Young, Gifted and Dead

by Lucy Carver

  He spoke over the stable door. ‘Why should you?’ he grinned. ‘Beijing is ancient history.’

  ‘But you’re still a great rider.’ Paige insisted on being nice. Maybe it was a cliquey, horsey-person bond that I just didn’t get.

  Still steering well clear of Mistral, Jack said he hoped Paige and Guy would enjoy their hack. ‘Fancy a walk to the Bottoms, Alyssa?’ he asked pointedly enough for even Guy Simons to pick up.

  ‘Ah, young love!’ he mocked as he led Franklin out of the stable.

  Ignore him! ‘Yes, but let me go change my shoes,’ I replied. I had a list of things I wanted to talk about and every reason you can think of for wanting to be alone with Jack Cavendish.

  Looking back at St Jude’s from the edge of the oak wood, across lake and frosty lawn, you’d still never have thought that anything bad had happened there.

  The low, two-storey building stood as it had for four hundred years, ornate chimney stacks rising into a leaden sky, stone steps leading to a grand entrance, oak doors securely closed.

  ‘You’re shivering,’ Jack said, putting his arm round my shoulders.

  ‘It’s cold. Let’s walk.’ We turned away from the dark lake and entered the wood.

  A blanket of autumn leaves covered the ground, frosty and crisp underfoot. Gnarled trunks twisted and divided into stout, bare branches that formed a tunnel over our heads.

  ‘You want to talk about something else?’ he asked. ‘I mean, other than Lily.’

  ‘Nothing else seems that important.’

  ‘And you can’t stop thinking about her anyway. Me neither.’

  ‘I’m glad we’re doing this, though.’

  ‘Me too.’

  I genuinely was. It took me right back to the feelings I’d had at Tom’s party. The lyrics to ‘You’re the One for Me’ rang out inside my head. ‘Love is a window . . .’

  We walked on, through to the other side of the wood where Jack broke away.

  ‘The stream’s frozen over. Come and look.’

  He was right – there was a thin sheet of ice and two ducks slipping and sliding miserably across the surface. On the opposite bank someone had thrown away two crushed Coca-Cola cans and a crisp packet, half hidden under a thatch of weather-beaten grass. I crouched beside him and touched the ice with my fingertips.

  Jack stood up first and glanced back the way we’d come. ‘Which way now?’

  ‘I like walking in the wood,’ I decided. It felt secret and sheltered, safer somehow.

  ‘It feels good,’ he agreed.

  ‘Totally.’ I smiled, and kissed him long and slow – a major move for me.

  ‘So we’re definitely more than mates?’ He picked up on our earlier conversation in the sports centre as we walked on.

  ‘You already know the answer.’ I clicked back into being shy again for no reason other than I was suddenly scared of showing my feelings – a lifetime’s habit, you could say.

  ‘I want to be sure.’

  ‘Be sure,’ I whispered, looking straight into his eyes.

  Jack pulled me up and kissed me back – another long kiss. I closed my eyes and breathed him in, put my arms round his neck and held him close. I might not be able to say the right words, but at least my actions would show him how I felt.

  Then we retraced our steps, following the tracks our feet had made on the frosty ground.

  ‘Why did we let all that time go by?’ he wondered.

  ‘You left the country, remember.’

  ‘But when I came back, you didn’t . . .’ He hesitated and scuffed the ground with the toe of his boot.

  ‘It felt complicated,’ I sighed, thinking of the time we’d wasted – almost a whole term.

  ‘I think we were both scared,’ was his response.

  ‘I definitely was. The truth is I didn’t believe you would . . . choose me.’

  He kissed me again. ‘And then Lily happened,’ he said.

  I nodded. ‘Jack, can I ask you something?’

  ‘About Lily?’

  ‘No, about Jayden.’

  ‘OK.’ He dragged his feet, ready to go on the defensive.

  ‘It’s a question I asked you before. At Tom’s party, what did you two talk about? Why did Jayden grab you and drag you off to the other side of the room?’

  ‘He did?’

  ‘Yeah, you know he did. You need me to remind you of the details?’ The colour of the carpet, the pattern on the curtains, the angry, feral look on Jayden’s face.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what did he want?’

  ‘Nothing. He was being an idiot.’

  I waited at the edge of the wood, looking up into the branches, feeling snow flakes begin to land on my face.

  Jack walked on a little way then waited for me. ‘OK – he asked me if Lily and I had got back together, like he was accusing me. I told him no.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘I don’t know if he believed me. I said so what if we had? He’d been the one who’d dumped her, hadn’t he? What right did he have to be asking me questions?’

  The carpet in the Old Vicarage was tasteful beige throughout, the curtains were bottle green, suspended from a brass pole.

  ‘Tom, there you are!’ Lily cried as I tried to work out what was going on between Jayden and Jack. She slid her arm round Tom’s waist and kissed him on the lips.

  I watched Jayden’s face as Lily came on to Tom. He looked savage.

  ‘Hey, Jayden!’ She’d had too much to drink; Tom was annoyed; she began to totter towards her ex, totally out of her head. She didn’t even make it across the room.

  ‘Why was Jayden accusing you of getting back together with Lily?’ I asked Jack at the edge of the wood.

  ‘You’d have to ask him,’ he replied. Definitely end of conversation.

  And, anyway, we could see Paige and Guy riding along the edge of a ploughed field, hurrying home before the snow got too bad. They trotted towards us, their horses breathing clouds of steam into the cold grey air, cutting across our path.

  ‘OK,’ I told Jack. ‘Maybe I will.’

  I had to wait until the next afternoon before I could follow this through.

  ‘Are you mad?’ Paige demanded when I told her my plan.

  ‘No. Jayden knows something we don’t know,’ I insisted. Lessons had finished for the day and I was heading back to our room to get changed out of my uniform when she appeared at the top of the stairs and I explained my next move. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Jeez, Alyssa. Does Jack know what you’re planning?’

  ‘I mentioned it, but he doesn’t think I’ll go through with it.’

  ‘Well, hell, quelle surprise!’ She came down the steps towards me. ‘Seriously, Alyssa, you know by now that Jayden is not the kind of guy you drop in on for afternoon tea.’

  ‘So tell me what else we can do,’ I challenged. I’d sat through Bryony’s class on the ending of Lear (yes, it had taken us a whole term to reach this point. The thankless daughters were dead but so was Cordelia. ‘Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones!’), all the time obsessing about what to do next about Lily.

  ‘Here are the options,’ Paige began.

  I haven’t said so before, but one of her non-horsey talents is logical argument. That’s when she’s not being scornful or stubborn or displaying other similar character flaws. In fact, I can see her as a barrister in Crown Court, wig and all.

  ‘One, we track down Adam Earle.’

  ‘Why would we do that?’ Personally I didn’t see any good reason for more contact with Lily’s automaton sibling.

  Paige quickly explained. ‘You remember in Saint Sam’s office – why was Adam so interested in what Lily had said to us the day she packed her bag and left? Why so cagey? Why no grief?’

  ‘Good point,’ I decided.

  Paige and I sat down on the cold steps, ticking off items on our fingers. ‘Following on from that,’ I said, ‘why did Lily tell us she’d been summonsed home to see
her dad? I know from what Anna said that Robert Earle was still in Chicago.’

  ‘Deliberate decoy,’ Paige observed. ‘Part of her plan to drop out of sight and never be seen again.’

  ‘And there are questions about Mamma Earle. I know that she’s bound to be shattered by her daughter’s death, but, still, why is she so passive? No, that’s not the right word. Why is she so scared?’

  ‘Really?’ Paige frowned and considered the question. ‘Scared of the tyrant, I guess. Anyway, let’s think of stuff right under our noses. Is there someone here at St Jude’s who secretly hated Lily enough to harm her?’

  ‘No way!’ was my immediate response.

  Paige, though, wouldn’t let it drop. ‘Keep it on the list,’ she insisted. ‘Stick with the school. Saint Sam and D’Arblay – what’s with the control freakery?’

  ‘“Be dignified. Don’t speak to the press,”’ they’d insisted. I saw what she meant but I had no answer.

  ‘They’re getting worse. Soon we’ll be wearing straightjackets and be locked in our rooms.’

  ‘Or they’ll get us sent home.’ Which only made me think that sitting here itemizing our options might appear sensible but it was wasting time. ‘I have to go now,’ I told Paige.

  She jumped up from the step. ‘You’re not still thinking of going to see Jayden? Yeah, you are. Don’t deny it, you totally are!’

  ‘I can’t sit and do nothing.’

  ‘At least wait until Jack has finished his coaching session,’ she pleaded. ‘I’d come myself and back you up but I just saw Georgie pull into the car park.’

  It was good advice, which I chose to ignore. ‘Go do your dressage. If you see Jack, mention that I’m heading for Chartsey,’ I told Paige, pushing past her. ‘Tell him not to worry – I’ll be OK.’

  chapter seven

  I took another school bike and cycled into the Bottoms, quickly calling in at JD’s for a progress report on repairs to the first one.

  Alex was there with Micky Cooke, whose dad works in the morgue. The two of them saw me talking to Alex’s dad and straight away decided to give me a hard time for the hell of it. I was surprised because to look at Micky you would have thought butter wouldn’t melt – open face, big smile, loose-jointed and laid back.

  Alex started it with, ‘Look who it isn’t – the numero uno super-sleuth.’

  ‘Miss Marple on a bike,’ Micky laughed. They cut me off on the pavement outside the workshop and stupidly I rose to the bait.

  ‘What did I do?’ I asked Alex.

  ‘You don’t have to do anything, you just are.’

  I made another wrong choice and went proper Miss Marple on them. ‘Get out of my way, please.’

  ‘“Get out of my way, please”!’ Micky mimicked in a prim voice.

  ‘OK, Colonel Mustard, where did the murder take place and which weapon was used?’ Alex acted like the Cluedo analogy was hilarious.

  ‘Why are you being like this?’ I asked as I tried to wheel my bike past them and Alex grabbed the handlebars with both hands. ‘Alex, let go!’

  ‘“Alex, let go!”’

  I pushed harder.

  Alex braced himself and pushed back. ‘What are you doing here, Alyssa?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘“What’s it to—”’

  Wrenching the bike from Alex’s grasp, I swung the front wheel towards Micky and ran it over his toes.

  ‘Wow!’ Alex’s hilarity knew no bounds. He was cawing like a crow and flapping his arms, hopping from one foot to the other. ‘Didn’t you know – Micky’s feet are his fortune? Southampton signed him up for their junior squad. What are you trying to do – wreck his career?’

  At this point I threw the bike on to the ground. ‘Forget it – I’ll walk,’ I said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Seriously, Alyssa.’ Alex and Micky kept pace as I cut up Meredith Lane. ‘You’ve got that famous don’t-mess-with-me look.’

  ‘Which we like,’ Micky said as he faked a serious limp.

  ‘Which makes us think more Sarah Lund than Miss Marple.’

  ‘Minus the ugly sweater,’ Micky added.

  God, they were pathetic.

  ‘Sarah Lund sniffing out clues.’

  ‘Tracking down the killer – in this case Lily’s.’

  ‘If there is a killer . . .’

  ‘Letting nothing stand in her way,’ Micky said as he stepped right in front of me. ‘She never lets up in her hunt to bring the villain to justice.’

  ‘She doesn’t show her feelings.’

  ‘Which we also like,’ Micky said, this time with a definite leer.

  ‘So?’ I yelled angrily (proving them wrong on the last point at least). ‘What are you two going to do about Lily? What’s the rest of the world doing?’

  ‘See!’ Alex crowed. ‘We knew it.’

  ‘She’s a girl on a mission,’ Micky agreed. ‘Who’s the killer, Alyssa? Really – we want to know.’

  ‘Does he live in the Bottoms?’

  ‘Or Uppers? Is he at Ainslee Comp?’

  ‘Is it Jayden?’ Alex dropped the raucous laugh. He stared me in the eye. ‘Come on, Alyssa – is it?’

  I stared right back.

  Eventually I lost the two idiots and went on foot along Meredith Lane out of the village and up the hill to Upper Chartsey. A light snow had started to fall so it was good that I’d left the bike behind. As I entered the village, the street lights came on and the whole scene started to look sparkly and white, beautiful as a Christmas card but freezing cold. A car crawled up the hill behind me, its tyres skidding and sliding into the kerb, then a four-wheel drive, stopping to unload two passengers outside the Smith’s Arms. A guy on a motorbike rode slowly down the hill and turned into the pub car park.

  I stopped outside the pub. What did I do now? I thought of walking in out of the cold and asking the bar staff where Jayden lived then decided against it. Snobby girl from St Jude’s goes into pub desperate to find boy from Ainslee Comp – it didn’t give a good impression, and even at a time like this I cared about my reputation. So did I find his number in a directory instead? Not unless I knew his surname, which I realized I didn’t. Did I knock on doors? There weren’t that many houses to choose from – maybe twenty or thirty in the whole village.

  I walked on past ex-workmen’s cottages, prettified with names like Swallow’s Nest and The Old Granary, tarted up with rustic porches and double glazing made to look like leaded windows that didn’t fool anybody. I began to lose heart and wonder how I would get home if it kept on snowing.

  Then a kid shot out of a door and slammed it behind him. He skidded down the path and on to the snowy pavement. If I hadn’t got out of his way, he would have mowed me down.

  ‘Brad!’ I spoke one word before he saw me, scooped a handful of snow off the top of the garden wall, compacted it into an icy ball and launched it right in my face. I ducked – it missed. He ran, slid and vanished round a corner.

  Which left me with the obvious choice of knocking on the door Brad had just slammed.

  I rehearsed it a few times before I plucked up the courage to walk up the path.

  Knock knock.

  ‘Hi, Jayden, I’ve come to talk about Lily again.’

  Door slams in my face.

  Knock knock.

  ‘I just want to ask you one question.’

  Door slams again.

  Knock knock.

  ‘Were you the baby’s father?’

  I knocked and a girl came to the door. This wasn’t scripted.

  ‘Yes?’ Not a friendly ‘yes’ either – more a suspicious one and delivered out of the side of the mouth by a blonde-with-dark-roots girl about my age wearing heavy black mascara, half a dozen studs in each ear and a nose ring.

  ‘Erm, does Jayden live here?’ I asked. I was hatless, shivering and caked in snow.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure? Only, I saw Brad . . .’

  ‘Still no.’

  ‘So d
o you know where I can find him?’

  ‘If I did, would I tell you?’

  And she wouldn’t – not to save her life. This, by the way, was a girl you wouldn’t argue with in case she had a knife slipped inside her boot, or she wore a hat with a razor-edge rim like Oddjob in the old Bond movie. I’m exaggerating again, but you get the idea.

  ‘Thanks anyway.’ I turned and walked down the path, right into stick dog Bolt.

  Whoa!

  Bolt growled at me as I came out of the gate. He barrelled past and scratched and whined at the front door.

  Scary girl opened the door and let him in.

  Snowflakes landed on my eyelashes. This was turning into a blizzard.

  ‘Jeez,’ Jayden said when he saw me shivering outside his house.

  He took me to a back room at the Smith’s Arms and got his barman mate to make me a hot chocolate.

  ‘Why are we here?’ I wanted to know. ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier just to invite me into the house?’

  He ignored the questions, hunching forward with both elbows on the table. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Looking for you, obviously.’

  ‘Why? And don’t say to talk about Lily.’

  ‘Yes, actually.’

  ‘OK, so I’m out of here,’ he said, but didn’t move.

  ‘Here’ was a tiny, unheated room with four round tables, a dozen heavy wooden stools and a few tacky hunting pictures on the walls. I think it was where they served pub food to ramblers and furtive couples from Ainslee engaged in extra-marital affairs.

  ‘Of course it’s about Lily,’ I told him. ‘Who else? And listen, Jayden, you don’t scare me.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘OK, you do. And who was scary girl?’

  ‘At the house?’ he laughed. ‘That was Ursula.’

  ‘Ursula?’

  ‘Her dad was Austrian. He’s dead, the same as yours, but not in a plane crash.’

  ‘How did you know that? Did Lily tell you?’

  ‘Back to the same old topic,’ he sighed, nibbling his thumbnail and spitting out the paring.

  ‘She couldn’t have. You’d dumped her before she knew me.’

  Jayden’s mouth twitched, but he let it pass. ‘So what did you think of Ursula?’