Killing You Softly (16 page)

You think people don’t talk in officialese in real life, but I assure you they do – at least, Saint Sam does.

The smoker cleared his throat and invited the principal and Molly to come next door and provide more details – Galina’s age and appearance, a photograph from her file, contact number
for her parents and so forth. This left me with Ripley.

‘This latest thing with Galina has upset you a lot, Alyssa.’ As usual, not a question but an observation.

‘Definitely. I’ve been worried about her ever since Tuesday – you know, when she told me she was trying to get away from Mikhail.’

We’re outside the churchyard on Chartsey Bottom Main Street.

‘Leave me!’ Galina yells at Mikhail. ‘I tell my father what you do!’ Then some Russian insults and a sprint towards Jack, Marco and me, with Mikhail lumbering
behind.

‘Back off, buddy!’ Jack warns.

Galina runs through the lych gate, Marco stands in Mikhail’s way. There’s a fight while Galina runs on into the church porch. I find her there, trembling and hiding her face in
her hands. Then I see the blood.

‘He did it,’ she sobs. ‘Mikhail, he did this.’

‘In the cafe?’

‘No, outside village, on small road. I ran away.’

Eventually Jack wrestles Mikhail to the ground. Marco stamps on his chest and says nothing.

‘Not an accident,’ Galina sobs. ‘He punches me. He tries to kidnap me.’

I relived these details and shared them with Ripley.

‘That’s remarkably detailed,’ she commented when I’d finished. She didn’t sound admiring, more suspicious, as if I might have made it all up and rehearsed it to
make myself word-perfect.

‘And true,’ I insisted quietly.

‘Ah, yes – the total-recall facility. What’s it really like, Alyssa, to have your kind of memory?’

‘It’s like hard-disk overload,’ I tried to explain. ‘Eidetics never get a break from remembering things they’d rather forget. Sometimes I just get information
overload and crash. I turn into a sort of zombie – my mind goes dead, there’s nothing there.’

‘So I wouldn’t want it?’ she decided.

‘Not if you want to stay sane – no.’ I thought for a while then revised what I’d said. ‘Actually, in your job – yes, you might.’

‘Anyway, it’s interesting, what you just said. Scarlett’s mum told me the same thing – that having total recall was a curse rather than a blessing for her daughter
too.’

‘You see – we’re freaks.’

‘It’s rare but I wouldn’t call you freaks. And it helps me, for sure. I know I can rely on you.’

‘That’s cool,’ I told her. ‘What else do you want to know?’

‘Plenty. But what do you say we get out of here and go for a drive? It might do you good to get away from school while we carry on talking.’

Without waiting for an answer, Ripley went to tell Sergeant Owen she was taking the car.

‘OK, boss.’ He sat out of sight in Molly’s room but I could tell by his voice that he wasn’t happy.

‘Half an hour,’ Ripley promised as she led me out and sat me next to her in the unmarked police car parked outside the main entrance.

Before I knew it we’d sailed off down the drive, out through the gates and along the lane leading to Hereward Ridge.

‘So carry on,’ she invited as she adjusted the heating. ‘I’m interested in hearing more about what people might have told you about Scarlett Hartley.’

‘Not much. It’s mostly what I read in the paper and saw on TV. A little bit from Jayden and his girlfriend, Ursula.’

‘Oh yes, Jayden Johnson,’ Ripley smiled. ‘He’s an interesting kid. Totally focused, just like you, Alyssa, but it manifests itself differently.’

‘Yeah, Jayden’s cool.’

‘How about Ursula?’

‘I like her too. She’s the one who told me that Scarlett went out with Matt Brookes and Sammy Beckett before she and Alex were an item – I’m not sure for how long or how
serious those others were. And it turns out Scarlett went out with Will Harrison while he was at Ainslee Comp, but she dumped him some time last summer.’

‘Thanks for that.’ Ripley seemed to be making careful mental notes then switched subjects as the car swept up the dark hill. ‘Moving on again – tell me how you’re
dealing with the bullying and the messages you’ve been receiving.’

‘They creep me out more and more,’ I admitted. ‘Whoever this guy is, he’s now telling me that Galina isn’t the end of it, that it’s going to get
worse.’

‘Yes, that’s what I picked up when Dr Webb called the station.’ Ripley pulled into a small lay-by overlooking the valley so she could fully concentrate. She switched off the
lights, but kept the engine running.

‘He left a message on Galina’s phone. He said to forget the Russians and concentrate on the clues.’

‘So he’s threatening to raise the bar?’

I nodded. ‘Is this what happens? Is it normal?’

‘Nothing is normal about stalkers – believe me. I’ve seen all kinds from ones who occasionally shadow celebrities and send them pathetic proposals of marriage to those who
stalk their victims every single minute of the day without ever saying a word. They stay in the shadows and are the most difficult to deal with.’

‘And I know you’re probably not supposed to share this, but can you tell me if someone did the same thing to Scarlett?’ I pressed for an answer to the question that Jack and I
had wondered about, even though I wasn’t really ready to handle this if the answer turned out to be yes. ‘Did he set her challenges to see if she could work out who he was?’

Ripley shook her head. ‘I’m not saying no,’ she quickly put in. ‘I’m saying we don’t know. Naturally, we’ve asked her friends about it but so far
there’s not much hard evidence.’

‘ “Not much hard evidence”,’ I sighed as Ripley turned on the lights and did a three-point turn to face downhill. That meant they hadn’t been able to trace
Scarlett’s missing phone or pick up any email messages. ‘So now, what about Galina? From what I know about abductions, the first forty-eight hours are crucial.’

My friendly inspector let the car cruise downhill. ‘That’s true. That’s when we gather forensic information, interview witnesses and so on. After that, the pace of
investigation slows down and we enter into more of a waiting game.’

‘So what are you waiting for – a ransom demand?’

‘Yes, or at least some contact with the kidnapper. Something that leads us forward into the next phase, which is usually a negotiation for the victim’s release.’

‘But this is contact with the kidnapper!’ I pointed to the phone lying in the CD compartment of Ripley’s car. ‘OK, so it’s not a straightforward ransom demand, but
actually it’s worse!’

‘Better catch me quick, memory girl. You think this is bad but it’s going to get worse – one hundred per cent guaranteed.’

‘Before the threat turns into a reality,’ she agreed. ‘We can check the phone for prints. And, remember, it’s only been a few hours so we can still hope that Galina will
show up of her own accord.’

Ripley didn’t say this to reassure me, she said it to test me out and carefully watched my reactions.

‘She won’t,’ I said as a shiver ran down my spine and the car coasted down the hill.

‘No?’

‘Scarlett didn’t, did she?’

‘And you’re convinced this is a parallel situation? Same perpetrator, same mode of operation?’

‘Yes, carbon copy, minus the perfect recall, of course.’

‘So we’ll search the canal for another body.’ Ripley shrugged then hunched forward over the steering wheel, as though it was too late at night and the gruelling nature of her
job was finally getting to her. ‘Sorry, Alyssa – ignore that. It was unprofessional.’

‘We have to find Galina,’ I said again, studying her profile. ‘We need to trace Mikhail and Sergei, find out when they last saw her, check Ainslee Westgate to see if she took a
train, make contact with her stepmother. You never know – Salomea Radkin might have some information that we don’t.’

The inspector turned to smile at me. ‘We make an unorthodox team, you and I. So who else should I talk to?’

‘Try the stepmother,’ I repeated. ‘You never know – Mrs Radkin might come up with something.’

Ripley agreed and we drove back to St Jude’s like two female detectives in a popular cop series,
Ripley and Stephens,
alert and on the ball, exuding girl power.

Next morning, the police were crawling all over St Jude’s and it was hard for anyone to go on with life as normal.

Jack made a brave effort, though. ‘Take a look at Nadal’s forehand,’ he told me. ‘See the footwork he puts in to get him into exactly the right place to play the
stroke.’

Yes, Jack and I were talking again. Or, rather, I was with him in the technology centre and he was studying a training video featuring his favourite tennis player of all time. I stood at the
window, watching another police car arrive. I saw Raisa and two uniforms step out then walk swiftly towards Saint Sam’s office.

‘I’m not boring you, am I?’ Jack checked. ‘Tell me to stop if I am.’

‘No, please – I’m listening.’ I urged him to go on, wishing that Nadal’s forehand was all we had to worry about in the foreseeable future.

‘Compare Nadal with Djokovic,’ Jack said. ‘They both have incredible athleticism, but totally different body language. Look how scarily cool and focused Djokovic is. With
Nadal, there’s more emotion.’

I left the window and joined him at the computer. ‘Talking of emotion . . .’ I began.

Jack pressed the
PAUSE
button and glanced up at me. ‘Yeah, I know – we’re both still feeling bad. I’ve already said I was an idiot. I’m
sorry.’

‘Me too. I’m sorry if I did anything to give you the wrong impression about me and Marco.’ I could mention relationship rule number two again here – don’t apologize
for something that is in no way your fault. But that’s in an ideal world and I was so relieved that Jack had come over to me at breakfast and sat down like nothing had happened that I happily
broke my own rules.

Jack smiled and kissed me. We were good again. The line of Marco hearts and Jack’s recent view of Marco and me almost going into a clinch in the cold quad – I saw that he wanted to
show me that both incidents were history.

‘Raisa showed up in a police car,’ I told him. ‘She looked upset.’

‘Still nothing about Galina?’

‘No.’ I’d spent the night awake in the spare bed in Eugenie and Charlie’s room, my overactive mind hopping between Galina’s disappearance and Scarlett’s
murder, constantly looking for the missing link, wondering who was the shadowy figure connecting them – someone right under my own nose, someone in plain sight.

‘You look shitty,’ Charlie had told me when she woke up, offering me Touche Eclat to hide the shadows under my eyes.

‘Thanks – I
feel
shitty,’ I’d told her. Not waving but drowning again, until Jack had sat down next to me in the refectory and made me eat something instead of
drinking litres of coffee. He’d said sorry for being an idiot.

‘It’s because I care,’ he’d explained.

Wow, Eugenie – top marks for you in relationship counselling!

‘Where’s Galina’s family?’ Jack wondered. ‘Why is it all down to the maid to fill them in about the disappearance?’

‘Her dad’s in New York doing shady oligarch deals. She doesn’t get on with her stepmum.’

Jack sighed. ‘Is there a single family at St Jude’s that’s not totally dysfunctional?’

‘Yours?’ I volunteered.

Jack’s parents were still married, a miracle when you have crazy wealth like they do. His dad’s an international property developer, his mum’s a gallery owner and they have
homes in London, the Caribbean and Switzerland. Jack’s their only child. When they found out at the age of seven that he had an IQ of 138 and was a maths genius, they said OK, we’ll
send you to St Jude’s Academy, but it’s not going to be all work and no play. That’s why they started tennis lessons for him and discovered he was exceptional at sport too.

The other miracle is that Jack didn’t let it all go to his head. He’s modest and laid-back, funny and genuine, and I love him. You already know that.

‘Hey.’ It was Charlie who broke up our reconciliation session by delivering a message from Saint Sam. ‘Would you two please quit chewing each other’s faces. Alyssa, they
want you in the principal’s office right away.’

‘I’ll wait here for you.’ Jack blushed and went back to his training video as I dashed away.

Poor Raisa – her eyes were red and swollen and her round face a picture of misery as she sat in one of the red leather chairs in Saint Sam’s office. Molly was with
her, offering tea and sympathy.

‘Dr Webb has been called away to speak to Inspector Ripley,’ she told me when I joined them. ‘He won’t be more than five minutes.’

‘Do you know why they want to see me?’ I asked.

‘I think they’re still at the stage of gathering as much information as they can about Galina’s disappearance and Inspector Ripley particularly asked to speak to you
again.’

Mention of Galina’s name set Raisa off on a fresh bout of crying. Molly handed her a box of tissues.

‘Too many bad things,’ Raisa wept. ‘Always bad things for my little girl.’

‘It’s not your fault – you’ve always taken good care of her, I’m sure.’ Molly spoke softly. ‘For how many years now?’

‘Ten years she is my
lyublmaya
, my beautiful girl. You should see her then – so pretty. I am with my Galina all this time. I see her happy; I see her sad. I cannot stop the
bad things.’

‘No one can,’ Molly empathized. ‘But we have to stay positive and let the police do their work. We hope that Galina will be found unharmed.’

‘My girl,’ Raisa sobbed quietly. ‘I tell them, I say after boat accident – her father’s enemies, they are to blame. I make them listen. Since then we have Sergei
and Mikhail with her always. It is not enough – I tell Salomea, it is not enough.’

‘Let’s wait and see. If Galina has been kidnapped, in the normal way of things it can’t be long before the people who took her will make contact with the family. There’ll
be a ransom demand, conditions laid down.’ Molly pronounced the conventional wisdom, without knowing the full details about my stalker’s menacing phone calls, which would turn a common
or garden kidnap situation into probable murder.