It’s funny how, at times like this, words take on so much weight. How many I’ve spilled over the years, careless, like pocket change, but in the two times in my life where I’ve been close to a crime, every one is like a landmine. Victoria had said, I did see her with Mike. Mike had never told me Victoria saw him with Martha. The way he’d described it, he’d just left her in the garden then gone right away. Helping her out. Not lingering in a dark, perfumed garden with the most beautiful girl in our year, drunk and willing.

My taxi reached the train station, having passed so many familiar landmarks it made my heart ache, and I climbed the steps. It was then that I finally thought to take out my phone, and there they were: three missed calls from Cassie’s school.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

‘I don’t understand,’ I said once again. ‘How can you suspend her when it’s not her fault?’

Cassie was outside the office of the deputy head, Miss Hall, in the waiting area. I could hear her ragged sobs through the walls. They were different from the ones she’d cried when her father was stabbed. More broken. Like she’d given up already. A crying jag, my mother used to call it.

‘We believe she sent the image to Aaron. And unfortunately it seems a few other boys were – exposed to it.’ As if Cassie was at fault, contaminating them. Miss Hall was a sporty, inscrutable type, wearing a grey trouser suit. I saw a cross peep out from around her neck. What must she think of us?

‘So what? It’s of her, she’s entitled to if she wants.’ I was trying to sound reasonable, sex-positive and forward-thinking, as if I truly believed in the right of my fifteen-year-old daughter to photograph herself topless, her bra and vest top huddled shamefully around her waist, and send it to her boyfriend.

‘Technically, Mrs Morris, it’s illegal to send sexual images of anyone under eighteen.’

‘Even of herself?’

‘Even of herself, yes.’

‘So let me get this straight. It’s not illegal for these boys to share a picture of her . . .’ My vision popped around the edges, thinking of them, those disgusting animals, walking tubes of semen and sweat, scrolling their fat dirty fingers over their phone screens. Leaving smears on her face. ‘. . . but it’s Cassie getting in trouble for taking what she thought was private? Why aren’t they being punished? Why isn’t Aaron suspended?’

‘Unfortunately, we can’t prove Aaron sent it on.’ She was twiddling a pen between her red, dry fingers and it was starting to get right on my nerves. I wanted to punch it out of her hands.

‘Of course he did, don’t be ridiculous . . .’

‘He claims a friend stole his phone.’

‘What friend?’

‘He won’t say.’