‘I’m nipping out,’ she said, pulling on her favourite coat.
He looked up from his laptop. ‘What’s your hurry? You must have taken three steps at a time back there.’
‘I’ve spotted signs of life in the village.’ She smiled.
‘If you’re going out, can you post a letter for me?’ he said, turning to the cracked leather briefcase next to his chair.
She watched him with grudging affection as he pulled out handfuls of paper, plonking them down in haphazard piles. She didn’t like to think of her dad as handsome but she knew he was; all her friends’ mums fancied him. No doubt his looks were what had attracted Silvia to him in the first place; April couldn’t think of any other reason. Silvia was privileged, snobbish and superficial, whereas William was hard-working, cynical and academic. And under that dishevelled, disorganised surface, her father had a big heart. Anyone who had put up with Silvia for so long
had
to have hidden depths. And despite all April’s annoyance at the upheaval of moving down here, she knew it was her dad who had suffered most in all this, being pushed out of a job he loved and forced to start again. Having a surly teenager and a disapproving wife in tow couldn’t have helped much either.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ she said, as he handed her a creased envelope.
He frowned slightly, cocking his head. ‘For the letter?’
April smiled. ‘Yeah, for the letter.’
As she opened the front door and ran down the path to the gate, the wind whipped up and blew April’s hair into her face. Pulling it back, she looked up - and that’s when she saw him. A tall, dark-haired boy standing on the other side of the road. He was staring straight at her.
Wow. He’s good-looking,
she thought, with a mixture of excitement and nerves. Tall and slim in dark jeans and a navy pea coat, he looked as if he had just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch advert. His hair was swept back off his forehead and she looked into his deep-set black eyes. Just for a moment, there was a flicker of something in his face: recognition, perhaps? Surprise? She stared back, mesmerised by his eyes, so dark and intense; so intense, in fact, that, after a moment, April had to look away.
Who was he? Was he one of the people she had seen on the bench earlier? And why was he staring at her?
‘April?’
She turned around to see her mother standing in the doorway, arms crossed. Silvia had changed into white skinny jeans and a thick cream cashmere jumper that looked completely inappropriate for unpacking boxes. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
April waved the envelope. ‘I’m just going to post a letter for Dad.’
‘Inside,’ snapped Silvia impatiently. ‘You’ve got a big day tomorrow.’
April glared at her mother. Why did she always have to interfere? She was only going for a walk, for heaven’s sake.
‘Mum ...’ she complained.
‘Now! I mean it,’ said her mother, taking a few steps down the path.
April glanced back at the square. The boy was gone. The square was totally empty, as if no one had ever been there. She frowned; where had he vanished to so quickly? Reluctantly, April walked back up the path.
‘What’s the big deal?’ she asked sulkily as she reached the door. ‘Why can’t I go out?’
Her mother looked over her shoulder at the spot where the boy had been standing, then up and down the street.
‘I’ll tell you why,’ she said, pulling April inside. ‘There’s been a murder.’
Chapter Two
‘Dad. What’s this about a murder?’
April stuffed a piece of toast in her mouth as her father walked into the kitchen. It was 8.30 on a Monday morning and her mother was hovering by the door, jangling the car keys.
‘Don’t start him off,’ said Silvia sarcastically, shooting a dirty look at her husband. ‘We have to leave in about thirty seconds if I’m going to give you a lift to school.’
Yeah, like I’m going to rush for my first day at freak-school,
thought April. Right now she would welcome the distraction of one of her father’s stories, especially one about a grisly local murder. Last night, when Silvia had pulled her back into the house in full view of that totally fit boy, she had just muttered something about ‘something on the news’ and ‘dangerous streets’, then sent her upstairs to unpack. Then Fiona had phoned back with the latest gossip, which had put all thoughts of murder from her head. Apparently Fee had just seen Miranda Cooper, one of April’s classmates at St Geoffrey’s, at the cinema with Neil Stevenson, the boy April had been nursing a crush on for the past eighteen months. Neil was an Orlando Bloom lookalike whom April had slowly managed to befriend over the past year. He was sporty and cool, one of the popular clique at Marshgate Boys, and normally their paths would never have crossed, but as luck would have it, Neil’s mum was one of Silvia’s cronies. Consequently, whenever Silvia popped by’ Neil’s house to drop off something at the weekend or on the way to school, he and April would be forced into each other’s company. ‘Just go and chat to Neil for five minutes, darling,’ she would say, waving a hand. ‘Listen to a CD or something.’ It had always grated on April that her mother clearly trusted her to go into some random boy’s bedroom unsupervised; did she really think her daughter was that unattractive? Anyway, the upside was that after the initial awkwardness, she and Neil had bonded over their mothers’ respective failings as parents and started to get to know each other. April hadn’t exactly rated her chances with Neil, even after he invited her to his seventeenth birthday party in a pub on Princes Street, but a girl could hope, couldn’t she? April had borrowed her mum’s Gucci peasant dress, the only thing she could find in her wardrobe that didn’t make her look about fifty, and had gone along with Fee and another friend. When they had bumped into Miranda on the street a few hundred metres away from the party, they had invited her along too.
Big mistake
.
‘The murder in Dartmouth Park?’ said William, draining his coffee. ‘Thought you’d know all about that by now.’
‘Why would I?’
‘Well, the bloke who was murdered was in that band, Belarus.’
April’s eyes widened. ‘
Alix Graves
was killed?’
Unlike half the girls in her class, April wasn’t a mad Belarus fan. They were a bit too morose, the lyrics too dark. Half the tracks on the last album were just too
experimental—
or so one reviewer in
NME
had described them. But Alix Graves was sexy. She knew at least three girls who would have to phone the Samaritans when they heard he’d been found murdered in his London home. Fee for one - she had been known to kiss his picture before retiring for the night.
‘Who’s Alix Graves?’ said Silvia, fastening the belt of her silk trenchcoat a little tighter.
‘He’s only one of the biggest rock stars in the country,’ April gasped, incredulous. ‘ “Moon Cry”? “Dark Angel”?’ She looked at her mother’s blank face with amazement. ‘You’ve really never heard of him?’
Her father smiled. ‘Your mother prefers Sting. Anyway, Alix’s house was in Dartmouth Park, which is a fair way from here, so you don’t need to worry too much. The police are evidently still baffled by what happened and who might have done it, though. The latest thinking is some crazed fan but no one really knows.’
April pulled her phone out and speed-dialled Fiona as her mother gave a theatrical cough.
‘April,’ said Silvia impatiently, ‘it’s late. Do you want me to give you a lift or not?’
April shot her mother a withering look. Didn’t she understand that this was earth-shattering news? Alix Graves had been murdered and, what was more, it had happened down the road! She had to talk to Fiona. She would be wearing a black veil around Edinburgh for the weekend at least.
‘Off you go, love. We’ll talk later,’ said her father. ‘I’ll see what the guys at work know about it. But don’t worry and don’t let it ruin your first day at school, okay?’
‘In the meantime I want you straight back here after school,’ said Silvia briskly. ‘I don’t want you wandering around when there’s some maniac on the loose.’
‘And how am I supposed to make friends if I’m trapped in here?’ said April, in her mind changing the words ‘make friends’ to ‘meet boys’.
‘Join the chess club or something,’ replied Silvia absently.
‘You are kidding?’
asked April, looking pleadingly at her father.
‘I’m afraid I’m with your mother on this one,’ said William sympathetically. ‘Just until we find out what’s going on.’
April shook her head and grabbed her bag. ‘Well, I think I’ll walk to school—is that okay? You don’t think I’ll be murdered in broad daylight, do you?’ she said sarcastically. She stalked to the front door, angry at her parents - how could they even consider grounding her at such a crucial time? - but also glad that walking would delay her arrival at her new school for those crucial last few minutes, because it was the last place on earth she wanted to be going. Right now she reckoned that being stalked by a killer would be less scary than Ravenwood School.
‘God, Fee, it’s like I’m a prisoner here,’ she said. ‘I seriously think they’d rather lock me in the cellar until I’m old enough to be married off than let me make a decision for myself.’
April had rung Fiona as soon as she was out of the house. Her parents would never understand what massive news Alix Graves’ death was (although their generation never stopped banging on about John Lennon, so they should) and they certainly wouldn’t get how hard it would hit someone like Fiona, who had posters and cuttings of Alix plastered on every available surface in her room.
‘Yeah, it sucks you’ve been grounded.’ Fiona sighed. ‘But at least you’re alive.’
‘Oh, Fee, I’m sorry,’ said April, wincing. ‘I was so mad with them, I didn’t think. How are you doing?’
‘I’ll be okay.’ Fiona sniffed. ‘I’m not sure it’s actually sunk in just yet. Do you think I’ll get away with wearing black today?’
April smiled to herself. She was right about her friend - she was genuinely shocked and upset, but she would also relish the opportunity for drama. The St Geoffrey’s uniform was a horrible battleship grey with burgundy trim and was strictly enforced. Heaven help the girl who dared to turn up in a skirt above the knee - she risked the wrath of their formidable headmistress Miss Batty. April had once been on the receiving end after wearing shoes that were deemed ‘inappropriately high’ and she still shivered at the memory.
‘Good luck with that,’ said April. ‘I can’t see Miss Batty letting you wear black if your whole family had dropped down dead, let alone ...’
She tailed off as Fiona began to sob. ‘Sorry, Fee, I didn’t mean ...’ April felt the miles between them stretching away into the distance. ‘Oh, honey, I wish I was there to help you through this.’
‘Well, if your dad can find out anything more about it, you know,
details
, I think that would help.’
‘Sure, I’ll ask him, but it is his first day at work.’
‘No, no,’ said Fiona, blowing her nose loudly. ‘Quite right, the show must go on, that’s what Alix would have wanted. Perhaps I can just wear a black hat to the school gates or something, some small gesture like that.’
‘That would be better.’
‘Anyway, that’s enough about me,’ said Fiona. ‘It’s your first day, you lucky thing.’
‘Lucky? I’m dreading it. All those freaky brainboxes and rich kids, it’s going to be a nightmare.’
‘No uniform, all those new boys, it’s going to be amazing!’ enthused Fiona, recovering herself. ‘Just imagine, loads of boys actually sitting next to you in class, talking to you in the corridor, holding doors open for you - it’ll be heaven.’
April smiled. It was amazing what five years of private education in an all-girls school could do for your imagination. Since her place at Ravenwood had been confirmed, Fiona had blown the school up into some sort of romantic Jane Austinera fantasy where elegant gentlemen cast furtive but earnest glances at you from beneath their top hats.
‘I’m not sure it’s going to be quite that exciting, Fee.’
‘Of course it is,’ insisted Fiona. ‘There will be boys with
titles
there - real-life lords.’