Taylor frowns.
“I heard Mr. McAndrew this morning, making the funeral arrangements,” I continue, “so I think that means there won’t be an inquest. He sounded awful.” I gulp. “Catriona is going to be buried next to Dan.”
“That’s cozy,” Taylor comments, which I think is really flippant of her, but I let it pass.
“And you know I told you Callum and Lucy had a huge fight yesterday?” I finish. “He told me just now he broke up with her.”
Taylor’s eyes widen.
“He didn’t waste much time,” she says. “Breaking up with Lucy last night and kissing you this morning.”
“Taylor, please. It wasn’t like that. Apparently it was Lucy firing at me in the wood, can you believe it? I was sure it was Catriona, but no, it was Lucy. She wanted to scare me away.”
“Crazy sister, drunk mother, crazy ex-girlfriend,” Taylor says mockingly. “Callum likes the crazies, eh?”
“Taylor—” I say, really cross with her now.
“I’m sorry!” Her face crumples. I’ve never seen her like this before; she actually looks like she might be about to cry. “I had nightmares for hours about Catriona lying there all covered in blood—I don’t think I actually got much sleep at all. I kept waking up, but then I’d go back to sleep and start dreaming about her all over again. . . . I know I’m making stupid cracks, but I’m freaking out!”
I reach out and take her hand, holding it tightly. I can see that she’s trying to hold back tears. We sit for a while in silence, Taylor’s jaw working as she swallows hard, choking down the lump in her throat.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I say again.
Funny how that phrase keeps popping up. I hope Taylor finds comfort in it, as I once did.
Taylor is still unable to speak, but she’s squeezing my hand so hard it’s almost painful.
“And . . .” I hesitate to say the next thing, true though it is. “It was the best thing that could have happened. For everyone. What if Catriona hadn’t died? She’d have denied everything. We’d have had to take it all to the police. Even if she got convicted, think of the trial—everything coming out—it would be so much worse for her family than her dying in what they think was a tragic accident.”
Taylor nods slowly, her pressure on my hand releasing slightly.
“I just wish it hadn’t been me,” she says in the weakest voice I’ve ever heard her use.
“You saved our lives,” I say. “Callum and I would have been killed without you.”
“I still can’t quite believe it,” Taylor says, her voice still small. “You investigate stuff, and you know someone got killed, but it’s still unbelievable when you come face to face with a murderer.”
“I know. I still can’t quite believe it either.”
“Passengers on the eleven-forty-five flight to London Gatwick, the flight is now ready for boarding at gate ten,” comes a voice over the loudspeaker. “Passengers on the eleven-forty-five flight to London Gatwick, the flight is now ready for boarding at gate ten.”
“I guess that means it’s time to go home,” Taylor says.
We stand up and Taylor slings her rucksack over her shoulders. Then we look at each other, and, ignoring the boarding call that’s still going out over the loudspeaker we take a step toward each other and collide in the biggest hug ever. We wrap our arms around each other’s bodies and practically squeeze the other one to death, like two boa constrictors in a death match. Our marathon hug says everything we’re not saying out loud, and it’s exactly what we both needed. When we eventually separate, both of our eyes are a little damp.
I pick up my latte. It’s probably cold by now, but I could still do with the sugar rush.
“I never thought I’d say this,” Taylor says as we head toward the security line, “but I’m actually looking forward to getting back to school, you know?”
“Oh, I know, me too,” I say, my tone heartfelt. “Nothing to do but work—”
“No life-threatening dramas,” Taylor adds.
“Just eating cauliflower cheese—”
“Farting like drains—”
“Being really bored—”
“Oh, come on—you’ve got a gorgeous guy waiting back at school for you,” Taylor contradicts me as we show our passports and boarding passes and file into the line waiting for the scanning machine.
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, right. How long’s the flight?”
“An hour and a quarter.”
“Well, I’d better get started with the Jase update now, then. There’s a lot to tell you.”
Taylor manages a half grin at me. It’s by no means her best or biggest grin, but it’s a start, and it’s a lot better than the way she looked a few minutes ago.
“There’s always something happening to you, Scarlett,” she says.
“No more, I swear.” My mouth curls up into a bit of a smile as I grab my little suitcase and put it on the belt for the scanner. “Honestly, I want to lead a really boring life from now on.”
“Right,” Taylor says, her grin enlarging by the moment. She twists her shoulders, sliding off the straps of her rucksack. “We’d go crazy in a month, and you know it.”
We’re smiling at each other properly now.
“No, really,” I insist. “I mean it.”
I empty my pockets into the little plastic tray and walk through the scanning arch—no beeps, no alarms, no drama. There you go. It’s a start. And as I put my phone and keys and loose change back into my jeans, and lift my bag off the rollers on the other side of the belt, I watch Taylor walk through the arch in her turn. She’s still grinning at the thought of us leading boring lives. A security official says something to her and she nods, following them over to one side.
“Random check,” she calls over to me. “Or maybe they just don’t like Americans.”
The security official smiles as she starts tracing lines along Taylor’s body with her wand. And I have a rush of gratitude that Taylor’s my friend, so powerful that I feel a lump rising in my throat. I dig my nails into my palms in an effort not to cry; it’s the last thing either of us needs. No more tears. Instead, I scoop up Taylor’s phone and change, sling her rucksack over one shoulder, and walk over to a row of seats to wait for her. She looks over to check that I have her stuff, but it’s just a reflex: she doesn’t really need to.
Taylor knows I’ve got her back, and I know she’s got mine. If I ever had any doubts about that, after Castle Airlie they were washed away. We’re a team, always will be. Whatever happens from now on, we know that for sure.
And right now, that’s more than enough for me.
epilogue
It’s not that long or difficult a journey back from Scotland, but after staying up most of the night, it’s enough to exhaust Taylor and me. After chattering all the way on the plane trip, we’ve run out of steam by the time we’re standing on the train platform waiting to get the Gatwick Express to Victoria station. By the time we’re on the Bakerloo tube line, last stop Wakefield, Taylor has dozed off with her head lolling on my shoulder. I wake her at the terminus and we trudge up the drive, barely exchanging a word. At the big entrance gates, we wave each other goodbye before Taylor heads off to her room—she’s planning to sleep all afternoon.
I should do the same. But I can’t. For Taylor, Wakefield Hall is just her school, a boring old pile of stone and mortar surrounded by acres of grounds. For me, apart from being my home, it’s something even more important: it’s where Jase Barnes lives. And the closer today’s journey has brought me to him, the more my anticipation has built.
I need to see him. I need to find out what he’s thinking about us and whether he wants to go on seeing me despite his dad’s intense protests (that’s putting it lightly). My kiss with Callum this morning has made me even keener to learn whether the future holds anything for me and Jase, strange though that may sound. Because I have to put everything to do with the McAndrew family as far behind me as I possibly can, so I have
any kind of chance of moving on with my life. Dan and Callum McAndrew are the past, and they have to stay that way.
I turn off the drive into the gatehouse and walk through the door. Thankfully, no one is here to greet me.
I go upstairs, put my suitcase in my room, and apply some careful, you-can’t-really-see-it’s-there-but-it-makes-a-difference mascara and lip gloss. Then I spray on a little light perfume, change my sweater for a dark green one that doesn’t look like I slept in it, and nip back outside again. Aunt Gwen is in the sitting room listening to the radio, and doesn’t even turn her head to acknowledge me, though I say “Hi!” in passing. Honestly, I could slit my wrists on the kitchen floor and she’d step right over me to get to the kettle.
I make a circuit of the grounds, but I don’t see anyone. There are very few girls here at half-term, and none of them, clearly, is keen enough on fresh air to go for a walk on a blustery, late-autumn day. The sky’s gray and heavy enough with clouds that I can’t see the sun at all, just a faint lightening on the horizon where it must be. Leaves are rustling across the lawns, and though I’m hoping to see Jase pushing a wheelbarrow, I don’t see him at all, even in the distance, down the long avenue of lime trees, or beyond the Great Lawn, over by the hockey pitches. I walk past the gate to the lake enclosure, but it’s securely padlocked from the outside, and though I climb up the gate a little and peer over it, there’s no one in there. The Wakefield Hall grounds feel dead, abandoned. It’s impossible to realize that, next week, they’ll be full again, of girls engaged in battle on the sports pitches or bouncing balls off the stone terrace walls. Right now, it’s as if no one were ever here.
The emptiness and the gray skies are having a miserable effect on my mood. They also make me feel braver, though, because, having spent a good forty minutes doing—let’s be honest—a thorough search of the grounds for Jase, I can’t just give up and walk away. I think about texting him, but what if he doesn’t get back to me for ages? I’ll be on tenterhooks till he does: every time my phone beeps, my heart will jump right up to my throat.
Castle Airlie, and any thoughts of the McAndrews, are closed off to me now. There’s nothing back there for me. There’s only here, now, and that means Jase. Still, I have a feeling this weird stuff with his father has ruined everything. . . .
Despite my doubts and the threat of Mr. Barnes’s terrifying temper, I eventually find myself, having done a circle of the entire school, walking down the path that leads to the Barnes family cottage.
I tell myself I’m just going slowly, one step at a time.
I tell myself I can turn around straightaway if I see Mr. Barnes, and hopefully he won’t see me first.
I tell myself I’m an idiot to be doing this at all.
But my feet keep going.
And as I come round the slight bend in the path, the first thing I see is a flash of color, but lower to the ground than I was expecting.
It’s Jase, in a bright red sweater, crouching down beside his motorbike, adjusting something on one of the wheels with a wrench. I didn’t think I made any noise, but he looks up, and when he sees me, a smile breaks across his face.
I let out a whoosh of breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I realize I was scared that his reaction might be a lot more negative than that.
But almost instantly, the smile fades. He stands up, wiping his hands on a greasy rag, and walks quickly toward me, gesturing for me to go back the way I came. It isn’t till we’re well out of view of anyone who might come out of the Barnes cottage that he says, “Sorry—it’s just that my dad’s at home,” looking incredibly uncomfortable.
At least he’s brought his dad up straightaway, which means we’re not going to be skirting round an elephant in the room, trying to pretend it’s not there.
“I came to look for you the day after—um, you know,” Jase is saying. “But you weren’t around. I haven’t seen you for a while. Did you go away?”
I realize that means he’s been looking for me regularly, not just the day after the lake incident with his dad. He’s noticed my absence. And that makes me feel better about his not texting me. Maybe he didn’t know what to say; maybe he was waiting to see me in person. There’s so much I don’t know about boys and how they think. But I can tell that he’s happy to see me, and that he’s nervous, which are both good signs, because that means I matter to him at least a little bit.
“I went to Scotland to see, um, some friends,” I say. “It was all really last-minute.”
He nods. Perhaps he thinks I went away to avoid him and his dad for a few days, but there’s no way I can explain the truth of the situation. No one will ever know about Catriona but me, Callum, and Taylor. We made a vow to each other over Catriona’s dead body, and we’ll never break it.
“Did you have a good time?” he asks.
I gape for a second or so, my mouth hanging open. You’d think I’d have expected this question, but Jase looks so gorgeous, slightly sweaty from working on his bike—a grease smear on his forehead, his red sweater rolled up to the elbows, showing off his muscular, golden-brown forearms—that the sight of him has temporarily frozen my brain. I gulp, and get myself back on track.
“Um, not really,” I say weakly. “There was a bit too much family drama.”
Understatement of the year, I think. And then I realize what I’ve said, unthinkingly: after all, the last time I saw Jase, family drama was exactly what we were going through.
He looks really uncomfortable.
“I’m so sorry!” I exclaim, blushing, and I reach out to touch his arm. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s okay,” he says. “My dad’s—” He heaves up a deep sigh. “He’s never exactly been easy to get along with. But since Mum left, he’s been a nightmare. I don’t know why he was like that with you. I’ve tried to talk to him but he just starts shouting and throwing things.”
I grimace. The image of Mr. Barnes shouting and throwing things is, frankly, frightening.
“I’m really sorry about it all,” Jase adds. “I didn’t have any idea he was going to mind me hanging out with you.”
“Me neither,” I say.
He looks at me seriously, his golden eyes hypnotic as they stare into mine.
“Your gran probably wouldn’t be that keen on it either, to tell the truth,” he adds.
I know he’s right.
“Well, they’re both stupid, then,” I hear myself saying defiantly. “It’s none of their business anyway.”
His eyes widen. “You mean that?”
I nod fervently, and then blush again, embarrassed by my vehemence.
“Scarlett—” he starts, taking a step towards me.
I look up at him, completely forgetting to breathe.
And just then, we hear a car, coming up the gravel drive, the churn of its wheels grating against the loose stones shockingly loud in the silence. Jase pauses and we both look in the direction of the drive, even though we can’t see it. We’re standing by the new school block, close to the dining room entrance; the old part of the school building, the original Wakefield Hall, is on the other side of the new building, hidden behind a high ivy-covered wall. That’s where the drive stops, in a large gracious turning circle with a fountain in the center.
With a final scraping of wheels on gravel, the car slows down and comes to a stop. A door opens and someone gets out. Jase and I exchange a quick, wary glance. A few days before, he and I would barely even notice something as standard as the arrival of a car at Wakefield Hall: it wouldn’t have registered on our radar. But now, having acknowledged that, if we want to keep seeing each other, we’ll have to do it despite our families’ disapproval, we’ve instantly become sensitive about being seen together.
It sounds romantic. It isn’t. It’s really annoying.
Another car door opens. More footsteps on gravel, and then the boot opens. Just a girl coming back to school early, bringing luggage with her. But maybe Jase and I should move away from the school block to
somewhere a little less in the main line of passage. I’m just about to say something when we hear:
“Hello? Hello!”
It’s a girl’s voice: loud, privileged, impatient . . . and oddly familiar.
“Hello? God, this place is a bloody desert. Hello!”
“I should go and see who that is,” I say reluctantly to Jase. Odd though it may be, I feel a sort of hostesslike obligation, since Wakefield Hall is, after all, my home as well as my school.
He nods. I make a wait-here gesture and start toward the arch in the wall. I’m only a few paces through it when I stop in amazement, unable to believe what I’m seeing.
Parked in front of the Hall’s imposing front entrance is a black Mercedes from which the driver is unloading a stack of Louis Vuitton suitcases. Beside it, fishing in a huge leather handbag, is a girl in a white fur jacket, skinny jeans, and a big beret into which her hair is bundled and which partially hides her face. As I get closer, she pulls a cigarette case out of her bag, extracts a cigarette, and bends over to light it.
It’s Plum Saybourne.
And as she turns to survey the mass of suitcases, dragging on her cigarette, she catches sight of me.
“Scarlett!” she drawls, puffing out smoke from her nostrils like a cartoon dragon. “How delightful to see you. Of course, it’s not exactly unexpected, is it, since you actually live in this bloody backwater. God, I can’t believe I’m going to be stuck here for the next two years.”
Behind me, I hear Jase come up, but I’m paralyzed by Plum’s words. Literally. I’m frozen to the spot.
“Oh, didn’t you know?” Plum asks. “I got chucked out of St. Tabby’s. Bloody hypocritical bitch of a headmistress, after all the money my family’s given that school. I wanted to hire a tutor, but Mummy threw the most enormous tantrum at the idea of me on the loose in London. She’s got the idea that your grandmother will straighten me out.” She raises her eyebrows and expels more smoke from her nose. “I’d love to see her try. So here I am, at this godforsaken place that time forgot.” She gestures, one sweep of a black-gloved hand, at the imposing mass of Wakefield Hall.
Scarlet Wakefield 02 - Kisses and Lies Page 24
