Eighteen Kisses Page 10

  ‘Oh yeah, I’m so jealous that I don’t get to stand in Temple Bar with mascara smeared down my face, running after some guy in a Ramones T-shirt with crap hair and an even crappier band.’

  ‘Why do you hate him so much?’

  ‘I don’t hate him, I love you! And I can’t stand watching you get walked all over by him. The others are happy to stand on the sidelines and nod and smile while you make excuses for him, but I’m not. You have to wake up!’

  ‘I don’t understand why you’re being so horrible to me.’

  ‘I’m not the one being horrible to you, Jacki. Call me when you cop on to that.’

  Colin stormed off in the same direction as Nick, and I was left standing there, alone.

  Chapter 13

  The next day I went into a coffee shop in town to meet another person who’d been at the party – Sasha Finnigan. She had an alibi, but had heard about me from Ellie and wanted to help in any way she could, so I decided to meet with her. I figured it would do no harm to hear about the party from somebody who wasn’t a suspect. I tried to forget about last night, to concentrate on the case and get the image of the hurt look on Colin’s face out of my head. And, most of all, I tried to forget how angry I was at Nick.

  We’d arranged to meet in the coffee shop in Tower Records, one of my favourite places in the entire universe. I was early so I had a look at the EPs on sale down the back of the shop. I really wanted a turntable. I had an old record player that had belonged to my dad, but it was very temperamental and didn’t always work. That didn’t stop me buying records though. I saw lots that I wanted, but I was trying to save some money to buy a new amp, so didn’t make any purchases. I also had a look in the book section and flicked through Bob Dylan’s Chronicles until it was four thirty and time to meet Sasha.

  When I went upstairs, she was already sitting at one of the tables. The coffee shop was decorated with mismatched furniture and had a 70s vibe. The milk was in glass bottles on the tables and the armchairs were like something you’d expect to find in your grandparents’ back room. On the ceiling there were framed posters of classic movies, and stacks of film magazines were scattered about.

  ‘Hi, Sasha,’ I said. ‘I’m Jacki.’

  ‘Hey,’ replied Sasha, giving me a welcoming smile ‘It’s nice to meet you.’

  ‘Can I get you something?’ I offered.

  ‘Oh, yes, please, I’ll have a chai latte,’ she said.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back in a second.

  ‘How long have you known Kayla?’ I asked, after the lady had brought us our drinks.

  ‘Since first year,’ said Sasha. ‘We ended up in the same class, and we’ve had the same group of friends since then. I’m not as close to her as some of the others, like Kev and Amy, but I know her really well.’

  ‘How would you describe her?’

  ‘Enigmatic,’ she said. ‘But not in a stand-offish way. It just makes you want to get to know her even more. She’s also unbelievably pretty. Probably the prettiest girl in our year, after Libby. But she’s different pretty to Libby. Libby is always immaculately put together, whereas Kayla is just effortlessly beautiful… but don’t tell Libby I said that.’ She laughed nervously.

  ‘I won’t,’ I said with a smile.

  ‘Was Kayla dating anyone?’ I asked. ‘That you know of.’

  ‘I hadn’t heard of her dating anyone since Kev. I think that break-up really hit her hard, even though she was the one to end it. He just pushed her too far. It came out later that she was actually seeing Luke, although none of us knew. She was a fairly secretive person – she didn’t reveal too much of herself.’

  I nodded. I understood that, considering there were only a few people who I was really open with.

  ‘How is her relationship with Amy?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re best friends and never really fight – only about one thing. Everybody knows that Andrew was obsessed with Kayla, like, for years. Kayla didn’t fancy him, but they ended up hooking up one night at a party. It never went any further though. Amy knew about all of this, of course. And she acted like it didn’t matter at first, but she’s kind of insecure, and she was jealous that Andrew and Kayla had this history. She was doing so well too, but then one night Andrew called her Kayla by mistake. In front of everyone. And she just flipped. I guess she’d been holding it inside for so long that it all came out there and then. Of course Kayla had no idea that Amy felt like this. Things were weird between them for a while, but then they were fine again. Kayla kind of kept her distance from Andrew, stopped going to stuff alone with him and all that. But, like I say, that was the only thing they ever fought about.’

  Andrew hadn’t mentioned that he’d liked Kayla, but I suppose he wouldn’t, not in front of Amy. This gave me a reason to be suspicious of him. If he’d been obsessed with her for years, then maybe he was still obsessed with her the night of the party. Maybe he was jealous that she’d found happiness with somebody else. Maybe he was jealous of Luke, or if he didn’t know about them then Calum, perhaps?

  ‘What about Calum,’ I said. ‘Was there anything going on with him?’

  ‘I can’t believe he’s still claiming she slept with him,’ said Sasha. ‘You couldn’t get any further from her type than Calum, he’s such a sleaze. He’s been with over eighty per cent of the girls in our year. She would not have gone for him.’

  I was surprised Sasha was so convinced. I’d felt that Calum was telling the truth.

  ‘Was Kev still upset about the break-up?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, definitely. Did you hear that there were twenty-five calls to her in his call history? Basically, every night there would be twenty-five missed calls. I know he was upset and everything, but he had stepped over into stalker territory. I know everybody says, Oh, he’s so nice, but I used to go out with him and I’ve seen how angry he can get. You wouldn’t think it, but if he gets pissed off he gets, like, seriously scary. I was having a fight with him once and he hit the windscreen of my car so hard with his fist, I had to pull over and tell him to get the hell out. I broke up with him the next day and I’ve hardly talked to him since. Everybody thinks I was being dramatic, but I was actually scared, like, properly terrified of him at that moment. I’m not saying he would do anything, but I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised if she was scared too.’

  I hadn’t met Kev yet, but twenty-five missed calls did seem excessive.

  ‘When did you first hear she was missing?’ I asked.

  ‘The next morning,’ said Sasha. ‘I was really hungover – I think we all were – but everybody was out, determined to find her. It was about the ninth and tenth day when people started dropping off – those are the days that nobody likes to talk about. They had to get back to their own lives, but some of us were still looking. By the next weekend even we couldn’t keep doing it – work wouldn’t let me take any more time off. Amy and Andrew went home because I don’t think they could hack it any more. Everyone was tired and frustrated and they started to turn on them. And it was sixth year, it was February and we had to study for our mocks. We couldn’t keep looking for her.’

  ‘Do you remember anything odd at the party?’ I asked.

  ‘I remember Barry being in a really bad mood,’ said Sasha. ‘I don’t know what was wrong with him. Maybe he was stressed because he was responsible for keeping the party under control. And Libby was a bit off, but I think that’s just because she was worried about the house; you can never really relax when it’s in your gaff. Also, people were kind of annoyed that there was only one toilet, which someone had got sick in. There was a sign at the bottom of the stairs saying upstairs was strictly out of bounds, and Barry wouldn’t let anyone go up there, even though the downstairs bathroom was, like, disgusting.’

  ‘Do you remember anything else?’

  ‘Honestly… no,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t till the next morning when I got a call from Hazel that I realized something was wrong. The poor girl, she sounded so upset�
�’

  ‘Oh, crap,’ said Sasha, looking at the clock. ‘I have to head back to work. They’re really strict in my place. But I live just up on Dame Street, with Ellie, actually; you’re working on her magazine, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘Well, if you need to talk to me again I’m around town most of the time.’

  ‘Thanks, Sasha,’ I said.

  The next name on my list was Kev. I was due to meet him later today in the shop where he worked. And now, after everything Sasha had told me, I really hoped there would be other people there too.

  Chapter 14

  The charity bookshop was definitely the coolest I’d ever seen. The shelves were hot pink and baby blue, and there was a table with boxes of records inside the door, all priced at one euro. There was a girl arranging a display of detective novels in the centre of the shop, trying to get a battered copy of The Big Sleep to stand upright. She smiled at me, then turned her attention to the display. There was a guy sitting on a high stool behind the till, with brown hair and glasses. He looked exactly like he did in the video.

  A young woman arrived at the counter with a stack of paperbacks, so I browsed the shelves for a few minutes, stopping at the memoirs. They were mainly ones of politicians and reality TV stars, but I spotted a PJ Harvey squashed in between two Hitler biographies. I made a mental note to buy it on the way out.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, and that’s when I realized he was standing right behind me.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, turning to face him. ‘I’m Jacki.’

  ‘Oh yeah… sorry, I’m Kevin. Although you probably already knew that.’

  I nodded. ‘Can I talk to you for a few minutes?’

  He opened the door that led to the back room. It was filled with books – all sorted into different piles. We sat down at the table and Kev pushed some stuff aside – price stickers and a pair of scissors.

  ‘Would you like tea?’ he said, pointing to the giant box of fair trade teabags over on the table.

  ‘Oh, no thanks,’ I said.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah, I better get started.’

  Kev was definitely the most on edge of all the people I’d talked to so far – he even rivalled Calum. He crossed his arms, uncrossed them, then crossed them again. I thought it best to just dive straight in, no point in tiptoeing about.

  ‘I heard there were twenty-five missed calls on Kayla’s phone from you the next morning,’ I told him. ‘Were you worried about her?’

  ‘I just wanted to apologize,’ he said. ‘I wanted to make things right. I should never have gone to her birthday party. But I just thought if I brought her that really nice present and told her how sorry I was then she’d forgive me and everything would be OK. I mean, you’ll do anything to make the hurt stop. I sat on my bed and just kept dialling her number until she picked up. I knew she would eventually because you can make somebody so angry that they will pick up just to shout at you. And I know it makes no sense, but even that little bit of contact eased the pain, just for a second. Even though she was screaming at me to leave her alone, when I hung up I was happier because I loved her so much that at that point I’d rather fight with her than talk to any other girl. I loved everything about her. But the night of the party though… she didn’t pick up.

  ‘Nobody told me she was seeing that other guy. You think your friends would tell you something like that, but nobody bothered to say it to me!’

  Kev sounded pretty desperate – desperate enough to hurt Kayla? I wasn’t sure, but then again love does cloud your judgement – maybe he’d been too emotional to think straight.

  ‘So nobody told you about Luke?’ I said.

  ‘No. I walked in on them in her bedroom and I freaked out. I called her a slut and all this other horrible stuff, which I should never have done; we’d broken up – she was perfectly entitled to be with whoever she wanted. But, seeing the two of them on her bed, I just flipped. The next morning I woke up and remembered all the stuff I’d said, and I just needed to make it right. I was so afraid that I’d ruined any chance of us ever being friends again, and I couldn’t bear that, so I needed to fix it. But she wouldn’t answer her phone. I figured she was just mad, and if I called enough times then she’d eventually give in and pick up. But she didn’t.’

  ‘Did you crash the party?’ I’d thought nobody had been able to get past Barry.

  ‘No, I’d been invited… but when we broke up nobody expected me to actually come. But it’s not like she asked me to stay away or anything; I know I probably should have stayed at home, but I really thought she still loved me and that she was just angry. I wasn’t prepared for the indifference. She didn’t love me any more. I had a feeling Luke liked her. I saw them talking online all the time, but I didn’t think she liked him in that way.’

  ‘So you were stalking her?’

  ‘Oh, come on, don’t tell me you’ve never done it?’

  I didn’t answer. I scanned the room, with its stacks of spineless books ready to be discarded. Kev crossed and uncrossed his arms again. Sitting with him was making me anxious.

  ‘I’d seen the way he looked at her,’ he said, narrowing his eyes. ‘The same way I did. I knew there was something going on, but I thought she was doing it to make me jealous, or to numb the pain. I didn’t think she was actually in love with him. He didn’t appreciate her. He wasn’t right for her. His friends are all crazy and into drugs and she’s just not like that. I don’t think he’s good enough for her.’

  I was starting to feel really uncomfortable. Kev sounded so angry. But I had some more questions for him, so I had to stay.

  ‘What happened then?’ I said. ‘After you walked in on them.’

  ‘She told me to follow her and then led me into one of the other rooms and talked to me for a few minutes. I don’t remember what she said. All I remember is the indifference. In her voice, in her eyes. She didn’t love me any more. She was infatuated with him. I’d got it wrong. I’d convinced myself it was just because she was mad and she wanted to make me suffer. But as she talked I realized that it wasn’t because of that and she didn’t just want to hurt me. She really liked him and she’d probably really liked him for a while – and that hurt more than anything else.’

  ‘Did that make you angry?’ I asked. I couldn’t imagine him taking something like that very well.

  ‘No… I was upset. I didn’t even apologize for saying all those things. I was so upset that I just turned round and walked away, down the stairs and out the door and just kept walking.’

  ‘Where did you go?’ I asked. I’d read in his statement that he’d started walking, but wasn’t sure where he’d gone. I found that kind of unbelievable.

  ‘I don’t really want to say,’ he said, looking down at the table, gripping the handle of his cup, but not moving it.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s embarrassing,’ he said, clenching his hand tighter.

  ‘More embarrassing than ending up in jail?’

  ‘OK, fine,’ he said, looking at me. ‘Don’t tell anyone this… but I sat on the ground behind the sports hall and cried. A few of my mates were down at the school drinking, and I was going there to meet them, but on the way I just sort of collapsed. I didn’t take any notice of what was going on around me because my face was buried in my hands. Then I got up and met my friends and acted like everything was fine. Because that’s what you have to do – you just act like everything is OK.’

  Chapter 15

  George’s Street Arcade was pretty busy. Loads of people were browsing the stalls. I walked down the aisle filled with Hello Kitty merchandise, where you could get anything you wanted with Hello Kitty on it – from trainers to wallets to phones. After that was a stall with multicoloured tights and bowler hats and fairy wings. Next there were tables with manga and anime merchandise, comics and superhero action figures; you could also buy records or rare books or vintage dresses or powdery pink Turkish delight. The arcade was a wonderful mix o
f knick-knacks and clothes and sweets.

  I could see the fortune-teller sign up ahead, a painting of an old woman holding a crystal ball, with silver and gold swirls coming out of it. I arrived at the stall, pulled back the purple velvet curtain and stepped inside. Lauren was sitting there, with a book open in front of her.

  ‘Oh, hey,’ she said. ‘Jacki, right?’

  She was wearing a green silk shawl, which gave her a mystical look. Her brown hair was tied up in a bun. She was also wearing big gold hoop earrings and lots of bracelets.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Thanks for seeing me today. I know you’re really busy.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, have a seat,’ she said. ‘I know, it’s crazy busy these days, lots of people wanting to know their futures. I’ll have my student loan paid off in no time if things keep going the way they are.’

  ‘What are you studying?’ I asked.

  ‘Commercial Law,’ she said. ‘I’m in my final year. This is really handy because I get to pick my own hours and the money is pretty good.’

  ‘How much do you charge, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘Sixty euro a session,’ she said. ‘That’s for about half an hour.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘You should start doing it yourself,’ she said. ‘If you’ve got any sort of psychic ability, then you should give it a try.’

  I laughed. I didn’t think it was my sort of thing.

  ‘So, you want to ask me about the party?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘Do you remember much about it?’

  ‘I got there kind of late because I was waiting on my dad to get home so he could give me a lift. I’d got Kayla this really cool fake fish-tank thing to hang on her wall, but it was super-heavy so I couldn’t bring it on the bus. I got there and the party was packed already. I knew most of the people there, but not everyone. I was in Kayla’s year, but not in her class. I knew her really well from camera club though, and also through Hazel because I used to work at Rage at weekends. I went home pretty early too because my parents are super-strict about studying, and we had the mocks coming up. I was out of there by twelve thirty. So I’m not much help, I’m afraid.’