Killing You Softly (11 page)

‘OK, I’m involved,’ I admitted. ‘But only on the margins and something is telling me to keep it that way.’ I wouldn’t share with Jayden that I’d been
freaked out by imaginary fingers scratching at the window, or any of the other creepy things that had happened lately – the fake Facebook pictures, the dead robin, the notes, the emoticon
hearts. Somehow I felt he wouldn’t make the most sympathetic of listeners.

‘But I asked you and you’re here,’ he said stubbornly.

‘Because I talked to Alex and I felt sorry for him.’ I watched Bolt trot ahead, detour around the
Closed to pedestrians
sign and scoot under the police tape, making a neat
pattern of prints in the snow. ‘Anyway, I don’t think he did it,’ I added.

Bolt sniffed at a heap of shifted snow then cocked his bandy leg to pee against the white forensic tent. ‘I hope no one’s working inside there,’ I commented.

Jayden shrugged. ‘So exactly how did it go – your conversation with Alex?’

‘I was walking in the school grounds, Alex was on his bike. He fell off. I didn’t recognize him at first so I ran up and asked what he was doing on private property.’

‘Yeah, Alyssa – a guy falls off his bike and you tell him he’s trespassing. Typical.’

‘We could stop right now,’ I said angrily. ‘I could walk away.’

Jayden’s scowl deepened. He tilted his head forward then looked up at me from under knotted eyebrows. ‘Sometimes you come across as a hard bitch, you know that, Alyssa? Anyway,
forget I said that – you still owe me one.’

A favour for him stopping Harry Embsay from throttling me. It was totally true that without Jayden and Bolt I wouldn’t still be alive, but somehow with Jayden it didn’t pay to show
gratitude. ‘You saved me, now you want me to help you get your mate out of jail. OK, I’ll try.’

Still glaring, he waited for me to come up with something.

‘Do you know why they arrested him?’

‘Socos picked up fingerprints on the wrench they found.’

‘Scene-of-crime officers? Alex’s prints?’

Jayden nodded. ‘Plus, it turns out he didn’t have an alibi for the time Scarlett was killed.’

‘But he told me his dad dragged him off to a family party.’

‘Yeah, but he made an excuse and left before midnight – the cops dragged that out of one of the cousins.’

‘Not good,’ I muttered as Bolt disappeared round the back of the flimsy tent. I went through the few facts I’d picked up from my meeting with Alex. ‘He didn’t
mention that. And there’s something else that I’ve been wondering about – which is why didn’t Alex try to contact Scarlett on New Year’s Day? They’d only been
together for a week, but from what I hear he was totally into her. Ursula said he’d practically stalked her for weeks before she agreed to go out with him. So he would want to talk to her,
send texts, meet her every chance he got.’

‘How do we know he didn’t?’ Jayden asked the same thing Sammy Beckett had at Ainslee station.

‘We don’t.’ For the first time I heard scuffling noises from inside the tent then the sound of Velcro being unfastened. A figure in white overalls emerged and yelled at us.

‘Is this your dog?’ the police forensic woman demanded.

Bolt reappeared, still sniffing and peeing against the side of the tent.

‘Call him, Jayden!’ I muttered under my breath.

‘He’s contaminating a crime scene,’ the woman warned. ‘If this is your Staffie, grab him before I get our dog handlers to come and deal with him.’

‘Call him!’ I hissed.

‘Heel!’ Jayden said between clenched teeth, and Bolt obeyed.

‘Let’s go,’ I told him, turning back the way we’d come. I was eager to leave because the place where Scarlett had died was seedy – high walls and rotting fences to
one side, the frozen canal to the other – and it was all too easy to picture her lonely, dark, violent death. They’d found the wrench used as a weapon, which of course had further
implicated Alex. ‘Did they find her phone to see if Alex did try to make contact?’ I wanted to know.

Jayden shrugged. ‘How would I know? Come on, Alyssa – you’re the brainy one and you’re not giving me anything!’

‘What do you want? You want me to
invent
something just to get you off my back?’

Then suddenly I stopped. I heard Alex’s voice again and I saw the stricken, wounded look on his face.

‘The first I knew about it was the cops coming knocking at my door, not telling me what it was about, asking when did I last see Scarlett? I say, in Starbucks in the shopping centre at
one o’clock on New Year’s – why?’

‘OK, maybe there is something I can do,’ I decided.

Trotting ahead, Bolt had stopped at the worn stone steps we’d used to come down on to the towpath. He turned and panted, waiting for Jayden to tell him what to do.

‘Stay!’ Jayden called, then turned his attention back on me. ‘About effing time, memory girl.’

I pressed my lips together and tried not to retaliate. ‘I’ll be in touch later today,’ I told him.

‘One more thing before you go.’ He eyed me suspiciously, as if I was the one who was totally to blame for Scarlett ending up in the canal and for his mate being held in custody.
‘There’s a kid at your school I think you should check out.’

‘At St Jude’s?’ Immediately and illogically I locked into the existing fear that it was someone I knew well who was behind the Facebook pictures, the dead bird, the sick
challenges. It was a gut feeling and I still didn’t have hard evidence for any link with Scarlett’s death, but my skin began to prickle as I realized that Jayden might be about to
deliver it. ‘Who?’

‘Will Harrison,’ he muttered, hardly moving his lips.

I had to lean in and ask him to repeat the name.

‘You heard me – Will Harrison.’

My heart gave a small jolt. ‘Why – what’s the connection?’

‘Not many people know this, but he’s one of Scarlett’s exes.’

Another jolt, a tingle like an electric shock. I stared at Jayden.

‘I checked it out with Ursula – she gave me the details,’ he insisted. Then he turned his attention to Bolt, who was sniffing and cocking his leg, rummaging in amongst the
tattered pages of an old newspaper blown into a smelly corner under the stone steps. ‘Fetch!’ he said when he saw his dog sniff at what looked like a length of string lying in the
snow.

Bolt didn’t hesitate. He picked it up and carried it between his teeth towards Jayden, then dropped it at his feet. There it lay on the dirty snow – not a length of string but a lost
or discarded cable from a phone charger.

Neither Jayden nor I had noticed the forensic officer follow us along the canal path, but Bolt did. He curled back his lips, bared his teeth and snarled.

‘Don’t even think about picking it up,’ she said, swiftly producing a plastic bag and scooping the cable into it. ‘Inspector Ripley will be very interested in this. She
may even want to thank you in person – watch this space.’

Swearing, Jayden took the steps two at a time, but when he reached the top a uniformed officer stood in his way. He forced Jayden to give his name and address, a process like pulling teeth as it
turned out.

I gave my details without any problem and answered questions about what we were doing and why.

‘I don’t see you leaving any floral tributes,’ the uniform said drily. ‘No misspelled, heartfelt messages of regret.’

Jayden upped his tally of extreme swear words and was cautioned by the officer.

Bolt emitted a long, low growl.

In turn I was cautioned about the company I chose to keep. On the whole, I reckon we were both lucky to walk away with no more than the equivalent of a referee’s yellow card and a warning
to stay out of trouble in future.

‘I’ll text you later today,’ I told Jayden as he swung off towards the centre of town.

Greenlea Shopping Centre was twenty-five years old and jaded. It didn’t have two tiers of designer shops or a soaring glass
roof
, and if the architect who designed
it was still alive he ought to be ashamed.

I walked through the wide entrance and up a slope towards H&M, with Boots on my left and a tired-looking department store on my right. Past that, I turned right towards Monsoon, and quickly
came to a covered courtyard with a Caffé Nero and a Starbucks side by side.

‘Skinny latte,’ I told the girl behind the counter at Starbucks. She took the order and asked my name while I read her badge. She was called Lucy. I paid for the coffee then shuffled
forward to collect my drink made by a young guy who’d stopped vacantly unloading clean mugs into the station by the till. ‘You weren’t working during the day last Thursday by any
chance?’ I asked as casually as I could. ‘Lunchtime of New Year’s Eve.’

Karl (I read his name badge) looked long and hard at me. ‘Why?’

‘A friend of mine was in here.’

‘Last Thursday, hmm, let’s see. Your friend wouldn’t be Scarlett Hartley, would it? The girl who got herself killed?’

I nodded. So much for my casual sideways approach.

‘You’re wasting your time. I don’t know anything.’

‘It’s OK, relax. I was just wondering if Scarlett came in here a lot, and if you know who she used to come in with.’

Luckily for me sullen Karl was elbowed out by gobby Lucy, the girl who had taken my order. ‘Can you believe it!’ she gushed. ‘The poor kid was in here during the day, happy as
anything. Next thing we knew, they’d fished her out of the canal.’

‘So who was she with?’ I prompted, only to be ignored.

‘And the way he killed her with the metal thingy – really nasty. And I was chatting with her saying hi, how was her day, not knowing what was going to happen . . .’ Lucy
shuddered. ‘What did you ask Karl? Oh yeah, did she come here often. Well, she would get together with a bunch of mates after school and, yeah, at the weekends. And you know what I heard
– they arrested the kid she was here with on Thursday. That’s right, isn’t it? She came in with Alex Driffield.’

Bored as hell by his job, life, the whole universe, Karl had already gone back to unloading crockery so my chatty informer rattled on down the track without him.

‘She was happy, they both were – everything was cool. You’d never think there was a thing wrong. They just sat and drank coffee, used their phones to text, chatted. I
didn’t really notice them until I heard Alex stand up and start to yell.’

‘At Scarlett?’

‘No, at another kid who came along and didn’t order anything – he just went right up to their table and whatever he said – I didn’t hear it – made Alex jump
up and start shouting.’

‘What did he look like, this new kid?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look. The place was crowded and he had his back to me.’

‘Tall or short?’

‘Tall – definitely. He had a big scarf and a hat, a grey one. When Alex kicked off and everyone started staring, he ran off past Monsoon, back towards Station Road.’

‘What did Scarlett do?’

‘She must have said for Alex to sit down and cool it, which he did. He looked kind of embarrassed – they both did. We were busy with customers at the time so I didn’t think
much of it.’

‘But you’ve told the police?’

‘Yeah, after they put out the appeal. I went to them cos I thought this stranger guy who upset Alex might be important.’

‘He was wearing a hat? Could you tell what colour his hair was?’

‘Fair,’ she said with a frown. She thought some more. ‘Yeah, definitely blond – I could see that much.’

She paused again and gave suspicious, surly Karl a chance to come back at me.

‘What are you, anyway – a journalist?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘So why all the questions?’

I gave Karl the truth, so far as it went. ‘I told a friend I’d try to help so that’s what I’m doing.’

‘Did you see my iPad – is it in our room?’ I asked Galina, who was standing at the top of the stone steps by the portrait of Lady Anne. I’d come back
from Ainslee and met up with Jack in the technology centre where we’d chatted through my meeting with Jayden and my subsequent drop-in visit to Starbucks. ‘I thought I left it in the
classroom after English this morning, but I looked and it wasn’t there.’

‘Not in room.’ She spoke awkwardly through her lip stitches and swelling. ‘I go now to after-school tutorial with Bryony, sorry.’

Which left me and Jack walking on under Anne’s silent, centuries-old gaze to search in my room for the iPad – on the table, under the bed, amidst Galina’s clutter on the
windowsill.

‘It’s not like you to lose things,’ Jack said, taking a look in my bedside cabinet.

I sighed and sat on my bed. ‘Do you think I’m a hard bitch?’ I asked suddenly.

He sat beside me. ‘Where did that come from?’

‘Jayden – that’s what he told me.’

‘Jesus – Jayden isn’t exactly the one to talk. Pots and kettles and all that.’

‘I know. But do you? Tell me honestly.’ I knew Jack had found it difficult to get through to me in the beginning of our relationship and I’d tried at the time to explain why I
found it hard to show my emotions – well, you would if you’d got my family history. Remember, I’d lost my mum and dad and learned how to bottle up grief at a very young age.

Jack leaned in closer and tilted my face until I was looking into his eyes. He stroked my chin with his thumb. ‘Do I even have to tell you?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘OK, Alyssa – you’re amazing. Don’t listen to Jayden or any of the others because they don’t know you, and I do.’

‘Yes,’ I whispered.

‘I know that you’re the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever met. Plus you care about people and you always tell me the truth . . . You want me to go on?’

I nodded.

‘If the others can’t see the real you, that’s their problem. I can.’

He waited for me to say something, but I just kept on nodding and trying to stop tears from welling up.

‘I love you,’ he said simply.

We were alone in my room and broke all the school rules. He held me tight and we kissed. Our kisses took over from words, and my longing for Jack swept through me as it always did. I loved his
lips pressing against my mouth and neck. I gave myself up to him.