The Death and Life of Eleanor Parker_An absolutely gripping mystery novel

by Kerry Wilkinson

  It sounds suspiciously embellished, the type of story that has a kernel of truth at its core but which has been expanded over time.

  She’s only teasing but it’s a little too close to home. I offer a weak smile and gaze past her towards the game. Rebecca is holding court on the metal bleachers close to the pitch, her Ravens one rung below. A few levels below them are another half dozen girls staring up adoringly at their leader. They’re too far away for me to hear what’s being said but it’s unlikely to be anything pleasant. I watch them for a few moments but then, almost as if she has eyes in the back of her head, Rebecca turns and focuses directly on me. She mouths something and then her cronies burst out laughing while she gives me the finger.

  I turn back to Naomi, who’s calmed down. ‘Who was the girl?’ I ask.

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘Ash’s ex-girlfriend.’

  Naomi hums to herself in thought. ‘I don’t know,’ she concludes, before sitting up taller. She raises her voice to wave at someone behind me. I spin to see Helen walking towards us with a yoghurt in either hand. I’ve known Naomi all my life but Helen’s been in our classes throughout school and now college. We walk that line between acquaintances and friends. In an alternative timeline, if I’d ended up sitting next to her in primary school instead of Naomi, we could have ended up best mates.

  Helen has long, wavy red hair – the type that would see her bullied relentlessly as a young girl. Now, it’s strikingly, enviously beautiful.

  The cow.

  I don’t really mean that… even though I sort of do.

  The cow.

  ‘What’s up?’ Helen asks.

  ‘Did you get the house cleared before your folks got home from hols?’ Naomi asks.

  ‘Just – but Mum stalks me online anyway, so she’ll see the pictures eventually.’

  ‘Did you invite that Ash guy?’

  Helen shrugs. ‘Who?’

  ‘The one who works at the Deck who has the weird side parting.’

  Helen shakes her head. ‘Was he there? I didn’t see him, else I would’ve got someone to kick him out. Didn’t you hear what happened to his ex-girlfriend? I heard he hid in her wardrobe one time.’

  That’s a new one.

  ‘What was her name?’ Naomi asks.

  Helen pouts her lips together and makes a clicking sound with her mouth. ‘Tina-something, I think. She went to uni, then dropped out and ended up working at the chippy in the village. Quite a comedown, huh?’

  We agree and then Helen flips her hair and walks on to wherever she was going.

  ‘I told you he was creepy,’ Naomi concludes.

  We continue half watching the football until the players stop. They huddle in small groups, drinking water and eating energy bars – all except Robbie, who climbs the bank towards us. The Ravens turn and watch him and I feel a wonderful pang of warm pride that he doesn’t pay any of them the slightest bit of attention. He’s topless, sweat dripping from his face and torso and he’s panting slightly as he stands in front of us.

  He nods at me. ‘You got a minute?’

  Before I can say anything, Naomi is on her feet, grinning a you’re welcome towards me. She heads off in the direction Helen went, saying she’ll see me after lunch.

  As Robbie plops himself next to me, it’s clear there’s no way of getting out of it – now’s the time for a conversation with the person who might well have killed me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Robbie sips from a bottle of garishly coloured liquid as he wipes the perspiration from his taut belly and then dries his hand on the ground.

  ‘Sorry about yesterday at the Deck,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t feeling well. I probably ate something dodgy at Helen’s party. You know what it’s like at barbecues with undercooked food and the like.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  He reaches out and puts his hand on top of mine. I’m sitting up but leaning back, palms on the ground to support myself. Because of that, we don’t interlock fingers but it still makes my stomach tingle when he’s rubbing the back of my hand.

  It’s so good to feel something.

  He wants me to look at him properly but I’m not ready for that. Unsure what to say, I remain quiet until he pulls his hand away.

  ‘C’mon, Ell – don’t be like that. I’m sorry I didn’t call you last night, or text this morning, but I knew I’d see you here. I had some work to do this morning and Mum was giving me a hard time. You know what she’s like.’

  I don’t actually mind – we’ve never been a clingy couple who spend every waking moment with one another. If anything, I am with Naomi more of the time. For whatever reason, I still feel like giving him a hard time.

  ‘You found time for football,’ I say, nodding towards the pitch.

  ‘You know I’m trying to make the team for the all-counties tournament. The final’s at Wembley, Ell. We talked about this and you said it was fine.’

  ‘Sometimes I say things because I want you to read between the lines.’

  I finally turn to look at him, but I remain defiant and daring. It’s hard not to soften when I see how utterly beautiful he is. His long legs are stretched in front of him; his chunky, muscled calves tensing and untensing. His hair is spiky and brown, glistening with sweat. He has a square, solid jaw peppered with the thinnest of dark stubble and his shoulders are broad and muscled. Now that I’m looking at him properly in the sunshine, it’s hard to believe he’s anything other than the guy with whom I’m in love.

  ‘I’ll make it up to you,’ he replies – but now he’s looking at the floor, worried that I’m genuinely upset at the way he ran off yesterday.

  Robbie sighs but then quickly glances up, leaning in and kissing me on the lips before I have a chance to realise what he’s doing. There’s the tiniest moment where I think I can feel the warmth emanating from his lips but then he pulls away and stares at me.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.

  ‘Nothing.’

  He continues to stare unflinchingly but I can’t read him and am now self-consciously touching my lip.

  ‘It felt…’

  ‘What?’ I say.

  From below, there’s a blast of a whistle and then Robbie’s leaping to his feet. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go,’ he says. ‘Your brother is a proper slave driver now he’s captain. I’ll message you later and call you tonight if I can – then I’ll see you tomorrow. Sorry I’m so busy.’

  He leans over and pecks me on top of the head, then races down the bank towards where the game is restarting. It’s hard not to feel sad as I watch him go and I wonder how he was going to finish the sentence. It felt… what? It felt good to me – more or less the only thing I’ve felt since waking in the river. It’s hard to imagine that he could be capable of harming me and yet I’ve still not asked him what happened on the night he drove me home from Helen’s. There’s a large part of me that doesn’t want to know. It’s hard to view my friends, my family, my boyfriend as people who might have harmed me. How am I supposed to treat them as both?

  As the football kicks off again, I stand and brush a few strands of dried grass from my palms. Naomi has found a spot on the bank not too far away and is sitting by herself, reading something on her phone. When I sit down next to her, she gasps in surprise and then puts her device away.

  ‘You two all sorted?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d fallen out.’

  ‘We haven’t.’

  She shrugs. ‘Right.’ Naomi stretches her arms high until something clicks. She makes a satisfied groaning sound and then lies back, staring up at the blue above. ‘It’s such a nice day. The longest day, too. Did you think about doing something for Sarah? Or ask your brother?’

  ‘Sorry, after Mum went mental last night, I ended up forgetting. I didn’t even see Ollie until this morning. What were you thinking?’

  ‘I don’t know… but it’ll be light until late tonight.’

  ‘Mum’s not going
to let me out so late tonight. She’s already on one.’

  ‘She doesn’t need to know, does she…?’

  Naomi looks at me with a sideways smirk before she starts to laugh. I don’t join in, smiling instead – at least until I notice that Rebecca has turned around on the bleachers below and is staring directly at us again. She mouths something I can’t make out and then turns back to her fellow Ravens, top lip curled into a sneer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When they named the Westby village chip shop, someone really pushed the boat out on the creative side. They could’ve gone for something like ‘The Plaice to Eat’, or ‘Codfellas’. ‘The Codfather’ is an obvious one, as is ‘Chips Ahoy’. My personal favourite would have been ‘Frying Nemo’ – but the owners went for the creatively bereft ‘Westby Fish & Chips’, which must have taken them all of three or four seconds to come up with. The only debate must have been between the word ‘and’ or the ampersand.

  Name-wise, the shop-owners might not have a clue – but fish-and-chip-wise, they certainly know what they’re doing.

  By the time I’m back in Westby, it is half past five and there’s a queue of people out the chip-shop door, winding its way along the street and then neatly paperclipping around so as not to block a side alley where nobody’s going to drive anyway. The village’s inhabitants are nothing if not overwhelmingly polite to people’s faces.

  I walk along the line, nodding at the odd person as I go. One of my old primary school teachers is there and gives a small wave as I pass. I mumble ‘hello’ and smile but keep moving. Mrs Patchett – she of the horrendous fashion sense with a shop to match – is wearing something that looks like a faded lampshade. She nods politely but keeps her lips clamped together in pure ‘I-don’t-want-to-talk-to-you’ style. That’s fine – I’d have nothing to say to her anyway.

  Mrs McKeith is there, too, fresh from spying long-haired interlopers who might or might not be out to bring down all of civilisation by trying to hitch a lift through our village. She glances at me quickly and then instantly turns away.

  I slot in at the back of the line, trying to keep my head down so that I don’t actually have to talk to anyone. Just in case anyone tries, I take out my phone and focus intently on the screen as if I’m doing something important. I’m not entirely sure why the line is so long but figure it’s something to do with the longest day.

  I have a theory – unproven by anything remotely scientific – that people get loopier about the weather the older they get. When a person is young, heading outside without a coat when it’s either a) cold; b) raining; or c) both, is a normal everyday thing. Ending up a bit wet or cold is all well and good because it doesn’t take much to warm up again. I think the age at which you’re officially old is when you start heading back inside to grab a coat because, to quote Mum, ‘it looks a bit peaky out’.

  Because of this, I’m assuming the extended sunlight has driven the locals slightly bonkers with a craving for chips. We bob forward at regular intervals as a few people get into line behind me.

  As I near the shop itself, I begin to sense the merest hints of salt and boiling oil. It’s faint – but I’ve leapt from nothing to something, like going from a cool air-conditioned building into blazing heat. It’s almost overwhelming and I have to lean on the outside glass to steady myself.

  When I get into the shop, I manage to focus on what’s around me instead of my returning sense of smell. There’s a wide illuminated board high at the back, listing everything for sale. The waiting area is small, with a chest-high counter that has a see-through cabinet. It is speckled with browning-yellow grease, with rows of battered fish and sausages on the other side. There are two people behind the counter. A young lad, face blotched by pocked acne, is taking money, while a woman a little older than me is at the other end of the counter slapping food into trays. Both are wearing white smocks, with triangular hats that look like napkins.

  At the front, I order a small portion of chips and hand the lad some change before shuffling to the other end. The woman who’s serving is the only female behind the counter.

  ‘Are you Tina?’ I ask.

  She peers up at me, surprised. There are hints of greasy black hair poking out from under her hat and her face is beaded with sweat.

  She dumps a small shovel’s worth of chips into a cone. ‘Do I know you?’ she replies.

  ‘Not really – someone told me you were the person to talk to.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Ash.’

  She frowns as she holds the salt shaker in mid-air over the chips I won’t be eating. ‘Who told you to come to me?’

  ‘Someone at college.’

  The person behind me in line sidles across, fumbling with his wallet. Tina looks to him, then me. ‘Salt?’

  ‘Just plain.’

  She puts down the shaker and then passes me the cone while nodding at the line. ‘You’ll have to wait.’

  ‘Where?’

  Tina points towards the small green opposite. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be free – but if you’re out there when I am, then we can talk.’

  I thank her and head outside, crossing the street and taking a seat on the wooden bench next to the path. When I hold the chips close to my nose, my stomach churns angrily, so I dump them in the adjacent bin. This is probably the most un-British thing I’ve ever done. If I chucked a bunch of PG Tips in after it, I’d be arrested for treason.

  Forty-five minutes pass and nothing happens, except that a pair of seagulls swoop in and begin fighting over my discarded chips. They squawk and snap at each other until eventually deciding – sort of – to share and share alike. They’re on the grass still nipping at each other when Tina sits down next to me with a sigh of exhaustion. She’s no longer wearing her hat and her bobbed hair is greasy and flat. She tugs a packet of cigarettes from her trouser pocket and lights one before offering me the box.

  ‘You smoke?’ she asks.

  ‘Not really.’

  She returns the packet to her pocket and inhales deeply. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I’ve tried it a few times.’

  ‘And…?’

  I shrug. ‘I don’t think it’s for me.’

  Tina breathes a long, thin plume into the air and nods at the seagulls. ‘Are the chips that bad?’

  ‘I couldn’t finish them all.’

  She has another puff and then leans back onto the bench. ‘So, you seeing Ash or something?’

  ‘No, I just—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My friend reckons he has a thing for me.’

  ‘Oh… you’re one of those girls who go to Tape Deck all the time.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She laughs slightly. ‘You’ll grow out of it – when you’re old enough to go to actual pubs.’

  ‘Right, um…’

  Tina turns to me but she’s no longer laughing, not even smiling. ‘What have you heard about Ash and me?’

  I gulp, unsure if I should repeat Naomi’s story, but she raises her eyebrows, not in the mood for messing around.

  ‘Someone told me that you went out but, after you broke up, he followed you around and ended up in the same shops or the same cinema as you. Then he was in your garden and your dad scared him off.’

  Tina sucks deeply, deliberately on the cigarette, thinking over what I’ve said. She nods ever so slightly when she turns away. The seagulls have now finished fighting and flown off, presumably to look for the actual sea.

  ‘How old are you?’ she asks.

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘He’s the same age as me, more or less – so he’ll be twenty-two or maybe twenty-three. I can’t remember his birthday. What’s your name?’

  ‘Eleanor… Ellie.’

  ‘Right, I’ve seen you around. You live in the village?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Look, Ellie – when you’re twenty-odd, probably thirty-odd, five years isn’t a big gap in ages. Nobody cares and everyone
ends up working or socialising together or whatever. It’s different when you’re a teenager, especially your age when you don’t know what someone else’s motives might be. If you’re—’

  ‘We’re not going out. I have a boyfriend who is my age.’

  Tina turns to look at me again, not seeming convinced. ‘So why did you come to see me?’

  ‘I told you, my friend says Ash has a thing for me.’

  ‘So what? You’ve got a boyfriend, right? Other friends? If all he’s doing is looking across the diner at you, tell him to get lost.’

  I feel awful as I say my next words. It’s a lie, a complete fabrication, and yet I don’t know a better way to get the information from her. She thinks I’m a silly girl.

  ‘I think Ash might be following me.’

  Tina takes the final suck from her cigarette and then scuffs it out on the ground. She examines me closer than ever, frowning. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Not completely, but that’s why I wanted to hear what happened to you.’

  She sighs again and rolls her eyes. There’s a moment in which I think she’s going to stomp back to the shop. ‘You know this was ages ago, don’t you?’ she says wearily. ‘I was only a little older than you.’

  ‘I don’t know any proper details – it’s why I came.’

  ‘You want the truth? Fine.’ She sounds annoyed. ‘Look, I was in my final year, ready to go to university. I was still… well…’ She looks over her shoulder and then lowers her voice. ‘This is between us, right? I’m telling you because I’ve seen you around and it sounds like you’ve got something going on.’

  ‘I’m not going to tell anyone else.’

  ‘I was still a virgin.’ She glances over her shoulder again but there’s no one there. ‘I didn’t want to go to university like that, so I had this whole plan about what I was going to do in my final year before I went away. Anyway, somehow I ended up going out with Ash. I know he’s a bit weird but he was in my year and I got talking to him in the library one time and he seemed all right. He was quiet and into all sorts of sci-fi stuff that I wasn’t but I figured quiet and sci-fi was better than loud and knob-like. He was bloody desperate, mind, and I figured it’d be nice to have someone hanging on my every word. Y’know, at my beck and call and all that.’