The Blissfully Dead (4 page)

Chapter 5
Day 2 – Jess and Chloe

O
h my God, that was just so amazing, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that incredible? Did you see the way Shawn winked at me? I’m on such a high right now. He winked right at me, it was definitely me, wasn’t it, do you think he recognised me from my profile picture?’

‘Oh shut up, how thick are you, Jess? He’s got fucking fifteen million Twitter followers; do you really think he’d recognise
you
from the stage forty feet away? . . . So where do we go, then, for this vigil thing?’

The two girls exited the stadium, borne along on a wave of identical over-excited girls in OnTarget merchandise, with identical long ironed hair limp with sweat, most with mascara running down their hot red faces. Chloe consulted her phone, where she had saved a screenshot of the directions that had been posted on Twitter. Jess couldn’t stand still. She was jumping from foot to foot, bursting with adrenalin from the gig.

‘What happens at a vigil anyway? We don’t have to, like, say prayers or anything, do we? Or sing? I’m not singing.’

‘It’s not church, Jess, so I doubt it. But I don’t know either. We’ll just have to see, won’t we?’

‘Wonder who’ll be there?’

Chloe pointed in the direction of the hot dog concession. ‘Dunno. Loads of people from the forum, I think. I reckon it’s that way. Exit P, by Gate 12. There.’

They managed with difficulty to fight their way sideways across the tide of girls streaming straight ahead to the gates, to a small static enclave of sheepish-looking fans standing awkwardly around. Jess and Chloe joined the group and stood at the back, staring curiously at the huge blown-up photograph of one of their own – a dumpy, freckled girl in her school uniform, staring into the camera with a fake smile on her face.

‘So that’s what she looked like,’ breathed Jess.

The canvas was propped on a folding trestle table covered with an Indian throw and a cardboard sign saying ‘
RIP – ROSE EMILY SHARP
.
VIGIL 10 p.m
.’. An older woman was passing through the group, picking small candles on circles of tinfoil-covered cardboard out of a large crate carried by a sad-looking man behind her and handing them out to the assembled girls.

Jess still couldn’t stop fidgeting. She hitched up her errant bra strap and adjusted her OnTarget crop top so that it covered half an inch more midriff. ‘My ears are ringing. Are your ears ringing? That was the best one yet, don’t you think? Eight concerts and that was definitely the best. You never know, he might’ve been winking at me. I tweet him so much. He might’ve recognised me!’

Chloe rolled her eyes. If it weren’t for their mutual adoration of OnTarget, they would never have been mates, she thought. Jess had only contacted her on the forum last year after she, Chloe, had posted the photo of Shawn Barrett visiting her in hospital, when she’d had leukaemia, right before the bone marrow transplant that saved her life. They’d met up and Chloe could tell straight away that Jess was ‘one sandwich short of a picnic’, or ‘away with the fairies’, as her mum would say – but she could be a right laugh too. It was always Jess who made them get up at 4 a.m. to queue for the
in-st
ore performances or to be the first in line for when the ticket office opened. Jess was the one who organised them to get to whichever hotel the band were rumoured to be staying in, and who spent the longest on the forums trying to get the band members’ attention. Any of them would do, but they both loved Shawn the most. He was the hottest by a long shot with his olive eyes and tan muscled chest; more man than boy.

‘You and all the other fifteen million . . . anyway, shhh, settle down – we’re here for MissTargetHeart.’

‘She’s so lucky. All these people here for her.’

‘Jess, MissTargetHeart isn’t lucky, for fuck’s sake, she’s
dead
.’

‘Yeah, sorry . . . I don’t see why we have to stand around with candles. These candles are shit, like the ones we had at infants’ school in the carol concerts. It’s embarrassing. It’s not like we knew her anyway.’

‘We kind of knew her,’ Chloe said quietly.

Both girls fell silent for a moment.

‘Do you know anyone who ever actually met her?’ Chloe asked.

‘Jade and Kai did, I think.’

‘Jade? Don’t mention that girl’s name to me.’

As always, the thought of Jade sent a deep and uncomfortable
frisson
through Chloe, a shiver of guilt and shame. Fear, too. She had seen how vicious Jade could be; worse, the other girl was proud of it. ‘I’m a proper Scorpio,’ Jade had said once. ‘Cross me and I’ll sting you.’

Jess’s eyes widened as Chloe said this. ‘Shit, speak of the devil – she’s, like, right over there.’

Chloe, panicking, looked in the direction of Jess’s pointing finger until she saw the couple snogging disrespectfully to their right. It was hard to miss Jade, with her badly dyed long blonde hair. It seemed to swamp her boyfriend, Kai, as if she was swallowing him alive. Chloe had known, of course, that Jade would likely be at the gig, but she’d hoped that the massive crowd would mean their paths wouldn’t cross. No such luck, it seemed.

Chloe and Jess slipped into the crowd before Jade saw them, just as the woman who had handed round the candles picked up a microphone, switched it on and tapped it. The main stadium audience had mostly dispersed now, and the small crowd assembled for the vigil turned its attention to the woman.

‘Er . . . hi . . . and thank you so much for coming. As you know, we’re here to pay our respects for a fellow OnTarget fan – my beautiful niece Rose who was tragically murdered two days ago in Kingston . . .’

The woman’s voice faltered and she blinked hard behind large red-framed glasses. A middle-aged couple next to her was clinging together, openly sobbing.

Jess nudged Chloe and pointed at the crying woman. ‘That’s MissTargetHeart’s mum and dad. I saw their photo on the news.’

Rose’s aunt gulped and contained herself. ‘Sorry, girls and’ – she looked around and identified one or two males present – ‘boys. I promised I wouldn’t get all emotional, but it’s hard. Anyway, so, what we’d thought we’d do shortly is all light our candles and stand still for two minutes thinking of our Rose and praying that she’s in a better place now. But first, we have a policeman who wants a quick word with you all. This is Detective Inspector Lennon.’

Everyone present, including Chloe and Jess, perked up at the sight of the rangy man who stepped forwards. He was quite fit for an old bloke, thought Chloe, although she didn’t usually find men in their thirties attractive. He was wearing proper jeans, not the shapeless dad-jeans her father favoured, and a well-cool battered leather jacket. She imagined him rugby-tackling a burglar to the floor and found it gave her a little thrill of excitement.

The detective took hold of the microphone and spoke, his expression grave as he scanned their faces. A woman stood beside him, quite old but fit-looking, her hair in long auburn corkscrew curls. His sidekick, Chloe guessed. She wondered if the curls were natural.

‘I won’t keep you for long. I’m hoping that you might be able to help us in our search for Rose’s killer. I gather that you all heard about this vigil from either Twitter or the OnTarget forum on their website, and, under the name MissTargetHeart, Rose was an extremely active participant on both sites.’

‘Extremely
annoying
participant more like,’ whispered Jess to Chloe, who cringed again, wishing Jess would shut up. ‘Smug cow. Acted like she was gonna, like, marry Shawn when she totally didn’t stand a chance.’

‘Shh, Jess. Stop it. I can’t hear him.’

‘I’m bored,’ Jess said. ‘And I need the loo.’ She stalked away, pushing through the crowd towards the Ladies, leaving Chloe to listen to the hot detective without any more distractions. He talked for a few more minutes, telling them to report anything at all that seemed unusual or in any way worrying, and Chloe briefly pondered this.
Many
of the things said on the forums could be described as unusual and/or worrying, she thought.

When Jess came back she seemed totally spaced-out, a look of stunned joy on her face.

‘What’s up with you?’ Chloe hissed. ‘Did you meet Jesus in the toilet or something?’

Jess smiled mysteriously. ‘It’s nothing. What did I miss?’

‘It’s clearly not nothing!’

‘Shhh,’ Jess said primly, as though she had been the attentive one from the start. Several Bic lighters were going around the crowd and they were all lighting their candles. OnTarget’s song ‘Forever Together’ came on and the girls all immediately joined in, their thin reedy voices swelling together as the tiny candles flickered and steadied. Rose’s parents and her aunt now too all cried, as did many of the girls, even though hardly any of them could have known her.

The next time Chloe glanced across at Jess she was gazing contemplatively at the large tattoo of Shawn Barrett that covered most of her left forearm. Her mum had apparently gone nuts when she’d got it done at the age of fifteen, threatened to report the tattoo
parlour
, but Jess hadn’t cared.

Now, Jess was biting the inside of her top lip to stop herself smiling and, with her right forefinger, she stroked the smudgy cheek of Shawn’s tattoo.

If Chloe had had to describe her friend’s appearance, she would have said it was ecstatic.

‘Are you on drugs?’ Chloe asked. ‘Did you get some E?’

‘Don’t be daft. Drugs are for losers. Now be quiet, all right?’ And she started to sing, belting out the words like her life depend
ed on it.

Chapter 6
Day 3 – Patrick

M
ummy, you put the triangle in there.’

Gill beamed and slotted the triangle through the
triangular hole in the apparatus. ‘Here, Bonnie, do
the circle.’

Bonnie took the proffered plastic ball, scrutinised it for a moment, then handed it back to her mother, shaking her head so vigorously that her pink cheeks wobbled. ‘Mummy.’

Gill posted the circle, then handed a square one to Patrick. ‘Daddy do the square?’ she asked Bonnie.

Bonnie pointedly turned her back on him, as though he had just made some devastatingly insulting personal comment to her. ‘No. I want Mummy to do it.’

Patrick shrugged, feeling ridiculously slighted. Bonnie seemed more than fine, playing with Gill as if nothing had ever happened – although of course she wouldn’t remember it; how could she, she’d only been five months old, and that was as it should be. It would be terrible if she recoiled at Gill’s touch.

Patrick
remembered it, though.

He knew he would never, ever forget it. The sight of Gill’s
purple
fingermarks on their baby’s neck would accompany him to the grave, her tiny limp body within seconds of eternal
lifelessness
. . .

As if she could read his thoughts, Gill looked up at him from where she was crouching on the rug next to Bonnie and her toys. She gave him a slow, tentative smile, the neediness of which made Patrick’s teeth clench.
This is all so screwed up
, he thought. She had recovered; they had the chance for a fresh start. He knew deep down she would never try to hurt Bonnie again, she’d never wanted to in the first place, she’d been in the grip of a devastating bout of postnatal psychosis. As long as they resigned themselves to being a one-child family, there was no reason to be fearful. Bonnie was now a happy, normal two-and-a-half-year-old. Gill was his beloved wife, and they were a family again. He and Bonnie could move back in here with Gill tomorrow – the social worker had already signed Gill off and she could be left alone with Bonnie all day if she wanted now, after a few months of supervised visits.

But the problem was, he wasn’t sure that he felt anything at all for his wife, bar a deep sense of sorrow and pity. How could he go back to sharing his bed, his life, his heart with someone he wasn’t sure he even loved anymore?

Their house was immaculate, far better than it had been in all the months it was rented out on short-term lets. Patrick looked around the room.

‘New picture? It’s nice.’ He gestured towards a large
canvas
on the wall – abstract artily out-of-focus petals. Privately he thought Gill’s tastes must have changed. The old Gill would have dismissed that as anodyne or too predictable. Perhaps that was a consequence of being incarcerated in a secure mental unit for over a year
. . .

Gill actually blushed. ‘I got some new scatter cushions too,’ she said, pointing at the sofa. The cushions were the exact same shade of crimson as the petals in the picture.

‘Yes, I noticed,’ said Patrick, although he hadn’t. ‘Lovely.’

‘The kitchen was really dirty,’ Gill said, helping Bonnie slot
jigsaw
pieces into place. ‘Those tenants were supposed to have had it professionally cleaned when they left, but they clearly didn’t. We should complain to the letting agent. Who
was
the agent?’

She hated this, Patrick realised. She hated the fact that he’d had to do all the work involved in the temporary lets of their house, negotiating with the letting agents when she didn’t even know who they were because she’d been locked in a mental unit, having daily therapy while he was approving the inventory, checking references, having to live with his mum and dad, parent Bonnie
and
work
full-tim
e . . . It was as though she felt she could never make it u
p to him.

Often, Patrick also thought that she never would be able to. ‘Does it matter now?’ he said, more testily than he had intended. ‘We’ve got the house back.’

Gill sat back and held her arms wide for Bonnie to sit in the V-shape made by her outstretched legs. She gazed at him thoughtfully. ‘Yes. But we aren’t all living in it, are we?’ Bonnie snuggled into her lap, sucking her thumb, and Patrick regarded the two pairs of identical hazel eyes scrutinising him.

He stood up and walked away, cursing his cowardice.

‘I’m still not ready, Gill,’ he said, without looking at her. When he glanced back from the kitchen, she was hugging Bonnie silently, dropping her lips to Bonnie’s soft brown hair. Patrick felt like a heel. She must know how hard it was for him to live with his mum and dad and have to share a room with Bonnie, and yet he still didn’t want to come home. That must be making her feel terrible, he thought.

He put the kettle on, for something to do, and stood at the kitchen counter listening to the water heat up as Bonnie chatted obliviously to Gill in the next room. She seemed to be
telling
her about some penguins she knew. Patrick smiled, then the smile dropped away as he realised that every day he prevaricated was another day Bonnie was being deprived of her mother’s continuous and stabilising presence.

It was doing his head in. Why could he not just go for it? Fling himself back into the marriage, for Bonnie’s sake if no-one else’s?

Throwing tea bags into two mugs, he did what he always did when his thoughts reached this impasse: he thought about something else instead.

He remembered the vigil last night. All those big versions of what Bonnie would become all too soon – little girls in almost-adult bodies and scaled-down adult clothes – well,
prostitutes’
clothes, in many cases. He grinned briefly, thinking that he sounded just like his mother.

The girls last night had been torn between simmering post-gig euphoria – bordering on hysteria – and the pressure to be hushed and respectful. Patrick suspected that the murder of one of their own was making these girls feel even more excited, blood and hormones at boiling point, than they would at the end of a normal OnTarget gig. At least he and Carmella hadn’t had to sit through the gig themselves. When he’d found out that the vigil was taking place, he’d decided that their attendance at the actual concert wasn’t necessary. The vigil had been an unexpected bonus – a great chance to talk to the girls in his official capacity.

Many of them had got so hot from dancing and screaming inside the stadium that they had stripped down to tiny crop tops and removed the tights that they’d probably sported at the start of the evening in the chill February air. Half-naked, flushed girls holding lit candles was definitely at odds with the funereal atmosphere and Rose’s poor crying parents. He had looked around him at the thirty or forty girls who were all gaping at him as though he’d been beamed down from Mars, trying to spot anyone who seemed particularly uncomfortable or as if they had something to say. But even when he’d exhorted them to come forward, none of them had appeared flustered or anything other than curious, or ghoulishly fascinated by the whole affair.

Surely one of them must know something. Why had Rose gone to that hotel? Had she been dating an older man – the sort of man who would invite her up to a hotel room? He’d asked her mum, but Sally Sharp had been utterly convinced that Rose had no time for boys her own age, let alone older men. Rose had been a young fifteen who had never had a boyfriend and who had only had four, virtual, loves in her unformed and now unfinished life – the members of OnTarget. The girl had apparently slept, eaten, breathed OnTarget. Her whole life revolved around them –
trying
to get their attention online, buying CDs and downloads, concert tickets and merchandise with whatever birthday or
babysitting
money she happened to have. Her only friends were other OnTarget fans – Patrick had taken the names of all the ones that Sally Sharp knew of, and obviously he or Carmella would be talking to them as soon as they could – but he wondered if Wendy was right, and this was a simple case of an online predator. So far, the investigations of her online history and phone records had shown nothing interesting, just endless meaningless chit-chat with other fans.

There had been one interesting thing – apparently she had used a good chunk of data in the hours before her death, showing that she had been online on her phone. But there was no way for the phone company to track what she’d been doing.

‘
Pat!
’ Gill’s voice from the living room had taken on a familiar edge of exasperation, one that he hadn’t heard since before . . . well, since they all lived together. Patrick didn’t like to refer to the incident, even in his thoughts, if he could possibly avoid it.

‘Yes?’

‘Bonnie’s been calling you. Could you bring her some juice please?’

‘Dooce, Daddy!’ Bonnie echoed, in a matching tone of
exasperation
.

Hm
, thought Patrick,
she’s perfectly willing to talk to me when she wants something. That’s probably not likely to change for the next sixteen years or so
.

‘Coming, darling,’ he said – and then immediately felt guilty because he hoped that Gill hadn’t thought the ‘darling’ had been addressed to her.

Solving murders was easier than this, he thought. At that moment he wished he was back in the incident room, a place where he didn’t have to make any emotional decisions further than what sort of biscuit to have with his coffee.

As he carried the juice in to Bonnie, his mobile began to vibrate in his pocket. Groping for it, he trod on a stray piece from the shape sorter, lurched and spilled the juice down his leg.

‘Ow, shit, f—’

He just managed to stop himself from saying more naughty words.

As Bonnie made a beeline for the remains of her drink, he answered the phone. ‘Lennon.’

It was Carmella. ‘Hey, Patrick. We just got the call from Daniel Hamlet.’ The pathologist who had been assigned to this case. ‘He says he’s ready to see you. He sounded excited.’