Her voice cracks and I notice her eyes are shiny, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. I want to reach out and put my hand on hers, but I don’t dare to move in case she clams up.
‘When we got back, we couldn’t find Liv,’ Iris continues. ‘Someone said she was really drunk. Someone else said she could barely stand up. But Olly said she hadn’t been drunk when we left and we hadn’t been gone that long.’
Iris pauses. A cloud passes over the sun and it instantly feels cold. I shiver, although I’m not sure if it’s because of the cold or because I can sense what’s coming next. Iris pushes her sunglasses back up onto the top of her head.
‘We found her eventually,’ Iris says. Tears roll down her face now and she swipes at them and sniffs. ‘She was barely conscious, Mum. She could barely talk. Charlie – one of Olly’s mates – had driven to the party, so we took her to hospital.’
I keep quiet, immobile, afraid of jolting Iris into silence if I so much as breathe.
‘They got the police in. At the hospital, I mean,’ Iris says. ‘Olivia was tested for the date-rape drug. It was positive. The police brought a rape kit with them, so they got evidence of the rape itself, but not the identification of … the … the rapist.’
Oh, God. Poor Liv. No wonder Iris suggested checking Margo for Rohypnol. She must have been reliving that evening with Liv, when they had to take her to the hospital.
And then my heart clenches. Because the connection between the two incidents is suddenly blindingly obvious. But before I can say anything, Iris continues.
‘Liv has no idea who drugged her and no idea who raped her. She was so ashamed and frightened she didn’t even want to tell her parents at first. She just wanted to forget all about it. She didn’t want to, you know, press charges, or whatever.’
I know Iris can relate to that. My daughter wanted to forget what had happened to her. She didn’t want to prosecute Josh. She couldn’t go through a court case. I didn’t listen to her. I insisted until Ash told me to back off. I wanted justice. Justice for my daughter. But Justice has different faces; she wears different masks.
‘Iris,’ I say gently, ‘what happened to Liv and what happened to Margo …’ Iris nods. She knows what I’m going to say next. ‘It was at Hilltop House. Both times.’
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘In the actual summerhouse both times, too.’
I scowl, unsure what to make of that coincidence. Is it a coincidence?
‘Josh … he … er … supplied the drugs,’ Iris says, making me wonder if I asked my question aloud. ‘I only found that out afterwards. A long time afterwards. But he was selling drugs. Marijuana, Rohypnol, ecstasy.’
I swear to God, if that kid hadn’t already been killed, I would kill him myself.
‘But, Iris,’ I say, ‘this means that other people might have had motive. Someone else might have wanted Josh dead.’ I was so sure Iris was guilty and now that I’m considering my daughter might be innocent after all, a feeling of shame bowls into me. ‘Why didn’t you tell your dad and me about this at the time? Why didn’t you tell us Josh had been dealing drugs?’
Iris looks out towards the sea again, studiously avoiding eye contact. I follow her gaze. The water has crept several metres nearer to the shoreline than before. The sun is dipping into the ocean, its reflection a single orange brushstroke across the dark water. It’s getting late. And cold. We should get going. I wait a few seconds longer in case Iris says something, but she has clammed up, as if she realizes she has said too much. As if she has given something away. But I get the feeling she hasn’t told me everything.
Chapter 38
Iris
NOW
In the days just before Josh’s eighteenth birthday party, Josh and Iris weren’t really talking to each other. She can’t remember exactly why now. She may not even have known at the time what she said or did to upset him. Sometimes he’d get salty and she’d realize she’d offended him or pissed him off or whatever, but she’d go over everything in her head – replay their conversations, reread their text exchanges and listen again to their voice messages – and for the life of her, she just couldn’t work out where his mood had come from. She’d tread carefully – on eggshells – and hope it would blow over if she was, like, super nice. If she was lucky, Josh would eventually snap out of it and his period of sulking or ghosting her would come to an abrupt end. He would pretend nothing had happened, which always made Iris wonder if she was imagining things. At other times, he’d be low-key annoyed to begin with, his anger simmering for a while under the surface, scarcely visible like a dormant volcano, until he eventually erupted.
So, right, this was one of those times where Josh had been acting weird and Iris didn’t know why. She’d bought him an awesome present ages ago and had been looking forward to seeing the look on his face when he opened it. But now she wasn’t even sure she wanted to go to his fucking party.
On the day itself, hours before it was due to kick off, Josh sent Iris a text message. Honestly, it creeped her out the way he seemed to be able to read her mind sometimes.
Can’t wait for tonight. Come round early, Babe?
J x
It was like there was nothing wrong. Was Josh just going to act like everything was fine between them? He wasreallygood at sweeping everything under the carpet. Iris still wasn’t sure whether she wanted to go. She needed to think about it, talk it over with Mille. When Iris didn’t reply immediately to Josh’s text, he called her. She tried to put her foot down. She said it wasn’t OK to ignore her one minute and be all over her like a rash the next. But Josh always knew the right buttons to push, the right things to say when he wanted his own way and she couldn’t stay mad for long. He needed her to help make his eighteenth awesome. How could he celebrate without his girlfriend by his side? He’d been busy lately and hadn’t realized she’d been feeling neglected, blah, blah, blah.
When she got to Hilltop House, she gave him the present she’d bought for him. Josh was, like, really into Lego and she’d found The Milky Way Galaxy artwork on Vinted a few weeks ago. The seller assured her all the pieces were there. Even second-hand, it had cost her a fortune, but it was the perfect gift.
Josh opened the present and thanked her, but he was nowhere near as enthusiastic about it as she’d thought he would be. She’d put a lot of thought into what to buy him and spent a lot of money. His indifference hurt.
Things went from bad to worse. Once everyone else showed up, he started flirting – and then dancing – with Sasha Spencer-Lyles, like Iris was completely invisible.
Iris didn’t want to make a scene, so she shut herself in the downstairs loo. She sat on the closed lid of the toilet, in floods of tears, pulling at the loo roll and using it to blow her nose and dab under her eyes, where the mascara must have run. She was desperately trying to get a grip. Her dad wasn’t due to pick her up for another five hours. Millie was chatting up Emiliano, the Italian exchange student. Iris didn’t want to disturb her. Olly was here somewhere, but he would be with Liv and their friends.
