Where the Memories Lie
By: Sibel Hodge
I told them what Ethan had said about Katie trying it on with him. ‘Maybe she was sleeping with Tom to get you back for dumping her. She could’ve been doing it out of spite, planning to tell you so she could rub your face in it, or she’d set her sights on Tom when you broke up with her so he could support her.’
‘Oh, come on, she wouldn’t have done that,’ Chris said. ‘She wasn’t spiteful.’
But trying to sleep with Ethan was pretty spiteful, wasn’t it?
What was she planning on doing if he’d slept with her that night?
Rub my face in it? Try to split us up because she wasn’t with Chris anymore so she thought I didn’t deserve to be happy, either? And it got me thinking about something that happened one day at school when we were coming out of science block after a lesson. There were these heavy metal and reinforced glass doors with wire mesh inside, and I’d opened the door first with Katie behind me. The next thing I knew, one of the annoying, mouthy girls in our class was scream-ing and crying behind us, her nose pouring with blood. She’d told 167
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everyone Katie had slammed the door in her face on purpose, but Katie had denied it, saying it was an accident and the wind had banged it shut after her, but she had this amused glint in her eyes when she said it. Months later she told me the girl had called her a slag and no one got away with calling her names. I knew then for certain it hadn’t been an accident.
‘If she was going to say something to hurt me she could’ve done it on that last day I saw her, but she never said a word.’ Chris shook his head and stared out of the window again. ‘And what about the letter she wrote, then?’
‘She must’ve written the letter intending to run away but then Tom killed her before she actually left the village,’ I said. ‘Maybe she saw him when she was walking past the barn, or she could’ve already arranged to meet him here to get money or something.
Maybe she was blackmailing him about something she’d found out or had stolen something from him. Or maybe it started off as something innocent where he saw her walking along the road and picked her up, offering her a lift somewhere. Whatever happened, she paid an awful price for it.’
‘It’s my fault, isn’t it?’ he muttered. ‘If I’d stopped her that day . . . if—’
‘You can’t play “what ifs”,’ Nadia said. ‘It’s too late for that now.
There’s no point looking back and trying to think of things you should’ve done differently. It’s happened and we can’t change it.
Now we have to concentrate on getting through this.’
There was a knock at the door and Nadia got up to open it.
‘That’s probably Lucas.’
Lucas took one look round the room at our faces and said, ‘So, it’s really true, then? What Nadia’s just told me about Tom and Katie?’
‘Apparently so.’ Nadia hovered beside him, her hand touching his arm. ‘Do you want a drink, darling?’
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Where the Memories Lie ‘Have one of these.’ Chris tilted the bottle of whisky in Lucas’s direction. ‘Or are you flying later?’
‘No, I’ve got a couple of rest days. I definitely feel a Scotch coming on.’ He poured himself a large one and sat down opposite me. ‘I can’t get my head round this.’
‘You and me both,’ Chris muttered, clutching the worktop so hard his hand shook with the force.
‘He really killed Katie?’ Lucas asked.
‘It looks like it,’ I said as Nadia sat next to him, sliding her hand through his.
‘And it was my fault!’ Chris cried.
‘It wasn’t your fault. Don’t be ridiculous!’ Nadia sighed impa-tiently, her shock being replaced with anger. ‘Stop being so full of self-pity all the time. No wonder Abby left you.’
‘Hey, that’s not fair,’ I said to her. ‘Come on, we’re all upset. It doesn’t mean we have to go round attacking each other. That’s not going to get us anywhere.’
‘Sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.’ Nadia scrunched her face up.
‘This is really difficult.’ She looked at Lucas. ‘We’ve got to tell the girls something and I’m dreading it.’
‘Me, too,’ I said.