Murder At Snowfall, page 3
“All the better for seeing you, lovely boy. Toast and honey?”
It’s all so normal that when we get back home I’ve almost forgotten about the weird things happening at the surgery, and I grab a sandwich and go up to my room. I message Mia, trying to explain everything. But before I’ve sent the second message, she videocalls me back.
“What. Is. Going. On?” she says.
I put the phone on speakerphone and balance it on the windowsill so that I can eat my sandwich at the same time as talking.
“So is your mum going to work still? Or what?”
“Yeah, she is. Or will be, on Monday.”
“And the doctor – is he still missing?”
“He is. Not a squeak from him as far as I know.”
“That is so spooky!”
“And Oskar – you know, the guy with the weeny goatee – he said something … although, he didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, but Jacqui’s house got broken into. She looked really, like, old.”
Mia rolls her eyes at me. “That’s cos she is – der! What about your Step – what’s he doing?”
“He’s just in his room now,” I hiss, jabbing the speakerphone button and hoping that he’s got his headphones on. “He hasn’t said anything. I didn’t think he’d even noticed that Mum’s all – you know, worried. We took him to Jacqui’s house and he just stared at his phone – but he was kind of maybe listening. You should have seen him at Granny’s. She gave him a huge hug and he was so embarrassed.”
“Oooh. Has he got a girlfriend?”
“What – Lucas? You’re joking. All his friends are, like, nerds. They come and eat pizza and make jokes about orcs.”
Downstairs, Paolo gets out his guitar. He’s getting better. I recognise the chords; it’s a song he and the other ancient people in his band have been playing. Luckily they’re all terrible and they have no intention of performing. He’s made that clear. It’s just for fun. I wouldn’t tell him, but I’d love to have a go at singing with them. Even the awful songs they choose would be fun.
“So have you learned all the words?” I ask.
“No – have you?” she laughs. “Although I will tomorrow, I promise. Anyway, are you still on for the party?” It’s Mia’s birthday party just before Christmas.
“Of course. But it’s not for ages, is it?”
“You cannot overthink these things. Especially in my house. I’ve got these chill lights we can put up in the garden, and Dad says we can use the gazebo thing from his work, so we can have a tent out there, which’ll be cool because the house is – well, meh.”
Mia’s mum and dad are separated too, but she lives with her dad and he’s got the saddest furniture. Their house smells of dog too, but not like Granny’s. Theirs is pig-farm dog smell, whereas Granny’s is just farty Labrador.
“Ace,” I say. “So we’ll be in the garden?”
“Yeah. Hope it snows.”
“That would be magic.”
We’re comparing notes on whether you could live on frozen peas or baked beans forever when the doorbell rings.
I’m nosy, so I go downstairs. I carry some dirty socks – they were all I could find as an excuse – and bung them in the washing machine to look busy. Two people come into the house. One is the detective who was at Jacqui’s house, but I’ve not seen her male colleague before. They look tired, or maybe annoyed. Perhaps they’d been hoping to do their Christmas shopping today – after all, there are only twenty-four shopping days to Christmas.
“Hello, I’m DS Afolabi, and this is DS Green. Can we sit down somewhere?” She takes the lead. I open the fridge and stare inside while listening. “So, Dr Price. He’s still missing.”
“It’s been two days now,” says Mum. “Actually three. We’re really worried.”
I turn around, my back to the counter, and eat a yoghurt as slowly as I dare. Our house is what they call open plan – you can wander from one room into another without going through any doors. It’s great if you don’t want privacy.
DS Afolabi writes something in a notebook she takes from her jacket pocket. “Yes, so we just wondered if the doctor had been acting normally? Strangely? Do you think this is in character?”
Mum’s smiling. “Oh no, not at all, Dr Price is the most efficient and hard-working GP I’ve ever known. Except for his wife, of course, Dr Anna Radcliffe. She’s incredible. They’ve given their all to the local community, and I don’t remember him ever taking a day off.”
DS Afolabi writes Mum’s answer in her book. Her colleague gets up from the sofa and checks out the shelves that line the walls. He looks at photos, the CD collection, the spines of books. It feels vaguely invasive.
Feet sound on the stairs and Lucas swings round into the kitchen. He too puts some socks in the washing machine and then opens the fridge.
“And you last saw him when – Wednesday?”
“That’s right. I left and he stayed. He was going to walk home, he said. To clear his head. It was late because I had to pick Ruby up from a basketball match – they didn’t get back until seven – and I didn’t want her to wait for a bus, so I sorted out the rota for the next day.”
Lucas takes a load of jars from the fridge and examines them, like a scientist looking at specimens. He’s welcome to the lone floating gherkin. It’s been there for years.
“So you’d normally leave at…?”
I look back towards the sofa.
“Six – six fifteen.”
DS Afolabi scribbles it in her book. Her fingers are small and manicured, and she draws smiley hearts and faces in the margins. Is she bored? “How was he? How did he seem?”
Mum bites her lip and stares out the window into the sunlit garden. “Normal – really normal. Busy, stressed, checking out things from drug companies, looking for patient records, not finding them.”
“Any one in particular?”
Mum shakes her head. “No, it’s always like that. And of course it’s winter, so more people, more viruses, you know.”
Alongside me, Lucas leans against the counter. He peels the top from a yoghurt, drops it and pours the yoghurt into his mouth. And then he stays there, holding the empty yoghurt pot, listening.
“So do you still have paper records, or are they all digital now?”
“They’re all digital and have been for years. But there are prescriptions and notes and invoices. Current things that haven’t been put on file. We still have accounts like any other business.”
“And those?”
“All gone. Blood tests, all sort of things like that. All in that fire. There wasn’t even a Post-it note left. Do you think it’s connected to his disappearance? Poor Anna, she must be worried sick.”
“S’all connected,” mutters Lucas.
“Sorry?” I say.
But he chucks his empty yoghurt pot at the sink and lopes back off upstairs. I’m still wondering if I heard it right when DS Afolabi stands up, picking cat hairs from her neat navy-blue trousers.
“We’ll hope to find Dr Price and then things will be clearer. Any information – if you’d let us know.” She hands Mum a card and walks to the door.
“Er, Mum,” I say. “What about last night?”
Mum frowns.
“You know, you said you were followed.”
“Oh – I don’t know,”
“Followed?” DS Afolabi pauses.
“It was nothing – honestly. I was jumpy, you know…”
DS Afolabi looks to Mum and then back to me. “Well, if there is anything…”
“No,” says Mum. “Nothing.”
DS Green, who’s examining Paolo’s Latin jazz collection, hurriedly follows DS Afolabi to the door and they let themselves out.
We stand for a moment listening for the sound of their car starting. I look across at Mum. Her lip wobbles, barely at all, but just enough for me to see. Oh no, I wanted to go upstairs and find out what Lucas meant but… “Tell you what,” I say. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
Chapter 5
Later on, I catch Lucas on his way back to his room from the kitchen. If I’m honest, I’ve been sitting inside my bedroom door waiting to spring on him, so I suspect I come over a bit more kangaroo than I intended.
“What?” he jumps, slopping chocolate milk over the side of the bowl he’s clutching, leaving a pool on the landing carpet.
I almost run straight to the bathroom for some loo paper and start mopping it up, but remember that I have only this one chance before he’s locked in deadly combat for the rest of the evening. “What did you mean? It’s connected?”
He stares at me. I can’t work out if he’s thinking I’m incredibly stupid, or irritating, or perhaps he’s not thinking anything at all. Eventually, he frowns. “The doctor person, the surgery fire, the break-in – all connected. Coincidences don’t happen – there’s a reason.”
“What?”
He shrugs. “Dunno. Can I go now?”
I stand back, he brushes past, and the moment he’s gone I run for the loo paper.
Later, when Mum’s in the bath, I flick through her phone. It feels like stealing, but I’m only looking for Oskar’s number. It’s there in the call history and I copy it down, taking it back up to my room.
And then I stare at the piece of paper for an age.
In the end, I videocall Mia.
“What’s happened?” she asks.
“Police, but they didn’t say anything. Mia, do you think it would be weird if I rang Oskar? You know, the bloke at the surgery who works with Mum and Jacqui.”
She’s silent for a while. “A bit weird. Why would you?”
“Because he has suspicions. Or something. And I do too. And I’d like to know what’s going on.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “And the Step thinks it’s all connected. So it’s not just me.”
Mia sits back. Eyebrows making an escape into her hairline. “Ring him then. Go on.”
But I don’t. I go to bed and worry about whether or not to ring him all night until it’s Sunday, which is the day he’s coming round anyway.
Every week Sunday is the very best until four o’clock when it becomes the very worst.
Only because school crashes into Sunday night no matter how hard I try and keep it back. It’s not that I hate school. It’s more that I’m not very good at it. Or it wasn’t built for me. I just get bored. So bored it hurts and I lose interest. At primary it was OK because we did lots of immersive, interactive things, but sitting in front of a whiteboard all day and copying things down goes straight past me. I’m dyslexic, so that might possibly be why.
Or it could just be that my school is rubbish.
Either way, I do feel that I have to work harder than everyone else to reach the same point, and people like Trixie and Euan Henderson have spotted it. Euan looks at me sadly, like I’m a broken-winged bird or something. Trixie just gets her knife out and gives me a prod. Not her real knife, her word knife. I can’t come back at her snarky comments; I’m not quick enough. Mia’s good though. She often tells me what to say, or tells me to walk away from it, which is what I’m trying to do these days. After all, as she says, we’re not eight any more.
Sunday mornings are usually good. Paolo cooks a full English/Italian breakfast – delicious – and he makes mochas with frothy milk and I love it. This Sunday is almost the same as usual. But there’s something in the air. Mum keeps on getting up and down, and Paolo notices.
“A walk?” says Paolo.
“Oh yes,” says Mum. “Ruby? Join us? Oskar’s coming round later on the bus.”
I look out of the window. The sky is flat grey. Almost yellow. Like it could snow. I could go for a walk, or I could snuggle down with Netflix and a packet of crisps that I happen to know has fallen down behind the pasta at the back of the cupboard and that Lucas hasn’t spotted.
But Mum’s phone rings and it’s Jacqui.
Mum listens for a moment and then says, “Both come round, why don’t you? Oskar will be here around four. D’you know what? I’ll make a cake.”
So the afternoon disappears. Paolo goes for a walk on his own listening to some painful jazz through his headphones. Mum makes the cake. I watch Netflix in my room with half an ear out for the doorbell. Lucas doesn’t make a cake or go for a walk. He swears at his computer and shoots life forms with green blood.
It’s easy to tell when they arrive. Bursts of laughter come from downstairs and I wander down to the fridge and examine the dates on the yoghurts. I want to be there if there’s a chance to talk to Oskar without Mum. Behind me, Jacqui’s raucous laugh fills the space and Mum joins in. Jacqui’s made up this time and much more like the person I’ve known all my life. Funny, noisy, shiny. Her yellow-blonde hair swept into curls, her lips red. Gold dangling from her wrists and fingers. She’s wearing a faux leopard-skin coat and shoes with gold chains on them. Behind her is Oskar. He’s young. So much younger than Mum and Jacqui, and he looks slightly uncomfortable bumbling along in Jacqui’s wake. He wears funky hand-knits that he must find in second-hand shops. The way he dresses is the exact opposite of Jacqui. He’s kind of cool, and I know he likes music and goes to gigs all the time because Mum talks about it with Paolo.
“How are you?” Mum asks Jacqui.
Jacqui lets out a long sigh. “Well, after the police left, I tidied up. Still couldn’t find anything missing, so I got on with my place settings for the wedding.” She gives Mum a significant look. She and Sebastian are getting married a week on Friday. I wonder if she’s asked Oskar to the wedding because he’s staring out of the window in a fixed and very uncomfortable way. “And then I had a normal sort of evening, you know, watched a rerun of Amazing Spaces and ate chocolate to make myself feel better.”
I get out a tray and load it with mugs and plates, and some dainty forks that someone gave Mum and Paolo as a wedding present. Mum and Jacqui go to the sofa in the sitting room and I beam a big smile at Oskar.
“How are you, Ruby?” he says, wandering over. “Can I help?”
“Hi, Oskar, What did—Oh!”
Lucas crashes in behind me, dropping three bowls into the sink and opening the fridge in a single movement. He takes the orange juice from the door and empties a huge glug of it into his mouth.
Oskar winces and Lucas stops, holding the carton in mid-air. “Sorry,” he says. “Did you want some?”
I shake my head and pour milk into a jug. “What was I asking? Oh yes.” I drop my voice to a whisper. Lucas leans in too. “What did you want to say to Mum that you didn’t want to say over the phone?”
Oskar glances over to Mum and Jacqui, who are examining table plans for the wedding on Jacqui’s phone, and turns his back on them. I notice how tired he looks, actually grey, and for a second I’m just watching his mouth move before I understand what he’s saying.
“It’s so weird. I’ve been thinking about it ever since Friday and now I’m sure Dr Price had spotted something in the records or the letters that didn’t add up, like someone’s done something—Oh, Jacqui!”
Jacqui swoops past us in the kitchen, heading for Mum’s cake. “But, Sally, what a marvel is this? Proper tempered chocolate too!” She scrapes a painted fingernail around the bottom of the cake, scooping up a single misplaced blob and landing it on her tongue.
Oskar coughs. Mum laughs and sweeps Oskar and Jacqui and the cake into the sitting room.
“What about Dr Price?” mutters Lucas. “Where’s he gone?”
“Perhaps he confronted someone about … you know, they had a fight or something,” I say, surprised that Lucas is interested enough to remember the doctor’s name.
“What?” says Lucas. “And he’s lying beaten up somewhere?”
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe he’s being held at gunpoint by a patient—”
“Shh, listen.” Lucas holds up his hand and we both freeze to hear.
“I reckon it’s a burglar – after drugs, or prescriptions,” Jacqui says, her voice cutting through everyone else’s. “That stuff happens all the time, doesn’t it?”
Mum starts talking about a break-in at another practice over in Salisbury.
“No, no, it doesn’t make sense,” says Oskar. “You’d go to a pharmacy, not a surgery for drugs. And if you were after precious metals you’d steal catalytic converters, not a load of office equipment.”
I step out of the kitchen so that I can see them. Oskar looks really worried.
“Oh, I don’t know,” says Jacqui relaxing back on to the sofa. “Let’s leave it to the police, shall we?” She helps herself to another slice of Mum’s cake. “Now, you two chickens in the kitchen. Tell us about Hairspray. Sing us a number – I’m so looking forward to it.”
Monday. I hate Mondays. Lucas and I wait for the bus in silence. It’s like that moment in the kitchen yesterday has vanished, but I want to know what he thinks has happened. He obviously isn’t buying into the precious metal thing or the stolen prescription thing, but I just can’t quite think of a way of getting past his earbuds.
“Lucas?” I say.
He doesn’t even move his head.
I try again. “Lucas!”
“What?” he snaps back at me.
“What did you mean yesterday? About Dr Price. And what did you think about what Oskar said?”
Lucas gazes into the distance. “Dunno, it’s too early in the morning.” He shrugs and puts his earbuds back in.
I would kick him if I didn’t think Mum would get to hear about it.
The bus arrives and we sit at opposite ends, both turning to our phones for friendship. I footle through my messages. Some people are already in school. It looks as if the scuzzy changing rooms have had a cheap makeover at the weekend. They’re now seasick blue instead of vomit green. By tonight they’ll be covered in graffiti.
Outside the bus, there are pretty spider’s webs with frost jewels hanging in the hedge, and the big rugby pitch on the left has a small frozen lake at the side. I shiver. I probably should have brought a coat. But I always feel so awkward in a coat. None of the cool kids wear coats. Unless they’re like five-hundred-pound coats from some swish place in London.
