The WPC who was there wouldn’t let it go. She started right into me. ‘We know there was bad feeling between you girls. They threw you out of their gang. You wanted to get back at Erin.’
I looked at her defiantly. ‘They didn’t throw me out,’ I said. ‘I left.’
‘They treated her really badly,’ Mum said. ‘Especially that Erin. Hannah went into a terrible depression. But she pulled herself out of it.’ Mum clutched at my hand on my lap. ‘I was really proud of the way she pulled herself out of it. And I know she would never do anything to hurt anybody.’
The policewoman didn’t look convinced. ‘I’d take her down to the police station right now, have her charged.’
She said it as if I was dirt beneath her feet.
‘Oh, come on, WPC Duff. She’s only a young girl. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt.’ The other cop was a man. He even managed a smile at me.
Did they think they were fooling me? I’d seen too many TV cop shows to be taken in by this ‘good cop–bad cop’ routine.
‘Just tell us the truth,’ the policeman said.
And what was the truth? Yes. I wanted back at Erin, revenge for all the things she’d done to me. But not like this. ‘I don’t know anything about that fire,’ I said. ‘I would never have done anything like that.’
‘Maybe your friends did it behind your back.’ Bad cop this time.
I shook my head. ‘No. We would challenge them to a fight, but we would never do anything like this.’
‘You can speak for all your friends, can you?’
I hesitated a moment too long. I knew it sounded like a lie. ‘Of course I can.’
Even as I said it I was wondering if it was the truth. How well did I know Wizzie? And I was scared. Scared that she was behind it all.
Wizzie’s parents didn’t even appear at the school. They had already consulted their solicitor and Wizzie was taken home to be questioned there.
It was Wizzie my mum blamed. ‘She’s a bad lot. You should keep away from her. I’ve always told you that. I mean, her family’s even got their own solicitor. That tells you how often they’re in trouble.’
‘But I’ve never seen any real badness in her, Mum.’
‘But you think she might have done this. I can see it in your face.’
And that was what I was really afraid of. The others all felt the same.
We all phoned each other later that night, all except Wizzie. I tried her, we all did, but her phone was switched off as usual.
‘We’ll all get the blame if they prove it was Wizzie,’ Grace said. ‘I got a real hiding and it wasn’t even me. How can we prove we weren’t with her?’
Lauren managed to make us laugh. ‘When the police came to my house my mum kept telling them she would have heard me if I’d got up in the middle of the night to go out and start a fire. She was using sign language at the time. It was so obvious that she wouldn’t have heard a bomb going off. Even the cops laughed.’
But all I could think about was Wizzie. ‘We have to talk to her,’ I said. ‘We have to get the truth out of her.’
Next day I half expected Wizzie not to be at school. But she was. Leaning against the gates, looking nonchalant – a good word to describe Wizzie – nonchalant. As if she hadn’t a care in the world.
‘What happened to you last night? Couldn’t get you on the phone.’
‘Tired. Decided to have an early night.’
Grace asked the question we all wanted to ask. ‘You wouldn’t have done this without telling us, would you?’
‘You mean, like setting fire to Erin’s flat?’ She looked all around us, saw in our faces that maybe we did think that. ‘Let me ask you something. Did you lot do it without telling me?’
‘Of course we didn’t.’
‘Well, if I can believe you, you can believe me.’ Wizzie glared round us all.
Lauren said, ‘You’re right, Wizzie. Sorry I asked.’
‘That’s good enough for me.’ Sonya said.
But it wasn’t good enough for any of us really. Later, when Wizzie was in the toilet, we all shared the same thought. She didn’t actually say she hadn’t done it.
Chapter Fifty-Two
The police might not have any proof against us, but that didn’t matter at school. We were guilty and they all made sure we knew it. If we hadn’t been together I wouldn’t even have come to school.
We walked into the canteen, arm in arm. Heads high, we had nothing to be ashamed of. ‘You’re supposed to be innocent till proved guilty!’ I shouted at all the accusing faces.