C.L. Taylor - The Treatment

C.L. TAYLORis the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Accident, The Lie, The Missing and The Escape . Her books have sold over a million copies in the UK and have been translated into twenty-one languages. She lives in Bristol with her partner and son.

By the C.L. Taylor

The Accident

The Lie

The Missing

The Escape

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017

Copyright © C.L. Taylor 2017

C.L. Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780008240578

Version: 2018-05-23

For my niece Sophie Taylor

Cover

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Acknowledgements

About the Publishers

Chapter One

They’re still following me. I can hear their footsteps. They think I can’t hear them because I put my headphones on the second I walked through the school gates. But they’re not plugged in. I heard every word they said as I walked down Somerset Road.

‘Why are you walking so fast, Drew? Don’t you want to talk to us?’

‘She can’t hear us.’

‘Yes she can.’

‘Oi, Drew. Andrew!’

Lacey and her gang of sheep think it winds me up, calling me Andrew, they think it’s funny. I don’t. My dad gave me my name because my hazel eyes and chubby cheeks reminded him of the child actress in the film E.T . He thought it was a pretty name, unusual too. Drew Finch. My name is all I’ve got to remember him by other than a folder of digital photographs on my computer.

Mum doesn’t talk about Dad any more – she hasn’t since she married Tony. Mason, my fifteen-year-old brother, refuses to talk about Dad too. Not that Mason’s here to chat to. He’s been sent to a school hundreds of miles away, hopefully to learn how to stop being so irritating. It’s weird, my brother not being at home. He was never much of a conversationalist but God was he noisy. He’d bang and crash his way into the house, kick his shoes off, stomp up the stairs and then slam his door. Then his music would start up. It’s eerie how quiet it is now. I can hear myself breathe. I think the silence unsettles Mum too. She’s always tapping on my door, asking if I’m OK. Or maybe she feels guilty about sending Mason away.

I speed up as I reach Jackson Road. It’s the quietest street on my walk home and if Lacey and the others have followed me this far it can only be because today’s the day they go through with her threat. Lacey’s been saying for weeks that they’re going to pin me down and pull up my shirt and skirt and take photos of me with their mobile phones. I’ve tried talking to her. I’ve tried ignoring her. I’ve spoken to my Head of Year and we’ve been to mediation, but she won’t leave me alone. She’s clever. She never says anything in front of any of the teachers. She hasn’t posted anything on social media. She hasn’t touched me. But the threat’s still there, hanging over me like a noose. Whenever I go into school I wonder if today’s the day she’ll go through it. It’s not about hurting me, or even about humiliating me (although there is a bit of that). It’s about fear and control. We were best friends in primary school and I was the one she opened up to when her parents were getting divorced. She’s the big ‘I am’ at school but I know where her vulnerabilities lie. And she hates that.

I slow down as I reach the High Street and my heart stops double thumping in my chest. I’m safe now. The street’s full of shoppers, drifting around aimlessly or else speed walking madly like they must get an avocado from the grocer’s before it closes or the world will end. Someone brushes past me and I tense, but it’s just some random man with a beanie and a swallow tattooed on his neck. I glance behind me, to check that Lacey and the sheep aren’t following me any more, then I reach into my pocket for my phone, select my favourite song and plug in my headphones. Just two terms of school left and I’m free. No more Lacey, no more lessons, no more –

My breath catches in my throat as my arms are pinned to my side and I’m half carried, half shoved into the side alley between Costa and WHSmith. A hand closes over my mouth as I’m bundled past a skip and forced to sit on a pile of bin bags. They’ve got me. They’ve finally made their move. But it’s not Lacey or one of her cronies who forces me to the ground as I thrash and squirm and try to escape.

‘It’s OK. Don’t be afraid.’

The woman keeps her hand tightly pressed to my mouth but her grip on my shoulder loosens, ever so slightly. Her pale blue eyes are wide and frantic and her long brown hair, pulled into a tight ponytail, is damp with sweat at the roots. There’s a deep crease between her eyebrows and fine lines on either side of her mouth. She’s probably as old as my mum but I’m too shocked to hit out at her. All I can do is stare.