Follow Me Down (16 page)

My head was spinning and spinning, then suddenly it stopped and my eyes lost focus as I realised what I’d seen – Scarlett’s hair spread out on the forest floor.

‘It’s her,’ I breathed, and it came back to me all at once: Scarlett by the canal, in her heart-shaped sunglasses, face tilted towards the sun. Scarlett in that red dress. Scarlett dancing with me to Fela in her big, yellow music room. Scarlett on my first day at Crofton.
Come on, Alice. Don’t you want to follow the white rabbit?

Scarlett.

Scarlett.

Scarlett.

‘Take her,’ Bones said, handing me to someone as everything in me – my heart, my lungs, my bones – flew apart, hung there for a moment, then crashed into each other again with such force that I doubled over.

When I’d caught my breath, I lifted my head again to find it was Dominic. He was shaking and holding on to me tight enough to leave bruises. Or maybe, I was holding on to him tight enough to leave bruises, I don’t know. I just know that I could hear myself breathing
It’s her
as I lifted my eyelashes to look at him. Then I heard a scream and I don’t know how, but I knew it was her mother, and when she screamed, ‘Scarlett!’ loud and desperate, everything went black.

167 DAYS BEFORE

DECEMBER

When Hannah called this afternoon to say that Scarlett had blown out on a play she was supposed to review, I was thrilled. I mean, I’d rather it wasn’t something Scarlett couldn’t be bothered to do, but I’m not a staffer on the
Disraeli
so I have to take my bylines where I can get them, right? Plus, I like going into Bath, with its glossy bars and restaurants; it’s practically Manhattan compared to Ostley and it was a way out of Crofton on a Saturday night that didn’t involve having to climb down some trellis, which was no bad thing. But when Hannah told me that I had to go to the theatre by myself, my enthusiasm waned.

I guess Scarlett didn’t mind if she only requested one ticket, but I’ve never done anything like that by myself. I travel alone all the time, but there’s a thrill to that, to being fussed over by the cabin crew while I read
Ovations
magazine, but I’ve never done anything sociable on my own. I might have a coffee by myself, but I’ve never eaten alone and I’d rather miss a movie than see it by myself. I had hoped my parents would say no when Hannah asked for their permission, but the one time I would have welcomed them being overprotective, of course they weren’t. My disappointment must have been obvious because Hannah told me not to be silly, that even if I went with someone, we wouldn’t be able to talk during the play. She was right, but I still felt a pinch of embarrassment as I walked into the theatre alone.

I was in such a rush to get to my seat that I wouldn’t have seen him if he hadn’t said my name. I almost didn’t stop, sure that I’d imagined it because I’d been thinking about him, so when I heard him say my name and turned to find him next to me in the cluttered foyer, I still thought I was imagining it, kind of like when you stare at your phone, then it rings.

‘Miss Okomma. What a lovely surprise,’ he said with a smile that made me need to catch my breath before I could say hello back.

He’d never smiled at me like that, like he really meant it, a big, helpless smile he had no control of, the way I used to smile in school photographs before I cared that my parents were going to frame it and put it on the mantelpiece. There was an honesty to it that made me feel a bit silly, and I found myself fussing over my pashmina as I watched him tuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

I’d never seen him like that, either, so relaxed. We were away from Crofton so I guess he didn’t need to try as hard, he didn’t need to tuck in his shirt or say something to make everyone in class laugh. He could just be himself. He hadn’t shaved and he was wearing a scuffed pair of Converse and it’s such a silly thing to note – a pair of sneakers – but they were so
normal
. It’s not that I don’t change into my own clothes as soon as I can, but he hadn’t just worn them at Crofton to walk to the library or the dining hall, he’d worn them
out
, the laces grey and the canvas coming away from the soles in places. He’d been to places in them – the gas station, the supermarket, the dry cleaner’s. Normal places that I used to go to, to do normal things. It’s easy to forget that outside of Crofton – with its tartan skirts and tuck boxes and Saturday Night Film Club – people still do that sort of stuff.

‘Are you here for the
Disraeli
, too?’ I asked, hoping I sounded nonchalant.

‘No. My cousin Toby is playing Dorian.’

‘I had no idea,’ I said, smiling clumsily.

‘I mentioned it to Scarlett. She said she’d come. Have you seen her?’

When he looked around for her, my shoulders fell.
That’s
why she only wanted one ticket, because she was meeting him. I didn’t realise I liked him so much until I had to fight the urge to run back out of the theatre.

‘I’d better get to my seat,’ I said, my gaze falling away from his as I fussed over my pashmina again. ‘The play’s about to begin.’

He started to say something, but I didn’t wait to hear it, just turned and let myself become lost in the push of people making their way to the stalls.

With hindsight, I don’t know why I was so surprised. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed that her smiles had been more mischievous since she got back from New York, her comebacks more wicked. I thought it was just Scarlett being Scarlett, but maybe that’s when it started. Did he realise how much he cared for her when she ran away?

I felt my heart in my throat as I thought about them plotting to meet at the theatre. I don’t know why she didn’t go, I just knew that there I was, in the middle again. I stared at my ticket, unable to read the seat number as tears stung my eyes. The usher came to my aid, gesturing towards the middle of a row a few back from the stage and I sat down, my hands fisted in my pashmina as I wrapped it around me.

The middle-aged woman in the seat next to mine – who reminded me a little of Mrs Delaney – must have known I was upset, because she offered to let me read her programme and gave me a wine gum. Reading the programme helped, plus focusing on it meant that I wasn’t looking for him, so wouldn’t know where he was sitting and spend the first act glancing at him in the dark. I still thought of him, though, when I read about his cousin having been in several television shows and movies. He was also rumoured to be the next Doctor Who, which explained why the theatre was so busy. For one bitter moment, I wondered if that’s why she wanted to come, not because she liked him, but because she wanted to meet his cousin, and I felt awful. But that’s what she’s done, she makes me question everything I know about her.

The play was a pleasant surprise – sharp and funny enough to stop me thinking about him. Until, that is, I found him waiting at the end of my row when the curtain fell for the interval and my legs almost gave way. He suggested I join him and his friends for a drink and it made my heart beat so hard, he must have heard it.

We went to the bar and he introduced me to his friends simply as Adamma. He didn’t mention Crofton, we didn’t even talk about it, and it was strange, not talking about school or what universities I was applying to next year. Good strange. We talked about things,
real
things. Compared the countries we’d been to, bickered about films we hated. One of his friends had even read one of my mother’s poems in the
New Yorker
and recited a line of it to me and it made me feel so grown up. Really grown up – not just playing at being grown up like I did with Scarlett and Jumoke – and I was overwhelmed, not just at how different he was – how sweet, how cool, how laid back – but how nice his friends were. It was odd to think that he had friends outside of school. He knew a world beyond Crofton’s neat lawns and spires and I realised that he’d had a life before he met me and I was suddenly murderously jealous of it, as though it were a tactile ex-girlfriend we’d bumped into in the street. Then one of his friends asked me if my name meant anything.

‘It means beautiful in Igbo,’ he said, before I could.

He’d looked it up, I realised, and when the bell rang to signal the end of the interval and I had to return to my seat, I was giddy at the thought of him at his computer, dark hair in his eyes, Googling my name.

The play ended with a standing ovation. Even I was on my feet. I couldn’t stop smiling and when I found him waiting for me at the end of my row, I felt giddy again, especially when, in the shuffle through the doors into the foyer, someone pushed past me and I fell into him. He caught me, his hand cupping my elbow, and it was nothing, just a moment, the tiniest touch, but you know how they say that you fall for someone? My heart fell then. Fell and fell.

In the commotion, my pashmina slipped off and he leaned down to pick it up. When he hung it back on my shoulders, the tips of his fingers grazed my skin and every hair on my body bristled. It wasn’t the first time I was aware of someone else’s body, of their hands, their mouth, but it was the first time I was aware of my own body. I could feel my heart, my lungs, each of my long, tight nerves. I felt my pores open, my blood fizz, my cells spark then spin like pinwheels. I’d say it was like feeling alive, but it wasn’t, it was the opposite. It felt like I was going to die if he didn’t touch me again.

‘Sorry,’ he gasped, as someone knocked into him and he stepped on my toe. ‘This is a nightmare.’ With a hand still on my elbow, he led me out of the foyer and onto the pavement. As soon as we were outside, he let go. ‘Is someone coming to pick you up?’

‘Mrs Delaney.’

He looked concerned, his eyes darting around at the people spilling out of the theatre. I told myself that he was looking for his friends, but it felt like something more than that. ‘I’ll wait with you.’

‘No. It’s fine,’ I told him, my cheeks stinging as I wondered if he didn’t want to be seen with me. But he didn’t move, just slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans and lifted his chin to look at me.

‘How’s your friend?’ he asked with a frown.

‘Better,’ I said, startled. I expected him to ask about the play, perhaps make polite conversation about the weather, but of all the things he wanted to talk about, he wanted to talk about that.

His frown deepened. ‘I’ve been thinking about her a lot,’ he said, reading my mind and the muscles in my shoulders relaxed.

‘I got her to speak to someone.’

‘She reported it to the police?’

‘No.’ I shook my head and sighed. ‘But I got her to speak to someone at a rape sanctuary last weekend. I went with her on Monday for a medical exam.’

‘Is she OK?’

‘Yes, she’s fine. Physically, at least.’

‘That’s something.’

‘She won’t report it, though. She’s terrified of being kicked out of school.’

‘What?’ He looked stunned. ‘Why on earth would she be kicked out?’

‘She’s a scholarship student. She’s worried that if she says something, Crofton will want to distance itself from her.’

I shouldn’t have said that, because I know he was going through a list of names in his head. There are only two scholarship students who play for the hockey team in my year.

If he did realize it, he had the grace not to push it. ‘That’s terrible.’

‘I know.’

A red car pulled up outside the theatre and for a moment, I thought it was Mrs Delaney, but when a woman began leading a man with a walking stick toward it, I relaxed. He must have thought the same thing because he seemed agitated again – his gaze darting in all directions – and it was making me nervous, too, so I started to babble about the play and how good it was. He started to babble back and, as predicted, mentioned the weather (an infuriatingly English thing to do, Africans don’t discuss the weather. Spoiler alert: it’s hot) and I don’t know what happened, but suddenly everything was awkward and formal and when he said that Scarlett would be devastated that she had missed the play, my cheeks stung at the mention of her name.

I crossed a line then, I know, when I changed the subject. I’ve never done anything like that before, never gone after someone I shouldn’t have, someone I knew my friend was seeing. But there was a thrill to it, not in trying to hurt her, but in admitting that I liked him, that he might like me, too, in putting myself first, for once. She would have done the same. And with that, I felt something shift between us. I found myself edging towards him, then backing away again, unsure what an appropriate distance was between us any more. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, my fingers curling around my clutch in case I touched his arm or reached out to tuck the label back into his sweater.

It was so strange, so
awkward
, but it was a nice awkward, a nervous awkward, like on the limo ride to a dance when you can’t wait for everyone to see you in your dress. When I finally saw Mrs Delaney’s car pass and stop next to the bus stop at the top of the road where we’d arranged to meet, I knew that she’d be worried that I wasn’t there waiting for her, but I still fussed over my dress so I could have a few more moments with him. He leaned in and I found myself holding my breath, wondering if he was going to kiss me, but he tugged my pashmina back over my shoulders and it was nothing – his fingers didn’t even graze my skin – but when he lifted his eyelashes to look at me, I knew that I wasn’t mad, that whatever I was feeling was reciprocated because he needed to touch me too, even if it was just the wool of my pashmina. And all I could think was:
Do it again
.

4 DAYS AFTER

MAY

They say that denial is the first stage of grief. If denial is not being able to move then, yes, I was in denial. I don’t know when Mrs Delaney put me to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I just lay there until it was dark, wanting to cry, but it didn’t feel like enough. I would have screamed if I thought someone would scream back, but there’s nothing up there, I know that now, just the stars, like eyes, watching. Watching.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard Burnham so quiet. As I lay in bed, I couldn’t hear a thing, not Orla’s radio, not the murmur of the television in the common room that had been on the BBC News channel since they’d reported that the police had found The Old Dear yesterday. I couldn’t even hear my parents on the other side of my door any more. I guess they thought I was sleeping.
Leave her to rest
, Mrs Delaney has been telling them since they got here, as though that’s all I needed – sleep and the mug of sugary tea going cold on my nightstand – and everything will be OK. Not that my mother listened; she kept coming into my room to stroke my hair, but I couldn’t feel it. I wouldn’t let myself because to feel anything other than the roaring white noise of pain in my chest would be a betrayal.

It’s no less than I deserve.

But I guess I did sleep, because eventually it was light and I peeled my eyes open to find my father, immaculate as always in a dark grey suit, sitting on a chair by my bed, wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose as he frowned at the front page of
The Times
. I shivered like a cat and when someone pressed a kiss to my temple, I realised that my mother was next to me, all soft and warm and smelling of the shea butter she uses on her hair, and I cried then, cried like a little girl, because I don’t think I’ve ever needed them so much, and there they were.

‘Ada,’ my father breathed, putting the paper on my bed and wiping my cheeks with his long fingers. ‘Pack a bag. We’re going on home.’

I nodded, kicking off the duvet with stiff legs, then padded over to my chest of drawers as my mother opened the closet. I don’t know what I was doing, just grabbing handfuls of clothes so I had something to do, I think, but when I’d almost emptied the top drawer, I saw the box and knew why I’d gone to that one. It was nothing, a black and white box I was given last Christmas that used to have a gift set in it – perfume and hand lotion, I think – but now held the remains of my friendship with Scarlett. My hands shook as I took the lid off to find a stack of photos and notes and, on top, the paper ship she’d given me when we had lunch by the canal on my first day at Crofton, all of it smelling faintly of Chanel.

I reached for the paper ship, fingers fluttering as I unfolded it. And I don’t know why – I’d never felt the urge to before – but I kept thinking about that day, how she’d told me that she sends her secrets to Kazakhstan, and opened it, making sure to note each fold so that I could put it back together again. As I opened each flap, I saw the curl of a word then another and another, until the ship was undone and there it was – her secret – scribbled across an ad for waterproof mascara:

I’m so bad at this friend thing, Adamma, but I’ll try.

It fell from my hand, fluttering quietly to my feet, then I was running, out of my room, down the stairs and out out out of Burnham. I could hear someone calling after me – Orla, I think – then footsteps on the path, but even in socks, I knew that she couldn’t outrun me and I just ran and ran until I was across the Green and fighting through the wall of oak trees. I couldn’t even feel the gravel of the car park, or the pavement when I got out of Crofton and ran towards the village. And I should have stopped – I should have stopped – but I couldn’t, not until I got to the police station.

There was one advantage to being dragged into Ostley police station the other day: I knew the layout. So I pushed through the door and ignored the officer behind the desk as I ran through the neat, white reception and pushed through the double doors. When I ran up the stairs and into the office, DS Hanlon was the first person I saw. She gave me a filthy look and I countered it with a filthier one as I charged over to Bones who was standing with his back to me, staring at a whiteboard. I reared back when I saw it, my heart catching in my throat as I saw the photographs of Scarlett with her red, red lips, lying pale but perfect on the forest floor, like Ophelia, a crown of green leaves in her hair.

I must have gasped, because Bones spun around to face me. The skin between his eyebrows creased as he took me by the arm and pulled me into the nearest office.

‘What are you doing here, Adamma?’ he hissed, shutting the door.

I flew at him, shoving him with both hands. ‘I can’t believe you did that!’ I roared, shoving him again when he stumbled back. ‘How could you, Bones?’ I shoved him again, tears burning down my cheeks. ‘How could you let us search the forest?’

‘Adamma, listen to me.’ He grabbed my wrists and waited for me to look at him. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘You must have! You must have suspected something!’

‘I didn’t. We thought Scarlett met someone there and went somewhere else.’

‘Stop treating me like a kid, Bones,’ I said. I pulled away and stared at him. ‘You don’t do searches like that unless you’re looking for a body.’

‘Unless she’s a Crofton kid and her family owns half of Ostley,’ he snapped, his face red. ‘We thought she was in fucking New York again!’

I turned away from him, wiping my cheeks with the cuff of my sweater.

‘You seriously think that we would send a load of school kids into a forest to look for the dead body of their classmate? This is a PR
disaster
, Adamma. Ballard wants my bollocks. Parents have been calling all night, threatening to sue.’

I shook my head. ‘You should never have let us go there.’

‘I know,’ he sighed and when I turned to look at him again, he was rubbing his face with his hands. ‘I know. This is a fucking mess.’

My heart thumped and thumped as I waited for him to look at me, and when he did, I had to get it out, I had to get out the words that had been stuck in my throat since I’d found the paper ship. ‘Was she raped?’

He shook his head. ‘You know I can’t tell you that.’

‘I told you!’ I roared, burning with a fresh wave of anger. ‘Everyone thought I was mad, but I told you! I told you about that man in Savernake Forest.’

‘I didn’t say that she was raped, Adamma.’ He reached for my arm again, but I wriggled away, running to the door and out of the police station, back to Crofton.

My lungs were ready to explode by the time I got there, my eyes stinging with tears, but I didn’t stop and charged into Orla’s room without knocking.

‘It was him!’ I ran towards her and she jumped back, her eyes wide as she reached for the edge of her desk. ‘He murdered Scarlett! You have to remember!’

I went to take another step towards her, but felt an arm around my waist, tugging me back. It was my father, I realised, and he told me to calm down and led me across the hall, back to my room. I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me and I managed to shout, ‘You have to remember!’ once more before he closed my door.

Despite my father’s threats to throw me over his shoulder and carry me out, I refused to leave Crofton. I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave her. I had to know what had happened to her. My parents eventually gave up just before midnight and, content that I was asleep and that Mrs Delaney would look after me, reluctantly checked into a hotel in Marlborough. A few minutes after they left, I heard my door open and a pair of socked feet on the floorboards followed by a whoosh of cold air as my duvet lifted.

‘I’m trying,’ Orla whispered, wriggling behind me, her head on my pillow.

‘I know. I’m sorry,’ I said, reaching for her hand. ‘I’m sorry.’

I guess I fell asleep, because I woke with a start. I turned on my lamp to find Orla gone, no doubt ushered back to her room by Mrs Delaney, and when I looked across the room at the paper ship, now folded and sitting on the top of my chest of drawers, I reached over to my nightstand and snatched my phone.

Bones answered on the third ring.

‘Red lipstick,’ I gasped into the phone.

‘What?’ he muttered. I don’t know if I woke him, but I don’t think I did; he sounded very much awake. I was so tired that it took a second to place, but I heard it then, the squeak of a marker on a whiteboard.

‘Red lipstick.’

‘You’re worrying me now, Adamma.’

‘No. Listen, Bones.’ I made myself take a breath – then another and another – as I tried to untangle my thoughts. It was like trying to sort laundry. ‘Listen. I keep thinking about that photo of Scarlett.’

‘Which photo?’

I had to take another breath. ‘The photo I saw earlier, at the station.’

‘You shouldn’t have seen that—’

‘Did you move her or is that how she was found?’ I interrupted.

‘Adamma—’

‘Because if that’s how you found her, then she had her arms crossed, right?’ I didn’t wait for him to respond, because I knew he wouldn’t. ‘That shows remorse.’

‘Stop watching
Criminal Minds
.’

I ignored him. ‘So the guy in the car must have known her, right?’

He was quiet for a moment too long and I thought he was going to say that he couldn’t tell me, and tell me to go back to bed, but he sighed grumpily. ‘Not necessarily.’

‘Yeah, but she was wearing red lipstick.’

‘She always does. In almost every photo I have she’s wearing red lipstick.’

‘Exactly! Everyone who knows Scarlett
knows
that she only wears red lipstick. It’s her thing. It’s the first thing she does when she finishes school.’

It was such a petty rebellion, but we all did it. Some girls smoked, some changed into mufti as soon as they could. Scarlett put on her lipstick.

‘Yeah so?’

‘So I know I only saw that photo for a second, but her lips were bright red. It looked like she’d just put lipstick on.’ He didn’t say anything and I took that as my cue to go on. ‘So let’s say that –’ I had to stop and take another deep breath as my stomach turned at the thought – ‘that she’s been there since Sunday, wouldn’t it have faded? And didn’t it rain Tuesday night? Don’t you remember how muddy it was when we were doing the search? How does her lipstick look so fresh, Bones?’

He said it before I could. ‘Because he went back and put it on her.’

‘Why would he do that, Bones?’

‘Because he knows she’d want to be wearing it.’

‘So Scarlett knew him?’

‘I have to go,’ he said, then hung up before I could ask if that meant Orla did, too.