Kiss in the Dark (17 page)

Down the corridor is a waiting area with plastic seats, and a couple of people slumped in them with saggy postures that tell me they’ve been sitting there for ages. Standing at the reception desk, talking to someone behind it, is DS Landon. The woman who arrested Jase.

For a crime I refuse to believe he committed.

“Um, excuse me?” I say, bravely approaching her.

DS Landon swivels round, her eyebrows rising when she sees who I am.

“Scarlett Wakefield,” she comments flatly. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“I came to tell Jase my grandmother’s getting a lawyer for him,” I say, dodging the question.

“Not a good idea,” she interrupts.

“You’re joking,” I say angrily. “He’s been arrested. He needs a lawyer.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Landon shakes her head. “Your being here is not a good idea.”

“What?”

She looks at me seriously. “Come with me, Scarlett.”

She leads me down the corridor and pushes open an orange-painted door, nodding to me to follow her inside. It’s a small interview room with a table and four chairs, two on each side. Landon pulls up a chair and sits down, gesturing to me to take the seat opposite her.

“I can’t talk to you officially without your guardian being present,” Landon says, pushing back her hair with both hands. It’s straight and blond, cut too short to be a bob, but just long enough for it to be hooked behind her ears. She isn’t wearing any makeup, and there are faint dark circles under her eyes. She looks pretty stressed.

“And,” she continues, “I probably shouldn’t be saying this to you at all. But you’re Scarlett Wakefield, and your grandmother is who she is, and you’re the motive here, okay? That wasn’t mentioned at the inquest. But why do you think they found Jase guilty?”

I stare at her blankly. “I don’t understand.”

“Scarlett, you’re Jase’s motive. That’s why he was fighting with his dad. We talked to some girls at your school the afternoon you found Mr. Barnes’s body. Someone called Plum in particular. She said you two were a couple, you and Jase. And the more we asked around, the more we found out his dad was really unhappy about it.”

“But that doesn’t prove anything,” I protest. There’s no point my denying that Jase and I are together; that would look really suspicious in itself. “I mean, so his dad wasn’t that keen on our seeing each other. So what? Parents get cross about who their kids are seeing all the time. Jase wouldn’t kill him over that!”

“I agree,” she says, surprising me. “But, Scarlett, the medical evidence is clear. His dad didn’t fall over and hit his head and die by that lake, like Jase wanted us to think. He was carried there after he died. The lividity of the corpse proves it. In fact, it appears that Mr. Barnes was transported there in a wheelbarrow. We found fibers of the jacket and trousers he was wearing inside a wheelbarrow on school property. There’s no way they would have got caught on the bottom of the wheelbarrow if he hadn’t been physically inside it. Besides, Mr. Barnes had defensive wounds on his arms, which means he was fending someone off. This was no accident.”

Oh God. The wheelbarrow tracks on the grass by the lake. I thought they were old, but they must have been made when Mr. Barnes was taken there. And all that mud on the wheels of the barrow inside the woodshed. Not just from the lawn, as I thought. That came from wheeling a heavy load right through the grounds and into the soggy grass of the lake borders.

I can’t say a word.

“Scarlett, there’s a jury verdict now,” Landon points out. “That changes everything. Apparently every single person in Wakefield village is convinced that Jase finally gave his dad what was coming to him. And we’re sure that Jase lied to us about not knowing how his father’s body got to the lake. Besides, he’s refusing to say a word to us now. Not a single word. Why won’t he talk, unless he’s got something big to hide?”

She gives me a narrow-eyed look.

“The best thing you can do for him now is to tell your boyfriend to come clean and admit what really happened, okay? This wasn’t self-defense. The marks on the body prove that, I’m afraid. But if Jase’d come clean and plead manslaughter, we’d accept that.”

It was my last hope, that Jase could claim it had been self-defense. I stare at her numbly.

“Scarlett, listen to me,” DS Landon says. “Your boyfriend’s got a nice clean motive, something a jury will understand right away: young love. Everyone remembers what that felt like. Your aunt wasn’t keen on your seeing him either, was she? We’ve got a witness from a coffee shop in Havisham who told us your aunt dragged you out of there a while ago because you were sitting with Jase Barnes. Everyone was against you, weren’t they?”

The sweat has dried on me now. I’m cold as the grave.

“Best thing he can do is fess up,” DS Landon says. “Because if this goes to trial, your name’ll be dragged into it. No way that can be avoided. Don’t tell me Lady Wakefield’s going to fork out for expensive lawyers just so her granddaughter’s name will be splashed all over the papers. She might even cut the funds off, and then where’d he be? Stuck with a legal-aid lawyer who doesn’t know his arse from his underpants.”

Oh God. She’s right. My grandmother might even do that.

“We won’t be hard on him,” Landon adds. “You’re right. His dad was a drunk, and a nasty one. Knocked his mum about till she left him. Everyone in Wakefield knows Kevin Barnes had a temper. Jase has never been in trouble before, his record is clean. That’ll go a long way for him. But he’s got to tell us the truth, okay?”

Oh no—Jase and his secrets. They’re all going to come out now.

Landon keeps on pushing me. “Who else but Jase would have dumped his dad’s body by the lake? Who else would know where to go, and where to find the key to the gate? It was stupid of him to try to pretend it was an accident, but he’s only a kid. It’s not too late for him to make it all right.”

The trouble is, everything she is saying makes sense. I’ve asked myself those identical questions, and Jase’s has been the only name I could come up with.

“You tell him to come clean, Scarlett.” Landon stares at me hard. “And then you should walk away. Your gran won’t want you mixed up with someone in prison. A girl with your advantages—you can do a lot better for yourself than a boy who’s doing time.”

God, it’s like a broken record! I grit my teeth in anger at all these adults trying to run my life for me.

“Sarge?” A young constable pushes the door open and pokes his head in. “A lawyer’s turned up for Jason Barnes. Shall I take her in?”

“I’m on it,” Landon says, rising to her feet. “Perfect timing. We’re done here.”

By the desk is a woman in a dark trouser suit, a briefcase in her hand. She turns as Landon walks toward her, and says:

“Jas Ramu. I’m here to represent Jason Barnes. I understand you have him in custody?”

“That’s right. I’m DS Landon, the arresting officer,” Landon says, nodding at her. “I’ll take you in to see your client.”

But they’re interrupted by someone sitting in the waiting area, who jumps up on hearing this exchange.

“I’m Jase’s mum!” she says frantically to the solicitor. “What’s going on? They said Jase was arrested, but no one’s told me what’s going on. I’ve been worried out of my mind!”

“Let me talk to my client first, Mrs. Barnes,” Ms. Ramu says briskly. She’s small, with slicked-back hair, thick and black as a crow’s wing, and dark coral lipstick that matches her silk shirt. Her smart appearance is reassuring—she looks as though she could take on the whole jury by herself. “Then I’ll have a better idea of what’s going on, and I can fill you in.”

“But I want to see him,” Dawn wails. “I’m so worried!”

Her thin body seems to crumple in on itself. Hugging herself around her waist, she looks pitifully fragile, the bulky parka that she’s wearing hanging off her bones as if from a wire hanger. Her face is a mass of creases. She looks very small and frail. No wonder I didn’t recognize her before, bundled up in that big jacket, its hood half covering her face.

“We’ll have him out on bail before you know it, Mrs. Barnes,” says the solicitor, patting her hand.

“Bail?” I say quickly, thinking that though my grandmother might be willing to pay for a lawyer for Jase, she’ll be much less keen to have him released from custody so he and I can see each other. “I have a big trust fund. I can put up money for bail if you need it.”

Both the sergeant and the solicitor grin at this, identical sardonic smiles.

“American police shows have a lot to answer for,” DS Landon sighs, and Jas Ramu says more kindly:

“You must be Scarlett Wakefield, right? We don’t do that whole bail bondsman thing in the UK. Though you’re not the first to think so. Bail here just means that the suspect is released before trial, okay? No money involved. It’s very straightforward.”

She nods at both of us and walks down the corridor after DS Landon.

Dawn and I are left standing there, staring after them, both of us yearning to follow to see Jase. She lifts her head to look at me, and again, it’s a visceral shock to see Jase’s golden eyes in her small, dark, lined face.

“You seem like a nice girl,” she says sadly. “You were friendly, and you listened to me. But then I realized who you were. I should have seen it straightaway. Of all the girls he could have picked. Jase could have his choice of anyone. But a Wakefield? As if we haven’t all seen where that could lead.”

I turn away. Thoughts of what DS Landon just said to me are spinning in my brain, keeping most of Dawn’s words from sinking in. In less confusing circumstances, I would produce the pendant her son gave to me and ask her where she got it; right now, I’m too overwhelmed to open that can of worms and heap its contents on top of all the other mess I have to deal with.

Without a word, I walk outside to get some fresh air, and the door bangs behind me. Then it opens again, and Dawn patters out in my wake.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she says. “I’m sorry, I’m all over the place, I don’t know what I’m saying. Oh God, I need a fag.”

I look around to see her patting the pockets of her parka hopelessly.

“You don’t smoke, do you?” she asks.

I shake my head.

“I’ve got some in the van,” she mutters, crossing to the dented old van drawn up wonkily off to the side of the parking lot, taking up two spaces. “I know I shouldn’t smoke, okay? Jase is always going on at me. But it calms my nerves. I try to stop, but it never lasts.”

She’s twice my age, and here she is acting as if I’m the adult and she’s the child. It’s definitely weird. I find myself walking by her side, almost as if I’m protecting her, but from what I have no idea.

Maybe from herself.

Dawn hasn’t even locked the van, but I can’t say I blame her. Stealing a vehicle from outside a police station would be idiotic, but anyone who chose this scratched, beaten-up old banger would be clinically insane. When the door swings open, a bit of pipe falls out at our feet, and as I jump to avoid it Dawn says:

“Things just keep dropping off the bottom, it’s that old. I pick them up and save them, just in case they’re important. But it’s still running, so it can’t be that bad, can it? Makes a terrible racket, but they all do that after a while, don’t they?”

I bend down and pick up the pipe, not knowing what to say. But as I slide it back along the floor of the cab, where it joins the other rust-stained debris knocking around in there, an awful thought strikes me.

Mr. Barnes was hit across the leg with something just like this pipe.

I back slowly away from the van, and as I do, I notice for the first time that, under the flaking navy paint, the van isn’t chipped down to the metal as I thought it was before. There are layers of old paint underneath. And the bottom layer looks very pale. I reach out and rub at one of the peeling patches, picking off another bit of the dark blue, uncovering what’s underneath.

White. So dirty it’s almost colorless. But it’s definitely white paint.

My parents’ deaths and Mr. Barnes’s recent demise flood together in a series of terrifying connections.

Did Dawn drive the van that killed my parents? Is that how she got my mother’s necklace? And did she kill her husband, too?

Is that why Jase won’t tell the police what really happened last night, why he won’t even tell me all his secrets? Is he covering up for his mother?

Frantically, I process my ideas. I can just about see skinny, frail Dawn physically able to hit a drunk Mr. Barnes across the legs with a pipe; if she got up a good swing, the weight of the iron would do enough damage to knock him over. But there’s absolutely no way that Dawn’s birdlike frame is strong enough to have picked up burly, overweight Mr. Barnes, put him in a wheelbarrow, and dumped him by the lake.

That must have been Jase. I face the fact squarely. DS Landon’s right, there’s no way around it. Jase must have been the one who dumped his father’s body.

And since I refuse to believe that Jase had anything to do with his father’s death, he must be protecting someone. It would make total sense if that person were his mother.

But what would Dawn have been doing at the cottage late at night? I remember Mr. Barnes, drunk, abusive, flailing around, as I watched the scene through the window. Dawn would remember all too well what her husband was like when he was drinking. She’d be very unlikely to go near him in the evenings, when he’d be at his worst. It’s possible that she had to see him for some reason that wouldn’t wait, and took a pipe from her van to protect herself … but that sounds so dramatic, like something from an action movie. It doesn’t seem to fit with Dawn. She’s not exactly a kick-ass heroine out for justice.