The next morning there’s a scrambling up the stairs then the door is kicked open.
‘She’s deid!’ comes the cry from Jonesy. ‘She’s deid!’
‘Who’s deid?’ asks Shona as she jumps off her bed.
The other girls crowd round Jonesy; she’s bent over panting. ‘Jane … Denton … deid … the woods.’
‘Jesus bloody Mary and Joseph,’ says Pam.
‘Holy shit,’ says Shona.
‘Oh Jesus,’ says Mary.
Eldrey says nothing. She doesn’t talk much.
The room is lit up with excitement, we’ve never heard news so bad. I don’t say anything either; I’m stunned. We all thought Jane was going to be with that fella she was supposed to be seeing.
Jonesy recovers her breath a little. ‘I saw her body, there was blood everywhere, it was disgusting.’
‘Where was it?’
‘The woods over the back, behind Cottage 12. I was going to get the post and I heard all this shouting and screaming and some people were running away from it and others were running to it. When I got there everyone was just stood round her staring.’
‘Didn’t anyone try to save her?’ I say.
‘They couldn’t, she was too deid. It was obvious she was deid, her eyes were bulging out and everything. I’ve never seen a deid body before, it was horrible.’
‘Eurgh,’ says Pam.
‘Do you want to go and see it?’ Jonesy asks.
‘No,’ says Pam.
‘Yes,’ say Shona and Mary.
Eldrey still says nothing.
I say, ‘I dunno, it’s wrong, isn’t it?’
Outside we hear sirens.
Everyone looks out the window as police cars and ambulances go up the path. Kids are standing in the porches of their cottages, trying to find out what’s going on.
We see Mr Gordon, the Superintendent, storm down the path to a police car. He looks so angry. Someone is going to get it really bad today.
Mr Gordon is a bastard. It’s funny that so many of the children here really are bastards, but the Homes are run by another sort of bastard. Jonesy calls him the ‘Bastard of the Bastards’ but never when adults are around.
If you get on the wrong side of him, you are going to have a very hard time at the Homes. He likes me because I work hard, but I am still so scared of him that sometimes I think I will wee myself if he looks at me badly. I just try to keep out of his way. I’ve heard the stories of what he’s done when he’s angry; I don’t know if they’re true, but I don’t want to find out.
He is a bald man who always wears a suit, and he constantly looks like he has been stung by a bee, but is trying not to show you how much pain he is in. It seems like his body is trying to burst out of his clothes. I don’t know if he got big after he bought them or if he bought them small so it showed up his size; either way, when he is walking you get out of his way.
‘Back in your houses!’ he barks. ‘Back in your houses or it’s the belt!’ Other grown-ups are issuing the same orders as they follow in his wake.
We run down the stairs and stand on the porch of Cottage 5. Mr Gordon is talking to a policeman and Jonesy is edging nearer to hear what they are saying. You’re gonnae get killed next if the Super catches you, I think. And he does catch her. While listening to the policeman talk, he gives Jonesy a stare that could stop a tree falling.
Jonesy comes back to us and we go back into the house. Everyone is listening to her as she has all the information. She has seen the body. She describes it over and over again: the stab marks all over Jane’s chest, in her neck and even her cheek.
‘Her knickers were off, just sort of on one leg by her ankles,’ said Jonesy.
‘Why would you take your knickers off unless you were having a wee in the woods or a grown-up told you to? Why would someone stab you for that?’ says Eldrey.
‘You’re an idiot, Eldrey. Someone’s done something to her. Raped her,’ says Jonesy.
‘What’s raping?’ says Eldrey.
‘It’s when they stick it in you but you don’t want them to.’
Eldrey looks thoughtful. No one asks any more questions.
By the time she has finished, I can see the body every time I close my eyes and all I can think of is Jane. Why would someone do that? How could they do something like that here? The woods are only three hundred yards away; the killer could have walked past our front door.
‘Didn’t she use to live here?’ says Shona.
‘Aye,’ says Mary. ‘Left about six years ago to go to a cottage where she had more friends.’
‘You can move to be with your friends?’ asks Pam.
‘You have to have friends first.’ Jonesy gives her a look, then carries on with more of the details. When Jonesy finally stops talking, we don’t know what to do next. We are supposed to have breakfast and then go off to school. How can we go on as normal after what has just happened?
Mrs Paterson walks in and says, ‘Right, you lot, I want you to have eaten your breakfast and have your school uniform on in the next fifteen minutes or there’ll be trouble.’
No one moves until she says, ‘Don’t make me get Mr Paterson, because then you’ll be in real trouble.’
Mr Paterson is not just a threat; he is the punishment. I am not sure what Mrs Paterson sees in him. He’s quite grumpy, and for a man who has to work with kids he doesn’t seem to like kids very much. Perhaps he thinks that it is Mrs Paterson’s job to care about them, and his is just to dish out the punishments.
I wouldn’t say he was handsome – Mrs Paterson is definitely the better-looking of the two – but she does like him, even if he is a little shorter than her. She never wears heels as he would look even shorter still. If you mention that he’s short, you are for it. And not a one-off, you are going to get it loads. Jonesy did once and she gets it loads off him. That said, there are some girls he just takes against in here. I am usually fine unless I have done something really bad, which I rarely do.