knew the truth – or what I suppose might have simply been our version of it.
‘She’s at Glastonbury,’ he says. ‘I can feel it. She hasn’t stopped talking about it since last summer.’
Hasn’t she? How often does he talk to her?
‘Tris, what was on that tape?’
‘You know what was on it.’ He squints at me.
This is my brother. He’s a good man. He’s always been there for me.
‘Which is why it had to be destroyed. I can’t have people getting the wrong end of the stick. And if there’s any chance at all that it could have… survived, well, I just need you to consider that. It wouldn’t be good for any of us. In that case, it would be better, really, for us to try to find Jenna ourselves.’
‘I destroyed it,’ I lie. ‘And the police are involved already.’
He smiles but doesn’t break eye contact as he says, ‘Yes, and I’ll make sure to speak to the commissioner once he’s had his morning coffee.’
49
BEFORE
The lane, the grass verge, the hedge are a blank, black void, the sky a river of stars. I limp towards my front gates. They stand propped open.
I’m so cold I can’t stop shaking. All I want is my mum. She’ll curl up with me and stroke my hair and get Dad to make us hot chocolate.
We can leave this place. I don’t even have to tell her why. If I say we have to move, she’ll listen to me, because she always does – she always has. It’s just that I’ve stopped telling her things.
At the gates I stop. The house lights are all still on, and parked in front is a white police car. My stomach flips.
They must have called the police. I didn’t come home after school and they panicked. It’s late, after all. My mum will be pacing and crying; my dad will be by the fireplace, biting his thumbnail.
Guilt fills my stomach. I must’ve been lying on the grass for hours. I’m hurt, but it’s not exactly terminal. Why do I have to be so dramatic and make people worry about me?
This is it. I really will have to explain now. And the police – they’re going to want to know who did this to me. I touch my nose. It’s still tender, but it’s not so bad.
The security light comes on and I look in the window by the front door, studying my reflection. My nose looks slightly swollen, but maybe you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t really know me. There’s a graze on my cheek, but it’s nothing spectacular. My clothes are damp, but you’d probably have to touch me to know it.
I drag my fingers through my hair to take out the grass and leaves and pull my shirt straight. I force myself to stop shaking.
Sure, I’d love to get my own back on my friends, but the police – that’s going a bit far, isn’t it?
