DYING EMBERS an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists

by MARGARET MURPHY

  In the sands and gravels beneath the centre of London, palaeontologists have found evidence that rhinoceroses, elephants and other tropical creatures roamed the south of England during a warm interglacial period, 125 000 years ago. Does this explain the origins of the quaintly named Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Circus?

  Geri smiled. Humour was a relief when you had twenty or more thousand-word essays to mark. She read it through again to the end. It was well argued; Ryan had done his background research and given proper attribution. She had given it a B grade.

  She must have sighed, because Nick put down his book and asked, ‘You okay?’

  Geri closed her eyes and pressed with her forefinger and thumb on the eyelids. She had a headache coming on. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really.’

  ‘I heard about that lad from your school. It was on the radio.’

  She held up the two closely written sheets. ‘This is his.’

  ‘You’re marking a dead lad’s work?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, on the defensive. ‘I suppose that’s what I’m doing.’ But while she was reading the script it had seemed that he wasn’t dead: she could almost hear Ryan speaking, heavily accented, but articulate and urgent in his delivery as he made each point.

  Nick covered her hand with his. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m just not sure if . . .’

  ‘Me neither.’

  Nick slipped one hand behind her head, drawing her closer. She responded but drew back when she heard the crackle of scripts, crushed between her body and his. ‘Papers,’ she murmured distractedly. He grabbed a handful and bundled them onto his bedside table. They made love, and afterwards she wept for the tenderness he had shown her, and for the aching loss she felt.

  She listened to Nick’s heartbeat as he stroked her hair and soothed her; gradually his hand slowed and stilled, and he began snoring gently.

  Her reading on drug abuse, and everything Vince had told her, gave glue-sniffing as a group event. It didn’t make sense him being alone. Had Ryan’s friends pushed him into it? Coerced him into doing something he despised? Ryan was well on the road to becoming a professional footballer — why would he jeopardize all of that for a short-term high? She saw him sitting in a circle, nervous, maybe trying to bluff his way out. Doing it, just to get it over with. But if he was with friends, how did he end up unconscious, unable to save himself as his clothes caught fire? Why didn’t the others help him?

  She could not reconcile Ryan’s stance on drugs with his taking part in a ‘drugs experiment’. Which left another possibility — one which she had skirted around all day, avoiding it, yet catching it, like a glimpse of movement in the shadows on a solitary walk.

  Ryan had been forced.

  She remembered how Siân had rushed out of her lesson on Monday. ‘Ask them!’ she had said. ‘Ask them!’ They knew something, she was sure of it, just as she was sure that Barry Mandel was mixed up in it.

  Finally, exhausted, but unable to sleep, she crept out of bed, pulled on her dressing gown and went downstairs.

  As she passed the sitting room, she heard Lauren’s voice, a low monotone: she was talking on the phone. She went to the kitchen, her toes curling at the icy cold of the tiles, and made coffee for both of them, then she tiptoed back to the sitting room. The air in the hallway was freezing, and beyond the front door the night seemed unnaturally bright — it was snowing. Geri listened at the door. All was quiet. She tapped and went in.

  ‘Am I disturbing you?’ she asked.

  Lauren shook her head. ‘I’ve finished.’ She had dragged the two-seater sofa close to the gas fire and was curled up on it, the phone in her lap.

  Geri handed her one of the coffee mugs and Lauren sniffed it. ‘Anything in this?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but that’s soon remedied.’ Geri set down her own mug and went to the big glass-fronted cupboard that served as a bookcase and drinks cabinet. She held up the Irish whiskey and a bottle of Tia Maria. Lauren opted for the Tia Maria. Geri gave herself a generous tot of whiskey, and as she topped up Lauren’s coffee, she asked, ‘Want to talk about it?’

  Lauren took a sip of her drink, then made room for Geri on the sofa next to her. ‘Probationer,’ she said.

  ‘Your baby Samaritan?’ Lauren was supervisor to a new member of the team, and as such was expected to act as mentor as well. ‘You weren’t on duty last night, were you?’

  Lauren shook her head. Sunday was her evening on the switchboard. She sipped her coffee thoughtfully for a few minutes, and Geri realized that she would not discuss the call any further.

  ‘What about you?’ Lauren asked, at length.

  Geri’s eyes widened. ‘Me?’

  ‘It’s after midnight and you’re prowling around as if you’ve lost something.’

  Geri placed her cup carefully on the arm of the chair. ‘I suppose, in a way I have.’

  Geri looked up to Lauren. She admired her long-term commitment to the Samaritans, her level-headedness, the way in which she handled the conflicting demands of her voluntary work: the requisites of concern with emotional detachment. She wished she had even a small measure of Lauren’s cool objectivity.

  Her reaction to Ryan’s death was complicated by her memories of losing her mother. Six years on, she still felt the need for reassurance.

  ‘Sadness can be so isolating . . .’ Lauren said, voicing Geri’s own feelings.

  Geri nodded unhappily. She felt the need to tell someone who would gather her up and kiss her forehead, take away the hurt.

  Like a child, Geri thought. Like a child in need of comfort.

  8

  For hours Geri watched from her study window as large, soft snowflakes fell, hesitantly at first, but later in a steadier drift, slowly but inexorably covering the lawn and path, blanketing the borders and draping bushes and trees.

  Its fall seemed gentle, almost solicitous, whispering a message of tranquillity and acceptance.

  Geri rebelled against its hypnotic persuasion. She could not, would not, accept what had happened to Ryan. His life had been stolen from him, and with it all the hopes, dreams, possibilities of his future. How could she ever accept that?

  At four thirty she crept into bed, cold and shivering, comforted by Nick’s warmth and his sleepy reassurances. For perhaps two hours she slept, dreaming of heat and flames, woken by the sound of screams.

  Confused, she sat up, peering into the darkness of the room. Nick stirred and groaned.

  ‘Turn the bloody thing off!’ he grumbled.

  The alarm clock! She reached across and snapped the switch.

  For a few minutes she lay listening to the silence. The streetlamps reflected from the snow created a false dawn; it peeped through the curtains, giving an eerie tint to the room. There was a breathless expectancy in the stillness and Geri felt a pleasurable spurt of excitement, but a jolt as solid as a punch hit her as she remembered Ryan and she wished fervently that she still had her faith. Plain truths, simple views of right and wrong, the promise of life everlasting.

  Geri sat up, impatient with herself and with the religion that had so confused her throughout her life: it was, after all, those same beliefs that had led Mari to ask if Ryan would go to hell. What sort of God was it that frightened children, and for whom salvation or damnation were so negligently meted out?

  Fighting exhaustion, she dragged herself to school, depressed at the thought that there were still two more days of work to face, driving with elaborate care through the snow. Attendance had been up since Ryan’s disappearance: parents were being more conscientious about checking their children’s whereabouts. But she was surprised to see so many in so early.

  A few of the younger children were building a snowman on the tennis courts. More were throwing snowballs or rolling with enviable energy and exuberance in the snow.

  Geri skipped the morning briefing and went in search of Frank. If anyone could tell her what had really happened to Ryan, Frank would. He had followed Ryan everywhere ever since they had
palled up in Year Ten. Geri was damned if she would accept the official explanation for Ryan’s death. Ryan did not do drugs — would never have done drugs — and she would prove it.

  Frank was in the computer suite, surfing the Net. Many of the rooms, with their leaky steel-framed windows, were freezing, and Geri had come to school wearing woollen trousers and a polo neck, but she still needed a cardigan over her sweater. The computer room was the warmest in the school, its windows welded shut, denying draughts as well as burglars access. The quiet exhalation of the computer fans was strangely soothing. The suite was situated on the second floor, next to the lecture theatre, out of sight and sound of the turmoil of the school playground.

  Geri stood beside him. He was aware of her but refused to acknowledge her presence. ‘Can I have a word?’

  Frank shrugged, clicking at random and causing an electronic bleep followed by a synthesised musical chord.

  ‘Frank—’ There were others in the room, and she didn’t want to embarrass him. ‘My room? Five minutes.’

  He was there in three. They stood at the back of the class, next to the bookshelves and pinboards full of children’s work displayed on primary-coloured backing paper, out of sight of members of Geri’s form who might want to escape the snowballing and the cold outside.

  ‘Have you seen Siân?’ she asked.

  ‘Her mum won’t let me near her.’ A shadow of emotion flitted across his face.

  ‘But you’ve spoken to her.’

  He bit his lower lip. ‘She can’t stop crying.’

  Geri reached out to touch him, but he moved slightly out of range. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘I mean are you coping all right?’

  Frank looked sick. During the last week he had lost weight he could ill-afford to lose, and his skin had taken on the chalk-pale translucence of a convalescent.

  ‘Frank?’

  He jerked as if she had shouted. ‘Fine,’ he said, without conviction. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Ryan was a good friend to you,’ she said gently.

  ‘He stuck up for me when I first came here — when I was too little and too scared to stick up for myself.’ Geri remembered with a jolt how small and vulnerable Frank had been when he came to St Michael’s at the age of fourteen. ‘He was a good mate.’ He spoke in a rush, angrily, as if Geri had challenged him to defend their friendship. ‘He taught me footie skills, helped me with homework, explained things—’ He stopped, his Adam’s apple jerking convulsively as he swallowed, fighting the emotion that threatened to choke him.

  ‘And Baz?’ Geri asked. ‘Does he stick up for you?’

  Frank closed in on himself, shutting her out, resentful of the question.

  ‘You don’t need Baz,’ Geri went on. ‘You don’t need his sort.’

  He glanced at her, making fleeting eye contact. She read annoyance, perhaps even scorn in his expression.

  ‘You think bullying stops in the Sixth Form?’

  Geri blinked. The question had winded her. Was this awful event down to bullying? Was what had happened to Ryan some sort of sadistic punishment?

  ‘Was Ryan being bullied?’

  Frank laughed, a high, cracked sound, near to tears. ‘Ryan?’

  She took a breath, silently berating herself for having misread the situation so badly. How could she have been so blind?

  ‘You’re being bullied?’

  He looked away. ‘No.’

  ‘Because if you are—’

  ‘No! I told you — no.’ There was a pause, which he eventually broke. ‘Hang around with Baz, nobody messes with you,’ he muttered.

  ‘Is that why you’re protecting him? Quid pro quo?’ Seeing his puzzled look, she added, ‘You scratch my back . . .’

  He shrugged, his face sulky, his manner truculent.

  ‘I got a threatening note,’ she said. ‘Fixed to my door with a syringe.’

  His eyes widened, and she thought she saw a fleeting terror, then he closed down again, shutting her out.

  He exasperated her with his self-absorption and his sullen refusal to communicate. ‘I thought you cared about Ryan!’ she exclaimed.

  Frank frowned — she had hit the mark.

  ‘He looked out for you, Frank. Why can’t you return the favour?’

  He glanced at her, his eyes darting nervously away as she tried to make him see her frustration. ‘Something happened — while you were all together. I know it did.’

  He shook his head. Tears stood in his eyes and he bit his lower lip as if afraid he might otherwise let out his secret.

  ‘You don’t care about Ryan,’ Geri said, unable to conceal her contempt. ‘All you care about is yourself.’

  His hurt was so profound that Geri responded to it with an uprush of feeling. She swallowed hard.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I want to help you, Frank, really I do.’

  She felt the same frantic desperation she had experienced watching her mother die — seeing her go through months of agony, until she couldn’t tell which limb was which, because her entire body was one screaming mass of pain. And knowing that her concern, even her love, were worse than useless.

  Frank looked into her eyes, and what she saw made her heart shrink.

  ‘No, Frank,’ she whispered. ‘No.’

  She saw in his face what she had seen too often in her mother’s: the unspoken words, I want to die. I just want to die.

  * * *

  There was a snowball fight at lunch time. Snowballing had, of course, been banned at assembly, and Mr Ratchford threatened dire consequences to anyone caught flouting his edict, but the temptation was too great. Classes had been kept in during break time, due to a further fall of snow, which undid all the hard work of the maintenance staff who had cleared the paths before the start of school. The children resented the cancelling of their break and the snowflakes whirling outside the classroom windows had increased their pent-up excitement.

  Amy Wilcox, having returned after a remarkably speedy recovery from ’flu, was on yard duty with Geri. As the snowballing grew from a few cheeky flurries to a frenzy that smacked of feuds and old scores being settled, Amy was hit in the back of the head with a snowball and stormed inside, leaving Geri to cope on her own. Geri sent a sixth-former to summon backup, and then surrounded herself with a posse of the bigger Upper Sixth lads until help arrived. It took the combined efforts of seven teachers to break up the fight, and the nucleus of nine or ten who had started the trouble were rounded up and marched down to Mr Ratchford.

  The afternoon seemed interminable. Her classes were inattentive, watching for signs of further snowfall, and Geri herself was preoccupied. She sought out Coral in her office at afternoon break. Her visits to Coral’s sunny room, lush with plants and decorated with watercolours and prints, always cheered her up.

  Coral was talking to three Year Nine boys. Coral rarely raised her voice; today was one of the few exceptions. She dismissed the boys, warning them to return to her at the end of lessons, and scarcely had the control to wait for the door to close behind them before exclaiming, ‘I don’t believe it! Look at this!’ She opened her hand to reveal a few small tubes of kit-making glue. ‘Stolen from the art department. Mr Burnley caught them red-handed.’ She threw the tubes onto her desk. ‘After all that’s happened!’

  Geri prodded the tubes. ‘Bloody idiots . . .’

  ‘God almighty!’ Coral growled under her breath. ‘Do they want to die?’

  ‘No, Coral, they just think they’re immortal.’

  Coral shook her head, rattling the beads in her braids. ‘Live fast and die young, eh?’ She sucked her teeth. ‘I don’t know how to get through to them on this, I really don’t.’

  ‘Vince was doing his bit down at the youth club last night.’ Which reminded Geri that a two of the boys Coral had been addressing were in the group Barry Mandel singled out the previous night. She opened her mouth to say something, then Vince’s words came back to her: if Barry was mixed
up in Ryan’s death, DCI Thomas would find out.

  ‘What?’ Coral said.

  ‘Nothing. Well, yes there was something. I want to go and see the Connellys. Would that be all right?’

  Coral gave Geri one of her narrow-eyed looks. ‘Depends what for.’

  ‘To offer my condolences. To let them know I’m thinking about them. To see how Dean is.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘You sure now?’

  Geri gave her an up-from-under look. ‘You’re always trying to find ulterior motives. Take it at face value, Coral.’

  Coral gave one of her fruity laughs. ‘Not in me nature, girl.’ She considered for a moment. ‘Maybe you could . . .’ Thinking out loud. ‘I have got to see those fools after school. And there’s a pastoral meeting at four thirty . . . It would be nice to get home before seven for once . . .’ She made up her mind. ‘I was going to take this myself, but if you want to go — it’ll give you an excuse for turning up on their doorstep uninvited.’ She took an envelope from the top of her out-tray and handed it to Geri. ‘On behalf of the school,’ she explained.

  Geri groaned, taking the envelope between finger and thumb. ‘A mass card!’

  ‘Now don’t start with your heathen ways.’ Coral treated Geri’s lapsed faith as a temporary aberration, a difficult phase she would grow out of. ‘It’s not going to burn you.’ She stopped and gave her head a little shake as if she couldn’t believe what she had just said. ‘It’ll make Mr and Mrs Connelly feel a whole lot better knowing the Carmelite sisters are praying for their son.’