Soul Fire (10 page)

Of course, on the Beach, I am transformed into a beauty even when I’ve just dragged myself out of bed in the dead of night. In real life, it’s harder.

Mum beams when she sees me. ‘You look wonderful, darling.’ Though she still stops to wipe an imaginary smudge off my cheek.

‘I’m not five years old, Mum.’

‘You’ll always be my baby, Alice, though you get prettier every day. Tonight, you look just like . . .’ She stops. ‘Just like a young woman.’

Cara’s much less impressed.

‘Couldn’t you be bothered with lipstick? Honestly. You’re really not trying very hard at being badly behaved.’

On the train into town, she whips out her make-up bag and begins to make me over, one brushstroke at a time. By the time we pull into Waterloo, I almost don’t recognise myself in her
pocket mirror. My eyes are bigger, my lips fuller, my hair puffed up.

‘What do you think?’

‘I feel like a new person,’ I reply, and she links arms with me, grinning.

‘I am the makeover queen.’

As we step down from the train I inspect myself a final time in the grimy window.

I stop.
Look again.

‘Come
on
, Alice.’

It can’t be.

The third time I realise it’s just my own reflection. But for a few moments, I was one hundred per cent certain I’d seen my sister smiling back at me.

We’re outside a big tapas bar behind the station when my phone rings. Lewis. I haven’t heard from him since he agreed to look into Burning Truths; I was beginning
to think he’d met his match.

‘Wait a second,’ I mouth to Cara, but she’s already pushing open the door to the bar. I hear Latin music and smell garlic before it swings shut again.

‘Lewis. How’s tricks?’

‘Slow going. But my net’s closing in on Burning Truths.’

‘Really?’ I try not to sound like it matters as much as it does. ‘How soon might you crack it? Tonight?’

‘What’s the hurry?’

It doesn’t seem like the right time to tell him I’m hoping I might be closing in on the person behind the site, or even the killer. He’d probably call the police.
‘I’m just impatient, that’s all.’

A group of girls on a hen night pass by, whooping and singing.

‘You out on the town, Ali?’

‘It is a Saturday night, Prof. I’m sure you’ve got a hot date for later, right?’

I hear him laugh. ‘No, but I do have a number of very hot leads in the domain registration world.’ Behind the joke, he sounds lonely.

‘Thank you. For doing this for me.’

‘Hey. It’s how I relax. Some people get pissed or do paintball. I like to crack cyber mysteries.’

Cara sticks her head round the door, waving a bottle at me.

‘Well, thank goodness someone does or I’d be stuck, Lewis. I am super impressed. Shall I call you a bit later? Find out how you’re doing?’

He says nothing for a minute. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing you any favours here.’

‘You are, Prof. And one day, I hope I’ll be able to explain why.’

He sighs. ‘OK. Back to work, then. Have a lovely evening. Take notes. Then you can remind me what it’s like, back in the real world.’

I shiver. I’m not sure I’m ready to face the real world myself.

Ade has more friends than I realised. His birthday party begins with a meal in the dark back room of the tapas bar, and the table is set for twelve.

Twelve
. So much for a quiet get-together. But I shouldn’t judge him. Everyone deals with grief in different ways.

Unless he’s not grieving at all . . .

Sahara is wedged into the corner, her handbag, hat and phone arranged in front of her like a castle’s defences. She’s the reason I thought Ade wouldn’t have many friends. I
thought she’d scare a lot of them off.

‘Hi, Sahara,’ I call out to her across the crowded room.

She smiles at me, and scowls at Cara. Perhaps she’s sensed the threat. It must be awful to live like that, to fear being dumped because your boyfriend’s better looking than you
are.

Ade’s different tonight. He doesn’t have a glass in his hand, but he seems drunk on the company. Perhaps he’s relieved to be out. Having a murder suspect for a flatmate
can’t do much for your social life.

‘So great you could both come! It’s going to be a great night!’

He kisses Cara on both cheeks, to be friendly, nothing more, but she gives me the thumbs up behind him. I wish she wouldn’t.

When he goes, I turn to her. ‘You’re not going to try it on now, are you? With Sahara here?’

‘No way,’ she says. ‘Half the fun is in the chase. I’ll wait for the mini-break.’

‘Mini-break?’

Before she can explain, Ade’s coming towards us again, flanked by two guys in rugby shirts. The one on the left can’t take his eyes off Cara’s cleavage, but the other one is
smiling at me. For a moment I wonder if I can face this pretence, when the only boy I want to be with is Danny. But then I remind myself yet again that I’m here for Meggie’s sake: the
more time I spend around Ade or Sahara, the more likely I am to hear something that might help me work out what really happened.

‘Cara and Alice, let me introduce Matt and Craig. They might look like rugger buggers, but these two have got a few brain cells left.’

I wait for him to explain how he knows me, and for the looks of sympathy when they realise why my face is familiar. But instead Ade winks and turns away, and then Craig is asking me why I
don’t have a drink in my hand.

Normal can be quite good fun. I’d forgotten.

The boys are sweet and funny and I might have wanted to see Craig again, if I didn’t already have a dead boyfriend.

Cara’s getting wasted. She refused to touch the tapas because they were too fatty, and now the food’s been cleared away and the table pushed into the corner to make a dance floor.
Playing at normal will have to end soon, before Craig asks me to slow dance. I almost wish I could have kept up the pretence a little longer.

‘I’m so pleased you came. I didn’t think you would.’

Sahara is standing next to me. It’s the first time she’s moved out of her corner.

‘Ade’s been good to me. You both have.’

She beams and I feel like crap for all the times I’ve been cool towards her.

‘I wish you’d left your friend behind, though.’

Even for Sahara, that seems blunt. ‘How come?’

‘She’s a bit
tarty
.’

I stare at her. Has she guessed what Cara’s up to? Or is she just being a bitch? ‘Please don’t say that, Sahara. She’s my oldest friend.’

Sahara wrinkles her nose, like she’s just smelled something awful. ‘Sorry. I can’t help speaking my mind sometimes. Still, once you get to uni, you’ll make
real
friends. Like Meggie and me.’

‘Right.’

‘Anyway, I’m so pleased you came tonight,’ she repeats. ‘Hopefully you’ll be joining us in Spain, too.’

‘Spain?’

‘We’re going away for a weekend, to Barcelona. Cheap as chips. Or should that be cheap as
patatas bravas
? That’s why Ade decided to have his party here. Get us in the
mood for flamenco.’

‘Barcelona, right.’
Where Javier comes from . . .

‘There’s some big festival that weekend, for midsummer. Fireworks. All night parties. And it’s
after
the anniversary of Meggie’s death, of course. We made sure of
that.’

I nod. ‘That’s something, I suppose.’

‘Plus, while we’re there, we can make sure Zoe’s all right. Poor thing.’

‘Zoe?’

‘Mmm. She’s teaching English over there. Still devastated by what happened, you know. When I had to tell her Tim had died, well, I was so upset for her. I still can’t quite
believe she came tonight. She’s been avoiding people ever since.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Sure. Oh. I forgot. You never met her, did you?’

‘No.’

But I saw her in the papers. I remember one headline in particular –
Haunted: The Girl Who Found The Songbird
. And below it there was a shot of a red-haired student with such dark
shadows under her eyes that it looked like she hadn’t slept for years.

‘Let’s put that right, then. Zoe? ZOE!’ Sahara calls out and waves, before I have the chance to stop her. ‘I’m sure you have plenty to talk about.’

I see her before she sees me. She’s sitting on her own, clasping a half pint of lager in her hands. I notice her fingernails are bitten, the skin around them raw.

Zoe’s not exactly dressed for a party in loose black jeans and a grey hooded fleece zipped to the chin. Her eyes dart about, not settling on anything or anyone, until Sahara calls her name
again. She jumps, like someone’s sneaked up behind her. When she notices me, she looks away.

‘She’s funny with strangers. Better if I introduce you,’ Sahara says, and grabs my hand.

‘Hi, sweetheart.’ Sahara gives Zoe a quick kiss. ‘Are you enjoying yourself?’

Zoe gawps at her. Her eyes are huge and grey, the same colour as the shadows underneath them.

‘Alice really wanted to meet you,’ Sahara lies, ‘and I thought it might be good for both of you.’

She pulls out a chair for me to sit down. But now what?

Sahara smiles nervously. ‘Shall I get you both a top up?’ she says, and scuttles away without waiting for a reply. If Zoe was anyone else, I’d walk away too, but perhaps Sahara
has
done me a favour. Zoe found my sister’s body. It’s the one part of the story I’ve never heard direct.

Zoe says nothing and my mind’s completely blank. Eventually I say, ‘So Sahara tells me you’re working in Spain?’

She nods.

‘You speak Spanish?’

A shrug. ‘I can do hello, goodbye and thank you.’ Her voice is lower pitched than I expected.

‘That’ll be quite a short conversation, then.’

She gives me a sharp look. ‘I hate chit-chat. I went to Barcelona with my parents, once, realised it was a place where I could lose myself. This time, when I went over to find a flat, no
one asked me anything about me. Or, more to the point, about your sister. No one knows who I am there. It’s what I wanted.’

I stare at her.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘That sounded really harsh. I didn’t mean it to. Like I say, I don’t do chit-chat anymore. But none of this is
your
fault.’

‘Or Meggie’s.’

Zoe frowns. ‘No.’

‘But it’s OK, Zoe. I know what it’s like to feel like everyone’s looking at you because of her.’

She nods. ‘I guess you would. You look like her.’

‘No, I don’t. But my picture was in the paper. And so was yours.’

I see a half-smile, a look of recognition. She clinks her empty glass against mine. ‘The last thing I wanted was to be famous. Not like your sister, eh?’

It’s all I can do not to slap her. Sahara puts two drinks down and hurries away.

Zoe picks up her beer and downs half of it in one go. She looks up at me. ‘Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t drink so fast. But life’s marginally less horrible when I’m drunk
than when I’m sober.’

Perhaps I’ve been too quick to judge her. ‘Are you OK, Zoe? Not now but . . . generally?’

She seems to be having trouble focusing. ‘I’m a no-hoper college drop-out. I’ve come face to face with one dead body, and one of my best mates is six feet under now too. Apart
from that, I’m . . .
fine
, thanks.’

Best mates? ‘
You were friends with Tim?’

She downs the other half-pint and then stares into her glass, as though she doesn’t know where her beer’s gone. ‘Not a good enough friend. Poor bastard. I was in Spain. I
wasn’t even
there
for him. If I had been, maybe . . .’

‘You think he killed himself?’

This time when she looks at me, she’s not cross-eyed. ‘Why? Don’t you?’

‘I know it’s what the police think, but I can’t quite believe it.’

‘Denial. It’s part of the grief process, apparently,’ her voice is softer now. ‘My parents made me go to counselling after . . . Well, you know.’

‘It’s more than denial. I liked Tim. A lot. I can’t see him giving up on life. Plus, he never left a note.’

I see the hurt in her face. If they were that close, perhaps she’d have expected a last message from him herself. ‘He was a deep thinker, Alice. Serious-minded. No offence, but I
never quite understood why he and your sister were together.’

I wince at her bluntness. Though I suppose she has a point. ‘You didn’t like Meggie much, then.’

‘I didn’t know her very well. We shared the same fridge. That was as far as it went.’

‘But the way you talk about her—’

‘Look, she used to nick my bread. I knew it was her. Sahara has a wheat allergy.’

I think it’s meant to be a joke, but she doesn’t smile.

Could Zoe have killed my sister? The police ruled her out . . . but then maybe the police were so convinced Tim did it that they didn’t look any further.

‘Why are you staring at me, Alice?’

I look away, but she’s shaking her head. ‘You don’t think
I
did it, do you?
Come on
. You don’t murder people because they steal your bread. Indifference
doesn’t turn people into killers. But love just might. It’s the people who adored her you should be frightened of.’

I think I believe her. But is she hinting that she knows who it could have been?

‘Oh, Alice. I’m sorry. I’ve brought it all back for you, haven’t I?’

‘No. I live with it every day. There isn’t a minute that goes by when I
don’t
think about what happened to Meggie.’

She looks stricken. ‘Of course. I’m an idiot. And I know it won’t help but it’s the same for me. I see her, Alice. When I close my eyes. When I open them.’

My head throbs. ‘Is there anything else you saw? Anything you didn’t tell the police, Zoe?’

She sighs. ‘I wish there was something I could tell you, but I can’t.’

Her wording is odd. Too precise, as though she’s talking to a lawyer. ‘Zoe, if you have any suspicions, please tell me . . .’ I lean in closer but she recoils, and her hood
drops to her shoulders.

‘Oh, my God, Zoe!’

Zoe’s red hair isn’t red anymore. She’s completely bald. Her skull glows harsh white, just skin and bone.

She cringes, then closes her eyes. Children do that when they want to be invisible. ‘It . . . happened after I found your sister. Within a fortnight. Less, even.’