Dead Time (8 page)

She answered instantly.
Yes, see you outside the ticket office. I'll be carrying a violin case.

He came back with
And I'll bring the bassoon.

She looked at the time. It was 16.03. She felt happy. The work was almost finished. Afterwards she intended to go on Facebook for a while and maybe look at some movie blogs.

She pulled her sleeve back and focused on her tattoo. It looked better today. Was that because it was finally healing? Or was it because she had seen that Joshua had a butterfly tattooed on his side? His was bigger, more powerful-looking, its wings at an angle as if it was in flight. Hers was still and flat and beautiful, as though it was in a display case. How had that happened? That both of them had had this tattoo done independently of the other? While standing looking into his bedroom mirror, her fingers on the side of his chest, he had laughed and said
Great Minds Think Alike
,
Rosie
, and she had looked at his reflection and felt a rush of emotion.

There was a knock and her door opened slightly.

‘There's someone to see you,' her grandmother said with a forced smile.

Rose stepped out of her room and looked over the landing. There, in the hallway, was Emma Burke. She was standing close to the front door. She looked up and saw Rose and gave a little wave.

‘Who is she?' her grandmother said.

‘She's from school,' Rose said, flustered.

How did she know where to find her?

‘Do you want me to bring her up here?'

‘No, I'll come down.'

Her grandmother went off into her bedroom and Rose went down the stairs.

‘How did you get my address?' she demanded.

Emma was wearing a bright purple top. It was tight and stretchy and showed her shape. She was thin, no spare flesh at all.

‘Oh, thanks. Hi, Emma, how are you feeling? How are the arrangements for your boyfriend's funeral going?' Emma said, her face puffed up, her fingers tapping the wooden surface of the hall table.

‘How did you find out where I live?'

‘A mate of Sherry's works in the administration office at school. She gave us your details yesterday, when we were looking for you.'

‘What do you want?'

‘I need your help. That's why I've come.'

‘I don't want anything to do with your boyfriend. It's not my business that he was killed. I was just unlucky enough to be there,' Rose said, looking straight at her. ‘I wish I hadn't known him because he was nasty to me. Truthfully, I'm not shedding any tears.'

Emma stared back at Rose, her face stony, only a quiver on her bottom lip showing any emotion. Her cheekbones looked more prominent or maybe she'd just pulled her hair back in a tighter knot.

Rose shrugged.

Emma blinked and a tear hung at the corner of her eye.

‘I don't see how I
can
help you,' Rose said hopelessly, ‘I don't
know
you. I'm not your friend.'

‘That's why. Everyone else is too involved. I need someone who doesn't care one way or another.'

The words stung. Rose was uncaring. Was she?

‘You want a drink?' she said.

‘No.'

She walked towards the kitchen. Emma followed. She pulled a chair out and sat down and gestured to Emma to do the same. Seated, Emma seemed to shrink against the big room. Above them pots and pans were hanging from a rail, polished and glossy, bunches of dried herbs drooping down between them. On the table there was a pyramid of lemons which sat in a bowl. They were never used, Rose knew, just replaced one by one when their skins started to harden and their colour lost its early morning sunshine glow. It was a showroom kitchen. There were no breadcrumbs on the side, no smeared knives lying around, no half-used tins of beans in the fridge.

Emma shivered as if she was cold.

‘I might as well start at the beginning,' she said. ‘Me and Ricky were together for three years. We grew up on the same street on the Chalk Farm Estate.'

Rose knew the Chalk Farm Estate. It was where most of the students from school came from.

‘I knew he wasn't an angel and he hung around with some bad types. Maybe that was what I liked about him. He was a bad boy. He had a reputation. Maybe I'm attracted to that kind of person. I know he was horrible sometimes but it was just a front. His mum is a nightmare and his older brother made his life miserable. You have to be hard round our way. That stuff he said to you, it was nothing personal …'

Rose huffed. It had felt
personal
to her.

‘Anyhow, just before the summer we broke up. I was sure he was seeing someone else but he denied it. I didn't believe him so I finished it.'

She hadn't known this.

‘I started to see this kid. It lasted about six weeks. It was great at first. We were all loved up but as time went on I got fed up with him. He was immature.'

Rose frowned. She wondered why Emma was telling her this.

‘It was Lewis Proctor.'

Now she understood.

‘I don't know know why I chose him. Maybe to get back at Ricky? He and Lewis were sort of rivals, I suppose you could say. Two bad boys on the same estate. They had different groups of friends, They hung around in different parts of Camden even though they lived streets away from each other. For a while it felt really good. We spent a lot of time together. I'm not sure when it started to go
bad. It was coming up to school time and I saw Ricky around. He was sweet and nice to me and I kept thinking about old times. Anyway I finished it with Lewis on the weekend before school started again and got back with Ricky.

‘You think
Lewis
stabbed Ricky?' Rose said. ‘That was why you asked me to look at him?'

Emma shrugged.

‘Lewis is capable of it. When he was fourteen he was involved in a stabbing. He said he was just an onlooker but …'

‘Have the police spoken to him?'

‘Yeah. Word is that Bee Bee's given him an alibi.'

‘Bee Bee?'

‘His new girlfriend. She was there the other day. The one with the silver boots. She'd say anything to help him. She's been desperate for him for months. For years.'

Rose was quiet. It was too much information.

‘Why are you telling me all this stuff?'

‘I got this, today, through my front door.'

She put an envelope on the table. There was a name on it; EMMA.

‘Open it.'

Rose pulled out a piece of paper. There were just a few words written in the middle.

Come and meet me at the cemetery at six. That's if you want to know who killed Ricky. Lew.

A heart had been drawn after the name.

‘It's Lewis's handwriting. He was always sending me little notes. After I gave him up he sent me a note every day for a couple of weeks. I had to hide them from Ricky.'

‘Why does he want to meet you at the cemetery?'

‘We went there a lot.'

‘The
cemetery
?'

‘It's next to the station. You know it?'

Rose nodded.

‘It's this private place. Lewis showed it to me. It's huge and has all these hidden areas to sit where no one bothers you. Not many kids use it because they're freaked out by the graves and stuff. It was perfect for me and Lewis. I didn't want to go anywhere where I might come face to face with Ricky and his mates. We just found a bench or a gravestone or some grass by a tree and sat and talked and drank and smoked. There's this rose garden, a kind of walled-off area. There aren't any graves there and it's quiet …'

‘Why does he want to meet you?'

‘I think he wants me to go back to him. He's been making cow eyes at me for weeks. I think the stuff about Ricky is just a way to get me there. Trouble is, I can't be absolutely sure. He knows a lot of people. There are some bad guys out there who didn't like Ricky and Lewis might have heard something.'

‘Will you go?'

‘I will if you come with me.'

‘Why me?'

‘Why not?'

‘Because this isn't anything to do with me! Ask Sherry to go with you.'

‘Sherry's at her dad's in Brentwood. In any case she hates Lewis. She'd just lose her temper and then he wouldn't say anything. She's too involved. I need someone who won't get Lewis's back up.'

Rose shook her head. ‘Why not just go alone?'

‘I'm a bit nervous. If it's really
not
about Ricky, and if he doesn't want to get back with me, then this might be about shaming me in some way. In front of Bee Bee, maybe. You saw what he was like in the cafeteria the other day. He likes a bit of drama. I just don't want to be on the receiving end of it. Not now. That's why I need someone with me. I don't know who else to ask. You're a hard person. You don't take any crap from anyone. He doesn't know you and I think he would be careful in front of you.'

‘I'm not
hard
.'

‘Yeah, you are. I see the way you walk round school. Most people say you're a stuck-up cow but I think you've grown this iron shell.'

‘I can't come. I don't
want
to come!'

Emma stood up. She looked as though she was about to say something else but instead she pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket and stared intently at the screen.

‘I just don't want to get involved,' Rose said softly. ‘I want to put what happened last Tuesday behind me.'

‘That's OK. I understand. I just thought I'd ask. I'll go on my own.'

Rose closed her eyes. This just wasn't her problem. Emma walked towards the door and she followed her along the hallway. The house was quiet. There wasn't a sound.

‘Nice house,' Emma said.

‘It's my grandmother's.'

‘Be yours one day.'

She shook her head. ‘I don't want anything from my grandmother. I have to live here until I finish high school and then I'm gone.'

Emma opened the front door.

‘You're not a very happy person, are you?'

‘That something else you noticed about me when I'm walking round school?'

‘It is. You should lighten up. People might get to like you.'

‘I don't care if people like me.'

‘I don't believe that. Everybody cares,' Emma said with a wan smile.

Framed by the big doorway she looked childlike. Her hair extensions hung in strings over her shoulder. The pink of her mobile phone reminded Rose of a mobile phone that one of her dolls had had. Emma gave a wave
and then turned away. It was the second time she had come to Rose for help. Rose felt herself softening. She called after her.

‘What time does Lewis want to meet you?'

‘Six,' Emma said, stepping hopefully back towards her.

Rose looked up at the hall clock. It showed twenty to five.

‘I'll come. I'll meet you outside the cemetery at ten to six.'

‘Really?'

‘Really.'

‘Why?'

‘Why not?'

‘You won't turn up.'

‘I will come. When I say I'll do something, then I'll do it.'

‘At the cemetery?'

Rose nodded.

‘At ten to six?'

‘I might be a stuck-up cow but I don't go back on my word,' Rose said.

Emma gave a shaky smile. Then she walked off.

Rose left a note on the kitchen table for her grandmother.

I am going out to meet a friend for a coffee. Will be back in a couple of hours. Rose.

It was 5.35. She had fifteen minutes to get to the cemetery to meet Emma. It was light but there was a greyness in the air, a hint of night. Feeling chilly, she zipped up her jacket and walked briskly along. All the houses in the street were set back and there were ornate garden gates and crisp brick walls that divided them from the pavement. Some houses had lines of short conifers or perfectly boxed hedges. It was quiet, as if there was some kind of soundproofing that kept the city noises at bay. It was a picture-postcard street and she should be grateful that she lived there. Anna had told her often enough.

She turned out on to the High Street. There she was met with light and noise and people. Thudding music came
from a stationary car which had its windows open. She walked past it and thought of Emma and Lewis Proctor. She was puzzled by the situation. She, who had never had a boyfriend, found it strange that Emma could just finish with one boy and start up with another. She remembered Lewis Proctor from the cafeteria the previous day. She hadn't liked the look of him. He was an example of so many of the boys who strutted round the school wearing their pristine sports clothes and trainers. She'd seen them in her class looking down at themselves, at the shape of their jeans or the length of their T-shirts or the fit of a jacket. They smelled of scent and cream and spearmint. They were interchangeable and Rose found herself repelled by their self-absorption. She suddenly thought of Joshua and his floppy hair and the beads around his neck. There was something soft about Joshua that made her want to touch him. Lewis Proctor on the other hand seemed hard and angular.

She liked Emma. This stringy girl, who at first seemed like a sad puppy dog wandering round after Ricky Harris, did in fact have hidden depths. She was forthright and persuasive. She had a kind of honesty that Rose liked. It made her think, strangely, of Rachel Bliss, her friend at Mary Linton. Honesty was not something that had troubled Rachel.

‘Hi!' a voice called.

She looked round and saw a young man with a familiar face.

‘Hi, it's Henry. The policeman from last week.'

She recognised him. The officer with the bicycle who had found a police car and driven her home from the station the previous Tuesday. She smiled and turned to walk on.

‘Hang on,' he called.

She stopped and waited until he caught up with her.

‘What are you up to?' he said.