Page 32 of The Tapes
U FIND SAFETY IN
NUMBERS’
‘We thought it was silly at the time,’ Adele says. ‘But I guess we both remember it, so it did its job.’
As if to reinforce the final line, Kelsey stands and waves towards a passing car. Her boyfriend has come to pick up the pair of them, all in the name of having a plan and finding safety in numbers.
That joint initiative was, in part, put together by Detective Inspector Kieron Parris. He gave the first set of talks himself, though concluded quickly the sessions would be better if they were delivered by women.
‘We had a full-time safeguarding officer from the council working with us on the material,’ he tells me later in the week. He’s a tall man with a presence that’s hard to define. There’s a calm authority as he speaks, the sort of tone that would easily have a person believing everything is going to be fine, simply because he’s said it.
‘We wanted input from as many people as possible, so head teachers helped, plus some of my own team. The starting pointfor everything was that there was no point in trying to teach abstinence. Young people are going to enjoy themselves. It was the same in my day. Pretending that doesn’t happen wasn’t going to help anyone.’
Statistics can be used to prove or disprove more or less anything – but one thing is abundantly clear. The HAVE FUN seminars did not stop the Earring Killer.
That, in itself, does not make them a failure. The rate of other assaults in Sedingham and the surrounding area fell by around thirty-five per cent across a three-year period. Correlation and causation aren’t the same thing – but the plan’s architects, such as Kieron Parris, are keen to point to that statistic as proof of the scheme’s worth.
And maybe he has a point – except it’s hard to declare any sort of success given what happened next.
FIFTEEN
After the talk with Kieron, I return to Dad’s house and continue looking for the jewellery box I know isn’t there. I wanted to find it before to somehow prove Mum was telling the truth – but now it’s about my own credibility.
I sit in the garage and use voice notes to record myself telling Faith that I need her to know I love her. It sounds corny, and I know I won’t send it. Except, when I play that voice note and then the one I recorded from Mum’s tape, it’s hard not to see that Kieron has a point. Orthinkshe does.
The two recordings sound so much like one another that I have to tell myself I’m not my mother. I thought I was finally unburdening myself by talking to Nicola’s dad but there’s a decent chance I’ve made things worse. Kieron will likely check in with Liam to make sure I’m still going to the AA meetings. At the beginning, it was part of my probation. I’m past that now – but, considering he went out on a limb for me, that doesn’t mean Kieron won’t be checking up.
I fill a couple of bin bags with stuff to take to the tip, although it never quite feels as if I’m putting much of a dent in the mountain of stuff. I do find a couple of my old school folders, that are crammed with various essays and test papers I musthave kept. I spend a short while skimming through those, before stumbling across the old HAVE FUN flyer that was given to all girls in my year. That was at the height of the mania around the Earring Killer, a decade and a bit before Mum says she discovered the person’s identity.
The folder goes into a black bag but I put the flyer to one side, while I continue emptying more of Dad’s junk into the trash pile. It’s as I’m questioning why he has kept a bag of sawdust that the doorbell sounds. I head through the house and open up to find my daughter standing there.
‘I saw you on Find My Friends,’ she says, as I let her inside. ‘You said you might be here.’
I close the door and follow my daughter through to Dad’s kitchen. ‘There’s not much in the fridge,’ I say.
‘I ate already.’
I ask about college, which gets as much of a response as ever. ‘It was fine’ covers more or less everything. So much has happened in the past few hours, that I forget to ask about the older woman. It’s Faith who brings it up.
‘Did you see my photo?’
‘The silver car?’
‘Yeah, there was this weird woman who was following us. It was only when she pulled away that I thought she looked a bit like Grandma.’
I check the photo on my phone but it’s blurry and the glare is too strong to make out much of anything.
‘You didn’t say “follow” in your text,’ I say.
Faith is going through the cupboards and pulls out a packet of unopened custard creams. ‘I didn’t know anyone ever ate these,’ she says.
‘Good job you already ate then.’
She grins at me. ‘Maybe “following” is the wrong word. We were outside the theatre, walking towards the main unionbuilding. Then Shann noticed there was this silver car behind us. It was going really slow and Shannon reckoned there was someone inside watching us. We went across the car park but then, when we got to the other side and looked across, the car had parked on the road. A woman had got out and was taking photos.’
‘Of you?’
‘I don’t know. We were a bit far away by then.’
