Kiss Me Kill Me

by Lauren Henderson

  There’s a laptop on the built-in desk, open and humming quietly to itself, but I leave that as a last resort. When I write down private things, I don’t put them on my computer. Computers can crash, or be nicked. People can hack into them and copy all your private stuff in five minutes and print out tons of copies for everyone else to laugh over. It happened to a girl at St. Tabby’s a few years above us—someone worked out her password, accessed her diary, and put pages from it in everyone’s pigeonholes, all about her secret crushes and how much she ate every day. After that, I’d never trust my private stuff to a computer, and I doubt any St. Tabby’s girl would either.

  It takes me fifteen minutes to find it. It isn’t under the mattress. I didn’t think there’d be anything there, because in a place this smart, the maid must be changing the sheets and turning the mattress on a regular basis, so that wouldn’t be a safe place to hide anything. It’s on the bookshelf, which is pretty clever of her. Like in “The Purloined Letter,” where the best place to hide something is in plain view, in a really obvious place, so no one would even think it was being hidden at all. It’s in a row of books with similar spines, brightly colored hardbacks, and she’s even gone so far as to write something on the spine, so at first or second glance it just looks like one of many, something your eye would skim over in passing. Nothing that would make you think: Oh, that looks like a private diary! and pull it off the shelf for a good old snoop.

  It’s a really nice notebook, the size of a hardback book, covered in yellow and pink matte paper that feels very heavy and expensive. I sit down on the floor (the bed’s so perfectly made I’m worried about creasing the silk coverlet; I don’t think I could ever get it that smooth again, and I mustn’t leave any signs of my presence here) and start thumbing through the pages.

  The first words that catch my eye are the ones that started this whole thing:

  It wasn’t your fault.

  I read on, my whole attention riveted to the page.

  I sit and look at those words for a long time. I want to write more, I really do.

  But I’m scared.

  I rip through the pages, speed-reading now.

  The lesson is not that it’s hard to keep a secret.

  The lesson is that it’s impossible to keep a secret.

  This is too much for me to hold. I feels as if I’m going to explode with it. My head actually hurts with the effort of not telling anyone what I saw.

  Okay, I take a deep breath and stop for a second. If Nadia saw something, she’ll have written it earlier than this . . . earlier than her endless debates with herself about whether she should try to get me the information or not.

  I flick back, and back, and back, looking for my name and Dan’s.

  Which aren’t hard to find.

  Scarlett came to school today to pick up her stuff. We had a go at her by her locker. She grabbed Plum and pushed her. I couldn’t believe it. Plum was actually scared, you could tell. Ever since she got her chin reduced, she’s been terrified of anything happening to her face.

  I told Sophia I felt sorry for Scarlett. Big mistake. I can’t believe I was that stupid. Plum owns Sophia. She just stared at me and said:

  “But Scarlett got off with Dan, and Plum liked him! You don’t do that! I mean, everyone knew Plum liked Dan!”

  God, she’s like a little Plum-bot—press a button in her back and Plum’s voice comes out. . . .

  I can’t help giggling at this. Plum-bot’s pretty good.

  But I’m a Plum-bot, too. We all are. I really fancied Dan and I would never have made a move, never, because of what Plum would have done to me. I’m as pathetic as Sophia.

  Yes, you are, I think smugly.

  And look at Scarlett! She’s no better! She gave me this really stuck-up look when we were all having a go at her, but she dropped those two frumpy friends of hers like a shot when I invited her to my party! And then she turned up dressed just like us, not in that crappy exercise stuff she usually wears. Desperate to fit in. She’s just as pathetic as we are!

  Alison and Luce. She’s right. I betrayed them. I feel so guilty it’s like a big lump in my throat just thinking about them.

  Nadia and I are the same. Or at least, we share something. The need to be liked and wanted, to be part of a cool group, to feel admired. And the moral weakness that means we’ll make compromises, sacrifice things, to fit in. Alison and Luce, for me. And Nadia: well, you don’t stay a slim-as-a-wand Plum-bot by eating nice nourishing healthy meals three times a day.

  I flick back through the pages. Looking for my name.

  Simon’s got this huge crush on that girl Scarlett in our year. He spotted her sitting on a bench after school with those two ugly friends of hers. I don’t know why she even caught his eye—they always look so shitty. Pink and shiny and dressed in really unflattering exercise clothes. It must be her tits. God, I’d love to have tits. Maybe I can talk Mother into paying for them. Venetia wants a boob job, too. We could go together.

  Anyway, Simon keeps asking questions about Scarlett, in that really casual way that just makes it obvious how much he’s crushing on her. He goes bright red whenever Plum says her name. Plum’s really funny, she calls it “going Scarlett,” which makes him worse, of course. Plum says to invite Scarlett to my next party so Simon can get off with her. I don’t want people at St. Tabby’s thinking I ask just anyone to my parties, or they’ll all pester me for invitations, but Simon is so rich it’s not true. And as Plum says, Scarlett might actually be okay-looking if she bothered to do anything about her appearance.

  Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves, right? “Might actually be okay-looking.” Wow. I feel so flattered.

  Actually, what I feel is cross all over again at seeing the part about my only being invited as a present for Simon. You were like a gift bag, Taylor had said when I told her the story. (In America, apparently, guests sometimes receive a present for coming to a party. Weird.)

  I was Simon’s gift bag. Charming.

  I grit my teeth and flick forward again. I’ve gone too far back. It’s hard to find the right place . . . the pages are fine and Nadia’s writing is small and tight, the black ink running through the thin paper and making it hard to read.

  And then I find it. I can feel my eyes widening as I read, as if it’s such a huge piece of information, my irises actually need to get bigger to take it in.

  It wasn’t Scarlett’s fault. It couldn’t have been. How could she have known Dan was allergic to nuts? We didn’t know, and we were his friends!

  No, that’s not true. I’ve got to tell the truth here, even if I can’t tell it anywhere else. That’s what my therapist says, that’s why I’m writing this diary. I have to release the pressure somehow, that’s what she says, and here’s a good place to start.

  Plum knew. She must have known.

  I didn’t realize what I was seeing at the time. I was looking for fags—I can’t believe I’d run out so fast, I really need to cut down——and Plum always has some. So I went to look in her bag. I didn’t even bother asking her, we’re always in and out of each other’s bags for all kinds of stuff. And I knew which one it was—the Marc Jacobs in chestnut with the limited-edition buckle.

  There weren’t any cigarettes in it after all. Weird. Plum must be running through them even faster than me. I just closed up the bag again and went to see who had some Silk Cut Ultras. And the thing I saw inside . . . I did mean to ask her about it, but the party was raging and it went out of my head. I mean, it was odd, but not that interesting.

  But later, when the police were talking to us, I realized what I’d seen in Plum’s bag. It was bright yellow—it looked like a big marker pen, and it was in a plastic case with a yellow top. At the time I just thought, what does Plum need a marker pen for? And then I realized, because the police were describing it to us, and asking if we’d seen it.

  It was Dan’s EpiPen. If he’d had it on him, he wouldn’t have died. And it was in Plum’s bag.

/>   I can’t believe what I’m reading.

  I should have asked her about it straightaway. Dan’s death was an accident, it must have been! And there’s probably some very good explanation for why his EpiPen was in Plum’s bag.

  And Plum probably didn’t tell anyone because it was too late anyway and she was embarrassed.

  But it’s never good to make Plum feel embarrassed. If I do ask her about it, she’ll be so angry with me when I tell her what I saw that she’ll send me to Coventry forever and then no one else will talk to me either.

  I keep reading, to see if anything else is going to come up. But no. It goes into the bit I’ve already read, about me coming back to school to pick my stuff up . . . lots of entries about parties, boys, endless whines about how fat she is, details of how far she’s run on the treadmill and how little she’s eaten that day . . . blah blah blah . . . then the bit about writing the note for me. . . . Nothing more about me that I haven’t seen already.

  I jump up and leave her room, carrying the diary. I remember seeing a lavishly equipped home office off the living room.

  twenty-four

  VERY CLEVER INDEED

  As I come out of the office, the autumn sunlight is pouring through the French doors, flooding the living room with a warm golden glaze, striking sparks off the glass and chrome of the bar, glinting on the bottles. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I take the diary back to Nadia’s room and slip it back exactly where it was on the bookshelf. Then I come back into the living room again, walk over to the bar and sit down on one of the chrome and leather stools, in the same place I was when Dan appeared so magically behind the bar and started chatting me up.

  I turn my head and look out onto the terrace. The floor lights are so well concealed that by day I can hardly see where they are. The fountain isn’t switched on, but it still looks striking, the wide granite ribbon like modern sculpture. And there’s the bench that Dan and I sat on, and there’s the stretch of stone path that I went up and down in a handstand, showing off shamelessly to get him to like me.

  I gulp, and turn back again. I catch my reflection in the mirrored glass behind the bar. God, I look scruffy today. I remember what an effort I made that night, my hair, my makeup, tugging at that green silky top to get it to hang just right. I remember checking out the people I could see in the mirror and being awed by how shiny and cool they looked. Those girls sitting down the bar from me in their incredibly sexy backless dresses—I couldn’t believe it when Dan actually left them to come back to talk to me again.

  It’s all as vivid as if it were happening right now. I have a rush of memory, clear and specific in every detail. Dan, turning away from those girls, coming back down the bar toward me, smiling. Me, pushing away those nasty greasy crisps, embarrassed that I’d been eating, when none of the super-slim girls at the party were even going near something that fattening.

  Oh my God. The crisps.

  I never even thought to mention them to the police, or at the inquest. Everyone asked me what I’d had at the party, what I’d eaten that day, in case I’d had anything that could linger on my mouth and poison Dan. And though I dutifully recited what I’d had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (all allergen-free, which was what they were concerned about) plus the glass or two of champagne at the party, I forgot all about that handful of crisps until this moment.

  Those crisps. They were much oilier than any crisps I’ve ever eaten before or since. Weirdly oily, now I come to think about it. They left my fingers really greasy.

  I’m off the stool in a second. I shoot round the bar and start dragging every cupboard door open one by one, searching through them, a wild idea racing through my head as I remember a cookery program I saw a few months ago on daytime TV, whose bubbly, brightly lipsticked presenter was talking about the best oil to fry chips in.

  There’s so much stuff in the cupboards that it’s over-whelming: lemon squeezers, cocktail shakers, unopened jars of olives and maraschino cherries, cocktail recipe books, boxes of drink stirrers, packets of designer paper napkins with the mind-boggling price still on, spare bottles of mixers and syrups—who are these people? Are Nadia’s parents raving alcoholics, or do they simply have so much money they don’t know what to do with it, and just keep buying useless stuff?

  And then, in the third cupboard, I find it. Pushed to the back. You’d never notice it, half hidden as it is behind the shiny blue and green bottles of Curaçao and chartreuse and peppermint liqueur. And even if you did, you’d just pull it out and wonder why on earth someone had put peanut oil in the bar cupboard when really it belonged in the kitchen.

  No one but me would know. No one but me would realize that someone opened up this bottle of peanut oil and poured just enough of it over a bowlful of crisps for them to soak it up without leaving a telltale pool of oil at the bottom of the bowl. No one but me would realize that that person must have put the bowl on the bar in front of Dan, hoping he’d take some crisps from it. And how happy they must have been when it was me, instead, who ate the crisps, and then kissed Dan with a mouth so saturated in peanut oil that he dropped dead in under two minutes.

  How convenient for them! How excited they must have been when I provided the perfect distraction, and completely blurred the link between Dan and what killed him! Everyone—the newspapers, the coroner, even the police—were so swept up in the drama of the situation, me and Dan kissing on the terrace almost as soon as we met, that they can’t have bothered to check out the food at the party. I know they asked if there had been any peanuts or any other type of food Dan was allergic to there, and Nadia said no. But they didn’t go into it any deeper than that. Because if they had, they would have found the crisps.

  Or would they? I wonder. It would have been very easy to get rid of the telltale crisps. You could just chuck them away—you could even eat them, if you weren’t allergic to peanut oil yourself. I imagine the person at the party who killed Dan, watching the paramedics rush in, the terrible scene on the terrace, quietly removing that bowl and disposing of it, or even eating the evidence in plain view of everyone, and it makes me shiver right down to the base of my spine.

  Dan was murdered. Now I know that for sure.

  I push the peanut oil bottle to the very back of the cupboard and pile up everything in front of it. I can’t take it to the police yet. It’s not enough evidence. By itself, it doesn’t prove anything. Also, I’m in here illegally, and I don’t need any more trouble with the police, not until I can go to them with the whole story of how Dan was killed laid out for them in black and white. Besides, it’s really unlikely to have any fingerprints on it. Wouldn’t whoever had dosed the crisps have wiped the bottle down afterward? And then they shoved it in a cupboard with spare stuff that no one probably goes into for years at a time. Much safer than trying to smuggle a liter-big, open bottle of oil out of the house. Very clever of them.

  This murderer is very clever indeed.

  And just as I think that, I hear a noise that chills my blood. A key in the front door.

  At least I manage not to dive back into Nadia’s room, though that’s my first impulse. I stare around me wildly and then make a dash down the hall—toward the front door, which isn’t good, but I know I mustn’t be trapped in the back of the apartment, I need to get closer to the exit, and I remember there being a cleaning-supply cupboard next to the kitchen—no one ever goes in the cleaning-supply cupboard, do they? I shoot in there, tripping over a bucket and mop, and I’ve only just caught my balance and closed the door behind me when I hear the beeping of an alarm at the front door, and then several sharp higher beeps as whoever has just come in taps in the security code on the alarm panel. All the beeping stops.

  I ease the door open just a fraction to see who it is. I’m assuming it’s Nadia, back early from whatever she was doing with Plum.

  Oh God. It’s not Nadia.

  I said that no one in this house would ever go near the cleaning-supplies cupboard. I forgot about the maid.<
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  I know it’s the maid because she looks tired and because she’s dressed in cheap, brightly colored clothes—a long woolly jumper with a pattern knitted into it, stonewashed jeans, that kind of boot that looks like it’s crumpled down over the ankles but is supposed to be like that, for reasons I never understand. I only got a very brief look at her through the crack in the door, but it was instantly obvious that she was wearing clothes that neither Nadia nor Nadia’s mum would ever dream of putting on. I’ve often noticed that the chicer people are, the less color they wear. Some of the St. Tabby’s inner circle didn’t look as if they owned any items of clothing brighter than beige.

  God, why is my brain going on about clothes? I’m trapped in this cupboard with the cleaning lady just down the corridor, and coming closer every moment. I can hear her footsteps on the marble floor! Frantically, I look around for someplace to hide. But it’s just shelves, stocked with bleaches and cream cleansers as far as my eye can see. Maybe if I were as thin as Nadia I could hide behind the mop, but with my figure that’s definitely not going to work. Oh God, she’s going to see me the instant she walks into the room.

  The door swings open. There’s a deep sigh. I assume that this is because the poor cleaning lady is having to come in and work on Sunday. For a moment she just stands there. Then I hear a heavy rustle and a dull clinking. Pause. Then another, even deeper sigh, and eventually a clank and rattle, like plastic and glass being dropped into something, and then something else sounds like it’s being dragged over the tiled floor, and then there are footsteps on the tiles, mercifully directed toward the door, and then the door being pulled to, and she’s moving away down the corridor. . . .

  Very slowly, I let my breath out, bit by bit. I’ve crammed myself as tight as I could behind the door, but all she’d have had to do was push on it just that bit more and she’d have realized there was something big and squashy in the way, and come round to see what it was, and probably have screamed the place down. I might have been holding my breath, but my heart was pounding so loudly I’m amazed she didn’t hear that! Whew. I’m safe for now, but I have to get out of here before she comes back in for something else. She’s taken the bucket and mop, so at least I won’t fall over those on my way out. Her jacket’s hanging up on a peg. I can’t believe they don’t let her hang her coat up in the hall with everyone else’s, but make her hide it away in here. That’s so rude.