by Jane Casey
It was something else I had in common with Freya, I thought, tramping up the stairs behind Petra – Will wasn’t interested in either of us. And Ryan unfortunately was. My phone buzzed in my pocket with a message and I glanced at it: right on cue, another text from Ryan. He had sent six since the previous night. Why was it inevitably the wrong boy who got in touch? I felt intensely irritated at the thought of the hurt expression in his blue eyes as his phone stubbornly failed to register a reply to any of the messages he’d sent. He wasn’t used to being treated mean. I strongly suspected it would make him all the more determined to win me over, which was absolutely not what I wanted, but I couldn’t reply without encouraging him. There was no way to win.
‘Find someone else,’ I muttered, shoving the phone back into my jeans as I rounded the corner to the last flight of stairs. ‘You can’t throw a stone in Port Sentinel without hitting a girl who’d love you to like her.’
‘What was that?’ Petra turned round in the act of opening Freya’s door.
‘Oh, nothing. It wasn’t aimed at you.’ She looked hurt and I hurried to add, ‘Boys are very annoying.’
‘Is there someone waiting for you back in London?’
‘Not really.’ I told her about Conrad two-timing me while I wandered around Freya’s room, looking at all the things I’d seen the last time and noticing a lot more on this visit. The bookcase had a postcard propped on top of it, but someone had stuck a pile of books in front of it so I hadn’t noticed it before. The picture was of a knight kissing a medieval lady’s hand in a stairwell. I unpinned it and read the scrawl on the back:
For you with love PK x
Petra saw me looking at it. ‘That came with the pendant.’
‘They went to a lot of trouble, didn’t they? No detail too minor.’ I read the painting’s title off the back of the card. ‘The Meeting on the Turret Stairs. Very romantic.’
Petra laughed. ‘You don’t sound like you really think that.’
‘I’m a bit off romance at the moment.’
‘Can I ask you a personal question?’ She opened Freya’s wardrobe door and began to rummage in it, facing away from me. ‘Do you like Will?’
‘He’s a nice person.’
‘You know what I mean.’ I could only see her ear but it was bright red. ‘Do you like him?’
In a flash I remembered Hugo teasing her about her feelings for Will and I knew I had to tread carefully. ‘I think he’s lovely but I’m not here to find a boyfriend. I’ll be gone in a few weeks. And I have just had my heart broken. I’m a bit too damaged to want to try again.’
I could see her shoulders sagging as she relaxed. ‘OK. Well. I was just wondering.’
‘Your secret’s safe with me.’ I wandered over and reached past her to pull out a hanger with a long floaty dress on it – purple chiffon with trumpet sleeves and a low neckline. ‘What about this one? This looks pretty good. I bet it was the tip of the fashion in nineteen seventy-three.’
Petra looked at it and shook her head. ‘It’s a winter dress. The colour is all wrong too, and the length. The dress she was wearing the night she died was a fifties one with a wide skirt to just below the knee. It was white and yellow with daisies embroidered on it.’
‘She would have to have something unique, wouldn’t she?’ I sighed. ‘How am I going to find anything like that? I don’t have time to scour eBay for it.’
‘There’s this one.’ She hauled out a dress that was officially my worst nightmare. It was pale yellow, a halterneck dress in broderie anglaise with a nipped-in waist. The skirt was the right length, but bell-shaped.
‘Where did she get that? Ava Gardner’s attic?’
‘Try it on.’ Petra handed it to me. ‘You wanted a dress that was typical Freya. You wanted something like what she wore the night she died. That’s as good as you’re going to get.’
‘Then let’s hope it fits.’
It was a close-run thing, involving Petra doing a great deal of tugging on the zip, and I wasn’t able to breathe or sit down once I’d got it on, but it did just about do up. I turned sideways to see myself in the mirror, marvelling at the dress’s tiny waist.
‘Freya must have been a lot thinner than me.’
‘She wasn’t.’ Petra grinned. ‘She never wore this. She bought it without trying it on at a jumble sale. She kept saying she needed a proper corset to wear with it.’
‘I think a corset is the only thing that could make me more miserable.’
‘You need shoes to go with it.’ Petra knelt on the floor, peering under the bed. Freya’s feet had been a full size smaller than mine so finding the right footwear was even more of a challenge than getting the dress. My ancient trainers were just not going to cut it.
‘I’ll have to wear flat shoes. No way am I walking up that hill in heels. Especially if they don’t fit properly.’
‘What hill?’
‘The one that leads up to the headland.’ I clicked my tongue, annoyed with myself. ‘Oh, I haven’t told you what my plan is. Sorry, Petra.’
She sat back and stared up at me. ‘If it involves the headland, I don’t think it’s a good idea.’
‘You haven’t heard it yet.’ I really wanted to sit down but it was impossible; I couldn’t bend. I leaned against the wall awkwardly. ‘It’s going to happen tomorrow night. I’ll come over during the evening to do some more reading. Then I’ll get changed into this, do my make-up so I look like Freya did, and sneak out, obviously without being seen by your parents.’
‘Yeah, you said you want to look like Freya. I still don’t understand why.’
‘Because I haven’t explained it yet.’ I looked sideways at myself in the mirror, assessing the overall effect. ‘Freya is going to make a reappearance where she died. I’m going to persuade Natasha to meet me at the top of the cliffs. The shock of seeing me will scare her into telling me what she did. She confesses, I go back to the police with proper evidence, justice is done.’
‘That’s the plan?’
‘Yep. Shakespeare had it first, but I think my version is better than his.’ Petra was frowning. ‘Have you read Hamlet? The play within a play? The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king,’ I quoted.
‘Oh, I know all that. We used to act it out. Hugo would be Hamlet. Freya was Ophelia. I was everyone else.’
‘OK. So why the frown?’
‘Because if something happens to you on the cliffs, you’ll be dead too.’ She looked very young all of a sudden. ‘I’m worried for you.’
‘That’s so sweet. There’s really no need. I know what I’m doing.’ I said it with a confidence I didn’t totally feel. Natasha had really scared me on the cliffs. My only hope was that she’d be so rattled to see Freya standing in front of her in the moonlight, she’d confess straight away. ‘I’ll be in complete control of what happens.’
‘Including making Natasha turn up? She hates you. Why would she meet you?’
‘Ah, she won’t know that I know she’s coming. But she won’t be able to stay away. When I met Darcy earlier I set the whole thing in motion.’ We had sat on the beach and talked about nothing for an hour – long enough to remind me why I had liked her in the first place, and long enough for her to feel reassured that I didn’t hate her. It was true: I didn’t. But I still didn’t trust her. ‘I told her I thought I knew what had happened to Freya. I told her I’d be able to find out for sure tomorrow night. I said I just needed to check something on the headland to make sure I was right, but I was sure I knew the person responsible for her death.’
Petra looked appalled. ‘What did she say?’
‘She wanted to know what I needed to find out and who I was talking about. I told her to wait and see.’
‘Do you think it was Darcy?’ Her name came out as a squeak.
‘Of course not. It was Natasha. But I know I can count on Darcy to tell Natasha what I told her. She can’t help herself. She has to spread gossip and it’s best if she knows so
mething no one else does.’
‘You’re using her.’
‘Exploiting her weakness. Besides, she owes it to Freya.’
Petra was on to it straight away. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Ask me another time.’ I put one hand on my ribcage. ‘My chest is seriously constricted. I’m seeing stars. I need to get out of this dress, like, five minutes ago.’
‘I don’t think it’s the ideal outfit for fighting crime, I have to say.’
I laughed. ‘If Freya had worn Lycra all-in-one body-suits and a mask, we’d be in business. But I’m stuck with Grace Kelly’s cast-offs as my superhero costume.’
‘You’re going sort of blue.’ Petra regarded me with interest. ‘You really can’t breathe at all, can you?’
‘Not much, no.’ I winced. ‘Just don’t break the zip. You’d have to cut me out and then we’d be back to square one.’
‘That might not be such a bad thing.’ She began to work the zip down, a couple of millimetres at a time. ‘Your idea is mad. And dangerous.’
‘You’re probably right.’ I took a proper breath as the dress loosened and felt the oxygen rush to my head. ‘But I really think it’s going to work. If Natasha thinks I can prove she killed Freya, she’ll be desperate to stop me. She’ll be on edge before Freya makes her appearance. I’ll never get a better chance to make her tell the truth. As soon as she knows it’s me, she’ll go back to being the hard-faced bitch we know and love.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
I shook my head. ‘I have to be alone or it won’t work. She’d never think Freya’s ghost had materialized in front of her accompanied by her sister.’
‘I could hide.’ Petra’s eyes were like saucers. ‘I’m good at that.’
‘I can’t take the risk.’
‘It’s still just your word against hers, though, if it’s just the two of you there.’
‘Well, duh. I’m planning to record what she says.’ I waved my mobile phone at her.
‘Oh, and where are you going to put that? You don’t have any pockets.’
I looked down blankly. She was right. ‘I’ll have to put it down my front.’
‘Will it fit?
‘Just about,’ I said, experimenting. ‘Getting it out might be tricky.’
‘I really don’t like this plan.’ Petra’s voice was high and sounded as if she was on the verge of tears. ‘There must be another way.’
‘I can’t think of one if there is. We need more evidence, Petra. And it’s now or never. I told Darcy where I was going and when. I can’t back out now.’
I said it as if I meant it, and I think it convinced Petra. It almost convinced me.
The closer it got to the witching hour the following night, the more tense I felt. I went round to Sandhayes after not eating dinner, because I couldn’t. I had barely eaten anything all day. My throat closed up every time I attempted to eat, and food tasted of nothing much. It was lucky that Mum was avoiding me so there was no one to ask me why I was off my food. Even if she had insisted, I wouldn’t have been able to eat anything. I had tried, and basically failed. It was one more reason to hope nothing was going to go wrong. A last meal of half a piece of toast would be a truly depressing one. Little did Mum know that I was quite happy to stay out of her way, so she wouldn’t notice that I was up to something, and so we wouldn’t have to talk about Dan Henderson and what a nice person he really was and how much time had or hadn’t changed him. He was a creep, I thought, and a bad policeman. But even he couldn’t ignore solid evidence that linked Natasha to Freya’s death.
Tilly answered the door and looked unsurprised to see me even though I hadn’t said I was coming round. There were definite advantages to her being arty and vague.
‘I just wanted to return this.’ I held up the book I had borrowed the night before.
‘Have you read it already?’
‘Couldn’t put it down.’ I had read it again, in fact. It had passed the time between two and five in the morning when I had been unable to sleep.
‘Well, take something else. In fact’ – she reached behind the door – ‘take a key. You can come and go as you please.’
I stared at the key she was holding out to me, complete with a wooden key ring shaped like a hippo. ‘Really?’
‘You’re family.’
I took the key and hurried up the stairs, running my hand along the banister, feeling as if I had come home. I opened the door to Freya’s room and, as I had expected, Petra was lying on the bed, waiting for me. What I had not expected was that Will would be sitting in the chair by the desk.
‘What are you doing here?’ I was out of breath, which put me at a disadvantage.
‘I wanted to talk to you.’
‘About what?’ I took off my jacket and put it on the bed with my bag.
‘Petra and I had a chat earlier.’
I looked at her. She cut her eyes away from mine, her face advertising the fact that she felt guilty. ‘Did you? That must have been nice.’
Will was fiddling with a pen, tapping it on the desk. Not as calm as he looked, I thought. ‘She told me what you were planning to do this evening.’
‘Oh.’
‘Petra was worried. Understandably.’
‘There’s no need. And there’s no need for you to be here.’
‘Come off it, Jess.’ He slammed the pen down on the desk. ‘Are you out of your mind? You’re going to act as bait in a trap to catch a murderer and you think that’s a good idea?’
‘It sounds sensible to me.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning?’
‘Because I knew you’d react like this.’ I took the dress off the wardrobe door, where it had been hanging. ‘It’s getting late. I’ve got to get ready.’
‘I can’t let you do this.’
‘I don’t need your permission.’
Will stood up and crossed the room, stopping very close to me, so close that we were almost touching. His voice was as soft as velvet. ‘What if I asked you? What if I told you I couldn’t stand to see you hurt?’
‘I’d say it was emotional blackmail and I wasn’t going to fall for it.’ I glared at him, holding onto my anger to stop myself slipping into the depths of his grey eyes for fear I would never resurface. ‘I’m going to do this, whether you like it or not. Did Petra tell you about the necklace in Natasha’s pocket?’
From the look on his face, she had.
‘She’s guilty, Will. She’s got away with it for too long, and I’m not going to stand back and watch her mince around this town as if she has a perfect right to be free when Freya’s not here any more. If I could think of an alternative, I’d take it, but I tried getting your dad to investigate Freya’s death again and he wasn’t having it. This is the only way to find out what happened.’
I knew I’d won when he turned away. ‘For the record, I think it’s a terrible idea.’
‘Thank you very much.’ I hesitated. ‘I still need to get changed.’
‘Oh, right.’ He went to the door.
‘Are you leaving?’ Petra’s voice was a squeak.
Will stopped with his hand on the doorknob. ‘Do you want me to stay?’ He said it to her, but then he looked at me.
‘Stick around,’ I said. ‘You can be the first to see me-as-Freya.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll wait out here. Let me know when it’s safe to come back.’
The only good thing about not eating was that it helped take a millimetre or two off my waistline so the dress wasn’t as uncomfortable as it had been. Freya’s shoes were another issue. They pinched my toes and heels from the moment I forced my feet into them, and although they looked like pretty, dainty ballet shoes, they felt like torture devices. The important thing was how they looked, which was perfect. Wearing Freya’s clothes and shoes, I didn’t feel like myself any more. I looked in the mirror and saw her, and as the light ebbed from the sky I had the strangest feeling that she was there, watching us. I hoped she
approved.
‘Almost done.’ I leaned in to the mirror to add a flick to the ends of my eyeliner, aiming for the retro style that Darcy did so well. ‘You can let Will in.’
Petra opened the door, and I turned round in time to see his face when he saw me. He stopped dead.
‘Well?’ I put my hands on my hips.
‘It’s uncanny.’ Will was staring, taking in every detail. ‘Freya wouldn’t stand like that, though. Too confrontational.’
I folded my hands in front of me and he grinned.
‘Too demure. She wasn’t Jane Eyre.’
‘I’ll aim for somewhere in the middle, then.’ I had put the pendant on a new chain and now I picked it up to put it on, struggling slightly with the fiddly clasp. It was Petra who came to help me, not Will, and I couldn’t help being disappointed. Will had returned to his seat at Freya’s desk and was staring at her wall of pictures, including the photograph of his hands. I wondered if he was thinking about Freya and how much she had liked him. I wondered if he was even thinking about me a little bit.
‘Are you going to wear your hair down?’ Petra asked. I had it tied up in a ponytail and she tweaked it, making my hair swish.
This was the moment I’d been dreading, which was why I’d left it until the end. I made myself sound very cheerful indeed. ‘In a way.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s the last thing I need to do to look like Freya did when she died.’
‘You’re not going to cut your hair.’ Petra took two steps away from me. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘It will make all the difference to whether Natasha believes I’m her or not.’ I went over to my bag and took out a pair of kitchen scissors. I held them out to her. ‘I brought these.’
‘I’m not doing it.’ She shook her head. ‘No way.’
‘You have to. I can’t do it myself. It won’t look right.’ And I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to do it. ‘You know how long Freya’s hair was when she died. I don’t.’
‘I can’t.’ Petra’s eyes glittered as tears filled them. She was shaking. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to.’
I could tell she meant it too. There was nothing I could say to persuade her to help. I turned and looked at Will.
