Killing Rachel by Anne Cassidy

Author:Anne Cassidy
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781408815519
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-09-14T23:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Back at Mary Linton there was over an hour to go until she was due to meet Rachel’s parents. She decided to get a coffee and a sandwich from the refectory. She saw Molly sitting on her own and after she’d paid she walked across and sat down opposite her.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Hello, Rose.’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘All right.’

‘Where’s Amanda?’

‘Not sure.’

There was an uneasy silence. Rose spoke.

‘So you and Rachel became friends,’ she said softly, undoing the cellophane on her sandwich.

‘Yes.’

‘How did that happen? I mean, how did you hook up together?’

‘We were in some of the same classes. She was kind of fed up with the kids in the common room and so we spent a lot of time in her room.’

Rose didn’t comment. It sounded like Rachel.

‘I know Amanda didn’t rate Rachel and I know you fell out with her but I liked her.’

‘Did you know that Rachel thought she’d seen a ghost?’

Molly nodded.

‘She wrote and told me about it. She was quite upset . . .’

‘Wrote to you?’

‘Three letters. I brought them with me and gave them to the police.’

‘She didn’t say.’

‘She was obviously going through a bad time. It was good that she had you here.’

Molly seemed ill at ease. She was fiddling with a slide in her hair, taking it off, putting it back on again.

‘Rachel made me swear not to tell anyone about the ghost. She was afraid people would think she had gone mad. She saw it once in her room and then at night down by the car park. She said it looked like Juliet Baker.’

‘Was she was just making it up?’

‘No. It really seemed as though she believed it.’

‘But with Rachel it was often difficult to tell when she was telling the truth. She was a strange girl.’

Molly looked thoughtful.

‘She did get depressed. When it started, this ghost stuff, I asked her if she thought that it might have something to do with guilt feelings about Juliet Baker’s death. You know how they say that when people commit suicide their family and friends suffer with guilt. Because they think they should have done something? Then she got really upset. What have I got to feel guilty about? she said. I’ve got nothing to feel guilty about. Juliet Baker killed herself because of her father. Nothing to do with me!’

‘Her father?’

‘He was a gardener here, in the school. He lost his job. He wasn’t here long and then he was made redundant.’

‘That’s right. He was a gardener. I remember Rachel telling me when I first knew her,’ Rose said, trying to picture the various men who had pottered around the gardens over the years.

‘Anyhow, getting made redundant upset him badly, that’s what Rachel told me.’

‘What’s that got to do with Juliet’s suicide?’

‘It wasn’t long after that she died.’

Rose bit her lip. The second half of her sandwich sat uneaten.

‘Here’s Amanda,’ Molly said.

Molly waved and Rose looked over to the swing doors and saw Amanda walking into the refectory. She came straight across to them. She had her laptop under her arm and some books in her hand.

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