‘I was still living at home then,’ explains Kayleigh.
Josh puffs out his considerable chest. ‘I think she might have been scared of something – well, someone – and she felt safer staying with me.’
Big, brawny, male me. Lifter of dumbbells. Protector of fair maidens.
‘Any ideas who?’ Getting blank faces, I prompt, ‘And you’re absolutely certain you don’t recognise the guy from outside the church?’
Another round of definitive ‘no’s.
‘Maybe if she was escorting, someone got obsessed with her?’ suggests Kayleigh.
‘If she was escorting,’ says Emma, chiming with my thoughts.
Shona throws Josh a grin. ‘Or maybe she pissed off her sugar daddy?’
I pour water on their phantom bogeymen. ‘Tell me more about Spencer. Josh, you said he could be possessive?’
‘I don’t know about possessive,’ says Shona, cutting across. ‘It took him three days to realise Holly was missing. Does that sound possessive to you?’
There’s no way around it. ‘It took you guys three days to realise, too. Wasn’t it odd not to hear from her at all – a text, a call, anything? You seem like you were pretty tight.’
‘Holly was tight with anyone who was bringing the fun and buying the drinks.’ Shona gets a sharp look from Emma. ‘Well, it’s true. It wasn’t unusual for her to go AWOL. You always knew she’d turn up eventually.’
Until the time she didn’t.
I jump back a moment. ‘So maybe not possessive, but Spencer was aggressive?’
‘Fuck, yeah,’ booms Josh, followed by Kayleigh and Emma, his backing singers.
Shona’s thinking about this, screwing her face up and teasing her spikes. ‘Look, I couldn’t stand the bloke, but it depends what you’d call “aggressive”. He’d get in her face sometimes, shouting at her, and maybe a bit of push and shove – her as well as him. But me and my boyfriend are like that too when the mood takes us. I don’t think Spencer killed Holly, if that’s what you’re driving at.’ She points at Josh. ‘Issue is, he had it bad for Holly since way back in Year Seven, so anyone who dared look at her the wrong way was being aggressive, apparently. And they’ve both been with the same laid-back pushovers since we left sixth form.’ Emma and Kayleigh’s contented smiles confirm this.
‘Couldn’t your pushovers make it today?’ I ask them. ‘They must have known Holly.’
‘Mine’s a plumber, works for himself,’ says Kayleigh. ‘We can’t afford for him to have time off, what with the baby coming.’ She rubs a hand across her non-existent belly. ‘If it’s a girl, I might call her Holly. Holly’d have loved being an auntie; she was good with kids.’
‘And mine’s on crutches,’ says Emma. ‘Although if I’d known so few people would turn up, I’d have forced him to come. Make up the numbers, at least.’
‘Short notice,’ I say again, hoping they’re not too deflated.
Shona tilts her empty glass, rolling the dregs around the bottom. ‘Yeah, we’ll keep telling ourselves that, but truth is, Holly was good at making friends, not so good at keeping them. She was funny and entertaining, but she could be cruel. She’d use people. Put them down. And God, she was so materialistic.’
Emma butts in. ‘And she could be kind and she was a great listener. She was one of the most perceptive people I knew – she’d know you were feeling down before you realised yourself.’
‘Emma likes to only remember the good stuff,’ Shona says.
‘Maybe it’s not a bad idea.’ I take a furtive look at my watch. ‘Anyway, she must have been OK, you guys stuck around.’
Shona shrugs. ‘Your oldest friends forgive more. We knew the stuff she’d been through. She’d had such shit luck in her life and she just wanted attention, I think. So if being cruel would get the laugh, she’d say it, you know? But she wasn’t actually cruel. It wasn’t who she was.’
‘When will they release her . . . um . . . her remains?’ asks Josh, keen to move on from Holly’s faults. ‘God knows what’ll happen about a funeral. Who’ll pick up the cost? My uncle died last year and the headstone alone was over two thousand pounds.’
‘You won’t have to think about that for a while.’ I scrape my chair out, stand up. ‘Listen, thanks for being so open, and well done again on the service. It doesn’t matter how many were there – you were there and you did her proud. I really need to get going, though. It’s nearly three.’
‘Shit, you and me both,’ says Emma, bolting up and blowing air-kisses. ‘They practically call social services if you’re not at the gate at three thirty. Laters.’
Three thirty. A fairly standard school pick-up time. On occasional days off, I’ve collected Finn and brought him for ice cream at Udderlicious. Every time, it’s drilled into me.
‘Three thirty p.m., Cat. Got that? Not 3.30ish. Not 3.45. 3.30 – do you hear me?’
And so now a question’s forming. A question I’ll keep from Steele, even Parnell, until I know it has weight. A question it should only take a quick detour to answer.
Because shouldn’t a teacher have been in school on a Thursday afternoon in term-time, not trying to buy Lady Gaga tickets in an over-priced Clapham bar?
Were Serena Bailey’s whereabouts that day ever officially checked?
10
‘May I ask why you need this?’
It’s not the first time a head teacher has eyed me with suspicion over the rim of their bifocals. It is the first time I’ve had the upper hand, though.
‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss that.’ Oh, the power. The head-spinning power. ‘If you could just confirm for me, that’d be great, thanks.’
Geetha Gopal, Head of Riverdale Primary since 1997 (‘The week after Princess Diana died,’ she announced grandly, as though only a human of immense spirit could commandeer a new school under such circumstances), returns to her computer screen, leaving me standing in the centre of her office, staring at the busy walls. A patchwork of certificates and ‘thank you’ cards tell the story of a job well done. A photo of every current pupil, along with their name, birthday, favourite book and piece of fruit, tells the story of a head teacher who goes way beyond the standard definition of ‘care’.
‘God, and to think I used to be scared of this office,’ I say, surveying one hundred plus gummy smiles and bad fringes; a collage of heart-melting promise.
Mrs Gopal looks up immediately, her lined face full of warmth. ‘You’re an ex-pupil of Riverdale?’
‘Ah no, sorry. I meant the concept of the head teacher’s office. I spent far too much time in them, back in the day. Nothing terrible,’ I feel the need to add. ‘Just the usual swearing, scrapping, rolling my skirt up and my socks down.’
‘Hmm.’ She drags a finger across her screen, staring hard. ‘I’d love to say ours are still a bit young for all that, but the way things are going . . . Ah, here we are. Miss Bailey, Thursday 23rd February, 2012. Yes, she was here – marked present all day.’ She looks up with a satisfied smile, certain she’s given the right answer. I keep my face poker-straight, resisting the urge to sprint back to HQ with my finding; a cat dropping a chewed-up mouse on Steele’s clean floor. ‘Serena was an exemplary teacher. A natural. Very bright, creative – and devoted. I was sorry to lose her.’