Authors: Tim Weaver
'So
if she was going to leave the school grounds, and not be caught on CCTV, her
best bet would have been jumping the fence at the back of the Sixth Form car
park?'
'Correct.
I think that's what the police concluded too.'
I
reached down and got out Megan's Book of Life. 'Would it be possible to speak
to a couple of students?'
'Megan's
friends?'
'Yes.'
I looked down at the pad. 'Lindsey Watson and Kaitlin Devonish?'
He
nodded, picked up the phone and punched in a four-digit number. On the other
side of the door, I heard a phone ring in reception. 'Linda, I need Lindsey
Watson and Kaitlin Devonish sent around as soon as possible, please.' He put
the phone down. 'Anyone else?'
I
looked down at the pad, turned it around and slid it across the desk to him.
The six people at the bottom,' I said, pointing to the boys' names. 'Are any of
them students here?'
He
removed a pair of glasses from the top pocket of his jacket and popped them on,
studying the names for a moment. Yes.'
'All
of them?'
'I
recognize all of them but one.'
'Who's
the odd one out?'
'Anthony
"A. J." Grant.'
'You
don't recognize that name?'
'No,'
he replied, taking off his glasses. He got up and went to a filing cabinet at
the back of the room. It had three drawers, each filled with the same Manila
folders, each folder tabbed. Presumably he liked doing things the old-fashioned
way. He went to G, but didn't find anything.
'He's
definitely not a student here.'
'Every
student in the school is in there?'
'Every
current student, yes.'
I
brought the pad back across towards me and put a question mark next to A. J.
Grant. The other names on here —' I pushed it back towards him '— are they all
in the same year as Megan?'
'Yes.'
'Is
it going to be possible to speak to them?'
'Certainly
— but only Lindsey and Kaitlin today. Four of them are on a field trip to
Normandy. The other… Well, the truth is, I don't know where Charles Bryant is.
He missed a lot of school last year because his mother died. This week is the
one-year anniversary of her passing, and he hasn't been in at all. I've tried
calling his father, but have had no response. I even sent one of the teachers
round to his house, but no one was home. I've no idea where he is, and to be
honest, I think this week he's best left alone.'
'Would
it be possible to get an address for him?'
'I
can't give out addresses, I'm afraid.'
There
was a knock at the door. Bothwick looked up.
'Come
in.'
Two
girls entered. They shuffled forward, their eyes flitting between the both of
us. One was beautiful: petite with a dusting of make-up, slim and womanly. The
other was plainer, bigger, dressed more conservatively, but smiling.
'Kaitlin,
Lindsey, this is Mr Raker. He's looking into Megan's disappearance for her mum
and dad.'
I
stood. 'David.'
'Lindsey,'
the bigger girl beamed.
The
other girl hesitated.
'Kaitlin,'
she said quietly. She had an accent.
I
turned to Bothwick. 'Is it okay if I take them somewhere?'
He
looked completely taken aback, as if I'd threatened to burn down the school.
What do you mean?'
'I
mean, is it okay if I take the girls for a coffee?'
'I'd
just like to speak to them in private.' He eyed me suspiciously. 'I'd prefer
them to stay on school premises.'
'Fine.
So is there somewhere we can go where we won't get interrupted?'
'You
could go to the canteen.' 'There won't be any kids in there?' 'We've already
had lunch.' I looked at my watch. Two-thirty. 'Okay, we'll go there.'
The
canteen was long and narrow, the floor tiled in old hardwood, the ceilings high
and sculptured in white plaster. Along one side were four huge windows. Light
poured in, even as rain started spattering against the glass. Opposite was the
kitchen, with big women in white uniforms cleaning out huge vats full of
half-finished food.
On
the walk over, Lindsey had done all the talking. The last time she'd seen Megan
was before the Carvers went to Florida.
'She seemed
fine,' she said, turning to her friend. 'Didn't she, Kay?'
Kaitlin
glanced at me, then at her friend, and nodded.
'So
how come you didn't see her between the time she got back and the time she
disappeared?' I asked Lindsey.
'I
was on a student exchange in Italy.'
'What
about you, Kaitlin?'
Kaitlin
glanced briefly at me. She looked nervous, like she might be in trouble. The
police had probably been to her home, asking questions and trying to work the
angles. Sometimes that had the opposite effect. You ended up pushing harder
because you felt like they were closing up, but they were only closing up
because they felt like they weren't helping. Maybe, in some way, Kaitlin felt
responsible. If she'd met Megan outside the penultimate class of the day,
instead of by the lockers, she might never have vanished. Instead she said
goodbye to her friend after lunch and never saw her again.
'Can
you tell me what happened?' I asked her, after we were all seated.
'I
told the police.'
'I
know you did. I know you helped them out a lot. I'm just trying to see if there
are any small things that they might have missed. You're not in trouble. I'm
just here to help Megan's parents and find out what happened to her.'
She
nodded but still seemed nervous. Her hands were flat to her legs, one of them
rubbing the top of her thigh gently.
'Where
are you from, by the way?'
She
looked at me, frowned. 'Tufnell Park.'
'No.
I mean, originally.'
She
was still frowning. 'South Africa.'
'I
thought so. Nice part of the world. I used to live in South Africa.'
For
the first rime something shifted in her expression: the hardness, the
stillness, replaced by a slight softening of the muscles. 'What part?' she
asked.
'Johannesburg'
She
nodded, but her face hardly moved this time, as if she wasn't actually
listening to me. I studied her for a moment, the look in her face, her hand
moving against her leg, and for the first time wondered if it was shyness
preventing her from opening up or something else.
'Kaitlin?'
She
turned and faced me.
'Can
you go over what happened?'
'I
spent lunchtime with Meg,' she said quietly. 'Then, first period, I had
History, and she had Physics. Between periods, we were meant to meet at the lockers
in the Science block, but I waited there and she didn't turn up.'
'Why
meet at the lockers?'
She
frowned, looked at Lindsey. We always did that.'
'Before
Biology?'
'Yes.
Unless we had a free period together before. If we had a free period, Linds,
Meg and me would probably go to the library or the Sixth Form block.'
'Did
Megan seem all right that day?'
'Fine.'
'She
didn't seem off colour or worried about anything?'
'No.'
'Just
like her normal self?'
'Pretty
much.'
I
paused. 'Pretty much?'
Kaitlin
shrugged. 'Like I told the police, she said she'd had a headache for a couple
of days. Nothing major. Just kind of a fuzzy head.'
I
wrote that down, and then we started talking about Megan generally — what she
was like, her personality, how she'd scored straight As in her GCSEs. Lindsey
did all of the talking. It didn't amount to much. Most of it dovetailed with
what the Carvers had already told me: serious about school, serious about
making a career for herself, serious about not letting anything get in the way.
Basically the most unlikely runaway you could get.
'Did
Megan get on all right with the teachers here?'
'Who
gets on with
teachers
?' Lindsey said.
'She
wasn't close to one of them in particular?'
Lindsey
frowned.
'I'm
looking for reasons why she might have disappeared.'
Her
mouth formed an O, as if she suddenly got the line of questioning, then she
shook her head. 'I don't think so. In science, a lot of the teachers are women
anyway.'
I
nodded. 'Her dad said she used to work in a video store…'
'Yeah,'
Lindsey replied. 'She did two weekends a month. But I think that place closed
down about three months ago.'
'Okay.
But did she ever meet anyone while she was there?'
'I
don't think so.' She paused, looked at Kaitlin, got no help and turned to me
again. 'No one apart from Charlie - but she already knew him.'
'Who's
Charlie?'
'Charlie
Bryant.'
'Charles
Bryant?'
Lindsey
nodded again.
'The kid
whose mum died?'
'Yeah.'
'Were
the two of them friendly?'
'They
went out for a while.'
'For
how long?'
'I
don't know… couple of months.'
'When
was this?'
'After
his mum died.'
'A
year ago?'
Yeah.
He was hard work, though.' She paused, as if she might have just realized why.
'I mean, he'd just lost his mum. You can understand that.' 'Is that why they
split up?'
'Megan
said she felt sorry for him, but she didn't really fancy him. After a couple of
months, she called it off.'
'How
did he take it?'
'He
was upset. He really, really liked her. But he seemed to be okay.'
'Was
he still working in the video store when Megan disappeared?'
'I
think so.'
'So
they still spoke?'
'Yeah.'
'And
got on pretty well?'
'Yeah,
I'd say so…' Lindsey glanced at Kaitlin. Wouldn't you, Kay?'
Kaitlin
looked at me and nodded. I underlined Charles Bryant's name. 'Does the name A.
J. Grant mean anything to either of you?' The blank expressions told me
everything I needed to know. I changed tack. 'Did you have any favourite pubs
or clubs you used to go to?'
'Tiko's,'
Lindsey said immediately.
'That's
a club?'
'Yeah.
In the West End.'
I
made a note of it. 'Any others?'
They looked
at each other. 'Not really,' Lindsey continued. 'I mean, we go to lots of
places, but Tiko's is the place with the best music.'
I
took out Megan's digital camera and scrolled through to the picture of her
standing in front of the block of flats. 'Did either of you take this?'
They
studied it, Lindsey holding the camera.
'Where
is she?'