Hollow Pike (27 page)

‘I think it came from Laura’s room,’ Jennifer hissed, ‘
Journalists!
I thought it was bad when they went through the bins, but this is something else!
Scum!’

‘Mrs Rigg, let’s just get out! Or call the police!’ Lis urged.

Mrs Rigg shot her a cold look that told her in no uncertain terms to shut up. Then she gave the door to Laura’s room a gentle push. With a dry creak, it swung open.

Twilight seeped onto the landing as Jennifer stepped into the bedroom. Taking a deep breath, Lis followed.

It looked like a bomb site. This must have been exactly as Laura had left it before her last trip out: her meeting with murder. The duvet was in a heap on the bed, make-up and accessories were
strewn across a grand dressing table and an entire handbag had been emptied out onto the floor. There were posters on the walls and photos on the mirror. It was a typical teenager’s bedroom,
only this one would eternally lack a teenager.

Jennifer looked around the room, turning in every direction, bewildered. Lis could see the internal door to what had to be the en suite bathroom. How could she keep Mrs Rigg out of that
room?

‘Strange. I could have sworn it came from in here . . .’ Mrs Rigg finally lowered the poker.

‘Maybe it came from outside?’ Lis suggested.

Mrs Rigg seemed about to nod, but then her gaze fell on the door to the en suite. Lis was all out of ideas. The older woman headed for the bathroom. They were busted.

But then the doorbell rang: an ostentatious bell chime. And again. Someone was pressing the button repeatedly so that the noisy chimes filled the house.

‘Who on earth is making that racket?’ Mrs Rigg snapped and rushed from the room.

Lis waited until she heard Mrs Rigg’s footsteps on the stairs before flinging herself into the bathroom. It was small, just big enough for a bath, sink and toilet. She instantly noticed
that one corner of the bath panel was loose.

‘Has she gone?’ Jack said from under the bathtub. He pushed the plastic panel aside and rolled out of his hiding place. It was a good job he was so slim or he’d never have
fitted. In his arms were four pretty floral notebooks, each bound with a ribbon.

‘You got them!’

‘Yep, but I dropped the bath panel; it was dead heavy! I called Kitty straight away and she went to Plan B. Sorry!’

‘Never mind,’ Lis whispered, heading back to Laura’s bedroom. ‘We need to get out of here, right now!’

Lis ran onto the landing. She could see Mrs Rigg at the front door. On the threshold stood Delilah, ginger curls tucked into her old red Pizza Factory cap. ‘This is the address I’ve
got,’ she was saying, her arms filled with pizza boxes.

‘I assure you, young lady, I haven’t ordered any pizzas!’

‘Is this thirty-two Cedar Drive?’

‘Yes!’

‘Well, that’s the address I’ve got . . .’ Delilah insisted.

Lis darted back into Laura’s bedroom. ‘Right, I’ll go downstairs and try to get her into the kitchen. You have two minutes to get out, OK?’ she told Jack.

Jack was way ahead of her, already hidden, waiting behind the bedroom door, the diaries in his rucksack. ‘OK. And if I can’t get out that way, I’ll go out the window –
there’s a tree I could climb down.’

‘Jack, when this is over, you should join the SAS, seriously.’

He grinned like that was the biggest compliment he’d ever received. Lis left him alone and headed downstairs, wondering what lies to feed Mrs Rigg. Never mind the SAS, she wanted an Oscar.
But they had the diaries. If Laura had left any clue to who her killer was, this would all be over soon.

Mission accomplished.

Dear Diary

The text message had simply read
Meet me in the rec?
Too intriguing an offer to refuse. Leaving Delilah to examine the diaries, Lis had set off to see Danny. Darkness
was closing in as she pushed through the gate to Hollow Pike recreation ground and Danny was alone, swaying back and forth on a swing.

‘Hey.’ His face lit up on seeing her, and once more his smile left her breathless.

‘So, this is what you do in the evening? Lurk in playgrounds waiting for passing girls?’ Lis teased.

‘Absolutely. Care to join me?’

‘How could I resist?’ She plonked herself on the swing next to his. ‘What’s up?’

He poked at the woodchip with his toe. ‘My sister, the one at Oxford, is home for a few days. I so needed to get out of the house! You’ve saved me.’

‘Any time.’ She kicked off and swung out, remembering what it was like to defy gravity on these things – reaching that point when you fly so high you hover for a moment before
lurching back down.

‘It wasn’t just that though. It’s been a while and texting isn’t the same. I thought it’d be cool to hang,’ Danny continued.

‘Literally!’

‘Any more migraines?’ he asked.

It took Lis a second to realise what he was talking about. Her brain kicked in just in time. ‘Oh, yeah. I mean, no, no more. I’m so sorry about that. It came out of
nowhere.’

‘So everything’s OK now?’

‘Yeah, everything’s fine.’ More lying. How much of her time was now taken up with these so-called white lies? They were still lies.

‘Good. What’ve you been up to?’

Breaking into a dead girl’s bathroom to steal her diaries
. ‘Nothing much.’

‘It’s always nothing with you.’ Danny experimentally trundled back until his feet could only just touch the ground before letting himself fall into a swing.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re very mysterious. It’s pretty sexy!’

‘Oh, yeah, right!’

He laughed. ‘Are you, like, a spy?’

‘Nope.’

‘Or, or maybe a superhero, like Clark Kent – with a secret identity?’

‘Nope, keep trying.’

‘I know, I bet it’s witness relocation! Are you secretly Amish?’

‘What?’

‘You know, like that film with the Amish boy?’

‘You got me! My real name is Gerda. Promise not to tell?’

Danny stopped swinging and took the chain of her swing in his hand to slow her motion too. In a way he was right. Moving here
had
gifted her with an aura of mystery. In fact she’d
been an open book in Bangor, but now she really did have secrets.
Real
secrets, not just high school gossip. She wished she could tell him, but telling him would be purely selfish, and she
didn’t want to drag him into her mess. Perhaps it would have been best if she’d followed head not heart and never agreed to the date with Danny. Of all the nice, normal girls at Fulton
he’d picked her: pretty bad luck on his part.

‘Is that why you asked me out? Cos I’m an enigma?’ She wrapped the last word in a deep, spooky voice.

‘Nah!’

‘Good, cos you’d be very disappointed!’

‘And what is that meant to mean?’ he smiled. ‘You’re being enigmatic again!’

She said nothing, aware she wasn’t really helping her cause. The silence was warm and treacly, heavy with expectation. The toe of his Adidas reached across and gave her own school shoes a
playful kick. She threw him a coy glance and gave him a nudge back. Footsie: how infantile, but how electrifying!

Danny pulled on the chain of her swing, bringing her closer to him. With a glint of mischief in his eye, he kissed her lips and a wave of bliss ran through Lis’s entire body. Suddenly she
was miles from the chilly rec, somewhere bright and tranquil. For an ecstatic instant she forgot everything; there was nothing but the kiss.

In the distance, a phone rang, calling her back to the real world. Every time she spoke to Danny it seemed that thing interrupted them. ‘I’m sorry!’

‘No worries.’ He smiled and licked his lips.

She retrieved the phone from the bottom of her bag. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, darling, it’s me,’ said Delilah.

‘Hey.’ Lis twisted away from Danny in case he heard something he shouldn’t.

‘Can I see you? Could you come over?’

‘Now?’ Lis asked.

‘Yeah, it’s important. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.’

Lis sighed, looking up at the boy who was now gazing away to the horizon, his handsome profile catching the starlight. She wanted to stay with him forever. But Delilah, the fastest reader, had
the diaries and their allure was strong.
This could all be over tonight
, Lis thought.

‘OK. How do I get to your place?’

The Fulton Farm Estate was a far cry from the rest of Hollow Pike. The gateway to the housing estate had a burnt out minibus under a cheery sign welcoming residents home. The
pebble-dashed houses were grey and tired, many entirely decrepit with sealed metal windows to prevent squatting. Some prouder members of the community had bravely tried to maintain pretty front
gardens, but they were in stark contrast to the majority which had wild, overgrown jungles spilling onto the pavement. Lis couldn’t help wondering why so many of the properties had bathtubs
in their gardens, and why there were so many cars with no wheels parked in the driveways.

Lis was surprised that this could exist just a five-minute bus ride from Kitty’s palace on the hill. Deprivation and menace hung from the broken street lights. Delilah’s house was
somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. There were no bathtubs or burned cars, but the garden was a borderline forest. Somehow, it worked; the most beautiful wild flowers grew up the sides of the
house and trees with willowy leaves framed the home like a lace curtain.

Pushing through a rusty gate, Lis approached the front door and knocked. A loud television blared from within, and then a door swung open to reveal a tall man with a trim goatee and long grey
hair secured in a plait. He was wearing overalls covered in oil paints.

‘Hello,’ he said, smiling to reveal a gold tooth. ‘You must be this Lis we’ve heard all about. Come on in.’ Lis warmed to him immediately. He looked like a friendly
pirate.

Then Delilah pushed past him. ‘Hey, Lis. Come up to my room,’ she said, seizing Lis’s hand and dragging her into the house.

The cramped lounge was stuffed with mismatched furniture and smelled a lot like cigarettes and marijuana. Lis vaguely made out the shape of Delilah’s brother playing a console game, but
was hauled past too quickly to be introduced.

They sprinted up stairs cluttered with mugs and telephone directories until they came to a landing. One bedroom was partitioned off with a curtain for some reason, but Delilah took her past that
and into the next room. It was probably a small room, although Lis couldn’t be certain as the space had been almost entirely filled with books. Every surface was piled with literature of all
shapes and sizes. Delilah had even foregone a bed frame and wardrobe in order to create more storage for her novels. There was a single mattress pushed tightly into a corner and a rail to hang her
clothes on. The room flickered in the glow of tea-light candles alight in jam jars on top of the book towers. The room was
so
Delilah.

‘Wow, great room!’

‘Thanks, darling. And thanks for coming so promptly.’

‘That’s OK.’ Lis wondered where she was meant to sit. ‘What’s up?’

Delilah motioned for Lis to join her on the mattress. ‘Lis, I’m freaking out.’

‘Why?’ Lis could tell she wasn’t messing around. Delilah looked like she might vomit; she was even paler than normal.

‘If I tell you something, do you promise not to tell anyone? It’s really, seriously,
catastrophically
bad.’

‘OK . . .’ Lis agreed, wondering what the secret was – there were some biggies flying around this town.

‘Last summer, before you arrived, I got really drunk at this barbecue at Rachel Williams’ house. Kitty wasn’t there because, you know, she thinks they’re all a bunch of
wannabe tossers . . .’

Lis smiled despite herself. ‘And?’

‘And I ended up cheating on her.’

‘Oh! Right. Who with?’

‘That’s the worst part. It was with Cameron Green,’ Dee wailed.

‘What?’ Lis exploded like a firework. ‘Don’t tell me you . . .’

Tears rolled down Delilah’s face. ‘Oh, God, no! It was just a messy clinch really. On a pile of coats. I was so wasted. I regretted it straight away; it was so stupid.’

Lis was lost for words. What had Delilah been thinking?

‘Please don’t tell Kitty!’

‘I won’t, I won’t,’ Lis promised. ‘But it’s in the past now. Why worry?’

Delilah picked up one of the diaries – the baby blue volume. ‘It’s in Laura’s diary. It’s why she dumped Cameron. If Kitty sees this . . .’

Lis drew Delilah into a hug. ‘What are we going to do with you, eh?’

‘I didn’t know who else I could tell,’ Dee sobbed.

Lis took the notebook from her. ‘Look, what if we tear out that entry? Could we do that without it changing anything else?’

Delilah wiped her eyes on the Pizza Factory fleece. ‘I think so. But isn’t it wrong? It’s Laura’s last word, you know?’

‘I don’t think it has anything to do with what happened, though, do you?’

‘I don’t know. Cameron didn’t like being dumped.’

Lis opened the book and started flicking through the handwritten pages. Laura’s girlish loopy writing sloped across the journal. ‘Really? Well, look, Kitty’s hardly likely to
want to read these diaries word for word. We can just tell her the important stuff and fail to mention the bit about you and Cameron. What else was in the diaries? Any other clues?’