Dead Popular

by Sue Wallman

  Anger flared in her cheeks. “Listen, Kate. Lo and I haven’t told anyone apart from Sneller, even though we don’t owe you anything. Maybe someone heard me and Lo talking. You know what this place is like. Stop feeling so sorry for yourself and face what you did. Deal with it.” She left my room and slammed the door.

  CHAPTER 25

  At dinner, I sat with Zeta, but at the same table as Meribel and Lo, so not everyone would work out Lo wasn’t talking to me. Calding wasn’t at dinner, and the fourth-formers at our table – the only ones who were chatting – said Calding was bound to either quit because of the stress or be sacked any day now. I skipped dessert, murmuring to Zeta I was going to Davison’s common room. She asked if I wanted her to come too, but I said no. I regretted saying it so forcefully, but I didn’t want anyone with me.

  I’d timed it right and the common room was empty. It had the air of being abandoned. Clemmie would never be in here again, and who knew when Monro and Veronica would be back.

  The printout on Veronica’s artwork was from my Instagram account, the only photo of my face I’d ever posted. It was taken a summer ago, a head and shoulders shot, with a bright blue Mediterranean sky as the background. I was wearing a white top and I looked symmetrical and happy. On the printout, someone had written FAKE in thick black pen across my forehead and stuck it in the centre of the artwork. What Zeta hadn’t told me was the person had also drawn arrows pointing to my ears, eye and nose and chin. I took it down and folded it, and the crease went right across my mouth. There was so much pinned up there now. The photo of the Amber Park Hospital was underneath printouts that didn’t make any sense to me, but maybe made someone else uncomfortable, such as a picture of a South-East London council estate, and an article about a protest outside a factory in Wales. A lot of things were taken down by the people they were aimed at, but you didn’t want to be seen with anything incriminating, or it would be taken as confirmation that an accusation might be true or a raw nerve had been hit.

  The door opened, and in came Paige with a couple of her group. They looked diminished without Clemmie, uncertain which level of bitchiness to use. Paige walked up to the artwork, and the other two went to play pool giving me amused glances at the folded sheet of paper in my hand as they did.

  “You’ve been allowed back, then?” Paige said. “I heard you used to be super-ugly, and your dad remodelled you.”

  I made a great effort not to show any emotion. “I heard there was a day last decade when you were a nice person.”

  Paige rolled her eyes and said, “You need to work on your comebacks.” She leaned against a table. “What d’you know about Veronica and Monro?”

  I thought about the strange text messages. “Nothing,” I said. “What do you know?”

  “Must be embarrassing for you thinking you were tight with Monro, and you don’t know anything about where he is or why he and Vee ran away together. What’s it like to fancy a murder suspect?”

  I gave her my finest pitying look. I wanted to leave but not if there was a danger she thought she’d driven me away, so I went through the motions of putting the kettle on to make myself a cup of tea.

  Paige said, “I’ll tell you what I know: Veronica Steppleton is the main suspect in the case.”

  “What?”

  There was a tiny wobble in her voice. “I heard Clemmie arguing with Veronica when I was with Rob.”

  “Are you sure it was Veronica?” I wondered if Paige regretted that she’d stayed with Rob when she heard the argument.

  She said, “One hundred per cent, and it was a bad argument.”

  I imagined a confrontation between Clemmie and Veronica, Veronica jabbing Clemmie’s chest to drive a point home, Clemmie stumbling. Could it have happened like that? Would Veronica and Monro have run?

  Veronica had a suitcase. Her running away appeared planned. Was the argument with Clemmie also planned?

  Whatever had happened, it didn’t look good for her.

  I held up the folded piece of paper in my hand while Paige was being relatively open. “Did you do this?”

  Paige smirked. “I wish I had.”

  The other two girls were whispering to each other by the pool table. I stepped closer to Paige and said quietly, “How did Clemmie know about my surgery?”

  “She was in touch with people who knew people,” said Paige vaguely.

  So she didn’t know. It must have upset her that Clemmie hadn’t trusted her.

  Paige’s face hardened. “There’s something I want to say to you, Kate: Miss Sneller is asking for people to speak or contribute to Clemmie’s concert on Saturday. If you volunteer, I’ll make sure you regret it.”

  I stopped myself saying that I wouldn’t ever have considered speaking at the memorial. I wasn’t a complete hypocrite.

  “Clemmie loathed you,” said Paige. “You swept in to the third form all pleased with yourself and the way you look and thought you knew everything. But you didn’t. You fake.” She looked me up and down with disdain, and went to join the other two.

  I took a deep breath and steadied myself. I was going to unpin everything off Veronica’s artwork. This had gone far enough.

  As I piled up the papers, pressing them flat, reducing them to a bundle of a few millimetres thick, it occurred to me I might be tampering with evidence. I wouldn’t throw it all out. I’d hand it to Miss Sneller when I was sent to see her.

  It was lonely going to bed without saying goodnight to Bel and Lo. I listened to a podcast about sculpture techniques which was boring enough to send me to sleep. I was jolted awake by my phone ringing. My immediate thought was Elsie Gran.

  My phone screen showed it wasn’t her. It was Monro. He was calling from his actual phone.

  “Kate?” His voice was both familiar and distant.

  I sat up immediately. “Yes, it’s me. Did you message me earlier today on another phone?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Someone pretending to be you was trying to find out where you were. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. He was talking fast and too softly. “We read in a newspaper yesterday that Vee’s the main suspect in Clemmie’s death. We didn’t even know anything had happened to Clemmie until a few days ago. And now I think something’s happened to Vee. She went out to get some food and hasn’t come back.”

  “Slow down,” I said. “Where are you?”

  “A village on the east coast of Scotland. In a holiday cottage that belongs to friends of Vee’s parents. They don’t know we’re here, but Vee knew where the key was hidden. I switched off my phone for days but now I don’t care any more. I think the police have got Vee.” His voice cracked. He sounded exhausted.

  “Why did you and Veronica take off like you did?”

  “I’ll explain everything soon,” said Monro. “There’s something you need to know about me. It’s a hard thing to tell someone. And now I think it’s too late.”

  I heard shouting in the background.

  “That’s the police,” said Monro. “I’m freaking out.”

  “It’ll be OK,” I said.

  “Please will you do something?” Monro asked in an urgent voice. He didn’t stop to hear my answer. “Vee was muttering before she left about a delivery note that’s pinned on her artwork. She said she hoped it didn’t get taken down before she had a chance to check it out. When I asked what she was talking about, she said it was for those sweat pads and it was probably nothing. If Vee’s a suspect, I have to do everything I can to help her.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I heard louder shouting.

  “I think they might bash the door down,” said Monro. “Open the door,” I said. “Don’t make it worse.”

  “Can you keep it safe?” asked Monro, talking even faster.

  “Yes, let me find it now. I took everything off her artwork to give to Miss Sneller.” I switched on my bedside light, climbed out of bed and started going through the pile of paper, my phone clamped under
my chin, worried that somehow I hadn’t collected everything, or it was missing. I recoiled as I saw the printout of me with Fake across my forehead.

  “Hide it somewhere when you find it,” said Monro.

  I kept leafing through the pile, and then it was there in front of me – the delivery note for three boxes of ten stick-on underarm sweat pads from an online pharmacy which had appeared around the time of the dress receipts for the Pankhurst party. The top had been cut off for anonymity, probably by Veronica, so I couldn’t see who had ordered them, or any order number.

  “I’ve got it,” I said. “But I don’t see how—”

  “That’s good. Don’t keep it in your room. It might really matter,” said Monro. I thought it would calm him down to know I had it in my hands, but he seemed to be even more agitated than before. “Be careful who you trust. Look, I have to go. I don’t want to be shot by the police. That was a joke. Kind of.” He was trying not to cry.

  “The police aren’t going to accuse Veronica or you of doing anything you haven’t done,” I said desperately. “Just tell them everything you know.” I didn’t want to end the conversation.

  “Take care, Kate. Please,” he said.

  “You too,” I whispered. He had to be the one to end this call.

  “Bye, then, Kate.” I could tell he didn’t want to hang up either. There was so much unsaid in his voice.

  Then the phone went dead, and I deleted my recent call history.

  I held the delivery note, smaller than A4 because the details at the top had been cut off. The contact details for an online pharmacy were along the bottom of it.

  I reached for my laptop and looked it up. It was UK based and it specialized in natural products and embarrassing problems.

  I chewed the side of my thumbnail. What was its significance?

  All my instincts told me Monro had nothing to do with Clemmie’s death, but Veronica… I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t sure. I’d hide the delivery note for now. I could always hand it in at a later point. Where was a good place to hide it, though? Somewhere close by that wouldn’t be disturbed. It took me several minutes to think through all Pankhurst’s communal places, where no one would ever imagine something would be hidden. The painting of the boarding house founder in the dining hall – that was perfect. I’d attach the paper to the back of it with Blu-Tack, and the weight of the painting itself would help keep it in place.

  It was against the rules to be out of my bedroom, so I’d need an extremely good excuse. I folded the receipt in two and stuffed it along with a blob of Blu-Tack and my keys from home in the pocket of my dressing gown, and then crept on to the third-floor landing. Soft built-in nightlights at skirting-board level lit the stairs and hallways. The old building was never silent at night, shifting and creaking.

  I felt uneasy as I trod carefully past Clemmie’s bedroom.

  The dining room smelled stale, as if there was still leftover food somewhere. Side lamps in the hall which switched on at night emitted enough light for me to make my way to the founder’s painting, lift the bottom edge and press the receipt on to the back. I prayed the whole painting was secure on its wire and wouldn’t come crashing down. It seemed to be, although it juddered alarmingly when I straightened it.

  I ran to the stairs, exhaling heavily from having held my breath so long in the dining hall, and took them two at time. Two thirds of the way up the second staircase my heart double-thudded. At the top was Ms Calding. She was in a white towelling dressing gown, grey stripy pyjamas visible underneath, and old person slippers. Her hair was down and she looked different, like a Pankhurst student.

  “What are you doing, Miss Jordan-Ferreira?” If I’d given her a shock by being out of my room, she didn’t show it.

  I pulled out my key ring, showing her the little fluffy bird toy attached. It had been the best I could do. “I left this in my coat pocket downstairs,” I said. “My gran gave it to me. I couldn’t sleep without it.” Fortunately she didn’t know Elsie Gran well enough to know she’d have never given me anything so cutesy. It had come from Lo.

  Calding didn’t react with any sympathy. “I’m giving you five behaviour points. Don’t let me find you outside your room at night again. Understood?”

  I nodded. It was around two-thirty in the morning. It wasn’t normal for her to be walking around. “Now go to bed.” She stood and watched as I made my way along the landing to the third staircase. As I walked past Clemmie’s room I noticed that the door was slightly ajar. I was fairly certain it had been closed when I had gone downstairs.

  CHAPTER 26

  At breakfast everyone was buzzing with the news that Monro and Veronica had been found in a remote farm cottage. Most of the sixth-formers from Davison had come over to see what the latest was. I couldn’t help glancing up at the founder’s painting as I pretended to eat my honey-nut cornflakes. There was no hint of white paper visible at the back of it, thank goodness.

  I’d sat with Meribel and Lo, for the sake of appearances, but I knew they’d rather I wasn’t there. We were near a clump of noisy first-formers who didn’t even know Veronica and Monro, but who were speculating wildly about them. I pictured Monro and Veronica being interviewed separately. What bound them together so deeply? Was it really just about being childhood friends?

  Meribel said she had to get up at five-thirty the next morning for her trip to Japan and she hadn’t even told Sneller yet. I thought of my own inevitable interview with the head now she was aware of my part in Sasha’s expulsion. Much as I dreaded it, it would be a relief. I decided I would go to speak to her this morning rather than wait to be summoned.

  Squirrel brought me a hot chocolate, which she always did when she saw someone wasn’t eating. The Ghost and Calding spoke together in a corner, and then Calding clapped her hands and asked for quiet.

  “Would fifth- and sixth-formers stay behind, please?” When everybody else had left, she made us bunch together around one long table, and told us some papers had been removed from Veronica’s artwork and as they might or might not be evidence in Clemmie’s case, she needed them handed in.

  Paige’s face looked gleeful. “Kate took them yesterday. I’m a witness.”

  I nodded and sat up straight. “Yes, I did. There was some toxic stuff there,” I said. I was Kate Lynette Jordan-Ferreira. I was House Prefect and fearless.

  A sixth-former echoed the word toxic and sniggered. I glared at her, and she stopped.

  “You didn’t bin them, though, did you?” said Paige accusingly. “You took them away.”

  “I was going to hand them in to Miss Sneller.” I stood up. “I’ll go and get them.”

  Calding nodded at the Ghost. “It’s OK, Kate. Mrs Haven will go up to your room now. Where are they?”

  I nodded. “On my chest of drawers.” Were they really looking for that delivery note?

  Calding kept us a few minutes more, talking about arrangements for Clemmie’s concert.

  After we were dismissed and went to leave the dining hall, Calding caught my eye and said, “I trust you got to sleep in the end, Miss Jordan-Ferreira?” and I said, “Yes, thank you.”

  “What was that about?” asked Meribel, climbing next to me on the staircase. I was aware of Lo keeping her distance a few steps behind us.

  “No idea,” I said.

  “Why did she ask if you’d got to sleep in the end?”

  I opened my mouth to tell her, but said, “She must have heard me moving about in my room on one of her patrols,” because I remembered Monro’s words. Be careful who you trust.

  When Meribel went into her room, I waited for Lo and said, “Please can I talk with you?”

  “There’s nothing left to say,” said Lo. She went to close her door, but I placed my foot in the way. “Please? Two minutes?”

  Lo let go of the door, and carried on into her room as if she didn’t care one way or the other. I followed her as she went to the bathroom and picked up her toothbrush.

  “I’m goin
g to see Miss Sneller this morning,” I said.

  “Good,” said Lo, as she squeezed toothpaste on her toothbrush.

  “I regret what I did so badly. I’m sorry, Lo. For everything.”

  “Forget it,” said Lo. “It’s way too late to apologize.” She brushed her upper teeth on one side.

  “I wasn’t the only person who was scared to stand up to Clemmie. Zeta told me—”

  Lo spat out toothpaste into the basin. “Don’t make this about anybody else. You let someone else take the blame for something you knew they hadn’t done. You let an innocent person be expelled.” She gave me a look of hatred. “Because you’re off-the-scale vain. If Sneller expels you, you’ll just end up in some other fancy school. For Sasha, being at this school meant everything to her and her family. Now get out of my room.” She turned on the tap and swooshed away the toothpaste spit to mark the end of the conversation.

  After registration, I went to Miss Snellers’s office and told her assistant that I would sit and wait to be seen. I was informed there was a scheduled meeting, and I should go back to class and wait to be called. But I insisted on staying, and the assistant eventually gave up and waved half-heartedly towards the stiff-backed, orange-felt sofa.

  When I was eventually shown into Miss Sneller’s office, she looked pained to see me, as if I was causing an immense amount of work for her. She put on her glasses and said, “If you’re here about your failure to disclose all the facts when asked about Sasha Mires and Clementine Hillard, please go ahead.” She picked up a silver pen and held it expectantly above a pile of loose blank paper.

  I told her how I’d lied, and allowed Clemmie to blackmail me, and she scribbled away. It seemed at times the sound of her pen on the paper was as loud as my voice. After a bit, she muttered about emerging details, and how there was a lot to unravel. I said nothing as she told me it appeared I’d fallen short of Mount Norton’s extremely high standards.

  Did she genuinely believe Mount Norton had extremely high standards?

  “I’m in the process of considering how we move forward with this development,” she said. “Of course, you’ll have to speak to the police again.” She sighed. “It’s delicate … with Clemmie’s family … and I believe Lois said she’d heard Sasha was very ill at present.”