Split Second - [15]

She worried about it all Saturday night and finally rang the number on the Sunday morning. She had to repeat herself three times before she was transferred to a second person. She walked about as she waited, to the window and back, the window and back. Alongside the station, trees feathered the sky, stark as woodcuts. She watched the frost steam in the pale sunshine.

She had to give her name and address and date of birth.

‘And you’re ringing in connection with the Jason Barnes inquiry?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I saw him on the bus.’

‘Can you speak up?’ said the man.

‘Sorry.’ She tried to talk more loudly, her hand gripping the phone hard, still walking to and fro. ‘He was on the bus when I was coming home, on Friday.’

‘Jason Barnes was?’

‘Yes. And these boys, and this girl, they were causing trouble… erm. Ganging up on this other boy, and Jason told them to stop.’

‘How many of them were there?’

‘Two boys and a girl.’ She remembered the girl, how pretty she was, and the big one’s round blue eyes. ‘Then they all got off.’

There was a pause; Emma wondered what to say. She felt a bit dizzy.

‘Did you see anything after that?’

‘Just them running after the other boy and Jason following them.’

He asked her how old they were and what they looked like and what they were wearing. She guessed they were seventeen or eighteen, a few years younger than her, and did her best to describe them.

‘Thanks. Can you hold for a minute?’

There was no on-hold music like they had at work when staff had to check records or refer to the handbook or get a supervisor for help. At work they played some classical instrumental music, quite perky. The sort of stuff that people dance to in costume dramas. Emma thought it would drive you bonkers while you were fretting about the flood damage or the boiler repair or your mother’s jade and gold necklace that had gone in the robbery and hearing this prancy music skip on and on.

All she could hear now while she waited were bits of conversation and a phone ringing and someone with a shocking cough. Then the man came back on.

‘Emma, thanks for calling. We’d like to arrange to come and get a full statement from you; we can do that at your house.’

‘I’m going away the day after tomorrow,’ Emma explained, ‘for Christmas.’

‘How about tomorrow?’

‘Yes, erm… it’d have to be after work.’

‘Fine, what time will you get home?’

‘About six.’

‘Shall we say six thirty?’

‘Yes.’

He thanked her again and she said goodbye and rang off. He hadn’t asked her the questions she’d been waiting for: the ones that kept buzzing in her head like fat bluebottles. Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you do anything? Why did you just sit there and let it all happen?

‘That’s near you, isn’t it? Kingsway.’ Laura at work raised the tabloid so Emma could see the headline: Samaritan Student Slain. Coma Boy Fights On.

Emma picked her coffee up, nodded. Felt something tighten inside. Tried to swallow. Laura looked at her. ‘What?’

Emma felt wobbly. The Jelly, that’s what they’d called her at school, the whole of Year 9. Smelly Jelly. She tried to ignore it because people said if you reacted it would get worse, but she couldn’t help it when she blushed or was unable to talk because the girls who kept slagging her off were all staring at her. Luke had tried to ignore them; he’d looked away out of the window, but they wouldn’t let him be.

Both the Kims were in the staff lounge on break, too, and they waded in. ‘There was a girl with them, joining in. That is really sick,’ said Little Kim.

‘Girls are the worst,’ Laura said. ‘They egg them on.’

‘What was it about?’ Blonde Kim asked.

‘Doesn’t say.’ Laura was studying the paper.

‘Probably a mugging,’ said Blonde Kim.

‘I was mugged,’ said Little Kim. ‘Walking home one night when I worked at the bar. Scared the life out of me. He had a knife.’

Blonde Kim gazed at her, biscuit poised. Laura looked up.

‘He said “Give us yer phone and yer money.”’

‘Was he a druggie?’ Laura asked her.

‘Dunno,’ said Little Kim. ‘I just gave him it and he ran off. I was crying, I could hardly walk, I was shaking that bad. It was horrible.’

‘I saw them,’ Emma managed to say, her face heating up.

‘You what?’ Blonde Kim gawped.

‘Before the stabbing.’

‘Oh. My. God.’ Little Kim clutched her hands to her chest theatrically.

‘Where? What? Spit it out!’ said Laura.

Spit it out, Emma, I haven’t got all day. One of her dad’s phrases.

‘They got on my bus. I’ve got to give a statement to the police.’

‘The police!’ Little Kim shrieked. ‘Will you have to go to court and everything?’

Emma shrugged.

‘It must have been horrible,’ Laura said. ‘What did they do?’

‘Just kicking off, you know. Threatening this boy, the one who’s in hospital.’

‘Oh, Emma,’ breathed Little Kim.

She didn’t want them going on about it, she didn’t like it. She set her cup down, still half full, and put her bag back in her locker.

‘Someone’s keen.’ Laura glanced at the clock. Another four minutes.

‘We’re not all slackers,’ Emma tried to joke, but she sounded weird, sort of bitter, and she saw the Kims raise eyebrows at each other.