Mum was saying ‘I let Cathy walk on the cliffs all the time and I never think about the safety issues’, and Constable Fattie ate his fourth biscuit and poured himself more tea.
‘But it’s different at night. You can’t see in front of your own hand.’
I wondered if they’d forgotten I was there.
‘She could’ve jumped,’ I said quickly.
C.F.P. cleared his throat.
‘What?’
‘Surely not,’ Mum whispered. ‘Not Nicolette.’
Constable Priaulx asked me for the names of the lads Nic hung around with but I pretended not to know. I stared at his Ormer18 nose and wondered how many times it had been broken. He must’ve been called ‘Lard-Arse’ when he was a kid, or maybe something worse. I wanted to tell him that Nic had been a vicious bully. I wanted to show him the bruises on my arm. But then what?
‘Cathy and Nicolette used to be a lot closer but they were very different. Just recently they’d drifted apart and I was relieved. I did find Nicolette a bit of a handful.’
I stared at Mum but she’d lowered her eyes to the table in front of us. She was reaching for my photo album.
‘That’s not to say they weren’t still friends. Just look at all these snaps.’
Mum handed Constable Priaulx the album and he opened it casually, glancing at the pages.
‘It looks like you two had some fun,’ he smiled.
Mum nodded. ‘They were inseparable.’
I envy Mum her selective remembering. She’s obviously deleted the unexplained cuts and bruises, the strange phone calls in the middle of the night, the missing homework, and the hours I spent locked in my bedroom.
‘Of course, Nicolette was a wild one. I wonder if she wasn’t already drunk when she called round here the other night. She was in such high spirits. But she was often like that. I find it so hard to tell.’
Constable Priaulx nodded and said ‘Oh, I know.
Young people today!’
Contemptible Piggy left a few crumbs on a photo of Nic leaning over the railings on the Albert Pier.
‘I expected better of little Vicky Senner,’ he sighed.
‘That party should never have got so out-of-hand.’
‘But Vicky’s always been easily led,’ Mum added.
I glared at her. ‘That’s not fair. You’ve always liked Vicky, and it wasn’t her fault.’
Mum pursed her lips. ‘I’m not trying to blame her.’
‘Well, it sounded like you were. Vicky didn’t do anything. It’s not like she told them all to go to the woods, is it?’
Constable Priaulx coughed up the last of the Viennese Whirls and pushed my album back towards me. Then he said he should be going and heaved himself up off the sofa. I must’ve been staring because he asked me what was wrong.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I was just remembering the last time you were here.’
I hugged my little album and wanted to make him blush. We both knew it didn’t seem so long since his last Routine Inquiry, when he’d come round to talk to Mum about Dad. They’d sat in the kitchen with the door closed, and I’d stayed in my bedroom. I suppose I should mention that a lot of people found Dad’s death shocking and unexpected and other good words. But whatever their opinions, well, they were just opinions. It’s wrong to gossip.
Constable Priaulx was still hovering in the doorway.
‘You all right, sweetheart? Is there anything else?’
There was plenty as per always, but I shook my head and went back to the sitting room. I was staring at my photos when Mum came in and found me.
‘What was all that about?’
I said I thought it was obvious.
‘I don’t mean about Nicolette. Why did you have to mention the last time he was here?’
I examined her more closely whilst sucking out the blood from a newly torn fingernail (a disgusting habit, I know).
‘I didn’t get a chance to say anything then, either.’
Mum sat down beside me. ‘I was trying to help, and please don’t do that.’
I took my finger out of my mouth and stared at her silently, hoping I looked like a psychopath from one of