charts, that sort of thing. XMsZaraFoxX is feistier. She’s the kick-ass main character in my favourite PS4 game Legend of Zara and she wades in if someone’s being out of order on the gaming site. RichardBrain is serious and academic. I log on as him if I want to talk about psychology. Then there’s Jake Stone. I invented him to mess with Lacey’s head. She thinks he’s nineteen and a model and she’s a little bit in love with him.
I never set out to be a catfish. I just wanted to be anonymous, you know? I wanted to be able to chat to people without them making assumptions about me based on how I look, how old I am, where I live and what my gender and sexuality are. The first time I joined a forum I didn’t say anything. I didn’t ask any questions or join in with the chat. I lurked and worked out who the funny one was, who was controversial and who was a bit of a knob. I watched how they interacted with each other, just like I watched the kids in the canteen at lunchtime.
It was my dad who got me into people watching. If I got bored in a restaurant or train station he’d gesture towards people on a different table, or standing in a huddle on the platform, and he’d ask me to guess who liked who, who had a secret crush and who felt left out. He taught me about body language, micro expressions and verbal tics. He showed me how much people give away about themselves without realizing it. I didn’t realize at the time that he was teaching me psychology. That’s what he did for a living. He was … is … an educational psychologist. He’d probably have a field day if he knew about my different internet ‘personalities’.
I log onto the psychology site where I hang out as RichardBrain. If anyone can help me make sense of what just happened with Doctor Cobey it’ll be them.
Actually, no. They’ll ask me what I know about her which is precisely nothing.
Dr Rebecca Cobey
I type her name into Google and click enter. The first link is to a LinkedIn profile so I click on it and scan the page. She’s a psychologist … blah, blah, blah … she worked at the University of London as a Senior Lecturer … responsibilities blah, blah, blah and … I frown. It says she left three months ago but there’s no mention of where she went. No entry that says she worked at the RRA.
Were you lying to me, Dr Cobey? You had a note from Mason. How could you have got that if you weren’t at Norton House too?
I stare at her profile photo. She’s smiling into the camera, her brown hair long and glossy, her blue eyes sparkling. She looks so happy. So alive. And then she’s not. She’s lying crumpled and broken at the side of the road, staring unseeingly at the sky as blood dribbles from her mouth to her chin. I shut down the browser but the image of her lifeless face is burned into my brain. I have to find out if she’s still alive.
***
I ring the hospitals first, asking if they’ve admitted anyone by the name of Dr Rebecca Cobey. The first receptionist I speak to tells me she can only release patient information to next of kin. I wait a couple of minutes then I ring back, using a different voice, and say I’m Dr Cobey’s daughter. This time the receptionist tells me there’s no Rebecca Cobey listed. I try the other hospital in town but they claim they don’t have her either. Finally, I ring the police who confirm that there was a motor vehicle accident on the high street but they can’t tell me what happened to the victim.
‘I was there,’ I tell the female police officer. ‘The car sped up. It deliberately knocked her over.’
‘Can I ask how old you are?’
‘Sixteen.’
‘OK,’ she says and then pauses. This is the bit where she laughs at me or puts the phone down. But she doesn’t. Instead, she says, ‘What’s your name and address? I’ll need a contact number for your parents so I can arrange for someone to come to your home to interview you.’
‘Of course. My name is Drew Finch and I live at —’
‘Drew,’ Mum says from the doorway, making me jump. ‘Is everything OK?’
Mum frowns as she reads Mason’s note. Tony, sitting beside her on the sofa, reads over her shoulder.
‘Who did you say gave this to you?’ Mum says, looking up.
‘I told you, a stranger.’
‘Did she tell you her name?’
‘Well, she …’ I tail off. I don’t like the weird way Tony’s looking at me. It’s like he’s too interested in what I’m saying.
Mum glances at Tony. I hate how she does that – deferring to him as though she’s incapable of making a decision without his opinion. She was never like that with Dad. She made all the decisions in our house back then. Dad used to joke that, ever since the motorbike accident where he lost his right leg from the knee down, Mum wore the trousers because they didn’t look right on him any more.
Tony runs his hands up and down his thighs as though he’s trying to iron out invisible creases in his suit trousers. ‘Have you spoken to the police about what you saw?’
‘I rang them earlier. They said they’d send someone round to take a statement from me.’
‘I see.’ He glances back at Mum but she’s looking at Mason’s note again. It quivers in her fingers like a pinned butterfly. She’s rereading the bit where Mason says how scared he is. I can just tell.
‘Jane.’ Tony places his hand over the note, blocking her view. ‘We talked about this. Remember? About Mason trying to avoid facing up to his responsibilities. We both know how manipulative he can be.’
‘He’s not manipulative!’ Mum shifts away from him so sharply his hand flops onto the sofa. ‘My son might be a lot of things but he’s not that.’
‘He’s a liar, Jane. And a thief. Or have you already forgotten that he stole from you.’
‘Tony!’ Mum glares at him. ‘Not in front of Drew. Please.’
It’s not like I don’t know all this already. They sent me upstairs when we got home from school but I didn’t go into my room. I sat cross-legged on the landing instead and listened to Mum lay into Mason about nicking twenty quid from her bag. She told him how disappointed she was. How Tony was at the end of his tether. How they knew Mason had been smoking weed out of his bedroom window. ‘And now you’re stealing!’ she cried. ‘From your own mother. What did I do to deserve that, Mason? What did I do wrong?’ She started crying then. I heard Mason try to comfort her but she wasn’t having any of it. She told him that he’d pushed her to the edge and she had no choice but to agree with Tony and send him to the Residential Reform Academy.
Mason wasn’t the only one who gasped. I did too. When Tony had first mentioned sending Mason away (another conversation I’d eavesdropped) Mum was really against the idea. I wasn’t. Mason might be my brother but he can also be a prize dick. He wasn’t always a dick. He was pretty cool when we were kids but he changed after Dad disappeared. He stopped watching TV in the living room with me and Mum and holed himself away in his room instead. And if he wasn’t in his room he was out with his mates on their bikes or skateboarding in the park. He started finding fault in everything – in me, in Mum, at school. He talked back to his teachers, he started fights and he smashed stuff up if he lost his temper. After
