Killing Rachel (12 page)

It was too late for resuscitation.

Rachel had probably been dead for hours.

Rose sighed. Rachel had been dead to her for a lot longer.

TWELVE

On Saturday morning Rose decided she would go into Holt with Amanda and Molly.

She checked her laptop and found she had two emails from Joshua. The first one had been sent at six the previous day.

I’m in the hotel, the White Rose. I’ve had a quick look around the village and tried to find some of the places on the map. Tomorrow I’ll make a fresh start. Hope things are OK at your old school. Josh XXX

The second one came later at just before eleven.

I’ve just been talking to some guys in the bar. I showed them Dad’s map. They told me that the places marked by Dad are away from the village towards the sea, along the mudflats. There’s a path that stretches all along the coast from King’s Lynn to Cromer. These mudflats come between the sea and the towns. They’re so wide that in most places you can’t actually see the sea. Do you remember that I told you about that odd feeling I got? That the place I was seeing in my head smelled of the sea but wasn’t near it? I know you were sceptical but maybe this is the place. Let you know tomorrow. Josh XXX

She sent an answer.

I know a few more details about what happened to Rachel. She went into the lake some time late on Monday evening. Some of the girls say that she’d been drinking so it could be just an accident. Mrs Abbott, my old head teacher, came to see me last night and said that the police were pleased that I’d brought the letters and that they showed Rachel’s state of mind in the days before she died. This afternoon, the police want to speak to me (as well as to some of the other students). Keep in touch xxxx Rose

Holt was a town about five miles away from the school. Getting there involved a walk of about a mile and a half to the bus stop. Then it was a five-minute ride.

Amanda was talkative but Molly was quiet. She stared out of the window, a large white handkerchief bunched up in her hand. Amanda talked about how things had been in school that term. Rose listened and nodded but really her mind couldn’t latch on to the small talk. She looked at Molly during a quiet moment. Molly always seemed younger than her years. When Rose first knew her she was an excitable character, a bit annoying but good-hearted. Amanda had been like that too but now Amanda seemed years older than Molly. It was as if Molly had stayed in Year Eight, always rushing here and there, her hand up first in class to answer a question. Even the way she dressed was young, wearing odd things in her hair and an old-fashioned mix of childish jumpers and blouses. Today she had a vivid pink feather slide in her hair which looked a little bizarre. Not that Rose was one to comment on other people’s clothes but it all added up to the fact that Molly hadn’t really grown up yet. It made perfect sense that Amanda and she had drifted apart. The fact that Rachel had befriended her gave Rose an uncomfortable feeling. Rachel had called her a
puppy dog
and Rose remembered Rachel rolling her eyes at Molly on many occasions.

The bus stopped in town and Rose got off, looking round to see the familiarity of the Georgian town with its old-fashioned High Street, its war memorial and numerous tea shops and antique shops for holidaymakers and weekenders. She’d always liked going into Holt. A lot of the other girls preferred to go to the nearby station of Little Radleigh and spend their free time in Norwich. She’d gone a couple of times in Year Ten but in Year Eleven, after she and Rachel had become friends again, the two of them preferred Holt. They dawdled in shops browsing endlessly; antiques, collectables, fashion boutiques and charity shops. Nobody seemed to mind and there was a brilliant arts and crafts area at the back of the High Street where she loved to buy sketch pads.

‘Are you going anywhere in particular?’ Rose said.

‘Library,’ Amanda said. ‘And Molly’s going to come with me to look at some of the vintage clothes shops.’

‘Text me when you’ve finished and we can get a drink.’

‘Yeah,’ Amanda said.

Rose watched them walk off, Molly a little ahead of Amanda. When they had gone she looked around. It was busy. Holt was always full of people at the weekends. Even in the winter families from London came and stayed in the second homes and shopped in the quaint grocers and bakers. She and Rachel used to make fun of them.

It was cold so Rose walked towards the back of the town in the direction of the Antique and Collectables Emporium, a rickety old building which covered two floors. Upstairs was a huge room full of stripped wooden tables and chairs and a variety of kitchenware dating from Victorian times right up to the 1960s. Downstairs were a number of tiny rooms, all filled to the brim with jewellery, dishes, glassware and clothes. It was an Aladdin’s cave and she and Rachel had spent loads of time there. They had always come away with some small item; a jewellery box, a pretty tin, a lacy scarf, a ring, a bracelet, once even a pair of elbow-length gloves.

Rose stayed downstairs, smelling the dampish smell that she remembered from her last visit months and months before. She looked at the rows and rows of crystal wine glasses. She suddenly thought of Anna and wondered whether she would like this place. Probably not. Anna shopped in Harrods and Bond Street. This place would probably appal her. Joshua would like it, though. There was a room at the back chock-full of workmen’s tools. She remembered the tiny bedroom he used in the house they’d lived in in Brewster Road. It was always crammed with bits of bikes and tools.

And then there was her mother. She would have loved this emporium. Her mother adored old things and scoured charity shops for old glasses or vases or crockery. She bought blouses and jackets from jumble sales and internet sites. Going to work her mother was one person; smart suit, shoes and briefcase. At weekends and holidays she wore this eclectic mix; a floral skirt, a tweed jacket, suede boots and round her neck a lace scarf that Brendan had bought her for a Christmas present. It was old, she’d said, the lace fragile; a stiff breeze might have blown a hole in it. Her mother was like two different people.

Now, though, Rose thought that her mother, Kathy Smith, was like three different people; policewoman, mother and . . . Who was the third person? The woman who had planned her own disappearance, who had left her daughter to live a lonely life?

Rose picked up a bead bangle from a shelf of glittering jewellery. Rachel had bought her one just like it, the beads turquoise and irregular like small polished stones. She’d given it to her after the summer holidays when Rose had fallen out with her. She’d got back to school a day before Rose. When Rose arrived she saw a small brown box on her pillow with the word
Sorry!
written on the front. Inside was the gift. Rose replaced the bangle on the shelf with the rest of the jewellery. Then she walked out of the emporium and along the street until she came to a tiny square that had benches in the middle. She sat down and watched people walking by.

The summer holidays after Rachel’s lie had seen emails flying back and forth between them. Rachel was sorry. Rachel was sorry the whole summer long.

I was depressed; the summer was coming up; I didn’t want to go home: I was worried about my mum’s boyfriend, Robert, so I made the stupid story up; don’t ask me why; I’m just an idiot.

Sometimes I think my life is just so dull that I have to make things up.

You’ve had dramatic things happen in your life. You don’t know what it’s like to be ordinary.

The only thing that ever happened to me was Juliet’s death and that’s not something I want to remember. Maybe that’s why I made it up. Something to feel bad about that hadn’t actually happened.

I promise I’ll never lie about anything again.

Rose softened. Rachel had admitted she’d lied, she’d even tried to analyse it. Maybe this was a new beginning for her. In any case, the first days of the holidays when Rose was resolved to breaking up with her friend were grim. Walking around her grandmother’s house it was as though she was the twelve-year-old who had first gone to live there. She had gone back three years in time, alone, friendless. All she had to look forward to was a solitary time at school. Rachel would find new friends and she, who did not easily connect with people, would be on her own.

It made her feel bereft.

When the emails came she ignored them for a few days but eventually she answered, stiffly and showing the hurt she’d felt at Rachel’s lie. Then her answers got longer and she even tried to sympathise with Rachel, cheering her up, asking her about the terrible Robert and about how things were going with her dad’s new wife, Melissa.

Rose wore the bracelet and she gave the silver locket she’d bought to Rachel. The friendship was strong again for the first few weeks of the autumn term. The cold weather stopped them going to the wood and they spent most of their time inside. There was work to do; the GCSEs were at the end of year and the school was geared up to getting high results for all their students. There were extra classes and regular tests. There were pastoral meetings and targets and work patterns were examined and commented on. The girls were put on notice. This was the year of examinations and they had to knuckle down.

Rose did everything that was asked of her. She intended to get into university in three years’ time. She wanted a career and life away from Anna and independence was the only way she was going to have that.

Rachel was less motivated and Rose saw it as her job to chivvy her along, to nag her about work, to make sure she was completing assignments. Rachel was easily bored, though, and didn’t like the work. During private study time Rose saw her sitting in the refectory or in the quad chatting to other girls. Her grades were poor and Rose tried to explain to her how she needed to do more research or spend longer doing fresh drafts of her essays but Rachel told her, jokily, ‘Give it a rest!’ Or ‘Leave me alone!’

They fell out bitterly just before half-term in October.

Rachel had said she would see her in the library after the last class. She was doing some research for a project on Buddhism and Rose said that she would help. Rose went to the library and waited for her. She took her book out and read for a while. She went on to one of the monitors and looked up websites she liked. Eventually, she gave up and went to look for Rachel. A girl she asked said she’d seen Rachel go into Brontë House. A feeling of indignation took hold of her. Rachel had no right to be in Brontë House when she’d agreed to meet Rose in the library. She marched across and found Rachel sitting in a small kitchen with two other girls, one of them Tania Miller. She walked right in and stood stiffly amid them. They were sitting on high stools at the breakfast bar. She gave Rachel a glare but all Rachel said was ‘Oh, hi!’ and kept talking. She stood uncertainly. Eventually she pulled a chair out from a table and sat on it feeling ignored. She was on a lower level than the three of them and as she looked up at Rachel’s smiling face, her hands gesticulating, she felt a hot flicker of jealousy.

How easy Rachel was with other people.

Tania was listening to Rachel’s story with the beginnings of a smile on her face. When Rachel finished Tania clapped her hands together with glee.

This was how Rachel spent her time instead of working, instead of being with Rose. She got up suddenly and walked out of the kitchen. She got as far as the door of Brontë House and stopped.

What was wrong with her?

Rachel was only talking to some other girls! She turned and walked back towards the tiny kitchen and heard a tinkle of laughter coming from the room. When she got closer she heard Rachel’s voice loud and clear. ‘God! Take no notice of Rose. She’s so possessive and needy! It’s driving me completely nuts.’

She walked into the kitchen and stared at her friend. Her eyes bored into Rachel’s face. How could she say that? Without a single word she walked out again.

Moments later she heard Rachel following her along the path.

‘Rose, don’t be silly. I was only joking,’ she called.

Rose kept her head down and walked rapidly. She reached her own room and locked the door from the inside and ignored Rachel knocking and calling out to her. The next day she got up early and packed her bag for the half-term break. Then she walked to the bus stop and went into Holt by herself. It wasn’t allowed but she didn’t care and she stayed there all day until she was sure that Rachel would have left for the half-term holidays.

The friendship should have ended then.

But after half-term Rachel came back to school unrepentant.

There had been no emails asking for forgiveness and when Rose saw her coming and going Rachel was cold and distant. She saw her a lot with Tania Miller and the girls from Brontë House. It was as if she was the one who had offended Rachel and not the other way round. Rose was being punished and instead of making her resolute and aloof it made her miserable and sad.

She wanted the friendship back.

She had gone over the top and been too possessive. Maybe the fact that she was alone in the world meant that she leant too much on her friend. She could change. She could be less
needy
.

She wrote a letter. She said she was sorry and that she’d been too heavy-handed and interfered too much in Rachel’s work. She wanted to be friends again and this time she would not be possessive. This time the friendship would be different. She put the envelope under Rachel’s door late one evening and then she waited. Five minutes later the envelope appeared under her door. Delighted, she picked it up. Inside Rachel had scribbled the words,
I’ve missed you! Let’s be friends again! See you at breakfast. Luv Rachel
She looked wistfully at the adjoining wall. Rachel was only metres away. Why hadn’t she come and knocked on her door, invited her into her room? Why had she not been keen to catch up, to talk over what had happened, to give her a hug? She lay down on her bed. She could not go next door now. She would have to wait until the morning.