He rang Mum and then he took Iris to the police station in Barnstaple. She’d be glad to see the back of this place. PC Quinlan wasn’t available, but her gangly sidekick was. Iris would be glad to see the back of him, too.
Dad explained the situation, that Iris wanted to withdraw her statement to avoid having to face a court case.
‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ PC Lynch said. He was poking the inside of his ear with his little finger, which was justgross. ‘The CPS has decided not to prosecute. We simply don’t have enough evidence.’
Mum and Dad had a row about it when they got back from the police station. Right there, in the hallway of Crooked Oak Cottage, in front of Daniel. Iris could hear them shouting from her bedroom and crept down the stairs to catch the tail end of it.
‘It’s not fair. We can’t let Josh get away with this. We need to fight!’ Mum had screamed. ‘You said you’d get a lawyer. Did you do that? We could still bring a civil lawsuit against Joshua, get copyright of the videos. That would be a start. But we have to dosomething!’
‘I understand how helpless and angry you feel, Carla. I do, too.’ Dad’s voice was raised now. ‘But that’s not what Iris wants. She doesn’t want to fight. She wants to forget about all of this.’
‘That’s what she thinks now. But—’
‘She won’t change her mind, Carla.’ Dad was really shouting now. Iris cringed. He never shouted. ‘If we did find more evidence and got a lawyer and the CPS agreed to prosecute – and that’s a lot of ifs – we’d be forcing Iris to go through this … this traumatic ordeal all over again in court. It could take months. Months when she could be healing. She needs to put all this behind her.’
Mum and Dad didn’t often argue. She supposed they must have argued before they got divorced, but she didn’t remember that. Dad usually let Mum win any minor disagreement and Iris had never witnessed any major ones. She’d never seen Mum back down before now either. Mum didn’t tell Dad he was right or anything. She just harrumphed, about-turned and stomped off. Daniel was still hovering around, a smug expression on his face. Iris wondered if Dad felt like punching it. Mum’s partner could be nice, but he could also be a total dick. He was insanely jealous of Dad.
Iris felt bad about causing trouble.Again. She went back to her bedroom and stayed there, wishing she could travel in time, forwards or backwards, it didn’t matter which. Time travel would be a great superpower to have. She could go back and do things differently, never go out with Josh in the first place. Or fast-forward in her life to a time when this was all behind her.
Mum came up after a while and knocked on the door.
‘Go away,’ Iris said. Either she didn’t say it loudly enough or Mum chose to ignore her, because she came in.
‘I’m sorry, sweetie,’ Mum said. ‘I shouldn’t have pushed so hard. I just hate the idea of him getting away with it. But I hate the fact that you’re suffering more. So if you’re sure this is what you want—’
‘It is.’
‘All right.’
‘Anyway, he won’t get away with it. You said yourself he’d get what he deserved. Right?’
‘Let’s hope so, sweetie.’ Mum spoke without much conviction.
Iris let Mum sit on the bed and hold her. Some of the tension left Iris’s shoulders after a minute or two and the knot in her stomach loosened a notch.
When Daniel came home that evening, Iris was listening to Margo read in the kitchen and Mum was making dinner – she was trying out a new recipe and, so far, judging from Mum’s sighs, it wasn’t going well. Olly hadn’t come in yet from cross-country training.
Daniel had his briefcase in one hand and the local paper under the other arm.
‘Sorry to be the bringer of bad news,’ he said. ‘Go and have your shower, Margo.’
He took over making the meal while Iris and Mum, sitting side by side at the kitchen table, pored over the newspaper. The headline said it all really: MY SON HAS BEEN FALSELY ACCUSED OF SHARING INTIMATE IMAGES. But Iris read every word of the article anyway. Words and phrases jumped out at her, as if highlighted: ‘first ever girlfriend’, ‘wild allegations’, ‘devastating impact on his mental health’, ‘hung out to dry’.
Joshua and his mother Yvonne were both named in the piece. Iris’s name didn’t appear, which was something, but everyone would know who Yvonne was referring to. Iris felt sick.
‘She’s playing the victim card!’ Mum spat out. ‘How could she? We’ll sue her for defamation.’
‘No!’ Iris screamed and raced upstairs. Mum still didn’t get it, did she?
The same scene as earlier played out again. Mum knocking, Iris telling her to go away, Mum apologizing. It was like that ancient comedy Mum had insisted they all watched that time:Groundhog Day.
Every day was like Groundhog Day now for Iris. She got up, did her homework, went for a walk with Mum, tried to eat something, made herself sick whenever she could escape her mother’s beady eye for a few minutes, watched a mindless film on TV, then went to bed. Then sleep, or try to, eat, vomit, repeat. How much longer could she take this?
Chapter 29
Ian
NOW
