She was looking at me.
Her face was strange. There was a smile, but it didn’t make me feel happy inside. It made me feel scared.
Louise nodded and suddenly everyone started moving towards me. Louise was in front with that excited look on her face, and the others all looked the same.
I backed away.
My stomach turned, and I didn’t know why.
‘Get her, Jemima,’ Louise said.
I didn’t know who Jemima was.
A girl with short blonde hair emerged from the pack and moved to my left. I looked from her to Louise.
My back hit the cool metal wall bars.
Jemima grabbed at my left arm and pulled me towards her. Louise grabbed at my right. They pulled me in different directions. I didn’t know which way they wanted me to go.
I pushed my back against the bars.
‘You two get her legs,’ Louise said.
One of the girls limped forwards and reached down. I kicked out to make them stop, but the girl with the limp caught my left ankle and pulled.
I fell to the ground.
‘Stop it,’ I cried as a sea of faces began to gather above me, blocking out the light.
Louise’s face came closer – excited, curious, determined.
‘Please leave me alone,’ I begged.
‘Shut up,’ Jemima said, removing my shoe.
‘Get off me,’ I cried.
Jemima shoved my sock in my mouth. My cries were muffled by the cloth.
The faces above peered closer, a ceiling of excited expressions.
I felt my pretty yellow dress being pushed up my legs. Cool air found its way to my thighs.
‘Do it, do it, do it,’ a few voices began to chant.
Do what? I wanted to scream.
The chatter was almost deafening. The nervous giggles were fanning my fear.
I thrashed my head trying to see into their faces. I needed to know what I’d done, and I would never do it again.
I would promise.
The chanting got louder. ‘Do it, do it, do it.’
Clumsy little fingers pinched my skin as they grabbed for my knickers.
The faces got closer.
I tried to move, but there was nowhere to go. I was cocooned in a web of faces peering down at me.
The chanting was louder in my ear as the heads came closer and closer, suffocating me.
‘Do it, do it, do it.’
I wanted to cover my eyes and my ears.
The stubby fingers pulled at my panties. The elastic moved down my thigh. The fabric was gathered at my knees.
The chanting suddenly stopped. For a second I was relieved. They were going to let me up now. They were going to let me go.
‘Look, look, she has a willy!’ Louise screamed.
The first laugh was nervous, unsure and then another joined in, and then another.
‘I told you, didn’t I?’ Louise cried triumphantly.
The laughter grew louder. Even louder than the chants.
The faces swam before me as heat flooded my face.
I didn’t know what a willy was, but somehow it sounded wrong.
The laughter was booming into my head.
Louise’s face came closer to mine.
‘You’re a little girl with a willy,’ she said, and the laughter exploded.
My tummy began to swim, and I tried to cry out against the cloth.
I just wanted to make it stop.
‘Little girls don’t have willies,’ Jemima cried.
The laughter kept growing louder, but then a small voice sounded beside me.
‘Stop it,’ it said.
I wondered if my thoughts had made it out of my head.
‘Stop it, all of you.’
I realised that the voice hadn’t come from me. It had come from the girl with the limp.
I knew it would never end. I knew that I would be pinned to the ground for the rest of my life.
My vision began to blur, and the faces all melted together. I wanted to make it stop, block it out.
I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t close my ears.
The laughter and chanting went on, the faces continued to hover above me long after Mrs Shaw stood me up and led me away.
They never went away, Mummy. Every time I closed my eyes, they were there. Every time my ears held no other sound, they were there. Every time I lay down to sleep, they were there.
And it was THAT DAY I began to hate you, Mummy. For making me a fucking freak.
Seventy-One
Tracy tried to hide her repulsion at the figure that stood before her. She felt she might have walked onto the set of a horror film or a funhouse at the fair.
The thing wore a full-length brown pinafore dress. Two mock pockets adorned the shapeless garment.
Lurid, hairy legs protruded from the square-cut material.
But that wasn’t the part that frightened her.
The hair was short but two tiny pigtails stuck out from the head, held in place by tightly wound plastic bands. It reminded Tracy of bows put in babies’ hair when there was barely anything there to hold.
The make-up was heavy and striking as though applied by a child playing at dress up. All the colour without the skill.
The red slash of lipstick was untidy, giving the face a manic, terrifying expression.
The eyes were alight and bright with excitement.
‘Hello, Tracy, do you remember me?’
The voice was masculine but gentle. Not unkind. It frightened her even more. There was ease, relaxation.
‘Wh-what…?’ she said, shaking her head.
‘It’s me, Graham. You knew me as Maria. You must remember my first day at school all those years ago?’
Tracy swallowed down the fear. It was what she had been afraid of since hearing of Jemima’s murder.
‘I’m… I-I don’t… ’ she spluttered. She had no idea what to say to him, to her, to it.
‘I’ve waited a long time for this.’
The words alone were not what sent terror screaming through Tracy’s veins. It was the cool detachment with which they were delivered. There was a sense of calm, which meant there was no pressure, no rush.
He turned to the side and she had a good look around.
The rows upon rows of shelves of dolls mocked her from their spectator positions on the wall. Some hung from the ceiling, dangling by a single limb, their dresses fallen over their heads.
An alcove to her left was furnished with glass shelves. The top one held a porcelain tea set. A design of tulips wound its way around cups, saucers, milk and sugar jugs.
Her eyes travelled to the next shelf down and her heart stopped.
Placed beneath the tea set were rocks. They were dark grey, almost black, and jagged as though they’d been torn like a piece of bread from a rock face. All of them were bloody. Two long blonde hairs dangled from the one on the right.
She fought down the nausea as she recalled that Jemima had been blonde.
She tore her gaze away before she threw up.
Looking down she could now see that she had been placed in a wooden contraption similar to the ones used for children. It was formed of mismatched pieces of wood and had been scaled up. Her feet dangled about ten inches from the ground. Beneath her thighs was a strip of unvarnished timber an inch wide that dug into her flesh. A serving tray was wedged against her stomach, forcing her in place. Nails that hadn’t been properly hammered in protruded from most of the joints. Grey masking tape was wrapped around the front right leg. It wasn’t a chair – it was a prison.
Amongst the dolls and the child-sized furniture Tracy felt like Alice in Wonderland.
The figure looked her up and down and smiled. ‘Hello, Tracy doll. We’re going to play a little game – but first I need to get you ready.’
Seventy-Two
‘Stace, start looking for anything to do with the name Graham Studwick,’ Kim said once they were outside the café.
Kim didn’t know just how reliable Elsie’s memory was on the little boy’s name – she had agreed with them that half the school had been involved – but it was all they had right now.
‘Okay, boss, and I have something for you. When Ivor Grogan was imprisoned eight years ago he was found guilty on two counts but not guilty on a third. I’ve got the addresses of all the families, but that third family never got any justice so…’
‘Send all the addresses to Bryant,’ Kim instructed. ‘And ring me the second you have anything on that name.’