Page 39 of The Cut
‘She can sit next to me, sir … This one’s dry.’ Ben pats the seat on the back row next to him.
Dave, sitting across from him on the other side of the rear seat, watches intently as Mr Ashton agrees and Annie moves to the one next to Ben. Beaming, Ben wraps his arm around her as she snuggles into his shoulder.
‘Cheers, Lynette,’ Ben calls through the gap in the seat. He pulls the pillow from behind his neck and props it under Annie’s head. Now that the disapproving parents are out of the way, he has her all to himself. The camping trip is off to a cracking start; they are in for the best weekend ever.154
Lynette stares open-mouthed and slumps back, pulling on her headphones, as Aerosmith’s ‘Love in an Elevator’ nearly blows her head off.
Unbeknown to any of them, Dave has his camera hidden under his coat and trained on the unfolding events. Peeping between the seats at the conspiratorial antics of the Davis twins, zooming down the aisle to Mark Cherry passing a bag of Black Jacks and Fruit Salads across the aisle to Catherine, and most importantly keeping watch on the lovers in the back seat.
Patel now turns his lens to the window and the pink breaking dawn over the Malvern Hills. ‘Shepherd’s warning,’ he mutters to himself, then notices something in the reflection of the glass. The camera catches Ben and Annie snuggling under the blanket as the sun rises. Dave’s stomach lurches, he feels sick, and his face burns hot with jealousy. He zooms in, watching closely. Ben’s arm gently slides down Annie’s shoulder to her waist, then to her thigh, crossing her leg, reaching for somewhere forbidden. He kisses her sleeping head lovingly, but Annie’s body suddenly tenses, she sits upright and pushes Ben’s hands off her. She stares at Ben in disgust. Then she shrinks away and slides out from under the blanket. Patel keeps filming through the reflection in the glass, pretending to be asleep.
‘Annie … wait.’ The hissed whisper has no effect. She doesn’t want to make a scene, so she quietly moves forward to the centre of the coach and takes the empty seat next to Mark. Her head disappears behind the headrest and Ben pulls the pillow tight into his chest.
Dave’s eyelids close as the rocking of the coach lulls him to sleep with a smile on his lips, and they head out into the unknown wilderness of Pen y Fan.
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27
JANUARY 2024
‘Roll B001 Scene 1 Take 1. Mark it.’
The clapper board snapped closed and lowered out of the frame.
‘Where d’ya want me then?’ A woman’s arm appeared in the shot; she shuffled forward, her back to the camera, one hand clasping a walking stick for balance. Splinters of light through venetian blinds cast a sepia hue over the room and highlighted the face of a drug addict. The hollowed-out cheeks and greasy dyed-red hair with grey roots, tied back into a scraggy ponytail, missing teeth and retracted gums reflected a lifestyle lacking any sense of self-care. Her faded green velour tracksuit and sneakers had seen better days, as had the shady interrogation room in which she was sitting. A scene like this felt like a cliché but it would serve a purpose. The cast of characters was shaping up nicely. It wasn’t an audition; she already had the role.
‘I want me money first, before I say anything.’ Her eyes were unfocused, casting up to the light and then scanning the room. She thrust her hands into the pockets of her stained track pants and hunched her shoulders. She was clearly in pain.
The interviewer took the same tone as before, calm and kind. ‘Tell me what you remember about Annabel Maddock.’
There was a pause as Lynette Davis chewed and gurned, her knees jittering with addiction.
‘Not much … she weren’t all that.’ Her dry mouth sucked in the air.156
‘Did you like her?’
‘Not really. She were all lardy dah.’ The knees calmed to stillness. ‘Thought she were it … just because of Ben.’ Lynette wrinkled her nose as if catching a bad smell.
‘They were dating.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘Stringing them all along, she was.’ Lynette looked straight at the camera. ‘She weren’t a virgin neither.’
‘Really? What makes you think that?’ The voice remained calm, while Lynette’s legs started fidgeting again.
‘She were on the pill. Din’t tell her parents.’ Her tongue ran around the inside of her drug-blackened teeth. ‘He was too good for her.’ Her eyes cast down to her dirty sneakers. ‘Way out of her league. She were playing ’em both.’
‘Both?’
‘Patel were sniffin’ around her too … like flies round shit. Made for each other.’ Lynette’s tone deepened into resentment.
‘And your brother?’
Lynette screwed her face up in confusion. ‘Chris? He wouldn’t have gone anyway near Little Miss Prissy.’
‘But he was a suspect too.’ The words were carefully chosen. ‘He had to give a DNA sample.’
‘Yeah, well, all our class did, the whole school did, the whole village; everyone between thirteen and thirty … and not just the boys neither.’ She cleared her throat of mucus, muttering under her breath, ‘Even Mark Cherry, like that poofter ould have had a go.’
