The meeting drew to a close and Mr Atkinson saw us out of his office and back to the reception area. Suddenly Tony’s phone began to ring and he glanced at the number. ‘Sorry, could you excuse me for a moment?’ he asked, leaving Ryan and me alone for the first time. My stomach churned and I wanted to be sick.
‘What do you want from me?’ I asked quietly. ‘What have you said to my daughter?’
Ryan’s grin disappeared and he leaned in to whisper in my ear.
‘If I were you, I’d go home and check on Effie as soon as you can. Because I’d hate to think what she might have done after I finished with her this afternoon.’
CHAPTER SIX
RYAN
Even when I wasn’t looking at Laura, I could feel her staring at me. Effie had shared the same deep, penetrating gaze.
Effie’s eyes had been fixed on me while I monitored a lunchtime detention before I was to meet with her parents. Her gym teacher had given it to Effie for threatening another girl. Six other students from Years 10 and 11 joined her for various other offences. I wondered if Effie had deliberately caused trouble because she knew it was my turn to take detention.
They kept their heads down, using the opportunity to begin their homework. Effie, however, didn’t even try to pretend to read the textbook she held. She was focused on me at my desk. Her number of friends had dwindled over the past few months. I’d devoted more attention to her, always treating her like an adult and listening to her complaints. I knew exactly where she thought our relationship was going. I could have nipped it in the bud at any point, but that wasn’t part of the plan.
Finally, their hour of punishment complete, the others hurried from the classroom. But Effie deliberately took her time packing her bag and putting on her coat. Then she waited until we were alone before she made her way to the window. She fiddled absent-mindedly with a bauble on the class Christmas tree.
‘It’s raining outside,’ she began.
‘I can see.’
‘I’ve got free study periods all afternoon and was going to go home but I don’t have an umbrella.’
‘And?’
‘And I’m going to get soaked if I can’t get a lift home.’
‘A bit of rain isn’t going to kill you.’
‘But if I catch a cold, I could have an asthma attack and that could kill me.’
‘I’m sure you’ll be fine.’
‘Could you give me a lift, sir? You haven’t got a lesson for another hour and a half, have you?’
‘Are you memorising my timetable, Effie?’
‘No, sir, I was just showing an interest like you do in me. So you have plenty of time to take me home and come back for it.’
‘Offering a student a ride is against the school rules.’
‘I won’t tell anyone.’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘Honestly, I won’t. I promise.’
‘Effie, there are boundaries that we need to maintain. You’re my student and I’m your teacher.’
‘Is that all I am to you, sir?’
I paused for a moment; I needed to think. I’d put a lot of time and effort into getting to this place, but now I’d arrived, I was second-guessing myself. What would Laura do? I asked myself. Laura would do whatever was necessary to get what she wanted. And that meant I had to do the same.
‘Meet me on the corner of Simpson Avenue and Talbot Road in ten minutes,’ I replied apprehensively. ‘There’s a bus shelter there. I’ll pick you up.’
Effie brushed my arm with her hand as she passed me, trying hard to hide her grin. I had to remind myself that this was a girl who’d bullied her classmates and got away with it. She was a manipulative little bitch, someone who was used to getting what she wanted, only she was too naive to realise she wasn’t in control of this situation.
She was exactly where I told her to be when my car pulled over to the side of the road. I checked all around me to make sure that no one had spotted us. As she climbed inside, I noted she’d put eyeliner on to frame her eyes and she’d made her lips more inviting with pink gloss. Her hair glistened from the drizzle outside and she ran her fingers through it.
‘Hurry up and put your seatbelt on,’ I urged. ‘We need to go.’
‘It’s stuck,’ she replied, and struggled to fit it into the latch. I grabbed it and she held on to my finger while I slotted it inside.
‘Who’s that?’ she asked, pointing to a screensaver picture on my phone. It was recharging in the centre console.
‘It’s my brother Johnny,’ I replied.
‘He’s fit. You look alike.’
I watched from the corner of my eye as she tapped her foot to the music coming from the radio. She looked puzzled when we eventually pulled up a few doors away from her home.
‘I thought we could go to yours for while?’ she asked, her head tilted slightly to one side.
‘You know I have to get back.’
‘Then, another time?’ She placed her hand just above my knee.
‘Effie . . .’ I began.
‘Shhh,’ she replied, and her hand made its way further up my thigh and stopped centimetres from my groin.
‘Effie, I’m your teacher.’
‘Not here, you’re not.’
‘I am. Here, at school, everywhere.’
‘I’m not going to tell anyone.’
She twisted her body and moved her face towards mine. I felt her warm breath on my neck and ear. I could smell her sweet perfume. She paused as our eyes locked.
‘There’s something I need you to know first,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’
‘I need you to know I would never go near you in a million years. If you really believe that I’m interested in you, Effie, you’re more stupid than your grades would suggest.’
She paused, then scowled, trying to make sense of what she’d just heard. Her head moved backwards and her hand left my leg.
‘What?’
‘You heard me correctly. I’m not attracted to you, Effie. You’re an attention-seeking, immature little girl who picks on others and makes their lives hell. Now you know how they felt to be belittled and rejected. If you think I could be attracted to someone like you, then you’re an idiot. Now get out of my car.’
Her face crumpled, and for a moment I hated myself for what I’d just told a kid. I’d never hurt anyone like I’d just hurt Effie. But it had been a horrible necessity. She threw open the car door and ran out into the rain, along the street and out of sight.
Four hours later and it was her mother’s turn to know how it felt to be played. She had manipulated my wife for her own gain, and I had done the same to her daughter. As my Granddad Pete had advised, an eye for an eye.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LAURA
‘Where’s Effie?’ I asked Tony. ‘Right now, where is she?’
I’d left Ryan and found my husband at the double doors of the entrance, returning his phone to his jacket pocket.
The panic created by Ryan’s warning was rising from deep inside my gut, up my chest and into my throat, almost strangling my words. The last time I’d felt like this, I was standing in his cottage with a knife in my hand, facing a man who was about to kill me. Now the same man had found a way to make me feel like that all over again, only this time he was threatening my daughter’s safety to frighten me.