by Ashley Dyer
“Look, I just want to catch whoever did this to your friend,” Ruth said, taking a seat on one of the club chairs. “So if you have any insights . . .” When no one was forthcoming, she said, “Okay, let’s start with this: Kara clearly wasn’t well liked.”
“No—no! That’s not true!” It came out as a wail of distress, and Lia seemed shocked by her own response. After a few moments’ pause to get a grip of herself, she said, “Kara—she was just . . . reserved, that’s all.”
“That word again,” Ruth said. “‘Reserved.’ Like a theater ticket, or a table for dinner.”
The girl didn’t understand the sarcasm, or maybe it was guilt that made her say, “No—I didn’t mean . . . I meant reserved as a person. She was quiet, you know?”
“No, Lia, I don’t know. That’s why I’m here,” Ruth said. “I know she was talented—I’ve spoken to her teachers and I’ve seen the clips of her performances on YouTube—”
She saw a flicker of pain cross Jake’s face.
“You’re on the Macbeth clip, aren’t you, Jake?”
He nodded mutely. He was dark haired and slender, and Ruth suspected that his sullen good looks made him something of a favorite with the girls.
“I was surprised by your reaction.”
“What d’you mean?” He sounded defensive, even alarmed.
“You must have known Kara well, but it was as if you were almost afraid of her.”
He didn’t reply.
Lia came and sat near him. “She could be intense,” she said.
“And that made her unpopular? I can see how it might.”
“No—it wasn’t that,” Lia said.
“Your teachers said that rivalry between the students could become heated.” In fact, the academic in question had used the word “bloody.”
“Some people were jealous, of course.” Unconsciously—tellingly—Lia glanced swiftly toward the door that Angela had just exited. “But acting with Kara was, I don’t know—special. She . . .” Lia looked to Jake for help, but he frowned, seemingly sunk again in his own misery.
Helen was eyeing the other girl coolly, and Ruth noticed that Lia didn’t even look her way. She revised her estimate of Helen’s age—she seemed more mature than the rest, older by a few years, Ruth judged.
“She was . . . demanding,” Lia said. “But only because she wanted to get the performance right,” she added hastily. She frowned, clearly struggling. “No, not just right. For Kara, it had to be perfect. She rehearsed for hours. And if you played opposite her, she expected you to do the same. I mean, she would make you go over and over a scene until you felt your brain would bleed. Even so, everyone—well, almost everyone—wanted to partner up with her.”
That tallied with something the teachers had said: They might resent Kara, but only because they wanted to be her.
On their part, the academics were less apt to resent Kara’s circumspection: more than one seemed to be convinced that being an introvert was a prerequisite to becoming a fine actor.
“If she pushed you so hard, why didn’t you just walk away?” Ruth said.
Lia shrugged. “In this business, if you want to be the best you can, you act with the best.”
“And Kara was the best?”
“She was a genius,” Jake said.
This was his first uninvited contribution to the discussion. Ruth turned to him, tilting her head to show she was listening, but he dropped his gaze and began to retreat into himself again.
“Genius.” She sniffed. “Well, that’s a devalued word these days.”
The provocation worked. Jake’s eyes, a startling blue, flashed as he met her gaze.
“Kara had a gift that could make you better than you could ever hope to be,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “She could have been—”
A clatter of noise from the hall warned them that Angela was on her way back. Jake gave a little groan of distress and shifted to face the fire again. Lia moved nervously to sit on the other sofa, nearer to Helen.
“I wouldn’t drink the tea, if I were you,” Helen said quietly.
Ruth smiled her thanks. She hadn’t intended to, but it was good to know she had made at least one ally.
Angela came through the door, grinning.
“Hot chocolate for the kids,” Angela said, handing one to each of her housemates in turn. “Tea for the grown-up.”
Ruth took hers, staring into Angela’s eyes with the bland, open look that had served her so well over the years. She read gleeful malice in the student’s eyes.
“So, now you’re all here,” she said, placing the mug on the mantelpiece, “did any of you notice anyone hanging around the house, or even the street, in the weeks leading up to the Christmas vacation?”
They exchanged blank looks.
“Did Kara mention anything out of the ordinary—anything that had happened?”
“What sort of thing?” Angela said.
“You tell me.”
Angela raised one shoulder. “As I said, we shared a house, not a bed.”
“For God’s sake, Angela,” Helen growled.
“All right,” Ruth said. “Did she seem more anxious that usual?”
Nobody answered that, and Ruth got the feeling that they were avoiding one another’s gazes. She let the moment ride until it became uncomfortable. Lia was the first to weaken, stealing a quick look at Jake.
“Lia?”
She jumped like a startled cat. “What?”
“Did Kara seem particularly anxious?”
Angela answered for her: “We had public performances to arrange for January, and research outlines to submit before end of semester. We were all anxious.”
Ruth kept her eyes on Lia. “Anything you’d like to add, Lia?”
The girl clasped her hands on her knees, but Ruth could still see they were shaking.
“She did disappear off a few times, in the evening,” Lia said. “That was unusual.”
“And nobody knows why?”
A ragged chorus of, “No.”
Ruth sighed. Whatever they were hiding, she wouldn’t find it out while they were all watching one another.
“Okay,” she said, half to herself. “I’d like to see Kara’s room. Can someone show me the way?”
“Is that it?” Angela said, trying to sound put out, but there was barely covered relief in the student’s sudden buoyancy. “Aren’t you going to sweat us? Badger us till we break?”
“You’re mixing your metaphors, Angela,” Helen said drily.
Angela flicked a hank of hair over her shoulder. “And who made you the grammar police?”
Helen scoffed, and knowing that she’d lost points in the exchange, Angela turned crossly to Ruth.
“Well, aren’t you at least going to drink your tea?”
“It was good of you to go to the trouble,” Ruth said. “But honestly? That was just a ploy to get you out of the room.”
Angela looked from Lia to Jake. She seemed almost panicked for a second, but Lia leaned forward on the sofa, eyes wide, and Ruth thought she caught the tiniest shake of her head.
Angela slouched. “Fine,” she said sulkily. “Good luck getting in there. There’s no spare key.”
Ruth smiled, patting her coat pocket. “I came prepared.”
“Oh.” Angela looked around at the others, trying hard to control the hunger in her face. “In that case, I’ll show you up,” adding with a tiny lift of one shoulder, “That’s . . . if you’d like.”
“Christ, Angela, you’re such a disgusting ghoul,” Helen said.
Angela drew herself to her full height. “It’s perfectly natural to show an interest, under the circumstances,” she said, primly self-righteous.
Helen didn’t respond, and Angela added, “Like you aren’t gagging for a peek at the scene of the crime.”
Helen shot her a contemptuous look. “It’s not a bloody crime scene.”
“You’re right, Helen,” Ruth said. “It’s not a crime scene,
it’s just Kara’s room. And I’d like to see it.” Perhaps Helen would be more communicative one-on-one? It was worth a try: “So, if you wouldn’t mind . . .”
As Helen made her way out ahead of her, Ruth fished some business cards out of her pocket. “If there’s anything else you think of—anything at all you want to tell me . . .” Jake’s jaw tightened, and he drew his eyebrows down as if engaged in some inner dispute; Lia looked alarmed; Angela fiddled with her hair and turned her head slightly, refusing the card in a gesture of defiance. Ruth left one for each of them on the coffee table. “In case you change your minds,” she said.
Helen was waiting at the end of the hallway, at the foot of the stairs. She stalked ahead.
“You do know those three will be using you as a character study before you’ve even left the house?” she said. “Improvising dialogue, honing their ‘authentic’ local brogue.”
“That’s all right, I’m thick skinned.” Deciding that a direct question might get a more helpful response, she said, “So, was Kara picked on?”
Helen slowed on the turn of the stairs. “You don’t think they had anything to do with . . . with what happened?”
“No,” Ruth said. “I’m just trying to get a handle on Kara.”
“Okay . . .” Helen waited for her, and they walked the rest of the way side by side. “Kara was never really accepted by the others, but I wouldn’t say she was picked on exactly. Angela and Lia can gang up a bit—but only because Lia is terrified of Angela. Jake is . . . well, Jake is just a moody bloke with some good looks who’d like to think he was Colin Farrell.”
“Ouch.”
Helen tilted her head as if to say, You did ask.
“And Angela?”
“Angela is the only one I have a real issue with.”
“So she’s more than just irritating?”
“She can be cruel. And even when she’s only being irritating, she’s the worst kind of influence on Lia.”
“What kind of influence did she have on Kara?”
Helen smiled, starting up a second flight. “Zero. Kara’s influences were the greats of film and theater; she didn’t really care about the wannabes in this place.” She stopped on a narrow landing at the top of the house. “Well, this is it.”
Crime scene tape had been put in place after the CSIs had finished, and the landlord had been instructed to leave it untouched in case they needed to return.
“It’s a long way up,” Ruth observed. Isolated was what she was really thinking.
“Kara liked the view.” Helen hesitated. “You know, the crime scene people were all over her flat for three days. They took her laptop and tablet.”
“I know,” Ruth said. “But I’d like to get a feel for her personal space.”
“Okay—I’ll leave you to it.”
“No—stay,” Ruth said. “I feel I got more from two minutes talking to you than I did in the last twenty with the others.”
Helen nodded. “They’re definitely hiding something.”
“Any idea what that might be?”
“I wish I did,” Helen said, adding with a self-deprecating shrug, “Kara wasn’t the only outsider in the house.”
Helen really didn’t seem a good fit with the place. Listening to her as they’d chatted on the way upstairs, Ruth had detected a hint of Liverpool in her speech, while the others spoke in the clipped accents of the privileged and privately educated.
“Lia seems to look up to you,” Ruth said.
Helen’s mouth twitched. “Like a big sister—useful for tips on STDs or the morning-after pill.”
“Why would she ask you?”
“Well, it’s not exactly the sort of thing you’d talk to your classmates about—unless you really wanted it splashed all over campus by the end of the day.”
“So you’re not studying at LIPA?” The interview report had listed Helen as a student—someone was in for a bollocking when she got back to the office. But she covered her annoyance, saying, “I thought this was a student house.”
“Eighty percent,” Helen said, with mathematical accuracy.
“So what do you do?”
“I’m a nurse.”
That explained the practicality of her short, bobbed hair, the sensible cords and sweater. Ruth raised an eyebrow. “Nice digs.”
“Yeah, well it comes at a price.” Helen’s mouth twisted in a bitter quirk, and Ruth got the impression she wasn’t talking about financial cost.
Ruth took the key from her pocket and sliced through the scene tape before opening the door, but Helen balked.
“I don’t know if I can—”
“It’s okay,” Ruth said. “It’s just a room.”
Helen stood with her back to the stair rail, and for a second it looked like she might bolt.
“You knew her,” Ruth said. “And I think you cared for her.”
Helen’s eyes shone with tears.
“There may be something in here that I’d miss, but would mean something to you.” She went in, hoping that Helen would follow.
The room was right in the eaves of the house. Laid out as an open-plan living space, it was crammed with books, and every available patch of wall was taken up with posters of actors in the great roles from Shakespeare to Beckett; Miller to Pinter.
Three sash windows, smaller than those on the ground floor but still generous in size, let light flood in. An en suite wet room was tucked behind a curved wall on the left, and a small kitchenette off to the right.
“It’s quite self-contained for a shared house,” Ruth said.
Still hovering at the door, Helen said, “That’s Kara for you. She was willing to pay extra for her privacy.”
Ruth looked into her face, but saw only affection for the lost girl.
Helen came into the room and sat on a chair by the desk, her gaze shifting from the blank notepad to a jam pot filled with pens.
“Jake wasn’t exaggerating, you know—Kara really was a genius.”
“You saw her perform?” This didn’t sound like the outsider she claimed to be.
“I went to a few of her end-of-term productions—even did line rehearsals with her a few times.” Helen shook her head, lost for words.
“She was really that good?”
“Kara could draw the light to her. Sometimes, it felt like she had you physically in her two hands, so you could hardly breathe . . .” She trailed off, staring out of the window for a few moments. “But she couldn’t compromise. And that can be difficult to live with—especially for a mediocre talent.”
“Like Angela?”
“Not just her. I’ve seen a succession of these guys, been to their stage shows, even seen a few make it big. But most of them plod into doing the odd TV commercial, or corporate training videos, filling their ‘resting’ periods temping, before they finally come to the realization their big moment is never going to happen.”
“Sounds like you know something about it.”
She gave a short laugh. “You’re thinking I was one of the many who ended up getting a proper job?”
Ruth raised her eyebrows as if to say, What am I supposed to think?
“I lived here when these houses were still owned by slum landlords and the streets around Canning and Huskisson were teaming with prostitutes and curb crawlers.”
Ruth nodded. It wasn’t that long ago.
“Then things got crazy in the buildup to Liverpool’s Capital of Culture year in 2008.”
“I remember the buying frenzy,” Ruth said. “London property developers scooping up grotty housing stock around Kensington, Liverpool, like it was Kensington, London.”
“A lot of people got burned,” Helen said. “But Angela’s daddy hit the jackpot. Bought this house for a couple of hundred thousand sight unseen at a property auction in 2005. It’s now bringing in twenty thousand a year in rental—and that’s with Angela living rent-free.”
Ruth whistled. “I hope you were on a protected tenancy?”
Helen smile
d. “Low rent, too—I mean a quarter of what the others are paying. Even better, I can stay as long as I like. Or at least until I act on the powerful itch to slap Angela’s self-satisfied face.”
“I get the feeling she’s got the others on a short leash, though,” Ruth said.
Helen grimaced. “Her daddy had Lia and Jake on three-month rental contracts—which ran out in December—and nobody wants the hassle of a move in the middle of their finals.”
Ruth looked around the room, wondering if Kara had been on the same contract. She really needed to speak to these kids out of Angela’s hearing.
Kara must have hoicked a ton of flat-pack furniture up the stairs, judging by the quantity of shelving in the place, some of which was set at right angles to the walls, creating reading niches. A beanbag served as a reading chair. Books on drama theory, critical studies, set design, texts on movement and voice were stacked two deep on the shelves, and the tops of the bookcases were cluttered with files, folders, books, and photocopied sheets. A team had already sifted through this lot, extracting anything that might provide names to follow up, but Ruth flicked through them anyway.
“Did Kara seem different in any way, in the lead-up to her disappearance?” she asked.
“No,” Helen said. “But I was working nights, and I didn’t see much of her, apart from the night of her performance in Macbeth—I agreed to work Christmas Day so I could be there.”
“Was it worth it?”
“She was stunning. Like I told her she would be.”
Ruth looked up from a text on cultural context in theater. “Did she need telling?”
“She’d had a bad experience a few weeks before; it knocked her confidence a bit.”
“Oh?” Ruth said, inviting further explanation.
“She didn’t want to talk about it,” Helen said. “All she’d say was it was a life lesson she wouldn’t forget.”
Ruth guessed that whatever the others were hiding, it had something to do with that “life lesson.”
She moved on to the wardrobe; it yielded nothing of more interest than a preference for black clothing. A three-shelf bookcase tucked under one of the sash windows caught her eye. A collection of biographies: Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench, Sheila Hancock, Benedict Cumberbatch, Barbra Streisand, Hayden Panettiere—and many more, all bristling with stick-it notes.