Weirdo Page 16

  20

  Shaved Women

  March 1984

  Corrine stood by the school gate, leaning against the wall. She could see her reflection in the window of the Ford Cortina parked in front of her and, at last, she liked what she saw. Her hair was perfect – down to her shoulders at the back, an expertly scissored flat top, the front just tilting into a quiff and razored at the sides. All of it a gleaming, inky black.

  The clothes she now had formed a subversion of school uniform that ticked all the right style boxes – a white shirt untucked over a black mini skirt and thick tights, skinny black tie, long black cardigan and, on top of that, the icing on Corrine’s personal cake, a three-quarter-length herringbone overcoat and a pair of leather winklepicker boots with a big silver buckle across the ankle. Lizzy, the head stylist, had given them to her over the course of the winter. Said she was welcome, that they had never quite fitted her properly. Deserved them, for all the work she had put in.

  Lizzy said Corrine was shaping up to be one of her best trainees.

  In the glass of the car window, Corrine saw Sam walking through the gate behind her, saw her eyes narrow with what looked like envy as they ran over Corrine’s barnet, her coat and then down to her boots. Corrine smiled to herself and turned around to enjoy the expressions that passed rapidly across her former friend’s face.

  “Hi, Sam,” she said.

  “All right?” Samantha’s mouth twitched momentarily upwards but the look in her eyes was pure ice. She sped up her pace, hurrying past. But couldn’t help but cast another look back over her shoulder, just to make sure she was seeing things correctly.

  “What’s up with her?” Julian appeared beside Corrine.

  “Dunno,” she returned his grin. “Don’t reckon I’m good enough for her no more.”

  “Well,” Julian considered, raising his voice in the hope that Sam could still hear, “she’s a silly cow anyway, in’t she?”

  Corrine felt a glow inside. She had accomplished the mission Noj had sent her on. She was sure of it.

  * * *

  Alex held the pencil up at arm’s length, measured carefully the space with his thumb.

  Samantha sat in front of him, on her bed, her head turned sideways, looking out of the window. “You seen Corrine lately?” she asked.

  “No,” said Alex, making a mark on the paper.

  “Well, it’s amazing what a few months in special class can do for you,” she said, plucking at her duvet. “I wonder if they give them pocket money in there.”

  Alex frowned. “What d’you mean, pocket money?”

  “I saw her today,” Sam said, “wearing a coat and a pair of boots that never came from Tracey Fashions,” she smirked as she always did when mentioning Ernemouth’s cut-price teenage boutique. “I was just wondering how she managed to afford it, seeing as how she always used to have to freeload off me. Perhaps,” she flicked a glance over in his direction, “Debbie’s been helping her out. In her usual, big-hearted way …”

  Alex didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “She most probably nicked ’em,” he said. “You know that’s what she’s like. Why you so interested, anyway? Thought you didn’t want anything to do with her no more?”

  Alex had been told the story of Nana’s dog. He had never liked Corrine much to begin with, but that had sealed it for him. If Debbie still wanted to hang around with a dog torturer, she was on her own.

  Although, the thought of Debbie was still troubling him.

  Sam pushed her elbows forward so that her cleavage deepened, watched his eyes immediately travel down, his attention steered back to where she wanted it.

  “Because, for once,” she said, “she looked quite cool. She’s had her hair done properly, and you can’t nick a haircut. How’d she afford it, that’s all I’m wondering. Unless …” She lifted herself off the bed, stalked towards him. Alex felt the air grow heavy, felt his mind start to twist into the shapes he was failing to put upon the paper. He couldn’t seem to separate what his body wanted from what his mind was trying to tell him.

  She put her hand over his, brushed the sketchpad off his lap and squeezed the pencil out of his hand, sat down on his knee and looked deep into his eyes.

  “Is she on the game?” she whispered, licking his ear lobe.

  “Sam,” Alex protested. “Don’t. What if your mum …”

  “Shhhh,” she breathed hot into his ear, starting to nibble the lobe with her sharp little teeth. “Do you think she gets paid for doing things like this?” She lifted his hand, put it over her right breast and held it there fast, so he could feel, even through the thickness of her school uniform, how hard her nipple was. “Mmmm?”

  Alex felt a sick yearning, desire coupled with revulsion at what she was saying. He didn’t want to equate the sordid goings on at the Woodrow house with what he had with Sam.

  “No,” he had a moment of clarity before lust fogged his brain completely, his mum repeating something Mrs Carver had told him. “She’s got a Saturday job in a hairdressers up town. Oliver John’s, is it called?”

  As soon as he said it, Sam took her mouth and his hand away, slipped deftly off his knee. “I think you’re right,” she whispered, “I can hear my mum coming.”

  Before Alex could blink, she was sitting back on the bed, gazing demurely out of the window. He picked up his pencil with a shaking hand, put his sketchbook back down over the bulge in his trousers, just as the rapping came at the door.

  “Cooeee!”called Amanda. “Tea’s ready.”

  * * *

  Corrine got into the salon early on Saturday, and, as she passed a cup of coffee to Suzy on the reception desk, glanced down at the appointments book.

  There it was, in black and white.

  Saturday 3 March

  11 a.m. Samantha Lamb – Lizzy.

  Touching the amulet Noj had given her, which she wore on a leather lace around her neck, Corrine allowed herself a smile.

  * * *

  It was ten o’clock and all was quiet in the Carver household. Debbie’s dad, Bryn, who was on nights, was fast asleep in their bedroom. Downstairs, Maureen was in the kitchen baking, Ian Masters on Radio Norfolk keeping her company, drifts of conversation muffled behind the closed door.

  Debbie padded out onto the landing, turned into her bedroom and sat down on the bed to put on her Robot boots. Glancing up through the window, she saw a flicker in Alex’s room, his hand drawing back the curtains. He stood there for a moment, in pyjama bottoms and a black T-shirt, yawning, ruffling a hand across his dishevelled hair. Then he turned away, disappearing from view.

  Debbie felt a little surge of anger deep inside her. So, at last he was in. It was an hour before she was due to meet Darren. Maybe it was time to pay him a visit, see what kind of zombie Samantha Lamb had turned him into.

  * * *

  “Alex?” Mrs Pendleton called up the stairs, “you decent, love?”

  From the top of the stairs came the sound of a door opening, the thud of a bassline suddenly loudening. “Yeah, Mum,” he replied. “Be down in a minute.”

  “Debbie’s now here to see you.” She winked at Debbie. “Go on up,” she encouraged. “See if you can get him out of that pit.”

  Debbie didn’t need to be told twice. She bounded up the stairs, rapped on the door and pushed it open. Heard the record Alex had given her when he came back from his summer holidays, before any of this had begun. The song about the girl in the party dress, bombed on tranquillisers, seeking comfort in the illusions of tarot cards and crystals.

  Alex stood in the middle of the room, ill at ease, right hand clasped over his left bicep, leaning sideways like he was trying to hide something.

  “Debs,” he said, his face flushed. “I weren’t expecting you.”

  “Al?” her hazel eyes bored into his. She stepped sideways, so she could see what was behind him. “That is still you, in’t it?”

  There was an easel set up in the middle of the room, the canvas on it
facing her direction. A portrait of Samantha stared back at her. Uncommonly for Alex, it wasn’t a very good likeness. But he had captured the gleam in her blue-green eyes, the way the top lip was curled over her crooked tooth and the expression of superiority.

  Debbie drew her eyes away from that cynical gaze and around the rest of the bedroom where she had once spent so much of her time. Across the walls of posters, more drawings and paintings of Samantha had been pinned up. Over The Cramps, over The Ramones, even on top of The Sex Pistols at West Runton Pavilion. Tacked up with pins and masking tape, face after face after face looked down at her, mockery and mischief etched on to each one.

  “Jesus,” she whispered. “Reenie was right. It is black magic.”

  “What you talking about?” said Alex, straightening himself up, his expression changing from embarrassment to annoyance. He hadn’t wanted Debbie to see any of this.

  “I can’t believe she’s done this to you,” Debbie stared at him incredulously.

  “Done what?” he snapped.

  “This!” Debbie spread her arms wide. “I mean, I know how she did it, I just don’t know why you let her. I thought you had a brain, Alex!”

  Alex felt his heart thudding in his chest, in time to the drum machine on the record. Her words were as unwelcome as Debbie herself and her intrusion into his secret world.

  “I din’t ask you in, Debbie,” he said, his face reddening, “and I din’t ask for your opinion, neither. I think that’d be best if you go.”

  “And what’s that on your arm?” Debbie had caught sight of red welts under the sleeve of his T-shirt as he moved.

  “Nothing,” his face flushed crimson as he pulled the sleeve back down.

  “Bloody hell, Al. I can see why you din’t want me coming round no more,” said Debbie. “But I think there’s something you ought to know before she make any more of a fool out of you.”

  “What?” Alex’s eyes narrowed, finding Samantha’s words on the subject of Debbie coming straight out of his mouth. “That you’re jealous?”

  “Jealous?” Debbie barked a laugh. “What you talking about, jealous?”

  “You don’t like it, do you,” Alex went on, “that Sam come from London and she know more about art and music than you do?” He started to walk towards her. “If you hate her so much, how come you have to copy everything she wear?”

  “Al!” Debbie’s voice rose several octaves. “Have you got any idea what Samantha Lamb looked like five minutes before she met you? She had a blonde wedge and pink legwarmers! A spoilt little posh bitch,” Corrine’s words ran through her mind. “That’s all she is.”

  He snorted. “Don’t talk bollocks …” he began, but Debbie stuck a finger in his chest.

  “She’s a liar, Al, it’s me she’s jealous of, not the other way round. Don’t you remember how you met her? She used Corrine to help her go after you. Corrine told her who you were and where you went drinking, she even did her hair for her that night. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Mum, she saw her when she come round mine in a right state about it all.”

  Alex felt a shard of ice temper the rage that was rising in him. Corrine; hairdressing – exactly the same subjects Sam was banging on about yesterday. What was really going on between these girls?

  “And now,” Debbie’s voice rose in volume, “now she’s gonna stop you from getting into St Martin’s, in’t she? She’s sending you mad, trying to draw the perfect picture of her. You’ll never do it, and d’you know why? The person you think she is don’t really exist!”

  For a second, she thought he was going to hit her. Rage flared in his pupils and his hand clenched into a fist.

  “No!” With a visceral vocal howl and a crescendo of guitar, the record came to an end. The crackling of the run-off groove filled the air around them.

  Alex’s face crumpled into a grimace, his eyes sinking to the floor. “Get out, Debbie,” he said. “I don’t want to hear no more.”

  Tears stinging behind her eyelids, Debbie ran back down the stairs, almost colliding with Mrs Pendleton coming out of the kitchen with two cups of tea.

  “Debbie!” Alex’s mother looked shocked.

  “S-sorry, Mrs P,” Debbie gulped and reached for the door handle, yanked it open and fled back to the sanctuary of her own house. Mrs Pendleton stared after her, her eyes becoming hard. She put the teas down on the telephone table in the hallway, wiped her hands on her hips and turned around.

  “Alexander!” she shouted up the stairs.

  * * *

  When Samantha swept into Oliver John’s, Corrine made sure she was out of sight, in the stockroom. From the mirror on the back wall, she could see out into the salon, but no one could see in. She had offered to unpack a new load of dyes, and place them on the shelves according to the system of colour co-ordination. Corrine estimated it would take her about an hour. The whole while, she could keep watch.

  It was funny the way Sam’s eyes kept darting around the room, even when she was putting on that friendly front with Lizzy. She was looking for her; Corrine knew it; wondering if she had come to the right place after all.

  All in good time, Corrine thought to herself. All in good time.

  * * *

  “Mum!” Debbie croaked, throwing the kitchen door open.

  “Debbie?” Maureen turned her head from where she was kneading dough in a Pyrex bowl. “Whatever’s the matter?” she asked.

  “It’s Al,” Debbie said. “We just had a row.”

  Maureen crumbled the mixture off her fingers, stepped forwards to put them on her daughter’s shoulders. “What about, love?” she said, pushing her gently down into a chair.

  “Mum,” Debbie willed herself to calm down, “he’s been seeing this girl in my class, this horrible girl called Samantha Lamb … She got Corrine in a load of trouble and now she’s doing it to Al. Remember that day when Reenie came round here in a right old state after she in’t been in school all week?”

  Maureen nodded. That afternoon was etched on her memory too.

  “Well, Samantha done something to her, messed up her hair, and something else she wouldn’t even tell me. But part of it was that she got Corrine to take her in Swing’s so she could meet Al. She had it all planned out. She was in there with him when me and Darren got there, had him wrapped round her little finger.” Debbie knew she was ranting, but she couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out. “And he in’t been the same since.”

  Maureen stared at her daughter. “Listen,” she said, trying to frame her words without sounding patronising. “I know it’s hard, but all boys go through stages like these. Alex is growing up now, becoming a man, he’s bound to get himself a girlfriend some day.”

  “I know,” said Debbie, nodding angrily. “But not her.”

  “And if he’s going to make mistakes,” Maureen thought of the conversations she’d been having with Philomina next door recently, “he’s got to make them himself and learn from them. You can’t tell him, love. You’ll only bring him closer to her if you do.”

  Debbie bit her lip. Something told her that on this point, her mother was right.

  “Now then,” said Maureen, “let’s put the kettle on, eh?”

  “OK,” Debbie demurred. On the radio, Ian Masters was introducing his regular Saturday morning guest, Old Barney, a farmer who dispensed homespun wisdom in the Norfolk dialect. The pair of them burbled away as Debbie watched her mother brew a pot, soothed by this connection to the Saturday mornings that had come before.

  “Do ya keep a traaashin’?” said Old Barney from the radio.

  * * *

  Corrine waited until Lizzy was holding up the hand mirror, allowing Sam to view her new haircut from all angles. Then she picked up the broom and walked into the salon, watching Sam’s face reflected, seeing the expression of satisfaction fall away as their eyes met through the looking glass.

  “Happy?” Lizzy was asking her.

  “Great, thanks,” Sam recovered her composure swiftly. But
not so quickly as Corrine had begun sweeping up her hair.

  “Hi, Corrine,” Sam said in her sweetest voice, “I didn’t know you worked here.”

  Corrine smiled back. “Learn something new every day, don’t you?” she replied, getting on with her task, carefully catching every last strand.

  Sam’s smile faded. Lizzy lifted the apron from around her neck, brushed away some more trimmings onto Corrine’s pile.

  “Well done, Corrine,” the stylist winked at her. “Bringing me another satisfied customer. You two friends from school?”

  “That’s right,” said Samantha, getting to her feet, brushing yet more hair from her lap onto the floor. If she thought she was making Corrine’s job harder, she couldn’t have been more wrong. “Special friends,” she added, twisting the word for emphasis.

  Corrine saw the hatred in her eyes but did as Noj had taught her. Made herself glass, reflected it straight back from whence it had come. Finished piling Sam’s hair into her dustpan with slow, methodical care. “See you then,” she said, lifting it all up.

  “Yeah,” Sam sneered down at her. “See you around.”

  Corrine found it very hard to stop herself from laughing as she took her bounty away. Emptied the hair, not into the dustbin, but into the little wooden box Noj had given her.

  “Now I’ve got you,” she whispered to herself. “You witch.”

  Part Three

  THE HUNT

  21

  Echo Beach

  March 2003

  There were no nightmares this time. Sean woke at six-thirty feeling like a switch had been flicked in his mind. During his sleep, his subconscious seemed to have worked out the obvious course of action. He settled down to work straight away, making calls, checking his emails, firing out others, collating information and ringing the courier service his employer used to despatch Sheila Alcott’s files to Mathers’ chambers. He even managed a plate of Full English, his appetite returned with a vengeance.

  He called Rivett on his mobile as he stepped outside.