Cruel Summer (28 page)

Oh, this is a waste of time!
Alisha thought. She badly needed to chill out. What did she think was going to happen? Their love would be the miracle glue to keep the group together?
After a year of cabin fever in Telscombe Cliffs, she’d been so excited about the holiday and being back with her friends. But they weren’t her friends any more. One of them was a killer
and they had
all
done a terrible, awful thing. You don’t get a ‘happy ever after’ after that.

If Janey wasn’t already dead, Alisha would have killed her. She allowed herself a secret smile at the thought. A part of them had gone with Janey off the edge of those cliffs. Those
endless, carefree summer holidays when they’d hung out in Ben’s garage, walked back from Brighton because they’d spent their bus fare on clothes, practised dance routines in
Ryan’s living room. They were gone and recapturing them was like trying to get a butterfly back in a jar.

Alisha knew there was a bottle of vodka in the freezer. She was feeling far too lucid; maybe she’d do something about that. She clicked off the TV. No. She had to stay sharp. Who bloody
knew what her brother and Ryan were plotting upstairs?

If only they’d listened to Katie yesterday, none of this would have happened. OK, maybe she really was a simpleton, but she believed the police would have sorted this out. There’d
have been fingerprints on
something
, some shred of evidence linking one of them to Roxanne, and then at least the rest of them would have been off the hook.

In a weird way, Alisha had got her wish – the old gang was back together again. For eternity. They were all bound together now by their terrible secret, until the day they died. That was a
terrifying thought. Alisha threw herself back on the sofa in despair. As she landed on the cushion there was a faint
thud
behind her as something fell to the floor. There must have been
something resting between the back of the sofa and the wall.

Climbing to her knees, Alisha peered down the crack. It was a book. Her arm was just about skinny enough to retrieve it. She pulled it out and saw it was a battered paperback edition of
On
the Road
by Jack Kerouac. She grimaced. Why couldn’t people read normal books instead of trying to be clever? She’d seen the film version starring K-Stew and it had been
super-dull. She figured it was one of Katie’s course novels and wondered if the book were any more interesting than the film had been. She began to flick through.

Katie was using an envelope as a bookmark. It slipped out as Alisha turned the pages.

But the envelope was addressed to
Roxanne.
It carried the address of a hostel in Thailand and three stamps. The penny dropped: this book wasn’t Katie’s, it was
Roxanne’s.

A good person would not have looked in the envelope. A good person would have sealed it in a sandwich bag to prevent ‘evidence’ from being ‘contaminated’. Alisha was
under no illusion that she was one such saint. She tore the envelope in her haste to get inside – and glimpsed photos and letters.

‘What’s that?’

Alisha recoiled, snatching the stash to her chest. It was Katie coming in through the terrace doors. ‘OMG, Katie!’

‘What?’

‘You know Roxanne said she had “evidence”? I think I just found it.’

SCENE 33 (CONT.)

K
atie’s eyes widened. ‘What?
How?
’

Alisha held up the paperback. ‘This was hers. Ryan must have missed it. I found an envelope inside.’

‘Oh, my God! What’s in it?’

‘I don’t know. Do you think we should look?’

‘Er, yeah.’ Katie looked out of the terrace doors.

‘Where’s Ben?’ Alisha asked.

‘He’s throwing rocks into the sea.’

‘Moody.’

‘Quite!’ Katie scurried to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Let’s go up to our room, just in case.’

Alisha jumped off the sofa and followed Katie upstairs. Once inside their bedroom, the girls sat opposite each other on the bed, legs crossed, leaving a space in the middle for whatever was in
the envelope.

‘You know what this means don’t you?’ Katie said.

‘What?’ Alisha replied. It felt like her heart was beating inside her skull.

‘If Roxanne had evidence and we can work out who killed her, then this can all be over. I think we should go to the police, confess that we helped dump the body and just hope they go easy
on us.’

Alisha felt a new hope break in her chest. They could untangle themselves from this web and be
free.
And if they got into some trouble for helping to dispose of Rox’s body, well,
it was nothing they didn’t deserve. No one had
forced
them to go along with the plan yesterday. Maybe there
should
be some comeuppance. ‘Best have a look then.’
She looked at the envelope in her hands. ‘Katie, I’m nervous.’

Katie nodded. ‘Me too. But it’s better to know. Ignorance is never bliss.’

‘One of the lads might have murdered Rox.’

‘One of them
did
,’ Katie said flatly.

Without another word, Alisha reached into the envelope and spread its contents over the blanket: a mixture of photos – some old-fashioned gloss six-by-fours and some printed on regular
paper – and what looked like notes that Roxanne had scribbled. It seemed that Rox had spent her year out playing detective.

The first photo that caught Alisha’s eye was one of Janey. Janey, happy and smiling at the ball – the night she’d died. She was posing with Roxanne, their arms around each
other. It was typical of Janey to be so two-faced, Alisha thought. If memory served, Janey had spent most of the ball with her, pulling Rox to pieces.

‘Woah!’ Katie held a sheet up to the light for closer inspection. ‘Look at this.’ She passed it to Alisha.

It was a grainy printed photo, like a screen grab, of two people sharing a passionate kiss. The poor quality made their heads look a little like two alien blobs colliding in space, but when
Katie turned it the right way up, the faces came into focus. The paler of the two was undeniably Ryan, his hair a lot shorter than it was now, suggesting that the picture was a couple of years old,
at least. The second, although twisted slightly away from the camera and making an unattractive snogging face, looked like her brother.

Alisha’s brain rebooted and she took another look. Her eyes had obviously suffered a glitch. Why would Ryan and Greg be
snogging
? Had it been a dare? When had it happened? Alisha
looked at Katie, who had her hand over her mouth in shock like a scandalised Victorian debutante. Katie pushed another two similar pictures in her direction. The next was clearer – a topless
Ryan straddling Greg. The final one made Alisha scream.

‘Oh, my God! Is that my brother’s
penis
?’ She covered her eyes with her hand. ‘Take it away! Take it away!’

Katie whipped the offending photo away. ‘It’s gone!’

Alisha half-stood, half-fell off the bed and walked to the window. She needed to let in some air. Oh, yeah, she’d forgotten – there was no air. Just humidity. ‘Oh, my
God,’ she said again.

‘I know.’

‘No. But,’ Alisha panted, ‘Ryan and Greg! RYAN AND GREG!’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Katie whispered urgently. ‘They’re just next door.’

‘Oh, my days!’ Alisha cried. ‘You don’t think they’re in there . . . you know?’

Katie’s face fell. ‘No. No, surely not. Well, maybe . . .’

‘Katie, this is insane. I mean, did you know?’

‘No! Did you?’

‘No! Greg has always had
girl
friends. Always.’

Her friend shrugged. ‘Elton John used to be married to a woman.’

Her twin brother was Elton John. Alisha was not ready for this. It was like she’d somehow crossed into a parallel universe or something.

Katie examined the more graphic pictures. Alisha couldn’t bring herself to look again, but she was pretty certain they were screen-grabs from a home movie. Greg had made a sex-tape. Never
again would she be the more stupid sibling.

‘You know what?’ Katie turned the pictures face down, for which Alisha was grateful. ‘This is what Rox had on Greg and Ryan. This was her blackmail material.’

‘Katie, I’m gonna need a minute to get my head round this.’ Alisha couldn’t care less if Greg was gay. Frankly, if it meant an end to the gold-digging glamour-model
girlfriends, she totally supported the move. It was the fact that someone she’d shared a human body with had managed to keep something so huge so secret for so long. She’d thought she
knew Greg inside out – but if he could hide that, he could hide
anything.

For the first time, Alisha
truly
envisaged Greg killing Roxanne.
Please don’t let it be him.
She tried to distract herself with the rest of the contents of the envelope,
hoping there was something that might get her brother off the hook. Better Ben or Ryan than Greg. Yes, she’d always been the black sheep next to him, but if Greg was a murderer it would break
her mum and dad apart – the whole world would crumble. ‘What else is there?’

‘Wait, that’s me!’ Katie squeaked, seizing an old photo from the pile.

‘Let’s see.’

Katie held out an ancient-looking photo. It showed a cute red-haired child with a freckled button nose.

Alisha recognised Katie’s mum propping her up next to a farm gate, feeding some horses. ‘You look well cute.’

‘Gosh, I must have been about two in that picture.’ Katie turned it over. There was nothing written on the back.

Alisha didn’t get it. ‘What’s that all about?’

‘I have absolutely no idea.’

‘Where did Rox get it?’

‘Ditto. It is quite, quite bizarre. Why does Roxanne Dent have my baby pictures?’ Katie stroked her face in the picture. ‘It’s a bit creepy – like she was stalking
us.’

Alisha nodded. ‘Told you. We should have ditched that girl the day she arrived.’

‘Ditched her in the sea?’

‘Very funny. You know what I meant.’ Alisha returned to the ‘evidence’ and found a photo of Roxanne and Callum. After all this time, her blood still boiled. She wondered
if there would come a day when that wouldn’t happen. Even Rox’s death hadn’t stopped the anger.

‘What’s in that one?’ Katie asked.

‘It’s just some random lovey-dovey picture of her and Cal. Look.’ She gave Katie the picture.

‘Is it from the ball? Is that what she was wearing?’

Alisha took a fresh look. Rox was wearing her naked dress, and Callum’s bow tie hung loose around his neck. ‘Yeah. Yeah it is.’ Alisha rifled through what was left on the bed.
As well as the photo of Rox and Callum, there was a similar one of the whole Longview music crowd – taken at the same time and place. They looked like they’d all leapt into Roxanne and
Callum’s shot – the group laughing, drinks in their hands.

‘How is this evidence?’ Katie frowned.

Alisha studied the faces carefully. ‘It must have something to do with Janey. It’s the night she died.’

‘You’re right.’ Katie studied the photo again. ‘Lish, was this taken on Telscombe Cliffs?

The quality of the picture was shocking. Thanks to her somewhat expert eye, Alisha guessed it had been taken on a camera phone and later printed. The flash made pale ghosts of the subjects and
the background was pure black. But, over Callum’s left shoulder, there was a milky cloud and the suggestion of a grassy edge. Katie was right. The white shape was probably the moon on the
sea. ‘Yeah, it looks like it. I wonder if they went to the cliffs after we’d been kicked out of the sports hall, to carry on drinking or whatever.’

Suddenly, Katie gasped and peered more closely at the photo. She was always pretty pale, but what little colour she did have had drained from her face.

‘What is it?’ Alisha asked.

‘Look.’ Katie passed the group photo to her. Alisha scanned the faces. Millie and Damon were the pair jumping on Roxanne. In the background was Ferdie, and, beyond him there was
someone else, almost lost in the fuzzy image. Tall, dark hair, broad shoulders, puppy-dog eyes – it wasn’t a great picture, but it was definitely Ben Murdoch.

‘Is that—’ Alisha began.

‘It’s Ben,’ Katie confirmed. ‘He was at the cliffs the night that Janey died.’

SCENE 34 – ALISHA

T
here was a horrible acidic taste in Alisha’s mouth. How stupid she’d been. How babyish.
Ben can’t possibly be a killer
because you LOVE him
, said a high-pitched, mocking voice in her head.

Where were you when Janey Bradshaw vanished?
had been a popular question after her parents reported her missing. They’d been over that night so many times, both with the police
and among themselves, and they’d
all
denied being anywhere near the cliffs. Except that
Ben had lied.

And Roxanne had discovered the lie. This photo was the proof. Alisha unfolded a piece of paper, covered in Roxanne’s scribbled notes in different-coloured pens. ‘She worked out where
we all were when Janey fell,’ Alisha told Katie.

Katie rubbed her face with her hands. ‘What does it say?’

Alisha handed the paper to her. ‘Nothing new. You were at home all night, I got taken home drunk, Greg and Ryan went into Brighton to carry on partying . . . and Ben
said
he went
home . . .’

‘But he didn’t. He was at Telscombe Cliffs.’ Katie stared at the photo in Alisha’s hand. ‘God, I’ve been such an idiot. I never thought that Ben . . .’
Her voice trailed off.

Alisha studied the photo, at the same time remembering
that kiss
. She prayed that Katie never found out about it. ‘Hey, I never thought that Ben would do something like that,
either, Katie. He’s a good guy. At least, I thought he was.’ She shook her curls.

‘But why, Lish? Why would he
kill
Janey? If he’d wanted to be with me, he could have just dumped her.’

‘Dumped her off a cliff?’