by Lucy Carver
‘Lame, Luke,’ I sighed. ‘So unless you have something useful to say …’
‘… Which you don’t,’ Zara pointed out.
‘I know – you want me to butt out.’
‘Come on, let’s go,’ BWS told him, grabbing his hand and heading for the door.
Time to spoon-feed the guy some lunch, with Eton mess for dessert.
The clock was ticking; the hours were passing. I was waiting for my friend Ripley to touch base with me about Galina’s tie.
It turned out she was busy on the Monday afternoon and sent Sergeant Owen instead.
He tutted when I presented him with the latest vital pieces of evidence, took a pen out of his breast pocket and stuck it through the noose of the tie. ‘You didn’t have a sealable plastic bag available?’
‘Not at the time, no.’
I’d been working in my room when he knocked at the door and brought in the sour, stale smell of tobacco smoke. Don’t get the wrong impression – we weren’t alone. Molly had shown him up to the girls’ dorm and stayed while Jimmy and I exchanged information.
‘Your fingerprints will be all over this. It’s bound to affect what forensics can do with it.’
I swallowed hard then gave him a muttered sorry-I-didn’t-think apology.
‘Likewise with the Post-it notes,’ he commented when I handed them to him.
‘PLEASE HELP ME’.
‘You keep missing what’s under your nose.’
‘I love you when you’re angry, Alyssa.’
‘Killing You Softly’
‘Catch me if you can.’
They pile in thick and fast. He’s creeping me out, breathing the same air, reading my mind.
Sergeant Owen put the contaminated evidence in separate bags and sealed them. He did everything deftly and quickly, but with a bored air, as if he’d sealed too many bags, collected too much evidence and wished to God he’d taken early retirement and hightailed it off to one of the Costas to sit under a sun umbrella. ‘Any more contact from your stalker since you found these?’ he asked.
‘Not so far.’ Though these days I didn’t turn a corner or walk down one of these narrow corridors without expecting him to jump out, armed and dangerous, from behind the arras. Shadowing me, leaving me red clues and killing me softly, setting me challenges that I couldn’t live up to.
‘Looks like it’s gone quiet, then,’ Jimmy said.
Until the next time. I took a deep breath and flicked a glance in Molly’s direction. Help!
She stepped right in, but didn’t take us in the direction in which I wanted to go. ‘The school principal and I have discussed the level of security we have in place here at St Jude’s,’ she began. ‘We have security cameras covering most of the school grounds and some CCTV coverage of the inside of the building, but it’s not comprehensive. There are no cameras in the dormitories for instance, or in the individual classrooms.’
‘No armed guards protecting the students with semi-automatics,’ Owen commented drily. That was his main quality, I realized – dryness. Dry, wrinkled skin; dry sense of humour; dry and matter-of-fact investigation of even the most gruesome murder. A wizened, wheezy jockey in faded, tobacco-stained racing silks sprung to mind and the image stuck.
Molly chose not to react to his tasteless wisecrack. ‘Obviously we’re worried about Alyssa’s safety, but we’d like to know your opinion on security at St Jude’s.’
‘You mean – how much danger is she really in?’ Patting his pocket as if checking to see if he had his cigarettes with him, Sergeant Owen shrugged. ‘Are you asking me if you should be on the safe side and send her home?’
‘No way!’ I protested. I’d been here before over Lily and Paige, when Saint Sam had muscled in and ordered Aunt Olivia to take me out of school. Back then I’d overcome my fears, resisted and won the battle, but it might not work a second time. With police backing him, Sam could easily persuade my aunt that taking me out of harm’s way was the best thing to do. ‘I mean – no, I’m staying here,’ I said as calmly as I could, though talk of danger made my heart race.
‘You heard the girl,’ Owen told Molly.
‘So my next question, in the light of Galina’s abduction—’ Molly began.
‘If she has been abducted,’ Owen interrupted.
‘What? So you’re saying she staged the video shots of her lying tied up on the back seat of a car?’ was where I came in again – this time, less calmly.
‘It’s not unheard of.’
‘Why would you even think that?’
‘One – Galina clearly wasn’t happy here and faking her own kidnap would be a way of making a dramatic exit. Two, she could follow this up with a fake ransom demand from ridiculously wealthy daddy, payment of which would fund her through a couple of high-roller seasons in sunny South Africa, California, wherever.’
Now he was pissing me off big time. ‘Except there’s been no ransom demand. And she wasn’t just pretending to be scared in the video and in the note I just showed you – her shaky handwriting shows she was actually terrified.’
‘No demand for money,’ he agreed with a quick snap and crackle of his finger joints. ‘Not yet.’
I kept at the dried-up little detective sergeant like Bolt gnawing on a bone. ‘And what about Anatoly Radkin – wasn’t he planning to offer a reward for information? Did he do what he said he would?’
‘Yes, he went ahead and did that but to date no one has come forward. Anyway, I hear he’s got a lot of other things on his mind.’
Oligarch things like buying oil pipelines and fracking for shale gas, I guessed.
Jimmy the Jockey didn’t enlighten us.
‘So back to my original question,’ Molly insisted. ‘Can you recommend any practical way in which we could offer Alyssa more protection? Could you allocate her a liaison officer, for example?’
‘That’s not my call.’ Jimmy picked up the bags containing evidence and got ready to leave. ‘You want me to put it to the boss?’
‘Or else Dr Webb will.’ Molly opened the door for him. ‘Perhaps that’s the best way forward, Sergeant Owen – let me put it to my boss to put to your boss.’
chapter ten
Hours rolled into days and nothing happened, except that Hooper read through the Italian gossip mags online and found that early last summer Marco’s dad, Paolo Conti, had publicly rowed with his only son after said son went awol with a very expensive boat that he had moored in the harbour in Monaco. Footballing Family in Major Bust Up over Boat – that sort of thing. And I didn’t get my liaison officer for the same Catch 22 reason as before – nasty notes and dead birds don’t constitute a crime and until a crime had been committed I couldn’t get police protection, blah blah.
Oh, and it turned out I was wrong about Anatoly being busy extracting gas from the earth’s crust. Actually, he was divorcing Salomea. Hooper picked this up on Twitter – a ‘friend of a friend’ of Salomea Radkin tweeted how he’d discovered she was having an affair with his missing daughter’s bodyguard so he’d thrown her out of the Knightsbridge mansion. Salomea was traumatized, devastated, humiliated, heartbroken, etcetera.
Jack snuck into my room late on Tuesday night and I felt safe. That was one small period of calm on a stormy sea. Gentle eddies lapped around the bed as we lay arm in arm, looking out at the stars.
But Wednesday came and no one had moved a step closer towards finding Galina.
A calm before the storm, but when the storm did hit the waves rose and crashed down, rose and crashed, until they engulfed me.
‘Where’s Jack?’ Hooper asked me at midday on Wednesday. I’d just come out of the pool next door to the sports centre after a thirty-length attempt at clearing my head and keeping fit, and was heading for the changing room.
‘He cycled into the Bottoms to post a letter. Why?’
‘Nothing. I just wanted to talk to him about possibly tracing that video – geeky techie stuff.’
‘Anyway, I’m sorry. Like I said,
Jack went to the village.’
Hooper behaved as if he wanted to stay and chat, whereas I clearly wanted to grab a towel and get changed.
‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked.
‘Yeah – why?’
‘Because I thought I saw him when I caught the bus back from town. Unless you tell me he’s got a double, Jack was definitely outside Greenlea Shopping Centre. It looked like he was waiting to meet someone.’
‘So he changed his mind.’ Nothing about my conversation with Hooper was ringing alarm bells so I smiled and said goodbye.
Reluctantly he stood to one side, giving me his slow, shy smile.
‘See you at lunch,’ I said.
Lunch came and went. I chatted with Eugenie about Sammy Beckett (‘He’s so o o o cute when you get to know him!’) and her latest singing lesson with Bruno (‘I hate that man – he’s totally anal!’) and with Charlie about Marco. She was still smitten. (‘He’s got what they call a Roman nose – you know, long and straight. Don’t you think he looks like Michelangelo’s statue of David outside the Uffizi Gallery? Oh, and he has eyes that melt you every time he looks at you!’)
Puh-lease, I thought as I ate my couscous and roasted vegetables.
So where was Jack? I began to look at my watch and wonder.
‘Where’s Jack?’ Shirley Welford echoed my thoughts at two thirty as I came out of my French conversation lesson with Justine. I’d been trying to decide whether or not to cycle into Ainslee to see if I could track him down. He wasn’t answering his phone or responding to my texts.
‘I have no idea,’ I told Jack’s maths teacher.
‘We were meant to have a tutorial at two. We’d changed the time once already.’
‘I know. I’m getting worried about him,’ I told her.
But not too worried, not yet. After all, this didn’t fit the pattern of recent scary events. Jack wasn’t the gorgeous daughter of a Russian billionaire, for a start. And he might be the brainiest person I know, but he didn’t have total recall like Scarlett and me. As I set off to cycle into town, I ran through the possibilities – Jack’s phone had broken or was out of battery. He’d forgotten about the rearranged tutorial with Shirley and had taken it into his head to ride on to Ainslee to collect some new tennis shoes he’d ordered through the sports shop in Greenlea Shopping Centre.
But no – Jack wouldn’t forget his tutorial. That would be totally out of character. So maybe there was something wrong. I pedalled hard along the lane into the Bottoms, rode quickly down Main Street, waving at Tom who was defrosting his car windscreen in his drive, then speeding on along the long, straight road running parallel to Hereward Ridge towards Ainslee. When I came to the first set of lights on the outskirts of town, I checked my watch again. Three fifteen. All being well, I should make it to Greenlea by half past.
I would’ve done if some lowlife driver hadn’t ignored the cycle lane and cut right across me in order to park on double yellows outside a tatty betting shop. I braked and narrowly missed crashing into the back of him as I put both feet on the ground and toppled awkwardly into the kerb. The car was a big old black Merc, carelessly abandoned kerbside by a driver who swung open his door and left it hanging as he dashed in to place his bet. I didn’t think it was anyone I recognized, though it was hard to tell because he was wearing a black hoodie and I only saw the side and back views.
I clocked the reg, thought about following the guy into the shop for a quick confrontation then decided against it. Finding Jack was more important so I picked myself up, dusted myself down and cycled on towards the shopping centre.
No Bikes. No Skateboards. No Smoking. No Spitting. I invented the last one, but there were still a lot of rules displayed on overhead notices at the main entrance to Greenlea. I parked my bike in a secure rack and walked up the gradual slope into the centre, past the old department store on the right. I turned the corner and walked on past Monsoon towards SportTec beyond.
‘Hi,’ I said to the young guy at the cash desk just inside the entrance to the sports shop. ‘Have you sold a pair of Nike tennis shoes, size eleven to a tall, good-looking guy?’
‘Today?’ asked the kid in the black Ralph Lauren polo shirt.
‘Yeah – around lunchtime.’
‘No,’ came the grunted reply. There was no apology, no flicker of interest from the salesperson.
Irritated, I walked across the shop, between a rail of North Face jackets and a rack of hiking boots and came to a second sales point where I asked the same question.
‘Size eleven, tall guy, really fit?’ the girl at the desk echoed. ‘Actually, yeah, I have. They were on order. I texted a message to say they’d arrived and the customer called in here about half an hour later to collect them.’
‘What time was that exactly?’
‘Let me think.’ The girl wrinkled her nose. She was fair-haired, pretty and petite, with a gymnast’s slim build. The energy and concentration she put into trying to answer my query was in direct contrast to the Ralph Lauren kid. ‘It would be after twelve but before twelve thirty because twelve thirty is when I went on my lunch break. And it was after twelve because my manager finished work then and it was definitely after he left.’
‘OK, OK.’ I stopped her before she had chance to pinpoint the exact second that Jack had collected the shoes. ‘Did you happen to notice where he went after he left the shop?’
‘Actually yes,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘I mean, this guy was about my age and he was drop-dead gorgeous. Sorry,’ she blushed. ‘I didn’t say that last bit – my manager would kill me.’
‘So?’ I said brusquely, judging the poor kid harshly for ogling my guy, my Jack.
‘So – what?’
I cleared my throat to give me time to get over my small spike of jealousy. ‘So please could you tell me where he went from here?’
‘OK, so he stopped in the entrance to answer his phone and talk to someone called Jayden.’
‘Jayden? You’re sure?’
‘Yeah, I was at the sales point by the exit at the time, where Josh is right now, so I heard everything. Your guy’s face went all serious and he listened for ages then he said he’d meet Jayden at half twelve by the main entrance to the shopping centre. You see, I was right about the time …’
‘Thanks,’ I said, hurrying away. ‘Really, thanks for remembering all that – it’s a big help. Thanks …’
Success! I’d got over the fact that a stranger had a crush on my boyfriend and had pinpointed Jayden as my next point of contact.
So I pulled out my phone, but there was no signal until I came out of the shopping centre, then I quickly called Jack’s number (still not answering) and then Jayden’s.
‘What do you want?’ he grunted when I told him who it was.
I plunged straight in. ‘Do you happen to know where Jack is?’
‘No, why should I?’
‘Did you meet him earlier?’
‘Maybe. Why?’
‘Jayden, why does talking to you always have to be like getting blood from a stone? Just tell me – did you meet Jack, what was it about and where did he go afterwards?’
‘We met, we talked about a stolen car, he left.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘At home.’
‘OK, meet me in the Squinting Cat in twenty minutes.’
Dusk was drawing in as I cycled into the Bottoms, so I was glad of my high-viz jacket, which I’d slung on over my uniform before I left St Jude’s. It was cold, damp and foggy – the worst kind of winter day, the sort that gets into your bones and cuts down visibility to under twenty metres.
Would Jayden be waiting for me inside the cafe or was he going to be a no-show? I couldn’t tell from the outside because of the condensation trickling down the original Georgian window.
Ding-a-ling – the bell tinkled as I opened the door.
‘Hey,’ Jayden said from a quiet corner. He sat with a mug of hot chocolate topped with pink and white marshmallows
– very un-Jaydenlike, but then he was always one to surprise me.
‘What’s this about a stolen car?’ I sat down breathlessly. This was what I’d been turning over in my mind on my cycle ride back to the village. ‘You’re not suggesting Jack’s involved?’
‘Chill, Alyssa. The cops haven’t arrested your boyfriend, at least not as far as I know.’
‘So just tell me – why did you two meet up? I already figured out it wasn’t something trivial like fixing the next five-a-side match because Jack wouldn’t have missed his tutorial for that. And what does a stolen car have to do with anything?’
At last Jayden got down to specifics. ‘Black Merc, zero-three model, nicked from Alex’s dad’s workshop last night.’
‘Registration number YJK03PSL?’ I already knew the answer would be yes.
‘Jesus Christ, so now you’re psychic,’ he muttered.
‘No. The guy who stole the car was the same guy who cut me up and blocked the cycle lane when I rode into town looking for Jack. And no – I didn’t get a chance to take a close look so I can’t say I recognized him. But it’s the same car, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. Guy breaks in through a door facing on to the yard at the back of the workshop, jemmies it open. Door not connected to an alarm system so guy heads for office, takes the Merc key off a hook, puts key in ignition, gets it in gear and points the car at the front window and drives straight through it. Glass everywhere. Neighbour opposite dials nine-nine-nine – too late to stop the guy driving off towards town.’
‘Carry on,’ I urged when Jayden stopped to stare suspiciously at a customer who stood up ready to leave. ‘I don’t see the connection with Jack.’
‘There wasn’t one at first. Cops come to JD’s to take details, Alex’s dad feels sick about losing a customer’s car so he cooperates. Cops don’t seem hopeful about solving the crime; they leave. Then Alex finds a note stuck on the notice board.’
‘A lime-green Post-it note?’ I was remembering the note on my locker door and inside Galina’s tie.
‘No, for once you’re wrong.’ Jayden said. ‘This was written on the back of a JD invoice form. So Alex comes to me with the note because he doesn’t know what else to do. It’s covered in scrawly writing, starting with “FAO Jack Cavendish”. Alex asks me, what do we do? Do we hand it over to Jack? He tells me he’s had it up to here with the cops lately so he doesn’t want to be the one making decisions.’