Killing You Softly (33 page)

My phone rang inside his pocket. I tried to lean across and snatch it, but again he was too quick. He took it out and waited for the ring-tone to end. ‘That was Jack,’ he reported
casually. ‘Must be driving him crazy, not being able to get in touch.’

Jack, my Jack! I love you. I want you to know.

‘What do you see in a guy like him?’ Hooper seemed genuinely puzzled. ‘It’s got to be more than the six-pack, surely.’

Much, much more but not something that you would ever understand.

‘To me he doesn’t seem that special,’ Hooper continued. ‘He’s too easy to read for a start. There are no twists and turns, no depth to his personality.’

I love him. He loves me. I will carry one certainty in life, right to my grave. It will be enough. But Jack, promise me you won’t miss me forever – just for a while. Then live, be
the best you can be.
Nihil sed optimus.

‘Here we are,’ Hooper said chattily as he pulled up by Lock-keeper’s Cottage.

I noted where we were – the steps down to the canal, high brick wall to one side, narrow towpath and the humpbacked bridge ahead. My mood had switched and I felt calm now, beyond shock or
terror, completely out of Hooper’s reach. Which didn’t mean that I’d given in – no way.

He held my door open and I got out of the car. He had the hammer in one hand, the black scarf in the other. I met his gaze, searching for one small sign that the old, sane Hooper still existed
somewhere in there amongst the tangled, twisted neurological mess that comprised his brain. He returned my look with an empty unfocused stare.

Then he turned me towards the steps and prodded me in the back with the head of the hammer. ‘The Industrial Revolution introduced many amazing feats of engineering, but none more so than
the network of canals that still crisscross our nation – don’t you think, Alyssa?’ Prod-prod, down the steps, which smelt of damp and urine, on to the path littered with cans and
black plastic bin bags emerging from the melting snow. ‘Bunches of navvies working with picks and shovels – no mechanical diggers in the eighteenth century, of course.’

I was taking everything in – old snow trodden underfoot, yellow stains where dogs had peed against the wall, an upstairs light on in what I remembered was Sammy Beckett’s house. I
was no longer tuned in to Hooper’s robotic chattiness.

‘Of course, the last time I was here I used a spanner from Alex’s dad’s workshop and, though it spoils the symmetry slightly, I’m afraid on this occasion this hammer was
all that came to hand. Plus the trusty old phone-charger cable,’ he added, withdrawing one from his pocket.

We were down the steps on the towpath, our footfall deadened by the slushy snow. I deliberately didn’t look down to my right at the black, oily surface of the water. Instead I looked up at
the moon.

Jack, ignore what I said earlier. Don’t forget me. Always keep a little place in your heart for me.

‘Ready?’ Hooper asked, raising the hammer.

No, this is not how it ends! I dodged as he brought the hammer down hard. It hit the wall and I sprinted towards the bridge. But the path was slippery and my feet went from under me. Hooper
quickly caught up and bent down to hook the scarf around my neck and pull me to him. Then suddenly he stopped. He looked over at the bridge.

I followed his gaze. Jack was crossing the canal, eyes fixed on Hooper. He was ten metres away, appearing out of nowhere, out of the black silence.

Hooper saw him and panicked. He shoved me to the ground, face down, then knelt on the small of my back. I saw out of the corner of my eye that the hammer was raised over my skull once more.

Jack broke into a run. Hooper smashed the hammer down but I scrambled clear. Jack reached us and swiped him with the back of his hand, sending him sprawling. More figures sprinted towards us out
of the darkness – Zara, Connie and Will. But it was Jack who snatched at Hooper’s jacket when he tried to crawl away, Jack who stopped him and turned him over then sat astride his chest
and punched him in the face, mad with anger until Will yelled for him to stop or else he would kill Hooper. Will grabbed Jack’s raised fist, which threw him off balance and gave Hooper the
split second he needed to wriggle free.

Hooper crawled forward to the edge of the canal and peered at his own reflection in the dark water – a pale oval disc in a liquid mirror. He twisted round to look at me and all I could
think of was Narcissus, in love with his own image, who got separated from his beautiful reflection and died of grief. He smiled at me then rolled sideways and toppled into the canal.

They wrap you in silver, heat-retaining plastic, the kind they give to runners at the end of a marathon. And they sit you down, tell you to take deep breaths.

‘Breathe, Alyssa,’ Ripley said as I sat propped against the canal steps with Jack beside me.

They were all there – police cars, ambulances, Will, Connie and Zara.

And don’t worry about Hooper – they weren’t going to have to dredge the canal.

He rolled over the edge. There was a splash. I held on to Jack’s arm to stop him jumping in as well.

Hooper vanished under the water, which swirled with oily eddies.

Connie would have jumped in after him too. ‘The shitty little bastard doesn’t get away that easy!’

But Zara and Will held her back.

Anyway, Hooper came back up to the surface and struck out in an untidy crawl towards the bridge.

‘Idiot,’ Zara muttered. ‘Not even worth getting wet for.’

Hooper struggled through the water, clumsily flailing his arms and slowly sinking. Well, you wouldn’t expect him to be a good swimmer, would you?

‘Are we going to let him drown?’ Connie asked, as if it was a serious possibility.

Anyway, we heard the sirens and saw the blue flashing lights so none of us had to make a decision about fishing Hooper out. The cops did it for us.

‘Deep breaths,’ Ripley insisted after they’d hauled Hooper back on to dry land and driven him off in an ambulance. They handcuffed him and walked him up the steps. I
didn’t look at him as he passed by and he didn’t look at me.

Personally, I’d done all the looking and talking with Hooper I ever wanted to do. Now the system – police interview, charges, remand, trial, sentence – could roll on around
me.

Jack sat shivering inside his silver cape, knees hunched to his chest.

‘He has two broken ribs and a perforated lung,’ I told the paramedics.

‘We know,’ they said. ‘He discharged himself. There was nothing the hospital could do.’

‘He called to warn us what he was up to,’ Zara explained. ‘We tried to stop him.’

‘But he was too worried about you to listen,’ Connie added. ‘So we said we’d come over to Ainslee to meet him. He said to check your room first, make sure you
hadn’t snuck back to school. That’s when we found everything smashed up and in chaos – phones, that ceramic head from Jack’s room, a candle, a lipstick heart . .
.’

‘Plus, by this time, Will had come across to the girls’ dorm to tell us you’d paid him a visit, Alyssa, and that you were looking for Hooper.’ Zara filled in more gaps.
‘One minute Hooper was with me in my room, talking to you on the phone. Next thing, he’s vanished and his car is missing from the car park.’

‘We’re saying to each other, what’s this with Hooper? Why is Alyssa risking coming back to St Jude’s and taking stuff from his cabinet?’ Connie went on. ‘None
of it is making sense, but all we know is we have to get into town to meet Jack.’

‘You swore you’d stay where you were,’ I reminded him, reaching out to take his hand. ‘He has a perforated lung,’ I said again to whoever would listen.

A paramedic squatted down beside Jack and did routine medical stuff – pulse and blood pressure for a start. ‘Careful, mate,’ she murmured when he tried to stand up, and she
made sure he didn’t move until the stretcher arrived.

‘Is that why you didn’t answer my calls?’ I asked. ‘Because you knew I’d try to stop you leaving the hospital.’

‘Anyway he did pick up my call, thank God,’ Connie said. ‘Zara called 999 to tell them what was happening, then the three of us met Jack outside the train station before the
cops got there. Then at that point we were stuck. Where were you and Hooper? What should we do next?’ She turned to Zara. ‘Over to you, Dr Maxwell Stirling.’

‘First I had to get over my shock,’ Zara said.

Connie nodded. ‘I mean – quiet, reliable Hooper, for God’s sake. Who’d have thought it?’

Zara picked up her thread. ‘I tried to get inside Hooper’s mind. If I was right about his type of mental illness, I knew he was on a major power trip. He’d want every single
thing to be under his control, like he’d scripted the scenario and was forcing you to play it out.’

‘That’s exactly right,’ I murmured.

Hooper takes me down to the lake, down Memory Lane. The black reeds rustle and rattle in the wind. He forces me into his car.

‘Thank heavens . . .’
No,
‘ . . . Thank goodness for child locks,’ he says as he drives me away from the school grounds.

‘Don’t!’ I beg. ‘Please, Hooper!’

I beg, I flatter. I hit the brick wall of his psychosis.

‘I’m writing your life story and I can’t stop short of the satisfying ending, can I?’ He tells me I have to be tomorrow’s headline.
‘Second Body in
Canal’.

‘So in a way he made it too predictable,’ Zara continued. ‘For a start, he’d probably put a cord round your neck like he did with Scarlett.’

Jack held my hand more firmly. He mumbled to the paramedic that he was able to stand and walk to the ambulance without help.

Zara waited until Jack had listened to professional advice and settled back down beside me, then she picked up where she’d left off. ‘I figured Hooper would use some sort of workshop
tool.’

‘A hammer.’

The grip tightened again. I whispered to Jack that I was OK.

‘And he’d bring you to a familiar place to act out his final scene.’

‘Then it was over to Jack.’ Connie was determined to give Jack the final credit. ‘He said two words – “the canal!” It was his idea for us to come
here.’

Young bones heal quickly, though minds may take longer.

Jack was back in hospital for three more days then they let him out with a programme of physio and gradual rehab.

‘No major exertion,’ they warned. ‘Give it time and you’ll be back to normal fitness.’

Back to playing tennis, working his way up the international rankings. I grinned, but had to be careful how hard I hugged him.

I forgot about this once we were back at school and I overdid the embrace.

‘Ouch!’

‘Sorry.’

I was visiting in his room at night-time, breaking the rules. We were heading for the half-term break and everything was back to normal.

‘Do your ribs still hurt?’ I asked, tracing my fingertips across his chest.

‘No. I got cramp in my leg, that’s all.’

‘Liar!’

‘OK, yeah. They hurt a bit.’

‘Is that better?’ I murmured, leaning over to kiss him.

Still without Jack in their team in the first week after half term, St Jude’s five-a-side football team lost three–nil to Ainslee Comp. Alex scored the first goal,
followed by two from Jayden.

Ursula was Jayden’s biggest fan. Dropping her über-cool image, she cheered every time he got the ball, jumped up from her seat in the mezzanine coffee bar each time the ball hit the
back of the net.

‘How are things?’ I asked her after the match, while the teams were showering.

‘Good. But you want to know something funny? Last Tuesday Ripley finally got around to asking me if I needed to speak to a victim support officer after Hooper wrecked my flat.’

‘You said no but Hooper would need one if you and Jayden were let loose on him,’ Connie quipped. She’d been cheering for the losing team, Luke especially.

We laughed. We’d already agreed to stop thinking too hard about Hooper and what he’d done.

‘No,’ Ursula grinned. ‘I asked, what about my telly? I’m not insured so who pays for that?’

‘But it wasn’t broken,’ I reminded her.

‘So?’ she challenged. ‘The cops don’t need to know that.’

‘Oh, OK – no, yeah. I mean, I get it.’

We laughed again.

‘I do deal,’ Galina told Ursula.

Yes, our Russian heiress was still in school, forging her own way without family support like she said she would. Her lip was healed and she’d just signed a modelling contract with Storm
– Cara Delevingne’s agency – branching out from designer bags.

‘What kind of deal?’ Ursula wanted to know.

‘I give you bag from new season collection. You sell online. Take this as thank you for helping Alyssa.’ Then Galina turned to me. ‘And, Alyssa – I show agent your
picture.’

‘You didn’t!’ I protested.

‘No. Tomorrow, I show her.’

‘Tomorrow I
will
show her,’ Zara corrected.

‘Tomorrow I will show her. You
will
be model too.’

‘You will be
a
model . . . Oh, I give up.’

‘No,’ I told Galina. ‘I can’t see me as a model.’

‘We can!’ my mates cried.

Zara, Ursula, Connie and Galina all tried to convince me that I would be fabulous, darling.

‘You
are
fabulous.’ Jack and I walked through St Jude’s wood. Green shoots of early daffodils held out a promise of warmer days.

If two people can walk with more physical contact than we were managing, square centimetre for square centimetre, I’d like to see it.

Our arms were entwined round each other’s waists, our hips and thighs touching, and we were perfectly in step.

‘But can you see me in front of a camera, day in day out? I mean, come on!’

Jack stopped and turned to face me. ‘That’s the only thing about you that I don’t get, Alyssa.’

‘What? What did I say?’

‘I don’t get the false modesty. You’ve got the height, the hair, the figure – any modelling agency would bite your hand off!’

‘It’s not false – it’s genuine. I honestly don’t have the confidence . . .’