Authors: Anne Cassidy

Killing Rachel (31 page)

BOOK: Killing Rachel

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He was walking towards her. She looked up at the electronic board. It showed that it was still six minutes until her train. Even then she might not get rid of him. He might insist on sitting beside her, talking at her through the whole journey, spoiling the moments when she could relax and think about the evening ahead.

‘Someone told me that your mum got murdered.’

She stood very still.

‘Is it true?’

She couldn’t manage an answer. A blank feeling was holding her to the spot. He was looking at her in a questioning way, his head bent to the side as if in sympathy. She realised she disliked him a hundred times more than she had five minutes before. She stepped round him and walked away towards the bridge, but he followed her. When she got to the middle of the platform she gave up and stopped.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘My mother did not get
murdered
. She disappeared,’ she said, turning to him, her voice strong and direct. ‘There’s no evidence that she is dead. No one knows exactly what happened to her.’

‘More than likely dead, though.’

‘She just
disappeared
five years ago.’

She gripped the sides of her violin case. How dare he speak to her like this! He didn’t know her one bit and yet he thought he had the right to pry into her darkest places.

‘I heard she was murdered,’ Ricky Harris said, his voice more determined.

‘You heard wrong,’ she said curtly.

The platform seemed darker. She wished she could hear the sound of the train in the distance. A curl of noise that started small and got bigger as it got closer. She longed to see the lights of the engine tunnelling its way through the darkness towards her.

Instead Ricky’s phone began to ring and he looked at her and put one finger in the air to indicate a call as if she hadn’t already worked it out. She felt angry. How many people knew about her life? She had thought she was safe at her new college.

Up above, on the bridge, the walkway lights were on. The usual dodgy one was flickering on and off. It looked quaint, like something from a film that was set in the past. During the day there were always people going back and forth across the walkway. Now it was empty. It was almost quarter to eight. It wasn’t cold but there was something in the air that suggested autumn. A whiff of burning fires, a hint of sulphur from a match, the damp smell of leaves that had been trodden into a pulp.

Ricky Harris’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

‘Change of plans. Got to meet someone,’ he called.

She tried to keep a straight face. It was a relief that he wasn’t coming on the train with her. He began to walk off. After a few moments he shouted, ‘Here’s your train, posh bird.’

She leant forward and looked up the line. She saw the lights of a train. She allowed herself to move back along the platform and watched him disappear up the stairwell. She felt herself relaxing. He was a hateful character and she’d just have to try harder to avoid him. All that stuff about her mum. How could he ask that? How could he intrude into her deepest, saddest places?

The train was coming nearer so she stepped towards the edge of the platform. It wouldn’t be long until she was meeting Joshua. A tingle of pain from her arm made her clasp it gently. What would he think of her butterfly tattoo? What would he think of
her
, Rose Smith, seventeen years old, his stepsister, who he hadn’t seen for five years?

‘See you later, posh bird!’

Ricky Harris’s voice came from above and she looked up to see him walk on to the bridge. There was someone coming from the other end. A man in a hoodie striding out, rushing probably, so as not to miss the train. She glanced down at the track and saw the engine slowing, then her eyes travelled back up to the bridge.

Ricky Harris was talking to the man in the hooded top.

She stared, puzzled.

There was a row, loud voices which she couldn’t make out because of the sound of the approaching train. She glanced down at the track and then back up at the bridge; once, twice, three times. There was a tussle of some sort; tugging, pushing, pulling.

But it stopped suddenly.

The hooded man turned and walked away, jauntily as if his shoes were on springs. She saw the back of his hood disappear across the bridge. She strained her eyes to see if she could glimpse Ricky Harris’s head above the side of the bridge.

Had he been knocked out?

She huffed. Why should she care?

The train pulled up in front of her. A noise like a long sigh emanated from it and inside a man in a black overcoat got up from a seat and walked towards the door. Rose looked up at the bridge again. There was still no sign of movement.

What did it matter?

The carriage doors were about to open. Rose could see the man inside waiting patiently, looking at his mobile. There were only a couple of other people on the train, both reading newspapers.

She stepped back and looked up. Had she somehow
missed
Ricky Harris getting up, stumbling off towards the ticket office, following the other man out of the station?

The doors of the train stayed shut. The man inside was looking puzzled, his finger poised to press the
Open Doors
button again.

She was only a few metres from the stairs. She took a quick decision and walked towards the stairwell. Then she ran up the stairs, her violin case bumping at her back as she went. At the top she stopped to get her breath. When she looked along the walkway she saw Ricky Harris lying face down about halfway across. Above him the dodgy light flickered on and off, stuttering against the night sky.

She heard the sound of the train doors opening down below.

‘You all right?’ she called.

She turned back, looking down the stairwell. She needed to catch that train.

‘Are you OK?’ she said, louder.

He didn’t move. She could hear footsteps on the stairs behind her. More than one person. She hesitated. She had to catch that train. She turned to go but something caught her eye.

A glint of red. It was by Ricky Harris’s waist, on the walkway. Rose stared at it. Then she heard the doors of the train shutting below.

It was too late for her to catch it now.

There was blood on the walkway coming from underneath Ricky Harris. It seeped out from beneath his jacket, dark red. She stood perfectly still. The blood glinted under the flickering light like liquid jewels. She didn’t move. She
couldn’t
move.