‘She can’t hear us.’
‘Yes she can.’
‘Oi, Drew. Andrew!’
Lacey and her gang of sheep think it winds me up, calling me Andrew, they think it’s funny. I don’t. My dad gave me my name because my hazel eyes and chubby cheeks reminded him of the child actress in the film E.T. He thought it was a pretty name, unusual too. Drew Finch. My name is all I’ve got to remember him by other than a folder of digital photographs on my computer.
Mum doesn’t talk about Dad any more – she hasn’t since she married Tony. Mason, my fifteen-year-old brother, refuses to talk about Dad too. Not that Mason’s here to chat to. He’s been sent to a school hundreds of miles away, hopefully to learn how to stop being so irritating. It’s weird, my brother not being at home. He was never much of a conversationalist but God was he noisy. He’d bang and crash his way into the house, kick his shoes off, stomp up the stairs and then slam his door. Then his music would start up. It’s eerie how quiet it is now. I can hear myself breathe. I think the silence unsettles Mum too. She’s always tapping on my door, asking if I’m OK. Or maybe she feels guilty about sending Mason away.
I speed up as I reach Jackson Road. It’s the quietest street on my walk home and if Lacey and the others have followed me this far it can only be because today’s the day they go through with her threat. Lacey’s been saying for weeks that they’re going to pin me down and pull up my shirt and skirt and take photos of me with their mobile phones. I’ve tried talking to her. I’ve tried ignoring her. I’ve spoken to my Head of Year and we’ve been to mediation, but she won’t leave me alone. She’s clever. She never says anything in front of any of the teachers. She hasn’t posted anything on social media. She hasn’t touched me. But the threat’s still there, hanging over me like a noose. Whenever I go into school I wonder if today’s the day she’ll go through it. It’s not about hurting me, or even about humiliating me (although there is a bit of that). It’s about fear and control. We were best friends in primary school and I was the one she opened up to when her parents were getting divorced. She’s the big ‘I am’ at school but I know where her vulnerabilities lie. And she hates that.
I slow down as I reach the High Street and my heart stops double thumping in my chest. I’m safe now. The street’s full of shoppers, drifting around aimlessly or else speed walking madly like they must get an avocado from the grocer’s before it closes or the world will end. Someone brushes past me and I tense, but it’s just some random man with a beanie and a swallow tattooed on his neck. I glance behind me, to check that Lacey and the sheep aren’t following me any more, then I reach into my pocket for my phone, select my favourite song and plug in my headphones. Just two terms of school left and I’m free. No more Lacey, no more lessons, no more –
My breath catches in my throat as my arms are pinned to my side and I’m half carried, half shoved into the side alley between Costa and WHSmith. A hand closes over my mouth as I’m bundled past a skip and forced to sit on a pile of bin bags. They’ve got me. They’ve finally made their move. But it’s not Lacey or one of her cronies who forces me to the ground as I thrash and squirm and try to escape.
‘It’s OK. Don’t be afraid.’
The woman keeps her hand tightly pressed to my mouth but her grip on my shoulder loosens, ever so slightly. Her pale blue eyes are wide and frantic and her long brown hair, pulled into a tight ponytail, is damp with sweat at the roots. There’s a deep crease between her eyebrows and fine lines on either side of her mouth. She’s probably as old as my mum but I’m too shocked to hit out at her. All I can do is stare.
‘Drew? It is Drew, isn’t it?’ She glances at her hand, still covering my mouth. ‘Promise me you won’t scream if I take it away.’
I nod tightly, but the second she lifts her palm a scream catches in the back of my throat.
‘Drew!’ She smothers the sound with her hand. ‘You mustn’t do that. I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to help Mason.’
I tense at the mention of my brother’s name. How the hell does she know who he is? He’s over two hundred miles away and we haven’t heard from him in over a month.
‘My name is Rebecca Cobey. Doctor Cobey,’ the woman says, shuffling closer on her knees. We’re completely hidden from view behind the skip but she keeps glancing nervously back towards the street as though she’s scared that someone will discover us. ‘I worked at the Residential Reform Academy. I was Mason’s psychologist. He gave me something to give to you.’
She lets go of me and reaches into the pocket of her jeans. There’s a loud bang from the street, like a car backfiring, and all the blood seems to drain from her face. I’ve never seen anyone look so scared. For several seconds she does nothing, she just listens, then she pulls her hand out of her pocket.
‘Here,’ she says in a low voice, as she thrusts a folded piece of paper at me. ‘I’ve got to go. I can’t talk. It was a risk just trying to find you.’ She scrabbles to her feet and pushes a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She glances towards the street then back at me. ‘I would have got him out if I could. I would have got them all out.’ The word catches in her throat and she presses a hand to her mouth. ‘I’ve said too much. I’m sorry.’
She darts out from behind the skip, sprints down the alley towards the street and turns right, disappearing from view.
I sit in stunned silence for one second, maybe two, surrounded by split bin bags and the smell of roasted coffee beans and then I launch myself up and onto my feet.
‘Wait!’ I shove the piece of paper into my pocket. ‘Doctor Cobey, wait!’
***
I can see her long, dark ponytail bobbing above her khaki jacket as she speeds down the street ahead of me, weaving her way through shoppers, briefly stepping into the road when there are too many people to overtake on the pavement.
‘Doctor Cobey!’ I shout as the distance between us decreases and a stitch gnaws at my side. ‘Wait!’
I am vaguely aware of people staring at me, of toddlers in buggies gesturing, of car drivers slowing to gawp, of cold air rushing against my face and my heart thudding in my ears. I don’t know why I’m chasing the woman who just grabbed me, smothered me and terrified me. I was lucky she didn’t hurt me, but I can’t shake the feeling that if I let her get away I’ll never see her again. She knows something about Mason. Something she was too afraid to tell me.
I see the car before she does. I hear the engine rev and the black flash of the bonnet as the lights change from green to amber at the crossing and Dr Cobey steps into the road. One second the car is a hundred metres away, the next it’s at the crossing. The engine roars and there is a sickening thump as Dr Cobey’s body flies into the air.
‘He didn’t stop. I can’t believe he didn’t stop.’
‘Did anyone get the registration number?’
‘Don’t move her! She might have broken her back.’
Within seconds a crowd gathers around Dr Cobey’s body and I am shoved and pushed further and further away. I don’t push back. I don’t shout, cry or explain. Instead I stare at the back of the man standing in front of me. But it’s not his black woolly jumper I see. Imprinted on the back of my eyelids is Dr Cobey’s broken body; half on the pavement, half on the road, her legs twisted beneath her, her neck lolling to one side, her blue eyes wide and staring, a single line of blood reaching from the corner of her mouth to her jaw.
‘She’s not breathing.’
‘I can’t find a pulse.’
‘Can anyone do CPR?’
The driver of the car aimed straight for her. He revved the engine. He wanted to hit