Killing You Softly (5 page)

‘Because I’m his granddad,’ the old man said with a rheumy tear in his eye. ‘Our whole family is gutted, along with hers. Pretty girl, and clever with it. Vicar just
asked us to pray for her – not that it’ll do any good now, of course.’

If someone tells me I can’t do something, my stubborn streak comes out.

It was the same when I was little. When Aunt Olivia said no to me joining the junior-school football team because it took me away from my studies, I ignored her. I’d stay after school
and be busy scoring goals when officially I was in extra maths. Or there’d be a programme on TV she said I couldn’t watch – it was too gory, too trashy, too adult, whatever. So
what did I do? I would secretly press
RECORD
and watch it the next day while she was at work. OK, it’s not big and it’s not clever, but I did it anyway.

So when Jayden told me to back off and Alex’s granddad said Alex wouldn’t be interested in talking to me I just grew more determined. I got on my bike, cycled up the hill to
Millstones Cottage and knocked on the door.

‘Alex isn’t in,’ his dad told me. Alex’s dad was a younger version of croaking, gobbing man. That is, he had hair and no limp, but the double chin and beer gut were
developing and there were the same sags and wrinkles around his eyes.

‘Do you know where he is?’ I asked.

Alex’s dad shrugged and closed the door.

I knocked again. ‘I’m Alyssa Stephens,’ I reminded Mr Driffield.

‘I know who you are – you’re from St Jude’s. I saw your face splashed all over the front pages of the papers. You were involved in the Lily Earle business.’

‘Lily was my roommate.’

‘I know that too. You got yourself involved in the whole nasty mess instead of leaving it to the police. Too bloody clever by half.’

The force behind what he said made me take a step back. I remembered how strict he was with Alex, how Alex didn’t raise his head above the parapet if his dad was on the warpath. Crouch
down, tow the line, don’t speak until you’re spoken to – this was Neanderthal parenting with a vengeance. And I could read that now in Mr Driffield’s square stance, which
blocked the doorway, and in his small, mistrustful eyes.

‘So please tell Alex I called,’ I said, realizing that I was getting nowhere.

He made no promises as he shrugged again and closed the door a second time.

Head down and lost in thought, I picked up my bike at the gate and wheeled it towards Upwood House, the National Trust property overlooking the valley. If nothing else, I could make my way
past the Georgian mansion on to Hereward Ridge then cycle the scenic route along the bridle path back towards St Jude’s.

I’d only got as far as the entrance to Upwood House, however, when I bumped into another familiar figure, and felt that an already bad day was about to get much worse.

‘Watch where you’re going,’ Ursula growled, sidestepping me and my bike.

To be fair, I had almost walked into her. Ursula was Jayden’s current girlfriend, following on from Lily and her exact opposite. ‘Hostile, doesn’t cover the impact her
presence makes in any given situation. She’s tall, blonde and hard faced – an impression enhanced by nose piercings and rows of studs along the rims of both ears.

‘Sorry,’ I told her, hurrying on.

She followed me for four or five steps. ‘So where
are
you going?’

‘Back home,’ I muttered.

‘How come? I thought you wanted to see Alex.’

I stopped and turned. ‘How did you know – did Jayden tell you?’

Ursula nodded. ‘He texted just before I finished work at the big house. Yeah, I work there and don’t look so gobsmacked.’

‘I’m not. No.’ It was none of my business where school dropout Ursula worked and I was caught off guard by the fact that she wanted to have this conversation. In the bad old
days before Christmas, when I was involved with the whole ‘nasty mess’ of Lily and Paige, I hadn’t been able to get more than a stare and a grunt out of her. I’d even had
Jayden’s door slammed in my face by her, which is why it felt weird to be standing in the cold, halfway up a steep hill, talking like this.

‘I’m a cleaner,’ she explained. ‘Five mornings a week. It’s a lousy job, but I left home over Christmas and this pays the rent. Jayden was no help to you, was
he?’

‘He didn’t know where Alex was, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Sure he did,’ she contradicted. ‘I expect he told you to back off, didn’t he? That’s Jayden for you, trying to protect his mate.’

This was getting more interesting by the second. ‘Why does he have to protect him?’

‘Why do you think? Alex is in bits – his girlfriend just died. Jayden knows you’d go in like a bull in a china shop.’

‘Well, thanks.’

‘No, Jayden likes you – don’t get me wrong. And I know you’re only trying to help. But the bottom line is that Jayden thinks you’re trouble. And you are, Alyssa
– you and your photographic memory – you’re a pain.’

So why was she bothering to talk to me with the wind whipping strands of straw-blonde hair across her cheeks? She was even worse prepared for the weather than me in a lightweight black
sweater, thin denim jacket, ballet pumps and leggings. ‘You’re right,’ I agreed. ‘It’s not my business. I don’t know why I’m bothering.’

‘It’s the drowning thing, isn’t it?’

Now I was really hooked into the conversation. I leaned my bike against a street lamp, folded my arms and listened.

‘First Lily and now Scarlett. And, yeah, I know they got the right guys for the Lily murder – D’Arblay, Harry Embsay, Guy Simons – little fascist shits. So this new one
doesn’t look like it’s connected. It’s just that it got under your skin and wormed its way into your gut – the fact that Scarlett and Lily both drowned.’

I nodded, said nothing and didn’t mention the ghostly hand scratching at my bedroom window, begging to be allowed in.

‘I get where you’re coming from and I’d feel the same if I was you. I knew Scarlett from Ainslee Comp – not as well as you knew Lily, probably, and it’s a while
since we hung out together – but well enough to want the bastard caught and for them to throw away the keys.’

‘I hear you.’

‘Personally, I’m hoping that’s where you might come in, Alyssa – you and your freaky memory.’

I took this as a rare compliment and gave Ursula a thin smile. ‘You say you knew Scarlett at school?’

‘Yeah, before they kicked me out. I did half a term in the Lower Sixth until they caught me in media studies with a pocket full of uppers – my gran’s happy pills that
I’d picked up from the chemist’s though no way did they believe me. I was already on a written warning. That was it – they showed me the door.’

‘OK. So anyway – Scarlett?’

‘Yeah. Really clever but not geeky. Everyone liked her, especially the boys. Alex practically stalked her for a whole term before he found the balls to ask her out. Then, within a week
– look what happened.’

‘What did happen?’

‘You’re the super-sleuth, you tell me.’

‘I only know what I read in the
Metro
and what Tom told me. But you actually knew her. What was she like? Was there an old boyfriend who got jealous when she chucked him and
started going out with Alex?’ As I really got into the subject, questions poured out of me. ‘Where’d she been on New Year’s Eve? Was she at a party? Who with? Did she try
to walk home alone?’

Ursula let me run dry before she answered. ‘Scarlett didn’t go out with many guys. There were a couple in our year at school – Sammy Beckett and Matt Brookes were the ones I
knew about – then there was one with a foreign name that I can’t remember. She met him on holiday last summer but he lives in Italy so I guess he doesn’t count. And, yes, she
was at a New Year’s party in Ainslee, but not with Alex because Alex’s dad made him go to a boring family party instead.’

‘You definitely know that?’

‘I was there with Jayden, Micky Cooke, Matt and a couple of other mates. Tom would’ve been there except he was in London.’

‘So Scarlett was by herself?’

‘No – we were all together, a big gang of us getting pissed. I was out of it before midnight, so were most of the rest. We staggered out about one o’clock and called a taxi.
It took us bloody ages to find one.’

‘What about Scarlett? When did she leave?’

‘Yeah, right, that’s the big question.’ Pushing a stray strand of hair behind her heavily pierced ear, Ursula shook her head. ‘I’ve tried to think – when
was the last time I saw her and I honestly don’t know the answer. It might have been before twelve . . . but then . . . no . . . I’ve got a definite memory of Scarlett kissing Jayden
at midnight and me getting crazy jealous and having a go at her . . . But then again maybe that was later. And she definitely wasn’t with us in the cab so she must have left before one
o’clock – unless she was still in a dark corner somewhere, snogging a stranger . . . But then no again – Scarlett wouldn’t do that.’

‘It’s all a blur really?’

‘Yeah. I’m sorry I’m not like you – I haven’t got the perfect memory thing going on.’

‘It’s pretty rare,’ I conceded, ‘and most people wouldn’t want it, believe me.’

She looked at me as if she wasn’t sure about making the next revelation then decided to go ahead. ‘Actually Scarlett had it. That’s weird – right?’

This rocked me back on my heels. I even thought I’d imagined what she’d said. ‘Say that again.’

‘Scarlett was the same as you – she had total recall. I know – it’s a big coincidence.’

‘Scarlett Hartley had an eidetic memory?’ I whispered. As the news sank in, it did more than rock me back on my heels – it hit me hard between the ribs, right in my solar
plexus. Now I was connected directly with Scarlett’s death and not just through Lily and the drowning link. Scarlett and I were similar in a totally unexpected way. ‘That can’t
be right.’

‘OK, don’t believe me,’ Ursula sniped back, and her face took on the usual hard expression as she turned and set off back down the hill. ‘I was only trying to
help.’

‘No, I believe you . . .’

Too late, she was gone. And now I saw why. Loping up the hill with that forward hunch and wild-boy glare was Jayden, coming to meet his girlfriend after work, with Bolt trotting obediently
behind.

‘Translate from English into French,’ Justine Renoir instructed her select little group of students next morning. She asked us to go online to study copies of the
morning papers. ‘Work in pairs and choose any article you like. You have thirty minutes to complete the task.’

It was the first day of term and to be honest I was glad to be back in a classroom overlooking the lake across the hallway from Saint Sam’s office, doing something normal like
translating a passage from a newspaper. Since my accidental meeting with Ursula and the revelations about Scarlett, I’d spent more time than I wanted to mopping up after Princess Galina and
trying to explain away those fake Facebook photos.

‘I cannot stay here!’ Galina had told me a hundred times. ‘St Jude’s is a prison. Why don’t they listen?’

‘Maybe “they” want you to spend time studying, out of the media spotlight,’ I’d suggested. ‘I suppose you mean your dad and the rest of your
family?’

‘My stepmother,’ she’d told me, confirming one of my earlier theories. ‘But it’s not fair! I have business interests – who will take my bags to big fashion
shows? I’m face of Radkin Luxury Leather. Without me, it is nothing.’

‘You design handbags?’ I’d asked.

‘Since I was fifteen,’ she’d confirmed. ‘I give Papa my business plan and he gives me ten thousand pounds for start-up. Small money for him, but enough for me to begin.
Now bags are in Paris, Milan, New York . . .’

She’d shown me a website with pictures and I’d been impressed.

‘For six months last year they make me do Slavic Studies in California, but I already know more than the teachers. I tell them, I don’t want to do this any more. I only want to be
designer. So they take me out of class and send me to Monaco, which I love and I have fun with friends. But now they change their minds and make me do this!’

‘So did your dad give you an actual reason for sending you to St Jude’s?’ I’d enquired.

Galina had sighed and her beautiful, cushiony bottom lip had trembled. ‘He thinks that here it is safe.’

‘But not in Monaco?’

‘No. There’s accident in boat, which they say is not accident. Someone died.’

‘Oh!’ That explained Mikhail and Sergei. Security was obviously top priority for the Radkins.

But Galina had shrugged and insisted it was nothing, an accident for sure, then she’d gone on to weep and wail some more. I’d tried to sympathize about her possibly being in danger
from God-knows-what Russian mafia gangs, but I’d found it difficult. She wasn’t a person you felt sorry for easily and I still had other things on my mind.

Call me paranoid, but I’d waited for Galina to leave then carried out a quick search of our room. Russian mafia might mean hidden cameras and other high-tech bugging devices; it might
mean a man in a black balaclava shinning up the drainpipe in the middle of the night. Yeah, like I said earlier, a little too 007, but still a possibility.

‘Work with me?’ Hooper suggested as Justine set us our translation task for the morning.

I agreed and we began looking for interesting headlines together. Over the weekend the pound had taken another beating on the stock exchange, and a famous footballer worth sixty million on the
transfer market had been banned for six matches for punching a linesman in the face.

‘Did you text Jack about those photos?’ Hooper reminded me as I scrolled through various articles.

‘I did mention it – yeah.’

Took nasty pics off my Facebook page
I’d texted in one of the gaps between Galina-minding.

Jack had texted back after a few minutes.
Why – what’s going on?

Someone hacked into my account or else they stole password and posted fake photos.

Fake?

Yeah – of me in the Maldives, and you know I’ve never even been there.

Wow, weird. Were they really bad?