Dead Time (19 page)

She'd had too many other things on her mind.

Anna was still in her head. Anna, who never showed her feelings, who had never talked about her own daughter in any positive way. Katherine was only ever mentioned in a row or as an example of how things can go wrong. Katherine wasted her chances. Rose was evidence of this. Katherine rowed with her mother and left home. She changed her name (to
Smith
of all names). She went to the wrong university, got pregnant and lived all over the place. She joined the police (of all professions,
the police
) and then got involved with some penniless officer who moved in and offloaded his own son on to her.

Rose thought of her standing rigid in the kitchen saying those vile things about Brendan and she wanted to hate her. But then she remembered the tears. Had Anna been crying in rage or in sadness?

She thought for a while then wrote a title for her blog.

What Anna Doesn't Know
We were a family. My mum, Brendan, Joshua and me. Brendan cared for us. He decorated my mum's
study and did it again when she said she didn't like the way the colour looked. He ironed her blouses when she was late for work and he made pancake batter if we felt like it. We were happy and he had plans that we would all move to a cottage in Norfolk and he would go for long walks with a dog that we would get from a rescue centre.
I wanted to tell Anna about these things but there's never been a right time. She knows nothing of this life we had, this life that was planned, the dog that never got to live with us.

Rose picked up the yoghurt and began to eat it while looking at her emails. She was aware of the noise in the cafeteria and glanced up from time to time to see the number of people increasing. Then the bell went and there was a general exit for the first period. She tapped out an email to Joshua.

Can I come round after school? Had a row with Anna.

A reply came almost immediately.

Come whenever you want. Skeggsie's cooking.

The words made her smile.

‘Hi!'

Someone had sat opposite her. She looked up from her laptop and saw Lewis Proctor's face inches away. She frowned. None of his friends were near but three or four tables away she could see Bee Bee Marshall sitting with some other girls, her back to Rose.

‘All right if I sit here a minute?' he said.

She'd only come face to face with Lewis twice. The first time he was pretending to stab himself with a plastic knife and the second time was when he was running away from the rose garden after Emma had been killed.

‘I wanted to have a word,' he said.

She closed her laptop down and stared at him.

‘I don't know you. You're not in any of my classes and I ain't seen you around anywhere but still, people say, you're the girl to talk to.'

‘You have seen me,' Rose said. ‘You saw me going into the rose garden when you were running out.'

‘That's exactly the stuff I want to talk about.'

‘Maybe you'd be better speaking to the police?'

‘I've been talking to the police non-stop! I've been telling them the truth and they just keep on and on. Look, I gets this note from Emma. It's in her handwriting, right? It says she wants to meet me in the rose garden at six. So I go. I gets there and she's lying on the ground. At first I'm thinking she's fainted or something. I get down on my knees and put my hands under her to help her up and there's all this blood. I just ran.'

‘She came to see me and told me that she'd got a note from you. She said she knew it was from you because it was in your handwriting and it had a heart drawn on it.'

‘I never sent her a note.'

‘Was the note you got definitely from Emma?'

‘It was her handwriting. It had these smiley faces on it that she used to put when she sent me notes before. When we were together. I'm thinking, Ricky's dead, maybe she's thinking about getting back together. 'Course, I ain't got the note any more. Bee Bee found it and went ballistic.'

‘Emma thought you might have killed Ricky.'

‘She might have thought that. That's not my problem. I'm not here to talk about Ricky. I just want you to be clear that I never touched Emma. I wouldn't. Someone else done it and here's the thing …'

‘What?'

‘Someone nicked my knife a week or so ago. I had it in my sports bag. I was training and when I got changed it had gone. I wouldn't be surprised if my knife turns up in that cemetery with Emma's blood on it. Someone's trying to fit me up.'

‘And what about the night that Ricky was killed?'

Lewis took a deep breath.

‘Listen, I don't care what people think about that night. As it happened Bee Bee did give me an alibi and then she changed her mind, but I don't care. Me and Bee Bee? It's just a casual thing. When I got Emma's note, well, I just had to go along.'

She looked over at Bee Bee, who had given up talking to the people around her and was sitting looking at Rose and Lewis.

‘I told the police I was with Bee Bee that night. I lied but so what? I didn't kill Emma. I would never have done anything to hurt Emma. You were at the cemetery? You saw what state I was in. Anyway, they ain't arrested me yet.'

‘What about Bee Bee? Did they speak to her?'

‘Why should they?'

‘Because she took the note? Because she had a reason to go to the cemetery?'

‘Nah, Bee Bee didn't go to the cemetery. She was babysitting her little brother. He's only six months old.'

Rose thought of the CCTV photos of Bee Bee running across the bridge. She looked around the cafeteria. Glumly she noted three or four other girls with silver boots on. Maybe if she looked closely they'd be wearing bangles as well.

‘Why are you telling me all this?'

‘Emma told me you were a nice person. You remember that day in here when I was ribbing Emma about Ricky getting stabbed?'

Rose nodded.

‘I saw her afterwards. I made it up with her. She told me you were a witness at the station. Emma was a good person. One of the nicest people I knew. Ricky Harris was nothing, a waste of space.'

‘You had a reason to kill him.'

He shook his head. ‘Loads of people had a reason to kill
Ricky. In any case I heard it was self-defence. I heard it was Ricky who pulled the knife.'

‘How could you know that?'

‘Word gets round. I should go. I just wanted you to know about me and Emma. I would never have hurt her. Never.'

He pushed his chair back from the table and stood up.

‘You going to her memorial? It's Wednesday.'

Rose nodded and Lewis walked off. Bee Bee rose from her seat and walked towards him.

‘All right, babe,' she called.

She placed her hand on his chest and Rose's eyes focused on the bangles glinting under the bright lights. She'd thought they were all silver but now she saw that there were a number of gold bangles in among them. Some also had small stones in them, red and green and yellow. They moved up and down her arm gently, separating out and coming back together like a single bracelet.

Rose watched them walk away. Many kids turned their heads and watched. Then they looked back at her. Rose Smith, the girl who wanted to be anonymous and had somehow managed to become the centre of everyone's interest.

Skeggsie had cooked a vegetarian pasta dish that was hot and tasty and she ate more than she thought she would. Joshua didn't say a lot and it suited her mood. She kept looking at him from time to time and remembering Anna's vile comments about Brendan. What would he say if he knew? Maybe he would hate
her
just because she was related to Anna and somehow tainted with Anna's theory.

‘It's like a morgue in here,' Skeggsie said.

‘Sorry. Just had a bad day.'

‘Ditto,' Joshua said.

He ate a little and then went off to his room while Rose and Skeggsie finished the food.

‘I suppose you want me to wash up?' she said.

‘I'll do it. You can help,' Skeggsie said. ‘I know where everything goes.'

The kitchen was carefully organised and as Rose dried each dish Skeggsie gave her instructions as to where it went.

‘What's really up with Josh?' she said, placing the knives and forks in the drawer.

‘He's anxious. He's waiting for this girl to get in touch. From the B and B in Twickenham.'

‘Um.'

‘You're not enthusiastic about this search of his, are you?'

‘I've got other stuff on my mind,' she said.

‘The stuff at the cemetery?'

She nodded. It was true in a way. The killing was at the back of her thoughts no matter how hard she tried to push it away.

‘I'm still trying to puzzle it out. I mean, I know it's not really anything to do with me. It's up to the police to do that but …'

‘The police aren't the answer to everything. They don't always follow each case up with the same gusto.'

‘Gusto,' she said, smiling, ‘Where d'you get a word like that?'

‘I am a third-year arts undergraduate. I am well read. I have a good vocabulary.'

‘Sorry …' She smiled again.

‘It's like Joshua said about your mum and his dad's case – the police had all sorts of trails to follow up but they didn't. It's extraordinary that two people can just vanish.'

Rose frowned. Anna had said that very thing that morning.

‘This boy who was stabbed …' she said, wanting to change the subject. ‘It happened almost two weeks ago and no one's been charged. Now I didn't care much for him but the girl, Emma, she was stabbed over a week ago and there's no news about that either!'

‘That doesn't surprise me. Working-class teenagers stabbed. It's not an unusual headline. The police go through the motions but if there were no witnesses and no clues, chances are they'll never find out who did it.'

‘Surely the police
have
to find out …'

Skeggsie shook his head. ‘If it had been the son of an MP or the daughter of a member of the royal family you can be sure that the police would have put masses of manpower on it and the forensic lab would have held up their backlog to process the case material. The Chief Constable would have visited the scene of crime, he'd have had his officers report to him daily. They would have found the murderer. Believe me.'

‘How come you know so much about the police?'

‘My dad was a policeman. He's retired now.'

This was something she hadn't known. The information puzzled her.

‘How come you were bullied at school when your dad was a policeman?'

‘Maybe that's
why
I was bullied.'

‘
Did
you tell him?'

‘No, I couldn't. I knew he would be angry. With me. For not sorting it out myself.'

Skeggsie's voice had become stiff.

‘It's weird. The three of us. You, me and Josh. We're all the children of police officers.'

‘Yes. I don't see much of my dad, though. That's my choice. Unlike you and Josh.'

There was an awkward silence which she filled by telling him about her conversation with Lewis Proctor that morning. She also talked about Bee Bee and her silver boots.

‘Basically, I'm wondering if I was right about the person on the footbridge? I thought it was Bee Bee but …'

‘Want to look at those images from the cemetery again? Maybe a closer look will show us something we missed last time.'

‘OK.'

They passed Joshua's room and she heard some music playing softly. She didn't go in or knock. It seemed like he wanted to be on his own. While Skeggsie was sorting out his files and opening his programs, she told him what Lewis Proctor had said about the theft of his knife. Skeggsie looked interested.

‘If that's true then it means that someone has been forward planning. Either Lewis told the story to friends so that he could claim to have had it stolen or someone really did steal it so that the blame could be put on Lewis. But you said that the knife hasn't been found yet?'

‘Not as far as I know. It's a while since I spoke to my policeman friend but whatever happens at the police station usually seems to find its way to the school.'

Rose was thinking about the alibi that Lewis had for when Ricky was killed, which Bee Bee had now withdrawn. Everyone at school knew about that. If the knife that killed Emma had been found – whoever's knife it was – word would have filtered through school, she was sure.

The pictures were on the screen. Skeggsie had saved them to one folder. They were tiny, twelve in all, some from the bridge, but most from the cemetery itself taken by the mid-point camera. He opened his side drawer and pulled out some prints.

‘I printed these off last week. Have a close look at them. If you see anything then we can enlarge it on the screen.'

She looked through the A4 prints. She'd seen them the previous week, pictures of mourners around a hearse. Most people dressed in dark colours which made their skin tones look creamy and white.

‘Look at them in real time order. See the time is at the bottom of each print.'

The prints, six of them, were timed minutes apart. 17.59, 18.04, 18.08, 18.10, 18.13, 18.17. Rose looked at each of them in order. She focused on the figures and the faces. All looked to be mourners and only in the last two did she see facial expressions other than sadness. These
were people who had watched her run out of the rose garden and straight into the hearse, shouting and crying and trying to get attention.

‘I don't see anything new,' she said.

‘I printed this one off as well.'

He handed her an image from the footbridge camera. The time read 18.21.

She looked at the figure, the silver boots, the bangles. In the image Bee Bee was pulling her hood across her face to avoid recognition. If it was Bee Bee. Now she wasn't even sure of that.