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talk. Not that we got to be alone. Donna’s mum insisted upon sitting on the sofa beside her daughter to offer “her some support.”
    As I sat there listening to Donna chewing away, I couldn’t help thinking the only support the huffy, overgrown child needed was a good slap. Her friend was missing; she should have been pulling out all the stops to help find her instead of being an evasive little bitch.
    “We’re happy to help, aren’t we, Donna?” said Mrs. Di Marco, a trim brunette in her 40s with a pleasant voice. “Anything that helps to find the monster who took poor Sheena has got to be a good thing. But I’d like to be here in case Donna needs me. She’s been so upset. Since, well you know.”
    She patted her daughter’s hand, but Donna was too busy fiddling with the buttons on her phone to acknowledge her mum. She was probably tweeting. Her teenage apathy wasn’t just reserved for me and I pitied her mother. How did she manage to maintain a sunny disposition with Little Miss Moody around? She must have been popping happy pills.
    With her mum in the room we were getting nowhere, so I was relieved when after five minutes of small talk she finally went into the kitchen to make some tea.
    From my comfy chair, I leaned in towards Donna lowering my voice to make sure her mum couldn’t hear. “Now it’s just you and me, Donna, you can tell me what happened between Sheena andyour teacher Miss Fredericks?”
    Donna twirled a strand of her long brown hair around one of her fingers and avoided my gaze. “You know, it was all like Sheena told her folks. Freaky Fredericks made a move on her. She used to eye up all the girls. Lesbo bitch.”
    For the first time, I felt sorry for Fredericks for having Donna in her class, stirring things.
    “Did Fredericks ever threaten Sheena after people found out?”
    Donna rolled her eyes. “Nah. It was Dr. Cassidy the freak blamed. Sheena said Freaky told her the doctor shouldn’t have made her feel dirty for having feelings for her. She said lots of people have crushes on their teachers and that there’s nothing wrong with it.”
    “Donna, we spoke to Marie Fredericks and she claimed Sheena did all the running. Is that true?”
    The schoolgirl looked furtively at her nails. Then she gave an embarrassed giggle. “It was only supposed to be a joke.”
    “What was?”
    “On freaky Fredericks. She was always flirting with the other teachers and trying so hard to be everyone’s friend. So, me and Sheena started to send her love notes, underline lines in love poems, leave her presents. We wanted her to think she had a secret admirer.”
    I didn’t get it. “Why would you do that?”
    “For a laugh, of course.” She eyed me as though I was an idiot and she was Einstein. “Eventually we were gonna arrange a meeting, a secret rendezvous and we’d hide and film it on our phones as she turned up to meet her admirer. Only there’d be a
SUCKER
banner.”
    I couldn’t believe anyone could be so cruel and I told her so.
    Donna didn’t have the decency to look ashamed. “What I didn’t know was the freak had caught Sheena slipping one of our notes into her handbag and as a punishment she’d made her tidyup the art room. That’s when Sheena and her started to, well you know.” She made a face.
    So, they did have a relationship.
    “And, it was all consensual,” I said. Donna looked confused, so I added. “Did Mrs. Fredericks make Sheena do anything she didn’t want to?”
    Donna shook her head.
    “How did Sheena end up working on the streets, Donna?”
    “I dunno.”
    Her body stiffened; she was lying.
    “Come on, Donna there’s got to be a reason. I’ve seen where she lives. I know her parents are loaded.”
    She looked down at her lap. “She needed money. She met this guy called Jake. He was a lot of fun, always partying. He was good looking too. She was hurting after Freaky Fredericks stopped answering her calls. Jake started asking her for money so he could buy