Killing You Softly

by Lucy Carver

  ‘Thanks,’ Hooper said. ‘Now I get it. And you’re right – it’s big.’

  I never knew Marco could sing like that,’ I confess to Hooper as we leave the music room with the aria from Aida ringing in my ears.

  ‘I expect there’s a lot about Marco that we don’t know,’ Hooper suggests.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like where he went to school before he came to St Jude’s, how big is his allowance, plus why he hates his dad.’

  Hooper’s carrying his cello, walking ahead through the car park, thinking far faster than me.

  Does Marco hate his dad? If he does, is it important? Yes, he hates football, but is that the same thing?

  Hooper shrugs. ‘Please yourself. I just thought it would be worth looking at. I’ll do it for you if you like.’

  I welcome the offer. I don’t think there’s much in it though.

  ‘You suspected Marco all along, didn’t you?’ I whispered.

  ‘That he killed Scarlett and kidnapped Galina? I was working on the premise, yeah, but I didn’t want to come out and say it until I was certain.’

  Hooper’s laid-back answer made me feel even guiltier than before. ‘I’m sorry I tried to shut you out – it was the others …’

  ‘The Black Widow.’

  ‘Connie, yeah. Shhh!’ My gang of girls stood guard at the end of the corridor and I didn’t want them to overhear. I thought of Hooper beavering away, checking Marco’s personal history. ‘How far had you got?’

  The frown had gone, his head was up and he was pacing round the small room. ‘OK, I found out that Marco travelled around Europe after the fight with his dad – you know, when he stole the boat and went for a joyride. He didn’t stay in any one place for more than a week. First Paris, then back to Monaco, but his dad kicked him out of the apartment again and he had to stay with a friend. Then he headed to Rome to see his grandparents and he was in the gossip mags – pictures of him dating a Brazilian millionaire’s daughter, etcetera.’ Hooper listed Marco’s movements on his fingers, methodical and precise. His energy was up now that he was back in the loop.

  ‘Hooper, sit down,’ I pleaded. ‘You’re making me dizzy.’

  He ignored me and went on pacing. ‘Rome was early August then he went to Tuscany to his uncle’s house.’

  ‘Tuscany is probably where he met Scarlett.’

  ‘Quick flings with a tourist or two then on to Greece, to Crete for a couple of weeks sailing round the island in a luxury yacht and then that was the end of Marco’s summer holidays. After that, we get London and a language school in Kensington. He did a course for a whole term, got invited to a couple of film premieres while he was there and lots of parties. Still no contact with his dad.’

  ‘Wow, Hooper, this is genius!’

  He stopped pacing and beamed at me. ‘Christmas, Marco was still in London even though the language course was finished. So, anyway, it was harder to keep track of him between the end of last term and the beginning of this.’

  I nodded. ‘It means it’s at least possible that he got in touch with Scarlett again, maybe even arranged to meet her here in the Cotswolds.’

  ‘But she wouldn’t tell Alex about that,’ Hooper said. ‘We’re relying on guesswork now, but at least that puts Marco in the right place at the right time.’

  ‘Yeah, Hooper – thanks. This is going to be so useful.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  ‘You spent a lot of time on this.’

  ‘Yeah, but it was an interesting challenge.’

  ‘Only you would say that,’ I laughed. ‘But then you’re a born storyteller and sometimes life turns out stranger than fiction.’

  ‘So maybe I’ll quit writing novels and be a journalist instead.’

  We were winding down, still waiting for Ripley to arrive. ‘What do you say we tell the others what you just told me?’ I suggested.

  We left my room and went down the corridor, but before we reached the top of the stairs Connie broke away from the others and rushed to meet us. ‘It’s weird – Charlie hasn’t come back yet,’ she said with a worried frown.

  ‘Where did she go?’ Hooper asked.

  ‘To find a member of staff. I don’t know what happened – they should have shown up by now.’

  ‘Unless she couldn’t find anyone in the staff quarters and she had to run down the drive to Saint Sam’s house.’

  ‘Or else the member of staff on duty told her stay over there and not come back in case Marco saw them.’

  Connie, Hooper and I tried to work out what might have happened to Charlie.

  ‘Wait,’ Hooper said, suddenly remembering. ‘When I opened my door to come over here, I just missed a couple of people running downstairs ahead of me. I heard them, but I didn’t see them.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ Connie groaned. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘I didn’t know it was important.’

  Charlie and Marco. We were so stupid. ‘She went up and warned him.’ I spoke quietly with a sinking heart.

  ‘If she did, she’s a stupid airhead.’ Connie strode ahead to raise the alarm. ‘Eugenie, Zara – guess what. Charlie turned traitor. She went and told Marco the cops were on their way!’

  ‘We think!’ I stressed the second word. ‘We don’t know for sure.’

  From the landing window we strained to see out across the courtyard.

  ‘His light’s still on,’ Zara reported.

  ‘But Hooper heard footsteps,’ Connie said. ‘God knows what Charlie was thinking.’

  ‘She wasn’t,’ Zara muttered. ‘Charlie is totally fixated on Marco. She’d do anything to keep him out of trouble.’

  That was it – we weren’t waiting any longer for the cops to show up.

  The girls went out in pairs – me and Connie, Eugenie and Zara – while Hooper set off in his own direction to find the runaways.

  ‘I’ll let Justine know what’s happening,’ he promised as we went our separate ways. ‘She’s the member of staff on duty tonight.’

  ‘OK, but be careful,’ I told him. I didn’t have time for any more, since Connie was ahead of me, running through the darkness towards the car park where we found Marco’s car safely parked.

  Connie peered in through the window then tried the door handle. The Aston Martin was locked, as you’d expect.

  ‘So they left on foot,’ I decided. Seemingly the car had been too obvious a choice and the police could easily have tracked it down.

  I pictured Charlie and Marco running down the stairs from the boys’ dorm, across the quad and straight out on to the lawn leading down to the lake. They probably had a flashlight with them, but there would have been no time to pick up anything else. ‘We need Justine to get here quick, and we need a torch,’ I said.

  ‘Duh-dah!’ Connie slipped her hand in her pocket and held up a mini flashlight attached to her key ring. It gave a narrow, bright beam of light.

  ‘Let’s try the lake first then the footpath through the woods. We’ll be OK with this flashlight and it’s the quickest way out of here on to the Chartsey road.’

  We ran together into the darkness, hearing the frost-covered grass crunch underfoot until we came to the edge of the lake. ‘Charlie’s an idiot!’ Connie said through gritted teeth. She shone the beam along the tall reed bed. A hidden creature rustled through the spiky undergrowth and slid with a hollow plop into the black water. ‘Didn’t she listen to a word Zara said?’

  ‘Yes, but she didn’t believe it could be Marco. She still doesn’t.’

  ‘And now look,’ Connie groaned. ‘They could be anywhere. He could lose it with her, do anything to her … She could be at the bottom of the lake – anywhere!’

  With a shuddering intake of breath, I turned away from the water. ‘No. Let’s suppose – let’s hope that Charlie is useful to him. He wants to keep her with him for the time being. Look – two sets of footprints!’ Grabbing Connie’s torch, I directed the light back up the slope to pick out a curved t
rail across the frost-covered lawn. I tracked it down and round the far side of the lake – definitely two sets of prints heading towards the trees.

  Connie reacted swiftly. She set off ahead of me again, steering wide of the reeds and taking up the trail at the edge of the woods. By this time we were roughly five hundred metres from the school buildings. We could hear nothing except our own breathing and see nothing in the dark shadows ahead.

  ‘What do we do? Do we follow them?’ I asked.

  ‘We try,’ Connie decided. ‘Come on – they can’t be more than ten minutes ahead of us. They’re aiming to get out on to the road – we can take a short cut away from the path.’

  A short cut? Jesus, did Connie have a clear idea of how we would do this? Did she know how dark it would be once we stepped out of the faint moonlight into the shadows?

  ‘Come on, Alyssa!’ Snatching her torch back, she ignored the narrow pathway and plunged off to her right, stumbling over tree roots and dropping down into an unseen ditch. She swore and clambered back out.

  ‘Your hand,’ I pointed out as the beam of light flashed across her upper body.

  The right one was grazed and bleeding.

  Connie swore again.

  ‘Let’s keep to the path.’

  ‘No, we have to reach the road before Marco and Charlie. This is the quickest route.’

  ‘But only if we don’t lose our way in the trees,’ I argued.

  ‘I’m going to try it.’ Losing patience, Connie plunged on through the darkness, her weak beam of light picking out low branches and tangles of thorns and dead wood that lay in her path.

  No way, I thought in the heat of the moment. I’ll stick to the track – that way at least I’ll stay in one piece.

  So I split from Connie and followed the path, every now and again picking up recent scuff marks in amongst the rotting leaves, then an actual footprint in a patch of unfrozen mud – the size and shape of an Ugg boot. I looked up and to my right in the direction Connie had taken. Should I call out and tell her what I’d spotted? Was she still within hearing distance?

  Before I could make up my mind, I sensed a movement in the shadows to the side of the path. I froze and waited. Had I imagined it?

  No – there was a pale shape close to the ground, moving away from the track deep into the trees. Maybe a deer or a fox creeping between some dark bushes. Something living, at least.

  I followed it to make sure, stepping stealthily, trying not to snap twigs underfoot.

  The shape stopped moving, seemed to be listening – too big for a fox and too pale. Not swift or agile enough for a deer.

  I stopped when it stopped, held my breath, waited.

  It crept on, seemingly without purpose, bending back on itself towards the track again. It went slowly on all-fours, head hanging, back arched. Then it collapsed flat on the ground and let out a groan.

  I ran towards it, fell down on my knees and spoke. ‘Charlie – it’s me, Alyssa. Can you hear me?’

  She groaned again. There was blood on her cheek and rips in her jacket where thorns had caught.

  ‘What happened, Charlie? Where’s Marco?’

  Struggling on to her knees, she let her hair fall across her face. ‘I fell and hurt my ankle. I told him to go ahead without me.’

  I pushed her blood-streaked hair back and made her look at me. ‘He left you here?’

  ‘I told him to go. I knew the cops would get him if he stayed to help me.’

  ‘The ankle – is it broken?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t put any weight on it so I had to crawl.’

  OK, she’d betrayed us, but she was suffering for it. ‘Oh, Charlie,’ I murmured.

  Angrily she shoved me away. ‘These aren’t tears – I’m not crying,’ she protested. ‘I’m not sorry I helped Marco to get away either, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m actually glad!’

  For Christ’s sake, the deluded girl had just aided and abetted a dangerous psycho and she wasn’t apologizing. My pity for her vanished and a big part of me now wanted to leave her there to find her own way home while I picked up Marco’s trail again.

  ‘What was the plan?’ I asked. ‘How far did you think you’d get?’

  ‘There was no plan. After I warned Marco the cops were on their way, we just ran. And, no, he didn’t force me to go with him – it was my idea, I wanted to.’

  ‘So I’ll help you get back home,’ I said wearily. I slung Charlie’s arm round my shoulder and hauled her upright, pointing us in what I hoped was the direction of the school. Then I took a deep breath and yelled out Connie’s name.’

  ‘Over here!’ came a distant shout.

  ‘I found Charlie. She can’t walk.’

  ‘Keep talking.’ Connie’s voice grew stronger. ‘I’ll follow the sound of your voice.’

  ‘It looks like she broke her ankle, or maybe it’s just a bad sprain. Either way, I can’t leave her here.’ I heard more noises as Connie drew near – her feet trampling through undergrowth until at last I saw the beam of light wobbling towards us. ‘What do you want to do – come with us or go on?’

  ‘Do you even have to ask?’ she muttered, directing the light at Charlie’s tear-stained face. She didn’t say anything, but her anger filled the silence and I knew that at this point she was deaf to common sense.

  ‘I’m not sorry that I helped Marco!’ Charlie repeated, more defiant than ever.

  ‘There’s no point asking her any questions because she doesn’t have the answers,’ I told Connie. ‘She didn’t even know where they were headed – they just took off together.’

  ‘Then he dumped her. Charming.’

  ‘Come or go?’ I repeated.

  ‘Go,’ she said sharply. And that was it – I warned Connie to be careful then Charlie and I staggered back towards St Jude’s while Connie headed deeper into the woods.

  chapter twelve

  It seemed to take forever. Charlie leaned heavily on me, groaning and hopping all the way. It turned out she was a person with a low pain threshold.

  ‘I’m never going to make it,’ she complained as we emerged from under the trees on to the lawn. ‘My ankle hurts like hell.’

  ‘No way can I carry you,’ I warned, looking beyond the lake to the lights of St Jude’s where the people I could rely on – Eugenie, Hooper, Zara and the rest – were waiting for the police.

  ‘Then leave me here and get help,’ she pleaded. ‘Go, Alyssa – find a couple of guys. Will and Luke – they’re strong.’

  ‘OK, but don’t move,’ I agreed. ‘Don’t double back and try to catch up with Marco.’

  ‘How could I even if I wanted to?’ she whimpered. She wasn’t sorry, she wasn’t grateful or gracious and she definitely didn’t care that a killer was on the loose.

  I gave up on her and left her sitting on the cold ground, propped against a tree trunk. If I sprinted, I could cover the ground in under three minutes, tell the guys to come and fetch Charlie then find out from Hooper, Eugenie and Zara the latest on the cops and their failure to show.

  Where’s Ripley? I asked myself as I ran. Why am I not hearing sirens, seeing flashing blue lights?

  I was glancing over my shoulder, not looking where I was going when I crashed into Hooper at the edge of the car park. I almost knocked him off his feet.

  He reeled back against the nearest parked car – Marco’s Aston Martin as it happened.

  ‘Sorry!’ I gasped. ‘Hooper, listen to me – I found Charlie in the woods. She hurt her ankle. We need to send a couple of guys to fetch her back – Will and Luke maybe.’

  ‘Or I could.’ He sounded offended that I hadn’t included him.

  ‘Yeah, course – you find either of the others. Grab a torch. Charlie will be waiting for you on the edge of the wood, close to the footpath leading down to the road.’

  Nodding eagerly, Hooper set off round the front of the main school building towards the quad. His running style was so jerky and uncoordinated that even now it made me
smile. I hadn’t had time to ask him whether or not he’d alerted Justine and if Saint Sam or Molly Wilson had any idea what was taking place in their school grounds. Maybe that was what I should do next – run down the drive to the principal’s house. Or then again no – I should get back on Marco’s trail instead of leaving it all to Connie.

  Yes, that was my decision – to go back right away and discover how Connie was doing.

  I ground gravel under the ball of my foot as I spun round, but I hadn’t even got into my stride when the passenger door of the Aston Martin flew open and slammed into me.

  The impact of the heavy, swinging door sent me staggering against the side of the car under one of the orange lights that stayed on all through the night. I bent double, disorientated and struggling to breathe. Then I felt a strong hand round my wrist, and found myself dragged towards the car and yanked inside. Marco leaned across me and slammed the door.

  Fear jolted through my whole body like an electric shock. Marco must have changed his plan after he’d abandoned Charlie in the wood. He’d obviously backtracked, gone up to his room to collect the car keys, got back to the car and sat inside in time to watch me sprint up the hill and talk to Hooper. He’d ducked out of sight until I was alone again, then he’d flung the door open to stop me in my tracks.

  Now he sat next to me, staring straight ahead.

  In plain sight. Taunting and mocking, telling me he loved me when I was angry, saying how disappointed he was that I missed what was there, right under my nose.

  Who rattled at my window in the middle of the night?

  Marco.

  Who put the fake photos on Facebook?

  Marco.

  Who killed Cock Robin?

  ‘A metaphor, a warning,’ Eugenie suggests. ‘Dead bird sings no more. It represents the fall of something beautiful, the ending of a brief life. Soaring in the sky one moment then dead and cold the next.’

  Marco killed the robin and left it on my windowsill.

  He stared ahead. I grabbed the handle and tried to open the door. It was locked.

  ‘I’, said the Sparrow

  ‘With my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin.’