Running Girl by Simon Mason

someone else’s choice.

14
    AS THE DAYS passed there was no subsiding of media interest in the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ murder, rather the reverse, and on the day of Chloe’s funeral it boiled up to a new intensity. The news channels were jammed with Chloe: her youth, her charm, her dreams, her hopes, her mystery, her murder and, like a piercing memory never to be forgotten, her picture: that snapshot, that face of heart-breaking innocence and beauty. At the Marsh Academy the camera-toting press besieged the gates in ranks of eight and nine, kept at bay only by the diminutive Miss Perkins, in whom they recognized, uncomfortably, a determination more extreme than their own.
    On Top Pitch, at lunch time, Garvie Smith sprawled on the grass, exhausted. He’d been to three lessons one after the other , and was seriously beginning to doubt if he could keep up this level of attendance any longer. With Smudge he shared a calming Benson and Hedges as they listened to Felix report on the funeral, which he’d witnessed earlier in the morning during period one.
    It had been a private family affair at Five Mile Methodist Church. But by chance Felix had been on the roof of the newsagent’s opposite at the time.
    â€˜Nothing private about it,’ he said. ‘Massive crowd. Super-massive. All these reporters and photographers. Cameramen, TV crews. About a thousand coppers in the line, looked like. But the weird thing was how everyone was really, really quiet. Eerie quiet. Like it was a ... a ...’
    â€˜A funeral,’ Garvie said.
    â€˜Well. Yeah.’
    â€˜What were you doing on the roof?’ Smudge asked.
    Felix looked vague. ‘Just looking for something.’
    Smudge said, ‘I reckon this is the biggest thing that’s ever happened in Five Mile. Can’t turn on the TV without seeing her face. And think how many rozzers we’ve had here.’ He paused and looked at Garvie. ‘Have you been interviewed yet?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Really? Everybody else has. Even me.’
    â€˜I’m not cooperating.’
    â€˜You told them that?’
    â€˜Not exactly. They told me.’
    It was strange, the way the police had ignored Garvie. As Smudge said, they’d interviewed everyone else, not just Chloe’s friends but almost all of Year Eleven, and teachers too, even the caretaker and the school nurse. Every day kids were called out of their lessons to go to Tech 2, the ‘interview room’, and sit at the end of a row of tables borrowed from the dining room for what was always called a ‘little chat about Chloe’. It was meant to be confidential. But information given in the strictest privacy in Tech 2 circulated freely in the rest of the school, and at any given time the kids knew significantly more than the police did. It was no surprise to them that Chloe had been the victim of rumour and petty thefts, and that Jessica Walker was behind a lot of it. Or that Chloe was herself the source of other rumours involving luxury cars, millionaire admirers, modelling contracts and besotted teachers. They were familiar with the notion that she had not just one but several stalkers. They even had a shrewd idea what sort of testimony was being given by the teachers; in fact, they could have informed the police themselves that Mr MacArthur often gave Chloe a lift home after her training sessions at the track.
    But some interesting information came the other way. Conducting his own interviews over cigs up on Top Pitch or in Marsh Fields snicket, Garvie had learned about police interest in three key issues: a black Porsche, the fact that something had upset Chloe on Thursday night, and her unexplained absence from school on Friday afternoon. He’d also learned that the police had been disappointed not to find Alex at the Academy; they were keen to interview him again.
    â€˜All that about the Porsche is bollocks though, Garv.’
    â€˜Is it,