Chapter 33: Epilogue

In the days and weeks that followed, Lucy and Naomi never once directly asked Ms Trunchbull or Samantha what had become of Ed Pembroke.

One thing was certain: the messages stopped. No more threatening texts, no more online messages and no more pervy Ed sitting on the bench outside the school. The planned gang bangs and porn films never materialised, because there were no more messages, from anyone. The hidden cameras they girls had been given had joined the rest of Ed’s electronics – cast away at a local dump.

A few days after Ed Pembroke vanished, Ms Pembroke was found wandering the high street in nothing but a stained nightdress, barefoot and ranting. She demanded to speak to the police about her son. “Edward’s gone! The little bastard’s left me! He’s taken everything and run off with those filthy girls!”

Passers-by stared; someone called 999. When the officers arrived, they found the house eerily quiet. Ed’s room had been stripped: no computers, no phones, clothes missing. The conclusion was swift and convenient: the man had simply had enough of his demented, overbearing mother and walked out one night, taking his possessions with him. No missing-person report was ever filed in earnest. No one looked very hard.

Mrs Pembroke was sectioned that same week and transferred to a secure care home. There, she spent the last few years of her life in a small, brightly lit room. She screamed at the nurses, accused them of stealing her son, spat at the other residents during mealtimes, and argued with the television as though it were Edward himself.

The girls’ last week before the summer holidays was pretty hard. The school corridors still buzzed with the usual cruelty from the mean girls, but without Ed Pembroke’s relentless sexual blackmail looming over them, Lucy and Naomi found strength in each other. They stuck together like glue: walking arm-in-arm between classes, and watching each others’ back.