by Lucy Carver
‘Don’t film me,’ I protested.
‘Chill, Alyssa. Look – you press your screen to start filming and lift it to stop. Press again then lift, and so on. Then you post it on to your feed. And voila!’
‘OK, that’s cool, Connie.’
‘Say it again – this time like you mean it.’
‘I do – I mean it. Digital technology is amazing. But I don’t tweet so it’s not for me.’
‘Don’t tweet?’ she echoed with a shocked look.
Seeing me wilt under pressure from Connie, Jack stepped in. ‘Actually, why don’t you post the video of Alyssa on to my phone?’
‘No way – I look a wreck!’ I wailed.
‘You never look a wreck,’ Jack grinned, and he kissed me in front of Connie.
‘Jeez, you two – get a room,’ she grumbled, posting the chopped-up footage of me shielding myself from her lens for all Jack’s followers to see. ‘Take a look at some of the others. Here’s one of Harry Styles getting ready for a concert – that has fifty thousand followers. And here’s a video of you, Jack – you’re lifting weights. Two hundred and five followers. Don’t suppose you know who sneaked that in. Oops, here’s one saying “check out how drunk this girl is” – not nice.’
‘You see,’ I said to justify my non-participation, ‘that’s the issue with apps like this – it’s the privacy thing.’
‘I guess it can get a little nasty,’ Connie admitted, her enthusiasm starting to wane as she came across more content she didn’t like. ‘Up-skirt shots like this and girls staggering out of clubs to be sick in the gutter.’ She frowned then backtracked and replayed the last piece of footage. ‘Is this for real?’ she asked.
Drawn in by her shocked tone, Jack and I looked over her shoulder. There was a prefacing note containing five short words that were already branded on my brain – ‘Catch me if you can’ – then a brief long-distance shot of a girl in uniform walking in the dark. Cut. Next sequence of the girl’s face smiling, close up. Cut. The same girl’s expression changes. Eyes widen, pupils dilate, she opens her mouth to scream. Cut. Final sequence – the girl lies curled up on the back seat of a car. Mouth taped, hands tied behind her back with what looks like cable from a phone charger cutting into her flesh. End of video.
Connie dropped the phone. It clattered on to the table then skidded sideways. Jack caught it before it fell to the floor.
‘That was footage of the guy kidnapping Galina,’ Connie whispered. ‘The bastard filmed it and put it up online for the whole world to see!’
chapter eight
‘She smiled at him,’ I remembered.
It was early Sunday. Jack and I cycled side by side along the bridle path leading to Hereward Ridge on a cold, clear morning. A hoar frost lay on the branches of overhead trees and covered the slopes overlooking the meandering river and ruined abbey below.
‘Galina smiled at the guy who abducted her.’
‘That means she knew him – right?’
Whumph! We hit a tree root that snaked across the track, shot out of our saddles, wobbled and came to an undignified halt.
‘Oops, are you OK?’ Jack asked. I nodded and let my thoughts race on. ‘Galina had arranged to see her abductor and when she realized she was going to be late, she started to run. Then when she did meet him she looked pleased. So, yes, she knew him.’ Setting my bike upright and getting my thoughts in order, I prepared to pedal on.
Jack hopped nimbly back on to his bike. ‘But it’s someone from outside St Jude’s.’
‘Why does it have to be?’
‘Because she left by the main gates. She was out of school grounds when it happened.’
‘Maybe because they knew they’d be caught on CCTV if they met close to the school. If you wanted to keep your relationship with me secret, you wouldn’t meet where there are cameras, would you?’
‘Why would I want to keep us a secret?’ He grinned then whizzed ahead of me along the bumpy track.
‘No, but if you did … ?’
‘OK, we’d meet up in the village, I guess.’
We cycled on through the wintry morning and my brain was brought back to life by the cold wind after yet another sleepless night tossing and turning in my narrow bed. Whispers had filled the room.
Me saying to Galina, ‘Will you come back with me to the sports centre?’
Her saying, ‘Are you crazy? I have more things to do, better things.’
‘Such as?’
‘I meet someone.’ She tilts her head, gives a coy smile. She’s so beautiful it’s unreal.
‘Someone special.’
‘Give me a clue. Is it someone I know?’ Who has she hooked this time with her radiant smile, her lustrous hair, her high cheekbones and bee-stung lips?
‘Of course.’ She’s still smiling, radiating happiness.
‘Who is it? Come on, tell me. We’re friends, remember.’
‘It is secret,’ she says in that throaty, heavily accented voice. ‘I get ready. I meet him. Later I tell you who.’
‘So be good. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ I say in a feeble attempt at humour.
And I hear myself say it again in the darkness, into the emptiness.
‘I want to switch me off,’ I told Jack as the wind chilled our faces and our bodies grew hot under the layers of Tshirts, sweaters and jackets. ‘I wish there was a way to do that.’
‘To forget?’ he guessed.
‘Yes. Remembering is pressure for me, total pressure. I don’t know how much more I can take.’
The only thing I can compare it to, if you’re wondering why I’m caving in like this on what ought to be a simple, getaway-from-it-all bike ride, is when you have a sudden fight with someone you love – your moody boyfriend or girlfriend, your god-awful parents. Emotions run wild, you say things you shouldn’t. It ends with, ‘I hate you!’ You storm off. You slam doors, you run. Then, later, the storm has died down and you’re still trembling, replaying the whole thing word for word, thinking of the things you said or didn’t say, trying in vain to work towards a different ending. It’s that – the remembering and regurgitating the emotion. That’s how life is for me every single minute of every day.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ Jack said, suddenly veering off the main track and swooping across country, down the hill towards the old abbey.
There aren’t many places open in Chartsey Bottom on a Sunday – actually, only the Bridge Inn and the tea shop, which stay open for day trippers all year round. Otherwise the whole place hibernates. Curtains across the windows of stone cottages stay drawn, doors are closed, cars sit in driveways covered in white, sparkling frost.
‘Shall we stop here?’ Jack asked as we passed the Squinting Cat with its hanging sign depicting – you guessed it – a black cat with a squint.
I read the sign on the cafe door – ‘Closed’ – and felt it was a metaphor for all the other closed doors I’d come up against lately. I looked up and down the empty street. ‘No, it’s shut. Let’s carry on.’
‘What about hanging around to see if we can pick up anything about Galina’s meeting with her mystery man from the locals?’
I shook my head. Take a step back, Ripley had told me. Don’t burn yourself out. ‘No, not right now.’
‘So where to?’
‘Ainslee?’
‘OK. Where in Ainslee?’
You have to laugh – I couldn’t do the stepping back thing for more than five seconds. There was always something drawing me in, an itch inside my brain that I could never scratch. ‘Canal. Lock-keeper’s Cottage,’ I replied.
‘This is it,’ I told Jack. ‘I wanted you to see it for yourself, to find out if you get a new angle on things.’
We’d gone down the steps and propped our bikes against the crumbling brick wall then stood on the towpath looking at the remnants of police tape fluttering in the wind. The white tent had been dismantled. The forensic team investigating Scarlett’s death had packed up and gone.
; Jack stood at the edge of the towpath and silently stared down into the black canal water then at the giant beam and blackened cogs that worked the lock. ‘This makes it …’
‘… Real?’
He nodded. ‘You read about a murder and see it on TV, but you don’t really get it – how scared Scarlett must have been, how hard she must have fought …’
‘I know.’ The wind shifted the tape and made it snake towards us, snagging around our ankles as we stood there. ‘We didn’t even know her and look how bad we’re feeling – helpless, desperate, wanting answers but not getting them.’
‘She leaves the party after midnight,’ Jack said, staring into the water and doggedly dredging up our few scraps of knowledge about Scarlett’s death. ‘She’s on CCTV outside The Fleece, close to Ainslee Westgate, talking to a guy, but it turns out we only get the back view. She takes a short cut by the canal. Neighbours hear a racket – two people arguing – but they don’t do anything about it. There are lots of drunks wandering around in the early hours of New Year’s Day. Why be arsed?’
The plastic tape rattled against our legs and Bolt trotted into view, scouting ahead of Jayden, who appeared at the top of the stone steps leading down from the Lock-keeper’s Cottage. He took the steps two at a time, lazily and loosely, with his usual air of defiance.
‘Coincidence, or what,’ he muttered.
‘Definitely a case of “or what”,’ Jack retorted. ‘So, Jayden, how long have you been spying on us?’
‘You’re so funny!’ Jayden sneered. ‘Why would I spy on you? That’s the thing with you kids from St Jude’s – you think you’re the centre of the universe.’
‘How did you know we were here?’
‘It’s a free country. Can’t a guy walk his dog?’
‘Yeah, and can’t Alyssa and I have a private conversation without you sniffing around?’ Jack stooped to untangle the tape from his leg but stood up fast when he came level with Bolt’s bared teeth.
Jayden smiled. ‘Just walking my dog, meeting my mates.’ He looked beyond us to a narrow humped bridge across the canal where three people stood silently watching. ‘Hey, Alex!’ he called.
Alex. This was new. Ripley had told me no promises, but evidently she’d decided to let her chief suspect go after all.
He split off from the other two – Ursula and Tom – and came towards us so that Jack and I were caught in a pincer movement between him and Jayden.
‘You set this up!’ I exclaimed. ‘You saw us ride into Ainslee on our bikes and you followed us!’
‘Chill,’ Jayden muttered. ‘Oh, Alyssa, when will you learn to trust me?’
As Alex drew near, I noted that he looked even more like the walking dead than the last time I’d seen him. His pale skin had taken on a yellowish tinge and there were dark circles under his eyes.
‘What do you want, Alex?’ Jack stepped protectively between us, which left me exposed to Jayden on my right flank.
Jayden left us in doubt a while longer, while Tom and Ursula followed Alex off the bridge in a rearguard action. And, don’t forget, Bolt was growling and baring his teeth, ready to snap at our ankles.
‘You want answers, don’t you?’ Jack challenged Alex without getting a response. ‘You think Alyssa can come up with a magic solution to how Scarlett died?’
Alex didn’t reply. He just stared at me with the dead look in his eyes.
‘One step at a time – she got you out of police custody, didn’t she?’
‘Alex got himself out,’ Jayden argued. ‘He stuck with what he knew, told them the truth. They had sod-all to go on.’
‘Except for the prints on the murder weapon,’ Jack reminded them.
‘Yeah, along with Alex’s dad’s prints, plus other sets that they can’t match up with anyone they know,’ Jayden told us. ‘Sure the weapon came from the JD workshop but it’s no more than circumstantial evidence.’
‘Anyway, cool – you’re in the clear.’ I was relieved and I let it show.
Alex’s brain clicked into gear and he gave the briefest of nods. I think I even heard the word, ‘Thanks,’ slide out from between clenched teeth.
‘Come on, you guys.’ Ursula pushed her way past Alex until she stood in the middle of things. ‘Why are we giving these two a hard time?’
‘Because we can,’ Jayden grunted.
Bolt padded along the very edge of the towpath, up and down, up and down, staring at the water.
‘What I mean is, at least Alyssa’s on the case – why else would she be here?’ Ursula wondered.
Tom agreed. ‘We’re all on the same side, working together.’
‘So what have you found out – anything new?’ Jack backed down from the stand-off with Jayden to liaise with Tom instead.
‘Not much, except we found out that Sammy Beckett lives in that house opposite.’ Tom pointed across the canal to a small end-of-terrace house with a high fence that had graffiti sprayed all over it. ‘He said the cops have been all over him like a rash because someone told them that in a previous lifetime he’d dated Scarlett.’
‘Now who would that “someone” be?’ Jayden pretended to wonder but stared right at me.
What was it with him, that he was so hostile? Was it genetic, like it was with Connie, or was it learned? Would I ever work it out?
‘Sammy said he was interviewed by a Sergeant Owen,’ Ursula explained. ‘It turns out he had an alibi for the time of Scarlett’s murder.’
‘He was with a girl,’ Tom added. ‘From St Jude’s, as it happens.’
‘Who?’ Jack and I demanded in the same breath. That one short word came across as, ‘Astonishing, a girl from our high-class school going out with a kid from the local comp – and pigs might fly!’
Jayden let out something between a snort and a laugh then kicked a stone into the canal. Bolt crouched and looked as if he was about to jump in after it but then thought better of it.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean …’
‘We all know what you meant,’ Jayden interrupted. ‘But get this. Plain, ordinary Sammy Beckett who lives in a terraced house and goes to Ainslee Comp is currently hooked up with a member of the aristocracy.’
I stared at him and racked my brains.
‘Work it out, mastermind.’
‘Eugenie?’ I queried. She was the only titled girl I knew who currently attended St Jude’s. Daughter of Sir Roger and Lady Mary Clifford, whose bloodline went back to the Tudors, whose ancestral pile was Farfield Court, ten miles outside Ainslee, in the heart of the Cotswolds.
‘It was never going to be Sammy Beckett,’ Alex told me as he and I strolled along the towpath.
We’d left the others huddled by the lock and taken a walk together to pool what facts we knew and for me to hear how the cops had treated him. Ripley had been cool, he told me. Owen was the one who had given him a hard time. Good cop, bad cop.
‘He wanted to know what I’d done after I left my uncle’s party on New Year’s Eve.’
‘He would, yeah.’ I’d spent a lot of time wondering the same thing.
‘So I told him.’
‘Are you happy to share?’
‘I went home. I’m a saddo, Alyssa – I went home before midnight and watched Jools Holland welcome in the new year on TV.’
‘No witnesses – that’s a pity. OK, why leave the party early?’
‘Saddo again. You want to know the truth? I was missing Scarlett. I didn’t want to be there without her.’
‘So why not leave your uncle’s and hotfoot it over to her?’
‘My Uncle Chris lives way out in the country, miles from anywhere. I’m on foot, I’ve got no spare cash for a taxi. By the time I reach civilization it’s way too late to walk the extra distance into Ainslee. So I go home and veg out in front of the telly.’
‘And, anyway, I hear you’d had a fight?’
He frowned. ‘Yeah. She said I was a wuss for not standing up to Dad. She was so mad she said not to try calling or texting.
We’d only been going out for a week. I didn’t know what to do.’
‘Yeah, I get it. But listen, Hooper and I – it just so happens we found Will’s phone,’ I informed him then deliberately paused to let this sink in. I waited a long time but all I got was the closed, dead look from Alex. ‘Don’t you want to know what was on it?’
‘A ton of messages from Scarlett,’ he muttered.
‘You knew she was texting him and he wasn’t texting back? Why did she need to see him – have you any idea?’
‘She told me he’d kept some stuff that belonged to her and she wanted it back.’
‘What kind of stuff?’
There was another long pause – enough time for me to turn round and see that Bolt was following us, tongue lolling, breath forming clouds of steam in the freezing air. Suddenly he was a comedy dog, the bruiser bulldog from Tom and Jerry, wheezy and bandy-legged.
‘Some pictures.’
‘Pictures of them when they were going out?’ I had nasty flashes of ‘me’ in a red bikini, which I had to block in order to carry on with the conversation. ‘They were personal?’
Alex nodded. ‘They belonged to Scarlett. Will should’ve deleted them.’
‘But he refused. That’s why she wanted to see him – to persuade him?’ Another lightning flash – this time of Alex and Scarlett sitting together in Starbucks at lunchtime on New Year’s Eve.
Alex stands up and starts to yell.
‘At Scarlett?’ I ask waitress Lucy.
‘No,’ she says. ‘At another kid who came along.’ He says something that makes Alex jump up and swear.
‘What did he look like, this new kid?’
Lucy doesn’t get a good look at him, she doesn’t have any useful details except one.
‘Could you tell what colour his hair was?’ I ask.
‘Fair,’ Lucy says, frowning as she remembers. ‘Yeah, definitely blond.’
There you go – it was ages since I’d had the brief talk in Starbucks but, as you know, nothing fades. I mean – not a single thing. Tall kid wearing a big scarf and grey knitted hat, blond.
‘So you bumped into Will by accident on New Year’s Eve?’ I prompted Alex. ‘You want to tell me what you said to him?’