Bernadette always liked Sean, once she got past the fact that he fixed roofs for a living. He charmed her like he charmed me, and they seemed to find common ground in their delight in undermining me which they dressed up as harmless teasing. It was for Bernadette, but for Sean, nothing is harmless.
‘Bernadette, you need to teach Ally how you make this delicious stew. Ally’s looks and tastes like something you’d empty from one of those industrial carpet cleaners.’
Bernadette would laugh and grow ten feet tall at the compliment.
‘I did try when she was growing up, Sean, but as you know you can’t tell Ally anything. If she doesn’t want to do something, she doesn’t do it. Stubborn as a mule.’
Of course, Bernadette had no idea she was furnishing Sean with more proof of my ineptness and – when it was just the two of us – he would often say, ‘Even your mother agrees with me.’ If the two people I loved most in the world, after Megan, thought I was useless they must be right.
Although she has never said it outright, I have always suspected that she never believed Sean hit me and if he did (and that’s a very big if) I had in some way provoked it. So, it should have come as no surprise when Bernadette didn’t baulk at the idea of Sean taking care of Megan. Megan.
The cabin is too still without her. Those noiseless moments when she was out or asleep that I once craved and cherished have been replaced by an all-pervading and unsought silence that I loathe. I put a reggae song on my Spotify just to lift the mood, but it sounds tinny and its cheeriness jars, so I turn it off again and let the quiet engulf me.
Sinking into the sofa, my eye traces the mural that covers one wall of the living room. Massive palm trees are bent over white sands that slope gently towards a surfless sea where a stick version of Megan and I are standing waist deep, our grins scrawled beyond the inky boundaries of our round faces. I can’t help but smile and, after days of watching my daughter lie motionless in a hospital bed, kept alive artificially, her face a passive reflection of her unconscious state, I find myself yearning for a different, more animated version of her so I take out my phone and scroll through her Instagram.
Head tilted to one side like her smile is too heavy to hold upright, her pale red hair lopsided, Megan beams out from her photos. This is my Megan.
There’s one of the two of us, taken the weekend before she was attacked. We’re sitting at a table at Liam’s coffee bar on Morte Sands, our wetsuits peeled back to our bikini tops, our hair clumped and matted by the salty water, our bodyboards propped against the table next to us. After a few failed attempts to take a selfie, Liam took the phone from me. In the picture, Megan is still laughing at my ineptness, my laughter is derived entirely from hers. What wouldn’t I give to return to that moment?
I carry on trawling her timeline. Something starts to niggle me. Something I hadn’t noticed before. I flick the screen back and forth. Holt’s right. Apart from the odd photo, Megan barely used it, especially recently. Then it hits me. I scroll up and down several times, checking and rechecking. There are lots of comments, emojis and likes until around six months ago and then they dwindle to next to nothing, like the user has tired of it – only what teenager elects to come off social media unprompted? Then I get it. The lying little shit. Silent fury that I have been duped so easily seeps through me.
It doesn’t take long to find him. He’s sitting in a bus shelter near the rec, but he’s not waiting for a bus.
I bring the car to an abrupt halt alongside him and leap out, startling him so much he almost falls off the bench.
‘Jay Cox. You little piece of shit. Megan had a second phone, didn’t she? You gave it to her so you could continue your cosy little chit-chats.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
I grab a handful of his T-shirt, practically lifting him from his seat. Christ, there’s nothing to him. His arms flail and he drops his baccy tin. Its contents splay across the pavement.
‘Yes, you did, you lying little fuck. Now tell me where it is.’
‘I don’t—’
His eyes are wide, pupils dilated. He’s high. For fuck’s sake. Well, he’s just going to have to come down and fast.
‘I’m fucking warning you. I’m already on one assault charge, one more won’t make any difference.’
‘OK, OK. Let go of me, all right, and I’ll tell you.’
‘No, you’ll scarper. Tell me first and then I’ll let you go.’
‘OK, OK, yes, I gave her a phone, but only because I liked talking to her. We were friends, but you wouldn’t let her speak to me.’
‘Don’t you dare put this on me. Where’s the phone?’
‘Under her bed, that’s what she told me anyway.’
I let him go.
‘It’d better be there, Jay, or I’m coming for you.’
‘It’s there,’ he says sulkily.
Armed with the information I need, my rage subsides.
‘I get that you wouldn’t tell the police, but why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
He pulls a face as if I’ve said something so ludicrous it’s hardly worth his effort answering, but he does.
‘You’re one of them.’
I roll my eyes.
‘I’m Megan’s mother too.’
He shrugs.
‘Sorry, all right, I didn’t think it was important.’
‘She used the phone you gave her to create another Instagram account. The guy who attacked her used that Instagram account to groom her.’
‘I didn’t know that, did I? Not for sure. I just thought she was using it to text me, like we arranged.’
I stomp back to the car, slamming the door shut. He’s not worth any more of my time.