‘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.