The Perfect Girl

MONDAY MORNING
SAM

At Barnstaple Police Station, when I returned to talk to Zoe after the disclosure, I found her in exactly the same position as before, curled up in her plastic chair, social worker sitting silently beside her.

Zoe watched me come in and sit down, hungover eyes following me like a cat’s under that glass-spangled hair.

‘Hello again,’ I said.

‘Hello.’

‘Now. Have you let anybody know that you’ve been arrested?’

‘They phoned Mum.’

‘Would you like your mum to be in here with us?’

‘No.’

The social worker’s lips pursed, but she remained quiet.

‘Can you tell me why?’

‘I didn’t want her to know.’

‘She’s outside, Zoe, she knows you’re here, and she knows why. You’re not going to be able to keep this a secret from her.’

An immediate firm shake of her head, so I didn’t push it. A fragment of glass fell out of her hair and on to the table in front of her and she put a finger on it, curious, almost hypnotised by the sight of it. It looked like a small diamond.

‘Don’t,’ I said, but I was too late. The glass cut her finger and she pulled it sharply away and put it into her mouth. The little shard skittered away across the table and onto the floor.

‘I’ll get the first-aider,’ said the social worker.

‘It’s OK,’ Zoe said. ‘It’s nothing.’ She held her finger up to show us just a tiny bead of blood welling there, then she sucked it away.

The social worker rummaged in her bag and handed Zoe a tissue. We both watched her wrap it tightly around her finger until the tip went white.

‘Well, if you change your mind at any point then we can call Mum in. What about your dad?’

Another head shake, even firmer this time.

‘Do you feel well enough to talk to me now?’ Close up, she looked worse than I’d thought. They told me that she’d puked at the hospital.

‘Yes.’

‘Your welfare is important to everybody here so you must let me or…’

‘Ruth,’ said the social worker.

‘You must let me or Ruth know straight away if you’re too unwell to talk, or for any other reason. Ruth is here to support you, and I am, as I’ve told you, a solicitor, and that means that I want to make sure you get the right advice to help you in your situation and also to help you understand anything that happens this morning or that happened last night. And, most importantly, and this is why you need to tell us if you’re not coping at any point, I need to make sure that you completely understand what effects any statements or responses you give to the police might mean.’

‘I’m OK.’

I wondered where this stoicism came from. I didn’t yet know about the piano, about her capacity for discipline and self-control, and her hunger for excellence, but the intelligence was beginning to emerge. There was sharp clarity in those eyes.

‘Do you live locally, Zoe?’

‘Between Hartland and Clovelly, at East Wildberry Farm.’

‘Near the Point?’

‘Yes. That’s where we were going.’

‘In the car? To the Point?’

‘To the lighthouse.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Jack said I could use his dad’s car to drive Gull home, but only on condition we went to the lighthouse on the way.’

I thought of Hartland Point lighthouse, because I knew it well. To get to it you had to sneak past some locked gates and descend a rubbly, steep cliff path down to the shore, where black rocks lined the edges of the tide line like shark’s teeth and the lighthouse sat on an outcrop which was fortified by a sea wall, to save it from being beaten away by waves. It was no longer occupied and the light was about to be decommissioned entirely. There were empty buildings beside it, where the lighthouse keepers used to live.

Four drunk teenagers planning to go down there on a dark, cold night sounded like a bad business to me.

‘Why did Jack want to go to the lighthouse?’

She calculated something behind those eyes before she replied. ‘I don’t know.’

I changed tack. ‘How do you know how to drive?’

‘My dad taught me, on the farm.’

‘Why were you driving when Jack was old enough to have a licence?’

‘Jack was pissed. He was too pissed to drive.’

‘But you were drunk as well.’

‘I wasn’t. I only had a spritzer.’

‘According to the police your blood alcohol level was twice the limit.’

‘I wasn’t drunk.’

I left the denial for now. I’d tease that out later. If she somehow didn’t know she was drunk, we might have a defence to build there.

‘Why did Gull want to leave the party?’

‘Because she got sick, and she wanted to go home.’

‘Sick from drinking?’

‘I think so.’

‘Were you with her?’

‘She came to find me when she got sick.’

‘Are you friends?’

‘She’s my best friend.’

‘And where were you when she came to find you?’

‘With Jack.’

‘Where were you and Jack?’

‘In the bedroom.’

I wrote this down while the social worker shuffled in her seat, and I wondered if it was defiance that I heard in her tone. I was going to need to know every detail later, but for now I decided that I wouldn’t push her, because when I looked at her I could see that she was fading, and I thought she might throw up.

‘I think we should take a break, because I don’t believe you’re well enough for interview this morning. But before we stop is there anything else you want me to know, Zoe? We’re going to talk lots more, but is there anything you want me to know now?’

‘It’s Gull’s birthday today,’ she said, and she began to cry.