Cruel Summer (32 page)

The door opened with a creak and Gran entered, a bowl of steaming soup on a tray with some fresh paracetamol. ‘Have you slept?’ she asked.

‘A little bit. What time is it?’

‘It’s about eight, my love. Time to eat, if you can.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Oh, come on, you can eat a little for your old gran. It’s only soup and a bit of bread.’ She set the tray down on Katie’s lap and propped her upright with a pillow. Then
she held the back of her hand to Katie’s forehead. ‘Your fever’s coming down.’

‘I feel awful.’

‘Katie Grant! Finching girls are tougher than that! Don’t make me tell you the polio story again.’ Katie managed a dry laugh, although her throat felt like it was filled with
broken glass. ‘Go on, just have half a bowl and I’ll see about some jelly and ice-cream,’ her gran urged.

‘I’m not five.’

‘You don’t want the jelly and ice-cream?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ Katie smiled and her grandmother tweaked her chin.

The phone rang downstairs, the sharp trilling reverberating through the walls.

‘I bet that’s your mum ringing to see how you are,’ Gran said.

‘I sincerely doubt that.’ Katie picked up the spoon and looked at the soup. For the first time in twenty-four hours she did feel her stomach rumble a little.

Her gran was already at the door. ‘See if you can finish by the time I get back.’

Katie scooped up a spoonful and blew on it. Her head felt full of mucus and her eyes were watery. She sipped the soup. Predictably, she could hardly taste it but the warmth felt good on her sore
throat. After a few mouthfuls, though, she was exhausted. The effort of lifting a spoon to her lips had spent what little energy she had. She couldn’t even face moving the tray. She closed
her eyes and rested her head back against the wall.

Suddenly, she heard a clatter. At first, Katie thought she’d kicked the soup off her legs somehow, but then she realised it was plates smashing and cutlery chiming against the kitchen
floor. Her eyes flew open. ‘Gran?’ she called shakily.

She heard her name in response, but her gran’s voice was weak and breathless. What was going on? Her muscles aching, Katie moved the tray to one side and swung her legs out from under the
covers. As she rose to her feet, her vision swam and the room zoomed in and out of focus. ‘Gran?’ she repeated.

Using the walls for support, Katie ventured onto the landing and over to the top of the stairs. More crashing noises came from the kitchen. ‘Gran, are you OK?’ she called, slowly
making her way downstairs. Every step felt like it was lurching up at her; she clung to the bannister with both hands.

‘Oh, Katie.’ Her gran was sitting on the kitchen floor, her right arm clutching her left. ‘There are people in the garden. Call the police.’

‘What?’ The walls slid in and out like a shrinking room in a funhouse. ‘What’s happening?’

‘In the garden.’ Gran’s lips were white. ‘Katie, I need my tablets. They’re in my handbag.’

Unsure which way to turn, Katie first ran to the kitchen window. Figures darted across the lawn. They wore something on their heads, like bags or masks. Whoever they were, they were making a
getaway.

Katie charged towards the front door. What had they done to Gran? Fury burned off the effects of her fever.

‘Katie, don’t, it’s not safe! Katie, I need my tablets.’

But Katie wasn’t listening. There was no way they were getting away with this. It was bound to be some morons from school. She threw open the front door. Beyond the gate was a limousine
– just like the one she was meant to be riding in tonight. She spied a red dress slipping into the back seat . . . Janey. This didn’t make sense. Had her friends come to pick her up?
Hadn’t they heard she was sick?

But then she saw the mask. Horrible. Nightmarish. Worn by Ben. He pulled it off his head and clambered after Janey into the back of the car, the mask somehow falling to the ground and landing in
a puddle on the uneven drive.

Katie stumbled out of the door, but by the time she had reached the gate, the car was already speeding away, kicking up gravel and dirt. She staggered back to the house, her addled brain
struggling to make sense of the events – her friends . . . her grandmother . . .

‘Katie!’ Her gran’s voice was weaker now. Katie slammed the door and sprinted back to the kitchen. Gran was slumped over, her eyes half-closed and her mouth hanging open as if
all the strength had left her body.

‘Gran!’ Katie cried, as her grandmother’s eyes fluttered shut. ‘Gran, don’t leave me . . .’

‘So there you go,’ Katie concluded. ‘You killed my gran. You literally scared her to death.’

A moment’s silence followed this revelation.

‘Your grandma was Mrs Finching?’ Alisha was agog. She cowered against the far wall, arms hugging her legs. ‘You never said.’

Katie looked at Alisha like she was the scum of the earth. It was refreshing to give up the good-girl act. Being Saint Katie had been bloody hard work. ‘Does that make a difference? Would
you have let her off if you’d known? Do you only kill old ladies if they’re strangers? Not that she
was
a stranger. You all knew her.’

‘But . . . we didn’t know,’ Ryan said in a pathetic voice.

‘I don’t care!’ Katie snapped. ‘When I started school she told me not to tell people I was her granddaughter because she knew I’d get all kinds of grief for it. She
knew what people thought of her. But that isn’t what matters. What matters is that
you
gave her a heart attack.’

‘It was just a joke,’ Greg breathed. He wasn’t looking too healthy. Gems of sweat shone on his forehead.

‘Oh, yeah, bloody hysterical. I especially liked the bit where the police wouldn’t investigate because she died of “natural causes”. Between that – and
Janey’s vanishing act being so much more important than a sick old woman – you all got away with murder.’

‘I . . . I’m sorry,’ Greg said – only about a year too late. ‘We didn’t know she had heart trouble.’

‘You knew she was an old woman. What did you think was gonna happen?’

‘B-but . . .’ Alisha chipped in, looking terrified, ‘I heard about Mrs Finching’s death. It happened
months
later – like, in the autumn, after you’d
all left. There was an assembly at school.’

That was the wrong thing to say. That was exactly what the police had said. Katie kicked the coffee table halfway across the lounge. ‘I DON’T CARE!’ she screamed, the noise
tearing at her throat. ‘She never left the hospital after that night. She never got better. IT WAS YOU.’

‘She was ill . . .’ Ryan started.

‘It was you.’ Katie composed herself, pushing the burning hate as far down as she could.

‘We never meant to hurt anyone.’ Ben gripped the arms of the chair, his knuckles white.

Katie tilted her head, unsure whether to pity his ignorance or scratch his eyes out for being so blind. ‘Well, that’s the whole problem, isn’t it? You
don’t
think. Any of you. For ten years I’ve watched you play out these self-important little soap operas. You’re each at the centre of a personal galaxy and, if something doesn’t affect
you directly, then you don’t even notice it exists.’ Ben was about to protest, but Katie ploughed on. ‘“Ooh, I’m secretly gay”, “Boohoo, my mum and dad
prefer my brother”, “Wah, my dad’s cheating on my mum”. The world revolves around you. Everyone else is just a bit part. You left Janey to fall off a cliff. Roxanne died and
all you could think about was what would happen to you. You killed my grandma and you didn’t even stop to realise what you’d done. You were all too busy with your own precious
lives.’

‘That’s not true.’ Ben blinked, like he couldn’t see straight.

‘Isn’t it? At least Ryan
knows
TV’s messed up his head. You’re all such sodding stereotypes – screwed-up rich kids with too much time on their hands.
You’d think from your constant moaning that you knew
real
pain,
real
suffering. You’ve never known anything about it! Not until now, anyway.’

‘What about you? You’re no different. People die all the time, Katie – what makes you so effing special?’ Ryan hissed through gritted teeth.

Katie laughed. ‘Oh, I’m the biggest stereotype of all,’ she said. ‘
Good girl gone bad
.’

‘What are you going to do with us?’ Ben asked, resting his heavy head on the back of the armchair.

Katie sighed; all this talk was giving her a sore throat. ‘Why aren’t you people dead yet? I knew I should have mixed it stronger.’

‘Tell us!’ Greg demanded. ‘We have a right to know.’

The anger flared up, blinding white and noisy. Katie flew across the room and seized Greg’s face in her hands, squeezing his skull. ‘You killed my gran. You don’t have rights,
you self-centred bastard!’ That wasn’t going to help. She immediately cooled herself mentally and smoothed down her T-shirt. ‘We’re gonna have one last barbecue
tonight.’

Ryan’s face fell. ‘What?’

‘It’s kind of clever, actually. I get to piss off my stepmum by torching her beloved villa
and
you lot get fried. As I understand it, it’s pretty hard to detect traces
of poison in crispy ashes.’ Now they all looked
really
scared. Good. ‘Luckily, I’ll somehow escape to tell the tale.’ Katie turned to see Ben, not sobbing like the
others, but instead coolly regarding her through heavy eyelids. ‘What?’ she snapped.

‘This isn’t you. I know you. You’re sick. Grief can totally mess with your head. We can get you help, Katie.’

‘That’d be convenient, wouldn’t it? If I’d lost my mind or gone mad or something. Well, sorry, you’re shit out of luck. This is about justice – except for
poor Roxanne. I wasn’t actually
planning
on killing her when I did. I was going to poison you all together but, given her amazing blackmail plot, I had to speed things up.’ She
looked at Alisha. ‘You know that photo Rox had of me and my mum? That was from my gran’s house. Her bloody uncle only bought the farm after Gran died. Roxanne was all up on Facebook
telling me how she knew who I really was – Mrs Finching’s grandaughter.’

‘That’s why you invited her.’ Ryan’s face was now the same sticky, sweaty grey as Greg’s.

‘She was the only one who knew. It’s a shame – she had nothing to do with killing Gran, but I had to make sure no one could figure out what I’d done. Anyway, she was
another one who thought she could do what she liked and get away with it. It wasn’t ideal, but I had to leave her body in the pool because Ben came down to the kitchen and I was worried
he’d see me.’ She’d so nearly been spotted; the whole plan almost derailed in a split second. It had taken the best part of two days for her to get everything back on track.
‘The funny thing is,’ she went on, ‘I knew, I
knew
you’d never call the cops. I just stood back and watched – hell, I even
begged
you to call them. I
knew you’d do anything to save your own skins . . . but Ben, you were the biggest disappointment.’

‘Why?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Why do you think?’

‘Because I’m not the guy you thought I was?’

‘You can say that again. I mean, Ben, what are you supposed to think when you see your first ever boyfriend, someone you truly, truly loved, running away after he’s killed your
grandma? Do you have any idea what that felt like? How much it hurt?’

He held out a hand to her, which she took. His palm was cold and clammy. He stood to face her. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I loved you, too. Maybe we could still give it a go?’

‘Nice try, but it’s not James Bond; there isn’t an antidote.’ Katie could scream, she really could. Scream at herself for ever being suckered in by his dreamy eyes and
welcoming arms. She had allowed herself to love him, but she saw love now for what it was – brain rot. She’d let him into her system and she’d lost a part of herself. ‘I
thought you were pretty pathetic
before
you just confessed all about Janey, but, God, you didn’t even have the balls to save her!’

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you wanted me to be. I’m not a hero.’

The sadness of it made Katie feel awkward. She hadn’t wanted any chat and yet it had become quite the dénouement. ‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘No need to cry about
it.’

Ben leaned in and touched her face. ‘You know, you can say what you like, but I really did love you.’

She wanted to hate him, but those words cut right through her. No matter how much she tried to rid herself of him, he was still inside her heart. Flickering Instagram moments of the kiss on the
cliffs played through her brain. She pushed them away, but they were surprisingly stubborn, refusing to leave her mind’s eye. ‘It’s too late, Ben.’

He looked deep into her eyes, stroking her hair. ‘What about one more kiss for old times’ sake?’

His breath brushed against her lips. She was so close she could almost taste him. What harm would a goodbye kiss do? It was the final curtain for Katie and Ben . . .

His lips touched hers, and every other kiss they’d ever had replayed itself in her head. He was so gentle. It was white feathers in slow-motion.

He kissed her harder, hungrily, but she caught his wrist. This didn’t make sense. He was dying and she was the one killing him. That only makes really specific people horny.

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered. Ben gulped, guilt all over his face. ‘I said,
what are you doing
?’ she repeated fiercely.

He held onto her, but she batted him away. He was barely strong enough to even hold himself up any more and he flopped back into the armchair. She turned her head and saw that Greg and Ryan had
finally lost consciousness. They were slumped side by side on the sofa. She twisted the other way.

‘Shit!’ she hissed.

Alisha had vanished.

SCENE 37 – ALISHA

A
lisha was under the bed in the master bedroom. She clamped her hand over her mouth to muffle her breathing. The faintest whistle down a nostril
could get her killed. This was not a good hiding place. This was bound to be the first place Katie would look. Alisha had raced to the bedroom for the phone, but quickly discovered it had been
ripped out of the wall.