Torn (12 page)

Before we knew it, Cass had a plan. We’d chuck the pillowcase and rope into the well – no one would notice they were missing. She’d put the balaclavas back where she’d found them. She would hide Tara’s swimsuit and goggles somewhere, and take her flip-flops and towel down to the jetty by the loch. Everyone would think that Tara had gone for an early-morning swim and got into difficulty in the water. I wasn’t sure people would believe that, since Tara was one of the strongest swimmers in school, but Polly said that maybe they’d think she’d had an asthma attack.
She
did
have a fucking asthma attack. Because we tortured her!
I wanted to scream. Cass would back up the story by telling everyone she’d seen Tara creeping out of the cabin at dawn. The loch was huge. They’d give up looking for the body eventually.

I felt like I’d disappeared completely and left some amoral Alice in my place. I was going along with this even though I knew it was wrong. Evil, even. But I was scared. So scared. I didn’t want to go to prison. I didn’t want to break Dad’s heart. Cass had known full
well the right buttons to push to make me do what she wanted.

Carrying Tara to the well was harder than you’d think. It was as if she was suddenly three times heavier than she would have been alive. I was stationed at her right arm. I kept on having to put my hand in her armpit to hoist her higher – to stop her from slipping from my grasp. Her skin felt wrong somehow, cold and clammy. Cass kept swearing under her breath. The other two were silent the whole way, like me.

Tara’s eyes were still open. I wanted to do that thing I’ve seen on TV, where some kindly doctor just passes his hand over the eyes of a dead person and the eyelids close as if by magic. But I wasn’t sure if it would work like that. And if it did, Tara would look like she was only sleeping. And I knew that wasn’t right.

We reached the well just as I was convinced that my arms were about to be yanked out of their sockets. We laid Tara down on the grass, as carefully as possible.

‘Right … OK, let’s do this.’ Cass’s voice was shaky as she dropped the pillowcase and rope into the well.

‘Are you sure? It’s not too late to …’ I didn’t even try to finish the sentence.

Cass put her hand on my shoulder. ‘It
is
too late. Alice, I’m so sorry. This should never have happened.’ Her voice was wobbly, but she didn’t cry.

We manoeuvred Tara over the wall and held her there for a few seconds before lowering her as far as we could. I didn’t want to let go. As her hand slipped through mine, I felt a ring come loose and I grasped it tightly in my fingers. I don’t know why.

There was a sickening sound when she landed at the bottom of the well. There was no going back now. We couldn’t pretend it had been an accident. We were covering up a crime. I prayed that God would forgive us – and I haven’t believed in God since Mum died.

Cass and Polly were peering over the side of the well so I took the opportunity to pocket the ring. Before I knew what was happening, Cass had picked up a huge rock and dropped it over the edge. Another sickening sound, even worse than the first.

‘What are you doing?’ I shouted.

Polly gestured at me frantically to be quiet, and Cass ignored me. She was scouting around for more rocks. I grabbed her arm. ‘Stop that!’

There was a horrifying blankness in her eyes when she looked at me and explained that we had to cover up the body. Just in case. Another prayer to a God I didn’t quite believe in.

We all helped to find rocks around the clearing. I couldn’t bring myself to drop any into the well. The thought of the havoc they were wreaking on Tara was unbearable. I had an image in my head of her beautiful face all caved in. Pulpy and ruined.

Cass kept on working, throwing rock after rock into the well. Eventually Polly put a hand on her shoulder. ‘That’s enough. We should go now.’ Cass didn’t seem to hear; she carried on.

Polly, Rae and I stood a few feet away, waiting. Eventually Cass fell to her knees, her shoulders slumped. I crouched down beside her. ‘Cass, we have to go.’

Cass looked at me, her eyes wide and terrified in the moonlight. ‘What have we done?’

I had no words.

Cass was back in control by the time we got back to the cabin. Or at least doing a very good job of pretending she was. She set about grabbing Tara’s swimming stuff while Polly and I watched. Rae had run to the bathroom as soon as we’d got back. A couple of minutes later I heard the shower running.

‘Give me your balaclavas. I’ll put them back on the way to the loch.’

I pulled mine from my pocket and handed it to her. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No. You won’t.’ She wouldn’t look me in the eye.

‘I want to.’

‘No. You don’t.’ She was right, of course.

Rae came out of the shower after Cass left. Her skin was ruddy from scrubbing. She got into bed and plugged in her headphones without even looking at me or Polly. I glanced over to check Polly’s reaction,
but she was staring at Tara’s bed. The sponge bag and its spilled contents were on the bed where Rae and I had left them.
The inhaler. Shit.
Rae’s jacket was slung over a chair by her bed. I rifled through the pockets and was practically dizzy with relief when I found it. I tossed it over to Polly, who’d put everything else back into the spongebag in the meantime. Then she zipped up the bag, put it back under the bed and smoothed down the rumpled blanket.

We got ready for bed in silence. I lay in the semidarkness and let the tears try to drown me. They trickled down and settled in my ears. It tickled.

Cass crept in after about half an hour. I sat up and wiped away the tears. ‘Cass,’ I whispered.

She came over and sat on the edge of my bed.

‘Are you OK?’

The corners of her mouth turned up, acknowledging the banality of my question. ‘Been better.’

‘Do you think … anyone will find out?’

‘I have no idea. I’m not exactly an expert in this kind of thing. Alice, I’m so sorry.’ She took my hand in hers – a completely un-Cass-like gesture. ‘Do you think you can ever forgive me?’ Her voice was small and weak.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I whispered, but a voice
inside my head screamed
IT WAS YOUR FAULT. IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!

There’s not much left to tell. At breakfast Cass asked Danni if she’d seen Tara. Danni went to Miss Daley. Miss Daley spoke to Jess and Paul. No one was worried – not really. Not until they found Tara’s stuff on the jetty. Of course, they didn’t tell us what was going on. They kept us all together in the hall. Everyone huddled in little groups, wondering what the hell was going on. Rae sat as far away from us as she could possibly get. Polly kept glancing over at Danni, Sam and Gemma, and I found myself doing the same. They probably thought Tara was up to something. That’s what everyone else seemed to think – at least at first. Then Daley came in looking frantic. She took Cass away with her. I wasn’t worried that Cass would give anything away. Cass has always been an excellent liar.

And then the police arrived in three huge 4x4s. That’s when the mood changed. Some people started crying. I didn’t. It seemed like hours before Daley came back to tell us what was going on. Cass didn’t come back with her.

Daley told us that Tara was missing and we
needed to keep calm and not panic. We had to stay there and let the police do their job. Search parties were being assembled. ‘I’m sure we’ll find her … I’m sure …’ Her voice trailed off and a tear trickled down her face. That nearly broke me. I wanted to tell her everything.
Surely she’d understand? Everyone would understand. No one would blame us.
But then a policeman in a Day-Glo jacket appeared in the doorway. His face was craggy and serious, and his laser eyes scanned the room. I could have sworn he looked at me for half a second longer than he looked at everyone else.

It was way too late to tell the truth.

Lunch came and went; no one ate very much.

They put on a DVD – a comedy; no one laughed very much.

Dinner came and went and it was just the same as lunch.

Then Daley told us. They were working on the theory that Tara had got into difficulty swimming in the loch. The search had been called off for the night. Our parents had been informed, and we’d be travelling back to London overnight.

I sat with Saira on the coach. She was upset, but in a strange, excited sort of way. The horror of it all was fascinating to her, and I was disgusted. Still, it
was better than sitting next to Cass. She sat near the back with Polly. Rae sat by herself.

All the parents were in the school car park when we arrived at dawn. Dad gave me the kind of fierce hug he used to give me when Mum was dying. Those hugs always scared me a little.

I saw it on the news two days later. ‘The search has been called off for missing London schoolgirl Tara Chambers. Police divers have been combing Loch Dunochar for the past three days, but this evening Detective Inspector Marshall, the officer in charge of the investigation, announced that the search would not continue. It’s thought that Tara went for an early-morning swim in the loch and got into difficulty in the water. Although a strong swimmer, Tara suffered from asthma, and there’s been speculation that her condition could have played a part in this tragedy.’

Then there was an outside broadcast with a correspondent standing on the shore of the loch. He was standing next to the craggy, laser-eyed policeman.

‘Detective Inspector Marshall, are you saying that you believe Tara is dead?’

Ouch
. That was blunt. Marshall gave the stupid reporter a hard look before answering.

‘I’m saying that the search has been called off. Unfortunately we believe that the most likely scenario is that Miss Chambers drowned while swimming in the loch.’ His voice was soft and his eyes were sad. ‘This is not the first time a tragedy like this one has happened here. Fifteen years ago a man in his twenties was lost in Loch Dunochar. His body was never found.’ Cass would be relieved – there was a precedent. I was not relieved. A part of me wanted them to keep looking and realize she wasn’t there and … and what?

The reporter asked DI Marshall a few more questions before handing back over to the studio. They’d set up some kind of debate about safety on school trips. A woman with red poodle hair tried to blame Tara’s death on the teachers. She kept saying the words
in loco parentis
, and you could tell it made her feel clever.

‘Al, you shouldn’t be watching this.’ The screen faded to black and Dad slumped down next to me, remote control in hand.

‘It’s OK, Dad. I’m OK. Really.’ I held his gaze and tried my best to transmit my okayness straight into his brain. It didn’t work; it never worked.

‘I just wish you didn’t have to go through this. You’ve had so much to deal with already. It’s not fair.’

Dad put his arm around me and I nestled into him. His sympathy was hard to bear, but the thought of him knowing the truth was much, much worse.

I finish talking and Jack says nothing. He’s picking at his fingernails. The weight of everything I haven’t told him is like a thousand tonnes on my shoulders. Except that’s not where I feel it. It’s there in the pit of my stomach, as if I’ve swallowed a boulder.

Jack will never know about Duncan, or about how hideous Tara was to Polly after she got stuck in the cave. And he’ll never know how his sister died. Maybe it’s better that way. A tragic swimming accident has got to be easier to deal with than the truth.
Yeah, nice try, Alice. You keep telling yourself that.
The voice in my head isn’t mine. It’s Tara’s.

My hot chocolate has gone cold and gross, but I take a sip anyway just for something to do.

Jack looks up at me and his eyes are shiny. There are tears there, but he’s not going to cry them. I don’t know what I’ll do if he cries them. ‘Thank
you. I really appreciate you talking to me. It … it helps.’

‘How?’

‘Well, I feel like I can picture her there now, doing all that mad outdoorsy stuff. I bet she hated it, didn’t she?’

He smiles, and all I can do is shrug.