Soul Storm (6 page)

‘People think they have actually seen a . . . a ghost, though?’

The box looks heavy and I think she’s losing patience with me. ‘Only one girl and she’s the dead girl’s best mate. Poor thing. She shouldn’t have stayed on. Imagine
that! So sad to have all those memories. Me, I’d have left.’

‘What floor’s the friend on?’

‘First. If you see her, don’t mention it, eh? Nice girl, but I’m not sure she ever got over it.’ She sighs. ‘The place is fine, right? I’ve never heard or
seen anything creepy. What happened was sad but, you know, people move on.’

She heads past me towards the front entrance, and I try to smile. I can’t imagine ever being ready to move on.

I skip the lift and walk up the stairwell to the first floor.

Even though I’ve prepared myself, the sight of the landing makes me dizzy. The layout’s identical to the third floor, where my sister died: there are four security doors with glass
panels, leading to the bedrooms which share a kitchen. Through one door, a couple of girls are leaning against the wall, chatting over mugs of tea.

That could have been Meggie and me. I used to love visiting. Yet, to those girls, her death is ancient history.

But there is one person here who remembers. I must focus on
her.

Each security door has a buzzer, with a list of names stuck next to it. I check the lists in turn. I’ve never been inside Sahara’s new room; she was too keen to show me inside my
sister’s old room the last time.

I shiver at the memory.

At the third door, I see her surname:
Du Lacy.

I look around me. No security cameras, even now. CCTV might have helped to bring Meggie’s killer to justice.

Could Sahara get away with killing me too?

Maybe I have the question the wrong way round: why would she
stop
now? The driving kept me distracted on the way here, but now . . .

There’s a tightrope I have to walk between seeking the truth and accusing Sahara directly. I daren’t fall off.

I push the buzzer, holding my breath.

A shape appears through the glass. I breathe again; it’s too petite to be Sahara.

A girl comes to the door, opens it. ‘Who are you after?’

‘Sahara?’

She opens the door. ‘Oh. OK. I think she’s packing up.’ And she points to her right.

I step through the door, and the girl disappears into the kitchen. Not just a girl, I realise. A potential
witness.

For a moment, it makes me feel safer. She’ll remember me, won’t she? And so will that girl I met downstairs. Then again, Zoe wasn’t involved until she saw my sister’s
body. It’s not a good thing, to be a witness.

I hesitate outside the door. Weird. I think I hear someone else’s voice. If Ade has decided to help Sahara pack instead of visiting his parents, then I’m wasting my time. He’ll
protect her.

I knock, then step slightly to the side so she can’t see me through the spyhole.

‘I’m busy,’ Sahara’s voice is thin, unwelcoming.

She thinks I’m one of her flatmates. I don’t speak; I want her to be surprised, perhaps shocked into telling the truth. I knock again. Nothing. Then I bang with my fist against the
wood. It hurts.

‘All right, all right.’

The door opens so fast it makes me jump. Her face is cross, the lines between her brows deep with irritation. But her eyes look . . . terrified.

She looks to her right, and then sees me. Her expression softens.

‘Alice?’

I say nothing.

‘What are you doing here?’ She’s smiling now. ‘Have you come to help?’

‘Can we go inside?’

‘It’s a god-awful mess. Why don’t we go for coffee or—’ She stops abruptly. It’s taken her this long to look properly at me, to realise this isn’t a
social visit. ‘Right. OK. Well, you’d better . . .’ and she waves me inside.

I wait to feel the darkness as I step into the room. But there’s nothing. No wave of evil, no inhuman coldness. It’s not even that messy, just piled high with boxes.

What hits me is the similarity to my sister’s room. Another thing I should have been prepared for. Same tiny pod bathroom on the left, same fake-wood bookshelves and desk, same
double-glazed windows that won’t open enough to let out the muggy July air. Even the curtains are identical: blackout-lined, navy blue.

It was in a room like this I had my first taste of being a grown-up, sleeping off my first hangover after a night clubbing with my sister. In the morning, we ate toast with Marmite till midday.
We only stopped because we finished the jar.

And it was in a room like this that she was murdered.

Sahara closes the door behind me and I turn round to look at her. That long, bony face of hers is oddly blank and, as I prepare to ask my first question, I feel like I’m about to kick
someone when they’re already down. Why do I even care?

‘You’ve been following me, haven’t you, Sahara?’

She giggles. ‘Me?’

‘It’s not funny. I don’t know why you’ve been doing it, but it freaks me out.’

She doesn’t move. ‘God. You’re serious, aren’t you?’

I nod. It’s one of the things I’ve learned from my ‘investigations’. Give away as little as possible. The less you say, the more
they
reveal.

‘Why on earth would someone follow you, Alice? Especially me?’

‘There’s only one person who knows the answer to that. And that’s what I came here to ask you.’

She looks more puzzled than angry. ‘Sorry, sorry, but this is totally surreal. You’ve come all the way here to . . . accuse me of following you? Why would I? I see you often enough
as it is. We’re friends, aren’t we?’

‘Like you were friends with Meggie?’ It’s the wrong thing to say. Too hostile. But it’s too late.

‘What is this, Alice? An
ambush
?’

I stare at the grey carpet. I can hardly see it for stacks of files, assignments, textbooks. ‘I know someone’s watching me. And who else would it be?’

‘Sit down, Alice.’ Her voice is soothing. She thinks I’ve lost it – which could give me the advantage. So I
do
sit down on the end of the bed. She squeezes next
to me, her thigh touching mine. I feel sweat breaking out on my forehead.

‘Now, first of all, what makes you think someone is following you?’ Sahara is so close I can see a tiny nerve pulsing under her eye.

‘It’s instinct,’ I say. ‘I’m feeling it. I’m not making it up.’

‘No, no, of course you’re not. But you haven’t actually
seen
anyone?’

I shake my head. ‘Except for you, outside school.’

She tuts. ‘If you must know, I was in the area to refresh the flowers on your sister’s grave.’

Flowers?
I won’t mention those. ‘Right.’

‘Look, I’m not saying you’re making it up, but why would someone follow you?’

I shrug.

‘OK. Why do you think it’s me?’

I’d planned for this bit. ‘Because . . . because I know your behaviour used to worry Meggie, sometimes.’

Sahara reels back. ‘
Worry
her?’

‘She told me you could be overbearing.’

And freaky and needy and a whole host of other things.

‘Rubbish. We were best friends.
Soul
mates.’

Except my sister never had
best
friends. Meggie was always at the centre of the circle, with endless girl chums and hopeful boys and hangers-on. But she never let anyone get close.
There was no Cara for her to confide in, no Lewis to take the piss out of her. Was my sister never lonely?

If she was, she hid it well. And she’d make you feel like you were the centre of her universe while she was with you. I think that’s why Meggie was such a hit on the reality show:
every viewer believed she was singing to them alone.

‘I know you argued before she died,’ I tell Sahara.

‘Not that again, Alice. I told you before. It was nothing.’

I look straight at her. ‘I don’t believe you.’

She can’t hold my gaze. She looks at her hands, which are clenched in tight fists.

‘I want you to tell me what you argued about, Sahara. To convince me that it’s not you that’s following – no,
stalking
– me.’

‘Don’t say that!’ she spits the words at me. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

‘Knew what?’

‘Come on,’ she says, her voice icy. ‘You wouldn’t even suspect me if she hadn’t told you, but here you are, playing dumb . . .’

‘Told me what?’

‘That she accused me of exactly the same bloody thing right before she died.’

‘Accused you of what?’

‘Of stalking her, of course. Even though it’s the last thing I’d ever do.’

The word echoes in my head.

‘My sister thought you were
stalking
her?’

Sahara nods. ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know that. How else would you have got this crazy idea in your head?’

My carefully planned questions seem irrelevant now.
Meggie had a stalker.

‘Believe me, Sahara. I
didn’t
know. I knew you’d had a row.’
Because Meggie told me so on the Beach.
‘But not
why
; that’s the
reason I was desperate to ask you.’

‘Yeah, right. You must think I’m stupid.’

Anything but stupid.
I want to leave; there’s something chilling about the way she’s looking at me. But I have to keep pushing. ‘OK, I can see why you think I might
have known, but there’s another explanation, isn’t there? Maybe I
am
being stalked – by the same person who stalked my sister.’

It’s better to pretend we’re in this together, that I need her help.

‘I suppose that’s me, is it?’ Her eyes are locked on mine now.

‘No, I—’

‘And that means you think I killed her, too?’ she whispers.

‘I’m not saying that,’ I choose my words carefully, ‘but I need to know more about what Meggie told you she’d seen or heard or—’

‘Your sister had a vivid imagination, Alice, that’s all. She felt she was being watched, or followed. I told her it was probably just fans recognising her. It only started after the
show was aired. She got drinks bought for her, was stopped on the street for autographs. Fans used to send her presents: make-up, accessories. She loved the attention.’

‘Except it doesn’t sound like she loved this kind of attention.’

She shrugs. ‘There was no proof it was even happening. The week before she died, I told her she should go to the police if she was that worried, and that’s when she came out and
accused
me.
I said the same as I just said to you, that there was no reason for me to stalk my best friend, and then she—’ Sahara stops mid-sentence.

‘She what?’

Her face twists at the memory, as though it’s causing her physical pain. ‘She
laughed
at me. We . . . we were sitting on her bed, as close to each other as you and I are
now. I felt her breath on my face as she laughed. She told me I was kidding myself. That we had nothing in common, that we’d never see each other again once the first year was done, that I
got on her nerves, that . . .’ Sahara gulps.

Even though I don’t want to believe my sister could be so cruel, it sounds too familiar. Just because no one talks about Meggie’s tantrums any more, that doesn’t mean they
didn’t happen. I can imagine her turning on Sahara like this, knowing how much it would hurt her ‘friend’ but not really caring at the time.

Afterwards she’d have regretted it. She always apologised later if she’d hurt someone.

But there was no later for Meggie that last time. Within days, she was dead.

‘I couldn’t listen to her any more, Alice,’ Sahara continued. ‘It was awful. I . . . I think now that she didn’t mean it. She was feeling stressed and she only took
it out on me precisely
because
we were so close that she knew I’d forgive her.’

‘You made it up with her?’

‘No. It’s my biggest regret. She tried but, at the time, I felt so sore.
Humiliated.
We still went out – me and Adrian, her and Tim – but I avoided being alone
with her. I would have got over it in time, but time’s what she didn’t have.’

It sounds so plausible that I want to believe her. Part of me even feels sorry for Sahara. Yet she’s had over a year to come up with a decent explanation. She’s probably convinced
herself it’s all true. That’s what psychopaths do.

‘Is it possible that she
was
being stalked, Sahara?’

‘Well, obviously she was.’

‘What?’

‘By someone she loved. By Tim.’

I think it through. ‘Why, though? He was dating her.’

‘Because he was possessive and hated the idea of sharing her with millions of viewers. Because he wanted her to himself.’

I discounted Tim long ago, but the way the killer left the body always suggested something done calmly, not in anger. Almost with love. And Tim could easily have been the one who took those
horrible close-up photos – not just of her, but of me too. He sent them to Zoe. Was it all a double bluff?

‘Did you tell the police? About the stalking stuff?’

Sahara nods. ‘Yeah. And my suspicions about Tim. He was an intense guy, wasn’t he? Quiet. There was so much he didn’t say, but it didn’t mean he didn’t
feel
it.’

Maybe Sahara saw her chance to pin the murder on him. The motives she’s describing could equally apply to her.

‘It’s why I stayed in touch with you after Meggie died, Alice. I wanted to protect you, in case Tim came after you too. Then, by the time he killed himself, I was so fond of you,
well, I didn’t want to lose touch once the danger had passed.’

‘And you really think the danger
has
passed? Despite what happened to Zoe?’

She frowns. ‘Alice, have you thought about talking to someone?’

‘Someone?’

‘A . . . specialist.’

She’s trying to convince me I’m going crazy. I’m about to defend myself, to turn the accusation back on her, but then I realise that playing along might be the best thing to
do. If I pretend I’ve accepted I need psychological help, she might disregard my visit and relax again.