Follow Me Down (22 page)

So I settled for dancing with Scarlett instead, who was as drunk as I was (mulled wine and champagne are a lethal combination, it seems) and kept pulling me into photos, her cheekbone digging into mine, like old times. Everyone was having such a good time. Headmaster Ballard’s wife danced so much that her hair started coming out of her bun and, when Edith tossed the bouquet, Hannah and Madame Girard collided in their haste to catch it.

I should have known it wouldn’t last, though, because an hour or so later, while Mr Lucas and Hannah were showing me how to do the dance to the ‘Birdy Song’, Dominic joined in. I’d been having so much fun – laughing and almost falling over so many times, that Mr Lucas had to prop me up (which, with hindsight, probably wasn’t a good idea given that I was still trying to convince Hannah that I was a serious journalist) – that when Hannah headed off the dance floor, I hesitated. I glanced towards the bar at Molly, who was on tiptoes, her nose in the air as she watched us, when all of a sudden, Scarlett was there.

I heard him calling after us as she tugged me away, but it still didn’t register that she was pissed. I thought she wanted to take another photo and waited for her to sling her arm around my shoulders and tell me to smile, but then I felt her nails digging into my arm as she led me into the corner of the marquee, near the table of cupcakes.

When she stopped, she spun around to face me, her dark hair a whir. ‘Are you really doing this here?’ she hissed and I knew then that she was livid. I’d never seen her like that, so when she took a step towards me, I held my breath. ‘You’re dancing with him
here
? At my sister’s wedding? In front of everyone?’

‘Scarlett—’

She wouldn’t let me finish and I could see her shaking, her chin trembling as she shook her head. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

‘Can we not do this now?’ I pleaded, looking around the marquee at half our classmates and teachers milling around. I had no idea where Molly was, but I knew everyone would be talking about this before Edith and Nishad had cut the cake.

‘
You’re
the one doing it now.’

‘Scarlett—’

‘You know we’re together.’

My heart stopped. ‘No you’re not.’

They weren’t. I knew they had a history, but he told me that they hadn’t been near each other in months (not like
that
, anyway) and he wouldn’t lie. He wouldn’t.

‘You need to choose, Adamma,’ she snapped, and when she changed the subject, I knew that she was lying.

My shoulders fell. ‘Choose?’

I stared at her, but before she could respond, I saw her cheeks go red and turned around as Mr Lucas and Hannah emerged from behind the cake stand. My cheeks burned, too, my hands fisting in the skirt of my dress as I fought the urge to hide under the table.

‘We were just,’ Hannah murmured, holding up a cupcake, then glancing at Mr Lucas, who looked equally embarrassed.

‘Excuse us,’ he said with a tight smile, and when he led her away, I wanted to die, my blood burning with shame.

‘Oh God,’ I breathed.

Of all the people to see us squabbling.

I tried to walk away, but Scarlett grabbed my arm again. ‘Stop!’ I snapped, shrugging her off, then lowering my voice. ‘You’re acting like a crazy person.’

‘You need to choose.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I can’t be friends with you if you’re with him. I can’t.’

‘Stop being so melodramatic.’

‘I’m being
real
, Adamma.’ I rolled my eyes and when I turned away, she stepped in front of me. ‘OK. Fine. We let him choose, but we both know that it’ll kill our friendship so let’s just shorthand this, OK? Him or me?’

‘Jesus, Scarlett,’ I said through my teeth. ‘You don’t even want him, you just don’t want anyone else to have him.’ She shrugged as if to say
Yeah. So?
and I threw my hands up. ‘How is that fair?’

‘None of this is fair, Adamma. You can’t compete. We’ve known each other for years. If I wanted him back, I could have him like
that
.’

Back
.

I knew she was lying.

She clicked her fingers and if I wasn’t willing to fight for him before, I was then. ‘If you thought that for a second then you wouldn’t be asking me to back off.’

She stared at me. I don’t know if anyone’s ever stood up to her before, but she looked at me as though I was a member of staff who’d just answered back. But then she caught herself and crossed her arms. ‘How was the play?’ she asked with a nasty smile. ‘He told me it was boring.’

The blow landed, but I tried not to let it register because he told me that the night at the theatre was nothing; she’d said that she might go when he told her that his cousin was going to be in the play, but it was nothing more than that. So I just rolled my eyes at her again. It obviously wasn’t the reaction she was hoping for, because she came at me again. ‘You’ll always be second best, Adamma.’

That was like a kick in the heart, but as soon as I considered grabbing a cupcake and smashing it in her face, I stopped myself and made myself take a breath.

‘Stop it,’ I said with a long sigh. ‘Just stop it. This is ridiculous. We’re supposed to be friends and you have me cornered, screaming at me about some guy.’

‘Friends?’ She barked out a laugh. ‘I know you’ve been texting each other.’

I felt an itch of anger at that. ‘So
that’s
why you haven’t been in touch.’

She huffed as if to say,
Not this again
and I could feel it coming. Building. I tried to swallow the words back, but I couldn’t. I had to get them out.

‘Why are you doing this? You don’t even want him, Scarlett,’ I told her again and I don’t know why, whether it was because I really believed it or if I was just trying to make myself feel better. After all, I knew they weren’t seeing each other now, but I thought they were that night at the theatre and I still let it happen.

‘You don’t know what I want,’ she said, flicking her hair.

‘Because you don’t tell me anything!’
Stop
, a voice in my head roared as I took a step towards her. But I couldn’t. ‘Some friend! You don’t tell me anything. You run away to New York and I don’t hear about it until your sister calls. My father is shot and I don’t even hear from you! You’re not my friend!’

I shouldn’t have said it – not there, not like that – but it just rushed out of me and she stared at me, too angry to respond, so I looked at the cupcakes, at the pink heart on each one. When she stopped to take a breath, I thought she might cry and say what a mess it was, ask what we should do, but she took a step back.

‘We’re done, Adamma.’

She walked away and I watched her go, the hem of her pale green bridesmaid’s dress swishing back and forth and with that, I guess I chose him. He must have known, because a few minutes later, when I summoned the courage to go back to my table, I saw him on the other side of the marquee, the corners of his mouth curling into a slow smile. I felt something in me realign, not because I was right and Scarlett was wrong, but because I was right about him.

I didn’t know until then how much I liked him. I liked the way he called me Miss Okomma. I liked the way he said it, how he didn’t hesitate, didn’t stumble, as though he’d practised it. I thought about it too much, about him too much; the space between each thought getting shorter and shorter until days became hours became minutes became heartbeats and then he was all I could think about.

I looked over at Scarlett, at the bar with Sam, a glass of champagne hanging from her fingers and something told me I was right, to hold on. Actually, it told me to let go, to forget about Scarlett and my parents and whether it was wrong or if we were doomed and just fall down, down, down because it was going to be amazing.

I loved him, I realised then, but it was a reaction, something I hadn’t noticed until I was faced with the threat of losing him. I loved him and he didn’t need to do anything. He didn’t even need to love me back, I just did.

Can you be scared of your heart? I was scared of mine, scared that he might never love me back and I’d still love him. He could go – leave Crofton – and I’d still love him and what would I do? I’ve never felt anything like that before, that huge, ravenous love I’ve only read about in books. I guess he felt the same, because when I was walking back to Burnham, I found a note in my coat pocket. He didn’t sign it, but I recognised his handwriting, his perfect Os and long, loose Ps, and when I read it, I had to stop and take a breath.

No one’s ever picked me.

I turned and headed back to Scarlett’s house, his note still in my fist, but halfway down the road, I saw him walking towards me. When he saw me, he stopped then started running, and I don’t think I’ve ever run so hard. I thought my legs were about to give way, but a moment before they did, I felt his cold fingers on my face, then his mouth on mine as we collided in a kiss that made my feet leave the ground.

10 DAYS AFTER

MAY

I didn’t move, because I couldn’t. But that’s me, isn’t it? I’m either running or I’m too scared to move. I don’t know how long I was sitting there, my back to a gravestone, the chill from the grass bleeding through my skirt. The sun was on my face, but I couldn’t summon the strength to move it, then it wasn’t, and the relief made me sigh.

‘Miss Okomma,’ Mr Lucas said and I lifted my eyelashes to find him standing over me in a black suit, his hands on his hips.

‘You found me,’ I muttered, and I was surprised, not because I’d found a particularly surreptitious hiding place, but because I didn’t think he would look for me.

‘Mrs Delaney has been looking for you everywhere.’

I brought my knees up to my chest and closed my eyes, letting my head fall back against the gravestone. ‘Did you know that if an Igbo woman dies and she doesn’t have a son, her body is thrown into a bush?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘If an Igbo woman dies, she is buried at the home of her son, but if she doesn’t have a son, her body is thrown into a bush.’

‘Come on, Miss Okomma. Let’s go.’

I looked up at him with a frown. ‘Doesn’t that upset you? Knowing that in Nigeria, they’d just throw Scarlett in a bush?’

‘I’m sure they wouldn’t be so callous,’ he said with an impatient sigh, and he sounded harassed, as though I was drunk and wouldn’t get into the back of a cab. ‘Besides, Scarlett isn’t a woman, she’s a
child
.’

Child
.

The word dropped to the grass between us like a stone.

When he told me to
come along
, I didn’t budge, I just stared at him, at his neat suit and neat shirt and neat hair and thought of the girls at Burnham, chins up and ponytails swinging as they walked through the village to the funeral, concealer caked to the dark patches under their eyes so that no one would know that they’d been crying. I couldn’t be so cool, so
contained
. I wanted people to see it, to dance around, to embarrass people with it, make them look away. I wanted to be like Dominic, splashing my grief around like red paint.

‘Come along?’ I said, fresh tears burning the corners of my eyes.

‘Please, Miss Okomma.’ He held a hand out. ‘We have to go to the cemetery.’

I turned my face away, playing with my necklace. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I said,’ I raised my voice and looked at him again, ‘
Leave me alone
.’

He was a quiet for a moment, then said, ‘Excuse me, Miss Okomma?’

‘Excuse me, Miss Okomma?’ I parroted, then rolled my eyes.

I could feel him staring at me, but I ignored him, clambering to my feet and brushing the grass from the back of my skirt with my hands. He took a step towards me, closing the gap between us, but I turned away and looked at the back of the church with my arms crossed so he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes.

I hoped he’d take the hint and leave me alone, but he sighed again. ‘I know that you’re upset about Scarlett, Miss Okomma,’ he said and that was it.

‘My name is Adamma!’ I spun round to face him, a tear skidding down my cheek as I did. ‘It’s OK to say it, you know? Why do you always talk like someone from a Jane Austen novel?’ I threw my head back and screamed at the sky. ‘Jesus. Even Mrs Delaney calls me Adamma sometimes!’

When I looked at him again, I felt another hot tear roll off my jaw, but he was unmoved. He took a deep breath. ‘As I said, I know that you’re upset about Scarlett –’

‘Upset? Scarlett was murdered! The question is: why aren’t
you
upset?’

‘Will you calm down? Of course I’m upset – everyone is – but I am still your teacher –’ he looked nervously around – ‘and this is beyond inappropriate, Miss Okomma.’

‘Inappropriate?’

‘
Calm down
,’ he said through his teeth before I could say anything else, looking over my shoulder in the direction of the photographers. ‘This isn’t the time.’

‘This isn’t the time?’ I laughed, quick and bitter. ‘
Her funeral
isn’t the time?’

He didn’t respond, just fussed over a piece of fluff on his jacket, and I lost it.

‘I’m in pain! Is that too untidy for you? Is that inappropriate?’ I took a step towards him. He took one back. ‘I know everyone is being so strong and brave, but I’m not strong or brave and I just need a minute where I don’t have to pretend to be. So just let me cry and scream and say that I’m not OK and be a human being about it. I know you can. I’ve
seen
you be human. So just say something real.’ I balled my hands into fists so that I wouldn’t shove him. ‘Say my name!’

‘You want me to say something real?’ he said, stepping forward and finally looking me in the eye and I saw it, at last, a flicker of emotion, the tiniest tug of annoyance at the corners of his eyes. ‘You’re behaving like a brat.’ He leaned in, his brown eyes suddenly black. ‘Today isn’t about you. It’s about burying Scarlett, so pull yourself together.’

‘You told me not to tell the police,’ I spat and I shouldn’t have. As soon as I did, I wanted to take it back, like a child sweeping spilt marbles back into a jar.

He frowned. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I’m sorry.’ I shook my head. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Well, you have, so go on. I assume you’re referring to our conversation about your friend who was
attacked
in Savernake Forest.’

The way he said attacked made my nerves tighten. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means that your friend is lying.’

Something kicked at me and I shook my head. ‘No she isn’t.’

‘Yes, she is.’

‘And how would
you
know?’

He sighed and put his hands on his hips. ‘Because it was me.’

‘What was you?’

‘It was me who offered to give Chloe Poole a lift that night.’

I laughed. I don’t know why, it wasn’t funny, but I guess the thought of it was so ridiculous that my body rejected it and I laughed. ‘No you didn’t.’

He licked his lips and lifted his chin defiantly.

‘No.’ I had to stop myself taking him by the lapels and shaking him. ‘No.’

I waited for him to deny it – waited and waited – but when he didn’t, I turned away from him and walked over to one of the gravestones, putting my hand on top of it to steady myself as I felt each of the bones in my legs turn to dust.

‘No,’ I said again, but then I thought of his car – a dark blue Triumph Stag with its wind-down windows that might look like something James Bond would drive in the dark – and something in me came undone. ‘No.’

‘I didn’t lay a finger on her,’ I heard him say, and I wanted to cover my ears with my hands. I couldn’t listen. I couldn’t listen to any more.

‘No.’

‘Listen to me,’ he took me by the arm and spun me around to face him.

‘No.’

‘Listen. All of this is Chinese whispers so just listen to what happened.’ I tried to wriggle away, but he wouldn’t let me, his fingers digging in so hard it hurt, even through my blazer. ‘I didn’t see her in the forest, it was on the road. I went out for supper with friends and when I was driving past on my way back to Crofton, I saw her staggering out, too drunk to walk, and I stopped, but she wouldn’t get in.’

‘Let go.’

‘That’s all that happened.’ He shook me so hard it felt like my bones rattled. ‘I watched her stumble back to Crofton like a newborn foal, and when I was content that she’d made it back safely without falling into a ditch, I carried on.’

‘Let go,’ I hissed, finally pulling away, but as I did, I staggered back and fell against a gravestone, yelping as it struck my hip. He reached for me, but I put my arm out. ‘Don’t!’

He looked horrified. ‘What is wrong with you?’

‘Olivia thinks it was Dominic, but it was you!’ I covered my hands with my mouth.

‘I’d choose your next words very carefully, Miss Okomma.’

He said it slowly,
deliberately
– Miss Okomma – and I registered the threat, my scalp shivering, but I couldn’t stop. ‘It was you. You raped Orla.’

‘Orla? What does she have to do with this?’

I shouldn’t have said it, but it didn’t matter, I’d tell her and she’d tell Bones. But then he realised what I was saying – that she was the other girl I’d told him about – and he grabbed my arm again. ‘Are you insane?’ It was already tender from the last time and the shock of it, of the flare of his nostrils and his breath against my cheek as he pulled me to him, made my stomach turn. ‘I didn’t touch her,
either
of them.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ And I didn’t; but when I thought of him, tripping over his laces in class and making lame Shakespeare jokes, and being so gentle with me the morning he drove me to the airport in the snow, the thought was so absurd that I recoiled from it as though it was a foul smell.

‘Why not?’ He suddenly looked inconsolable. ‘It’s me, Adamma.’

‘Molly told me!’ I roared, and I don’t know where it came from, this blast of anger that made my jaw judder. I guess it scared him, too, because he let go of my arm. ‘She told me that Orla was in love with you,’ I said more calmly, even though I wasn’t at all calm. ‘I thought she was making it up, but she wasn’t, was she?’

‘So you’re believing Molly Avery now?’

‘You’re too smart.’ I jabbed at my temple with my finger. ‘You wouldn’t have offered Chloe a ride unless you wanted her to get into your car. No male teacher in his
right mind
would offer a girl a ride, especially at night.’

‘You didn’t see the state of her. She could barely walk.’

‘There were Crofton kids
everywhere
that night. If anyone had seen Chloe getting into your car you would have been fired before you pulled into the car park.’

‘I didn’t think!’

When I saw his cheeks flush, I remembered the story he’d told me, the one about his friend Charlotte who was raped when she walked home after a party, and it made sense, so I should have softened, but it made me more mad. I could feel my cellphone ringing in my pocket again, but I ignored it.

‘Why didn’t you tell me? You told me about Charlotte. I would have believed you.’

‘I didn’t know that. I hardly knew you then.’ He took a step forward and when he saw me back into the gravestone, he stopped. ‘I was scared. All I did was offer a girl a lift back to her boarding house and by Monday I’d raped her.’

‘I told the police. They’ve been looking for a man in the forest.’

‘Exactly.’ He looked at the photographers again. ‘I couldn’t have my name attached to that rumour. What if I was arrested? Stuff like that sticks. Even if it wasn’t true, I’d still be known as the teacher who raped a student. I’d never work again.’ He leaned in, suddenly too close, his chest almost touching mine. ‘If I lose this job, I lose everything. My home, my book deal, my reputation. What am I going to do then? Go back to Sheffield and become a mechanic like my dad? Have three kids by three different women like everyone else I used to go to school with? I have worked too long and too hard to lose everything for a stupid rumour.’

‘And you’d do anything to protect yourself, right?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Dominic’s car was impounded because a car that “kind o
f
” looks like his was seen in the forest on Sunday afternoon and your car “kind o
f
” looks like his.’

He didn’t smile, but he didn’t flinch, either. ‘Say it if you’re going to say it.’

‘Did you do it?’ I asked and I don’t know how my voice sounded so steady because his nose was almost touching mine, his eyes beetle black, and it made everything in me
shake
. ‘Did you hurt her?’

I didn’t have to say her name, he knew.

My heart was beating so hard that he must have been able to feel how scared I was, to feel the rise and fall of my chest as I struggled to catch my breath, but when he took a step back, I still lifted my chin and looked at him, right in the eye. He walked away and when he did, I thought I might collapse into a boneless heap on the grass, between the gravestones, but I had to find Orla. When I got to the front of the church, everyone was still outside waiting for the cars to take them to the cemetery. Then I saw her and ran, down the path and into the road, forgetting about the photographers as I saw her walking away by herself, her head down and her arms crossed.

I ran towards her, calling her name and she stopped.

‘Adamma,’ she said with a sob, wiping her cheeks with the heel of her palm. ‘I’ve been trying to call you. Where’ve you been?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I started to say, assuming that she was upset about the funeral, but when I saw her shoulders shudder, I realised that it was more. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I remembered,’ she said with a heave and a sob.

‘What? When?’

‘Just now, in the church. It came from nowhere, like you said. He went to hug me and –’ Another sob broke out of her and I waited for her to catch her breath. ‘When I couldn’t get hold of you, I called Lisa and she told me her husband was working here,’ she nodded towards the police station, ‘on Scarlett’s case.’

‘You’re going to tell the police?’ And I couldn’t believe it, my heart stuttering with relief as I hooked my arm through hers. ‘Come on. I’ll go with you.’

‘But what about the funeral? Don’t you want to go to the cemetery?’

‘Scarlett has the whole village with her. You shouldn’t be on your own.’

‘Thanks.’ She smiled weakly. ‘I just feel so stupid.’

‘Why?’

‘I thought it was some pervert.’ She shrugged, eyelashes batting stickily.

When Orla put her hand to her stomach, I knew what she was thinking: that knowing who did it was worse, that he’d seen her every day – in class, walking down the stairs, hugging a folder to her chest – and he knew what he’d done. He must have noticed that she’d stopped wearing make-up, that she’d let her blond bangs grow out so that when they fell forward, they covered most of her face. He must have noticed and he didn’t say a word. He was disgusting.

Worse than disgusting.

‘I can’t.’ She stopped suddenly, looking up the road at the police station then put her hands up. ‘I know what you’re going to say, Adamma, but I can’t.’