When Good Friends Go Bad (16 page)

Ashport-on-Sea in winter was not the tourist's beloved Mecca of sticky pink rock, kiss-me-quick hats, fat-lady postcards and a stretch of crowded beach with extremely dubious sand that became an alarming brown when you dug past the first six inches. Instead it was grey, cold and desolate. Any day now the town council would erect a Norwegian fir and string up Christmas lights along the modest high street, but on a chilly Thursday in the second to last week of November, it was as cheerless as an Arctic weather station.

Jen hadn't been back here for twenty-two long years. It felt very odd to be driving around with Georgina and Meg, stopping to stare at the burnt-out old pier which in its heyday had kept them amused for hours, passing the entrance to the street where she and her dad had lived in a grotty little house on an even grottier council estate.

What a tiny insular world it had been. Walking along the high street, they'd even spotted Mr Perkins, their old form teacher, coming towards them, and from long-ingrained habit automatically ducked into WHSmith's to avoid having to say hello. They were skulking behind a display of greeting cards when Meg pointed out that, as intrepid sleuths, they should have collared him and asked about Rowan.

The farm where Georgina had boarded her horses was eerily unchanged. The owner, Angela, lived alone in the house by the entrance to the yard. Her weathered face bore witness to the hard labour of the past decades, but it was as friendly and welcoming as ever. Over stewed tea and stale ginger biscuits she regaled them with stories of their former equine friends, many of them – Jen realised with a jolt – long dead by now. It was almost as shocking to walk along the row of stables and see an old grey muzzle that belonged to Pepper, a giddy young colt when she first knew him, now a sedate pensioner retired to pasture.

She and Rowan had been obsessed with horses, much more so than Georgina if the truth were told. Fearless Jen would persuade Angela to allow her on all the new arrivals to 'ride the buck out of them' while Rowan spent hours in the stables, simply soothing them with her lyrical voice and calming manner. Their favourite had been Murgatroyd, a black Welsh rescue pony who'd been badly treated. Found starving in a barren field, full of lice and ringworm, he was unsurprisingly quite vicious. Even Jen was apprehensive around him but she religiously exercised him and Rowan would spend hours grooming his mane, stroking him and whispering to him. In the end he was as docile as a donkey and they'd both cried the day he was sold to a spoilt little girl who couldn't possibly love him the way they had.

Angela hadn't seen or heard of Rowan since the fire, she said, but they couldn't resist walking around anyway, rediscovering the schooling ring that turned to mud when it rained, the sloping paddock with an assortment of decrepit jumps, the tack room where they'd spent hours soaping bridles, and even one solitary remaining goose. In the old days there'd been a goose, a gander and eventually goslings that Jen and Rowan had pretended to run away from (Georgina being too genuinely petrified) until they grew up so bold no one could enter the yard without the whole flock honking and charging.

Their teeth were chattering, their hands frozen by the time they finished their tour. Leaving Angela's none the wiser about Rowan, they headed for the nearby library.

'Progress to date?' Georgina said, shuffling papers importantly.

They were sitting in a little café area that Ashport had recently added to its library, espresso coffee being a goldmine compared to the profitless task of lending books for free. They'd ordered a cappuccino, two lattes and three almond croissants, Georgina dithering over the third pastry – she didn't want it, well maybe, no really, she didn't need it, oh crikey, why not.

Nine days had passed since Jen decided for Georgina and herself that they'd join the search. It was Jen's idea to meet on their old turf, make a day trip of it, but now it was increasingly feeling like Georgina was running the show.

'What about the local phone directory?' Jen suggested. 'Look through it for people we knew?'

'Done that,' Meg reported. 'I've trawled through it and called everybody I could think of.'

Georgina perused her list. 'Internet. Any luck there, anyone?' She looked piercingly at Jen, who almost choked on a mouthful of croissant.

'Sorry,' she wheezed as Meg thumped her back. 'Well, I've done my best. I had to get Ollie to give me a refresher course on search engines.' He'd been happy to do it, too. Oh yes, theirs was a
most
civilised divorce. She blinked and looked down at her notepad, feeling like she was reporting at a war conference. 'People Search,' she continued. 'I found Rowan Howard on the electoral rolls. Trouble is I found a boatload of them, scattered countrywide.' She pulled a printed list from her handbag. 'None of them in Ashport, though. It's pretty hard when you haven't a clue where she's living.'

Imperiously Georgina held out her hand. 'Give it here. I'll get Aiden to go through them when I get home. He can at least stir himself to make some phone calls.'

'Yeah, what happened to old Aiden?' Meg yawned, tilting back her chair. She let the front legs return to earth with a thump. 'I thought he'd be here today, he was so hot on helping.'

Jen had thought so too. In fact her nerves had fluttered as she rang Georgina's doorbell this morning, only to fall flat as Georgina came out alone in her military bib coat and curly lambswool hat. Braced as she was for a third encounter, it was as if some of the colour had seeped out of the day. The thought crossed her mind that perhaps Georgina had ordered Aiden not to come. Her attitude towards him seemed so brusque sometimes.

'Man of the moment, my husband. Let's just say his enthusiasm dwindles if not constantly stoked. Likes to set things in motion but not so great at the follow-up,' she added enigmatically. 'And Giordani can't really spare both of us. Our celebrity clients expect at least one of us available in case of crisis.'

'Yeah, let your hubby have the short straw for a change.' Meg unwound her knee-length stripy scarf, the library being centrally heated and positively balmy. 'Right, my turn. I registered on that Friends Reunited website. Guess who the first person I saw was?'

'Jane Rogers.'

'Nope.'

'Peter Martino?' Jen had had a crush on him.

'Guess again.'

'For pity's sake,' Georgina said impatiently, 'just tell us.'

'Frank Benjamin.' Meg sounded triumphant.

The other two stared at her blankly. Then slowly the name clunked a few bells as Jen's memory started connecting. 'Not that guy with the silly laugh who used to fart all the time?'

'Bingo!' Meg scored an imaginary point in the air with an index finger. 'And there was a picture of him too.'

'What did he look like?' Georgina's face suggested an amnesiac checking police photo books in search of a clue.

'Thickened out somewhat and his hair's a touch bouffant, but it was definitely Frank behind those solemn, woe-is-me eyes.'

'He had woe-is-me eyes?' Jen said curiously. 'I don't remember that.'

'No, but he has now. There was a biog with his picture. He's working as a manager in Boots, has two kids, five and eight, and married Isobel Phillips. She was in our year too. Total swot. Became Head Girl in the Upper Sixth after we left. Anyway, apparently she passed away just last month.'

'Oh dear, poor farting Frank.' Georgina bowed her head in reverence. 'Whoever he is. How awful I can't even remember our Head Girl. Maybe I've a block on.'

'Well, what else can we do?' Meg moved on. 'What about Facebook, MySpace and all those sites that say they'll locate a person for free? We should join them all.'

'How about if we . . .' started Jen but was interrupted by Meg, sharply sucking in her breath.

'Oh Christ, I've just had a thought. Rowan, what if she's dead, like Isobel?'

'Dead! What do you mean? Why would she be dead?' Jen frowned, perplexed.

'Because she never turned up,' Meg said excitedly. 'And why not? What if she knew something . . . crashed trying to reach us that night . . . she was asking for help in some way . . . ?'

'But . . .' Georgina began.

'What if you have two deaths on your hands?' Meg said it so loudly that everyone in the library café raised their heads, a couple of them suddenly enough to incur whiplash.

The tension broke as Georgina burst out laughing. 'Who are the two deaths? Isobel and Rowan? Meg, you're completely bonkers.'

'And why are they on our hands?' Laughing too, Jen clutched Georgina's arm with a claw-like grip and transformed her voice into a late-night horror-film narrator. 'Who is the killer stalking the ex-pupils of Ashport Comp? Woo woo woo.'

'Woo, woo, woo? Hilarious, Bedlow.' Meg yawned.

'Could it be,' Jen continued, 'merely an extraordinary twist of fate that in a time span of
only twenty-something years
there's been a horrific spate of one death and one supposed disappearance? Has Rowan Howard . . .'

'Jennifer, be serious now.' Georgina, obviously used to chairing meetings, stopped her before she got too carried away. 'We're wasting time here. Aiden and I have a dinner party tonight.'

'Sorry.' Jen stared down at her notes, wondering why that last sentence jarred. Of course they had dinner parties. Of course she'd say 'Aiden and I' in that possessive way. He was her husband, after all. 'What about Starkey's friend, the one from Rowan's art class?'

Georgina frowned, staring at her own pad. 'I don't think he's phoned him yet. I'll make a note to chase him up on that.'

I bet you will,
Jen thought, shocked by a sudden vindictive picture of Georgina cracking a whip, harassing and bullying Aiden the way she always used to boss them.

And who was Georgie to snap 'be serious'? Over the past nine days, Jen had been consumed by this search – as if she didn't have enough to do with trying to sell her house, end her marriage, take care of a child, plus fit in a part-time voluntary job. Never mind all the shopping and cleaning to be done. And none of it, not the websites, blogs, Salvation Army, church records, the Mormons – who, according to Meg, had the best genealogy files in the world – had unearthed so much as a hint as to the whereabouts of their missing friend.

It was all a pointless waste of time. A wild goose chase, only this time they were the ones doing the chasing and the geese were miles off laughing up their feathery sleeves. So she couldn't even rustle up a smile when Georgina, getting carried away, suggested checking the names from old passenger ships, and when Meg told them how she'd placed an ad in the local newspaper, entitled 'Desperately Seeking Rowan'.

'I thought it might create a laugh and get us noticed,' she explained gloomily. 'But the only reply was from a mystified Madonna fan. Sorry, Jen,' Meg looked at her sympathetically, 'before, what were you going to say?'

'Oh, nothing, I was just thinking maybe we should go and visit our old school.'

Her words were met with the giddy enthusiasm reserved for snake pits and firing squads. Apparently the prospect of returning to their former seat of learning filled her friends with nothing less than dread.

Ashport Comprehensive was more run-down and sinister-looking than ever, with hardly a blade of grass left on its playing fields (but more than a few clumps appearing in the cracked playground cement). They paused to peer through the railings that stretched along the side.

'Are we going to go in?' Meg clutched the metal bars like a desperate convict serving life.

'Of course,' Jen said just as Georgina responded, 'Do we have to?'

'One of the staff might know something,' Jen said. 'They could have records.'

At the main gates a line of women were queuing to get into the building instead of hiding, as ordered, in their cars, waiting for their kids to emerge. What was going on?

'Ask them what they're all doing here.' Jen prodded Meg forward.

'It's the annual Christmas bazaar.' An old lady with a shopping basket over one arm answered Meg's query. 'Starts at quarter to four.'

'On a Thursday? In November?' Meg sounded surprised.

'They like to do it early. So everybody can buy their presents.'

Jen checked her watch. Three twenty-eight.

'OK, let's do it,' barked Georgina. 'To the back, girls.'

They all shuddered as the bell rang out and kids surged forth noisily. Some things hadn't changed.

'I had a fight in this very playground.' Georgina touched a hand to her throat, looking around her in distaste. 'With that frightfully common girl, Yvonne Spitz. Mr Panser stopped us.'

'Mr Panser?' Meg frowned as they shuffled with the rest of the queue closer to the door.

'Geography teacher. White hairs sprouting from his ears. We called him Pansy Panser. I must have been in the second year,' Georgina reflected. 'She'd been calling me names so I leapt on to her back with a deafening roar to defend my honour.'

Jen caught Meg's eye for a fleeting moment and chewed hard on her left cheek. Georgina leaping on anyone's back at that age without it ending in crushed ribs or even fatality seemed highly unlikely. In all probability Yvonne had jumped on her.

'A crowd of children formed a small circle shouting "Fight, fight, fight",' Georgina stared soulfully into the distance. 'Pansy Panser arrived, everyone dispersed and he took us both into the staffroom and Yvonne said, "I weren't fighting, sir. We was just wrestling a bit for the fun of it. That's right, wonnit, Chubby?" ' The weird cockney accent she put on was presumably her idea of working class, nothing like Yvonne's Sussex inflections. She continued grandly, 'And I replied, "Certainly it was, Yvonne," because even though I hated the evil bitch I didn't want to be a grass. And then Mr Panser passed me a paper napkin to wipe my grazed knee and said, "Wait till the bell rings and you can both go to your next class." There was no judgement.' She sounded dreamy, eyes glazed. 'No scolding. Merely the ticking of the wall clock as the minutes passed. The sound of the other children out at play. The distant tinkle of an ice-cream van playing its merry jingle.'