‘Are you sure?’ Mum asked. ‘Do you want more time to think about it?’
‘No, I need to start moving forward and in new directions.’
These were the buzzwords I’d picked up from the self-help websites Johnny kept emailing me links to. Over the Christmas period, curiosity got the better of me and I’d opened them, but it was only recently that their words were starting to resonate. Then I’d made it my New Year’s resolution to start afresh.
When Johnny had confronted me at the flat and asked me what my endgame with Laura was, I didn’t really have an answer. For months I’d thought of very little else except how I could make her life as miserable as mine. Since my brother had pointed out my actions were on a par with hers, I realised the attention I’d focused on Laura was a delaying tactic to stop myself from getting on with the rest of my life.
I’d told End of the Line’s manager about Laura and she’d believed me. Now it was up to Janine to bring Laura down with the evidence I’d given her. I wondered when she might get in touch to update me.
Laura and I were over. I hoped that her defacing Charlotte’s photo in Granddad Pete’s bedroom was just a parting shot.
‘One of Johnny’s old school mates is an estate agent at Corner Stones,’ I said. ‘I’ll ask him to give me a valuation and then I’ll put it on the market.’
Mum placed her hand on mine.
‘I know it’s not easy, but you’re doing the right thing.’
She was right, of course, as parents often are. But there was one more ‘right thing’ I needed to do before I could put all this behind me.
Effie had kept a low profile in school since I’d given her a lift home and turned down her advances. There’d been no detentions and no class disruptions. But come the first term of the new year, she still couldn’t bring herself to look me in the eye. She chose to shrink behind her desk, as if she hoped the ground might swallow her up.
I gradually began increasing her grades until they were around the mark they had been before I’d interfered. But each time I looked at Effie, I saw a girl that I’d broken, and I felt as guilty as hell about it.
‘Effie, have you got a minute?’
She looked startled when I asked her to stay behind as the bell rang for lunch.
Her hand fumbled in her pocket and she looked all around me but not at me. What I’d done to her was unforgivable.
‘About what happened that afternoon,’ I began. ‘It was completely inappropriate and I want to apologise.’
Her eyes lifted from the floor.
‘I shouldn’t have given you a lift. I shouldn’t have said the things I did and I – well, we both took things too far. I’m your teacher and I should have known better. I blame myself for giving you the wrong signals. I won’t put either of us in that position again, I promise.’
She nodded.
‘Have you told anyone else?’
‘No.’
‘So we can keep it between ourselves?’
She nodded.
‘Have you noticed your grades have improved?’
‘Is that your way of shutting me up, Mr Smith? Giving me better marks so I’ll keep quiet about what you did?’
I didn’t reply.
‘Thought so. Can I go now?’
‘Yes.’
As Effie hurried from the room, I thought I could now start putting everything behind me and think about the future, just like the self-help websites told me to. It was time to start my life again, only without Charlotte or Laura.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LAURA
The estate agent was already parked outside the block of flats in a car emblazoned with his firm’s colourful logo when I arrived dead on time.
With his brown chinos, white jacket and red hair he resembled a raspberry ice cream. He greeted me with a smile.
‘How are things, darlin’? Nice to meet you. I’m Andy Webber.’
He was overfamiliar, behaviour that never sat comfortably with me. I didn’t like his silly topknot or beard either.
‘I’m wonderful, thank you,’ I replied, and threw my bag over my shoulder. It weighed a ton.
‘So it’s number 7 you want to take a shufti around, right?’ I didn’t know what a ‘shufti’ was but I nodded anyway. ‘Cool, well, let me lead the way.’
Not so long ago, the flats before me had been council offices. A dreadful gas explosion had razed them to the ground and taken a dozen staff with it. Eventually, the building was rebuilt as apartments. Andy glossed over its history and blathered on about the flat’s potential and how many viewings he’d had since it’d been put on the market a few days earlier. We took the lift up three floors, but I wasn’t really listening to him. I just had a burning desire to spend a few moments in the place that Ryan called home.
My opponent wasn’t the only one who could do his research. I’d got the ball rolling with a written request to read the public coroner’s report, which listed Charlotte’s address. Curious to see where she’d called me from, I’d discovered on a property app that the flat was for sale. I made an appointment to view it, and after a brief meeting and handover with Effie before school, I was on my way. I’d already established with the estate agent that the vendor would not be in.
‘As you can see, it’s been recently redecorated,’ Andy explained. ‘The living and dining area is spacious and the kitchen has been refitted. It’s a perfect place for a single Pringle if this is the kind of gaff you’re looking for.’
It was hard to see any of that. All I saw was a cage with windows looking out onto a world Charlotte hadn’t wanted to be a part of anymore. No wonder she’d felt depressed and that it would only get worse once she had the baby.
I wandered around from room to room, mentally redecorating the place. Currently, it had come straight from the pages of an Ikea catalogue. Everything – from the cheap fireplace framing an electric coal-effect fire to the furniture – said first-time buyer, no idea.
‘Can I take a look at the bedrooms?’ I asked.
‘Sure,’ the estate agent replied, and began to lead the way.
‘It’s quite a pokey flat. I’m sure I can find them on my own.’
He shrugged, and remained in the kitchen while I opened the door to a tiny little box room, with just enough space for a mattress and a bedside cabinet. The duvet was pulled back and the pillows had head-shaped impressions in them – I guessed Ryan was now using it as his room. The next bedroom was a nursery. It smelled stale, like the door hadn’t been opened for some time. A mobile with drawings of zoo animals hung from the ceiling over a wooden cot. Everything in the room was either white or yellow: hedging their bets over the sex, I assumed. Knowing how weak its mother was and how devious its father could be made me even more confident I’d given the child a lucky escape.