The Wicked Girls

Chapter Twelve

He’s a cocky young sod. Kirsty can tell by the swagger, by the imperious curl of the lip, by the way he wears his hat slightly offcentre, as if to make a point. By the fact that he’s got his nightstick out as he patrols up and down the line and slaps it against his palm, rhythmically, as he eyes the women with an expression somewhere between a sneer and a leer. There’s a few of them in every town. He reminds her of her brother Darren: his air of sex with a predatory edge. A nasty young man, but he might well be useful.

She can’t wait to be done with this piece. She wants to get home and sort things out with Jim. And she still has the remains of her two-day hangover. She wants to be at the dining-room table that doubles as her office, back in Farnham, with a cup of proper coffee and the laptop open and her husband mollified. She will be, soon. Just needs to mingle, like the rest of the press pack, with the first trippers back into Funnland, and she’s out of here. She has fifteen hundred words to file by lunchtime tomorrow and needs to get writing.

The queue edges forward. She’s amused to see that a lot of her colleagues are also mingling undeclared among the civilians in the hope of picking up some juicy, usable quotes without having to seek permission, studiously ignoring each other though they will all be buying each other drinks in a couple of hours. Stan shambles up the street, looking as hungover as she feels. The landlord of the White Horse will probably be able to take the rest of the summer off. Few drinkers are as free-spending as a journalist on expenses.

He walks past the straggly queue and straight up to her.

‘Sorry about that,’ he says loudly, for the benefit of the people behind. ‘Took ages to find a parking space.’

He slots himself in beside her, lowers his voice. ‘Of course, it’s less about the queue than the company.’

‘Is that you being roguish?’ she asks.

He slide his specs down his nose, twinkles at her over them. ‘I wouldn’t know how.’

He offers her an Extra Strong Mint and they shuffle along companionably.

‘Get back to your room all right the other night?’ she asks.

‘I should be asking you that,’ he says. ‘You were so many sheets to the wind I thought you might go flapping off across the Channel. And how was your room, after you dodged the Ripper?’

‘Thanks for that, Mr Pot. It was great. It had a sink in the corner for throwing up in. But tell you what, I’m in such bad odour at home, I should be wearing a hazard label. I completely forgot we were having some City cheeses over to dinner to try and oil them up for a job for Jim.’

‘Oops.’

‘I was so hungover, I actually threw up.’

‘Not at the table, I hope?’ asks Stan.

She laughs.

‘We’ll make a pro of you yet, my girl.’

‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘I don’t think you can call him a ripper, can you? Strangler, surely?’

His face takes on a contemplative look. ‘The Whitmouth Strangler. It doesn’t have much of a ring to it, does it?’

‘The Seaside Strangler?’

‘Nice. Like it. I found what looked like some dried snot on my bedspread. Which wasn’t very conducive to a good night’s sleep.’

‘Bed-bug numbers are up globally, you know.’

‘For God’s sake. I’m getting that camper van. I hardly ever go home as it is.’

‘Then you could go to the seaside every day,’ she says.

‘Ah, wouldn’t that be lovely? I must say, I’m enjoying this little interlude.’

‘Me too,’ she says. ‘It’s like being on holiday. Are you going on the rollercoaster?’

‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world. You?’

‘Still feeling a bit frail,’ she says. ‘I might have to give it a miss.’

‘Amateur,’ says Stan, and shakes his head. ‘How’s your piece shaping up?’

Kirsty shrugs. ‘Oh, you know. You can find whatever your editor wants you to find. Jack’s after Third Circle of Hell stuff. So that’s what I’m giving him.’

‘That’s why I joined the press,’ says Stan. ‘The relentless quest for balance. Jack does so love to sneer at the proles, doesn’t he?’

‘That’s a bit harsh. Have you seen what the Guardian’s been saying?’

‘Well it is the Guardian. It’s either that or they’ll have to find a reason why Israel’s to blame,’ he says. ‘So how was the press conference?’

‘Oh God. I didn’t go. I was sort of expecting you would.’

‘Ah. Oh well. It’ll all be on AP anyway. You home tonight?’

She nods. ‘As long as he hasn’t changed the locks. I’m on the motorway the second I’m done here. Can’t bloody wait.’

She catches the look on the face of the woman behind her, that peculiarly British suspicion of snobbery, and corrects herself in a louder voice. ‘I hate these overnighters,’ she tells Stan, while looking the woman in the eye. ‘Doesn’t matter where. I just miss my family so much, you know?’

Stan nods. ‘Yes. I remember the days when I had one of those to miss.’

Jim calls just as the gates to Funnland open.

‘Hey,’ she says. ‘How are you?’

‘More to the point, how are you?’ he asks. ‘You didn’t say goodbye before you went.’

‘Mmm,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t entirely sure of my welcome.’

‘Yeah,’ says Jim. ‘You are an arse, you know.’

She feels a rush of relief. If he’s back to administering direct insults, it means he’s over the hump. ‘Accepted and understood,’ she tells him.

‘Save it for the judge,’ he says. ‘Are you still coming home today?’

‘Trust me,’ she says, ‘I’ve only had a bottle and a half of Chardonnay. I can drive it blindfold.’

They laugh. The queue edges closer to the gate and she tucks the phone into her chin to look for her wallet. The nasty young security guard has moved up to stand by the kiosk and smirks at people as they pass, as though he’s got a dirty secret on each of them.

‘OK. I’ll see you later. Oh, and Kirsty?’

‘What?’

‘I missed you saying goodbye this morning. Don’t do it again, eh?’

The words wrap her like a warm blanket. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘I’ll remember not to repeat the error.’

Who wants to ride dodgems at half-ten in the morning? There’s actually a queue for them, though perhaps that’s more a reflection of the fact that half the rides and stalls aren’t open yet than of any particular desire for whiplash. There’s a startlingly handsome man in charge: dark-haired, with a panther-like grace. He’s clean, unpierced, no signs of the inking you’d usually expect on the arms of someone in his trade. Kirsty wonders idly how someone so good-looking ended up working here, rather than for, say, Models One, and passes by.

Most of the other hacks make a beeline for the offices, in the hope that Suzanne Oddie will be on the premises. Kirsty hangs back as Stan wanders over to the café, sees him sit down watchfully at one of the fixed tables outside. He always looks like he’s not working, but he’s the one who actually comes up with the goods. Plays on the fact that the young all believe that men revert to childlike innocence the minute their hair turns grey; gets the waitresses gossiping in a way she can never manage.

Another security guard has been posted outside the entrance to Innfinnityland, where the body was found. He’s arguing with the hack from the Star, arms folded firmly across his chest, head working slowly and firmly from side to side. Of course he is. The attraction is closed, ‘out of respect’. The forensic team have departed, but no one’s going to get in for the money shot.

Except Kirsty.

She finds the cocky guard from the front gate drinking a can of Fanta behind the teacup ride. Now here’s a man with ink on his body. He’s not gone as far as LOVE and HATE knuckles, but a smidge of spiderweb sticks out of the back of his starched blue collar.

She stops beside him. ‘Hi,’ she says.

He lowers the can and looks at her. He looks a bit like a whippet, except that no whippet has mean little watery blue eyes like that.

‘Bet you’re all glad to be back at work,’ she says.

He looks her up and down once more, then realisation dawns. ‘Oh, right, you’re a journalist,’ he says.

‘Yes.’ She sticks out a hand. ‘Kirsty Lindsay,’ she says.

He shakes it, weakly, just like she’d expected.

‘And you are?’

‘Jason,’ he says, uncertainly.

‘Hi, Jason,’ she says, and gets out her wallet. ‘I’ll bet you’ve got the keys to everything here, haven’t you?’

She meets him at the back of the café; he doesn’t want to risk being seen walking across the grounds beside her. There’s a door by the disabled bogs that leads through to the storage alley. The alley runs between the perimeter fence and the backs of a series of stalls and sideshows: old-fashioned hoop-la, a shooting gallery, Dr Wicked’s House of Giggles, the NASA Experience, The House of Horrors, Innfinnityland.

At first glance, the alleyway looks as though it’s strewn with dead bodies. Dead, naked bodies. Kirsty feels a shudder of horror run through her before she realises that they’re just rejects from the waxworks, chucked out carelessly to rot in the daylight.

Jason emerges from between the shooting gallery and the ghost ride. He looks both shifty and pleased with himself in equal measure. Getting one over on the bosses, she thinks, is as important to him as the twenty quid which is burning a hole in his pocket. He beckons with a jerk of the head, and starts walking towards the back of Innfinnityland. She hurries to catch up. Now that she’s out the back here, where no one’s bothered with paint jobs and carved fascias, she sees that the attractions are housed in shabby Portakabins: bits of insulation tumbling out where cladding has come loose, spaghetti-knots of thick black wiring leading from the junction box against the fence.

‘Five minutes,’ he says. ‘That’s all you get.’

‘That’s all I need,’ she says. She wants to grab a couple of rough photos, drink in a bit of atmosphere, that’s all. It won’t take long. She can make up anything she can’t remember. After all, no one’s going to be going in and correcting her.

‘And I’ve got nothing to do with it,’ he says. ‘I’ll come and get you, but if there’s anyone there, I’m here to throw you out, OK?’

‘Of course. Thank you for this.’

He grunts. Stops at the foot of a set of metal steps. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘It’s up here.’

She brushes past, puts her hand on the tubular banister. Jason starts to hurry away.

She’s halfway up when the door at the top of the steps opens. She freezes. Nowhere to go. She’s caught in the act. A woman emerges. She’s tall, and dyed blond: short, practical hair, skin that’s seen better days, rubber gloves and a pail full of cleaning materials hanging from her arm, a large black mole on the edge of her smile line. She stops, looks puzzled.

‘Can I help you?’

‘I was just…’ Kirsty hunts for an excuse. Arse. That’s twenty quid wasted.

‘This building’s closed,’ says the woman. ‘What are you doing back here anyway? You shouldn’t be here.’

‘I just…’ Kirsty says again, then thinks, what the hell. I’m here now. What’re they going to do? Arrest me? She puts on her most persuasive, friendly, conspiratorial face. ‘I just wanted to get a look inside,’ she tells her. ‘I don’t suppose you could…? Just for a moment?’

The woman looks at her as though she’s crawled out from under something. She’s familiar, thinks Kirsty. Why’s she familiar? She gives her a nice open smile. Wonders if she’s got another twenty in her wallet. ‘Go on,’ she says. ‘Just for a minute.’

A frown. The woman shouts, down the alleyway, at the guard’s hurrying back. ‘Jason! We’ve got a stray here!’

Kirsty sees Jason turn reluctantly back towards them. She has seconds to make her final pitch.

‘Come on,’ she says, ‘be a darling. I’m not going to do any harm.’

‘Jesus,’ says the woman. ‘You people disgust me. Seriously. Don’t you realise? There was a girl dead in here. Not some – dummy in a movie. A girl. A sweet, breathing, laughing teenage girl. She was alive, and now she’s dead, and people’s lives are devastated-’

Her voice cuts off halfway through the sentence and Kirsty hears a gasp, as though someone’s punched her in the solar plexus. She looks up at the woman’s face and sees that it has gone white, the eyes bulging, the jaw dropped back to show snaggled teeth.

‘What?’ she asks.

‘No,’ says the woman. ‘No, no, no. Shit, no. No. You can’t be here. You can’t. Shit. You’ve got to go.’ She clutches on to the top of the railing as though the strength has gone from her legs. ‘Oh Christ,’ she says, and she’s almost weeping. ‘Oh my God, Christ, please no. Jade, go. You’ve got to go, now.’