DM:Are you OK? Do you need a minute?
AR:No. It’s OK. I heard Tallulah shouting.What have you done? And Scarlett saying something like,You wanted this, you said you wanted him to disappear. And I nearly went into the kitchen. But I didn’t. I don’t know why. But it was like – it wasScarlett. Something bad had happened and I was scared for Scarlett to know that I’d seen it. I was scared of Scarlett. You know? So I ran back up the stairs and was going to grab my clothes and my overnight bag and run. But then I heard her coming up the stairs so I flung myself under the covers on her bed and pretended to be asleep. I lay there like that for hours. Ikept expecting to hear sirens or something, or for Scarlett to come up and tell me what was going on. I kept expecting something to happen. But it just didn’t. It was silent. Like nothing had ever happened. I saw the sun come up and then, at about six o’clock, I shoved all my stuff in my bag and came downstairs. I went into the kitchen. It was empty. I looked in the snug and Scarlett was out cold on the sofa in there. I tried to wake her, but it was like she was unconscious. I shook her so hard and she didn’t wake up. And then I saw this little black box. It was a ring. On the floor. It was the one Zach had thrown at Tallulah. And I picked it up and shoved it in my bag. I don’t know why. I just thought …
AR:[pauses]
DM:It’s OK. Carry on.
AR:I know I shouldn’t have. But I wanted to protect Scarlett from whatever it was she’d done the night before. And I knew the ring was evidence – of something. Of some kind. I … I’m really, really sorry. I should have handed it to the police. I should have told them what I heard her saying in the kitchen. I know I should. It’s so bad that I didn’t. I know that. I really do know that.
DM:So what happened after you picked up the ring?
AR:I left. I walked down the driveway and my mum picked me up from the gates and drove me home. And that was that.
DM:Did you hear from Scarlett again? After you left her house?
AR:Yeah. She called about lunchtime, said she’d just woken up, asked where I was. I told her I was at home. Then she called again a few minutes later and said that Tallulah’s mum wanted to talk to me because Tallulah hadn’t come home. She gave me her number and asked me to call her. And I … I didn’t ask Scarlett the right question. I didn’t ask any questions. I just said yes. She said, Are you OK? And I said I was just tired. And that was that. That was basically the only conversation Scar and me ever had about it. About any of it. I didn’t talk to her again really after that. I went to London to live with my dad for the summer. And by the time I got back to Manton that September, Scarlett and her family were gone.
DM:So you didn’t talk to Scarlett at all over the whole of that summer?
AR:No. Not once. She didn’t call me. I didn’t call her.
DM:And what about the rest of your friendship group?
AR:Yeah, I mean, we messaged and stuff, but never about that night. We never talked about that night. Which is kind of weird, when you think about it.
DM:So, Mimi, earlier you told us that you gave the ring to Lexie a few weeks ago. Could you tell us about that please?
AR:Yes. Sure. So … I had the ring all this time and I’ve wanted to do something about it since forever. I’ve wanted to come forward and tell someone what I heard. Or what I thought I heard. Because, you know, I’d been drinking that night. I’d been taking drugs. What I saw, what I heard, it was all so fleeting. Just a glimmer of a thing. But I just kept thinking that the police would find some kind of evidence of whatever the hell happened that night, or that Scarlett would come back or Tallulah would come back, or even that Zach would come back … like, maybe I’d imagined the whole thing. I just thought the whole thing would sort itself out without me having to do anything or get involved, but then months and months and months went by and nothing happened and then the girl’s mum did that candlelit vigil for the year anniversary and still nobody knew anything and I saw her mum once, in Manton, pushing Tallulah’s baby in a pram and she looked so sad and so broken and I felt so bad. And I’ve been … I’ve been in hell. In actual hell. So last month I went to see Lexie and I finally told her what I saw through the door of the snug that night, Zach and Tallulah fighting, Zach throwing the ring box at her. And then I told her what I heard afterwards, Tallulah shoutingwhat have you done. And Scarlett shoutingbut you said you wanted him to disappear. And then, Lexie told me …
AR:[pauses]
DM:Take your time. It’s OK.
AR:[crying]
AR:Lexie told me … she told me that she’d heard from Scarlett, that Scarlett was on a boat, with her mum and her brother. She said that Scarlett’s mum was making them go on a round-the-world trip for a year and that she wanted complete anonymity. Something to do with the father. Apparently, he’d been violent. I don’t know. It didn’t sound right to me. I mean, the father was never even with them. And they were still missing. Zach and Tallulah. And there was just this huge gaping hole in everything. And so I gave Lexie the ring last month, just before she went to Florida and she said, I’ll sort this out. OK. I’ll sort this out.
62
June 2017
Tallulah awakes from a sleep so deep that she can remember nothing about it. She awakes and there is light shining through the skin of her eyelids. She awakes and she is on a soft surface. She awakes to the sound of a gentle panting and a kind of lip-smacking noise and she slowly opens her eyes and she sees Toby’s face. He is staring at her, placidly. He licks his lips again and then pants some more. As her eyes grow accustomed to the light, she sees she in the snug in Scarlett’s house. The door is open just a crack and she can hear voices beyond. Gentle laughter.
She tries to sit up but stops when she realises that she is tied down somehow. She glances at her feet – they are tied together with a plastic cord. Her hands are tied at the wrists.
‘Hello!’ she calls out, her voice a croak.
She hears it go quiet in the kitchen.
‘Hello!’
She hears footsteps across the stone floor in the kitchen and then there is Scarlett. She’s wearing black joggers and an oversized Levi’s T-shirt.
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘You’re awake. Mum!’ she calls out behind her. ‘Tallulah’s awake.’
She walks towards her and sits perched on the edge of the sofa between Toby and Tallulah’s head. She puts out a hand to Tallulah’s face and strokes her cheek. ‘How are you doing?’ she says.
‘What’s happening? Why am I tied up?’