Killing Rachel (15 page)

‘Rachel didn’t drink when I knew her. She smoked but . . .’

‘We know that she recently broke up with a boyfriend. Tim Baker. Maybe she was pining. I have yet to speak to him. Possibly he will throw some light on it.’

Rose frowned. She couldn’t see Tim Baker being any help at all.

‘She was friendly with a girl called Molly Wallace.’

‘I’ve spoken to Molly. She’s very upset. She says that Rachel told her to go away that evening. She wanted to be on her own.’

‘But why go out to the lake? In such cold weather. You don’t think she went out there with the intention of . . .’

‘What?’

‘Killing herself?’

Rose said the words out loud. She’d been trying not to think them ever since she’d heard that Rachel was dead. She looked at the policewoman optimistically, hoping she would say,
Oh no. It was definitely an accident
.

‘It’s a possibility that we are considering.’

‘Did she leave a note?’

‘No, but not everyone leaves a note. Her friend Juliet Baker didn’t. It may be that the manner of
her
death affected Rachel deeply.’

‘That was a long time ago.’

‘Your letters mention the sightings of the dead girl, the boyfriend’s sister. This girl was certainly in Rachel’s mind constantly.’

‘So, it’s not really clear whether it was suicide or an accident?’

The policewoman sighed and touched the ‘L’ that was hanging on her chain.

‘Like I say, we have to wait and see what the autopsy report brings. Your letters, of course, show her state of mind and some of the other girls have given statements which suggest she was acting erratically over the last weeks.’

‘Right.’

‘I know you said you weren’t that friendly with her any more but it’s still a bit of a blow, right? And on top of your mother disappearing. Look, here’s my card. My mobile number and my email address are there. Contact me if you remember anything. I’ve got the BlackBerry. I pick up messages all the time.’

‘I’ll be going home tomorrow.’

‘OK. We’ll contact you if we need to. And, once again, very sorry about your mother. I don’t just say this out of politeness. The police force hate to lose one of their own. It’s the worst thing.’

‘Thank you.’

As Rose left the room Mrs Abbott called to her.

‘Rose,’ she said, ‘would you mind terribly coming to meet Mr and Mrs Bliss tomorrow at twelve? They’re coming to pick up Rachel’s things and have said that they would like to meet some of her friends.’

Rose frowned. She did not want to meet anyone from Rachel’s family.

‘I’m due to go back to London,’ she said.

‘It would only be for ten, fifteen minutes. I thought that it would be nice for them to meet you. A friend who was with Rachel in happier times.’

She didn’t answer.

‘Rose, Miss Harewood told me that you had fallen out with Rachel but, now that she’s gone, those kind of petty disagreements shouldn’t matter. Just fifteen minutes. My office at twelve. I’ll leave you to make up your own mind whether or not you come. You’re a Mary Linton girl. I know you’ll do the right thing.’

Rose walked away, feeling the head teacher’s eyes on her back.

Back in her room she went to her laptop and found a message from Joshua.

Rose! You’ll hardly believe this but I’ve found the place I was looking for. And it’s marked on Dad’s map. It’s a cottage and it’s on the edge of the mudflats a couple of kilometres outside Stiffkey. The coastal path that I told you about? It goes along the edge of fields and bracken and all you can see is the sky for miles around. There’s a creek to cross and just along from that there’s a path that goes off to the left. I went down it and found this deserted cottage. Its windows are covered with wood and the doors are padlocked. There’s an outbuilding with a boat. The place is covered in cobwebs and looks as though no one has been anywhere near it for years.

I want you to come and see it with me. Tomorrow morning. Wear sensible shoes. It won’t take long but you have to see it so that you don’t think I’m mad. I could pick you up from the school gates at eight. It would take thirty minutes to get here and then I could drive you straight back to school so that you can finish up whatever it is that you’re doing there.

Tonight, I’m seeing this local guy, Colin Crabtree, who knows a lot about Stiffkey and the houses around. He’s a historian and he collects data about the village and its surroundings. The parish committee rooms have old maps and details of past tenants and he’s going to show me those later tomorrow morning. After that I could come and pick you up and we could go back to London.

Does this sound OK? Does it give you enough time to finish stuff at the school? Josh XXXX

Rose sat back. Actually, she had finished what she had come to do at the school now. She would like to call a cab and go to Stiffkey and stay with Joshua until he had finished what he was doing. But he sounded busy and she would probably just drag him down. And she felt pressure to go and see Rachel’s parents at twelve.

She typed out a reply.

Josh, see you in the morning at eight. Rose XXXX

FIFTEEN

Rose did not have a good night. Tossing and turning in her old bed, she woke up at 0.48, 2.37 and 5.44. At ten to six she got up and went to the toilet. When she came back she looked at the wrinkled bedding and decided that there was no point trying to sleep any more. She got her laptop out and went on her blog Morpho. She read over the stuff she’d written recently and then typed today’s date and time and started to write.

Did Rachel commit suicide? That’s what I’m wondering. Did she go out to the lake late in the evening, sure that no one would be around, drink herself stupid and slide into the water? Was this her way of ending her own life?

If I had rung her, listened to her story of woe, might things have been different? Or did she just go out to the lake because that’s where she thought she saw the ghost of Juliet Baker. She was depressed and took the alcohol with her. When there was no ghost did she just sit herself down and get drunk? And, getting up to go back to school, did she lose her balance and topple into the water?

If I had rung her, might I have been able to lighten her mood, make her feel better?

After she finished she shut down and felt disgruntled. Unloading her problems on to this dispassionate machine usually made her feel a bit better. Not this time.

She tiptoed along to the kitchen, made a cup of tea and took it back to her room. Instead of getting back into bed, she pulled the desk chair over to the window and drank it while she looked out at the grounds. The moon was fuzzy but gave enough light for her to see the lake and the boathouse. After a few moments, her eyes moved back towards the trees that edged the car park. She looked carefully along them. This was where Rachel had seen a
ghost
.

Rose shivered. The room was cold, the central heating hadn’t yet come on. She finished her drink and got dressed quickly and then decided to pack. By the time she’d finished it was twenty to seven. Not too early to go and cook some breakfast. Then it would be time to walk up the drive and meet Joshua.

Skeggsie’s Mini was parked in the same place when she arrived at the school gate. She was warm from the walk and went quickly across the lane and got into the car.

‘Hi!’ she said.

Joshua gave her a smile and started the car engine. She was so pleased to see him. It was as much as she could do not to put her hand out and ruffle his hair with sheer pleasure.

‘You OK?’ he said.

She nodded. He looked up to his rear-view mirror just as a car came speeding up the lane behind them, overtook the Mini and swung in front of them, parking on the verge a few metres ahead. Its brakes made a loud noise which jarred amid the early Sunday morning quiet of the country lane. It was a blue BMW.

‘I wonder who that is?’ Rose said.

Joshua pulled out into the lane and slowly passed the parked car. Rose looked round. The driver of the car was Tim Baker. At that moment someone emerged from the school drive. She recognised Tania Miller immediately even though her short hair was covered with a woolly hat. Tania skipped across the lane and got into the BMW.

Well, fancy that
, Rose said to herself.
Tania Miller and Tim Baker
.

The journey was shorter than she had expected. They drove into the small village of Stiffkey, past the White Rose where Joshua was staying. A few moments later there was a turning on the right with a sign that read,
Beach
.

‘There’s a beach?’

‘No. At least, there
is
one but it’s twenty minutes’ walk across the mudflats. If you know the paths, it’s all right. Otherwise it’s ankle-deep in sea water.’

Rose wrinkled her nose and looked down at her DMs.
Wear sensible shoes
, Joshua’s email had read. That was all Rose had, sensible flat shoes or boots. Had he not noticed? She wondered how far they were going to have to walk to this place. The car moved slowly up the lane, the houses becoming fewer and more spaced out. To the right was a campsite, full of tents, caravans and mobile homes. In front of her Rose could see the horizon, stretching from side to side as if someone had drawn a line across the sky; the mudflats an expanse of flat grassland, reeds and bushes.

‘What happened to the sea?’

‘It’s out there. You can smell it. You can feel it in the air but you can’t see it.’

‘Um.’

‘I’m surprised you don’t know. Didn’t you go to school round here for years?’

They parked the car on a small area of tarmac.

‘We never came anywhere like this.’

They got out. The slamming of the car doors sounded loud.

‘Have we got to walk out there?’ Rose said, pointing in the direction of the sea.

‘No, the coastal path runs along here. It’s dry, a bit muddy in places. It’s about fifteen minutes’ walk.’

They walked in silence for a while, Joshua in front, Rose a few paces behind. The track was wide enough for a vehicle and had tyre marks on either side, making muddy ruts which she tried to avoid stepping in. Some of the tracks veered off and seemed to head for the mudflats. Joshua turned and saw her looking at them.

‘There are beaches out there, places where the sea comes in and areas of sand and rocks where people bathe. You have to know the tracks, though. That’s what Colin Crabtree told me.’

Rose looked out at the mudflats, dirty greens merging into browns seeping away as far as the eye could see. She couldn’t see any inlets and blue water although she could
feel
the presence of the sea, a tang of salt or brine in the air. In the sky the sun was hazy and high. It was cold, a bothersome breeze at the back of her neck.

‘Colin Crabtree was a mine of information,’ Joshua said, waiting for her to catch up and walk along beside him. ‘He said that this place – he called it Fisherman’s Cottage – has been empty for thirty years or more but people in the town thought that someone had bought it about fifteen years ago and began to renovate it, but then the work stopped and it was locked up again. He said that people who live in nearby houses say that they sometimes see a Land Rover driving down the lane towards it but then they don’t see anything for months.’

‘How do you know this is the right place?’

‘I just know it is,’ he said mysteriously, linking her arm and pulling her on, as if she was deliberately holding herself back.

The path came to a fork. Beyond it she could see some water in the distance, an inlet.

‘That’s the creek but we go down here.’

The track continued but the hedges were thicker and more spiky. Rose had to manoeuvre herself carefully, ducking from time to time to avoid being lacerated by thorny branches. Then, all of a sudden, they were out in the open and in front of them was a small slate-fronted cottage with boards nailed over the windows and a heavy front door. To the side of it was an outbuilding and in front was a garden which had been left untended. It looked as though it had been abandoned.

‘This wasn’t how you described it to me,’ Rose said. ‘You said it was white.’

‘I know. I think I only had a
feeling
of this place. I knew it was a house and I supplied a picture of a house. I had an essence of it rather than a real image.’

Rose pursed her lips. She didn’t want to fall out with Joshua but, really, hadn’t he just found what he wanted to find? A map with a village marked on it. A derelict cottage. A feeling he had from an item of his dad’s clothing? Did it mean any more than that?

‘Come and look at the boat,’ he said, walking towards the outbuilding.

He was excited, his face split with a smile. She followed him reluctantly.