Follow Me Back

by Nicci Cloke

  ‘Do you really have to do more work?’ Mum asks, swirling her wine in her glass with a mock sadface.

  ‘I’ve got a conference call with New York. But I’ll see you guys in a while for Movie Night, right?’

  Movie Night is something Kevin and Mum do every Tuesday. It’s probably something Kevin picked up from the New York office, along with phrases like ‘blue sky thinking’ and ‘idea clouds’. Maybe it’s lame, maybe it’s cute, but it makes them happy. It makes them even happier if I join in, and hey, today I could probably do with a couple of hours of living in a made-up world.

  ‘Cool,’ I say. ‘What’s on tonight?’

  Kevin holds up the DVD and at least has the good grace to look sheepish. ‘Gone Girl.’

  Great. That’s just great.

  I HAVE MATHS with Scobie first period, and then a free, and since I don’t want to sit in the common room and listen to everyone talking about Lizzie like she’s the latest episode of Sherlock, I head over to the Rec even though I’ve got an hour to kill before Marnie will be there.

  Abbots Grey Recreation Centre is probably the bleakest building in the whole town. It must drive them all mad, a big concrete block parked right on the edge of St. Agnes’s grounds. Aggers itself isn’t that pretty, if you ask me – dark and dingy with narrow, draughty windows – but it’s Victorian and apparently that’s what counts. It’s imposing and grand and showy, and that’s pretty much the look of the whole town. It’s kind of like their crown jewel, I guess, bang in the centre, and on a bit of a hill, so you can see it from a mile or so away. And yet here it is, sharing a car park with the ugly, grey Rec. I skirt past the edge of the drama studio, which sort of belongs to both, and find my car in the front row. It’s still a pretty big thrill to say that – ‘my car’. I turned seventeen at the beginning of September and Kevin just drove up to the house with it that morning, a big bow stuck on the bonnet. Kind of over-the-top, but unbelievably amazing of him. When Dad heard, he bought me two weeks’ intensive driving lessons, which cost way more than he should be spending. I kind of hate it that he feels he has to compete like that when obviously I don’t care what he gets me. But at least now I can drive down and see him whenever I want.

  I unlock the car and grab a book from the back seat to pass the time before heading for the Rec’s automatic doors.

  It’s just as grim inside as out – sticky beige vinyl floors and those polystyrene ceiling tiles everywhere. But I kind of love it. I love the smell of chlorine from the pool and the muffled squeak of trainers from the squash courts upstairs. I’m just a sucker for sport, I guess. I always have been.

  I head up to the second floor, where the café is, and buy a coffee from the miserable-looking guy behind the counter. From here, I can see into the gym: rows and rows of polished Abbots Grey women in designer sportswear, walking and cycling and looking at their phones. From where they are, they can see the menu: fried things and sweet things. It’s a pretty neat circle.

  I wander back out onto the walkway overlooking the sports hall, where a class, maybe Year 7 or 8, are playing volleyball. I watch the girls whisper to each other, the boys compete for attention. We didn’t play volleyball where I grew up. We had a smallish field and a kind of worn-out basketball court and if it was raining hard enough, we played indoor rounders in the damp school hall. Here, as well as Aggers’ huge green fields, the kids have the Rec with all its courts and equipment, and they have an athletics track at a centre just up the road. It’s just one of the reasons I can see why everyone thinks it’s a better life here, but that doesn’t stop me sometimes missing London in a way that hurts.

  At the end of the walkway there’s a set of double doors that leads into the balcony overlooking the pool. I take a seat about halfway down and drink my coffee. I’m the only person up here, and the pool itself is also fairly empty; just a mums-and-babies swim group gathered in the shallows, far enough away that their voices drift over to me in murmurs, no words.

  The coffee isn’t very warm but it’s still okay; surprisingly strong, although nowhere near as strong as I’d make it for myself. I look at the book in my lap but I don’t open it. English has always been one of my favourite subjects, especially since I came to Aggers, but I haven’t been able to get into it this year. Maybe because it was one of the things that Lizzie and I talked about most, and now that we don’t talk about anything at all, it’s lost its appeal. Same way I can’t imagine taking drama now, even though when we were sorting out our A Level choices last year it took me weeks to decide between that and maths. Suddenly, I’m more glad than ever that I chose maths.

  My school in Hackney was bigger than Aggers – in that we had more kids, anyway. It was a bit easier to stay anonymous; at Aggers, everyone knows who everyone is. It gets a bit much, especially at first, and when I got here in Year 10 I spent quite a few lunchtimes on this balcony. The clammy heat and the way sound echoes – it’s relaxing somehow. There aren’t any windows and it’s like being in a bubble, hidden away. I sink lower in my seat and try to at least pretend to read my book.

  It’s actually a pretty decent book: Birdsong. It’s about World War One and so it appeals to the history geek in me too. But the warmth of the balcony and the faraway sounds of the mums and the babies in the pool make me feel sleepy and it’s hard to keep my eyes open.

  I must drift off a bit, because suddenly the door clicks shut above me, and I turn in time to see Marnie making her way down the steps. She looks different today; long dark hair down instead of scraped back like it was the other day, dressed in a bright yellow t-shirt and dark jeans, an expensive-looking leather jacket. She’s wearing make-up, too, puffy crying eyes gone.

  ‘Hey,’ she says, flopping into the seat beside me. She has a laptop under one arm.

  ‘Hey,’ I say. ‘How you doing?’

  She sighs. ‘Not great.’

  I nod, and look out at the pool. The mums are climbing out now, babies clinging to them like swollen starfish.

  ‘I guess you’ve heard the rumours?’ she says, and I don’t reply.

  She puts a hand on mine. ‘Aiden, I know we don’t really know each other that well, and I know you and Lizzie don’t really talk that much any more, but I think you did care about her, didn’t you?’

  Lizzie. It all seems so long ago now. Lizzie standing up in drama class. Lizzie laughing. ‘Of course,’ I say.

  ‘So, you’ll help me find her?’

  I turn to look at her. ‘How are you going to do that?’ I ask, and she flips open the laptop.

  ‘Look,’ she says, and the laptop whirrs awake, the Facebook home page open. I watch her type in Lizzie’s email address, and then a password. Her hands move so quickly over the keys I can’t make out what it is. She clicks ‘log in’ and there it is. Lizzie’s news feed. Lizzie’s profile picture in the corner.

  ‘How did you get her password?’ I ask, and Marnie looks at me and rolls her eyes.

  ‘We’ve been friends since Year 3,’ she replies. ‘I know her better than I know myself.’ Something about the way she says it makes me feel strange, nervous.

  She clicks on the speech bubble icon, where Lizzie has new messages waiting. Her inbox unfolds, and it feels so wrong that I hold my breath. It’s like watching someone get undressed or sleep without them knowing. It’s private.

  ‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ I say, thinking suddenly of DCI Hunter and his staring, silver eyes. ‘The police have been looking through all her online stuff. They’ll think it’s her, logging in.’

  The colour drains from her face. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  But neither of us moves to log out. We both look at the screen and the list of names, the list of people who’ve written to Lizzie. I see Marnie’s name, but I don’t see mine. I must be pretty far down the list. I see girls I know, a couple of guys. One name sticks out from the rest: Hal Paterson.

  As if she’s read my mind, Marnie glances sideways at me and clicks on his name. ‘This is one of
the guys she met online,’ she says.

  My chest tightens. Lizzie at home, late at night, talking to strangers, flirting with strangers. Trusting strangers.

  Marnie moves her fingers on the laptop’s trackpad to zoom in on the profile picture. It’s of a guy about our age, maybe a bit older. It’s just him in the photo, on a beach somewhere, Wayfarer sunglasses covering his eyes. His hair is light brown and longish, falling across his face. Kind of like mine.

  ‘His profile’s totally weird,’ Marnie says. ‘There’s hardly anything on it.’

  I look at the most recent messages, a sick feeling in my stomach.

  haha defo

  c u soon

  bye x

  ‘See you soon,’ I say, under my breath.

  ‘Looks like they were talking somewhere else, too – text, I guess, or on another site,’ Marnie says briskly, scrolling down the chain. ‘I feel like there’s stuff missing here. There’s nothing really useful anyway.’

  I take the laptop from her. ‘Who else was she talking to?’

  ‘So you’ll help?’ she says, obviously relieved, and suddenly, I realise how weird this situation is. Like she said, I don’t know Marnie Daniels, not really. And Lizzie and I haven’t been close for a long time. Why has she singled me out?

  ‘Why are you asking me to help?’ I ask, and she looks down, like she’s embarrassed.

  ‘I’ve read the things you said to her,’ she says, without looking at me. ‘I know I can trust you.’

  I look down at my hands. The waves of the pool reflect off the ceiling and cast their blue light over my skin. ‘You can,’ I say eventually.

  ‘It’s him,’ she says. ‘It’s him the police think she went to meet, and I think so too.’ And then, after a minute: ‘I know it.’

  I turn to look at her. ‘You know it?’

  ‘I can’t explain. I just…’ She looks at the screen, reaches out to scroll back and forth along the conversation between Lizzie and Hal. I see bits of it flash by.

  You’re beautiful

  lol

  so not

  big day

  always makes me smile

  talking to you

  like forever

  ‘I just know.’

  I stare at the words on the screen. Like forever. I move her hand and scroll back to the top of the conversation. c u soon. haha defo. ‘Did you know she was talking to him?’ I say.

  ‘No.’ She glances at me and then back at the pool. ‘Not exactly. She was online a lot. I could see the people she was talking to weren’t people from school.’

  ‘People?’ I click back to the inbox. ‘So there were more?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She tugs the laptop back towards her. ‘Not so much on here. But she was on here all the time.’

  I look at the page she’s opened. AskMe.com.

  ‘Lizzie had a profile on here?’ I wrinkle my face. It’s the kind of site twelve-year-olds are obsessed with. They spend hours asking each other questions like ‘Top five fittest boys in Year 9?’ and ‘Top three prettiest girls in your class?’ The questions are anonymous. You can say anything you want without anyone knowing who you are. That’s why they all like it so much.

  Marnie nods. ‘I mean, we all had them in like, Year 9 or whatever. But I guess she kept hers.’

  I look at the page, and I keep looking, and I can’t understand why she would do that. Most of the messages are just abuse about her sister.

  Why’s your sister such a slag? one of them asks.

  Do you think your sister’s the stupidest person on tv? writes another.

  The thing that gets me is Lizzie’s answers. Sometimes she just writes normal things – ‘she’s not’ or ‘no’ or ‘get a life’ – but sometimes she writes quotes. In all her most recent answers, she posts lines of poetry and passages of plays or books that I don’t even know, and none of it makes any sense.

  I look at them.

  like a whore, unpack my heart with words

  Physical beauty is passing. A transitory possession. But beauty of the mind and richness of the spirit and tenderness of the heart – and I have all of those things… But I have been foolish – casting my pearls before swine!

  I am not what I am.

  All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players

  ‘Marnie, this doesn’t make any sense,’ I say.

  She shakes her head. ‘I know.’

  ‘It makes her look –’ I don’t want to say it. All I can remember is Ophelia singing nonsense songs at the end of the play.

  ‘Yeah.’ Marnie glances at me and then back at the screen. ‘But Aiden, look –’ She leans over and tilts the laptop back towards her, scrolls the page to the top. ‘Look at the latest question.’

  I look, and my heart stops beating.

  Do you love me? it says, and the username underneath it says ‘aiden k’.

  WHEN I GET home, I log straight on to Facebook and go to my inbox. I scroll down yesterday’s messages – Marnie, Scobie, Jake from my English class – and then the messages from the day before, the week before, last month. I go all the way back, way, way back, to last summer, and I find my thread with Lizzie. I look at her profile picture – her and Cheska and their little sister, Evie, at the Harry Potter studio tour, all wearing Harry-style glasses and holding wands. Lizzie properly, properly loves Evie. She talked about her all the time, carried a picture Evie drew when she was five in her purse, picked flowers for her on her way home. I wonder what their parents have told Evie about her leaving.

  I scroll right down to the end of the conversation, as far back as it will go, and lose myself in the things I said and thought two years ago.

  Hey, she writes, after she’d accepted my friend request.

  hey, I write and then I use a winking smiley. Smooth, Aiden.

  Are you auditioning tomorrow?

  yeah, I guess so

  The drama department’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Hollywood eat your heart out.

  oh, cool

  You sound surprised

  lol sorry

  How come you do drama anyway?

  what, I don’t seem the type? ;)

  Another winky face. What a sleaze.

  not really

  Dunno, better than RE I guess?

  haha defo

  My heart drops like it’s made of stone. Haha defo.

  There’s a little jump in the time then, and I wonder why – was Lizzie busy doing something else, or was I? And then she writes again, eight minutes later:

  You’re good though

  You think so?

  yeah

  haha cheers

  you are too

  no

  you are

  Another gap. Lizzie was never good with taking compliments.

  Do you ever miss London? she asks, five minutes later.

  sometimes

  it’s pretty different

  haha I bet

  Do you ever go there much?

  yeah sometimes

  just shopping and stuff

  I wanna go live there

  oh yeah?

  yeah

  someday

  Will you go back?

  yeah maybe

  how come you moved here anyway?

  my stepdad’s from here

  oh ok

  What’s his name?

  Kevin Cooper

  Oh I think I know who that is

  he’s friends with my best friend’s parents

  nice car right?

  haha yeah it’s alright

  Another gap, and I think maybe we were just playing hard to get. I was probably playing Solitaire, trying to pretend I was away from the screen, too busy to type.

  We should hang out sometime, she writes. I can show you around.

  That’d be cool

  Thanks

  Cool

  I can show you –

  My phone buzzes on the desk. A new text. I feel jumpy, like someone’s inter
rupted me doing something wrong. And there’s a part of me that really expects, as I unlock my phone, to see Lizzie’s name at the top of the message.

  It’s Marnie, though.

  I found something. Meet me after school tomorrow?

  THE POLICE ARE at school the next day. I see the first one outside the main hall around assembly time, a woman talking quietly on a mobile, her eyes fixed on the rows of kids inside the hall. And when it comes to my third period free I go to the Keep, the small building which houses the sixth form, and there she is again, with a bloke this time, waiting outside the Head of Sixth Form’s office. I head for the common room and take a seat near the door, where there’s a big window looking out at them. I get out my book but I’m not really reading. So not in the mood for Birdsong right now.

  Mr Selby, the Head of Sixth Form, is the kind of guy who is enthusiastic about everything. He practically bounces when he talks, and when he’s listening to someone else speak, his hands rub over his thinning hair, or twist together, or tap out a rhythm on the door frame. It’s an enthusiasm that is pretty infectious, and I don’t know anyone who was in his GCSE history class who didn’t get a B or higher. He’s pretty much the reason I took it at A Level, but I like Radclyffe just as much. To be honest, all the teachers at Aggers are good. They don’t have the war-worn look the teachers at my old school did.

  Selby comes out of his office and starts talking to the two officers. I can’t hear what they’re saying – stupid soundproof doors – but Selby’s got his most earnest face on, nodding, one arm folded across his chest, the other propping up his chin. He taps at his mouth with a finger as he listens.

  It suddenly occurs to me that the police are telling Selby someone has been logging onto Lizzie’s Facebook from pretty much this location.

  As I think this, his brow furrows and I swear he looks up and through the glass at me. I look down at the book open in my lap, the words just a black smear on the page, and by the time I dare glance back up, Selby is talking, head on one side, his eyes wide.