She felt like a weightlifter in a clean and jerk final, focussing every ounce of strength to lift two flaps of skin from her eyeballs.
She managed to raise them up, but initially she wasn’t sure she had. A few seconds later, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. In the distance strange shapes were evident in the black.
‘H-hello…’ she whispered to the shadows that danced along the wall. The returning silence was terrifying.
She could feel liquid tracing a line from the corner of her mouth and knew that it was drool travelling along her cheek towards her lower jaw.
She tried to raise her hand, but it wouldn’t move. Her fuddled brain simply caused her eyes to stare down, wondering why. She tried again before realising that her wrist was confined, but she couldn’t see what was holding her.
It took a full minute before she realised that her other hand was not restrained. She shook her head, trying to clear the fog. A dozen spiders had spun webs in her brain.
Her arm lifted as though gravity was fighting it back down. She idly wondered if she was trapped in one of those dreams where your legs just won’t move, however hard you try.
A flash of hope found her in the darkness. Maybe it was all a dream. Perhaps she would wake up back home.
Even while the hope tried to claim her, the logical part of her brain was coming alive too. The pain around her wrist was too raw, too jagged to be in her imagination. It cut right to her nerves. Her own thoughts, although slow, were real.
She knew she wasn’t asleep and silently cursed the ray of hope that had momentarily distracted her.
She tried to scoot down in the chair. Maybe she could topple the seat forwards and somehow free her wrist, but no matter how she stretched her legs, her dangling feet met with nothing but space.
She could feel a bar in the small of her back and some kind of tray in front of her.
Tracy desperately tried to think back to the last thing she remembered.
She had left the café and had been heading back to the car. A packet of sweets had been spilled all over the floor. She was looking down, concentrating on her footing and then… nothing.
She could feel the tenderness of bruises on her skin, so she guessed she had fought.
A sudden fear clutched at her stomach. What the hell was she doing trying to make sense of the situation – all she really needed to focus on was the knowledge that she was probably going to die.
She raised her right hand and shook it. The metal hit against the wood but held fast.
She tried to squeeze the whole of her hand through the perfect circle. It wouldn’t even reach her knuckles. She tried again but faster, hoping to fool the circular binding into letting her go.
A sudden bang sounded somewhere above, which stunned her into temporary paralysis; the noise travelled straight to her heart and pumped the blood around her veins.
She had waited too long. Spent valuable time trying to understand what had happened and where she was, and now it was too late. It was ironic that it was that same lethargy that had landed her here in the first place.
Tracy heard the cry that escaped from her own lips. It was desperate and strangled.
She pushed herself forwards and felt the chair rock but not enough.
She threw herself backwards. Again there was movement but not enough momentum to launch the chair.
Damn it, she had to do something – and quickly.
She reared backwards once more, using the weight of her thigh muscles. This time she felt two of the chair legs lift from the ground.
She poised to try it again as the door suddenly opened.
A shaft of artificial light surrounded a silhouette.
Her eyes stung at the sudden intrusion into the darkness. She blinked a couple of times as the shadows on the wall danced in the dim light.
The figure took two steps and switched on the light.
Tracy looked to the walls and understood the form of the shadows.
The silhouette had now moved closer. The light from behind no longer obscured her view.
Her blood froze in her veins as her eyes registered what her mind refused to comprehend.
Sixty-Nine
‘Nah, still can’t picture it, guv,’ Bryant said as the mother and child left the café.
Kim ignored him and continued to watch as the mother smoothed down the child’s clothing before putting him in the buggy. She pulled down his striped T-shirt and pulled up his green shorts.
‘Look, after fifteen minutes,’ she said.
Bryant had to turn in his chair, but he saw what she meant. Two faint lines were visible on the back of his legs.
He shook his head. ‘The marks on our girls could be from anything.’
Kim disagreed. ‘I bet if you lift that child’s T-shirt he has the exact same line across his stomach.’
‘You’re on your own with that one,’ he guffawed. ‘No way I’m asking her if we can inspect her child.’
Kim ignored him. A part of her thought he had a point. Why the hell would the victims be put in a high chair? And yet those marks were just too similar to ignore.
‘Hey up, she’s coming,’ Bryant said as the woman who’d entered the café approached their table.
‘You’ve been after me?’ she said, standing between them.
Kim looked up into the worn and kindly face. Kim guessed Elsie Hinton to be mid-sixties with a lifetime of hard work behind her.
‘Please sit down,’ Kim said, pulling out a chair.
She nodded back towards the counter. The two women were trying to hide their curious glances.
‘We won’t keep you long,’ Kim said, as Bryant approached the counter to explain they needed a few minutes of this employee’s time.
Kim took the time to introduce them both. Elsie simply nodded with the confidence of someone who knew she had done nothing wrong.
Bryant returned to his seat as Kim continued speaking.
‘We need to ask you about an incident that happened some years ago at Cornheath primary school. We’ve spoken to Mr Jackson, who has helped us, but we’re hoping you can add to that. Dinner ladies know everything,’ Kim said. It wasn’t a compliment or an insult. It was just fact.
‘It happened in the sports hall. One of the kids was humiliated, held down and exposed. Do you recall?’
Elsie closed her eyes as the disgust shaped her mouth. She nodded. ‘Yes, I remember. There were four or five of them that pinned the little mite down. And a fair few others that watched. One of them eventually ran to the staff room and got help…’
‘Tracy Frost?’ Kim asked.
Elsie nodded. ‘Yes, yes, I think that was her name. I didn’t even know why she was trying to run along the corridor when she passed me, but I do recall the names she was being called as she went. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she carried on until she got to the staff room. Her disability was more obvious the faster she moved.’
Kim couldn’t help the pang of regret that shot through her.
‘Can you tell us the names of the other girls involved?’ Bryant asked.
She looked surprised. ‘Oh goodness, now you’ve asked me something. I’m not sure I can recall their names now. It was so long ago.’
Kim didn’t want to spoon-feed the names in case the woman’s memory or lack of it prompted her to agree.
‘There was a girl with a name that reminded me of a doll,’ she said.
‘Jemima,’ Bryant offered.
‘Yes, that’s it,’ Elsie said, smiling.
‘Louise?’ he continued.
‘Yes, there was a Louise there, I think.’
Kim stepped in. ‘How about Joanna?’
She thought and then nodded. ‘Yes, there was a Joanna there also.’
Kim glanced at Bryant. She was guessing she could work her way through a baby girls’ name book and Elsie Hinton would agree that they’d all been there.
Bryant returned her glance with a look that said it was worth one last try.
He leaned forwards. ‘And can you tell us the name of the girl being held down?’
Elsie looked from one to the other. ‘Oh, Mr Jackson didn’t remember it very well, did he? The child being held on the floor was a little boy.’
Seventy
It was that day that changed my life for ever.
I looked over to where the gym mats were piled high but Louise wasn’t looking that way.