Young, Gifted and Dead

by Lucy Carver

  Jack and I used a taxi, sat in silence through the sleazy Friday night streets – guys reeling out of clubs and across the road, girls vomiting under the town’s giant Christmas tree. We held hands along familiar country lanes until we reached St Jude’s.

  I didn’t sleep. I stared at the ceiling remembering Paige’s grey horse screaming, rearing up and plummeting down, the sound of hoofs thudding into bone and flesh, the silence afterwards.

  I took my mind back to five minutes earlier.

  ‘You don’t think you’re being a teeny bit par-a-noid?’ Paige asked with a wink. ‘Chill, my friend.’

  Saturday morning brought no fresh news. Paige’s parents were still at her bedside, the doctors were carrying out more tests. We were in limbo, with too much time on our hands.

  ‘It’s definitely linked,’ I told Zara at breakfast, which none of us ate. ‘My so-called accident with the motorbike and what happened to Paige.’

  She shook her head and I didn’t blame her. Who wants to believe a conspiracy theory when coincidence or cock-up falls within the same frame? ‘We have to be logical about this,’ she insisted. ‘We can’t let our imaginations run away with us.’

  Jack, Zara and I walked out of the dining hall towards the new library. ‘But what if I’m right? What if Lily’s killer was after me and now he’s targeting Paige?’

  Zara shook her head angrily and veered off towards the library.

  I ran after her. ‘At least think about it.’

  ‘No. I don’t want to.’

  Specifically, she didn’t want to consider what might have been – Paige falling into a permanent vegetative state, me mangled under the front wheel of a powerful motorbike.

  ‘It was a lime-green Toyota,’ I told Jack quietly as we watched Zara go and my eidetic memory clicked in. ‘Registration number KD58PDO.’

  At least the attack on Paige meant that I finally got to meet Inspector Cole. He came hotfoot to the school that Saturday morning.

  ‘Use the bursar’s office,’ Saint Sam suggested after the inspector and I had been introduced. ‘Nobody will disturb you there.’

  I sat on the edge of my hard seat, facing the inspector across Terence D’Arblay’s wide desk. Behind him was a glass-fronted cabinet containing shelves of red ring-binders and curios such as conch shells, a bronze statuette of a horse, a carved silver box, military medals and old black-and-white photos dating back to the founding of the school.

  ‘You’re worried about your friend?’ was Cole’s first question.

  ‘Yes. Has she come round yet?’

  He shook his head. ‘The doctors have decided to keep her in an induced coma until some of the swelling around her brain is reduced. That’s normal procedure with an injury like this. It gives the patient a better chance of making a full recovery.’

  ‘There wasn’t any blood,’ I told him, as if this made a difference. ‘At least I couldn’t see any.’

  Mistral had trapped Paige against the wall, she’d lost her footing and gone down. A thousand-plus pounds of horseflesh had landed on her skull. But no blood.

  ‘Tell me about Paige’s attacker,’ Inspector Cole invited.

  ‘He was about five eleven, six foot, skinny.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Young – maybe eighteen, nineteen.’

  ‘What colour was his hair?’

  ‘He was wearing a hoodie so I couldn’t see. And there was a black scarf covering his mouth and nose. He had grey eyes with dark eyelashes.’

  ‘Good.’ The inspector wasn’t taking notes, but he looked as if he was taking in the details. He was an older guy – late forties maybe – a little out of shape, with a fleshy face and double chin. He wore his thinning grey hair short and had a bristly moustache that was darker than his hair. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘The hoodie was grey with a white Adidas logo. He was carrying a type of Stanley knife with a grey metal handle – in his left hand.’

  ‘Very good. Trousers?’

  ‘Tracksuit bottoms. They matched the top.’

  ‘OK, so describe exactly what he did.’

  This was no problem for someone with a brain like mine so I gave the inspector the action replay.

  ‘Who did he plan to use the knife on – the horse or Paige?’

  ‘The horse. He slashed at Mistral’s neck, but he missed. Paige got in the way when she tried to stop him. Listen, inspector, you should look at the CCTV footage to see for yourself. They have a camera on the wall in the stable yard.’

  He sucked his teeth. ‘We would like to, but apparently it’s out of action. Technical fault.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘They’re fixing it as we speak.’

  ‘Too late,’ I said.

  After this Inspector Cole took a short coffee break with Saint Sam. I’m sure they discussed Paige and probably me too, but I was also pretty certain at this point that no one except me and Jack was making firm links between yesterday’s attack and the guy on the green Toyota, and how both things might be connected to Lily’s death.

  We resumed at eleven.

  ‘Alyssa, the principal informs me you may have been involved in a hit-and-run incident in Lower Chartsey. When was this?’

  ‘Last Monday.’

  ‘You didn’t report it?’

  ‘There wasn’t anything to report. The guy didn’t hit me and he drove off.’

  ‘But you think it could have been deliberate?’

  I shrugged. ‘There’s no way I can be sure.’

  ‘What were you doing in the village?’

  ‘Talking to a friend.’

  The inspector was good at his job and he winkled Jayden’s name out of me. ‘Did you see anyone else?’

  More winkling then I gave him the names of Micky, Alex and Ursula and a little about the bullying that took place in the JD workshop.

  Cole’s moustache twitched as he wrinkled his nose, sniffled then reached for a pen. For the first time he scribbled a few things down. ‘Clear something up for me, Alyssa – what was so important that you had to battle through a snowstorm to talk to these village kids?’

  This hit a nerve with me and I rushed to answer. ‘I wanted to find out about Jayden and Lily – how he’d reacted when he’d found out she was pregnant.’

  ‘You thought he was the baby’s father?’ The moustache twitched again as if he was a furry-whiskered terrier picking up a fresh scent.

  ‘No, I already knew he wasn’t,’ I replied. ‘Or at least I’d figured it out.’

  Inspector Cole nodded. ‘You’re a bright girl, but then you wouldn’t be at St Jude’s if you weren’t.’ The flattery suggested that he was bringing the interview to a close. ‘Anything else you want to say?’

  ‘I remembered the bike’s registration number – the one that almost ran me down – it’s KD58PDO.’

  He wrote it eagerly on a sheet of St Jude’s headed notepaper then looked up with pen poised. ‘That’s everything?’

  ‘No – there is one other thing.’

  ‘In connection with which incident – the motorbike or the horse?’

  ‘Neither. This is in connection with Lily. On the day she disappeared, I saw her get the text from her brother and watched her pack her bag to catch the London train, only we know she never made it and now the bag’s turned up at Tom Walsingham’s house.’ And I gave the inspector Tom’s address – The Old Vicarage, Main Street, Lower Chartsey.

  ‘Any idea how the bag got there?’ Inspector Cole asked without showing any reaction. I’d have expected a twitch of the terrier moustache or raised eyebrows at the very least.

  ‘No. I haven’t worked that one out yet, but I will.’

  He smiled as he shook my hand and said goodbye.

  ‘Thanks, Alyssa. Be sure to let me know when you do.’

  When the police move, they move fast. At midday on Saturday I received a text from Tom.

  Cops came to my house! What the f . . . ! Am in woods by lake. Meet me.

  I showed the
text to Jack.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said, quick as a flash. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust me, it was that he wanted to protect me. Or at least that’s what he said and what I preferred to think. OK, maybe there was a whiff of jealousy in there too.

  Anyway, I was glad I wasn’t alone as Jack and I headed out through freezing fog, skirting the lake and heading for the trees.

  ‘Let’s see if Tom can worm his way out of this one,’ Jack muttered.

  ‘He’s got a hell of a lot of explaining to do, for sure.’

  Jack held my hand and we walked on for a bit. When I tripped over a tree root and stumbled, he was there to break my fall. ‘It’s OK,’ he breathed as he held me close and pressed his lips against the top of my head.

  We stood for a long time, blanketed in cold fog, warm in our embrace.

  Then Tom appeared out of the mist and called my name. ‘Alyssa, over here!’

  Jack and I rushed to meet him, saw him suddenly duck out of sight behind a tree and were too late to stop ourselves from being spotted by a small posse of journalists who had broken free from the main gang at the school gates.

  ‘Hey, Jack!’ In spite of the fog swirling around, Emily Archer recognized him straight away and I recognized her. Action Girl in leather jacket and zippy boots, blonde hair upswept.

  He frowned. We waited for Emily to arrive.

  I jumped in with the first question. ‘How did you get in?’ The reporters would have needed to make a long loop across country, over the stream and then around the back of the woods to infiltrate the school grounds without being seen.

  ‘What is this – Colditz?’ she wanted to know, smiling exclusively at Jack, ignoring me for the moment.

  Back off – he’s way too young for you! Jealousy pounces and grabs you by the throat when you least expect it.

  ‘Good to see you,’ Emily told Jack as three fellow journos huddled behind her. ‘We need a quote about what happened to Paige Kelly yesterday – the ambulance, the police cars. Something short to keep us in the loop.’

  Jack shook his head and did his best to make it look as though we were here for some fresh air. ‘We can’t talk to you,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t or won’t? Oh, come on, this really isn’t a prison camp,’ she wheedled. ‘You have freedom of speech the same as anyone else.’

  Freedom of speech for you to misquote. My guard was up, as you can imagine.

  ‘OK, forget yesterday. How much does the school keep you informed about the investigation into Lily’s death or do they leave you completely in the dark?’ One of the reporters lurking in the background rushed a question at us both.

  No comment.

  ‘What prompted the request for a second pathologist’s report?’

  ‘When are they going to hold Lily’s funeral?’

  No comment. No comment.

  ‘Moving back to my original topic,’ Emily said. ‘What’s the students’ reaction to Paige’s accident and do they know yet if she’s likely to pull through? It was an accident, wasn’t it?’

  My stomach churned and I had to walk away fast, leaving Jack to Emily’s tender mercies and heading back towards the lake so I didn’t have to listen to any more of this. Only one of the reporters followed me – a small guy in a grey knitted hat and a red North Face jacket.

  ‘You’re the kid in the car with Anna Earle,’ he said.

  I walked faster. He ran to head me off just as I came out of the wood.

  ‘Do you have special links with the Earles? How was Anna?’ he asked. ‘Did you know they hospitalized her again the day after her visit here?’

  ‘Again?’ I echoed.

  ‘Yeah, didn’t you know? She was diagnosed with major depression back in 2003. Her only daughter dies and she goes into meltdown for a second time. Her husband sectioned her two days ago.’

  I shook my head and tried deep breaths to deal with the panic battering at my rib cage.

  ‘It’s unofficial,’ the guy in the red jacket said. ‘Earle took out a super injunction for us not to report it – not in the public interest, blah blah.’

  ‘Which hospital?’

  ‘Private clinic, top secret.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I muttered, side-stepping him and breaking into a sprint across the lawn.

  The reporter didn’t follow me. Instead he went to join the rest of the pack in the woods. When I reached the safety of the quad, Tom had snuck ahead and was already waiting for me.

  ‘Finally!’ Tom said.

  I’d smuggled him up to my room where we could talk in private. Lily’s empty bed was in one corner, stripped of its sheet and duvet, Paige’s opposite. Her bed looked as if she’d just stepped out of it and had gone to take a shower.

  My heart was still pounding and I was looking out of the window to check we hadn’t been followed. ‘OK, Tom – what is it? What do you want?’

  ‘The cops!’ he said.

  ‘Lily’s bag!’ I retorted.

  ‘You told them.’

  ‘Of course I told them. What did you expect?’

  He paced up and down, tall, skinny and raw-boned. ‘Without even telling me, sneaking behind my back.’

  ‘What did you expect?’ I repeated. ‘Tom – that was Lily’s bag!’

  ‘I didn’t know that, did I? Not until the cops came knocking.’

  ‘How could you not know?’

  ‘Because I didn’t look. It was just there.’ He let out a long breath, like a balloon deflating and suddenly there was no anger, no energy left. ‘Jesus, Alyssa.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said, pacing from the window to the door. ‘You’re saying the bag had been in your hallway for weeks and you had no idea it belonged to Lily? Didn’t anybody else notice it – your parents, for instance?’

  Tom shook his head then changed his mind and nodded. ‘My mum – actually. She took a look and asked me how come a girl’s bag was left lying around. I said I had absolutely no clue. I was busy at the time – it went right over my head.’

  ‘Tom, I don’t know – do I believe you?’ How scatty and haphazard could the Walsingham family be?

  ‘It happens.’ He needed to sit down, and chose the edge of Lily’s bed. ‘A lot of people sleep over at my place when my parents are away for the weekend. They’re forever leaving stuff.’

  ‘But this isn’t just any old bag, this is Lily’s bag.’

  ‘How many times – I did not know that!’

  ‘Did the police take it?’ For fingerprints, DNA evidence and so on.

  He nodded.

  ‘You want to know what Jack and I did after we saw it in your house?’

  ‘The night I saved your life,’ he reminded me with a hollow laugh. ‘Yeah, Alyssa, tell me why you didn’t go straight to the cops.’

  ‘We wanted to be sure. Jack came back to your place and snuck a look. He found Lily’s phone.’

  ‘Then you went to the cops!’

  My turn to nod and feel the energy drain away. I sat on the chair beside my bed. ‘Every single message on that phone was from Jayden,’ I told him. ‘“Lily, please see me, please answer me, don’t walk away.” But she did.’

  ‘How’s Paige,’ Tom asked suddenly, as if this could possibly be a more cheerful, less confusing topic.

  ‘She’s in a coma. She’s probably got an aneurysm and definitely splinters of bone lodged in her brain.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I know. Listen, Tom, if you told the police what you just told me, you’re probably in the clear.’

  ‘Like you said yourself – will they believe me?’

  ‘Yes, if it’s the truth.’

  ‘Well, thanks for that touching belief in the British judiciary system.’

  ‘How does sarcasm help?’

  ‘It doesn’t.’

  ‘It has to be true because, when you think about it, if you’d been involved in Lily’s disappearance you wouldn’t have been stupid enough to leave her bag lying around. The cops will work that out eventually.’
/>   He took a sharp breath and sat upright, waited to hear what else I had to say.

  ‘So how did it get there? Think hard – did anyone call at your place the day Lily vanished?’

  ‘I have been thinking and, yeah, some kids came round after school.’

  ‘Including Jayden?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Micky, Alex?’

  ‘Yeah. We were planning the usual end-of-term five-a-side tournament. Inter-school stuff – Ainslee versus St Jude’s.’

  ‘So who else? Anyone from here?’

  ‘Luke was there,’ he said. ‘And Jack.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Harry,’ he decided. ‘Any one of those could have dumped the evidence on me, couldn’t they?’

  chapter eleven

  ‘What do you mean, you gave Emily Archer your number?’ My voice rose a couple of octaves.

  It was Sunday morning and Jack had received a text. He told me who it was from, on our way to visit Paige in hospital. ‘She asked me for it and I gave it to her – yesterday, while you were talking to Tom.’

  We were cycling through the Bottoms when Jack and I had this, our first major fight. Christmas lights winked in the daytime gloom around the windows of the Bridge Inn. A snow scene had been badly painted on the steamed-up window of the Squinting Cat as I put on my brakes and squealed to a halt outside St Michael’s and All Angels church.

  ‘Christ, Jack, you gave her your number!’

  ‘Calm down, Alyssa. It’s not a crime.’

  ‘D’Arblay and Saint Sam will kill you if they find out.’

  ‘Well, they won’t unless you tell them.’

  ‘So why?’ I asked him, raising it by another whole octave.

  ‘Because she asked me.’

  ‘You already said that. Really, Jack – why?’

  ‘Because it could be useful.’

  ‘Who to? You or her?’

  ‘Us,’ he said sullenly. Jack in a bad mood is not something you often see. He gets a mono-brow from frowning, he stops looking at you and develops a forward slouch.

  ‘It’s not useful to me,’ I argued. ‘Why the hell would I want to be in contact with any of those low-life ambulance chasers?’

  ‘Chill, Alyssa,’ he sighed. (‘Chill, my friend,’ were Paige’s last words to me before the attack. I hear them again, see her smile and wink.) ‘It’s only my phone number. Don’t you even want to know what the message says?’