Roadkill (LiveWire) (14 page)

Garry and Mum were out on a date, which kind of doesn’t bother me like it usually does. The usual lack of information on the dare, just that it involves a lot of running, and we meet in a random farm field about a mile from here.

I’m still awake, puzzling over Leo, swooning over Matt, and hoping Melissa doesn’t think I’m a total loony for leaving the party so early, as Mum and Garry get home, whispering softly, bathroom door creaking, light clicking off. Instead of thinking yuck, I kind of feel comforted by their presence (although obviously still yuck if they’re doing what I think they’re doing.)

Of course I should have known. Did you play chicken when you were a kid? Where you dare someone to do something, and if you don’t you’re a (doh!) chicken. Well this is different, and Rose is suddenly so close again I can almost smell her perfume, feel her breath on my neck, as I sit shaking in the inevitable circle of adrenalin seeking teens.

The coordinator this time is a thickset boy in a jeans and an adidas sweat top. Code name Tenstar. How very original. He has an American accent and I’m reminded of Kelly. Has she set me up? Perhaps she knows Rose-Farlan is dead and I’m just an imposter….a shiver of fear dances up my spine.

The night is thick and fuggy, promising a storm.

“Guys, welcome to ‘chicken’. Weather’s going to close in so we have to get this done quick. The road’s over there.”

Um…the road? It’s not a motorway, just a country lane, and Mr Tenstar explains we have to run across the road, get over the wire fence, run across the railway line, which snakes its way alongside the tarmac, and get back. Oh yeah, avoiding the random car, driven by another LiveWire indoctrinate.

“I can’t do it, I can’t do this….” My muttering attracts the attention of the girl nearest to me.

“Come on! I thought it was going to be way harder.” Loser say her hard blue eyes. She jogs on in the darkness.

For a moment, I know I am dreaming. It’s Leo’s girl. Well, the girl he was snogging the other night.

“Hey wait
,” I catch her up, and she turns scornfully.

“If you need a babysitter don’t hold my hand,” she’s a right bitch, could even give Anita a run for her money.

“Do you know Leo Betts?” I am ignoring the revving of a car, which cuts through the heavy cloud, like a knife through flesh.

“What?”

I repeat my question and she shakes her head, red hair flying, eyeing me curiously, “No. “Why?”

“Sorry, I just thought I saw you the other night. Down South street, opposite the Chinese? Garden apartments?”

“I…Yeah I was. How do you know?”

“You were snogging my best friend, Leo Betts,” I inform her. The headlights fall directly on her face and I am sure, she is highlighted crystal clear, sharp red fringe, pouty lips, the mole on her right cheek.

She laughs, “What are you on? I was with my boyfriend, Alex. He lives down that way.”

“Apartment Four,” I tell her quickly, and watch with some satisfaction as she pales.

“Keep away from me weirdo. I don’t know what you’re going on about. Go home if you’re scared.” She disappears in the crowd, but I don’t follow.

But I do watch as she lines up for her run, hear her name called “Lia.” Lia and Leo.

“ Farlan.”

As she stumbles back, gasping for breath, I line up for my run, distracted, and wondering what the hell I’m doing. A glass of vodka is shoved into my trembling hand and I chuck it in into the bushes, hear the horn, and stumble across the road. The car headlights blind me and I hear a shout, others join in telling me to run, get a move on. I realise I’m standing in the middle of the road as a couple of tons of car rams towards me. Self preservation sends me trundling towards the wire fence, my injured leg complaining at this further evidence of madness.

The train track is deserted when I first cross it but as I grab the stupid bottle and blunder back, I hear a distant clang of gates and a warning bell. The far off rumble of the late London train becomes a thunder of wheels on metal, and for a split second I’m almost tempted to stand there and see what happens. Will I see Rose on the other side? But the thought is gone in a flash, and I make it across the line, half leaping half falling over the fence, smashing the bottle on the tarmac as I put out both hands to save myself.

The car screeches past as I roll to safety. Exclamations, and another glass of vodka is forced into my hand. I let their questions drift past me, lifting my face as the rain starts, torrential and cleansing. Because I know. I know this was what Rose was doing when she died. It wasn’t an accident, and she didn’t mean to kill herself. She was doing what I have done tonight, and somehow it went wrong.

Now all I have to do is prove it. Oh yeah, and find out why my best friend seems to be leading a double life. Somehow I make it home.

*

“Visitor Caz!”

Ugh. I feel exhausted and my eyes are all gritty, my leg throbbing. The doctor is going to be thrilled it’s healing so well. Not. Staggering down the stairs in an oversize pink t-shirt and striped PJ bottoms I must look as rough as I feel. I’m half expecting to see Leo, or even Melissa.

“Caroline! Are you okay? Your mum was just saying you haven’t been sleeping well.”

Oh she was, was she? I curse my mum’s witch tendencies. Then I slump at the kitchen table yawning and curse the fact that Smiley Sue, my erstwhile counsellor, was at university with Mum. They only met up when I started this counselling crap, but now, it feels like we have a Vulture in the family.

“Hi Sue. I did leave a message saying I couldn’t make today,” I can’t keep the edge out of my voice.

“Sue kindly dropped by on her way to a clinic. Your hospital appointment isn’t until twelve Caroline.” Mum is always slightly uncomfortable around her dynamic friend, who looks, quite frankly, like a man in drag. Typically she makes her excuses and heads off upstairs. Wimp.

Garry is watching cricket in the living room, slurping noisily from a mug of soup. It really annoys me when he does that. Instructing myself not to get angry I wrap my hands around a steaming mug of coffee, keeping my eyes down on the swirling brown liquid. So far I’ve successfully resisted Sue’s many attempts to get me to ‘open up’. I’m proud of never shedding so much as a tear in her counselling sessions. It’s become a battle of wills. The other Vultures have, in general flown off. We still get the occasional odd saddo journalist hanging around the house, asking how we’re coping.

On balance I can suddenly see two more positive things about moving to Australia, and I smile sweetly across the table. Sue has a big brawny frame, big roman nose, bad teeth (big like a horse) and regimented iron grey curls, and likes to wear shapeless unisex suits. She won’t give up bugging me because a) she wants to win and see me crack, and b) I think the woman really believes she’s helping.

“Your mum says you’ll be clearing out Rose’s room soon. How do you feel about that?”

Depends whether I prove a LiveWire dare was responsible for her death I guess. And which murderer drove the car in her chicken game. There is still no doubt in my mind, after last night……Her voice is strident, and drags me back.

“Did you manage to keep a diary of your dreams?”

Do I want to remember any of those appalling nightmares?

“You know what Sue, it’s really kind of you to come over, but I don’t need the last session. Really. I’m working things out for myself, and I’m fine.” What I really want to say is ‘go away!’ and if she wasn’t a very distant friend of Mum’s I would scream it. Just like I did before, when all the others asked me. When they didn’t stop asking, pestering, that was when I found myself in the kitchen with a knife. Because I thought maybe if I was hurt on the outside, the pain on the inside would go away. It didn’t work.

Chapter Sixteen

“I AM FINE,” I can feel my heart thumping, the effort required to maintain my bored, world weary persona is taking all my mental strength.

“Are you really, Caroline? Because I know we’ve been over and over the same ground but if you keep everything inside, one day it will come back and bite you. It’s not healthy,” she admonishes, like a stern headmistress. As usual her notebook is blank, but she chews a black biro furiously.

I stretch, and yawn rudely, “Sorry to have wasted your time. Can I get you another coffee?”

She tuts, packing up a giant black rucksack, “I know when I’m not wanted. Bye Fiona! Caroline. I’ll see myself out.”

Phew. Ignoring the chuntering from the living room I haul my aching bones back up the stairs and hit the computer. I’m shaking, and crossly rake all ten fingernails through my hair, scratching my scalp in an attempt to clear my head. Focus Caz. Two hours later and I nearly miss my hospital appointment, as I’m trawling Google and LiveWire. Nothing. Bloody nothing. All the archived stuff on LiveWire shows dares by date, region, pictures, who won….But according to this there was never a chicken dare in the south east the night Rose died. My theory is down the drain and I am deeply pissed off. I was so sure I was right, and now the pain of Rose’s absence is reappearing; a dull throbbing deep in my heart.

Google reports a zillion different stories relating to the site, and interestingly, at last throws up the stuff Frankie must have been talking about. She never sent the link, even though I messaged her on the forum, so I guess she couldn’t find it.

There is a very sensationalised bit in an American regional paper, headlining about three girls being killed in the last four years, directly relating them to the site’s mysterious founder Alexander Havers…oh my god…who has been interviewed by local police at his home in West Virginia
. B
ut he gets his mail sent to Broadridge Heath, UK? Of course it doesn’t say this so I am forced to sit back, chewing a nail. I suppose it’s a common enough name. Maybe it’s like having the same name as a celeb or something. But…but..but!

My phone beeps:

‘hey babe fancy a board lesson?’

I can’t help smiling, but there is something I need to do first.

‘ok see u @ 3?’

*

The police station smells of sweat and disinfectant, making me feel vaguely sick.

Her eyebrows are pencilled thick and black today, and she is bustling, barking orders to her minions, but at least she’s agreed to
see
me. “Caroline, I understand your concern, but we did fully investigate your sister’s death. I am terribly sorry for your loss, but there is no connection to LiveWire.”

Sh
e’s the kind of person
who
normally
scares me into silence, but today I don’t care. I’ve printed off the articles and told her everything, well not quite everything, because I can’t bring myself to mention Leo. How can he possibly be involved…

“But you did know about these girls who died in the U.S, and Australia?”

“Yes, it did come up in the enquiry, and we did check out LiveWire but those circumstances were completely different. Please believe me Caroline, if I had been able to find out who killed her I would. It seems to have been, as was concluded in the inquest, that she was for some reason crossing the road after a night out, and was hit by a driver who failed to report the accident.” She looks closely at me.

“But you didn’t find out who did it! Don’t you think maybe you could just check out Alexander Havers again?”

She closes her file and stands, “I am sorry Caroline, but unless we have any new information we really can’t reopen a case.”

“Even an unsolved one?” I shoot back.

Her eyebrows lower, and the trace of a smile hovers, “Do you any new information?”

For a second we stare at each other. “No, no I don’t.”

I told Matt last week I’d always fancied having a go at boarding, and on a Friday the park’s normally fairly quiet.

In fact the whole Estate seems abnormally quiet. A lot of kids have headed off to travel, uni, work, and the younger ones are back at school and college. Everyone’s moving on.

“Will you miss me when I go then?” Matt gives me his trademark cheeky grin, and I hit him hard on the shoulder.

“No. Why would I?” I smile innocently. Half an hour on the ramps (quite a feat for someone who can’t even stay upright on a board on the flat) and I’m out of breath, both elbows bleeding, and I’m totally hooked. It’s just a shame my perfect boyfriend is heading off with the other pros on tour next week. Mexico, Canada, Thailand….not that I’m jealous or anything.

“Weeeell… I was thinking maybe you could come out and visit sometime, wherever we are. After you’ve decided about art college I mean.”

My heart does a little flip, imagining us chilling out at a Mexican beach bar, then reality chips in with a film reel of Anita style groupies following the team in their teeny titchy skirts, and hard little faces. I turn away.

“Caz?”

“Yeah that’d be great. I was just thinking I need to sort my life out first.”

“Is it still really bad without Rose?”