The Perfect Girl

by Lorna Dounaeva

  Gabriella squeezed her own eyes shut. “Please, God, let her live.”

  “The ambulance is here!” Dylan called from the doorway.

  “Thank God!”

  Jock moved to the side as the paramedics dashed in. They were swift and professional, instantly taking control of the situation, but even they couldn’t hide their horror at the vision before them.

  “Never seen anything like it,” one of them said, shaking his head. It was only as they carried her out that they noticed the tiny terrier that had been lying at her feet.

  “Oh, Coco!” Gabriella wailed.

  Dylan put his ear to the dog’s face. For a moment, Jock thought he was going to attempt CPR.

  “I’m afraid he’s dead.”

  “She,” said Gabriella. “Coco’s a she!”

  They followed the ambulance crew outside and watched as Daphne was loaded into a neon-yellow ambulance. The paramedics squeezed inside, but there was no room for Gabriella.

  “I’ll drive you to the hospital if you like,” Dylan offered. “You’re in no state to drive yourself.”

  Gabriella nodded. “I’ll just grab some clean clothes,” she said, shivering. “I’ll see if I can find some for you two, too. We can’t go like this.”

  She returned with a couple of oversized T-shirts and jogging bottoms. Jock balked slightly as he realised the probable source of the clothes.

  “Did these…?”

  Gabriella met his stare. “Belonged to my dad, yes. But don’t worry; I don’t think he’ll be needing them in a hurry.”

  Jock glanced at Dylan, but he had already stripped down to his boxers. Grimacing slightly, he followed suit. The clothes smelled a little musky, as you might expect after five years. But he could still detect a slight whiff: the distinct combination of aftershave and body odour that made a man’s smell unique. He shuddered as he imagined Peter Helston’s ghost appearing in front of him to claim back his clothes.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Gabriella said. She grabbed the keys to her Ibiza and placed them in Dylan’s hand.

  “Do you think this is a good idea?” Jock asked in a hushed tone as they followed her out the door.

  “How else are we going to find anything out?” Dylan said under his breath.

  “I just want to go home,” Jock sighed.

  He sat in the back of the car and stared out the window. Any minute, Gabriella was going to start crying again and he had no idea what he was going to say. Women’s tears made him very uncomfortable. He wondered how long it would be until Dylan’s sense of duty wore off. Because the Dylan he had seen today was not one he had ever encountered before. He had been kind and quick-thinking – compassionate, even.

  “I thought that went rather well,” I tell Claire, as we struggle out of our protective gear. She whips hers off in seconds then helps me to peel off mine and we shove it all onto the backseat. I get a prickly feeling in my back and relish the sensation. I only have a few stings. But the back one’s a good one. It jabbed me at such an angle it almost took my breath away. I have never felt so alive.

  “Did you see her face?” Claire asks. She’s staring into the left mirror, looking back at the house.

  “She deserved it,” I tell her coldly. “She had this coming. She’s always had it coming.”

  “I know,” she says, “I know. I just didn’t think it would be so … brutal.”

  “Claire, are you–?”

  Suddenly, she is puking into her lap.

  “Bloody hell!” I toss her a cloth. “Clean yourself up, woman! You’re a disgrace.”

  “I’m sorry,” she sobs. Globules of puke dangle from her hair. The smell fills the car.

  “You disgust me,” I tell her, switching the air conditioning to full blast. I would say more, but I’m impatient for her to start the engine. It’s not a good idea to sit around outside the scene of a crime, even if the road is dead quiet.

  “What have we done?” she asks, resting her head against the steering wheel.

  “Let’s talk about this later,” I say, noticing a curtain twitch. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “I can’t,” she says. “I just can’t.”

  “Alright, move over. I’ll drive.”

  But she just keeps on sobbing into the steering wheel. Pathetic! I fantasise about throwing her out of the car and reversing over her. Save it for later, I remind myself. Use your personal power. Stay in control.

  “I said, drive!”

  “Is she going to die?” she wants to know.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter either way.”

  She bawls even more. Big, ugly sobs. The salty tears gush from her eyes.

  “What now?” I say in exasperation. “What is your bloody problem?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” she says, clutching the steering wheel.

  “Oh, will you put a sock in it!”

  “I don’t care what happens to me. Nothing could be worse than this.”

  I grit my teeth. “If you don’t step on it, your sister’s dead.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Wouldn’t I?”

  To my immense relief, she finally revs the engine. It must be the slowest getaway in history. I glance around again as we pull away. The curtain has stopped twitching and I can’t see anyone else around. But it only takes one: one person to remember our car; one person to identify its two occupants and provide the police with a description. I had better lay low for a while.

  “I don’t know how you live with this guilt!” Claire says, as she steers the car down the narrow country lanes. I wince as she gets too close to the hedge. That’ll leave a scratch for sure.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, checking the rear mirror to make sure no one’s following us. They aren’t, unless the police have commandeered a tractor.

  “What can she possibly have done to deserve what we did to her?”

  “Are you questioning my judgment?”

  “I’m trying to understand.”

  I just want to get home so that I can play the scene over and over in my head. I’ll be fantasising about this day for the rest of my life. The day I finally got even with Daphne.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about Daphne,” I tell her.

  “Tell me.”

  “She stole someone very precious from me.”

  “Is she … a killer?”

  I laugh out loud. “Daphne Helston? She hasn’t got the balls. Not even one.”

  “Then …”

  “She ruined my life. My entire life. She made me the way I am.”

  The air conditioning isn’t doing it for me. I open the window. There’s nothing quite like the feel of wind in your hair or the smell of blood on your hands. We turn round the corner and finally lose the tractor. I watch as it chugs off into the field. I could never drive something that slow. It would drive me crazy. Claire leans forward to adjust the Sat Nav.

  “Claire, you’re driving too close to the canal!”

  28

  I’m about to grab the wheel when Claire pulls back into the centre of the road.

  “It’s a bit narrow here,” she mutters.

  She’s lying. She was driving close to the edge on purpose. She’s thinking about offing us both. Again, she veers a little too close to the canal. A little too close and a little too fast. She’s trying to get up the courage. I grip the door handle.

  “If you kill us, Sapphire dies, too,” I tell her through clenched teeth. “No one knows where she is, remember? Do you want your sister to die?”

  Claire takes a sharp breath. I can almost hear the cogs whirring. She’s on a sharp learning curve. I’ve pushed her too far before she’s ready. I’m going to have to find a way to rein her back in.

  “Things are going to change,” I promise.

  “Just let my sister go. We should never have taken her.”

  “I can’t keep doing this forever,” I tell her.

  She sneaks a peek at me. I’ve got her attenti
on.

  “I just need to get a few more things out of my system. Settle my affairs. That was what today was about.”

  She looks hopeful.

  “I’ll help you,” she says. “You can do this, I know you can.”

  We ditch the car and take the boat back to the warehouse. I think Claire’s expecting a cup of tea when we get back and a little cry on my shoulder. But I’m way too angry. We take the lift up to her room and I go in with her, wrinkling my nose at the stale smell. I wait till she sits down then I leave abruptly, bolting the door behind me.

  “Hey, let me out!” she yells, hammering on the door. She’s got too used to her freedom. It is time to remind her how all this started, how I came to wield such power over her.

  “You can’t leave me in here!” she screams.

  Oh, but I can.

  I wasn’t lying. Things cannot go on like this forever. I have misjudged her. She has become an unknown quantity like her sister or more likely, because of her.

  “I just couldn’t believe it,” Gabriella said. “I opened the front door and a swarm of bees flew out. I don’t know how I managed to dodge out of the way, but they shot right past me like they wanted to escape. That’s when I found Mum. She looked awful; just covered in bees. She had her eyes closed and for a moment I thought … I thought she was …” She squeezed her eyes tight shut, unable to finish her sentence.

  Jock made sympathetic noises and glugged his terrible vending machine tea. He wasn’t entirely sure what he and Dylan were doing here. Gabriella should really have friends or family with her, not them. But she seemed too upset to care about that. She didn’t want them to leave; that much she had made clear.

  “Just when we thought it was all over,” she gulped. “I thought we’d finally be able to move on with our lives. It just doesn’t make any sense. I mean why did they attack her now, just when another girl’s gone missing? Dad can’t have had anything to do with it. Not this time.”

  “You think someone used the bees to attack your mum?” Jock arched his brows at Dylan. “You can’t just make bees attack people, can you?”

  “You’d have to know what you were doing,” Dylan said. “But I think Gabriella might be right.”

  Jock thought for a moment. “Whoever it was probably got some nasty stings themselves. The police could check with the local hospitals and see if anyone else has been admitted with multiple bee stings.”

  “I doubt they’d go to a hospital,” Dylan objected. “They’d know the police were looking for them.”

  “But do you really think this was deliberate?” Jock persisted. “That someone used the bees as a weapon?”

  “It certainly looks that way.”

  “So the May Queen Killer is a beekeeper?”

  “We don’t know if this was the May Queen Killer. But I’m betting there’s a connection.”

  Jock drained the last of his tea and tossed the paper cup in the bin. Why would anyone want to hurt Daphne? he wondered. Did they think she was the one who had taken Sapphire? No, the idea was ludicrous, laughable even. There was no way.

  “Ah! About time!” Dylan said, breaking the silence.

  “What?”

  He looked up as Stavely charged in, tie askew and nostrils flaring. He felt a groan in the pit of his stomach. He should have known it was a bad idea to come to the hospital. How suspicious must he look?

  “Have the Welsh Police arrived yet?” Stavely demanded.

  “No.”

  “Good.” He turned to Sweep who was just behind him. “Daphne’s house is right on the border and we don’t want some sort of Bridge situation.”

  Jock had no idea what he was talking about, but he decided it was best not to ask.

  Stavely turned his attention to Gabriella. “I understand that this is a difficult time, but do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

  “I’m not sure I’m comfortable talking to you,” she replied. She wiped her eyes, leaving a streak of mascara across her hand.

  “Come on; for your mum.”

  “I’m not sure she’d want me to talk to you,” she said pointedly.

  Jock looked from Gabriella to Stavely. “You know each other?” he asked.

  “Of course they do,” Dylan said. “From when Claire went missing.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  “I’d like to know what the two of you are doing here,” Stavely said, looking from one to the other.

  “We were just visiting Gabriella,” Dylan told him.

  Stavely leaned in closer. “I’m getting a right whiff from you.”

  Dylan folded his arms. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Jock nodded.

  “Who was the first at the scene?” Sweep asked.

  “Me,” Gabriella answered quietly.

  “Did you see anyone out in the street?”

  “No, it was very quiet.”

  “What about you two?” He looked at Dylan and Jock.

  “Like she said; it was dead.”

  “A new garden centre just opened round the corner,” Gabriella elaborated. “I think a lot of our neighbours went there for the opening.”

  “There was a neighbour working on his car just across the street,” Sweep said. “He was out there most of the morning, so it sounds like the perp might have gone round the back.”

  Stavely looked at him sternly. “If there is a perpetrator,” he amended quickly.

  “You needn’t be pedantic on our account,” Dylan said. “There’s no way those bees got there by accident, not unless they carried their own beehive.”

  Stavely turned to Sweep. “Right, go down to the cafeteria and get me a roast dinner and tell them not to scrimp on the gravy. I’ll also need a beekeeper and plenty of chalk.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll be able to get hold of a beekeeper at this time on a Sunday,” Sweep objected.

  “Well, I need one. In fact, get me all of them. I want a list of all the beekeepers in the area.”

  “Are they all registered somewhere?”

  “No idea! Go and find out.”

  Sweep nodded without enthusiasm. Stavely reached out and touched his shoulder.

  “We need to dig deep to find what we’re looking for. And if that means talking to a hundred bloody beekeepers then so be it. Somebody knows who did this.”

  Sweep stalked off in the direction of the lifts, his long arms swinging at his sides.

  Stavely drew a breath. “The back door was open but there were no signs of forced entry,” he murmured. “Have you or your mum lost your keys lately?” he asked Gabriella.

  “No,” she said. “And Mum hasn’t either. She would have said.”

  “Could be a pickpocket,” he said. “Have you left your bag lying about at all?”

  Gabriella went red. “The tea shop,” she said. “Just the other day.”

  “But Angie put it behind the counter as soon as we found it,” Jock said. “I don’t think anyone could have tampered with it.”

  “They might have, though,” said Stavely. “It only takes a minute.”

  “My keys aren’t missing,” Gabriella objected.

  “They might have taken a copy. You’d be surprised what criminals can do.”

  “But why?” she asked. “Why would anyone want to attack Mum?”

  Jock cleared his throat. “I think it might be because of the TV interview,” he said.

  Stavely looked at him. “What TV interview?”

  “Daphne’s; it was about a week or so ago. She made a personal address to the May Queen Killer. Maybe it hit a nerve.”

  A few minutes later, Sweep came back into view, carrying a polyester container with steam coming out of it.

  “Here you go, sir. Roast beef with plenty of gravy. I even managed to snag you the last Yorkshire pudding.”

  “Arse-licker,” Dylan muttered under his breath.

  “Did you know Daphne Helston did a TV interview?” Stavely demanded. “Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

&n
bsp; “I … didn’t know.”

  Stavely make no attempt to hide his frustration. “Excuse me, I’ve got a press officer to sack,” he said. He took his dinner and walked off towards the exit. He was almost out the door when he turned back to look at Sweep. “Why are you still standing there?” he snapped. “Go and get me that bloody list of beekeepers!”

  Sweep whipped out his phone.

  “Outside, please,” a nurse said, pointing to one of the many ‘no mobile’ posters dotted around the waiting room.

  Sweep sighed and trailed after Stavely.

  “They’re hiring at Argos,” Dylan called after him.

  “Piss off!” said Sweep, almost colliding with the automatic door.

  Just then, a doctor came over and spoke to Gabriella.

  “Your mum’s asking for you,” he heard her say.

  “I can see her?”

  “Just for a few minutes. She needs her rest.”

  While Gabriella was visiting Daphne, Stavely walked back in. “What were you two really doing in Pepper Hill?” he asked, wiping his mouth with his hanky.

  “It’s very nice this time of year,” Dylan said. He tilted back in his chair, his arms resting behind his head.

  “Just as long as you weren’t meddling in my investigation,” Stavely said. “You know I can’t abide amateurs.”

  Dylan’s jaw tightened.

  “And just because you write doesn’t mean you know anything about real crimes,” he lectured Jock. “If any more information comes your way, you give me a ring. Kapeesh?”

  “We were just trying to help,” Jock said, careful not to make any promises. Why should he listen to Stavely? The police hadn’t even known about Daphne’s interview. It was like they weren’t even paying attention.

  The first thing Jock did when he got back to his room was strip off Peter Helston’s clothes. He knew he was being irrational, but those clothes gave him the willies.

  “We should sell them on eBay,” Dylan had joked. “People pay good money for morbid memorabilia.”

  “Gabriella might want them back,” Jock had pointed out. “They did belong to her dead father, after all.”

  He put on his dressing gown and picked up his wash bag. As he passed the window, he saw Angie locking up the tea shop. The lamplight shone on her hair, changing her honey blonde to a fierce shade of orange. She slipped the keys into her handbag then waved to someone on the other side of the street. He watched as Simon approached. He had barely seen him since the incident on Dylan’s boat. Of course, he was back at work now, so he didn’t have as much time to hang around the tea shop, but all the same, Jock got the impression he was avoiding him. He watched as Simon bent down so Angie could wind her arms around his neck. He murmured something in her ear and her giggle echoed down the street. There didn’t seem to be any tension between them. Either she was OK with what was going on between him and Gabriella or she was completely oblivious.