* * *
By the time the police arrived, the girls had told their tearful story and various calls were made, Abby Mills had already drowned in the reservoir where Herbert had dumped her.
When the police went to Herbert’s home in the early hours to question him about the allegations, he had already wiped down the interior of his car and was tucked up in bed. He vehemently denied the accusations and insisted he’d been at home all night, watching television before retiring to read his book. No, he didn’t have anyone to corroborate this and he couldn’t believe that anyone would say he’d done such a thing. How dare anyone suggest otherwise?
They were just about to leave when one of the officers took a call on his radio, a report of a missing person had come in. The neighbour of an Abby Mills, daughter of the local down-and-out Dennis, had been gone since early evening and hadn’t returned to collect her daughter. At this moment things changed considerably for Herbert who was allowed to change into appropriate clothing and then taken to the station.
A thorough search of the water treatment plant began at first light. When the officers drew a blank in the yard and various outbuildings, finding only a woman’s shoe, the underwater team was called.
Abby’s body was recovered later that day on the far side of the reservoir. Dennis Mills was required to identify his daughter and afterwards he called into the pub to steady his nerves, then went on a rampage. Word had already spread about the arrest of the old fart Sunday school teacher and as far as Dennis was concerned, the coppers had Herbert Dunne bang to rights. That’s why Dennis put all of his windows through and burned down his garden shed.
When he was arrested at the scene, Dennis showed no remorse and told the police he’d have burned Herbert’s car had it not been removed for forensic examination, and that bastard Herbert, and his bastard house too, had he not run out of matches.
The autopsy concluded that Abby was unconscious but alive when she went into the water and this revelation put a whole new slant on the role played by Frankie and her friends. During the search of the yard, the police had recovered their rucksacks and residue of underage drinking and drug-taking. Word quickly spread around the village and instead of being innocent bystanders to a terrible murder, the girls were rebranded cowards, druggies and pissheads.
The general consensus was that had they intervened in some way, prevented Herbert from dragging poor Abby across the yard, he wouldn’t have been able to chuck her over the wall. But because they were off their heads and giggling in the bushes, a young mother was dead. At this stage, the world as Frankie, Bea and Scarlet knew it imploded. People you thought were your friends – neighbours, shopkeepers – can be cruel. And kids can be crueller. College was a trial, the bus journey to and from a living hell, with taunts and jibes and their names written in marker pen on the backs of seats, with slurs and accusations. Nobody seemed to consider how scared and in shock they’d been. And when Herbert took the stand at his plea hearing and said the words, ‘not guilty’ a date was set for the trial and the nightmare rolled on.
Despite Herbert’s attempt to clean his upholstery with a wet rag and Stardrops, the forensic evidence was damning. There was no way he could deny Abby was in his car that night. The abrasions to the back of her legs and body supported the witness account of her being dragged across the yard. Those to her front indicated she’d been laid on top of the wall and as her body was pushed over the edge, the skin on her stomach and shins scraped the jagged drystone wall. Had she committed suicide, a notion that was unsupported by Abby’s friends, she might have stood on the wall and jumped. As it was, there were no drugs or alcohol found in Abby’s bloodstream, and by all accounts the devoted, if down-on-her-luck, mum had no reason to kill herself.
In his defence, Herbert changed tack, saying he’d been scared to admit he’d seen Abby on the night she died because everyone always put two and two together. Yes, he’d been silly to believe that she actually wanted his advice. But his ego was flattered so when she suggested a drive so they could talk privately away from nosey villagers, he agreed. It all went horribly wrong, though, when they’d parked by the reservoir and she’d turned their cosy chat into something seedy, propositioning him, threatening blackmail and then attacking him when he ordered her out of the car.
Apparently she’d refused, so he went around to the passenger door and pulled her out. Then he drove off. Yes, he’d dragged her away from his car but when he left her in the yard she was alive but screeching filth. Herbert was shaken but resolved to put the whole sordid and, quite frankly, embarrassing matter behind him, until the police turned up.
In turn the defence ripped Frankie and her friends to pieces, making them out to be the scourge of society and it was at this point, mid-cross examination, under pressure, nerves frayed and sick to the back teeth of being made to look like a baddie, one of them snapped. It was Frankie.
The barrister for the defence had finished making her look like Nancy Spungen, asking about Frankie’s drug use, raising an eyebrow when she insisted it was only the second time she’d smoked marijuana, and then the smirk as he turned to face the jury that caused her to lose it completely.
‘Why are you smirking? I’m telling the truth, I swore on the Bible and I meant it, so stop trying to make me look like a scumbag when I’m not! We were doing what loads of kids do at weekends, we were getting pissed, okay.’ Frankie then directed her impatience towards the judge. ‘I am not a druggie, I’ve never been in trouble and I’m sick of everyone making out like we’ve done something wrong.’
The judge tapped his gavel. ‘Order. Miss Hooper you will refrain from using such language in this court and concentrate on answering the questions put to you by the learned gentleman, not making statements. Am I understood?’
Frankie glared at the old fossil in his stupid wig, peering over his half-moon glasses and down his nose no doubt, so she told him where to go, too. ‘Yes, you are understood, and there’s no need to talk to me like I’m stupid. In fact, it’s the other way round because nobody seems to be understanding me! Are you lot deaf or something? I’m not the bad person here! He is, that pervert over there.’ Frankie pointed to where Herbert sat in the dock, behind a Perspex screen and despite the calls for order and counsel to approach the bench, she carried on.
‘He’s the one who pervs on us girls. He always has. Why don’t you ask him about when he took photos of me in my underwear? Go on, ask him! I was getting changed for Brownies in the church hall and I saw him clicking away at the door, his big bald head peering round the corner, the freak. He’s a freak, do you hear me, he’s a dirty old freak.’
As a consequence, all hell broke loose in the gallery: Frankie’s mum became hysterical, her dad started making threats and court was adjourned. Frankie made a statement, social workers were appointed and a separate investigation launched where, to Frankie’s relief, two other girls came forward to give their accounts of Herbert’s inappropriate touching and lurid behaviour.
Still he refused to admit to anything. Everyone thought Herbert had either lost his mind or, he was the most stupid, stubborn and arrogant man on the planet. When he was found guilty of Abby’s manslaughter, Frankie and her friends were in the public gallery with their parents.
When the foreman of the jury said the word ‘guilty’ a huge cheer went up and once order was restored, the formalities were dealt with, psychological reports requested before sentencing and after the jury was dismissed, everyone filed out. It was then that Dennis Mills turned his attention to Frankie, Bea and Scarlet, unleashing his pent-up wrath.
Taking the steps of the viewing gallery two at a time he charged towards the families, blocking their exit, his eyes wild with hate, pointing a trembling finger at them all. ‘Don’t think you’ve got away with it! This is all your fault and I’ll never forgive you. My girl was still alive that night and you could have saved her. You heard what that doctor bloke said: she was breathing when she went in the water. That bastard might have thrown her over but you three are just as much to blame. I’ll get you all for this, just you wait… one day I’ll make you all pay. You killed her, don’t forget that. You killed my Abby. You killed my little girl.’
As Dennis was dragged away by court officials, screaming and crying and shouting obscenities, no matter how hard Frankie squashed her hands to her ears she heard every single word and replayed them over and over in her head each night before she went to sleep.
Herbert was sentenced to thirty years in prison, for all of his crimes, but as the solicitor explained when he rang to tell Frankie’s parents, he would probably only serve half.
Frankie, in the meantime, learned to bear life in the village. She saw it as her punishment, like an act of contrition for her perceived crime of being seventeen, stupid, drunk and high. The light at the end of the tunnel was passing her A levels and getting into a university as far away from Elkdale as possible. As time went by the gossipmongers moved on to something new but nothing would ever top the scandal of poor Abby Mills and ‘those girls’.
It, they, continued to haunt her. Andrej, Dennis, Herbert the Pervert and the ghost of a woman who roamed the shores of the reservoir, crying for her child and trying to get back over the wall.
Which was why almost fifteen years later, before any part of her past caught up with her, Frankie was moving away and she was never going back.
9
Dennis marched along the road, carrier bag in hand, two whisky bottles clanking against the four-pack of Stella. With every step he cursed, not quite under his breath and loud enough for the woman walking her dog to hear the C-word to which she gave a loud tut, and was rewarded with another diatribe from the angry, inebriated man.
He was completely smashed and had been waiting outside the pub at early doors. He took up his usual position at the bar from where he told everyone all about the scumbag Dunne who had been released from prison.
