Page 80 of A Class Act

‘Right. So, is he your boyfriend? Are you going out with him?’

‘Going out with him? Oh, for heaven’s sake, Robyn. You sound like Mum. Joel’s my mate.’

‘OK, OK.’ I pondered this for a while. ‘I like him,’ I said.

‘So do I.’

‘But he’s involved in county lines?’

‘Yep.’

‘He’s bright,’ I went on, knowing how hard he worked in my English lessons. ‘Very good at English Lit. And he has the potential to be a very good dancer.’

‘Peter’s been teaching him.’

‘In that flat?’ I frowned. ‘Not a huge amount of room tojeté.’

‘Garage,’ Sorrel said. ‘He’s turned his garage into a studio. With a barre and everything.’

‘Where does he put the BMW?’

‘How doyouknow he’s got a BMW?’

‘I assume that’s Collinson’s car that you sometimes come home in?’

‘He gives me a lift home sometimes after a session. Or pays for an Uber.’

‘A session?’ We were stopped at red lights and I turned fully towards her.

Sorrel sighed. ‘He likes me to dress up.’

‘I bet he does,’ I said in anger. ‘Annie? Matilda?’

Sorrel nodded. ‘Young Cosette fromLes Mis. Once Oliver…’

‘Oliver?’Flaming hell, the man really did have fantasies including young boys as well as girls.

‘Did you not realise what he was up to, Sorrel?’

‘Yes, suppose.’ She sighed. ‘But he’s arranged an audition for me at the Susan Yates Theatre School; he knows her really well. And honestly, Robyn, he issucha brilliant teacher. He’s taught me so much.’

I had to concede that I remembered how much he taught me, the steps, exercises and routines he put me through over and over again, always wanting perfection, insistent on getting the very best out of me.

‘Sorrel,’ I said as we pulled into Mum’s drive. ‘He’s sick. He’s a paedophile, preying on kids who are desperate to become famous. He told me I was going to be inOliver!in Leeds when I was twelve. Had me signing the papers. Before grabbing my hands and forcing them down his pants. I was a kid, Sorrel. I was in foster care because there was no one to look after me when Mum had to go back into hospital.’ I found I was crying, great fat tears falling down my cheeks. ‘He assaulted me and I never told anyone; I refused to go back to his academy. No one could understand why.’

Sorrel scrabbled in her hoody, passing over a tissue. ‘Sorry, it’s a bit used. You were twelve?’ She sat in silence, contemplating. ‘The bastard.’

‘But, Sorrel’ – I sniffed – ‘he’s been grooming you too. You must have realised?’

‘Yeah, course, but he never got anywhere. He tried to kiss me a couple of times, stroke my leg, put his hands all over me, especially when I was dressed as Annie. Pervert’s obviously got a thing about kids with red hair and freckles. I just kicked him off, told him to fuck off. You know, Robyn, when you’ve had to deal with the girls at school – when a whole gang of them are lying in wait in the toilets and after school, when they’re sending messages to my phone that I was an absolute rubbish dancer, telling me to die, to kill myself – then one slimy perverted old man like Peter Collinson is a doddle.’

‘Sorrel, we have to go to the police or we’re condoning what he does. And he’ll keep on doing it.’

‘Yes, I know, I know. S’pose so. OK.’ She turned to me once again. ‘But we can’t mention Joel and whathe’sdoing.’

‘OK.’

‘And, I s’pose there’ll be no going to the Susan Yates Theatre School now?’

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