Alice Teale is Missing

by H. A. Linskey

  ‘So you kissed?’

  ‘Someone shouted out, “Kiss her!” I just shook my head, but Alice, she was even more wasted than me, she just said, “What do we get if we do?” The blokes started promising us drinks, and if they were stupid enough to buy them …’ She shrugged as if it was no big deal. ‘Someone bought us both a drink then said, “You have to kiss now,” and Alice kissed me and I kissed her, but it was only on the cheek. They wanted us to kiss on the lips, so Alice said, “Two more drinks, then.” I thought they’d be pissed off, but another bloke bought the next two, and they were all saying how long the kiss had to last and everything or we wouldn’t get the drinks.

  ‘Like I said, it was stupid, but you had to be there. Right then, with them buying the drinks, it felt like we were winning, you know, like we’d turned the tables on these idiots. They were paying for our night out because they were getting off on something so stupid. Blokes round here are all the same.’

  ‘They’re like that everywhere,’ Beth confirmed. ‘So they bought more drinks and you kissed on the lips. Was that it?’

  She shook her head and looked away from Beth while she finished the story. ‘One of them offered to buy more drinks if we snogged – full on, you know.’ And she shrugged again.

  ‘We both said no. I’d struggled to finish the drinks we had, but another guy slapped a fiver down on the table as if that was enough to get us to do it. Alice just laughed at him, but he put down another fiver, and so did his mate. They’d all just been paid, so they were flush. There was sixty quid on the table and they were telling us what we had to do to earn it.’ She shook her head again. ‘If I’d have been sober, I’d have told them where to go. Alice would have, too – she’s the biggest feminist I know, but for some reason …’

  ‘You were caught up in the moment?’

  ‘There’s a bunch of guys treating us like we’re goddesses or something. They said we had to snog for three minutes and we could have the money.’

  ‘Alice was hammered. She shouts out, “Money first, then we snog,” and she grabbed it. I didn’t know if she was serious or was going to run off with the cash. I was a bit scared in case it turned nasty, but they all started cheering and egging us on. She just laughed and winked at me. She’s, like, “It’s sixty quid, girl!” She stuffed the money in her jacket pocket and the men were all chanting, “Oi, oi, oi!” at us. She stood me up straight and planted a kiss on my lips, and I went along with it.’

  ‘For three minutes?’

  ‘Yeah. It was a very long three minutes. They were timing us, and we didn’t want to stop in case they tried to take the money off us.’

  ‘So, she kissed you and you kissed her back and it was a … full-on snog, as you called it.’

  ‘That was the bet.’

  ‘And you won the bet.’

  ‘Yeah, they counted down the last twenty seconds, then this massive cheer went up and the men were all happy. We broke off and it all calmed down at last.’

  ‘What did you do then? Did you stay in the pub?’

  ‘God, no. I was too embarrassed, and they wanted us to do more stuff. The guys were trying to make us stay, shouting out about grabbing each other’s tits and that. We left sharpish.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘I don’t know. We were wrecked.’

  ‘But it was before closing time.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, well before then. I’d say about ten o’clock. We’d been drinking since five o’clock, so we didn’t want any more.’

  ‘Where did you go then?’

  ‘Home.’

  ‘Your home or Alice’s?’

  ‘Mine.’ Her voice was a little quieter now.

  ‘Anyone else in that night?’

  ‘My dad goes out on a Saturday night. He’s got a woman in Rothbury. My mum died eight years ago and my brother’s away in the army.’

  ‘So you had the place to yourself?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Kirstie seemed tense. Beth noticed a slight strain in her voice, and her posture altered as she sat up more stiffly.

  ‘What did you do? Drink more?’

  ‘I had some cheap wine in the fridge.’

  ‘You watch TV or just chat?’

  ‘We played music and talked.’

  ‘In the lounge?’

  There was the briefest of pauses before Kirstie said, with as much casualness as she could muster, ‘Here, in my room. I put some music on.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’ Beth was waiting for Kirstie to tell her to mind her own business and wondered why she hadn’t yet.

  ‘You know – stuff. Boys at school, the exams.’

  ‘Didn’t you talk about the night in the pub?’ Beth contrived a laugh and widened her eyes. ‘I think I would. You earned sixty quid just for kissing each other!’

  ‘We couldn’t believe how easy it was to get their money.’

  ‘Was it easy?’ Beth locked eyes with Kirstie to see if she would look away, but she didn’t. ‘Kissing your friend like that? Weren’t you worried that it might make things awkward?’

  ‘No, Alice isn’t like that. She’s a free spirit, and it was only a kiss.’

  ‘A kiss with another girl, though, and a proper kiss at that, for several minutes?’ And when Kirstie didn’t comment on that, Beth asked, ‘How did it make you feel?’

  ‘Afterwards?’ asked Kirstie.

  ‘During?’

  ‘I don’t know … it was a bit of a wild night. The blokes were all cheering, I was pleased we were going to get the money … but it was a bit strange.’

  ‘Some girls would laugh that off, some would feel awkward afterwards, or mortified,’ Beth offered casually, ‘and some might want it to happen again, I suppose.’

  ‘We were drunk,’ she said softly. ‘Who cares?’

  Beth let that thought hang for a moment then said, ‘How long did you and Alice stay in your room?’

  ‘Not long,’ Kirstie said quickly. ‘Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.’

  ‘Then she left?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where did she go? Another pub, or to see another friend?’

  ‘Everywhere was shut by then, and she was really tired.’

  ‘I thought the pubs had late licences round here?’

  ‘They do.’

  ‘It wasn’t that late,’ said Beth.

  ‘Yeah, it was.’

  ‘No, because you said you left the pub early, long before closing, around ten o’clock.’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Then – what? – a five-minute walk to your house?’

  ‘Ten, maybe. We were swaying.’

  ‘Then fifteen or twenty minutes at your house, so she’d be on her way home by about half ten. Places would still be open for a long while after that.’

  ‘We must have been talking longer than I thought, then,’ said Kirstie, and Beth was convinced she’d caught her in a lie.

  ‘You must have been,’ she said.

  ‘There’s gaps in my memory. I told you. We’d been drinking since five.’

  ‘That much drinking would finish me off, but then I’m a lightweight.’

  Beth knew she wasn’t really getting anywhere like this, but she was also convinced Kirstie wasn’t being honest about that night. She realized the younger girl didn’t know what she knew, particularly from the journal entry, so she decided to go out on a limb.

  ‘You kissed her again, didn’t you, Kirstie?’ she asked abruptly, and the girl’s eyes widened in panic. ‘Here, in your room.’

  ‘Who’s been …?’ Kirstie looked confused and frightened.

  ‘Telling me that?’ asked Beth. ‘You did, just now.’

  ‘No, I never.’

  ‘In a way, you did. You kissed your friend in the pub for three minutes then came back to your house,’ Beth reminded her. ‘Poured another drink, because maybe you didn’t want the booze to wear off, then you both came upstairs and talked … for maybe a couple of hours.’ She gave Kirstie a questioning look.
‘But you told me it was only a few minutes.’

  ‘I can barely remember the night, let alone the end of it.’

  ‘You described the events at the pub in detail, Kirstie. You were aware enough to be able to pour some wine from the fridge and put music on, then, presumably you sat on your bed here together and talked about what had happened.’

  ‘We were laughing about it, yeah.’

  ‘Did you relive it?’

  ‘Oh, please,’ she protested.

  ‘Why not? If you enjoyed the kiss, why not do it again when the guys weren’t looking? It’s not a crime, Kirstie. You love your friend.’

  ‘Nothing happened.’ She said it in a flat tone that led Beth to believe the exact opposite.

  It was time to play the only card she had left. ‘Alice said you had a secret.’

  ‘What? When did she say that?’ Poor Kirstie looked really worried then.

  ‘We saw an entry from her journal.’

  Beth had to concentrate hard to recall and recite the exact words from Alice’s journal. ‘Kirstie and I both know Kirstie’s little secret, and some secrets ought to stay that way until they are ready to be let out, so in consideration of Kirstie, my lips are sealed, which is kind of appropriate, really.’

  Kirstie looked as if she was about to burst into tears. She blinked and tried to compose herself.

  ‘It’s important that you tell me the truth, Kirstie, particularly if it has anything to do with Alice’s disappearance.’

  ‘It hasn’t,’ she said sharply.

  ‘Then you’ll be in the clear,’ Beth assured her. ‘But only if you tell me exactly what happened. Otherwise we’ll think you have something to hide. No one here has the luxury of secrets any more, not when a young girl is missing.’

  ‘She didn’t run away because of me,’ Kirstie said firmly. ‘I didn’t do anything, and I’m worried sick about her.’

  ‘What happened that night, Kirstie?’

  Kirstie took a cushion from the bed and pressed it against her body, wrapping her arms around it, as if for comfort. She looked like she would rather be anywhere but there right then and, when she recounted the events of the rest of that night to Beth, she did so listlessly.

  ‘I was very drunk, so was Alice. I remember my mouth was dry and I didn’t really want more booze but we had some wine anyway. We were laughing and Alice pulled a handful of crumpled fivers out of her pocket and she was, like, “Yay, we got paid.” And I was, like, “We so did!” Alice gave me my share and I had to lean across her to put my share of the money down, and she said, “On the bedside cabinet, like a hooker.” I said, “I’d be good at that,” then I asked her if I was a better or worse kisser than Chris or Tony.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘Better than Tony, worse than Chris. She said Tony is all tongues, which is fine until you can’t breathe. Then she said, “Chris used to be stiff-lipped like you, but I loosened him up and he’s had a lot more practice. I told her it’s not my fault I was stiff-lipped, I wasn’t expecting it. And there was an audience. That I’m better than that, usually.

  ‘She was all like, “So you say,” practically daring me. It was still a total laugh, so I pushed her on to her back on the bed and pretended to pin her down, then told her, “Prepare to be kissed.”

  ‘And she went along with it?’

  ‘I didn’t ask permission, but she didn’t say or do anything to stop me. She was laughing.’

  ‘So you kissed her?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It seemed like the most natural thing in the world, and no one was more surprised by that than me. I opened my eyes to check, and her eyes were closed. That’s how I knew Alice wanted it, too, so I kissed her properly. I mean, I couldn’t believe this was actually happening.’

  ‘But it felt right?’

  Kirstie nodded. ‘And it went on for the longest time.’

  ‘What happened when it was over?’

  ‘I said, “Now tell me I’m not as good as Chris,” and I bent to kiss her again, but she suddenly sat up and said, “I don’t want this,” and then, “I’ve got to go.” And she did. It was like a spell was broken.’

  Beth could see that Kirstie’s explanation of that evening had cost her a lot. She looked drained by the end of it.

  ‘I’m not a …’ Kirstie began, but halted. ‘I’m not prejudiced, I’m just not a dyke. I don’t normally …’

  ‘I get it,’ said Beth, trying to spare the girl, ‘and I won’t tell anyone – from the town, I mean.’ She would have to inform Black, but that was different.

  ‘Collemby is a very small place,’ said Kirstie, and her agitation was obvious. ‘Everyone knows everyone.’ Her shoulders sagged. ‘People don’t just come out in little towns like this one, even if they are gay, and I’m definitely not. With Alice, it felt different …’ And she faltered.

  ‘I know,’ said Beth, because she knew that, gay or straight, Kirstie was still trying to work it all out for herself and she didn’t want to complicate the girl’s life any further. ‘If you could just tell me what happened between you and Alice afterwards.’

  ‘I told you, she went home.’

  ‘I meant later, in the days that followed. How was she with you?’

  ‘She didn’t mention it, and I didn’t dare bring it up. We acted like it never happened or we were too drunk to remember, but we both knew what we did. I didn’t force it and she didn’t brush me away, not at first. I kissed her and she let me. She kissed me back, then all of a sudden …’

  ‘Perhaps she was confused, too.’ Then Beth remembered Alice’s entries in her journal.

  Kirstie and Chloe.

  What am I going to do with them?

  One is needy, and the other one is …

  I don’t even need to write that down.

  It seemed likely that Alice hadn’t wanted the kiss to mean anything at all but it had meant far more to Kirstie and that’s why things had become awkward between them.

  ‘You must have been hurt and confused?’ Beth offered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not a lesbo, I just …’

  ‘Love your friend?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She said it very softly.

  ‘Did Alice avoid you afterwards?’

  ‘No … a bit … It’s hard to explain. We hung out with Chloe, but weren’t alone much any more and she was always in a hurry to get going. I was worried our friendship was ruined.’

  ‘How did you feel towards her then?’

  ‘I felt a whole bunch of things at once. Embarrassed, confused, a bit pissed off with her.’

  ‘You have a right to be angry,’ offered Beth, and Kirstie immediately shot her a look.

  ‘I didn’t kill her!’

  Beth was taken aback. ‘Who said anything about killing anyone?’

  ‘You think she might be dead,’ protested Kirstie. ‘And now you’re acting like I’m the one who killed her, because of a stupid kiss!’ She looked at Beth as if the detective had somehow conned her into revealing too much.

  Kirstie flared then, and there was a hint of implied violence in the way her body stiffened and she jabbed a finger at Beth. ‘I told you, we were drunk, and nobody better find out about any of it from you.’ Beth almost recoiled at the fury in her eyes and the way her teeth suddenly bared. The mild girl Beth had felt sorry for moments earlier had transformed into a hurt, angry individual who looked like she might attack her.

  ‘No one from the town will hear about it from me.’

  ‘They’d better not,’ she hissed, but Beth’s reassuring words must have had a mollifying effect on the girl because her face lost its fury.

  ‘I’m just trying to work out what was going through Alice’s mind when she disappeared, because it might help us to find her. That’s all.’

  ‘Really?’ The girl sneered. ‘Well, I think we’ve already established that the last thing going through Alice’s mind then was me.’

  25


  Black had arranged to meet Beth in the town’s lone café. She found him halfway through a bacon roll. The only other customers were two old ladies in a far corner, who were busy talking. ‘You first,’ he managed, despite a mouthful of bread and bacon. ‘Any joy with Kirstie?’

  ‘Oh, she told me plenty.’ And Beth spent the next few minutes telling Black what had happened between Kirstie and Alice that night.

  ‘Poor Kirstie,’ he observed when he heard about the young girl’s confusion.

  ‘I’m surprised to hear you say that. I thought you’d think it was all a bit silly.’

  ‘Unrequited love is a hard thing to cope with at that age.’

  ‘I’m not sure if she’s in love with her friend or just loves her as a friend. She’s confused and hurt. You haven’t met Kirstie, so you couldn’t have noticed.’

  ‘Noticed what?’

  ‘Her hairstyle,’ said Beth.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It’s exactly the same as Alice’s.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Perhaps Kirstie loves Alice, or just wants to be her.’

  ‘Maybe. You don’t think she’s so obsessed with her friend, that she …?’

  ‘Could have killed Alice in a jealous rage, or to cover her embarrassment?’ She recounted the darker ending to her conversation with the teenager.

  He listened closely. ‘She bared her fangs at you?’

  ‘Almost literally – for a moment there, I thought she was going to swing at me … But do I think she murdered Alice? She doesn’t have any kind of alibi. Kirstie claims she was at home on her own, watching soaps and reality TV, which is hard to prove or disprove. The way Alice treated her after their kiss was hurtful to her, so, at the very least, she can join our growing list of messed-up people in Alice’s orbit,’ concluded Beth. ‘And we haven’t even started on the school yet.’

  ‘Everleigh gave me the go-ahead to go in there first thing on Monday,’ he told her. ‘We can question anyone who has had any dealings with Alice. The head has promised us full cooperation.’