A is for Apple

by Kate Johnson

  I thought about this for a while. “You do know I don’t live with you any more, right?”

  “But you’re coming for tea.”

  “Am I?”

  “Didn’t you get Charlie’s message?”

  “Apparently not. What are you having?”

  “Tuna steak. And those little Celavita potaoes…”

  Oh. So that was it. “Mum, do you want me to cook the tuna?”

  There was a pause. “Well, you know you always do it better than me…”

  This was true. I am, by and large, not the world’s greatest cook, but I do damn good tuna.

  “See if Luke wants to come,” she offered eagerly.

  “I think he might be working.”

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Well, ask him anyway. Do you want to come over about seven?”

  Luke still hadn’t called. I suspected that whatever Maria needed from him was going to take a while.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll call you if there’s any change.”

  I ended the call and looked at Angel and Xander.

  “Hours to kill,” I said.

  “Where’s Luke?”

  Honestly, was I not a separate entity any more?

  “He’s got some stuff to do,” I said. “Do you want me to go?”

  I gave Angel my puppy eyes. The scent of chocolate cake was gorgeous, and her sofa was really comfy, and her TV was really big, and look, there were all these Buffy DVDs just piled up next to it.

  “Which series?” she asked, and I beamed.

  I sent Luke a couple of texts, which he replied to halfheartedly. One appeared to be in Russian. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be up for tea with my parents.

  At six forty-five, I picked myself up and stretched. “Bye bye, Spike.” I waved to him on screen, and he gave me a smouldering look. “Mmm. See you guys later,” I addressed the real occupants of the room, who waved goodbye as I got in Ted and drove back to Stansted and through to my parents’ house.

  “Isn’t Luke coming?” Mum asked as I went in, and I started to feel a bit annoyed.

  “No. He’s working. He has his own life. Working. We don’t go everywhere together.”

  She looked slightly taken aback. “Okay, all right. I just wondered.”

  “Why are you so desperate to see him?”

  “He’s nice. He likes you.”

  I should hope so, he was sleeping with me.

  I cooked the tuna, incinerating Mum’s and leaving mine slightly rare, as always, and we ate outside. Chalker was out with whatever girl he was currently seeing, so the three of us sat and bickered pleasantly about airport expansion (my family is one of those where, even when we all agree on a subject, we can still argue about it for hours) until it got cold and dark and Mum went to bed. Dad and I sat out for a while, listening to music coming from the neighbours. There was a bottle of wine on the table and I really fancied a glass, but I had to drive home some time and I’d rather do it now than in the morning. Besides, I'd got rat-arsed last night after we’d found the body

  “Okay,” Dad said after a while. “I’m going to bed. Are you stopping out here?”

  “I think I might,” I said. “If that’s okay.”

  He smiled, looking surprised. “Of course it is. Just lock the doors when you go, and drive safely. Unless you want to stay…?”

  I shook my head, although the prospect was tempting. “Got overtime tomorrow,” I lied, wondering how long I could go on bullshitting my parents, who could always see through whatever imaginative excuses I came up with as a child.

  After Dad had gone I sat for a while, enjoying the silence that followed the neighbours’ retreat to their beds. The house backed onto farmland and the air was very still and quiet. I shivered into the jumper Mum had lent me and wondered how long I'd stay out here, in the dark, looking at the net of fairy lights I’d put up years ago over the patio, now shining like little golden stars against the dark sky.

  Don Shapiro was dead, and so was Frank Doyle, one of his henchmen. I fully expected Mario Maretti’s body to turn up soon, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turned up somewhere near me.

  Oh well. At least with those two out of the picture I might be a little safer. Although whoever was killing them might want me, too.

  It’s an odd thing, to know that someone wants you dead. All at the same time it’s horribly, horribly scary, yet you know with the same conviction that the sun will rise, that you’ll be okay.

  I don’t know what time it was that I heard the car pull up outside the house. Assuming it was Chalker, I stayed where I was and poured out more water, looking out at the dark, dappled oak tree that stood at the edge of the garden and wondering if I might ever be as stable and magnificent.

  No. Probably not.

  And then I heard a voice calling out my name, and I looked up, frowning. “Luke?”

  He came to the back door and stood there, looking beat. “Hey. You’re still here.”

  “Looks like it.”

  He came over and pulled me to my feet to kiss me, long and slow, before falling onto the bench under the lights and taking me with him. I think it was supposed to be romantic, but I didn’t want to squash him so I reeled back and let myself hit the bench in a different spot.

  Luke pulled me closer. Oh, well, I couldn’t really complain.

  “I went to your house,” he said. “Thought I’d wait a while for you.”

  “I did tell you I’d be here.”

  “Yeah. I remembered eventually.”

  I was touched he’d come up here to see me.

  “Long day?”

  He nodded. “Doyle seems like yesterday.”

  “What did Maria want?”

  He pulled a face. “First a contact with the Russian embassy. And then a translator… I don’t know what she’s pulling out there.”

  “She’s still in Spain?”

  “I assume so. Did Karen tell you the happy news?”

  “On which subject?”

  “Xander’s gun shot Shapiro.”

  “Oh. Yes. I know.” I wasn’t going to tell him how I knew. Somehow it didn’t seem right. “I saw him this afternoon.”

  “And?”

  “And he says he never left the gun under the sofa.”

  “He said he was really out of it. He could have shot Shapiro without remembering.”

  “And slit his throat? Then called Harvey and not remember any of it? I don’t think anyone could be that stoned.”

  “You ever try it?” Luke asked.

  “I’m a good girl, me.”

  “Hmm.”

  He had his arm around me, slouched down on the bench, and I could feel exhaustion leaking from him. He didn’t look like he could stand up, let alone drive home.

  “Luke?” I said.

  “Mmm?”

  “Do you want me to drive back?”

  “What about my car?”

  “I could drive that.”

  Mild horror burnt through his weariness. “You hate my car.”

  “You’re too tired to drive. Look at you. Your eyes are closed.”

  “Resting them.”

  “You need to sleep. How long were you talking Russian?”

  He shrugged and yawned an “I dunno.” He pulled me closer, like I was a giant teddy bear, and rested his head on mine. And while I knew we couldn’t stay out there all night, I didn’t want to wake him.

  It must have been the cold that eventually did it. I think I was dozing, stiff and chilly, but Luke suddenly jolted awake, pulling me with him.

  “What the—” he looked at his watch. “It’s half past one!”

  Wow. I didn’t think we’d been there that long.

  “Home,” he said, pushing me away and getting to his feet. I looked up at him, and the sudden thought flashed through my mind—I am home.

  “We could stay here,” I said.

  “At your parents’ house?”

  “Yeah. They won’t mind. Besides, half the
school thinks you stay here all the time anyway.”

  “You still have to go in tomorrow.”

  “I only have double Drama tomorrow, and it’s third and fourth. I could go in late.”

  “Missing Marc, if he’s there…”

  “Okay, all right.” I stood up. “We’ll go home and not sleep all night.”

  Luke was looking at me oddly.

  “What?”

  “You looked just like your mother then,” he said, and I narrowed my eyes. “And again.”

  “Okay, you’re driving yourself to your place and I’m going home to mine—”

  “Soph,” Luke laughed, “I like your mother. We could stay here. It’d be cool.”

  In theory I wanted to protest. In practice I was really tired. So I led him in and locked all the doors, told him he’d have to use my toothbrush or go without, and fell into bed in my underwear. Again.

  In the morning my phone alarm woke me, and I was confused for a while—parents’ house, single bed, and Luke—until I remembered what was going on.

  “Come on.” I nudged him. “We have to go. Or at least I do.”

  “Mmm,” he said sleepily.

  “Are you going to stay here?”

  “Maybe I will.”

  I got up and pulled on my clothes, figuring I’d go home and take a shower there. Luke remained where he was, facedown, watching me through a half-closed eye.

  “You’re really staying?”

  “Would they mind?”

  I thought about it. “So long as you put some clothes on, probably not. Be nice and don't drink all the coffee.”

  “I wouldn’t. Soph.” He caught my hand with a lightning reflex that was far too fast for someone so sleepy.

  “What?”

  “I like your family.”

  I blinked at him. My own reflexes, physical or mental, weren’t so sharp.

  “Me too.”

  “Good.” He let go of me and closed his eye again. “Later.”

  What a strange man.

  I gave my mother a surprise when I met her in the kitchen, foraging for quick coffee to make sure I didn’t fall asleep on the short drive home.

  “Oh,” I added when I was on my way out, “and Luke’s upstairs.”

  I didn’t stay to hear her reaction.

  I went home and made myself presentable, fed Tammy and checked my bag. Then I set off for school, desperately tempted to go down the road and see if Marc was there. Or if there were any more dead bodies hanging around.

  I like your family. Was this his way of telling me he’d be sticking around? Was this why my stomach felt unsettled? Because something I’d never really expected to come to pass was actually happening?

  Or was it just the prospect of finding Mario Maretti?

  In Registration the girls and Laurence were talking about the body. Marc, to my relief, was there, hardly contributing to the conversation while everyone talked over his pretty little head.

  “Hey.” I waved. “I heard.”

  “You and the rest of the country.”

  “Well. National press and all that. Did you see it?”

  He shook his head.

  It could be that this really was totally innocent. That he had no idea there’d been a dead body in his garage. It could be that Mrs. Shapiro was the one in charge of that. Or maybe neither of them knew.

  The bell rang for first period and people peeled off. Marc headed down in the direction of the Drama Studio, but turned off and went into the library instead. I was impressed. This place was big and old, with massive oak tables and shelves of impressive books that the students probably weren’t allowed to look at.

  “Hey,” he turned to me at the door, “are you following me?”

  What an astute boy he was.

  “I—well, no, I wanted to get some books out. For English.” I tried to sound casual. “We’re supposed to be reading other works by Hardy, by the way. I don’t know if anyone gave you the work from yesterday…”

  He nodded. “Clara called me.”

  Of course she did.

  “Where were you?”

  “Ill.”

  “Was it that stomach bug that’s been going around? My brother had that.” Maybe I had it. No wait, I’d just invented it. Damn.

  “Yeah. Something like it. I’m okay now.”

  It was like talking to a brick wall. He was giving me nothing.

  “Okay.” I browsed for a while, watching as he got his Tess of the d’Urbervilles out and started to make notes from it. I wasn’t going to get anything from him today.

  But there might be something I could get from his mother.

  I went out, sneaked up to my car, and miraculously drove off without anyone noticing. No wonder so many kids play truant. It wasn’t exactly hard.

  The garage at Mont House was open and Mrs. Shapiro’s ageing Beemer was parked within, badly. I went up to the door and tried my hardest to look seventeen. Or, I guess, eighteen, now I’d told Lucy I was older.

  The woman who answered the door was, as Luke had said, a faded glory. Fag in hand, bright childlike makeup seeping into the crinkles of her face, which looked like the After picture in a feature on cosmetic surgery gone wrong. Her mouth was lopsided, puckered with smoking wrinkles, her skin was thin and crêpey and her eyes drooped. Her hair was like straw.

  I tried not to shudder.

  “Hi,” I gave her my best I’m-not-a-threat smile, “is Marc in?”

  She frowned. “Marc’s at school.”

  “Oh. Right. It’s just he wasn’t in yesterday and I thought I’d come by and see if he wanted any of the catch-up work.”

  She eyed me with suspicion. “Who are you?”

  “Oh! Silly me. I’m Sophie. I’m in some of Marc’s classes.”

  “The one who follows him everywhere.”

  So she’d heard of me, then.

  “Yeah. Well. We have a lot in common. So he’s back at school today, then?”

  She nodded. “Twenty-four hour bug.”

  And why aren’t you at work? I wanted to ask. Why are you at home?

  “It’s just,” I was repeating myself here, “I heard about the, you know, the body, and I wondered if he was okay. It was pretty close to here, wasn’t it?”

  I was being ridiculously perky, and she knew it.

  “Down the road,” she said. “It traumatised me. I’ve had to take the day off.”

  “Ah. I see. Is that your car?” I pointed to where it wasn’t visible from the house. Dammit. “It’s great. I love BMWs.”

  “Yeah. Bought when times were better.”

  So she’d come out of the divorce badly.

  “I heard about Marc’s dad,” I said. “I’m really—”

  “How did you hear?” Mrs. Shapiro asked sharply.

  “It was on the news.” Seventeen-year-olds don’t watch news. “My boyfriend watches the news all the time.”

  “Your boyfriend, huh?” She slouched against the doorframe. “Is he cute?”

  As cute as a lion. Luke was many things, but cute wasn’t one of them. “Yeah. Yeah, he is.”

  “Is he rich?”

  “I—” I’d never thought about it. He owned his own home. “He’s okay,” I said. And his family must have been rich, to send him to Eton like that.

  “Well, you won’t get a penny out of him,” Mrs. Shapiro said with satisfaction. “He’ll string you along while you’re still pretty—” ooh, preen, preen, “—but when the surgery he wanted you to have goes wrong and you’re not a doll any more, then he’ll drop you and get his lawyers in and take everything you’ve got. Even your son.”

  There was so much bitterness in that I took a step back.

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” I said faintly.

  “I tell you what,” she said fiercely, “I’m bloody glad they found him in the river. Someone had the guts to get rid of him.”

  “Who do you think it was?”

  “Someone braver than me,” she said, and slammed the d
oor on me.

  Blimey.

  I got back in Ted and sat there for a while, thinking. So Don Shapiro had married Shirley when she was young and pretty, got her tarted up, and dumped her when the surgery went wrong. As so often. She came out of the divorce with nothing, not even Marc, who by then had been packaged off to boarding school and, by his own admission, spent most of his free time with his dad. He hardly saw his mum.

  And now, with Don dead, she was saddled with him. A teenager about whom she probably knew nothing. She didn’t have much money, no looks to speak of, and now this kid. And even if she’d wanted him back then—I couldn’t tell— it still must have been a shock to her.

  But Marc was set to enroll at Longford before Shapiro’s body was found. So this must have been an arrangement made before she knew he was dead.

  Unless she’d killed him, and it was possible. Certainly the motive was there. It was just that I couldn’t really see Shirley Shapiro doing anything more violent than opening a bottle of wine. She seemed to have sunk down into her troubles.

  Either way, I found myself putting the car in gear and going up to the office, where I booted up the computer and started checking airline records for Shirley’s name.

  But she hadn’t been to New York in the last three months. One flight to Alicante with Ace Airlines—low cost, cheap sun—in July. With a large group that had Singles Holiday written all over it.

  I checked Don Shapiro’s name too, just for the hell of it. No. He’d been in New York since April. They hadn’t been near each other.

  It was possible she’d hired someone to kill him, but not very possible.

  Karen came out of her office and looked surprised to see me.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

  I checked my watch. “I don’t have a lesson for half an hour.”

  “You sound like my children. You’re supposed to be watching Marc Shapiro.”

  “I watched him make notes for twenty minutes. He thinks I’m following him. I went to see his mother.”

  “And?”

  “Zip. Zilch. Nada. She’s far too sorry for herself to have done something like kill her ex husband.”

  Karen sat down on the edge of my desk. “Do you have any idea who it might be?”

  I shrugged. “Could have been Maretti or Doyle. But then Doyle is gone too, so I guess it could be Maretti. They came to England for a reason, and I guess…”