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‘I don’t doubt that,’ says Jennie. She softens her tone a little. ‘But I need to know. For the investigation.’
Exhaling hard, Elliott nods. ‘Look, if I’m honest, mine and Hannah’s relationship was a bit strained. It had been for a while, for months rather than weeks.’
It’s news to her, but Jennie tries not to let her surprise show. ‘Why?’
‘Earlier in the year, around Valentine’s Day, she outed me to a boy I was crushing on, Mark Fredricks. Let’s just say that Mark didn’t take it well. He came and found me after school and told me I was repulsive and a bunch of other foul things. Then he punched me. A lot.’
‘I never …’ Jennie fights back the urge to ask Elliott why he hadn’t told her. Martin’s giving her side-eye as it is. She can’t afford for him to catch wind that she and Elliott were proper friends at school. She clears her throat. ‘I imagine that might have caused a rift between you.’
‘Yeah.’
Jennie keeps her eyes on Elliott’s. He’s holding something back, she can sense it. ‘Was that hard?’
‘You could say.’ Elliott takes a breath. ‘I didn’t handle it well. I’d never had the courage to tell anyone I fancied how I felt. I was too afraid I’d be rejected, or ridiculed.’
Jennie nods. Keeps her gaze on Elliott.
He shakes his head. ‘I couldn’t believe Hannah just casually told this guy.’
‘Did you talk to her about it?’ says Jennie. She ignores Martin’s confused look, knowing he doesn’t get why she’s pursuing this line of questioning.
‘No.’
‘Because of what happened with Mark?’
‘Yes, because of what happened.’ Elliott sounds angry now. He clenches his fists. ‘I’d fancied Mark for months and when he found out he clearly thought me utterly abhorrent and beat the crap out of me. Can you imagine how that feels?’
‘I can’t even …’ Instinctively, she reaches out to put her hand on Elliott’s arm, needing him to know she would have been there for him if he’d have told her. ‘I wish I’d—’
‘It broke me, Jen.’ His voice cracks. ‘I … I didn’t think I could go on.’
Jennie’s breath catches in her throat. Elliott’s never let her in like this before. His hurt is still so raw it’s as if she can feel it too. ‘How did you?’
‘I …’ Elliott closes his eyes. His voice is barely a whisper. ‘I tried to end things.’
Jennie’s too stunned to speak. How didn’t I know? Elliott was my closest friend after Hannah, yet I was blind to his anguish. What does that say about our friendship? About me? ‘Jesus, Elliott, that’s so … I’m so sorry. I never knew. I—’
‘Most people didn’t.’ Elliott’s voice is flat, as if the emotion of telling her has overwhelmed him. ‘I was off school for a few weeks afterwards; my parents told our form tutor I had flu.’
‘I remember that,’ says Jennie, thinking back to the time and finding nothing to make her suspect that he’d been away for a different reason. ‘Did you speak to Hannah when you returned?’
‘Only when I had to. The worst thing was that she asked me why I hadn’t confided in her. She told me she would’ve supported me during my time of crisis. That she’d have understood.’ Elliott shakes his head, angrily. ‘She didn’t get that she had been the cause of my utter humiliation. I said a lot of things to her that I’m not proud of, but I was upset. I’d have forgiven her in time, but back then it was still so raw.’ He looks at Jennie.
She nods her head, trying to think of what next to say. Her head is spinning with everything Elliott’s told her. It’s so much to process, but she wants him to know she would have been there for him. If only he’d told her. ‘I totally get that.’
‘That’s why I didn’t call to check on her,’ continues Elliott. ‘It’s why I didn’t stay in the darkroom even though her dad was so angry and she looked afraid. If I’m honest, I didn’t want to be around her. She was still my friend, but I just didn’t like her very much.’
Jennie struggles to get her emotions in check. She can feel Elliott’s anguish, and can only imagine the awful turmoil he must have been in back when it all happened, but she can’t understand how she had been oblivious to it all. The investigation has brought out so many revelations about her friendship group and their individual relationships with Hannah that she feels as if she wasn’t really present at all that last year of sixth form. Rob and Hannah taking hard drugs together; Elliott and Hannah falling out after Hannah caused a chain of events that led Elliott to attempt to take his own life; Lottie’s continual insistence that she was Hannah’s best friend … It’s a real headfuck.
When the interview is over, and they’ve seen Elliott out, Jennie turns to Martin. ‘What did you think?’
‘Hannah Jennings sounds like a real piece of work,’ says Martin, dismissively. ‘Naylor was just a kid and he was dealing with a lot of shit. I’m not surprised they fell out, but I don’t think there was any more to it than that.’
Jennie nods, but she isn’t so sure. Pushing away the residual feelings from their childhood friendship, she tries to consider objectively what they’ve learned from Elliott’s interview: the payments to Simon his “old friend”, the falling out with Hannah, and the fact that he never checked in on Hannah to see if she was okay after being so worried about leaving her with her dad in the school basement. An occasion Hannah’s dad vehemently denies.
She hates to think that any of her school friends could have been involved in Hannah’s death, but can’t help wondering whether Elliott was so humiliated, so hurt by Hannah, that he confronted her about what she’d done. Today, Jennie has seen the anger he still feels about what happened all those years ago. Back then it would have been so much stronger. Did he confront her and did things get out of hand, turn violent?
Jennie’s jaw clenches. Elliott was one of her best friends; one of the good guys. Before this investigation she would’ve sworn on her life that he’d never do anyone harm. It makes her sick to her stomach to think it, but has she been blinkered to the truth?
