Hollow Pike (10 page)

‘But how
could
we do it?’ asked Delilah. ‘How could we murder the most popular girl in school and get away with it? There has to be a way.’

‘We could all provide alibis for each other,’ Lis suggested.

‘We could. They’d have to be airtight though,’ mused Kitty. ‘Maybe we could wait until someone’s parents were on holiday, or something, so we could believably all
be in one place at the time of death
and
make sure we could come and go without anyone knowing.’

Jack ran a hand through his mousy hair. ‘My mum and Amber are always away overnight for Amber’s dance contests, so that could work.’

Drawing tiny elaborate doodles on a notebook, Delilah looked distracted but remained focused on the conversation. ‘We wouldn’t want to kill her anywhere near any of our houses,
obviously.’

‘And we can hardly follow her around, waiting for her to be alone in a dark alley,’ Jack laughed. ‘It’s not as if we’re inconspicuous.’

‘Hmmm . . . Maybe we could arrange for her to meet us somewhere?’ Delilah suggested as she continued with her doodles.

An idea occurred to Lis. ‘I’m pretty sure I have Laura’s email address . . .’

Kitty laughed. ‘Nah, even from a fake account, they could trace where the email had originated.’

‘Really? Forget it then.’

‘No, it’s a good idea. We could write a letter instead of an email. A print-out from a school printer wouldn’t incriminate any of us as long as we didn’t handle the
paper,’ said Kitty.

‘We should totally write the note from Danny!’ Jack said eagerly, popping up onto his knees.

Lis felt distinctly strange at the thought of dragging Danny’s name into things. Although he’d have his own alibi, he’d no doubt be put through hell.

‘No,’ stated Delilah, to Lis’s relief.

‘I agree,’ Kitty added. ‘Danny’s OK. I haven’t got a problem with him.’

‘Say it’s from Nasima Bharat,’ Delilah breathed.

‘Good call!’ Jack threw himself back onto the sofa. He was a bundle of energy, barely able to sit still for a second. ‘Frankly, that bitch has it coming.’

Lis was drawn in to what was essentially a problem-solving exercise. How can you control all the variables surrounding a murder? The police, the body, the weapons? It was harder than any SAT
question. She flipped her hair back and squinted in concentration. ‘What about poison? Then there’d be no weapon.’

‘Yeah,’ said Kitty. ‘Could work. But how would we get her to take it?’

‘She’s a teenage binge-drinking statistic! Spike her drink!’ laughed Jack.

‘Brilliant, Jack! Do you have any cyanide?’ grinned Delilah.

‘No, smart-arse, but I’m sure a load of Cillit Bang would do the trick!’

Lis rolled back onto the rug, looking up at the ceiling. ‘She’d taste it straight away. She’d never drink it.’

‘I dunno . . .’ Kitty said, not missing a beat. ‘Have you ever tasted WKD Blue? Cillit Bang can’t be much worse!’

Not for the first time, the group broke into uncontrollable laughter.

‘OK, OK!’ Kitty commanded the group to attention. ‘So, what have we got so far? We send her a letter, maybe from Nasima, asking her to go somewhere . . .’

‘Right,’ Jack confirmed.

‘And then what if we make it look like an accident out in the copse or something? We could make it seem like she’s been drinking. A blow to the head could look like she’d
fallen over by mistake, and we wouldn’t even have to work out how to dispose of the corpse.’

Corpse. Lis shivered. What a cold, inhuman word. They were talking about a human body. A dead, human body.
Laura’s
dead, human body.
It’s only a game
, she reminded
herself.

‘I like it. You’re a genius!’ Delilah finally left her doodle and kissed Kitty on the forehead.

‘Wouldn’t the police be able to tell it wasn’t an accidental injury?’ Lis queried.

‘Probably not. There is no
CSI: Hollow Pike
,’ Jack said with a grin.

Lis laughed. Despite the gory context, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had this much fun. There was such a glow in the room. From the limited time she’d spent with
Laura and her girls, Lis doubted they ever had this type of uninhibited fun. With them, she’d been so wary of the other girls’ judgement that she hadn’t relaxed for a second. In
Kitty’s attic, Lis didn’t feel judged for anything: her clothes, her hair, who she liked or didn’t like . . .

‘If we’re going to fake an accident we probably shouldn’t leave a note either, or Nasima will deny sending it and the police will get suspicious,’ Jack pointed out.
‘Maybe we could text her instead and then pry her phone from her cold dead hands?’

‘That could work, although the police would certainly realise her phone was missing,’ Kitty responded. ‘Of course, there’s no reason why one of us couldn’t go with
her into the copse while others waited there.’

‘A trap?’ Lis asked.

‘Yeah,’ Kitty continued. ‘You could pretend to forgive her for the email thing and carry on hanging out with her. She’d follow you into the copse for sure.’

Lis hadn’t expected such a pivotal role in the plot. She sat up, unsure how to react. The others looked at her expectantly, almost as if this was some sort of initiation test she was
unaware of. ‘Yeah. I suppose so,’ she said finally, ‘although I’m not sure I could convince Laura to come with me. I’m a terrible actress.’

‘Anyway,’ Jack started, ‘donking her on the head’s not good enough. I want her to suffer . . .’

The knife-like term
suffer
twisted in Lis’s gut.

‘I think we should maybe do it at half term. It would be easier to convince her to come into the copse then,’ Kitty suggested.

‘Everyone knows that’s where they hide all their booze and fags,’ Jack added. ‘It would be easy to get her to go there.’

Delilah snuggled in Kitty’s lap. ‘The trouble is, darling, dog walkers and stuff go through the copse until after dark. Someone would see – unless we used the old rubbish dump,
maybe?’

Lis felt queasy. What had started as a game was beginning to seem a bit morbid.

‘That’s magnificent,’ Kitty agreed. ‘Throw her over the edge and the whole town would think the silly drunken girl had fallen to her death in a tragic
accident.’

Lis remembered a time long ago when she and Sarah had gone walking on Anglesey. While running through sand dunes, free spirited, she’d come across a badly injured baby seagull. She could
still hear it’s shrill alarm call, crying to its absent mother for rescue. She recalled Sarah, older and wiser, reaching forwards to put the helpless creature out of its misery, certain it
couldn’t be nursed back to health. Even with the knowledge that Sarah was acting out of kindness, Lis had been unable to bear the thought of snuffing out a living creature’s light, and
she’d turned away, unable to watch.

Laura Rigg was no helpless creature, but Lis knew that when the time came to push her over the edge, she would still remember that seagull. She would not kill a living thing.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Jack.

Without even looking in a mirror, Lis knew she’d gone ghostly pale. ‘We can’t really kill Laura.’ The words stuck at the back of her throat, coming out almost like a
confession. How ironic: confessing that she
didn’t
want to kill someone!

There was a second of silence and then the others burst into hysterical laughter.

‘Oh, poor Lis!’ Kitty managed through her tears of hilarity.

‘Of course we can’t really kill Laura! Can you imagine? “Hi, Laura, would you stand still while we beat you to death?”’ Delilah asked with exaggerated
politeness.

Jack gave Lis a little hug. ‘We do this sort of thing all the time!’

‘Plotting fiendish plans and terrible schemes!’ announced Delilah in a theatrical deep voice.

‘I am truly sorry, Lis.’ Kitty smiled. ‘Welcome to our twisted brand of fun! Too dark?’

Relief swelled inside. Lis shook her head, wondering when she’d undergone such a humour bypass. She hoped the others didn’t think she was a total moron. It seemed that, whatever
friendship group you were in, there was just a different set of rules to understand.

‘Seriously!’ Jack laughed. ‘Can you imagine me in prison? I wouldn’t survive an hour!’

Delilah collected up four cups, ready to provide fresh tea. Then she spoke softly, not facing the group, ‘Joking aside, would you do it though? If you had the chance, would you kill Laura
Rigg?’

The room went very quiet. Lis looked to the others; as the newcomer, she wasn’t going to offer up her thoughts first and she already knew her own answer: no.

Kitty sat up straight. ‘If I knew I’d get away with it, I’d kill her in a second.’

‘Me too,’ said Jack. ‘I’d be doing the world a favour.’

All three now looked to Lis. She paused, trying to conjure a diplomatic answer. ‘School would be a better place without her.’

A wave of guilt unexpectedly washed over her. For some reason, Lis felt that she’d just signed Laura’s death warrant.

Belonging

The expression on Laura Rigg’s face was priceless. Striding down the corridor alongside Kitty, Jack and Delilah, Lis spotted her nemesis near the lockers. People were
staring – hell, eyes were hanging out of heads – but just as Lis had predicted, being part of the edgy tribe felt secure, bordering on powerful. She liked it.

Her new unit was almost the parallel of Laura’s ‘In Crowd’. They were the ‘Out Crowd’ – something which Lis decided was actually much cooler. Much like the In
Crowd, Kitty, Delilah and Jack strutted around the school, now with Lis in tow. When Laura blew by, people took notice. Equally, when Kitty walked in, you couldn’t ignore her. It seemed to
Lis that Kitty and Delilah had realised that keeping their heads down didn’t work; people were going to target them regardless, so they may as well have a little fun with it. If people were
going to talk, give them something to talk about.

As they reached the lockers, Lis smiled, daring to push past Laura. She shared the burden of Laura’s cruelty with the others and was less of a victim as a result. Maybe there was some
mathematical formula for it: vulnerability times mockery divided by support, or something.

Recovering from her shock, Laura’s face twisted into her usual smirk. ‘Aw, that’s sweet. The witches made a new friend!’

Lis stopped and turned to face her. If only Laura knew about their detailed plans to kill her. She wouldn’t be smiling then.

‘That’s right, Laura, but I’m surprised you know what a friend is!’

Behind her she heard Jack laugh quietly.

Nasima weighed in, ‘Maybe she’s a lesbian too?’

Lis flexed her new-found bravery. ‘Nasima, why are you always such a sheep? You’re the only Pakistani pupil in our class. Don’t you know what it feels like to be
different?’

An angry look flashed across her face. ‘Just because I’m Pakistani doesn’t mean I’m a lesbian! That is well racist.’

Delilah stepped forward rolling her eyes. ‘Don’t waste your breath, Lis. If she ever had a brain cell it would have died of loneliness by now.’

‘Losers,’ Laura said bitterly. ‘How’s your pikey dad, Bloom?’

‘He’s fine, thank you, Laura,’ Delilah replied sweetly. ‘But how are you? Just between us girls, you’re looking a little . . . tired.’

Delilah’s soft insult hit the target.

Laura’s face fell like lead. ‘Freaks!’ With a swish of her chestnut locks, she strode away in the opposite direction.

‘Nice comeback!’ Kitty called after her.

Lis laughed and her new comrades laughed with her.

Later, Lis found herself at the back of a science lab with very little idea of what was going on. She excelled at English and foreign languages and, while her grades were always
just-above-average in Science and Maths, it took an almost superhuman effort for Lis to stay on top of these subjects.

She was vaguely aware of what she had to do, but had absolutely no idea why
she was doing it. She was meant to be burning magnesium in a sealed container, but observed that everyone else seemed to be weighing their little pots. She cursed her daydreaming. As none of her
new friends were in her set for Chemistry, she felt distinctly alone.

Plucking up the courage to ask Dr Maloney for assistance, she started to make her way around the workbench but was stopped dead by Danny Marriott. Her brain turned into melting toffee and she
managed to formulate only a small coughing sound. He’d stepped into that important half a metre of personal space. It was accidental, but her heart pounded at the intimacy of his warm breath
on her forehead.

‘Sorry,’ he said, stepping back.

Her brain desperately tried to reboot and think of anything sensible to say. ‘That’s all right. No worries.’ She struggled to meet his turquoise eyes.

‘You were about to do your experiment wrong.’

She smiled, blushing deeply at the same time. ‘You were watching me?’

It was his turn to blush. Lis grinned further as he tripped over his words.

‘Well, er, you were sitting right beside me. You looked miles away . . .’

The simple fact that Danny had given her even a minute’s thought warmed Lis a million times more than the array of Bunsen burners around her.