The Perfect Girl

by Lorna Dounaeva

  “Bugger it, Sapphire! Where are you?”

  He clutched his side and his breaths came out in long, panicky gasps. He had lost her. An invisible hand reached in and grabbed at his heart, squeezing it like a sponge. For a moment, he thought he would have a heart attack, but the pain was purely in his head. He took a few breaths and the symptoms eased enough for him to trudge back to Daffodil Lane. He thought through the possible explanations, trying to work out what could have happened to make her run off like that. The festivities had moved on now and all that was left were the empty drinks cans in the street and the beat of drums in the distance. He couldn’t believe the parade was still going. How could they carry on without the May Queen?

  He walked back to Sapphire’s tea shop. The place was virtually empty, aside from one lone waitress who sat at an empty table, flipping though a copy of Kerrang.

  “Has Sapphire come back?” he asked.

  She looked startled. “Isn’t she leading the procession?”

  “She just ran off,” Angie said from the doorway. She sank down in the nearest chair. “Oh God, I knew I should have talked her out of being May Queen. I had a bad feeling all along.”

  “Why are you getting so worked up?” asked the other waitress. “She probably just went to the loo!”

  Angie smiled nervously. “Maybe Morgan’s right. Maybe she did just go to the loo or something.”

  But he knew she was kidding herself. The procession had only got as far as the top of the road. If she had really needed the loo, or anything else for that matter, wouldn’t she have come back here? Before anyone could speculate further, the phone rang. Angie dashed over to the counter and picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?” She listened for a moment. “It’s Verity,” she told them.

  “Who’s Verity?” Jock asked.

  “One of the ladies from the May Fair committee. They’re all really worried. Everyone’s looking but no one’s seen her. Christ, where is she?”

  Morgan looked back at her magazine.

  “How can you read, at a time like this?” Angie demanded, her face flushed with anger.

  “Well, what should I be doing?” asked Morgan. She scraped back her chair and took a step towards the door, when something stopped her in her tracks. “Ahh!” she screamed as a brick came through the window, landing just where she had been sitting. For a second, there was total silence. Then all of the glass at the front of the shop shattered.

  “Morgan! Are you alright?” Angie had to shout to make herself heard over the burglar alarm.

  “I think so.”

  Carefully, Morgan shook the glass from her skirt. “Look at me! I’m shaking like a bloody leaf!”

  Jock was shaking, too. He needed to get up, but his legs wouldn’t work. He couldn’t even get his mouth to close.

  “Are you alright?” Angie asked him. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

  He managed a noise that must have passed for ‘no’ and she moved over to Morgan, who had far more business being upset.

  “What was that?” fumed Morgan. “What the bloody hell!”

  Jock sat with his head in his hands, waiting for his heart to stop hopping around in his chest. Angie pressed a switch that shut off the alarm, but he could still hear it, ringing in his ears.

  She looked back at him. “Maybe you should go and have a look?” she suggested. “Whoever it was might still be out there.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said, watching the door. What if there was someone out there? What if they had more bricks?

  Feeling like a gutless wonder, he darted for the counter. His legs shook like crazy. He didn’t know how much more he could take.

  “I’m calling the police,” said Angie.

  “Good.”

  He buried his head in his lap, wishing for all this to be over. When he looked up again, Morgan was sitting beside him, examining the tips of her long, violet fingernails. If she had been a softer sort of girl, she probably would have cried. But as it was, she was holding up better than he was, or at least she was able to give that impression.

  “Hello?” a voice called. He peered over the counter. To his relief, it was a policeman. Angie strode over to meet him and they spoke in excited voices.

  “This is Constable Wesley,” she said, bringing him over. Jock struggled to his feet, doing his best to look normal.

  “Is anybody hurt?” Wesley asked.

  “Just a couple of cuts,” Angie reported.

  “So nothing serious?”

  Morgan shook her head.

  “It’s not just the brick through the window,” Jock said, finding his voice. “Sapphire … the May Queen’s gone missing.”

  “What does it matter if she’s the frigging May Queen?” Morgan asked, clearly affronted by his continued concern for Sapphire. Jock stared at her for a moment.

  “She’s too young to remember,” Angie said.

  “Remember what?”

  “About the May Queen.”

  “May Queens,” Jock said. “Oh come on, you must have heard?”

  Morgan looked from one to the other, her snake earrings swinging from side to side. “What are you going on about?”

  Jock took a deep breath. “Five years ago, a May Queen disappeared from a village called Whiteford. When the police investigated, they discovered that she wasn’t the first May Queen to go missing. Over the last twenty years, at least three other May Queens had disappeared, from all around the British Isles. All on the day they were crowned.”

  He met Morgan’s wide, unbelieving eyes.

  “But the police solved that crime,” Constable Wesley said quickly. “Peter Helston confessed.”

  “So this Peter Helston’s in prison, then?” Morgan asked.

  “Peter Helston is dead,” Jock told her.

  “But he did it?”

  “Probably,” he said.

  “Almost certainly,” Constable Wesley agreed.

  “All the same” – Jock looked down at his feet – “the case was never brought to trial. Helston died in prison before it came to court.”

  “You’re scaring the poor girl,” Wesley objected. “There was an enquiry and he was found guilty, so you can put your mind at rest.”

  “Then why did someone throw a brick through the window?” Morgan asked. “I mean, this is Sapphire’s tea shop! And where the hell is Sapphire?”

  “I think it’s best if we close the shop,” Wesley said, turning the sign from ‘open’ to ‘closed’. “No, don’t clean up just yet,” he told Angie, as she approached with a long-handled broom. “My colleagues are on their way and they’ll want to see it all just as it is.”

  “Shouldn’t we be out looking for Sapphire?” asked Jock. “I mean, what if she’s up in the mountains or something? She’ll freeze!”

  Wesley looked at him with studied patience. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting here, my colleagues will want to talk to you. I know it feels like you’re not doing much, but this is really the best way you can help for now. We need to build up a detailed picture of everything that’s happened. It’ll give us a better chance of finding her.”

  Jock nodded, but he couldn’t help thinking how incredibly young Wesley looked. Did he really know what he was doing? he wondered.

  Angie made them all a cup of tea while they waited. Jock didn’t normally take sugar, but when she added two lumps, he didn’t object. The hot, familiar liquid soothed his stomach. He glanced at Morgan. She had gone back to reading her magazine, but she had been on the same page the whole time he had been drinking his tea. He wanted to say something comforting, but she was as prickly as a hedgehog. She would probably tell him to eff off.

  The door opened to admit two men in dark suits. The elder of the two had an air of confidence about him that told Jock he was in charge. The other hid behind his tinted sunglasses, despite the fact the sun wasn’t out. Wesley scurried over to them. He probably didn’t see a lot of action in his everyday work, Jock guessed. This must be a
really big deal. After a moment, they walked towards him.

  “This is DCI Stavely, and his colleague, DI Sweep,” Wesley told him.

  Stavely looked straight past him, his eyes sweeping the room. He was short-legged and stocky, with one hell of a moustache. Without warning, he zeroed in on Jock.

  “You saw Miss Butterworth run off?”

  Jock nodded.

  Stavely leaned in closer, and Jock caught a whiff of menthol. “So what’s your take on this? Why did she run off?”

  “I really don’t know. One minute she seemed fine, the next she was off.”

  “So what made you run off after her? I mean, everyone else stayed put. Why did you think something was wrong?”

  “Well, she’s a May Queen isn’t she?”

  Stavely continued to look at him, as if he expected him to say something more.

  “It was the look on her face. It wasn’t normal. It was like she’d seen the face of the killer.”

  “Do you think she expected you to follow her?”

  “No, she was too busy running. She … she looked like she was running for her life.”

  Stavely consulted his notebook. “And she lives here, in the upstairs flat?”

  “Yes.”

  “By herself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have the keys?”

  “No.”

  He looked at Angie.

  “They must be here somewhere,” she said. “She didn’t take a handbag. They’re probably in one of the kitchen drawers or something.”

  Stavely turned to his colleague with the sunglasses. “See if you can find those keys, Sweep. Her phone might be around, too.” He turned back to Angie, his eyes flitting over her fluffy hair and cow-brown eyes. “Does she have any relatives, anyone she’s close to?”

  “Her life revolves around the tea shop,” she said. “The staff and the customers, they’re her world.”

  “Does she have any health problems?”

  “God, no! She’s as strong as an ox.”

  “Do you have any recent photos of her?”

  “I have,” Jock butted in. “I got some close-ups of her on the float.”

  “Great. Email them to me.” Stavely handed him a card with his details.

  “I’m just popping outside for a cigarette,” Sweep called across the room. Stavely frowned his disapproval. Probably an ex-smoker, Jock guessed from the state of his teeth.

  “Did you find those keys yet?” Stavely asked.

  “No. They’re not in the kitchen.”

  “They might be in the safe,” Angie suggested.

  “Do you know the combination?”

  “It’s seven, seven, seven, seven,” Morgan called out. She was sitting at the counter, her legs dangling down aimlessly.

  “Thanks.”

  “Now I understand why some of the customers were so weird about the May Fair,” she said, dully.

  “I don’t think anyone’s held one for about five years,” Jock said. “But I suppose they thought enough time had passed.”

  “Not everyone thought so,” said Angie. “Not by a long way.”

  Jock thought of the two teenage boys who had been causing trouble the day before. He was about to mention them, when he heard a high-pitched shriek. But it wasn’t Morgan who screamed this time; it was Stavely’s colleague, Sweep.

  5

  Jock watched as Stavely ran down Daffodil Lane towards the source of the commotion. He hesitated just a fraction of a second before going after him, but his fear for Sapphire spurred him on. She needed him and he needed to know what had happened. Tiny dots of blood splattered the cobbled streets. That blood hadn’t been there half an hour ago, or if it had, he had missed it. He saw a group of people clustered in front of an old yew tree and braced himself.

  It wasn’t a pretty picture that drew the assembled crowd. A trio of lambs lay on their sides, their white wool splattered with blood. While everyone had been watching the parade, someone or something had broken into the sheep pen and mauled them to death. Some of the older sheep had been hurt, too, but the little lambs had bore the brunt of the assault. Those lambs would likely have ended up on the dinner tables of some of the villagers anyway, but to witness their grisly deaths was nonetheless unpleasant. Parents did their best to shield their children’s eyes, but the young were wilful and curious and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

  “What did this?” Stavely asked, striding to the front.

  “A dog, most likely,” said a man in a dark green body-warmer, whom Jock took to be the farmer. “More than one, I’d say.”

  There was no sign of any dogs now, not dangerous ones at least. Several people had brought pets to the fair, but they all looked the tame, friendly variety. Not that that stopped people looking with suspicion from poodle to Labrador to see if any had blood dripping from its fangs.

  Angie appeared at Jock’s side. “Do you think this has anything to do with Sapphire?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” he said, his heart hammering in his chest. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”

  DI Sweep emerged from the cover of an oak tree, behind which he had evidently been vomiting. Jock would have thought a detective of his grade would be desensitised to such scenes by now. But Fleckford was the sort of place where nothing ever happened, until it did. Stavely looked at Sweep with derision and began talking rapidly, barking out instructions. He spoke so fast, he might as well have been speaking another language.

  “What were these sheep doing here?” he demanded.

  “I brought them down for the fair,” the farmer said, “for the kids to pet.”

  “Did you obtain a license from DEFRA?”

  “I bring them to the summer fete every year. There’s never been any trouble before.”

  Stavely looked back at the sheep pen. One of the larger sheep kept nuzzling the dead lambs. She bleated loudly at the farmer, as if she expected him to do something, but there was nothing he could do but remove the bodies.

  “Leave them,” Stavely said. “I’ll have someone come down and take photographs.”

  “What about them?” the farmer said, referring to the crowd.

  “You got a whistle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Blow on it, then.”

  The farmer made a long, shrill noise and everyone looked up.

  “Good,” said Stavely. “Now I’ve got your attention, I’d like anybody who thinks they might have seen something to hang around for a minute so I can get your details. The rest of you, please move along.”

  Everyone looked at each other then began to move off. Jock glanced back, but there didn’t appear to be anyone who wanted to talk to Stavely. It didn’t seem possible that no one had seen anything. Perhaps they just didn’t want to talk to the police.

  He fell into step with Angie. “What the hell is going on?” he whispered. “Why would anyone do this?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t … Christ, look at the maypole!”

  He gasped. The pole was bent in the middle and the ribbons torn and frayed. Hundreds of colourful fragments blew around in the wind.

  “Mummy, I’m scared,” a little girl said and her mother pulled her away.

  “Someone didn’t want us to celebrate May Day today,” said the Mayor, twiddling her heavy chains. Jock avoided her gaze. He wished she would stop looking at him like a two-headed devil.

  “Come on, let’s check on Morgan,” Angie said, pulling him away. He nodded gratefully. The longer he stared, the closer he came to coming undone.

  The tea shop was eerily silent. Morgan stood alone in front of the broken window, looking out with a dazed expression.

  “You go home, love,” Angie said to her kindly. “You need an early night after the shock you’ve had. I’ll call you if there’s any news.”

  “Thanks.”

  Morgan slipped on her suede jacket. Jimmy Eat World blared from her earphones as she walked out the door.

&nbs
p; Moments later, Sapphire’s big-eared attendant appeared. Her smile was gone now, replaced with lips that had been chewed without remorse.

  “Oh, Bronwyn!” Angie wrapped her arms around her and hugged her tight as she convulsed with sobs.

  Jock stood back, embarrassed. Normally this would be his cue to leave, but if he left now, he might miss something.

  While Angie was calming Bronwyn down, Stavely reappeared. His shoes smelt of sheep dung and he had mud on his trousers.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions,” he said, producing a packet of Fishermen’s Friend. He offered them around, but no one else wanted any, so he popped one in his own mouth and put them back in his pocket.

  Bronwyn wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “What did you want to ask me?”

  “Well let’s start with how well you know Sapphire,” Stavely said.

  “Well enough. I’ve worked for her for three years now.”

  “Do you consider her a friend?”

  “We get along, but I don’t really see her outside of work?”

  Stavely ground his teeth and Jock wondered if he found it irritating, the way she made her answers sound like questions.

  “I’m curious,” said Stavely. “What made you carry on with the procession after Sapphire ran off? Weren’t you worried?”

  Bronwyn shook her head. “People were saying she had tummy trouble and we should cover for her. I never would have stayed on the float if I’d thought something bad had happened.”

  “I want you to think really carefully, Bronwyn. Did you see anything, or anyone who looked suspicious?”

  “No.”

  “Think about it for a minute. Play the scene back in your head. Are you absolutely sure?”

  She fell silent for a moment. “She was a little quiet, but she is sometimes. There was nothing out of the ordinary.”