Pretty Twisted (23 page)

Abby made a huffing noise. ‘I told him I wanted to think about it and he got annoyed! Said he hoped I wasn’t going to be a kid about this, that he really liked me, didn’t see how I could say no to having a little fun. I said we were having fun already. He told me to stop being naive and make up my mind because it wasn’t fair to lead him on unless I was going to play the game. I said we should talk about it, and he got proper angry. Called me “immature”!’

‘What did you do?’

‘I stormed off. Went straight home.’

‘You did the right thing.’ I hugged her. ‘You’re better off without him!’

Abby shrugged. ‘That was what I thought last night, but then he texted me to say sorry. He said he felt really bad about it all.’

‘Don’t listen to him. He’s not worth it.’

She started fiddling with her bracelet. ‘He wants to meet in Camden at six and take a walk by the river. Talk it all over. I said I’d go.’

‘Wait a minute.’ I must have sounded urgent, because she jumped a little. ‘You went to the house last night? Was Hugh there?’

‘Dunno, didn’t see him, but he might have been in his room with someone. Brian told me Hugh’s a real girl-eater. Why do you keep asking about him – d’you fancy him or something?’

‘Of course not! I’m just . . .’

God, I
couldn’t
keep quiet! If Hugh had hurt Freya, Jonathan would never forgive me. Yeah, the police might find her – she might turn herself in – she might mention there was a weird girl stalking her – it didn’t really matter any more. This was dangerous now, and I was sick of the ‘mights’.

‘Are you OK, Ros?’ Abby asked.

‘Fine. I just need to make a phone call.’

Abby got up. ‘Whatever. You’ve been really weird the last couple of days, Ros. Anyway, I can see this call’s obviously more important than talking to me.’

She left. I barely noticed. Before I could change my mind I picked up the phone.

‘Hi, Ros,’ Jonathan answered in a flat-sounding voice. ‘No news.’

‘I have an idea where Freya is,’ I blurted out. ‘How soon can you be in London?’

‘What? You haven’t even met Freya – how could you possibly know?’

I cut the call and stood staring at the wall. My mobile rang. After a long moment I picked it up.

‘You can’t say stuff like that without explaining,’ said Jonathan. ‘Come on, Ros!’

‘No. Sounds bad whichever way I put it. Can’t you just trust me?’

‘Can’t
you
just trust me?’

‘OK, OK! I think she might be at the aren’t-artists’ house.’

‘The hell? She doesn’t know them!’

‘She does, kind of. See, a couple of weeks ago I was in London with one of them – Hugh. We were mucking about eating doughnuts and she passed by.’ The lie came surprisingly easily. ‘I only recognized her because she was wearing the same dress as in one of the photos you sent me. Hugh whistled at her. We ended up on the same bus. When I got off – well, anything might have happened between her and Hugh. Dunno what his surname is, but he fits the waitress’s description.’

‘Christ, Ros, why didn’t you say earlier? I’d better ring the police—’

‘No, please don’t – I might be wrong. And even if they did go home together, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything sinister happened.’

‘I’ll be there soon as I can.’

Jonathan

1.05 p.m.

I got the first train I could to London. I told Mum and Dad I had a hunch that wasn’t worth bothering the police with. I was astonished they let me go, but Mum just made me promise to keep my phone on, not do anything dangerous and to come home before night. I felt a rush of gratitude to my parents for trusting me, especially as I’d hardly been honest with them recently. Dad even paid my train fare. Perhaps I was luckier with my family than I realized.

Ros was waiting by the coffee stand at Liverpool Street, looking pale and drawn. She said practically nothing on the journey to High Street Kensington, despite my attempts to get her talking. We stepped out of the station on to a busy road packed with trendy shops. I started to feel intimidated. What would Hugh think when he opened the door and found a wet-behind-the-ears country boy accusing him of girlfriend stealing? His housemates might be there too and from what Ros had said I definitely didn’t want to come face to face with them.

We passed an Internet cafe. A man who I guessed was the owner was standing outside smoking a cigarette, looking pissed off. If this was the place the police had traced the emails to, they’d probably have been all over it taking fingerprints and analysing CCTV footage. If Ros was right, everything I’d gone through this week could have been avoided. Why the hell hadn’t she said anything earlier?

When I saw the house, I stopped.

‘You really think she might be here?’

Rosalind looked nervous. ‘You going to knock or shall I?’

‘I can’t just demand to be let in so I can look for Freya. They’ll think I’m an idiot.’

‘It doesn’t matter what they think.’

‘I know, but . . .’

‘We have to do this. Come on.’

We walked up the path and she knocked. A man dressed in shirt and tie opened the door. I guessed that this was Gabe.

Rosalind glowered at him. ‘We’ve come to see Hugh.’

‘Such mature company he keeps.’ Gabe headed down to the basement, leaving the door open.

‘That a yes or a no?’ I asked, glancing back at the road.

Rosalind stepped inside. I followed her up the stairs. As we reached the top a dog appeared and pounced on Rosalind, tail wagging. She knelt down to scratch behind his ears, and I stepped past her into the sitting room.

I knew immediately something had happened. There was an overturned chair in the centre of the room and DVD boxes scattered across the floor, as well as a couple of broken bowls and a shattered glass ashtray. I guessed they’d been sitting on the small cabinet by the TV, which was now lying on its side, one of its legs snapped. The couch was at a funny angle, the cushions all over the place, and the mat in the centre of the room was creased and crumpled.

‘Ros,’ I called, ‘come and have a look at this.’

She came in, the dog at her heels. Her eyes widened when she saw the mess. After a pause, she said, ‘It might have been Gabe’s friends. Hugh told me they smashed the place up once.’

If Freya was here, I hoped she’d kept well out of the way. I was about to go upstairs when I spotted patterned fabric peeping out from under a cushion. I pulled it out – and felt my stomach turn.

‘Jono?’ Ros was at my side. ‘What’s up?’

Her eyes fastened on the distinctive reddish stain in the fabric.

‘Blood,’ I said, hearing my voice wobble. ‘Ros, this is one of Freya’s scarves.’

‘You sure?’

‘Positive, it’s one of her favourites. Christ, what if we’re too late?’ I was trembling all over.

‘
Shit!
’ said Ros.

I could see a couple of small stains on the floorboards now and horrible images of Freya being beaten up were shooting through my head. ‘If she’s still here, we need to find her – quickly!’

The stairs creaked as we climbed up, increasing my sense of foreboding. Five doors led off the landing at the top, two on one side, two on the other, one facing us, all closed. There was also another staircase immediately to our left. If anyone was in the rooms, they weren’t making any noise. I looked at Ros. She frowned.

‘That one at the end is Brian’s room. I don’t know about the others though.’

I knocked frantically on the nearest door on the right. No answer. After a moment I opened it – but there was nothing inside apart from boxes and other junk.

‘Jono!’ Ros was standing by the next door along with the dog. ‘I’ve found Hugh’s room – there are some envelopes with his name on and he is H. A. Clark – but there’s something else . . .’

I joined her and followed her gaze to sheets of photos, spread out across the desk. For a moment I was dumbfounded. Although the photos were obviously Freya – at the same time, they weren’t. While some were just pretty head shots, a couple were more risqué – in one, all she appeared to be wearing was some kind of sheet. Freya had always been scathing about this kind of photography – evidently Hugh had changed her mind. What the hell had been going on?

Sick to my stomach, I pushed past Ros and flung open the door opposite Hugh’s – but the room was empty.

‘The last one’s just a bathroom,’ Ros said. ‘I don’t think she’s here, Jono.’

‘What about up there?’ I nodded to the staircase.

‘I don’t think they use those rooms; Gabe said the house was too big . . .’ Ros trailed off. She was staring at the steps, and I realized what she was thinking: a staircase no one used wouldn’t have had footprints showing in the dust.

‘Bloody hell,’ I said in a low voice as we made our way up. ‘God, Ros, what if she’s dead?’

Ros just gave me a panicked look. At the top of the staircase was a landing with the same layout as below. The trail of dusty footsteps led to the nearest door. I took a moment to steel myself for what might be inside – and opened it.

This was a cross between a storage room and a bedroom: crates stacked against one wall, manky-looking unmade camp bed against the other. No dead bodies. Suddenly realizing how shaky my legs were, I sat down heavily on the bed.

The dog started sniffing around. Something had caught his interest and he wriggled under the bed. Ros crouched down to look. ‘Apples,’ she said, reaching and taking the packet from the dog. ‘Just one left now – rotten. Well, that explains the smell in here.’

‘Whoever was here hasn’t been here since the end of August,’ I said, reading the sell-by date.

‘There’s something else,’ Ros said. She pulled out a necklace. It was a purple gem set in silver, with elaborate patterns round the edge. The black cord it was attached to had been snapped. I took it, turning it over in my hand. It wasn’t Freya’s style, but something about that necklace was familiar . . . where had I seen it before?

Snapping back to the present I got up, dropping the necklace on the bed. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

Ros nodded, picking up the necklace and stuffing it in her pocket. Quickly we went downstairs, hurrying through the living room and to the front door, desperate to get away. The dog tried to follow us out, but I forced him back in. Outside we careered into an elderly lady who was dumping a black sack into a wheelie bin. She scowled at us.

‘More running around!’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Wait – what do you mean?’

‘Last night’s what I’m talking about! One of these days I’m making a complaint about your friends in that house. Worst neighbours I’ve ever had!’

‘What happened last night?’

The woman made a huffing noise. ‘There was some kind of argument – lots of shouting and crashing about. I looked out the window to see what was going on and saw one of them storming out. Someone was yelling at him from inside, kept saying something about “your girlfriend poking about” and “warning you to keep your mouth shut”. I didn’t like his tone at all!’

‘Which one of them left?’ I asked urgently. ‘Was there a girl with him?’

‘It was the scruffy one who fancies himself as a photographer.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘As for the girl, she left too, all dolled up like something out of the sixties.’

Freya! Heavy with relief, Ros and I headed back to the high street.

‘We’d better tell the police about this, Jono,’ Ros said in a small voice. ‘Let them know she’s safe.’

I opened my mouth to reply – and then it hit me. Suddenly I knew where I’d seen that necklace before. Spying a newsagent, I rushed in and grabbed a newspaper. As I’d hoped, there was a Student Snatcher report. By the text was the photo the press had been using of Lyndsey, the second missing girl – and, sure enough, round her neck hung a purple gem.

Ros’s eyes widened.

Rosalind

2.00 p.m.

‘Oh, Christ!’ Jonathan swallowed. ‘Freya left with him,
alone
. She’s not safe at all!’

The newsagent was looking at us curiously. I pulled Jonathan outside. My heart was beating so quickly I was sure he could hear it. I felt terrible; I’d sort of liked Hugh. The thought that he’d taken Freya to his house – and Lyndsey before her –
killed
that first girl – it was too much to get my head round –

‘Wait a moment,’ I said. ‘This doesn’t follow.’

‘What?’

‘That neighbour said something about “girlfriend poking about”.’

‘So?’

‘So, it sounds as if Hugh and Freya were being threatened by someone else. Maybe Freya found something she wasn’t supposed to.’

Jonathan snapped his fingers. ‘The room upstairs! Those footprints looked pretty fresh to me.’

‘That could be why there was a fight! And why they left!’

‘But wait. If Hugh’s not the killer,then who is?’ Jonathan asked.

I grimaced, thinking back to the first time I’d met the aren’t-artists and, even then, how creepy I’d found Gabe . . .