Page 45 of The Serial Killer's Sister
The girls are waiting for her threat to get Frank to punish them. They are both sitting on their hands, heads bowed, as the manager of the home looms over them like a predator about to pounce.
‘No, Miss Graves,’ Anna says. ‘Sorry.’
‘Neither of you will be leaving the premises apart from to attend school. You’ll be escorted to and from there by Frank. Is that understood?’
A horrified look passes between the girls as they each privately recall their dealings with Frank. While he beats the boys as punishment, he emotionally torments the girls. They say nothing, though, just nod. They’ve learned through experience it’s better to stay quiet and accept whatever’s coming.
‘I don’t want to see you here again,’ she says. Anna and Kirsty share a look that says they don’t want to be there again either.
As they slouch out of Miss Graves’s office, Anna spots Dean in the ‘penalty’ chair. Kirsty catches her breath when she sees his face. Both eyes are swollen and black, and one is almost closed.
‘Dean,’ she says, her voice a whisper. ‘Who did that?’
He waves her away. ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing.’
‘Back to your dorms, Anna and Kirsty.’ Miss Graves stomps across to Dean. ‘You,’ she says, sharply. ‘My office. Now.’
Dean winces as he stands, then follows her in without looking back at the girls.
‘What the hell was that about?’ Kirsty says as they walk away.
Anna looks over her shoulder, back at the office door, wondering what’s taking place at this moment. She remembers Dean’s face when he saw them returning from the party – it had been one of concern.
‘Did you tell him, Kirst?’
‘What? About the party?’
‘Yes, about the party.’ Anna leans in closer to Kirsty,lowering her voice. ‘About the … you know … those boys. What they did.’
‘Not in so many words,’ Kirsty says, giving a shrug. ‘And I don’t want to talk about it.’
Kirsty hasn’t spoken much about the attack, Anna realises. She’s skirted around the topic each time it’s brought up. They’ve shared the horror of their near-rape experience, but not shared their thoughts or their feelings about it. They’ve each been going inside themselves to find a way to cope with it. The trauma of how they’d both ended up in a care home was a story they’d swapped, and Anna was struggling with keeping this latest one as something unspeakable, like it was their fault it had happened. Their secret.
But it had been Anna who had spoken to Dean on the night itself, giving a vague explanation about why they’d returned after curfew looking scared and dishevelled. Maybe Kirsty told him the full story the following morning. Had Dean done something? Had Kirsty’s brother sought revenge on his sister’s attackers? He’s battered – the bruises are fresh. Perhaps he took matters into his own hands to stick up for them; show the bullies they couldn’t treat girls that way. A stab of jealousy hits Anna as this plays over in her head, knowing Henry wouldn’t do the same. Her own brother’s someone she’s come to fear, not rely on for backup. Henry hasn’t approached Anna for over a week. There’s not been a single riddle – The Hunt has paused. Maybe forever. And unexpectedly, Anna feels a sense of loss deep in her gut.
When the night lights are switched off and Anna is sure Kirsty is asleep, she creeps out of their dorm anddownstairs, careful to avoid the known hotspots that might signal her rule-breaking to the other residents or carers. It’s easy to break into Miss Graves’s office – she’s done it on a number of occasions – but this time, her palms sweat as she slides in behind the old battle-axe’s desk and rummages through the drawer. If she’s caught tonight, after the telling-off earlier, she’ll be in all kinds of trouble. Anna only finds boiled sweets, some confiscated cigarettes, and an ancient-looking photograph of a group of people she doesn’t recognise but who look equally as stern and miserable as Miss Graves. It’s the two tall filing cabinets against the back wall that are likely to yield what Anna is looking for; that’s where the detailed notes about all the children at Finley Hall are kept, so she should be able to find out exactly why Miss Graves had dragged Dean in earlier. She could just ask him, but something told her he would fob her off with a lie.
Pulling the drawer out slowly, hoping to avoid the metal runner squealing, Anna finds both her and Kirsty’s files and places them on the top of the cabinet while she searches through the others. She’s about to remove Henry’s, too, as she may as well look at all of them while she has the opportunity, when she spots a divider that has the word ‘police’ written on it, along with today’s date. Frowning, she sweeps the rest of the files forwards, plucks the brown folder out and lays it open on the desk. She gulps down air as she sees that it’s a police report which details a fight between some boys from Finley Hall and the occupants of a house. Anna’s pulse races as she realises it’s the house of the party they were at. Bingo. She’d been thinking it would be in Dean’s file, so this is an added bonus. Her hands shake as she picks up the report,wondering how on earth Dean is involved. What she reads sends a shockwave through her body, and her legs go weak. There’s mention of a serious allegation made against someone who attended the party. Anna gasps, stumbling backwards. One of the boys has been accused of rape.
‘What the hell?’ Anna’s breath escapes in a rush. She rereads it in case she’s made a mistake.
No. She read it right. And it clearly states the information came from her, Anna Lincoln. Which is obviously wrong, as she’d have remembered speaking to the bloody police. But she and Kirsty had run through the house in a state afterwards, yelling all sorts. Maybe someone had taken it further? That doesn’t explain why the police thought the report came from her, though … She scans the rest of the page until she gets to the final part. According to the report, the following day a Neil Holsworthy was set upon in an unprovoked and violent manner and hospitalised from injuries sustained through the attack.
Neil. The name of the boy who’d first attacked Anna, then Kirsty.
‘Oh, my God,’ she whispers.
Anna puts the paper back inside the file and closes it. Confusion swarms her mind. But through it, the over-riding feeling is a sense of karma.
Good. Now he knows what it feels like.
But, no matter how much she felt he deserved a beating, she and Kirsty hadn’t been raped by Neil – so why was it reported as such? Or reported at all? She’d mentioned it to Dean, but she hadn’t specified names. A twinge of guilt pulls at her insides. It must’ve been Dean and his mates that had beaten Neil up. Put him in hospital. That’s why he was bruised, why Miss Graves summoned him toher office. She should give the proper details, get Miss Graves to inform the police there’d been an error.
Theyhadbeen attacked, though. They’d been lucky to have escaped.
Neil had got what he deserved.
Anna slides the file into the cabinet and shuts the drawer, leaning against it like the wind has been knocked from her sails. Should she tell Kirsty about this?
