Soul Fire (20 page)

‘We’re here for the weekend.’

‘We?’ He pretends to look around him. ‘You and your invisible mates, right?’

‘They’re sightseeing. Shopping. I wasn’t in the mood.’

‘A girl who isn’t always in the mood for shopping? Wow! If only I was interested in girls, we’d be perfect for each other.’

So he
is
gay. ‘I’m Alice.’

He holds out his hand. ‘Gabriel. Like the angel. But everyone calls me Gabe.’ A bell rings. ‘That’ll be your brownie.’

By the time he brings it to me, butter-coloured ice cream is already melting into a pool around the warm cake.

‘Enjoy,’ says Gabe, putting my desert down in front of me. He goes off to clear a table, while I stare at the bowl. It smells amazing, but my appetite’s gone.

I know I must say something before the moment is gone, but what? Gabe hands the bill to a Spanish mother and daughter who are the only other customers in the café. He’s all smiles
until they leave but then he scowls.

‘You know what I said to you about the one bad thing in Barcelona? There’s another one. The locals never bloody tip.’ He stops. ‘You OK? Don’t tell me you
don’t like the brownie. Chef will commit
hara-kiri
with his truffle fork.’

‘It’s not that. Gabe . . . could I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’ He sits back down again. ‘Though if you were expecting a
hash
brownie, I think you’re a bit young.’

He might think I’m already on drugs when he hears what I’ve got to say. ‘Listen, this might sound weird, but will you promise to hear me out?’

‘Sure. Weird is good. I like weird. Especially on a quiet afternoon when I’ve got bugger all else to do.’ He waves at the empty café.

‘Did you know a guy called Javier?’

His eyes narrow. The smile’s gone.

‘Maybe.’ He stares at me, giving absolutely nothing else away.

‘The thing is, I know . . . I knew him too. Not well, but well enough.’

‘You said this was your first time in Barcelona.’

‘It is.’ I keep eye contact with him, though his face has hardened.

‘J never left Spain in his life. What the hell
is
this? Who
are
you?’

‘My name is Alice Forster. I live in London. I’m seventeen, and I’m doing A Levels in—’

‘Don’t dick me around. I don’t want your school report. I want to know what you’re playing at. Bringing up this crap. Did you read about J somewhere? Is
that
what
it is?’

I gulp, angry with myself for not planning this better. But then I could have had till Christmas and I still wouldn’t have been able to come up with something rational. He’s either
going to believe me, or he’s not.

‘Do you . . . Do you believe in the afterlife, Gabe? I mean, in people having another existence after they’re dead—’

‘I know what the bloody afterlife is.’

‘But do you think it’s real?’

‘Shit. I’ve heard it all now. Are you some trainee medium? Because if you’re offering me a séance, I’m not interested.’

I’ve lost him. ‘You promised you’d hear me out.’

‘That was before I realised you were a flake,
Alice –
if that’s even your real name. You’d better leave now, before I get really pissed off.’

‘My big sister was murdered,’ I say, hating myself for using her to win sympathy, but knowing it’s the only way I might stop him interrupting me. ‘She was Javier’s
age.’ I pause, so it sinks in.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘But I don’t see what it’s got to do with me.’

‘I have this . . . knowledge. I can’t explain why. Anyway, it’s made me certain that there is an afterlife, at least for those people who die before they should. People like my
sister, and Javier.’

‘But Javier jumped off a bloody roof! How does that constitute dying before he should, when he
chos
e to take the easy way out? To leave the poor suckers who loved him behind . .
.’ He stops.

I stare at him. ‘Jumped?’

‘Look, this is not crap I want to relive. I almost left the city because of it.’

‘What makes you think he jumped?’

He holds his hands up to his ears. ‘Enough. I don’t want to talk about this ever again.’

I see the pain in his face, and it’s like looking in a mirror. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . He told me . . .’ I tail off, knowing whatever I say, it
won’t be enough to heal the pain Gabe’s suffering.

‘He?’

I pull my purse out of my bag, put five euros down on the counter. Gabe puts his hand over mine.

‘You’re saying you really believe you’ve
talked
to him?’

I try to break free but his grip is too strong. ‘I know it sounds mad, Gabe. But you said it yourself, how else would I know about him? And I don’t believe he’d have jumped. He
wouldn’t have left his sisters, or his mum. Or you.’

Gabe lets go of my hand. When I look up, his face is even more distorted. ‘J
did
leave me.’

‘No. I think you’re wrong. I’m going, I promise. But answer me one question: did Javier seem like a person who’d leave without saying goodbye?’

For a moment, I think I’ve convinced him, or at least bought myself more time.

But then he shakes his head and the haunted look is back on his face. ‘Just go.’

I do as he says. I’ve screwed up. Let Javier down. Plus I have no right to inflict pain on someone I know has already had more than his share. I leave the café, making sure the door
doesn’t slam behind me. As if it matters . . .

Heading back to the hostel, I look up at the tops of the buildings. The thought of Javier falling so far makes me dizzy.

Falling? Or jumping?

How can I be so sure he didn’t jump? He told me himself that his afterlife is a hell of a lot better than his real life ever was.

I walk faster, hoping Cara might find some way of cheering me up when I get back to the hostel. But the atmosphere in our room is oppressive. Sahara isn’t talking to Ade, Cara isn’t
talking to Sahara, and I don’t think I want to talk to any of them; their squabbles seem pathetic after what Gabe has suffered.

The space is so tiny that we end up sitting on our bunks. Sahara is snoring, Ade is playing a game on his phone, Cara’s doing her make-up, and I’m still trying to make sense of what
happened at the café. I can hear the people in the next room having a party. Outside, firecrackers explode every few seconds in random, bad-tempered bursts.

Zoe told us that no one in Barcelona goes out before nine at the earliest, so we’re on our own till then. But Lewis has texted to say he’s found a cool place to meet up.

‘Is it safe to walk to this bar?’ Sahara says, breaking the silence.

Cara grunts. ‘Who do you think is going to come after us, Sahara? Banshees or werewolves?’

She’s being sarcastic, but there’s something about the joke that breaks the tension in the room.

Ade puts his arm around Sahara. ‘I’ll protect you, gorgeous. Banshees, vampires, zombies. Bring it on, forces of evil! We’re British. We shall fight them on the
beaches.’

Even Sahara can’t help smiling at that. ‘Maybe we should eat lots of garlic tonight. It fends off muggers
and
supernatural beings.’

We follow Lewis’s super-detailed instructions, and find him in a place with stained glass windows, ancient leather sofas and a little terrace outside.

‘Mojito for me,’ Cara says, holding a five euro note out to Ade so he can buy it for her.

‘Don’t get
too
drunk,’ I whisper. ‘Sahara’s already on the warpath.’

But Cara just laughs, enjoying the attention she’s getting in her barely there skirt. Sahara sits down in a dark corner of the bar and beckons me over. As I approach her, the sounds of
laughter in the bar seem to fade away.

‘How
are
you coping, Alice?’

Where would I begin?
‘It’s strange, being here.’

Sahara nods. ‘She should be here with us, shouldn’t she? We were so close. It feels wrong to be enjoying myself when she should be here.’

‘I understand.’ But even though I know what she means, I can’t forget what Meggie said about how they hadn’t been speaking for a while before she died, and how clingy
Sahara was.
Why
weren’t they speaking? Could an argument have crossed over from frustration to violence?

‘Sometimes, you know, I feel as though she is here. That probably sounds crazy, doesn’t it, Alice?’

‘No crazier than anything else that’s happened.’

When Sahara says nothing, I look up at her and realise she’s trying really hard not to cry. I reach out to touch her hand, feeling like a two-faced cow. But that’s how mad my life is
at the moment: one minute I am convinced she’s a killer, the next I want to tell her everything’s going to be OK.

‘Sahara, it’ll get easier.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’ I say it to make her feel better, not because I believe it. If I do somehow resolve Meggie’s death, things could get an awful lot harder.

She smiles. ‘I’ll always be Meggie’s friend. And now yours.’

I smile back. But why do Sahara’s words sound more like a threat than a promise?

Zoe doesn’t show till almost ten, and doesn’t explain why. She moans that the bar is full of
gringos
, even though I can’t hear any other English
voices. When I get closer to her, at the bar, I smell alcohol on her breath.

‘Have you been somewhere else first?’

She gives me an odd look. ‘No. Just my flat.’ And then she orders an absinthe. ‘You should try one, Alice. It’s special. It makes reality better. You and I could both do
with that, couldn’t we?’

‘I’ll stick to Diet Coke, thanks.’

The barman hands her a small glass with a yellow-green shot at the bottom.

‘Not one for taking advice, are you?’ Zoe says.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You didn’t listen to me about Meggie, either. About the dangers of poking your nose in.’

Is she warning me off because she knows who the killer is and she’s worried about me – or because she has blood on her own hands?

‘Zoe,
please
would you tell me what you know? I only want the truth.’

‘Whose truth do you mean?’

‘Is everything OK, Alice?’ Lewis has appeared behind us.

‘Yeah. Long queue, that’s all.’

He nods. ‘We’ve found a table on the terrace, where it’s cooler.’

Zoe pushes past Lewis without looking at him. The table is one of half a dozen outside on the square, where more local kids are practising their firecracker throwing. The dogs are so used to it
that they don’t even flinch when the bangers explode.

‘So you were telling us about the conference?’ Ade says to Lewis as we sit down.

‘Yeah, yeah. Like I said, the lines are blurring. Cowboys and Indians, goodies and baddies. That’s a bit last century. Now you don’t know who the enemy is.’

Ade is nodding. ‘So some of the delegates might be hackers?’

‘Definitely. Or spies. Both at the same time, in some cases. There’s more intrigue at the W Hotel tonight than in your average Bond movie.’

I’ve never heard Lewis talk quite like this before: he’s out to impress his audience. And maybe one person in particular. Though Zoe is still not looking at him.

‘But where do you stand
morally
?’ Sahara asks.

Lewis smiles. ‘They say the web is a morality-free zone. That’s what I mean about the goodies and baddies. There’s absolutely no black-and-white online. I definitely
don’t support the overthrow of democratic governments. Or cyber-terrorism. But look at something like Wikileaks. I’m a fan of openness.’

‘Even though openness might lead to people getting killed? Some of the leaks revealed state secrets,’ Zoe says. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time she’s addressed
him directly.

He smiles at her. ‘Information is neutral. It’s what you do with it that counts. And it’s not just the high profile ops that make a difference. One person acting alone can
change stuff. There’s a coder I really admire at the moment who is keeping everyone guessing about a miscarriage of justice case. It’s a pretty obscure European thing . . .’ he
looks at me, ‘but this coder keeps drip-feeding information. She could really make a difference.’

‘She?’ Zoe’s voice sounds strangled.

I try to catch Lewis’s eye but he looks past me. Is this the right way to do it?

He laughs. ‘Oh, there are plenty of geeky girls out there now – though it’s only my hunch in this case, based on the many levels of the site. It’s intricate, like . . .
embroidery.’

‘You’re a sexist, Lewis,’ Cara says, teasing him.

Lewis grins back. ‘Yeah, that’s me. But it’s definitely the site of a multi-tasker, and you know how crap we men are at that. Plus there’s the username, too.’

Zoe takes a swig of her absinthe. ‘What is it?’

Lewis looks at each of us in turn, and ends up staring at Zoe again. ‘It’s funny. I didn’t know what it meant, at first. Then I Googled it. Perhaps she’s French. Her
name’s
la Fée Verte
. It means the Green Fairy.’

I watch Zoe’s face. Is that a tiny muscle twitching under her eye? I check the others: Sahara looks intrigued, Cara bored, Ade amused.

‘Well, that’s
got
to be a girl. Or a gay man who worries about the environment,’ Ade says, pleased with his joke.

‘Actually,’ says Zoe, draining her glass, ‘it’s the old French nickname for absinthe. Because it’s famous for being hallucinogenic, for making people see things
that aren’t there at all.
’

She’s staring back at Lewis. Is she playing along – or warning him off? Zoe is so unpredictable that I’m scared he’s screwed everything up, like I did with Gabe.

I wait to see who blinks first.

A flash of light blinds me momentarily, followed by a bang. A firecracker has exploded right next to our table, and we hear laughter as a small girl in a flowery dress runs back to her
friends.

Sahara shrieks, then laughs when she realises what it was.

‘So where are we going to go after this?’ Cara is asking. ‘Have you got a “hottest-clubs-for-hot-Spanish-guys” app on your phone, Lewis?’

By the time I look back at Lewis and Zoe, they’re no longer trying to outstare each other. But my instinct tells me that something has started, here, tonight – and I can’t tell
yet whether it’ll help me find what I’m searching for, or close the door for good.