Soul Fire (15 page)

Finally, when James starts asking Lewis if he can order him some extra-strong growth hormone off the net, Cara gets restless and drags her mini-model off to a club where his lack of conversation
won’t matter. I stay behind to help Lewis clear up.

‘No, no. It’s your birthday!’

But when I sneak back in behind him, I spot the bin’s full of dark blue packaging from the posh deli in town. Even my mum thinks that place is too expensive.

I don’t know what I do to deserve Lewis. He always does the right thing. I guess I just have to hope that one day I get a chance to repay his kindness.

Now we’re inside, the bank of screens makes me think of the latest favour he’s been doing for me.

‘I meant to check Burning Truths today, but I haven’t had time. Do you think I could . . .’

Then I see the look on his face. What a self-centred cow I am. But I can’t take it back.

‘I’d hoped I’d have something to tell you by now, but . . .’ he sighs. ‘I could have another go, now, if you like.’

‘No. Not tonight. Not after you’ve gone to so much trouble.’

‘Don’t pretend you’re here for the pleasure of my company, Ali.’

‘Oh, God. Sorry. That came out wrong. I . . . I don’t know what I’d do without you, Lewis, honestly. Today could have been so difficult but you made it OK.’ I’m
blushing now, but even though it’s embarrassing, I
want
him to know how important he is to me. ‘It was
so
sweet of you to do all this.’

‘Sweet. Hmm.’ He grabs two cans of Coke from the fridge and throws me one. I only just catch it, and he smiles.

He sits down. ‘Let’s take a look. It’s been quiet on the site for a bit, but I’m sure the significance of today won’t have escaped them. There was a sarcastic
comment after the inquiry team was disbanded, but nothing interesting since.’

He navigates half a dozen different security screens.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I visit via a VPN so the host never knows who I am.’

‘VPN? Is that like a Visible Panty Line?’

Lewis laughs, and I feel
almost
as though all is forgiven. ‘Virtual Private Network. Makes me look like I’m in Slovenia one minute, Singapore the next. Same technology the
designer uses.’

The header loads, as nasty as ever.

Underneath there’s a single word, in huge font:

‘Aye, aye. That wasn’t there when I checked earlier,’ Lewis says.

We both lean in to the screen.

‘What’s Mum done?’ I read as fast as I can.

‘Bloody hell, someone wasn’t joking about being angry,’ Lewis says.

But who?
I try to imagine Ade saying those things out loud; he seems too calm for those bitter words. And then I think of Sahara saying them. That seems more likely. Sometimes when she
talks, she goes too far.

‘Can I look at the news story?’ I ask, and Lewis brings it up.

It’s headlined
Exclusive: My Meggie Did Not Die in Vain
, and features one of the photos of Meggie on TV, plus a creepy picture where it looks like Tim is grabbing her by the arm (in
fact, he was stopping her from tripping on her long dress). And there’s a third photo, of Mum, walking by the Thames looking wistful.

I bet Dad doesn’t know about
this.

Mum only mentions the idea of a trust in passing, as something she’s considering. It must have been what she and Dad were rowing about after the dinner party last week. Why did she even
mention it? She must know how angry it’ll make him . . .

The rest of the article is harmless, full of memories of my sister. I half expect Mum to go through the whole piece without mentioning me, but right at the end, the interviewer comments on how
the rest of the family is coping.

‘My husband and my daughter are more private than I am. It’s how they cope. But without them, I’d be lost. Seeing Alice grow up and become independent is all that’s
keeping me going, some days. She’s the best thing in my life.’

The screen blurs. I blink hard. Of course, I know Mum loves me, but sometimes, in the last year, I’ve wondered whether she’d have missed me as much as she misses Meggie, if
I’d
been the daughter who died.

Without speaking, Lewis clicks back to Burning Truths. ‘I think the person behind the site might be online. The front page is changing.’

I look up again. There are fewer lines of text, and when Lewis refreshes the page again, the headline ANGRY!!! has disappeared. ‘They’re taking it down?’

‘Yeah. But that means . . .’

Lewis moves across to the other keyboard, begins to type incredibly fast, bringing up several different windows of text, images, maps. As I watch the screen nearest me, it goes black for a
moment, then a large blank square appears.

‘Something’s being uploaded,’ I say.

‘Come on, come
on,
’ Lewis mumbles, but he’s not talking to me. He’s still typing furiously, without looking at his fingers. My mum – who still boasts about
her hundred-and-ten-words-a-minute in secretarial school – would be impressed.

The screen in front of me changes agonisingly slowly, like in the dark ages at home before we got broadband. It’s definitely an image. A photo.

The background is white. Then pink shapes begin to appear.

Lewis looks up, but doesn’t stop typing. ‘Too bloody fast.’

He’s right, the download has speeded up. Then the whole photo is there.

It’s a
hand
. The semi-circles are fingernails, painted with glittery pink polish. Those nails are perfect almonds, at the end of slender fingers.

‘Damn.’ Lewis is hitting the return key over and over. ‘Offline again. I was so nearly there, unless . . .’ And he’s off again.

A right hand
. On the index finger, there’s a ring with a huge purple stone. Too big to be real.

I gave her that ring.

‘Lewis. Lewis, it’s her hand. Meggie’s hand.’

He stops typing, and studies the picture more closely. ‘There’s something odd about that picture.’

‘What, other than the fact that it’s been taken by some kind of
nail
fetishist?’

‘You’re certain it’s your sister’s hand?’

‘Yes. Of course. But why would someone take a photo of
just
her hand? It’s too weird.’ Something awful occurs to me. ‘Lewis, do you think. . . could this have been
taken by the killer?’

He runs a hand through his hair. ‘It’s possible, Ali. But . . . well, isn’t it more likely that it’s one Tim took? We know there’s a connection between him and the
person behind this site.’

‘But I can’t see why he’d do that. He could hold her hand anytime he liked.’

Lewis leans forward. ‘There’s something else. The colours are all wrong. The skin, it’s too pale and the nails are too pink.’

‘No, that’s her favourite colour, but the skin . . .’ And that’s when I realise. ‘Oh, God, Lewis. This is Meggie. But whoever took this photo took it . . . I think
they took it
after
they killed her.’

Lewis reaches out to grab my hand.

‘You don’t know that,’ he says, but he doesn’t sound very confident.

‘Look at it, Lewis. It’s . . . lifeless. The colour you noticed, it’s because . . .’

And then I can’t speak anymore because my eyes are full of tears.

‘Oh, Alice.’

Lewis holds me, now, as I sob into his t-shirt. It’s not sadness that’s making me cry, though, it’s shock and
anger
that anyone could be so heartless. Who could do that?
Murder my sister, then hang around long enough to photograph her.

‘What else did they do, Lewis?
What other pictures did they take
?’

He doesn’t say anything, but just lets me cry, holding me tightly. At first, it doesn’t help, but then gradually I feel the tears beginning to slow, and, as they do, the shock wears
off and the anger grows.

‘The bastard. This is the sickest thing. The
sickest
thing.’

‘I know. I know, Ali. But what you have to remember is that she would have known nothing about it. Nothing can hurt her anymore.’

I pull away from him. There’s a huge damp circle where I was leaning against his chest. ‘Sorry.’

Lewis smiles. ‘Come on. Do you think I care about a wet shirt? It’s not as if I’m Mr Immaculate.’

I smile back. The embarrassment’s gone. I’m a little bit surprised at him, how he held me instinctively, not like an awkward geek at all, but like a best friend who
cares.

‘It’s bad enough that someone took it. But what’s that photo doing on the site, Lewis?’

We turn back to the screen and I flinch. Lewis scrolls up, so I don’t have to see the image of my dead sister’s hand, though I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. But
there’s nothing under the picture, no caption, no note. And the rant about my mother’s disappeared.

‘You know, I was
that
close to finding their real location. But it’s still possible that some of the diagnostic stuff could crunch a result, of sorts. It might take a while,
but I’ll try, shall I?’

‘Please.’

He types some lines of code at the middle keyboard, then sighs. ‘It’s going to be hours. I think after the shock you’ve had, perhaps I should run you home.’

I don’t have the strength to argue. And actually, he’s right. It’s the only place I want to be.

I get back just after one in the morning. Mum and Dad are already in bed, but when I sneak into the dining room, my laptop’s gone.

What the hell? The first thing I think of is that Meggie’s killer has been here – is
still
here.

I run upstairs, not caring if I wake my parents, and the panic lasts till I get to my room and find the computer back in its old place on my desk, ready for action. There’s a note next to
it, in Mum’s writing:

A final little birthday present. We’ve always trusted you, darling, we only wanted to help.

When I get my breath back, I realise it means I can carry on my own investigations into how Meggie died, right now. Or venture back onto the Beach to feel my sister’s warm hand in mine, to
try to replace that horrible image of death with one of life.

But my eyes smart from my tears and from staring at a screen for so long, and the thought of Soul Beach is exhausting. Maybe Mum
was
only trying to protect me. God knows there are some
things on the internet that shouldn’t be there, that
no one
should have to see.

Yet even though I feel sick at the thought of it, I’m glad I did go to Burning Truths tonight. For months, I’ve been trying Lewis’s patience with suspicions and theories that
must have tested his belief in me.

Now he’s seen it, he must also see what it is we’re up against. Whoever took those photographs didn’t see my sister as human, but as some kind of . . . specimen, or trophy.

I know Lewis isn’t as convinced of Tim’s innocence as I am. But when we said good night, I saw it in his eyes: he wants to know the truth, too. He’s not going to give up on me
or Meggie now.

Somehow I fall asleep almost instantly. When I wake up at nine on Saturday, it takes me a few seconds to remember I don’t need to set a four a.m. Beach alarm anymore.

It’s a few seconds more before I remember what Lewis and I found on Burning Truths last night. It makes me shiver, but I have to focus on the investigation. We will find the person behind
the site, I know we will, and then we’ll find out where they got the photo.

It might even happen today.

Downstairs in the kitchen, the
Mail
lies open on the breakfast bar. I’ve interrupted a row, I’m sure of it.

‘Morning, Alice,’ Mum says, too brightly. ‘You look very well this morning, considering!’

‘I wasn’t that late.’

‘Ten past one is late enough for a sixteen— sorry, a seventeen-year-old,’ she says, then smiles. ‘I know I’m fussing but I couldn’t sleep till I knew you were
back safe.’

Dad’s smile is forced. ‘You had a good night?’

‘Brilliant! And now I’m meeting Cara for breakfast so she can help me spend my birthday money.’

‘I could run you in,’ Mum offers, in a fairly desperate bid to get out of facing the music with Dad.

‘No, thanks. The walk will clear my head.’

We meet in the Marks and Spencer coffee shop. Cara’s nicked her mother’s free breakfast vouchers and is already breaking the world Danish-pastry-eating speed
record.

‘How’s your head?’ I ask her.

‘Thundering. How’s yours?’

Full of horrible images and a roll call of names: Sahara, Ade, Tim, Zoe
. It’s my updated suspect list. I worked it out on the walk over here.

‘Wake up, Alice! I asked you how you’re feeling.’

‘Not too bad, considering.’

‘So what did you and your
just good friend
Lewis get up to after we left?’