‘I’m just so worried about her.’ I do my best motherly face. ‘Poor darling. I don’t want her to think I’ve forgotten her.’
‘Yeah, course,’ the shorter one says, pulling her sleeves down over her hands. ‘Give us your number then.’
‘Awesome.’ I put it in her phone. ‘And could you tell her I’ll be in the café for a bit?’
* * *
I’m sitting in the park café, scrolling through Safari to find out where the local news agency is when my phone – not flat at all of course – rings. Unknown, it says.
I’m terrified it’s going to be Frankie or the hospital – but it’s neither.
‘Is this Jeanie’s sister?’ the accented voice says.
‘Yeah, this is Marlena.’ My ears prick up. ‘Who’s this?’
‘It’s Yassine, Kaye’s… boyfriend.’ He hesitates over the word in his strange accent. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘About what?’
‘She does not know I’m ringing you.’ He sounds stressed. ‘I had an argument with her about it, you see. It is not a good thing—’
‘What isn’t?’ I’m starting to feel irritated. Spit it out, man.
‘I told a lie. I’m sorry I didn’t say I was there when I was.’
‘What? When?’ I rack my brains. ‘Do you mean at Malum House that day?’
‘Yeah, when I took the football boots round. But then she told me to say that I didn’t…’
The missing boots. ‘Who told you to say that? Scarlett?’
‘No.’ He drops his voice. ‘Kaye.’
‘Kaye did? Why?’
‘I don’t know.’ Yassine sounds thoroughly miserable. ‘She just said not to say I was there; I shouldn’t have been there she said.’
‘Why?’
But he won’t give me any more.
* * *
So why would Kaye make her boyfriend lie?
What the hell’s going on with these bloody Kings?
And yet I have a feeling in my gut – it’s one I recognise from all my days of investigating, of tying ends up – that finally it’s starting to make some kind of sense. But the full truth hasn’t emerged; it’s still hidden, so the dots don’t join up – yet.
Yassine won’t say any more about why Kaye told him to say he wasn’t there; he claims he doesn’t really understand. He’s extremely uncomfortable, that’s obvious. But he does tell me he’s moving out of Kaye’s for a bit.
‘They need some time,’ he says, but I get the sense that he wants out of there, and frankly I don’t blame him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he repeats yet again. ‘It was wrong, and I feel ashamed for my lie.’ His English is very formal, and I tell him not to worry. I don’t want to alienate him – though it’s a pisser. It certainly didn’t help Jeanie, did it? It just made her think she was crazy.
All of these lies.
* * *
South Beds News Agency is the most local to here. I put a call in.
‘I’m trying to find out about an incident with a Lisa Daisy Bedford, sometime in early 2014,’ I make a stab at the date. It can’t have been that long before Matthew met Jeanie – it has to be in-between Kaye leaving and him dating Jeanie. ‘Nothing is coming up on my searches, but I understand the accident was bad enough for her to have been hospitalised.’
As I hang up, the schoolgirls from the sweet shop hurry into the café, all flicky eyeliner and over-pierced ears.
I wave at them, and they rush over to my table, eyes boggling.
‘We did try, but we couldn’t tell her to come, cos she got picked up early,’ the taller one breathes, full of her own importance.
‘Oh yeah?’ Shit. ‘By her mum?’
‘No!’ Cornrows chews her gum ferociously. ‘We weren’t sure, cos we were in the common room when it happened, but Sherry Noyce said they reckon it was by her dad!’
If that’s true, I think, there must be no charges. The school wouldn’t release her to him if he’d been charged.
If they knew it was him collecting her of course.
‘Sherry gave me her number. I texted your number to her,’ the tall one says proudly. ‘To Scarlett, I mean. Said you were worried.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ I say, feeling more worried now.
And I have another feeling, as I gather my things and thank the girls.
The other feeling, one that’s growing all the time, is that this was never about Jeanie.
That Jeanie maybe just got in the way.
* * *
I’m thinking that if I can’t get to Scarlett yet, there’s one other person I really want to talk to.
The news agency calls me back as I’m waiting for another cab.
‘Marlena Randall? I don’t have anything for you on Lisa Daisy Bedford, but I can tell you why you can’t find owt.’ The woman is a bored Mancunian. ‘There’s an injunction on the story.’
‘Injunction?’ My ears prick up. I love an injunction: it always means there’s buried trouble. ‘Do you have any more details?’
‘You know perfectly well I’ll be in contempt of court if I tell you anything.’
‘Ah come on…’
‘Come on, yourself. You might be Old Bill for all I know.’
‘I’m not,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘I’m a journalist.’