Dating Down Read online

  “Sue?” Beard repeats.

  I nod and try to wipe my sweaty hands dry on my soaking trousers. I’m digging myself deeper and deeper into a mess I can never get out of now. Oh, why didn’t I just walk?

  “Want to give Sue a call now?” asks Beard. “Tell her you got her necklace.”

  “I don’t want to wake her.”

  “It’s only just finished,” says Clean-shaven Cop. “Besides, I don’t suppose she’ll be able to sleep worrying about where her necklace is.”

  “I guess.” The fear is entering my voice, and I’m finding it harder to blag, and when Beard leaves the room to take a call on his walkie-talkie and it’s just me, Station Guard, and Clean-shaven Cop, the panic really starts to set in.

  We sit in silence, them staring at me, me trying not to look guilty or look at them or move about too much. And then Beard comes back and slaps a hand down on my shoulder.

  “Guess what, Gary?” says Beard.

  “What?”

  “Appears one of the hotel guests has lost a sapphire necklace,” he says. “A very expensive sapphire necklace.”

  The reality I’m up to my neck in shit hits me hard, and this weird kind of sinking feeling takes hold of me.

  “What you got to say for yourself now?”

  I slump forward and bury my face in my hands. Now I’m sober, I can’t believe what an idiot I’ve been. I’m going to have to get Tammy into a whole heap of trouble, and they’re going to tell her I got caught ticket dodging and giving the cops a false name. She’s going to think I’m a right prat.

  “Why don’t you start by telling us the truth,” says the bearded cop, sitting down next to me. “You want a tea? You look kind of cold.”

  “Thanks.” I haven’t done anything wrong, but I’m still crapping myself. He gives me a plastic cup of tea, and I nearly drop it because my hands are shaking too much. So much for thinking of myself as being tough. The station guard puts on the electric fire, and slowly my feet start to heat up. I think they’re scared I’ll die of hypothermia before I confess stealing the stupid necklace.

  “Well?” says Bearded Cop.

  So I tell them, I tell them everything except for Tammy making up a boyfriend, me pretending to pose as said boyfriend (so I don’t come across as even more pathetic), and me liking her. “I just forgot to give it back,” I sigh, sipping my tea. “I didn’t think anything of it. It was just a stupid necklace.”

  “So why didn’t you tell us all this at the start?” ask Clean-shaven Cop.

  I shrug. I don’t know, either, and his question makes me feel even more stupid.

  “You save this girl from being raped. You’re a bloody hero. Most blokes would be bragging about that for weeks.”

  “She was upset,” I say. It didn’t happen how I’m telling it. There was this instant connection from the moment I saw her. I just wish I could explain that without sounding like some loser.

  “Understandable,” says Beard, who has his arms crossed. “So why didn’t you call the police about the attack?”

  “She didn’t want me to.” There is so much weight pushing down on me that my head throbs.

  “Bit strange, don’t you think?” says Beard.

  I hate the way he refuses to believe me, but I know better than to say anything.

  “So you took her for a drink,” says Clean-shaven Cop.

  “Yeah.”

  “And then went to her prom with her,” he continues, repeating everything I say.

  I nod.

  “But she didn’t know who you were,” says Beard. “I mean, she don’t know you from Adam, she’s nearly been raped, and then she happily goes off with you.”

  “It weren’t like that.” I feel my insides ripping as I struggle to make them believe me. “We sort of hit it off.”

  “You and this Tammy Winters.”

  “Yes.” I know it doesn’t make sense, but something special happened between me and Tammy. I don’t know what it was, but she needed me and I needed her, and me staying with her was the right thing to do. “Look, if I was going to steal her stupid necklace, why wouldn’t I have left it at home when I got changed?”

  “You got changed?” says Beard.

  “Yes. I couldn’t go to a fancy hotel in jeans, could I?” I cry. “It was black tie! We drove back to my house, I got changed, and we went to the hotel.”

  “You never mentioned going back home,” says Clean-shaven Cop.

  “I forgot.” My brains feel like they’re going to explode.

  “How did you get home?”

  “Her driver.”

  “Anything else you forgot?”

  “Just call Tammy,” I beg.

  “Don’t worry,” says Beard. “We’ll be calling her. And in the meantime, Gary Ashworth, we’re arresting you on the suspicion of stealing a sapphire necklace. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention now something you later rely on in court. Is there anything else you wish to say?”

  Sunday 03:30 a.m.

  Tammy

  “Tammy!” Carrie comes rushing back into the room. “They’ve found it – your necklace!”

  My relief only lasts a split second. If they’ve found Mummy’s necklace, that means they’ve caught those thugs, and it’s all going to come out about me lying and how Gary wasn’t my real boyfriend at all, although he is now. I think I’m going to be sick again.

  “They arrested someone,” Carrie continues. “The police want to talk to you.”

  Someone? There were two of them. “Someone” implies they’ve only caught one of them. Oh god, what if the other one is waiting outside to get me?

  “I’m coming with you,” says Carrie.

  “No!” I must have shouted, because Carrie does this little jump, and realising I still sound mad, I take a deep breath and force myself to speak more slowly. “No, you don’t have to do that. I don’t want to ruin any more of your night.”

  “What’s there to ruin?” Rachael moans, still overdosing on chocolate. “This has been the worst summer ball ever!”

  Jane looks away, and Carrie lets out a sigh.

  “I’ll be okay.” Getting to my feet, I try to act as normal as I can. “I’m going to call Gary.”

  I collect up my clothes and mobile and lock myself in the bathroom. I should be getting dressed, but the first thing I do is sit on the floor and call Gary. I need to speak to him, and not just to apologise for dragging him into this whole mess or ask him what I should do. I need to hear his voice – I need to know he’s still real and I didn’t imagine him.

  The phone rings, and my heart sinks as I hear the electronic voice say, “The person you are trying to reach is unavailable right now. Press four to leave a message.” I hang up. I don’t want to leave a message. I want to speak to him. I try sending a text, but my hands are shaking too much, so I give up and get dressed.

  I told one lie, that’s all, just one little fib so I could be part of Carrie’s world, and that one lie nearly got me killed. And now I’m going to have to tell a whopping big lie, or I’m going to lose Gary and be the biggest laughingstock in the world.

  “Is Gary coming?” Carrie asks through the locked bathroom door.

  I shake my head. “He isn’t picking up.”

  “Don’t worry,” she sighs. “I’ll come with you.”

  “You really don’t have to.”

  “We’ll all come,” Rachael insists. “We’re best friends now, and best friends are always there for each other.”

  It feels like I’ve got a swarm of butterflies inside my stomach as we all take the lift downstairs. For a long time, I debate pretending to faint in the hope that when I wake up, everything’s been magically sorted. But we’re only two floors up, and I’m still trying to work out how I can fall without hurting myself too much when the doors open and I find myself in the lobby.

  “Come on,” says Carrie, keeping a firm hold of my arm. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You haven’t done anythin
g wrong.”

  Flanked by Carrie and Rachael, Jane leading the way, I feel like I’m being led to the gallows. Fumbling for my mobile, the guilt rising in me in big waves of tears, I try Gary again, but still there’s no answer. Why isn’t he answering? He said it would only take an hour to get home. Has he forgotten me already?

  “You’ve just got to tell them the truth,” Rachael says, her green eyes sparkling. “How hard can that be?”

  It’s like she knows, and she gets off on making me squirm in my guilt.

  “It’ll be all right.” Carrie smiles, squeezing my arm, as my body starts to tremble. “We’ll stay with you the whole time.”

  I try to smile, but I can’t. If they have arrested those thugs, then the police will want to talk to Gary, and if I don’t speak to him first, he’s not going to say the same thing as me, and then it will all come out, and... and then I see the one person in the world I really don’t want to, the one person in the world who I only ever see when something’s seriously wrong, the end-of-the-world kind of wrong: my Uncle Nick.

  I call him Uncle Nick despite the fact he’s not really my uncle. I only called him that when he briefly dated Mummy. Now he’s just her lawyer, and despite the fact it’s gone three o’clock in the morning, he’s dressed for business in an immaculate grey suit that matches his hair, reading something on his iPad.

  “Hello, Tamara,” says Nick, not even bothering to look up from his iPad. “Bad business, this. You better tell me what happened before we see the police. Who are all your friends?”

  “I’m Rachael,” says Rachael. Like me, she seems somewhat intimidated by Nick’s icy aura and very nearly does a little curtsey. “And this is Jane and Carrie. We all go to school together.”

  “Indeed.” Nick scrutinises them with his grey eyes before returning to whatever is on his iPad screen. “Well, thank you for bringing Tamara to me. I won’t keep you further.”

  Jane and Rachael turn to leave, but to my horror, Carrie doesn’t move.

  “You can go too.” He addresses Carrie without looking up from the screen.

  “If it’s all the same, I’ll stay,” she says, throwing back her head. “Tammy’s upset, and she needs a friend with her.”

  “Very well,” he sighs, never looking up from the screen. “So, Tamara, care to tell me why Scotland Yard has deemed it necessary to send a chief inspector to talk to you about your mother’s necklace?”

  “I’m sorry?” Perhaps I’m worrying too much about what everyone’s going to say when they find out what a big fat liar I am, but Nick isn’t making any sense.

  “The police seem to think you were attacked,” Nick explains, narrowing his hawk-like eyes. “Obviously, your mother is very concerned.”

  “Not concerned enough to come down herself.” It helps me to project my fear as anger towards Mummy, but being angry only makes me more scared, and I start to shake even more.

  “Your mother’s social status aside, Tamara, chief inspectors do not get involved with common theft. Now what happened?”

  “Some boys were giving me a hard time,” I squeak, being a vague as I can. “I guess I must have lost the necklace then.”

  “Is that who Gary beat up?” Carrie asks.

  “Who’s Gary?” Nick demands.

  “Her boyfriend,” Carrie replies for me.

  “Boyfriend?” Nick raises a suspicious eyebrow, and I go to pieces.

  Terror gives me all the energy I need to fight through my fears, but then Carrie makes things even worse by being, well, just what friends are supposed to be – concerned.

  “I knew something was wrong the moment you got here,” she cries. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Unable to look Nick or Carrie in the eye, I fix my eyes on the carpet. This is getting completely out of control, and I don’t know how to stop it.

  “Gary?” Nick speaks Gary’s name really slowly. “Gary Ashworth?”

  I nod, swallowing the solid ball of fear lodged in my throat. “How do you know Gary’s name?”

  Nick’s face is a blank canvas when I finally find the courage to look at him. “Because he’s the one who stole your necklace.”

  I’m like a goldfish out of water, gasping for air. Gary? How could Gary have stolen my necklace? He saved me. Why would he steal it?

  “You’ve got it wrong,” I gasp, and I am gasping because my heart is racing so fast I still can’t breathe. “He wouldn’t do it.”

  “I’m sorry, Tamara,” he sighs with all the sincerity of a block of ice. “The police picked him up for ticket dodging. He gave them a false name and address and at least three different for excuses how he came to be in possession of your mother’s necklace.”

  I cover my ears. I don’t want to listen to any of this. Gary saved me, he looked after me, he kissed me, and it wasn’t just any old kiss. It meant something, it meant something to us both. He wouldn’t steal from me. He just wouldn’t. There has to be another reason.

  “It’s all right, Tammy.” Hugging me hard, Carrie strokes my hair. “I’m sure there’s a good reason why he’s got it.”

  “He didn’t steal it!” I sob.

  “Of course not,” she agrees, flashing me a worried smile. “Now, you’re not going to be any help to Gary like this. You need to pull yourself together right now and tell us what happened.”

  She’s right, of course, but what do I say? What has Gary told the police? What I told the girls or the truth? And what’s going to happen to him if I say something different? And why didn’t he give back the necklace? Did he forget he had it, or did he really steal it? I shake that thought from my head straight away. There has to be another explanation. Gary wouldn’t steal from me.

  “I want to see Gary,” I say.

  “You’re in no position to demand anything, young lady!” Nick snaps. “You sneak off to meet some lout and get your mother’s ten-thousand-pound necklace stolen.”

  “I’m not saying anything until I see him!” I cry, and I mean it. “I’ll go on hunger strike if I have to!”

  “Fine,” says Nick. “Then your boyfriend will go to prison for theft and you, young lady, will be sent to boarding school!”

  Nick’s words make me tremble inside and out. I don’t know what to do, especially when I catch Dave’s eye as he emerges from a nearby room with one of the policemen. He has no idea by turning Nick and the police against Gary, he’ll put himself out of a job and never work again. Nick will see to it.

  “Gary didn’t steal my necklace,” I tell him again.

  “Then you better tell me why he’s got it. And make it quick. We don’t have all night!”

  This can’t be happening. If I could just talk to Gary, I would know what to do, but that’s not going to happen. Even though I hate doing it, I make my mind up to stick to the story I told the girls. After all, I can hardly say something different with Carrie standing next to me. And if I’m honest, really honest, that isn’t the only reason I choose to lie again. I mean, it doesn’t matter what really happened, does it? As long as they let Gary go. I wipe my eyes dry on the back of my hand and blow my nose again.

  “Tamara, what happened?”

  Sitting in a small red meeting room, Carrie and I on one side of the table and Nick on the other, I take a deep breath and try to find my voice. “Gary didn’t steal my necklace.”

  “That’s not what I asked,” Nick sighs. “Why didn’t you let Dave drive you to the hotel? Had you arranged to meet this boy?”

  “His name’s Gary.”

  “Had you arranged to meet Gary in the park?”

  I chew on my bottom lip. “Kind of.”

  “What does kind of mean?”

  I catch Carrie looking at me strangely. She knows I’m lying, I’m sure of it. No one goes to a park in a ball gown and sapphires. “No, he took me for a drink after –”

  “After what?”

  “After...” I’m floundering as a million different emotions bombard me. Somehow, just saying I got hassled by those thu
gs, playing down what Gary did for me, diminishes everything. He didn’t just save my life, he gave me life, gave me the life I’d always wanted. But I can’t tell Nick any of this.

  “A couple of lads were hassling me,” I say, trying to blot out the terror of them pinning me to the ground and straddling my body.

  “Whilst you were waiting for this Gary?”

  I nod and force myself to look Nick in the eye. “I didn’t like to wait for him in the pub, and he was late.”

  I can’t be sure Nick believes me – he’s impossible to read – but I think I’ve convinced Carrie because she leans forward to hug me, and that somehow gives me the strength to continue.

  “When Gary turned up, he got really mad, and they started fighting, and Gary got hit...” I surprise myself with how plausible I make it sound. “It all happened so fast, and I was so scared, especially when one of them tried to kiss me. I guess that’s how I lost my necklace, when the skinny one had his arms round me.”

  “So how did Gary get hold of it?” Nick asks.

  “What?”

  “Your mother’s necklace?” Nick is drumming his fingers on the table. “Tamara?”

  “One of them snatched my bag,” I gasp, my brain racing to think of how to explain it all away. “Gary, he chased them and got it back. He must have got my necklace at the same time, I just didn’t realise.”

  “Then why didn’t he give it back to you?”

  “I don’t know.” For the first time, I don’t have to think about what I am saying because it is the truth, the real truth. “I guess he forgot.” And it is the only logical reason, because I forgot all about it too. “He was really worried about me.” He had been from the very second we locked eyes and I took his hand, and I knew, knew with absolute certainty I could trust him with my life. That’s when I started crying because I didn’t show him the same loyalty.

  “Thank you, Tamara,” says Nick. “You did the right thing in telling me the truth. Your driver says this Gary isn’t to be trusted.”

  I swallow my anger and glare at Nick through my tears. In a few hours, Gary’s showed me more love than my parents and their sycophants have shown me in a lifetime. There’s no way Nick would have stepped in to save me, not without agreeing his fee up front, and as for Dave – well, he wouldn’t have said all those horrid things about Gary if he knew how brave Gary was.