by Lucy Carver
Five minutes later Mercury knocked and came in (aka Zara, messenger to the gods). ‘Hey, Alyssa. You look awful.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’m just saying – I don’t know, I thought maybe you needed someone to talk to.’
‘No thanks.’ Unlawful killing. Some terrible mystery about to be revealed. The new notion kept me in its iron grip.
‘So anyway,’ Zara said, ‘Sam wants to see you.’
‘When?’
‘Now.’
‘What about?’
Actually, the name Mercury doesn’t suit Zara. She’s too luscious for that – a goddess in her own right, although as a scientific genius she would reject the old, classical myths as stories invented by primitive peoples to explain away natural disasters. If she has a god, it would be Professor Stephen Hawking and her bible would be his Brief History of Time.
‘D’Arblay didn’t say.’ She backed off from offering sympathy and reverted to that distant, don’t-bother-me way she can adopt, except when she’s seducing Luke or Tom or either of the two Jacks, in which case she’s fully engaged in the task and doesn’t have time for small talk. She looked at me a while longer then and her face softened again. ‘Sorry, Alyssa. He just asked me to pass on the message. It’s probably to do with Lily. Isn’t everything?’
Ouch! ‘Don’t you care that she’s dead?’ I asked.
‘Yes, I care, but spare me the shit.’
‘What shit?’
‘The shit that is about to hit the fan.’ Zara led me to the window and pointed down the front drive to the main gates where cars were parked and a growing knot of people were milling around in the gloom. ‘Journos. Cameras, reporters.’
I groaned.
‘Vultures,’ Zara said.
‘Come in, Alyssa.’ Saint Sam’s voice was calm and quiet as I knocked on his door. ‘Take a seat.’
I entered and sat, doing my best to ignore dapper, smart-arse D’Arblay who stood in the doorway that connected the principal’s study with his own.
‘First and most importantly, I wanted a private chat to ask how you’re coping with the stress of Lily’s death.’
‘I’m OK.’
Head tilted to one side, Sam studied my face. ‘We do have a counselling service,’ he reminded me.
‘I don’t need it, thanks.’
‘No. I can see that you’re a strong personality. Besides we know that you’re no stranger to tragedy – losing your parents at a young age and so on. You’ve already had to cope with a lot in your life.’
‘I’m OK,’ I insisted. Which of those two short words didn’t he understand?
‘Would you like us to inform your aunt? You could go home, perhaps skip the last few weeks of term then come back refreshed in the New Year.’
I looked down and studied my fingernails.
‘Alyssa?’
‘What about my eulogy?’ It was a leading question, I know. I was digging to see if Saint Sam knew about the postponement.
‘Someone else could do that for you,’ he said without hesitating.
In the doorway D’Arblay nodded and smiled like the Churchill dog. O-o-oh yes!
‘Alyssa?’ Sam prompted again.
‘No. I want to do it. Anyway, the funeral won’t be Wednesday – it’ll be later.’
I glanced up in time to see Sam react – maybe with annoyance, definitely not with surprise. But within a nanosecond he’d glossed over whatever emotion he was experiencing and he was back to his saintly, holier-than-thou self. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘It’s true. Everyone in the village knows that the police won’t release Lily’s body.’ I admit I took poetic licence here – Alex and Jayden weren’t exactly ‘everyone’.
‘Ah.’ The principal sighed and paused while his sidekick took two steps into the room. ‘We were rather hoping that wouldn’t get out. But Chartsey is a small place where everyone learns everyone else’s business sooner rather than later.’
‘Mr Earle won’t be happy,’ D’Arblay warned. ‘And I must say I agree with him – the family deserves maximum privacy at such a time.’
Still sighing, Sam placed his hands on his desk and made his fingers into a steeple. ‘It’s important that we at St Jude’s keep a united front,’ he went on. ‘Whatever we hear on the grapevine we keep to ourselves.’
I’d never had a gagging order before so at first I didn’t understand what was going on.
‘Meaning, Alyssa, you don’t repeat to anyone, either to other students here or to outsiders, what you have just told me.’
‘But it’s true, so what’s the point?’
D’Arblay was the one who laid it on the line, stepping forward with his hands clasped behind his back – one, two, three steps with mincing military precision. ‘The point is the world’s press is knocking on our door, but we still have to respect Robert Earle’s request for privacy.’
Yeah, I’d been gagged. I got it now.
‘Meanwhile we’ll make a phone call and inform your aunt that you’re under severe emotional strain,’ Sam insisted.
‘There’s no need,’ I began again.
‘It’s our duty.’ He tapped his fingertips together. ‘Oh, and before I forget, there was one other thing I needed to mention, also, I’m afraid, connected with this sequence of unfortunate events.’
I waited, knowing it wouldn’t be good.
‘As you recall, Adam and his mother have gathered up Lily’s personal possessions from your room.’
I nodded but gave nothing away. Two can play at that game.
‘There was one important thing missing,’ Sam went on. ‘An item that they particularly want to keep out of the wrong hands.’
‘What?’
‘Lily’s diary. You wouldn’t happen to have seen it, would you, Alyssa?’
‘No,’ I said, looking the principal directly in the eye. ‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know she kept one.’
I should probably have left out that last sentence. Methinks the lady doth protest too much. But I wasn’t a practised liar so I overdid it, which meant that neither Saint Sam nor D’Arblay believed me. But what could they do, except corner Paige and ask her the same thing? Paige is more expert than I am in being economical with the truth, so I wasn’t worried on that score.
In any case, I headed for the library where Saturday study groups meet, eager to update her and Jack.
I say ‘library’, but not in the old-fashioned sense. St Jude’s still has one of those in the old building – the book-lined, traditional type with creaking shelves of leather-bound volumes, preserved for posterity. But the one students actually use is housed in the new technology building next to the sports centre. It’s designed by a famous Spanish architect, domed and clad with steel scales that make it look like a giant fish. Nihil sed . . . Inside there are a hundred Apple Macs, but hardly a printed book in sight.
‘The question is – what do we learn about the First World War from Owen and Sassoon?’ Bryony was winding up for the afternoon in one of the big, bright, open-plan study bays. ‘Jack, is there any one image or phrase that stands out for you?’
She meant Jack Hooper, not my Jack. I realized this as I glanced around the group and saw that mine was missing.
‘“I am the enemy you killed, my friend,”’ was his earnest answer. ‘Men wore different uniforms and fought on opposite sides, but under the uniform they were flesh and blood – no difference. They only killed the so-called enemy because that’s what some dumb general ordered them to do.’ Jack was on a roll and didn’t stop when he saw me edge towards Paige. ‘And the stupidest thing is they started the whole mess all over again twenty years later, only this time the Germans had Hitler and the Allies dropped the atom bomb.’
‘Good. Then that’s what you should construct your essay around, Jack – the insanity of war. Build up your whole argument from that starting point.’ Logging off and packing up her well-thumbed volume of war poems, Bryony saw me hovering in the background.
‘Hey, Alyssa.’
‘Hey.’
‘Are you looking for someone?’
‘Yes – Jack Cavendish.’
‘He left early for a lesson with his tennis coach.’ As her group of students dispersed and I failed to grab Paige’s attention, Bryony stayed behind to share a smile and a joke. ‘So much more important than dusty old war poets, eh?’
‘Jack must think so. He’s good enough to play at senior level for his county.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’ Bryony Phillips is someone you want to stay and talk with, even when she’s not saying what you want to hear and when you have something else important to do. Small and compact, with a wild shock of dark hair streaked with a flash of premature grey, she knows how to grab your attention both in and out of the classroom. ‘Guy is always singing Jack’s praises, but it leaves me cold. I’m not into competitive sports, I’m afraid.’
We strolled the length of the huge open space. ‘Me neither.’
‘But Jack has other talents?’ She raised an arched, inquisitive eyebrow and her lips twitched into a smile.
‘Some.’ (‘Sm’. I was swallowing my vowels again. This was a serious, recurring case of jack-itis.)
‘Sorry, Alyssa – I overstepped the mark.’
‘It’s OK’. (‘S K’.)
‘No, it’s not my business.’ Stopping me in the glass entrance lobby, Bryony put a hand on my arm. ‘Joking aside, how are you doing?’
‘OK some of the time. Other times I can’t believe this is real.’
‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘We all miss Lily desperately. She leaves a big hole in everyone’s lives – teachers and students alike.’
‘The police won’t release the body,’ I blurted out without intending to.
Bryony took away her hand and sucked in a sharp breath.
‘Ask Dr Webb.’ There – I’d broken my gagging order. Not deliberately, but somehow with Bryony you wanted to tell it exactly how it was.
‘What are they thinking – that Lily’s death was suspicious?’
‘Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.’
Hurriedly I left the building ahead of Bryony, leaving her to digest the new information as I crossed the car park and dashed to the sports centre to find Jack.
A stranger had got into the sports centre, a spy in the camp.
‘My name’s Emily Archer. I’m with the UK Tennis Association,’ she told Guy Simons who stood with beefy arms crossed. ‘I scout for talent.’
‘My arse,’ Guy replied.
‘No, really . . .’ She was tiny and blonde; he was a gigantic thug. It was Tiananmen Square all over again, unarmed protestor versus tank.
‘I’m trained to sniff out a talent scout at fifty paces,’ he snorted, still blocking her way and now forcing her into a tottering retreat back the way she’d come. ‘And my gut feeling is you don’t know one end of a tennis racket from another.’
‘Fine!’ she snapped, backing into me and almost falling flat.
Journo, I thought. I would’ve let her fall and so would Guy, but Jack was more of a gentleman.
‘You OK?’ he checked with her, stepping out of the changing room, hair slicked back after his shower, and saving her just in time.
‘Jesus Christ, I’m only trying to do my job!’ she exclaimed at Guy as she righted herself and stormed off.
‘Coffee?’ I asked Jack, nodding my head towards the mezzanine cafe overlooking the indoor courts.
‘You look upset,’ Jack began. It was the first real chance I’d had to talk with him since he’d come and rescued me from the side of the lake, not counting the meeting in the Squinting Cat because Paige had been there and we’d only allowed ourselves that brief kiss. Dig deeper and you’d find that I was longing for him to put his arms round me and hold me close, for him to never let me go.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yep.’ I kept the hugging urge at bay and stirred chocolate powder into my cappuccino without looking up. Below us, on court number 3, Paige had challenged Luke to an impromptu game of singles.
‘You’re thinking about Lily, aren’t you?’
I nodded and stirred.
‘There’s no problem between us, is there? You’re not going to stop talking to me again?’
‘Not unless you tell me you’re flying out to Australia to another tennis academy,’ I joked feebly.
‘No chance.’
I was already kicking myself for my pathetic attempt at humour, when what I should have been saying was, ‘How could there be a problem? You’re the hottest guy around, plus the kindest and most sensitive. I really like you and want to spend more time with you.’ Instead, I came up with the lame. ‘That’s OK, then.’
‘And I’m definitely not going to drag you into any more shit with D’Arblay about late passes,’ he promised.
‘Water under the bridge,’ I sighed.
‘Tell me if I got this wrong, but I’m definitely picking up a bad vibe here. Are you sure we’re OK?’ Our coffees lay undrunk on the table. ‘We’re mates?’
‘Mates.’ A brief kiss and a hidden desire for more.
‘More than mates?’
I took a deep breath then nodded and managed to smile. ‘Anyway, I definitely promise I won’t stop talking to you.’ I reached for his hand across the coffee shop table. He has a broad palm and long fingers, which he wrapped tightly round mine.
‘Game!’ Paige cried as she served her second ace. Luke scurried to pick up stray balls.
‘He hates to lose,’ Jack muttered. ‘Paige and Luke – are they on or off at the moment?’
‘On, I think. At least, they went into the Bottoms together, to Tom’s house.’
‘When?’
‘A couple of nights back.’
‘If she thrashes him at tennis, they’ll be off again.’
‘Yeah, you’re right. Hey, you want to know something weird?’ For some reason I hadn’t jumped straight into the withholding the body mystery with Jack, but I knew I had to eventually.
‘Do I?’ he asked wryly. ‘No, probably not. But you’re going to tell me anyway.’
‘OK, so I’ll start from the beginning. I ran into Jayden.’
Immediately Jack was on edge. ‘Where?’
‘In the Squinting Cat – no actually in the street outside the Bridge Inn, about five minutes after you and Paige left.’ And I told Jack about the bike episode and how I finally ended up talking to Alex Driffield. I spun it out for as long as possible.
‘Hang on – you’re saying Jayden was the good guy in this situation?’ Jack reacted with disbelief.
‘I wouldn’t go that far. Let’s say I didn’t expect him to act the way he did – making his kid brother sort out the damage to my bike, stopping the dog from sinking his teeth into me.’
‘That is weird,’ Jack agreed. ‘After what he did to Lily you’d think he’d lie low.’
‘After what we think he did to Lily,’ I reminded him, and ran the most probable scenario inside my head:
Lily: I’m pregnant.
Jayden: You’re joking me.
Lily: I’m deadly serious.
Jayden: (after a long pause) So whose is it?
Lily (dissolving into meltdown) I can’t believe you just said that!
Jayden: (turning away with Bolt the dog in tow) Anyway you told me you were on the pill.
Lily: Not me. I was never on the pill. You must be thinking about some other girl.
Jayden: Yeah, I sleep around, same as you (laughs). Same as every kid at St Jude’s. See ya!
(She cries as stick man and stick dog walk out of her life.)
‘You know what – now I’m not so sure,’ I told Jack as Luke drew level on the court below – one game all. ‘But that wasn’t the end of it. I didn’t get to the important bit yet.’
‘The Alex bit?’
‘He told me about some new forensic evidence. Micky Cooke picked it up from his dad, who works at the hospital morgue in Ainslee. It turns out Saint Sam and D’Arblay already
knew this, but they’re trying desperately to keep it out of the media spotlight. Fat chance though.’
Jack put his other hand round mine and my whole body trembled. ‘Alyssa, slow down. I’m still not sure what this is about. What did they find?’
‘I have no clue. Something’s wrong – that’s all.’
Cue the reappearance of Emily Archer, the lowlife journo, most probably wired up to an invisible recorder for all I knew. Don’t expect an explanation of how she snuck back past Guy the gorilla – I just don’t know.
‘I think I can clear this up for you,’ she told Jack smoothly, sitting down between us. She was in her late twenties, dinky and glossy in a black leather bomber jacket, jeans and knee-high boots, with obvious ambitions to read the Six O’Clock News. I made up that last bit because I’m a bitch and when Jack’s around I feel threatened by any attractive older woman. ‘Your girlfriend seems shaken up by the latest revelation – it’s understandable.’
Jack pulled back from the table and looked at me to see what I wanted to do.
My mouth was dry, my heart thumping. ‘Go ahead, explain,’ I told Emily.
‘The second pathology report on Lily Earle’s death came through to the coroner earlier today and it seems it might blow the old suicide theory right out of the water, excuse the pun.’
Jack frowned at her, but said nothing.
‘Yeah – sorry, I have bad taste. Anyway, they noticed something that may not have been accidental.’
‘Not accidental?’ Jack echoed the words in a low whisper.
‘But they’re not absolutely sure?’ I croaked, my heart thudding down into my boots. So far the journalist’s account wasn’t definite, but it added to the questions arising from what Alex had already told me. What she said next added another layer of doubt – a major reason to shudder and grasp Jack’s hand.
Emily Archer shrugged. ‘The police haven’t released any details yet, except that this is something that probably occurred after Lily died – post mortem,’ she explained to Jack. ‘They won’t say any more until they’ve had time to study the pathologist’s follow-up report.’
Letting go of my hand and rocking himself forward so that his elbows rested on the table, Jack raised his hands to his face, covered his eyes and rubbed his forehead.
