This afternoon, Eddy had given into temptation and looked at some of the Waverly forums. People had been uploading photos of Seb like spying on him was a new hobby for the whole town. Seb walking, head bowed, down the pavement; Seb pushing his key into his mum’s front door, his face turned towards the camera, eyes bright with shock. Eddy stared close at Seb’s pixilated face and tried to stir up some outrage within himself, to feel whether he could align the comments ‘PERVERT!’ and ‘Abuser!’ and ‘disgusting man’ with the ashen, hollow face of his oldest friend. But he couldn’t. He just saw his friend scared and alone and wished he could climb into those pictures and put his arms around him.
As soon as Eddy opens the door, he hears voices in the kitchen, too many and too female to be his family, and he knows that even here, in their own home, they are not alone.
Lotte and Vita are sitting at the kitchen table. Lotte in a long white dress, with gappy sleeves, a thread of fake blood running from her bottom lip to her chin, and Vita a ragged kind of Wolverine, as far as Eddy can tell. There are three wine glasses and a half-empty bottle of red between them and it’s a while before the women notice Eddy. ‘Eddy, hi!’
‘Where’s Anna?’ Eddy doesn’t care if he sounds rude.
‘Well, hello to you too!’ Lotte scolds, playful.
‘She’s upstairs, checking on Albie,’ Vita replies.
Last year Albie got so freaked out by a plastic severed hand on Martin’s front lawn he had nightmares for weeks and swore he’d never go trick-or-treating again.
Eddy nods and takes a fourth wine glass out of the cupboard before he reaches over to rip his stupid, grinning face off the fridge. His carefree past mocking him.
Where is Seb right now? Could Eddy go to him?
‘You all right?’ Vita asks, one side of her mouth lifting. ‘Pat messaged, said he’d just run into you and that you seemed … unwell.’
Eddy shakes his head, wonders what kind of language Patrick used – ‘off’ perhaps, ‘mental’ maybe. Eddy keeps his eyes on his wine glass as he says, ‘I’m fine.’
Lotte slinks up to him with a flirty look as she sloshes wine into his glass. She takes his arm and pulls him gently back towards the table with her. ‘We just popped over to show Anna our little list of suspects …’
She slurs the ‘s’ and Eddy realizes she’s a bit pissed.
‘Suspects?’ Eddy winces as he looks down. On a pad on the table is a handwritten list of five women’s names. The final one, in different writing to the others, is ‘Abi Matthews’.
‘She’s on there, isn’t she?’ Vita asks, keeping her eyes fixed on Eddy.
‘Who is?’
Vita rolls her eyes, exasperated. Eddy exasperates everyone. ‘Seb’s prostitute.’
Lotte’s hand is back on Eddy’s forearm, her acrylic fingernails drumming slightly against his skin. ‘You must have heard that poor woman on
Eddy looks at her blankly. Lotte shakes her head at him and says, ‘I’ll send you a link. She came on as a kind of response to that happy hooker type who called in during Anna’s show. Lucy? Anyway, this woman today made me
He agrees but says, ‘Don’t you think things like that are a matter for the police?’
Lotte nods and rolls her eyes, like she knew he was going to say that. ‘They should be, of course, but who is a young, vulnerable woman more likely to trust? Her boyfriend or the police?’
‘But if she wanted help, this woman, surely she’d come forward?’
Lotte shrugs and shakes her head at the great, sad mystery of the world and the people in it. Vita is keen to get the conversation back to the matter at hand. The list.
‘You know Zoey Richards?’
‘Who?’
Lotte rolls her eyes again, talks a little slower so Eddy can keep up. ‘The woman who moved here, like, a year or two ago – you know, the one who always dresses a bit …’ Lotte twists her face to Vita, looking for help in finding the right word, as Vita says, ‘Slutty.’
Eddy has no idea who or what they’re talking about.
‘Then there’s Jenni who, you know, is totally mute, never gets involved in anything, just hovers in the background like a ghoul.’ Lotte shudders before adding, ‘Then, of course, there’s Abi.’
‘Hang on, don’t