It Ends With You

by S. K. Wright

Genres: Mystery; YA Mysteries & Thrillers

Synopsis

'A darkly clever teen murder mystery [...] that succeeds in undermining everything you've come to believe and trust. S K Wright pulls off a difficult trick with apparent ease' Crime Review

If I'd told the truth, it would have been fiction.

Everyone loves Eva. Beautiful, bright, fun, generous - she's perfect.

So when her body is found in a ditch in the local woods the only thing anyone wants to know is: Who could have done this?

It has to be Luke, her boyfriend. He has the motive, the means, the opportunity and he's no stranger to the police.

Even though the picture is incomplete, the pieces fit. But as time passes, stories change.

Who could have done this? You decide.

It Ends With You is clever and compulsive. It challenges preconceptions, makes you second-guess yourself with each chapter, and it holds an uncomfortable mirror up to the way societies and systems treat outsiders.

Release date: September 6, 2018

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 384

Sample

The police come to get me on a regular Monday morning. It’s just before 9 a.m. and I should be in assembly singing boring hymns and listening to the deputy head speak about the importance of Living Responsibly and Thinking Of Others. Instead, I’m redecorating the Gents’ toilets with the help of Rob, my best mate.

I’m in pain. Rob has just shoved my head into the sink. Laughing, he spins the taps and cold water sluices over my hair, stinging icy in my ears. I’m wriggling but Rob is pressing hard on my shoulders. ‘So, Batman,’ he says, relishing the game, ‘you’re going downnn . . . ’ I laugh too and try to tell him he’s a bastard but all I manage is a splutter. A surge of fury gives me bonus energy points. I thrash about and throw Rob off and he staggers backwards.

A pause for breath. We both stare into the mirrors. We remember that we’re human, not animals. Sometimes when you’re fighting, you forget to think. You forget who you are. We look at our reflections, me with my wet hair pasted over my face and Rob with red smearing from his nose. I’m taller than Rob but he’s stockier than me. We’ve painted cuts and bruises on each other’s faces; my blood is on his shirt and his blood is on my skin. Maybe we’ve got just a little bit out of control . . .

Rob comes at me—

I spin around and knock him hard—

He falls to the floor.

Now’s my chance. I jump on top of him and grab a fistful of his hair. My anger pumps through me. I love fighting and I hate fighting. The pain lasts for days as your bruises turn all shades of blue, but there’s nothing like that moment, that exhilaration when the anger and adrenalin rush so hard and fast you feel like you’re on drugs. It’s a dangerous moment too, because you can’t say how far you’ll go, how much damage you’ll do, and that fear is part of the buzz.

To be honest, this isn’t 100 per cent play fighting. Rob wrote something on my Facebook wall yesterday about how sexy my girlfriend is and I’ve been feeling pissed off about it ever since.

‘So, Green Lantern —’ I cry, yanking up Rob’s head.

‘I’m not the Green Lantern, he’s a boring wimp,’ Rob protests in laughter. ‘I’m Spider-Man!’

‘Yeah, right. So, Green Lantern, inferior hero that you are – how do you like this?’ I bang his face down on the floor. I hear him cry out and inside my mum’s voice warns me – Don’t go too far, stop, stop—

Right then the door opens. Rob groans and spits blood onto the floor.

‘Luke Jones! Rob Pennington! What the hell are you doing!’

Mr Abdul is standing there.

Shame shrinks me. I stagger to my feet. Mr Abdul teaches Art at St Martin’s High. Most of the teachers in our school give me The Sneer, but Abdul’s different. He’s kind to me; he listens; he seems to really care.

‘Sorry.’ I wince.

‘Luke, what the hell is going on?’

I’ve not heard Abdul raise his voice like this in a long time. He’s normally very chilled.

Rob lies there, groaning as though he’s just fought for weeks in one of those ancient battles against Napoleon or something.

‘Rob, stop trying to play the sympathy card!’ I go to kick him for trying it on, when Mr Abdul cries: ‘Luke!’

‘Sorry – but – he’s fine! We were just messing around.’

‘Luke jumped me,’ Rob groans again.

‘Hey, that’s not true!’

I suddenly become aware that Mr Abdul isn’t alone.

Police officers. Two of them, a bloke and a woman. They step forward.

‘Rob, for God’s sake, get up!’ Mr Abdul says irritably.

The police are watching us closely. I’m conscious of the little differences between me and Rob. Rob wears smart black shoes, whilst I’m in non-regulation grey trainers with holes in them; one of my laces has broken so I’ve replaced it with an elastic band. Rob’s dark hair is neat and spruce; my brown fringe is swinging over my forehead cos I meant to cut it last night but I hadn’t been able to find the scissors in the chaos of our kitchen. Rob is one of those fake rebels who swagger about and boast that they’ll do anything, but the moment an adult shows they’re all smiles and thankyous and posh accents. Now he gets to his feet, smoothing down his hair, looking contrite and shooting me a glance as though I’m some thug he met in an alley.

The female police officer looks at Rob as though she wants to mother him. The man is watching me, though. He has spruce hair flecked with grey and dark, dark eyes. I realise that he looks familiar and then it comes to me.

He once arrested me for reckless driving. I can’t remember his name. He seemed like one of those guys who enjoy being on a power trip. Still, that was months ago, so why are they here now?

‘Luke, this is Detective Inspector Jackson and Detective Sergeant Hutton,’ Mr Abdul introduces them.

Jackson. That’s him. I step forwards, thinking I ought to shake their hands, but Jackson merely raises an eyebrow, so I shove my hand in my pocket. I’m never good with this sort of thing. I see the female detective staring at my shirt and I glance down, noticing the tear.

‘They’ve been given permission from your mother to take you to the station,’ Mr Abdul goes on.

‘Do I have to go?’ Rob cries in disbelief.

‘No, just Luke.’

Rob lets out a little cheer and Mr Abdul gives him a stern glance.

‘What’s it about?’ I ask, even though I already know. Somehow they’ve found out how much I drank at the party last Friday. I drove home oh-so-slowly, at about ten miles an hour all the way. But they must have seen me on CCTV.

‘They’re—’ Mr Abdul begins.

‘We want to speak to you in connection with the disappearance of Eva Pieachowski,’ Detective Jackson says.

Shit. My last memory of Friday evening: Eva’s face, shadowed by the woods, streaked by moonlight, her mouth an ‘O’ as she yelled abuse at me. She was so upset that night. I hope she didn’t go and do anything crazy.

Rob gives me a shocked glance, then quickly looks away. I almost feel like shouting that Rob was there on Friday night too – it was his party. But no. There’s something too familiar about this set-up. Rob politely asks for permission to leave the toilets. While he gets to go back to class scot-free, I’m walking down the corridor in between two police officers, with that sharp, twisting feeling in my stomach that tells me this is just the start of trouble. Of course, with spectacular timing, assembly has just finished. Kids are streaming out and they all get a good look at me; a couple even take pics on their phones, until Mr Abdul tuts at them. This is bloody typical. I’m the outsider in this posh fee-paying school, here on a scholarship, not courtesy of Mummy and Daddy’s millions. I’m always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why does this always happen to me?

Then we’re out in the playground. It’s cold and I want to ask if I can run back in and get my coat. A panda car is waiting. Its blue lights whirl and flash, incongruous and alien in the daylight.

Mr Abdul leans in and whispers: ‘Tuck your shirt in.’

I hastily shove it into my trousers, feeling the safety pin which is holding up my belt. His voice is tender with concern; when I look into his eyes I see fear. For one weird moment I think he’s going to hug me. Mr Abdul was once a scholarship boy from a family on a low income. He’s told me he sees his younger self in me.

‘Be honest,’ he says. ‘That’s all you need to do. Just tell the truth.’

I want to ask him to come with me, but when I open my mouth to say it, I worry that I sound childish and pathetic. He has classes to teach. I’ve let him down. I don’t deserve his help.

So I shove my hands in my pockets and give him a casual smile, as though I don’t really care that any of this is going on. The walk to that police car is a long and lonely one. What’s happened to Eva? Is this another one of her Dares? What do they want with me?

‘Tell me about you and Eva,’ DI Jackson says. ‘She’s your girlfriend?’

We’re sitting in a cramped interview room. A videocam squats in the corner, recording us. Jackson has the most intimidating stare. My hands itch for a pencil. If I was going to draw him, I’d capture his lizard eyes, which laser me for minutes at a time without blinking. Drawing always makes me feel better when I’m tense.

‘What’s happened to her?’ I ask.

‘Or maybe Eva was just a friend,’ he goes on, ignoring me. ‘A friend you have a crush on?’

‘Yes, she is my girlfriend,’ I assert, my cheeks warming. Why do people always assume a girl like her wouldn’t go for a guy like me? ‘It’s serious between us, we’ve been dating nearly nine months. We’re in love.’

‘Really?’ He looks surprised and I swear there’s a sarcastic flicker in his eyes, as if all teens ever do is play Spin the Bottle and snog and lack the depth to ever feel anything deeper than that. At least my anger smoothes away my stutter.

‘We have something really special.’

More surprise. His pen hovers above the page for about a minute, until I’m ready to grab it and fling it across the room. Then he writes something down. He’s left-handed and his handwriting is loopy and slanted; impossible to read.

‘Are you writing a greetings card?’ I ask.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You’re writing down that we have something really special?’ Once I say the words, I know they sound bad. I have such a big mouth. Mum’s always warning me: ‘You always speak and then think and it’s too late once you’ve said it!’

‘Sorry,’ I say quickly.

Detective Jackson folds his arms.

‘You think this is funny?’

‘No! I don’t!’ My voice is too loud and I try to turn down the volume. My fists are clenched in my lap. ‘I just don’t get what’s going on. Where’s Eva?’

‘You tell me,’ he says.

‘I haven’t seen her all weekend,’ I say. ‘I last saw her on Friday night at a party and then I was helping my mum with family stuff on Saturday and on Sunday I went over to see Rob.’

‘Rob?’ His pen scratches another note. ‘The guy you were beating up in the toilets?’

‘We were play-fighting,’ I correct him. ‘We were just messing around! We were pretending to be superheroes. I was Batman and Rob was the Green Lantern – well, he wanted to be Spider-Man, but you know.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You know, the Green Lantern. He’s the lame hero nobody likes.’ I figure that Jackson isn’t the type to ever go to the movies; it would be far too much fun for him.

‘I see.’ Jackson makes another enigmatic note and I swallow. I wish I could be like Rob. He’d know just what to say. If he was here, he’d already know what Eva’s been up to, and would be shaking the policeman’s hand and arranging a game of bloody golf or something. I’m no good at dealing with adults, especially ones in positions of authority.

‘And you’ve had no contact with Miss Pieachowski since Friday?’

‘Well, I did call her but she didn’t pick up, so I figured she was mad at me.’

His eyes flicker. Oh. I shouldn’t have said that.

‘Can I have a drink of water?’ My tongue feels thick in my mouth.

‘In a minute. First, tell me why Eva would be angry with you.’

‘I . . . She . . . it was just . . . ’

‘Let’s begin with Friday. Did something happen that might make her angry with you?’

‘Well, a bit. Kind of. I mean, we were getting on really well to begin with. We went to Rob’s house as he was giving a party. He wanted me there cos we’re good friends.’

‘Except when you’re attempting to break his nose,’ DI Jackson says drily. Before I can defend myself, he goes on: ‘So, did Rob’s parents know about this soirée?’

‘They were away for the weekend, so . . . ’

‘What time did you get to the party?’

Time? I don’t own a watch. I use my mobile sometimes to check the time – and usually find that wherever I’m meant to be, I’m late.

‘I think I picked her up around eight-thirty.’ I don’t add that I had to collect Eva at the bottom of her road, so that her parents didn’t see me. That might sound odd. ‘So it would’ve been soon after that.’

‘Did you drink at the party?’

‘Ah, just a bit. I had a beer, maybe. I know you got me for reckless driving earlier this year, so of course, I was being careful. Eva drank more.’

‘I haven’t forgotten the reckless driving. So, you and Eva fell out? She got upset?’

‘I don’t know about that . . . anyhow, I left the party at, I don’t know, eleven – no, maybe ten thirty. I’m not sure about the time. I left before she did.’

‘You didn’t drive her home?’

‘No – she wanted to stay and I didn’t.’

‘And you weren’t worried about her?’

I stare at the desk, chewing on my lip, when there’s a knock at the door. The female sergeant is standing there. She gives me the strangest of looks – a kind of moon-eyed double take. Then she beckons Jackson over and whispers in his ear. Jackson nods. He turns to the camera, announces the time and says that the interview has been suspended, before switching it off. Then he tells me to wait here and leaves the room, slamming the door behind him so hard that the vibrations shiver and echo through my plastic chair.

‘Fuck,’ I say out loud.

I’m starting to worry that this is more serious than a silly Dare or one of Eva’s wind-ups. I wonder if I need a lawyer. Then I remind myself that me and the detective are basically on the same side, right? We both want to make sure that Eva is okay.

I resist the urge to fold my arms over the desk, bury my head in their nest and nap. I’m scared I’m still being watched through that glass window, even secretly recorded; I try to force an expression of calm neutrality.

It’s hard to think straight because I’m so bloody hungry. This morning I opened the bread bin to find a loaf so green with mould that I couldn’t face scraping it off. Matt and Freya, who are three and eight, started to cry for their breakfast. Mum was already at work, cleaning down at the church, so it was my turn to sort them out. I said they could have Coco Pops, but when I opened the packet, there was nothing but brown crumbs. They cried all the way to school, until I went into the newsagents and bought a Twix, making them swear to share. That was the last of my paper-round money, so I had nothing left to buy my own breakfast. Fighting Rob took the last of my energy.

Breakfast seems like it happened days ago, not hours. I should be in English right now, discussing Robert Frost’s poem about the silent woods. But here I am, in a police station, wondering what my girlfriend is playing at. Maybe it’s Eva’s idea of revenge. Recently her games have started getting more and more out of control, even cruel.

The door swings open. DI Jackson comes striding back in and sets my Nokia mobile down on the table.

‘On Friday night, you have ten missed calls from Eva, between eleven-thirty and one-thirty,’ he says sternly.

‘Ten? I didn’t think it was that many.’

‘She also left some messages which you haven’t listened to. I think you should listen to them now.’

What? How the hell has he got access to my messages? I know all you have to do on a Nokia is press 121, but surely that’s not even legal without a warrant?

I forget everything when I hear Eva’s voice, tinny on the loudspeaker, raw with rage: ‘I hope you’re happy now Luke. Thanks to you, I’m out here in the cold, again – not the first bloody time, is it? I need your help, please, please, help me, please . . . ’

I freeze in horror. And then DI Jackson plays the next. Eva’s voice is a shrill scream and it goes right through me: ‘Luke – you can’t do this to me! I have to get out of here! Please, please, stop hurting me, stop . . . Help, help me!’

Silence.

‘Oh my God! Did someone hurt her?’ I cry.

‘I don’t know, Luke, that’s why you’re here. Were you the one who hurt her? It’s not clear who she’s referring to. It sounds as though you’re the one she’s mad at.’

‘God no, it must’ve been someone else.’

‘Are you sure about that? Why didn’t you listen to these messages? Why didn’t you call her back?’

‘Like I said, I did call her!’ I protest. ‘You haven’t checked properly. I did call her – it was Saturday, or maybe Sunday morning. I – I felt bad and I called at some point. I can’t remember when. But it just went to voicemail and I – I didn’t want to listen to her messages because I couldn’t face them. She wanted to break up, okay? I thought she was just leaving them to tell me to f—, I mean, to go away.’

I stare at the phone again, Eva’s voice echoing inside me: Please, please, please . . .

‘I’m really worried,’ I say. ‘She sounds terrible – is she okay?’

But DI Jackson just looks at me as though I have all the answers.

I stand outside the police station, listening to Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 on my iPhone, wondering why the hell Luke is taking so long. In the last period before lunch, I was disturbed to find Luke still hadn’t been released from questioning, so I decided to come and find him. He’s been in there a good three hours . . .

Finally, he emerges, hurrying down the steps. I’m unnerved by the expression on his face: he looks as though he’s just sat three exams in a row.

When he spots me, he jumps in surprise. He looks so touched that I feel a flash of guilt: Luke thinks I’m here just for moral support.

He gives me a huge hug. I can feel him trembling and I pull away sharply. Just what the hell went on in there?

‘Luke,’ I say, ‘we need to talk.’

We spot a Starbucks down the road and head towards it. Luke’s silent for about a minute and then he spills everything. As I hear him describing Eva’s messages, my stomach clenches. I don’t have a good feeling about this.

‘I’m pretty freaked that she might have been kidnapped or something,’ Luke concludes. He’s blinking hard, and surreptitiously rubs a tear from his eye.

We sit down with our lattes and Luke makes a flippant remark that it’s unlike me to cut class. I can tell he’s trying to lighten the atmosphere, but I have to tell him that this is no laughing matter.

This is serious.

Luke’s right: I’m a grade-A student. I never skip school. Next month I have an interview at Trinity College, Cambridge to read History. After that, I’m going to work in the banking industry for ten years. I’ll stand as a Tory MP at the age of thirty for the Wimbledon constituency. By the age of forty, I’ll be prime minister. I’ve got it all mapped out, and if you think I’m crazy to decide all this at the age of seventeen, then remember: Maggie Thatcher went to Oxford knowing that she was destined to be PM, and look how far she went.

Luke’s biting his nails savagely and I gently swat his hand. So then he takes a napkin, spreads it over his knee and starts sketching caricatures of people in the café. For a moment I’m distracted, marvelling at his talent. Most of the time, Luke looks awkward in his body, but when he starts drawing, his whole physique changes, becomes fluid and serene.

‘Luke,’ I say, swallowing. ‘We have to think ahead. If they’re seriously worried about Eva, then the questions are going to start. She’s been missing three days – if she just wanted to scare her parents or do a Dare, she would have been gone a day, max. So this is serious. They’re going to come after us and they’re going to want to know what happened at my party.’

Luke’s pen pauses. He looks peevish, as though I’m being selfish to worry about us at a time like this. I feel sorry for him. He still hasn’t figured out how life works. Once when I was a kid, my dad took me to the park and showed me the ducks on the pond. ‘See how those ducks over there are pushing the sick duck away? They don’t want to be held back by him, so he has to leave the group. That’s nature. Survival of the fittest.’

In some ways, Luke’s such an old soul, with his dad in jail and the way he’s had to father his siblings, but in many respects he’s terribly naïve. He doesn’t know how to handle adults; that’s why he’s in so much trouble at school. And when he’s in an intense situation, instead of playing it cool, he tends to blow his top. He once joked to me that he’s never quite got the hang of ‘how to bullshit like a bourgeois’. To be honest, that’s what always drew me to Luke. St Martin’s is full of posh toffs; I find his down-to-earth manner refreshing. But now it could screw us both.

‘Look,’ I say, ‘what about what we all did at the party in the – bathroom? And when we . . . you know . . . ’

‘You should b. . .