Killing You Softly (25 page)

I swallowed hard to push down the rising fear inside my chest. ‘It’s his car,’ I said, trying to stay rational. At last I’d found a crumb on the Hansel and Gretel trail
that the forest birds hadn’t pecked at. I had something new to work on.

‘If it’s his car, then it’s got to be him doing all this crazy stuff! Come on, Alyssa, I don’t care what time it is – we have to call the cops.’

‘It’s his car, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s guilty. Say, for instance, the kidnapper used the car to shoot the video but doesn’t actually own it. In fact,
it could be a trick – yet another way to mislead us.’

‘Jesus, Alyssa – for once in your life will you stop analysing. Pick up the phone, dial nine-nine-nine!’

‘Wait. Give me time to work it out. Marco didn’t arrive until the start of term, remember. And Scarlett was murdered early on New Year’s Day, before Marco got here.’

Still hung up on the evidence from the video, Connie flung open the door and strode down the corridor towards the portrait of Lady Anne. Hearing a disturbance, Zara opened her door and stepped
out of her room to join us.

‘What’s going on?’ she wanted to know.

‘It’s Marco. He’s our guy, but Alyssa won’t call the cops.’

‘I’m not saying I won’t,’ I argued. Lights were going on all along the girls’ corridor. Charlie was the next to open her door and join the group. ‘I’m
saying wait, let me be sure of what we’ve worked out. Yes, it’s Marco’s car in the video, but no it doesn’t have to mean he kidnapped Galina. For a start, he hasn’t
been around long enough to link up with what happened to Scarlett.’

‘Why are we talking about Marco? Will someone please tell me what’s going on?’ Charlie pleaded.

‘Stand back, give the girl some space.’ Zara’s voice was cool and calm; she was in forensic mode. ‘Connie, cool it. I agree with Alyssa – we need to know exactly
what we’re accusing Marco of before we do anything. And, by the way, it’s the middle of the night so it would be a good idea to keep the noise down.’

Too late – Eugenie appeared in her PJs, grumbling about the racket.

‘So the timing’s wrong for Marco to have been involved in Scarlett’s murder, and anyway there’s no way he even knew her. She lives in Ainslee. He’s in Monaco . .
.’ I stopped so suddenly that I almost bit my tongue off. I was immediately into an action replay of a conversation between me and Ursula outside the gates of Upwood House.

‘Anyway, Scarlett?’ I’m asking Ursula what she knows about the dead girl.

‘Yeah. Really clever but not geeky. Everyone liked her, especially the boys. Alex practically stalked her for a whole term before he found the balls to ask her out. Then, within a week
– look what happened.’

‘What did happen?’ It’s freezing cold. I’m talking to scary Ursula. She’s asking me to find out who killed her mate.

‘You’re the super-sleuth, you tell me.’ Typical answer from the girl who got chucked out of Ainslee Comp for going into school with a pocketful of drugs.

I tell her I don’t know much, only what I read in the
Metro
and what Tom told me.

‘You actually knew her. What was she like? Was there an old boyfriend who got jealous when she chucked him and started going out with Alex? Where’d she been on New Year’s
Eve? Was she at a party? Who with? Did she try to walk home alone?’

Ursula looks at me through narrowed eyes and lets the questions stack up.

‘I’m not standing around waiting for Alyssa to make up her mind,’ Connie said angrily, and she darted into the room she shared with Zara. ‘If she won’t call the
cops, I will!’

Ursula answers an important question. ‘Scarlett didn’t go out with many guys. There were a couple in our year at school and there was one with a foreign name, he lives in
Italy.’

It felt like someone had punched me in the sternum, knocking the air out of my lungs.

‘A foreign name. She met him on holiday last summer, but he lives in Italy so I guess he doesn’t count.’

I repeated the words to myself, finally letting the light go on in my brain by saying the one word that mattered – Marco. Marco. Marco!

‘Connie’s right,’ I gasped. ‘Call nine-nine-nine. I have to speak to Ripley.’

‘The inspector’s on her way,’ Connie reported after she’d made the call.

Too stunned to move, we sat on the floor in our pyjamas under Lady Anne’s portrait, shivering in the cold. Charlie had stopped asking questions, thrown a jacket over her PJs, stuffed her
feet into a pair of Uggs and sprinted to the staff quarters to inform whoever was on duty.

‘Ripley said to stay where we are,’ Connie went on. ‘Especially don’t go anywhere near Marco’s room.’

‘That figures,’ Zara said uneasily.

And I thought of Brains, the notorious NPD kid who had killed both his parents. He was stealing money from their credit cards and had taken a hammer to them when they began to suspect. I thought
of Zara’s warning about this type of psychopath who seems meek and mild until the monster is unleashed.

‘We’ll wait right here,’ I told the others.

‘Where’s Charlie? She’s taking forever,’ Eugenie noticed. She crept to the bottom of the stairs and looked out into the dark courtyard. ‘Marco’s light is
on,’ she reported back. ‘And so is Hooper’s. Uh-oh, someone’s turned the boys’ stair light on – OK, don’t worry, it’s only Hooper.’

‘What’s with the “only Hooper”?’ he wanted to know as he pushed past Eugenie and took the stairs up to our dorm two at a time. ‘Why are you all out here?
Alyssa, what the hell’s going on?’

‘Nothing. Well, something – but we can’t tell you.’ Connie took charge as usual. I guess that she was afraid that he might lose it and run back to alert the guys in the
dorm, which was the last thing we needed. ‘Honestly, Hooper, you don’t want to know.’

He gave me a disappointed, hangdog look.

I shook my head and mouthed that I was sorry.

Eugenie backed Connie. ‘Don’t anybody tell him.’

‘Tell me what exactly?’ he demanded. Surrounded by girls, the wall of silence drove him crazy. ‘Alyssa!’

‘OK, everyone chill – let Hooper and me have a talk.’ Separating myself from the group, I led him down the corridor towards my room where we sat side by side on my bed.
‘We’ve got a situation,’ I told him, hoping to make him understand. ‘It’s sensitive.’

‘It must be something really big for that lot to gang up on me.’

‘It is, believe me.’

‘So they’re saying I can’t be trusted, is that it?’ Hooper gestured through the open door towards the rest of the girls.

‘Yes, but don’t take it personally.’

‘How else can I take it?’ he argued. ‘Don’t they know about all the work we’ve done together, you and me?’

‘Probably not. Anyway, I’m sorry.’

Frowning, he got up to open the window then gazed out into the darkness.

‘Truly, I’m sorry,’ I sighed, glancing at my watch and desperately hoping that Ripley would get here.

‘It’s about Marco,’ Hooper predicted, still with his back turned.

‘No,’ I replied, but not quickly enough.

‘See – you hesitated. That’s a dead giveaway. This “situation” involves Marco, and don’t lie.’

‘God, Hooper . . .’

He turned angrily. ‘You’re cutting me out, Alyssa. I don’t understand why.’

‘OK, OK. But if I tell you, you have to stay here with us until the police get here.’

‘OK – deal.’ Watching me like a hawk, he waited for me to go on.

‘You won’t do anything stupid – promise?’

‘I agreed, didn’t I? You tell me what’s going on. I listen. I hang around until the cops get here.’

‘OK, two things. First, Connie and I replayed the kidnap video and it was Marco’s car.’

Hooper considered the new fact. He didn’t say anything, just gave a quick, short expulsion of breath.

‘Two, it turns out that Marco probably knew Scarlett. They met when she was in Italy.’

‘Holiday romance,’ he muttered, then laughed. ‘Jesus, Alyssa!’

‘I know. I’ve been so slow to remember the details I could cry. So this is why Connie called the cops. And that’s who we’re waiting for now – Inspector Ripley and
her guys.’

‘Thanks,’ Hooper said. ‘Now I get it. And you’re right – it’s big.’

I never knew Marco could sing like that,’ I confess to Hooper as we leave the music room with the aria from Aida ringing in my ears.

‘I expect there’s a lot about Marco that we don’t know,’ Hooper suggests.

‘Like what?’

‘Like where he went to school before he came to St Jude’s, how big is his allowance, plus why he hates his dad.’

Hooper’s carrying his cello, walking ahead through the car park, thinking far faster than me.

Does Marco hate his dad? If he does, is it important? Yes, he hates football, but is that the same thing?

Hooper shrugs. ‘Please yourself. I just thought it would be worth looking at. I’ll do it for you if you like.’

I welcome the offer. I don’t think there’s much in it though.

‘You suspected Marco all along, didn’t you?’ I whispered.

‘That he killed Scarlett and kidnapped Galina? I was working on the premise, yeah, but I didn’t want to come out and say it until I was certain.’

Hooper’s laid-back answer made me feel even guiltier than before. ‘I’m sorry I tried to shut you out – it was the others . . .’

‘The Black Widow.’

‘Connie, yeah. Shhh!’ My gang of girls stood guard at the end of the corridor and I didn’t want them to overhear. I thought of Hooper beavering away, checking Marco’s
personal history. ‘How far had you got?’

The frown had gone, his head was up and he was pacing round the small room. ‘OK, I found out that Marco travelled around Europe after the fight with his dad – you know, when he stole
the boat and went for a joyride. He didn’t stay in any one place for more than a week. First Paris, then back to Monaco, but his dad kicked him out of the apartment again and he had to stay
with a friend. Then he headed to Rome to see his grandparents and he was in the gossip mags – pictures of him dating a Brazilian millionaire’s daughter, etcetera.’ Hooper listed
Marco’s movements on his fingers, methodical and precise. His energy was up now that he was back in the loop.

‘Hooper, sit down,’ I pleaded. ‘You’re making me dizzy.’

He ignored me and went on pacing. ‘Rome was early August then he went to Tuscany to his uncle’s house.’

‘Tuscany is probably where he met Scarlett.’

‘Quick flings with a tourist or two then on to Greece, to Crete for a couple of weeks sailing round the island in a luxury yacht and then that was the end of Marco’s summer holidays.
After that, we get London and a language school in Kensington. He did a course for a whole term, got invited to a couple of film premieres while he was there and lots of parties. Still no contact
with his dad.’

‘Wow, Hooper, this is genius!’

He stopped pacing and beamed at me. ‘Christmas, Marco was still in London even though the language course was finished. So, anyway, it was harder to keep track of him between the end of
last term and the beginning of this.’

I nodded. ‘It means it’s at least possible that he got in touch with Scarlett again, maybe even arranged to meet her here in the Cotswolds.’

‘But she wouldn’t tell Alex about that,’ Hooper said. ‘We’re relying on guesswork now, but at least that puts Marco in the right place at the right time.’

‘Yeah, Hooper – thanks. This is going to be so useful.’

‘That’s OK.’

‘You spent a lot of time on this.’

‘Yeah, but it was an interesting challenge.’

‘Only you would say that,’ I laughed. ‘But then you’re a born storyteller and sometimes life turns out stranger than fiction.’

‘So maybe I’ll quit writing novels and be a journalist instead.’

We were winding down, still waiting for Ripley to arrive. ‘What do you say we tell the others what you just told me?’ I suggested.

We left my room and went down the corridor, but before we reached the top of the stairs Connie broke away from the others and rushed to meet us. ‘It’s weird – Charlie
hasn’t come back yet,’ she said with a worried frown.

‘Where did she go?’ Hooper asked.

‘To find a member of staff. I don’t know what happened – they should have shown up by now.’

‘Unless she couldn’t find anyone in the staff quarters and she had to run down the drive to Saint Sam’s house.’

‘Or else the member of staff on duty told her stay over there and not come back in case Marco saw them.’

Connie, Hooper and I tried to work out what might have happened to Charlie.

‘Wait,’ Hooper said, suddenly remembering. ‘When I opened my door to come over here, I just missed a couple of people running downstairs ahead of me. I heard them, but I
didn’t see them.’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ Connie groaned. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘I didn’t know it was important.’

Charlie and Marco. We were so stupid. ‘She went up and warned him.’ I spoke quietly with a sinking heart.

‘If she did, she’s a stupid airhead.’ Connie strode ahead to raise the alarm. ‘Eugenie, Zara – guess what. Charlie turned traitor. She went and told Marco the cops
were on their way!’

‘We
think
!’ I stressed the second word. ‘We don’t know for sure.’

From the landing window we strained to see out across the courtyard.

‘His light’s still on,’ Zara reported.

‘But Hooper heard footsteps,’ Connie said. ‘God knows what Charlie was thinking.’

‘She wasn’t,’ Zara muttered. ‘Charlie is totally fixated on Marco. She’d do anything to keep him out of trouble.’

That was it – we weren’t waiting any longer for the cops to show up.

The girls went out in pairs – me and Connie, Eugenie and Zara – while Hooper set off in his own direction to find the runaways.

‘I’ll let Justine know what’s happening,’ he promised as we went our separate ways. ‘She’s the member of staff on duty tonight.’

‘OK, but be careful,’ I told him. I didn’t have time for any more, since Connie was ahead of me, running through the darkness towards the car park where we found Marco’s
car safely parked.