Young, Gifted and Dead

by Lucy Carver

  Oh God – only one other name flew into my mind with arrow-like precision. ‘Guy Simons!’

  ‘Ker-ching!’ Harry said. ‘Good job, Alyssa – you got there in the end.’

  chapter eighteen

  Disgusting, horrible, sick, revolting. I spat out all these adjectives into the echoing darkness.

  ‘Don’t waste your breath,’ Harry told me.

  Guy Simons – clean-cut sports teacher – turns out to be a closet fascist and rapist.

  How did the guy live with himself after what he’d done to Lily? He’d closed the door on his crime, went around St Jude’s showing you how to hold a tennis racket and execute a forehand drive, teaching the basics of dressage.

  Shock made it feel like someone had rammed a core drill into my gut and scoured out all my organs.

  ‘Come on – it’s time,’ Harry decided, as if he’d got nothing bigger in mind than a coffee in the Squinting Cat or a game of pool in Ainslee Leisure Centre.

  I tried to resist as he clutched my arm and dragged me out of the cloisters down towards the river. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘First, let’s take a look at what happened to Chris, the daft sod.’ He took a small torch from his pocket and shone it towards the water. The beam glinted and danced over the swift-running surface. ‘The current’s tricky just here. You get wide, shallow stretches then a few metres downstream it’s all forced into narrow gorges – often less than three metres wide and more than ten metres deep – good for white-water rafting. See, this notice tells you to watch out.’

  He shone the beam on a faded sign.

  PUBLIC WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THE STEPPING STONES. THIS STRETCH OF RIVER IS DANGEROUS AND HAS CLAIMED LIVES IN THE PAST.

  ‘It’s about to claim one more,’ Harry muttered, meaning not Cooke but me. He was ready to give up his search, but then he spotted an object floating among the reeds maybe fifty metres downstream. ‘Could be a log. There again it could be a corpse. Let’s find out.’

  I resisted again, kicking and scratching, but still weak. I got a shocking HD image inside my head of Harry eventually putting his square hands round my neck and choking me, forcing me under the water. ‘Why are you doing this? What are you waiting for?’ I yelled. ‘Just get on with it!’

  Harry dragged me along the bank until he could shine the beam directly on the floating object. ‘Patience, Alyssa. Yep, that’s Chris all right.’

  Cooke lay half submerged, his face white, eyes still open. The water rocked him gently in a final, icy lullaby.

  Harry waded in among the reeds, dragging me with him. ‘What do we do – leave him there? Yeah, it’s best if the cops find him for themselves. I’ll say you went after Chris like a mother tiger, red in tooth and claw, accusing him of crazy stuff like killing Paige. The poor guy didn’t stand a chance. I was too far away to stop you picking up this big rock and hitting him on the back of the head.’

  As he spoke, he acted it out, rolling Cooke face down, picking up a jagged rock and smashing it against his skull. ‘Got to have injuries consistent with the story,’ he explained.

  I heard the impact of stone on skull, bent double and retched.

  ‘You smacked him with the rock when he wasn’t looking and he keeled over into the water. By the time I reached you, you’d come to your senses and realized what you’d done. You jumped in to drag him back to the bank but it was a bad stretch of river and the current grabbed hold of you and sucked you down.’ He nodded and shone the beam on my face. ‘What’s wrong, Alyssa? Can you spot a loophole?’

  I was still retching and pulling away, thinking, If this is it, if this is really what’s going to happen, just do it.

  The sky was black, the river rushed on.

  Just do it!

  It was so dark we didn’t know anyone was there until a dog hurtled out of the cloisters and down the hill towards us. I didn’t see it but I heard it, snarling as it came.

  Harry just had time to swing his torch towards Bolt as the Staffie leaped chest-high and sank his teeth into Harry’s shoulder. The torch dropped to the ground. I dived down, grabbed it and swung it along the bank towards the stepping stones. Jayden walked in our direction – strolled actually – with both hands in his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold. I half ran, half staggered to meet him, with the sweet chorus of Bolt’s snarls and growls playing in the background.

  Jayden didn’t say anything. He took the torch from me and aimed it at Harry and Bolt. The guy was still standing, the dog hadn’t let go and blood gushed from the shoulder wound. I groaned and retched.

  ‘Call off the dog! Tell it to stop!’ Harry screamed.

  Jayden waited a while then glanced at me.

  ‘Tell him to stop,’ I pleaded.

  ‘Down, Bolt!’

  It was instantaneous. Bolt clicked out of killer mode into guard-dog duty, crouching low, ready to pounce again. Harry shook and bled. He had the river behind him and Bolt in front – there was nowhere for him to go.

  ‘How come?’ I groaned at Jayden.

  ‘How come I’m here? Your friend, Hooper,’ he drawled without taking his eyes off Bolt and Harry.

  ‘He called you?’

  ‘Hooper said to get my arse over to the Ridge, see what I could see.’

  I took a deep breath to slow my racing heart. ‘How much of the stuff in the cloisters did you hear?’

  ‘All of it.’

  ‘I thought I was going to die.’

  ‘Not today,’ Jayden promised, walking slowly towards Harry to take a look at the damage. ‘That’ll need stitches,’ he remarked.

  Bolt lay and growled, curling back his lip.

  Then we heard vehicles approaching along the Hereward Ridge bridleway, looking for a route down into the valley. Blue and orange lights flashed as two police Land Rovers threaded between ash trees and bumped across the grass, followed by an unmarked white Range Rover. They arrived in a slow procession then deployed the vehicles so that their headlights were trained on me, Jayden, Bolt, Harry and Chris Cooke’s floating corpse.

  Inspector Cole stepped out of the first police car with the expressionless female sergeant from the interview room. She held open the back door and I saw Jack get out with Hooper. Hooper had to support Jack as they made their way towards me.

  My heart stopped; my mind went blank. Jack broke away from Hooper, stood waiting for me in the white glare of headlights.

  Heart and mind kicked back into action. Jack’s alive! He’s alive!

  I ran, reached him and was shocked again by the damage to the side of his head, which was cut and bruised. Gingerly I put out my scraped and bleeding hand to stroke his cheek – the unbruised one. His skin was smooth and warm. ‘You’re OK?’ I whispered.

  He gave the faintest nod then reached out for me. I put my arms round him and pressed my face against his chest. He kissed the top of my head.

  ‘What happened? How did you find me?’ I asked.

  ‘Hooper grabbed a bike and followed us to Upwood House,’ Jack explained.

  ‘Too late to see the action,’ Hooper added, modestly underplaying his role. ‘I’m afraid I’m no Bradley Wiggins.’

  ‘And then?’ I urged, arms still wrapped tight round my Jack.

  ‘I did get there in time to see the Green Shoots truck speeding off. The driver must have seen me, but he didn’t slow down to let me pass. In fact, he forced me into the ditch. I thought it didn’t look good so I called Emily and asked her to find out anything she could – where Green Shoots was based, who ran it etcetera.

  ‘Emily? Emily Archer?’

  ‘Here I am,’ said a breezy voice. The journalist had stepped out of the white Range Rover with D’Arblay and Guy Simons. She made a beeline for us while the bursar and Guy hung back. ‘Give me an investigative job to do and I’m all over it like a rash. I was in Ainslee checking out the Green Shoots depot within thirty minutes of Hooper’s call. One look at Audley double-padlocking the store and manically hammering boards over
the broken window told me it was time to bring in the professionals.’

  ‘The cops found Jack inside the store and arrested Audley.’ When Emily had joined us, Hooper had faded into the background, but he stepped forward again now with a reminder. ‘Jack still needs to go to hospital to get his head X-rayed.’

  ‘I wanted to find you first,’ said Jack, his lips still against my head.

  ‘Jayden saved me,’ I murmured, and we turned towards the river to watch the latest developments.

  There were four uniforms plus Cole cagily circling Bolt and Harry until Cole told Jayden to call off his dog.

  ‘Heel, Bolt,’ Jayden said. The Staffie stood up and trotted stiff-legged over to Jayden – master and dog in unison.

  This gave room for two uniforms to move in and put restraints on Harry.

  ‘First stop, hospital,’ one said when he took a look at Harry’s injuries.

  I hung on to Jack for a few seconds more, until I saw the restraints and felt some of the fear recede. There would be no hands round my neck, no watery death.

  ‘Once I knew the police were on to it, my next job was to get back to St Jude’s and inform the school,’ Emily went on. ‘I wanted to get their reaction.’

  ‘And?’ Taking a quick look at D’Arblay and Guy Simons, I saw they were still hanging back, quietly observing Harry’s arrest.

  ‘Let’s just say it put a bomb under their backsides. Those two had jumped into D’Arblay’s car and were collecting me at the gates before I had time to file my report.’

  ‘You’ll probably need to rewrite it anyway.’ I watched from a distance as the cops bundled Harry towards a car. Harry resisted. Guy came forward to speak to him.

  ‘We’ll get you a good lawyer,’ he promised, gripping his arm and speaking with quiet intensity. ‘We can deal with this.’

  Harry shook his bleeding head and groaned.

  ‘Get him to the Queen Elizabeth,’ Cole ordered.

  Then Harry was manhandled into the Land Rover and driven away while the remaining two cops waded into the reeds to recover Cooke’s body.

  It was only then that D’Arblay came forward. ‘Thank you, Inspector. As Guy said, I’m sure we can sort out the details and get to the truth once things have calmed down.’

  His words came out smooth and polished, bland as Saint Sam. But I could see that both he and Guy knew they were hanging on by a thread. Even so, D’Arblay would play out the game to its bitter end.

  ‘Is it in order for me to drive Alyssa and the two Jacks back to St Jude’s?’ he asked Cole. ‘We’ll take good care of them until you’re ready to interview them.’

  I shook my head and tried to attract Cole’s attention.

  The inspector hesitated, glancing from D’Arblay to Guy then to Jayden who was standing with Bolt out of the glare of the headlight beams.

  ‘Don’t even think about taking my dog away from me,’ Jayden muttered, quickly turning on his heel.

  He and Bolt were halfway up the hill before I caught up with them. ‘Stay!’ I pleaded. ‘I need you to back me up.’

  He walked on. ‘No, you don’t.’

  ‘You can see what’s happening – D’Arblay’s going to deny everything!’

  Jayden kept on walking, tapping his forehead. ‘Everything I need to know is safe in here so I’m through with this crap. I don’t like cops. I won’t talk to anyone until we get to court.’

  ‘Please!’

  ‘You talk to them, Alyssa. You’re good at that.’

  ‘You knew all along Harry was involved. You got there before any of the rest of us. Did Lily tell you?’

  ‘No. You lot use your brains. I use gut instinct. The guy makes my skin crawl – always did.’

  It was the last thing Jayden said before he and Bolt strode up into the abbey ruins out of sight and I ran back to Cole. ‘Jayden saved my life.’ The words tumbled out, my breathing was uneven. ‘It’s God’s honest truth – I’d be dead without him.’

  ‘We’ll need a statement,’ Cole decided.

  ‘Don’t send me with them,’ I begged, pointing at D’Arblay and Guy Simons.

  ‘You’ll be quite safe,’ D’Arblay promised as Jack and Hooper came to stand either side of me.

  ‘But that’s the point – I won’t!’

  ‘Alyssa, please!’ The bursar’s voice sharpened.

  ‘No, Mr D’Arblay.’ Cole drew me into the light. ‘Let’s hear what she has to say.’

  I rushed ahead, my voice getting faster, higher. ‘It doesn’t end with Harry Embsay. There’s more.’

  ‘I take it he’s the one who just tried to kill you?’

  ‘Yes, but he didn’t have anything to do with Lily or Paige. Them – D’Arblay and Guy Simons – they’re the ones you need to arrest.’

  ‘Inspector, this is ridiculous.’ D’Arblay tried another desperate throw of the dice as Cole reacted by beckoning the two cops who were dealing with Cooke’s corpse. ‘Alyssa has a wild fantasy playing out inside her head. You can’t believe what she’s saying.’

  Cole stonewalled him. ‘I’ll be the judge.’

  ‘Obviously something extremely traumatic has gone on here. Surely the important thing is for us to get Alyssa safely back to school.’

  ‘I said I’ll be the judge. Go on, Alyssa.’

  ‘They’re all part of the Campaign for Racial Purity. Chris Cooke, Audley – the guy from Green Shoots, Harry Embsay and these two. They wear rings engraved with the group’s initials.’

  D’Arblay smiled thinly and held up his hands – look, no ring!

  ‘They killed Lily because Comco wouldn’t stop filming an exposé of their group.’

  ‘How? Exactly how, Alyssa?’ It was D’Arblay’s final throw. You could picture two white dice rolling across a green baize table, coming up with double one, snake eyes – a killer combination.

  But no – unlucky for him, Harry had given me the details and I had Jayden as my witness. ‘They kidnapped Lily at Ainslee Westgate and drugged her with ketamine. They dumped her body in the lake.’

  D’Arblay’s face was still cold and calculating, but Guy’s nerve snapped. He gave a short grunt of defeat then broke away and started to run up the hill. Cole’s two men went after him and brought him down.

  ‘How do we prove this?’ Cole wanted to know. He was patient and respectful with me.

  It all hinged on this moment – whether or not I could make the inspector do what I was about to tell him. ‘Go to D’Arblay’s office, look on his bookshelves for a locked silver box.’

  ‘What’s inside the box?’

  ‘Lily’s tooth.’ Two small words from me blew D’Arblay’s world apart.

  The police found D’Arblay’s CRP ring in the box along with Lily’s tooth and five others from the 1930s. Guy Simons wore his ring on a gold chain round his neck. They found traces of DNA from Harry Embsay on Lily’s bag, which meant D’Arblay had given him the task of getting rid of it and Harry had hit on Tom Walsingham’s house as a good enough dumping ground. He’d been too lazy and arrogant even to think it through.

  Out on the periphery, Cole trawled through the membership of the local CRP branch, picking up the guy with the neck tattoo and his sidekick who mugged me at the train station.

  After the Thursday night when D’Arblay was arrested, I didn’t see him again – not until the trial seven months down the line. The magistrates didn’t give any of them bail.

  Jack’s face needed five stitches. Harry got thirty-five. I hope they gave him minimal pain relief. He stayed in Queen Elizabeth’s for three days, then they transferred him to the hospital wing at Bristol Prison to await trial.

  It wasn’t Emily Archer or any of the journos at the school gate who got the scoop. No – it was one of Comco’s own reporters who went large with it on the front page of Friday’s paper. Race Hate Group Kills Lily Earle.

  Here’s the relevant sequence of events – as we’re all driving away from Ripley Abbey, Cole phones Dr Webb and tells him that there are vaca
ncies for the post of bursar and head of PE – and the reason why, of course. Saint Sam is totally, one hundred per cent shocked, because it turns out he’s been doing an ostrich, head-in-the-sand act right from the start. When he finally comes to his senses, he gets right on the phone to Robert Earle and breaks the news. Meerkat Man never misses an opportunity. He tells his people, run it on the front page tomorrow, ‘Because if we don’t someone else will.’ A leopard doesn’t change its spots.

  And while we’re with the Earles, I heard in the new year that Adam had signed his mother’s release documents from the secure wing of her psychiatric hospital and Anna was in London again – not in the Berkeley Square house she’d shared with Robert, but in a quiet new apartment overlooking Regent’s Park. Adam quit his job as Comco’s director of digital media and plans to pour money into setting up a rival news organization using Anna’s money. I only hope that in future they steer clear of conflicts with fascist and racists.

  Anyway, they both wrote to me to say that thank you didn’t come close to what they really wanted to say. No words did.

  ‘Dearest Alyssa, What happened to Lily has broken my heart,’ Anna wrote. ‘I miss her every hour of every day. But there are crumbs of comfort to be found, the biggest of which is that you and Paige loved Lily enough to risk your own lives to get to the truth.’

  I wrote back. I made a card out of one of Lily’s small graphite sketches, a self-portrait that I’d drooled over at the time, and she’d signed it then left it on my pillow for me next morning. The sketch showed a glossy-haired Lily, looking up and smiling.

  ‘Your daughter was amazing,’ I wrote. ‘I’d do it all again.’

  ‘Lily Earle was amazing,’ I told Emily Archer in an exclusive interview for her weekend supplement.

  Emily recorded all my words. Her paper printed them without dodgy edits or additions – now there’s a first.

  ‘She had more energy, more life than anyone I’ve ever known. She lit up the room.’

  ‘And Paige?’ Emily asked.

  I gave my new journalist friend a copy of the eulogy I’d spoken at Paige’s funeral. In the first paragraph I covered the serious stuff – Paige’s extraordinary talent, her courage, her openness. Then I took a risk. ‘Paige’s favourite perfume was Equus, otherwise marketed as Eau de Horse. She was the top stylista of the equine world and sales at Joules and Mountain Horse will now plummet.’ Paige would have smiled along with most of the mourners – the ones who knew her best. ‘She was magnificent. She was my friend.’