by S J Bolton
OK, he could do this. Stick to the truth as far as possible, Talitha had warned them all after Megan had left them the night before. That way their stories would match. He started to talk, feeling his voice grow in confidence. The six of them had met in University Parks at four. The girls had brought food, the boys Pimm’s and lemonade. They’d played Frisbee, talked, sat and chilled, with no idea that fate had planted an incendiary device over all their lives and the timer had started its countdown. Restless, with nerves about results kicking in, they’d walked to Port Meadow, but it had been cold by that time, too cold for bridge jumping, so they’d given up and made for the Lamb and Flag.
‘How long were you in the pub?’ the detective asked.
‘He spoke to me shortly before eight,’ Xav’s mother said. ‘I wanted to know if he was coming home for dinner. He said no, and I heard a lot of noise in the background. I asked him where he was. He said he and the others were in the Lamb.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Just trying to be helpful.’
‘Go on, Xavier.’
Xav said, ‘We were in the Lamb until it closed and then we went to Park End.’
‘You mean the nightclub on Park End Street? How long were you there for?’
Xav gave a quick glance at his mother. She didn’t know that he’d had a fake ID for months to get him into the city’s nightclubs with the others. ‘We didn’t get in,’ he said. ‘Dan and me were wearing trainers, and they were having a clamp down on dress code. We went to Tal’s house instead.’
The detective glanced down and read out Talitha’s address. Xav confirmed it.
‘How long did you stay there?’
And this was where he had to stick to the script. ‘Amber, Tal, Felix, Dan and me stayed the night,’ he said. ‘We were at the pool, and then in the pool house when it got cold. I must have nodded off, because when I woke up, Megan was gone.’
The detective reacted: his eyebrows raised, and he leaned back in his chair, giving Xav an appraising look.
Shit, thought Xav. I’ve got it wrong.
9
‘How much longer do you plan to keep us?’
Barnaby Slater QC, a tall, wiry man in his late fifties, sat upright in the chair beside his trembling daughter. He didn’t look comfortable, but then he never did. Talitha liked to boast she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she’d seen him wearing something other than a suit. She wasn’t entirely kidding.
‘This is an exceptional day for my daughter,’ he went on. ‘She’s achieved brilliant exam results and she should be celebrating with her family and friends.’
Even in a small space, Slater pitched his voice, as though towards the back of a crowded courtroom. Each time he spoke, and he hadn’t exactly been reticent about chipping in, the detective constable leading the interview flinched.
‘I’m sure we’ll be done soon.’ She was a young woman with untidy red hair, trying hard not to appear unsettled. ‘Can you answer the question, please, Tabitha?’
‘Tal-ee-tha,’ Slater corrected her. ‘Emphasis on the second syllable.’
‘Are my friends still here?’ Talitha asked. Being separated from the others had thrown her; she’d expected they’d be questioned together, that they could double-check with each other and confirm their stories, and she was struggling to remember what she was supposed to say. And she’d been the one who’d decided what they should say! Stick to the truth, until after midnight, and then be vague. We all went to sleep. We don’t remember Megan leaving. That had been what they’d agreed, what she’d told them, hadn’t it?
‘I believe so,’ the constable said. ‘Let me ask you again. How did Megan seem last night?’
‘Well, she was . . .’ Talitha glanced at her father for a steer, but you could never tell what he was thinking. Eighteen years of getting to know him, and she still struggled to tell whether he was pleased or annoyed, proud of her or disappointed, anxious or totally relaxed. In the absence of concrete information, she usually assumed the negative; it seemed safer.
‘She was OK, I guess,’ she said. ‘A bit quiet, but Megan’s always quiet. And we were all nervous about this morning.’
‘Why do you think she left so early if the plan was to spend the night at your house and go in together?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure I even saw her leave. I remember, I think, that Felix was wondering what had happened to his mum’s car, and we assumed Megan had taken it.’
‘Did she do that a lot? Take other people’s cars without permission?’
‘No. I mean, maybe.’
‘Which?’
Talitha turned to her father. ‘Dad?’
Talitha’s father didn’t move, but then he rarely did unless he had to. He never squirmed in his chair or scratched at his head. More than once, when they’d been together in the evening, Talitha had secretly timed him to see how long he could last without moving a muscle. Each time, she’d got bored before he’d moved.
‘Answer the question, Tal,’ he said without looking at her. ‘Did Megan make a habit of stealing your cars?’
‘It wasn’t stealing – Felix didn’t mind.’
At last, her father’s head turned and he peered down at her. ‘If she took your car without permission, I would consider that theft.’
No. It was bad enough that Megan was taking the blame for the accident, Talitha wasn’t about to accuse her of theft as well. Except, did it really matter now? If Megan was going to be charged with causing death by careless driving, what did a bit of car theft matter?
‘Well, Talitha?’ the detective said. ‘Has she taken Felix’s car, or yours, or’ – she glanced down at her notes, ‘Xavier’s without permission?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember. Maybe ask Xav, he was with her.’
No, that was wrong. She shouldn’t have said that, that was a part of the story she could never tell, that Xav had walked Megan to her car after she’d agreed to save them.
The detective hadn’t missed it. She eased herself forward in her chair. ‘Xav went with her last night when she left?’
‘No, no, I didn’t mean that. I meant they spent a lot of time together. Usually. So, he’d know about the cars thing.’
‘Did they spend time together last night?’
‘Maybe. Usually they did.’
‘Were they dating?’
‘No, Xav is going out with Amber. But I always had a feeling that Megan liked him too. She never said so, but you can tell, can’t you? It was always him that she’d sit next to or look for when we were out together. And she talked about him a lot when he wasn’t there, like she was looking for an excuse to bring his name up.’
She heard her father give a heavy sigh.
‘Did Amber know this?’ the detective asked.
This couldn’t be harmful could it? The Xav–Amber–Megan thing? This was safe?
‘I think she was wary of Megan. Megan’s very smart. And attractive. I wouldn’t be surprised if Xav liked her.’
Talitha’s father cleared his throat. ‘I’m not sure what this has to do with the matter in hand, Officer, and the morning is slipping away.’
Ignoring him, the detective said, ‘Is it fair to say Megan was the odd one out in your group?’
Oh, that hit home. Not that the detective had asked, but that she’d spotted it so soon.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Talitha said, although she did. ‘We’ve known each other for years, but I suppose we only really became good friends in the upper sixth.’
‘When you all became senior prefects?’ the detective prompted.
Talitha risked another glance at her father. Again nothing back.
‘That’s right,’ she said, on slightly firmer ground. ‘We had to spend a lot of time together. We had the end-of-year ball to organise, and
the visitors’ rota, quite a lot of charity stuff, and car park duties for open days. We started meeting up before school most days and it went from there.’
‘Yes. But Megan’s background is quite different to yours? To the others? Wouldn’t you say?’
Talitha looked at her father again. Nothing. Christ, what was the point of him being there?
‘She was a scholarship girl,’ the detective said. ‘Her mother wouldn’t have been able to afford the fees to All Souls’ School, not without financial help.’
‘We didn’t care about that,’ Talitha said quickly. ‘She was one of us.’
Even as she said it, Talitha knew it was a lie, and somehow, it was a lie that hurt more than the others she’d told already, than the others she had yet to tell. It felt more of a betrayal of Megan.
‘We raised our daughter to judge people on their merits.’ Barnaby Slater spoke at last and it wasn’t lost on Talitha that he did so to speak for himself, rather than his child.
The constable gave him a long, appraising stare. ‘Of course, you did,’ she said, before turning to Talitha again. ‘My point is, could Megan have felt that she never really belonged?’
‘I don’t know. I never thought of it like that.’
‘Possibly not. But something you never thought about could have been a big deal for Megan.’
‘What’s your point, Officer?’ Tal’s father asked.
‘Oh, I’m simply wondering what Megan might have been prepared to do for a group she was desperate to be accepted by.’
10
Amber had agreed to be interviewed without a solicitor – she’d wanted to get it over with – but five minutes in, she was on the point of changing her mind. Maybe an hour or so’s delay would have helped, given her time to think and get her story straight. On the other hand, if she asked for a solicitor now, she’d look guilty, wouldn’t she?
‘Tell me about Megan,’ Rachel asked.
Rachel was the name of the detective who’d been assigned to speak to her, although she didn’t look much older than Amber herself. Her blonde hair, home-dyed – Amber could always tell – was swept up in an elaborate bun and she wore a lot of make-up. Maybe she was a trainee or something, and that had to be a good sign, that they hadn’t put her with anyone more experienced. They were ticking the boxes; it would be over soon. They weren’t even in the sort of interview room that Amber had seen on television, but instead were sitting in a quiet corner of the police cafeteria. Rachel had actually offered Amber coffee.
There was a recording device on the table in front of them, though. And an open laptop.
‘What do you want to know?’ Amber said.
Rachel smiled. ‘Anything that comes to mind. How long have the two of you been friends?’
This didn’t feel right. Why wasn’t Rachel asking about last night?
‘I suppose we only became good friends when we were all made senior prefects,’ Amber said cautiously. ‘But we’ve known each other since we started at All Souls’.’
‘She was in your house: Faraday, isn’t it? You’d have seen her for registration every morning and afternoon. How many pupils in a houseroom?’
Amber heard the faint sound of an alarm bell ringing in her head. So few people knew about the workings of independent schools, but this woman, who looked like she had a Saturday job on the cosmetics counter in Debenhams, had done her homework.
‘Twelve,’ Amber said.
‘Six girls, is that right?’
‘Four. There are more boys at All Souls’. It used to be single sex.’
‘Four girls, and you and Megan were two of them. I’d have thought it would be natural that you’d become good friends.’
‘I had other friends. Girls I’d known at primary school.’
‘That would be Collingdale Preparatory School, with fees of nearly ten thousand pounds a year,’ Rachel said.
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Megan went to Chorley Wood, the state school up the road from her house. She was a scholarship girl at All Souls’. Is that why you didn’t like her?’
This felt all wrong, like Megan had been complaining about the rest of them.
‘No. And I did like her. She helped me with maths in the run-up to GCSE. I wasn’t that good at it, and if I didn’t pass, I wouldn’t have been able to stay on in the sixth form. Megan spent hours with me, and she didn’t have to. I got a B thanks to Megan.’
Amber wondered, briefly, whether she’d ever actually thanked Megan for all the time she’d spent with her in fifth form helping her get through her exams.
‘Were you resentful when she was made head of school and not you? I know you were interviewed for the position.’
Yes, she’d never admitted it to a soul, but she bloody well had been.
‘No,’ Amber said. ‘Head of school is a lot of responsibility. I was happy to be a senior prefect. And any of us could have been given the job, that’s what the master said. Megan got lucky. I didn’t blame her for that.’
‘Was it a bit of virtue signalling on the part of the school, do you think? Make their head girl the scholarship pupil? The one from the single-parent family?’
Amber shrugged. ‘Maybe. Probably.’
Rachel dropped her eyes and began typing; she typed fast. Several seconds went by.
‘I mean, she was clever,’ Amber said, ‘there’s no denying that, but her social intelligence isn’t all it should be. She wasn’t that popular in school.’
Rachel paused in her typing and looked up. ‘Did the fact that she was keen on Xav cause any friction between you? He’s your boyfriend, right?’
‘Yes. And who says she was keen on him?’
Rachel made a puzzled face. ‘Sorry, I thought it was generally understood that Megan and Xav got on well.’
‘Not by me.’
The detective typed some more. ‘Let’s talk about Megan being clever,’ she said, when she’d stopped again. ‘She was offered a place at Cambridge, is that right?’
‘That’s right. St Catherine’s College. To study natsci.’
‘Natsci?’
Miss Smartarse didn’t know everything then. ‘Natural sciences,’ Amber explained. ‘It’s one of the most oversubscribed courses in the UK, possibly the world. You have to be good to get on the natsci course.’
‘But only if she got her grades. Three As, is that right?’
‘Megan would have got her grades. Of all of us, she was the least worried. She’d have got five As, no question.’
‘Like Xav?’
‘Yeah. They both did all three sciences, maths and further maths. We call it the “Full Asian Five”, or the “Flasian Five”, because its mainly the Asian students who do all five. I’m not being racist, they’re just cleverer than the rest of us. Apart from Xav and Megan.’
‘You’re a smart bunch, aren’t you? Even if you didn’t all do the Full Asian Five?’
‘We did all right. We worked hard, we had good teachers. We were lucky.’
The detective looked directly at Amber. ‘So, can you explain why Megan failed to get anywhere near her expected A level grades?’
It took a second for Amber to even process the question. ‘What?’ she said in the end.
Rachel glanced down at her laptop. ‘She got four Cs and a B. The B was in Maths.’
This was a trick, although for the life of her, Amber couldn’t see where it was heading. ‘That’s not possible,’ she said.
Rachel gave the smug smile of someone who’s won a small victory. ‘We spoke to your head teacher earlier this morning. She was very worried about Megan, on the point of going round to her house when we contacted her. I think she suspected her of having done something silly because she couldn’t face how spectacularly she’d let herself down.’
It was absurd, but o
f everything that had happened in the past few hours, hearing of Megan’s failure seemed the biggest shock of all. It was as though the world had somehow tilted, and everything was the opposite of what it should be.
‘You’re lying to me,’ Amber said. ‘She’d have told us if she’d done badly. We’ve been with her all summer. She never once said she was worried about her results. Well, no more than any of us.’
Even as she spoke Amber remembered that Megan had been different that summer, quieter, even more reserved than usual. When asked if anything was wrong, she’d simply shrugged and said she was a bit sad at how completely everything was about to change, and that she would miss her friends.
‘Two of us are coming with you to Cambridge, you daft bat,’ Talitha had said once, and only Amber had noticed the gleam of tears in Megan’s eyes.
The detective smiled. ‘As you say, Miss Pike, you weren’t really very good friends at all, were you?’
11
The detective, a portly man in his early fifties whose hair seemed to have fled his head only to reappear in the form of fungi-like sprouts from brow, nostrils and ears, slid a photograph across the desk towards Daniel.
‘Mrs Sophie Robinson.’ The detective spoke slowly, as though bored. Daniel had seen him yawn twice and was hoping it was a good sign. ‘Thirty-six, married, two young children. A GP. Well liked, by all accounts. About to go back to work after maternity leave. This picture is a few months old. The baby, Maisie, would have been closer to nine months. Until the early hours of this morning, that is. Lily was four.’
Daniel really didn’t want to see the picture. He didn’t need to know that Sophie Robinson had dark hair and that her face looked as though it smiled a lot. He certainly didn’t need to see that she clutched her daughters to her body as though the wind might pull them out of her arms.
He wanted to close his eyes, but the picture held him, firing up details of the Robinsons’ lives like tiny, stinging missiles. It had been windy when it was taken, because Sophie’s hair was blowing up around her head and a strand had caught in the corner of her mouth. He could see a solitary swing in the background of the family’s garden and what looked like the edge of a rabbit hutch. They’d had an apple tree, which possibly wouldn’t produce much fruit that year because the wind had blown away most of the blossom.