Killing You Softly Read online

  ‘When does Jack get here?’ Hooper seemed to read my mind as he passed by with his muesli and milk.

  ‘Two o’clock into Ainslee on the Paddington train,’ I answered. At this moment he was 36,000 feet above the Atlantic, inching towards me on the airline map that showed miles per hour, distance travelled and distance to destination.

  ‘Are you going to meet him?’ Eugenie asked.

  ‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’ Zara must have noticed my clock-watching and lack of participation in the serious bout of Marco worship going on around our table.

  ‘Who is Jack?’ Galina wanted to know, while Zara went on plotting how best to break up the budding romance between Marco and Charlie.

  Only five more hours to go, then four then three. I drifted through my English literature class with Bryony Phillips, not getting involved in Irish playwrights of the early twentieth century.

  ‘Are you doing OK, Alyssa?’ Bryony asked. Normally I would have been deep in discussion about the political situation behind J. M. Synge’s Playboy of the Western World when it opened at the Abbey Theatre in 1911.

  ‘She’s due to meet Jack in Ainslee,’ Hooper butted in before I had time to gather my thoughts.

  ‘Ah.’ Bryony was steeped in medieval romance and Shakespeare’s sonnets so she cut me some slack. She knew that for once I wouldn’t care one way or the other about poor Christy Mahon’s tragi-comic ‘murder’ of his drunken old da’.

  With two hours to go I was free of classes and up in my room, slipping out of my uniform into my skinniest pair of jeans and Jack’s favourite top – an emerald green one that matched my eyes, he said. I looked in the mirror, frontways, sideways and the view from the rear. I tried my hair up then down then up again, changed from flat boots to heels.

  ‘This Jack is special,’ Galina observed with a touch of what felt like envy. But she did offer style advice. ‘Hair down is best.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said as I shook my hair free and hurried off.

  Jack’s text came through as I arrived at Ainslee Westgate. Meet me under the station clock.

  Scarlett Murder Weapon Found I read on the newspaper hoarding at the kiosk outside the main entrance. I didn’t stop to pick up the Metro but my stomach churned when I read the headline. I walked on and saw someone I recognized as I crossed the station forecourt – Galina’s Sergei staring up at the Arrivals screen. Why isn’t he patrolling the grounds of St Jude’s? I asked myself.

  Then, when I took my place under the big Victorian clock at the ticket office, I bumped into Sammy Beckett from Ainslee Comp.

  ‘Did you see this?’ he asked, showing me a copy of the Metro.

  ‘No. Anyway, why does everyone assume I’m interested?’

  ‘Because you are,’ Sammy quipped. ‘Everyone knows you’re into solving murders.’

  I didn’t know Sammy well – in fact, I’d only ever seen him playing five-a-side football alongside Jayden, Alex and Micky, and to be honest he wasn’t someone who made much impact – just a kid in a soccer team. ‘Why aren’t you in school?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m conducting a survey on station footfall for an economics project, looking at peak times and off-peak times and working out how the station manager could redeploy his staff to maximize profits.’

  ‘OK, too much information,’ I sighed. I sometimes forget how geeky and literal-minded guys like Sammy can be.

  ‘Sorry, but you did ask,’ he sulked as he chucked the newspaper into a nearby bin.

  I dived in and grabbed it back. There was a front-page picture of the murdered girl beside a photo of a heavy metal tool, a wrench that you find in workshops. The caption read: DNA evidence links object found on canal bank with murder victim.

  ‘Actually, I’m turning up some very interesting facts,’ Sammy droned on. ‘People assume that a train station gets maximum footfall during the traditional morning and evening rush hours, but what they don’t realize is that these days people work flexi-time and the journeys to work begin earlier and finish later—’

  ‘Sammy!’ I protested.

  ‘OK, sorry.’ He cleared his throat then pointed again at the headline. ‘I was a mate of Scarlett’s,’ he boasted. Then added as an afterthought, ‘You know she was dating Alex Driffield?’

  ‘Yeah, I spoke to him.’

  ‘What do you think – was he involved in, y’know, the murder?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Alex wouldn’t have any trouble getting hold of a wrench from his dad’s workshop, would he?’

  ‘No, he’s not involved.’ I shook my head more forcefully than I’d expected.

  ‘I wasn’t there!’ Alex’s voice echoes in my brain. We’re surrounded by oak trees, standing on cold, black earth. ‘The first I knew about it was the cops coming knocking at my door, not telling me what it was about, asking when did I last see Scarlett.’

  I hear his voice rise to a thin wail as he tells me he feels sick to his stomach.

  ‘They still didn’t tell me. They asked did we have a fight, how long had we been together, why didn’t I go with her to the party?’

  They tell him and he feels as if he’s walked off the edge of a cliff and he keeps on falling.

  I brush mud from his cheek and I see him cry.

  ‘Not unless he’s a bloody good actor,’ I told Sammy.

  ‘No, you’re right. Alex is cool,’ he said. ‘It’s probably the guy they got on CCTV. All the cops have to do is put his picture out there and wait for someone to identify him.’

  ‘Agreed,’ I said, folding the Metro and shoving it into my bag. I did have one niggle about Alex, though, which I tested out on Sammy. Alex had met up with Scarlett at lunchtime on New Year’s Eve and then there’d been a three-day gap before the news broke about the body in the canal. ‘I am wondering why Alex didn’t call Scarlett at midnight to wish her Happy New Year, or why he didn’t try to contact her any time during New Year’s Day.’

  ‘You’re sure he didn’t?’ Sammy asked.

  ‘Yes. He told me the cops came to his house to give him the news and at that point he didn’t even know she’d gone missing.’

  ‘So I heard they had a fight.’

  This was the first thing Sammy had said that I really registered. ‘Over him not going to the New Year’s Eve party?’

  ‘Yeah. Scarlett wouldn’t have been happy. She’d have told him sod your dad and come with me. That’s how she was.’

  ‘That’s not how she looks in the picture in the paper.’ There she was a smiley, well-groomed girl, not the moody kind who kicked off if she didn’t get her own way.

  Sammy backed off. ‘It was just a thought. Maybe I’m wrong.’

  ‘Let me think about it.’ Right now I was determined to distance myself from the Scarlett tragedy and focus on Jack instead. ‘Go ahead, Sammy, get busy with your survey.’

  The minute hand on the station clock jerked forward and there was a woman’s voice telling us that the next train to arrive on Platform 3 was the 13.00 hours from Paddington, the one that was carrying Jack straight into my arms.

  The train drew in; doors slid open. People stepped out with luggage and pushchairs.

  I stood beneath the clock under the vast glass canopy, searching in vain.

  He’s not here, I told myself. He must have missed the train.

  Passengers streamed by. I saw Sergei meet a slim blonde woman off the train then disappear into Costa. Sammy began to video people at the ticket barrier.

  Jack definitely wasn’t here – by this time I was convinced.

  Then he walked up to me.

  I saw him when he was about four metres away. At six foot three, he stood out from the crowd – tanned, wearing a dark blue ski jacket and travelling light with only a battered black rucksack over one shoulder. His arms were wide open and he smiled at me. Then those arms were round me, wrapping me in his strength and scent, breath and warmth. He kissed me; I kissed him back. I breathed him in through every pore.

  ‘I w
as scared you weren’t coming,’ I murmured after I’d caught my breath. I still held him tight as if I was afraid that he might disappear.

  ‘You knew I’d be here.’

  ‘I thought of a thousand reasons you might not make it – you got held up in Passport Control, the tube from Heathrow broke down, you missed the train out of Paddington …’

  ‘I’d have texted.’

  ‘I know, but …’ Someone tell me, why was I crying?

  Jack held me close as the crowd thinned and the clock above our head ticked on. ‘Sixteen days without you,’ he sighed. ‘That’s a long time.’

  ‘It felt like forever,’ I told him. Aunt Olivia was a technology Luddite. She didn’t have Skype and anyway the satellite signal high in the mountains to the west of Denver was crap. It had been hard to keep in contact, though we’d managed to stagger through phone conversations most days. ‘Hi, I love you … Sorry, what did you say? I missed that … You’re breaking up … Hi, are you still there? Yes, I love you too.’

  Jack had spent his days swooping down the ski slopes in Colorado with a bunch of tennis-pro mates while I vegged out in Richmond with my aunt.

  ‘Next time you have to come with me,’ he whispered as finally we stopped hugging and stood back to stare into each other’s eyes. ‘At Easter, when I go to the tennis academy in Spain, you have to be there with me, Alyssa. We’ll be together.’

  ‘Cool,’ I murmured.

  ‘Very,’ he agreed, leaning in for one more kiss.

  chapter four

  Jack and I decided to catch a bus from Ainslee into the Bottoms then walk to St Jude’s from there.

  ‘We can just about make it back before it gets dark,’ I predicted as we stood waiting for a bus outside the train station. ‘And before it snows. That’s the forecast.’

  ‘I’m used to snow,’ he reminded me. ‘They had twenty inches of it in Aspen on the day before I left, and twelve inches in Denver. The temperature was minus three for seven days running.’

  ‘Centigrade or Fahrenheit?’ Can you believe it? Jack and I were discussing the weather when all I really wanted to do was get lost in his kisses.

  ‘Fahrenheit.’ He held my hand and we stood in line for the bus. The streets and the exterior of The Fleece were still festooned with lights, but the decorations felt jaded now.

  The bus came and we climbed on, and rode through the grey streets of Ainslee while Jack told me about the guys he’d met in Aspen – two young ski instructors who worked summers at dude guest ranches, a Swedish girl training for the next Winter Olympics’ cross-country skiing event. ‘And what about you – how was Christmas, really?’

  ‘Lousy,’ I admitted’ then I kicked myself. Try not to sound needy – I read in an agony-aunt column that it makes alpha guys like Jack run a mile. So I decided to lighten the mood. ‘You met Aunt Olivia at the end of last term – she’s not exactly a barrel of laughs. Anyway, I escaped into the West End as often as I could, went shoppings visited galleries and everything.’

  ‘Cool.’ Jack rested his arm round my shoulder and leaned across to wipe the steamed-up window. I felt the warmth coming off his body, saw the smoothness of his tanned face. ‘Anyway, what else has been happening while I was away?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Jack looked me in the eyes – this is the point when my knees wobble and my heart melts. ‘Yeah, right,’ he argued, ‘you’ve got something on your mind. Is it the Facebook pics?’

  ‘No, they’re history,’ I fibbed, but I couldn’t quite brush it off. ‘If you really want to know, Hooper’s theory is that it was a version of revenge porn – I mean, “I” wasn’t naked or anything. And when you took a close look they were obviously fake.’

  ‘But then you’d have to have a jealous ex boyfriend that you haven’t told me about,’ Jack pointed out. ‘That’s what revenge porn is all about.’

  I reached out to take his spare hand and rest it on my knee as the bus trundled over potholes along country lanes. ‘No jealous exes,’ I promised. Anyway, he knew that my sex life had been practically non-existent before I’d come to St Jude’s.

  ‘What – were the guys at your last school blind?’ he joked.

  I smiled back. It was so good to be sitting next to him as the bus rattled along, swaying against him, holding his hand.

  ‘So how’s Gina?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your new roommate.’

  ‘Galina.’ It had only been four days since I’d got back to St Jude’s yet there was so much to catch up on. ‘Her daddy’s filthy rich and she designs and sells bags to international fashion houses. What else do you need to know?’

  ‘Do you like her?’

  I thought for a while. ‘Actually, yes,’ I decided. ‘After a car-crash start, yeah, I do.’

  ‘I like it when you do that thing with your nose,’ he told me.

  ‘What thing?’

  ‘You kind of wrinkle it when you’re thinking.’

  ‘You make me sound like a rabbit.’

  ‘Sexy bunny,’ he murmured as he leaned in to kiss me.

  Some questions for the agony aunt – how do you go on with your own, independent life when you love someone as much as I love Jack? And, secondly, does every girl in the entire world struggle with this?

  You want to be with your guy all the time, every minute of every day. But your head tells you to keep some parts of yourself separate, not to smother each other, not to make too many demands. You have to plan for a career, keep a circle of friends, follow your own interests, develop your own talents. I know this in my head, but the reality is – my heart leads me astray.

  When we reached Chartsey Bottom and got off the bus outside JD Repairs, it was four o’clock and already dark and beginning to snow.

  Jack slung his bag over his shoulder and took a look around. ‘You expect the place to change but it never does.’

  Always the same Main Street with its church and graveyard, its upmarket greengrocer’s shop called Five-a-Day, its cafe and pub. Whatever the season, whether the trees lining the street are full of pink blossom or sparkling with Christmas lights, the Bottoms always looks like a scene from a greetings card.

  ‘Hey, Jack, are you ready to lose our next match big time?’ Micky Cooke taunted as he came out of Driffield senior’s workshop and spotted him.

  ‘Why – when is it?’ Jack asked. They were talking football, acting like I wasn’t there. Even Jack has this laddish streak.

  ‘Friday afternoon.’

  Jack made a mental note. ‘See you then.’

  ‘Yeah, see you.’ Micky sauntered off towards the Squinting Cat cafe, talking, looking over his shoulder and grinning.

  Jesus – he saw the Facebook pics! was my instant overreaction. It was the lechy way he was grinning and looking.

  But I stayed quiet and Jack ignored him as we turned in the opposite direction, ready to head out of the village. The snow fell more thickly, quickly covering the pavements and glinting white and sparkly under the street lamps.

  ‘The other two things that happened while you were in Denver are, one, a girl from Ainslee Comp got killed early on New Year’s Day and, two, I found a dead robin on my windowsill,’ I told him as a sleek silver car pulled up at the kerb and Marco Conti stepped out.

  ‘A dead what?’ Jack frowned.

  ‘Robin. Never mind, I’ll explain later. Hi, Marco – meet Jack Cavendish. Jack, this is Marco Conti.’

  They nodded cautiously, taking time to size each other up. Jack saw a guy in an Aston Martin with dark curly hair and Adonis physique. Marco saw a tall, tanned blonde athlete who, alone amongst the students at St Jude’s, could match his amazing looks inch for inch. I stood between them feeling edgy.

  ‘Marco’s dad played football for Italy,’ I told Jack.

  ‘Paoli Conti,’ he realized straight away. ‘Yeah, I see the resemblance. He was a great player, by the way.’

  There was an awkward pause and I saw it as my job to edge the creaking conversa
tion forward. ‘Jack likes to ski but his main sport is tennis. He’s just got a place in the British junior squad.’

  Marco nodded. He didn’t seem in a hurry to get where he was going. ‘You want to get on to the pro circuit full time?’ he asked Jack.

  ‘Yeah, maybe. Listen, Marco, how would you like to join our football team? It’s just five-a-side on an indoor pitch’ but the St Jude’s team needs a striker. You do play football, don’t you?’

  ‘No,’ Marco contradicted. ‘I made a rule when I was a little kid – never do anything my father wants me to do.’

  ‘So how come you’re out here in the sticks?’ Jack shot back.

  ‘My mother. She chose this place because of Bruno Cabrini. I said OK, I’ll come for two terms.’

  ‘You sing?’ Surprise showed on my face and in my voice. It came out as ‘Y’sing?’ and reminded me of the trouble I had with my pronunciation when I first talked to Jack. I lose vowels and run words together so I sound pissed – totally nerves related.

  ‘Yes. Bruno teaches me guitar and singing.’

  I snuck a look at Marco’s hands – his fingers were long, definitely a guitar player’s hands. ‘Oh. Eug’nie h’s s’nging l’ssons w’th h’m too.’ Stop, stop before you make even more of a fool of yourself!

  ‘So, anyway, the football team,’ Jack broke in to save me more embarrassment.

  Marco ignored him and carried on holding a private conversation with me. ‘Yeah, I know Eugenie and Galina. We spent the summer together in Monte Carlo. Actually, I ran into Eugenie at Christmas.’

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  ‘At a party. I was in London, staying at my cousin’s house. Then I came here to check out the school for myself. I thought, yeah, I can live here for a while, why not?’

  ‘And h’re y’are!’ I burbled.

  This could have gone on for ages – Marco chatting, me slurring, Jack impatient – if we hadn’t been rudely interrupted by Galina.

  She burst out of the Squinting Cat, leaving the door open and shouting over her shoulder.

  ‘My new roommate,’ I warned Jack. ‘Prepare for blast off.’

  ‘Leave me!’ Galina yelled at Mikhail, who was in hot pursuit. ‘I tell my father what you do!’ The rest was in Russian as she sprinted towards us.