E-Book, Englisch, 384 Seiten
Jakubowski Birds, Strangers and Psychos
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-83501-224-6
Verlag: No Exit Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
This year's perfect gift for the Hitchcock lover in your life
E-Book, Englisch, 384 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-83501-224-6
Verlag: No Exit Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Maxim Jakubowski is a Sunday Times bestselling novelist and a noted anthology editor based in London. With over 70 volumes to his credit, including Invisible Blood, the 13 annual volumes of The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries, and titles on Professor Moriarty, Jack the Ripper, Future Crime and Vintage whodunits. A publisher for over 20 years, he was also the co-owner of London's Murder One bookstore and the crime columnist for Time Out and then The Guardian for 22 years.
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Strangers on a School Bus
Peter Swanson
‘Are you Jane?’ Detective Marchand asked after entering the interrogation room and shutting the door behind her.
The hunched-over girl looked up, nodded. She had dark hair that hid her face, and she was practically being swallowed up by a baggy sweatshirt.
‘Hi, Jane. I’m Detective Marchand. I was wondering if I could ask you some questions.’
Jane straightened her back a little and looked at the detective. ‘Sure, why not? Everyone else is.’
‘You’ve been interrogated a few times, I’m guessing.’
Jane held up a fist and unfurled a finger for each person she described. ‘Detective with the huge forehead, detective with the red moustache, lawyer who wore the same perfume my mom wears, then lawyer who looked like a teenage boy. And now you.’
‘Now me.’
‘Detective with the fancy nails.’
Rosalie Marchand looked down at her nails. It was true that she’d been to the manicurist just two days earlier. ‘That’s how you’ll remember me?’
Jane shrugged.
Detective Marchand had come over from the neighbouring town of Saltwick in order to interrogate Jane Weir. New Essex had only one female detective and she was currently on her honeymoon in Turks and Caicos, and Lieutenant Mark Acosta, Chief of Detectives for New Essex (and, yes, he have a particularly large forehead) had thought that a female detective might have a better chance of getting the truth out of this girl.
‘Jane, do you think you could talk a little more to me about Lisa…?’ Detective Marchand hesitated, intentionally blanking on the surname.
‘Lisa Kelly,’ Jane said.
‘Right, Lisa Kelly. She’s a senior, like you, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, but she’s new to our school. I didn’t really know her, before, you know…’
‘Before you had a conversation on the school bus.’
‘Right,’ Jane said, pushing back a hank of her long, limp hair, and Marchand, who always noticed people’s skin, saw that Jane was in the middle of a pretty virulent breakout.
‘That was the first time you’d seen her?’
‘I’d seen her around. But the bus was the first time that we’d talked.’
‘Jane, do you think you can tell me a little bit about what you talked about that day?’
The teenager took a breath that seemed to shift her whole body. ‘I’ve already—’
‘I know, I know. Just humour me. I’d like to hear it directly from you.’
‘Okay. We talked about Macy, obviously. I mean, that’s why I’m here, right?’
‘What did she say about Macy?’
‘You mean, besides that she’d kill her for me?’
‘Yes, besides that. Tell me everything you talked about.’
Jane had almost skipped out on the Saturday school trip to Boston to visit the Museum of Fine Arts, but her mom had told her that if she didn’t go then she would have to attend her little brother’s ice hockey game, so it was a no-brainer. Jane called her dad, knowing he’d be happy to come over and pick her up, drive her to the high school. He dropped her off in the east parking lot, where the yellow school bus was waiting under a dark, swollen sky. ‘Do they still have those plastic green seats and no seat belts?’ her father said.
‘They have seat belts now,’ Jane told him.
The driver saw her approaching and the door opened with a hydraulic hiss. Mrs Haggerty, the art teacher, checked Jane’s name off on her clipboard, then Jane looked down the length of the bus, keeping her face neutral, searching for an empty two-seater that she could grab for herself. There was one, all the way at the back. As she began to walk, Caroline Penske, wearing a crop top not much bigger than a sports bra, called Jane a ‘slut’ in a voice low enough that Mrs Haggerty simply looked up, but didn’t say anything. But the ten or so kids who heard Caroline all laughed.
Jane took a seat in the last row. Across from her, also sitting alone, was Alan Furman, another pariah, but at least it was a role he was used to. Jane, until two months earlier, had not exactly been popular, but she’d been happily invisible. All that had changed when she’d stupidly agreed to go to Macy Aster’s indoor swimming pool party on New Year’s Eve. She’d ended up drinking too much tequila and messing around with Macy’s older cousin, not knowing that Macy’s best friend had a massive crush on him. Since then, Macy had turned the entire school against Jane, spreading one rumour after another, so that now everyone seemed to believe that she’d somehow destroyed the romance of the century. Jane had decided to just keep her head down and hope that Macy would get bored and unleash her minions on some new target.
It was a few minutes after nine and Jane felt like she’d probably be sitting alone for the hour-long drive into Boston, which was fine with her, but then a girl she didn’t know worked her way down the aisle and sat down next to her. ‘Sorry,’ the girl said, straightening her skirt, ‘you probably thought you had this seat to yourself.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘I’m Lisa Kelly. I just transferred to his hellhole and I’m probably going to transfer again before the end of the year, so don’t feel the need to make friends with me.’
‘Oh, no worries,’ she said. ‘I’m Jane, anyway.’
‘Jane Anyway is your name?’
‘No. It’s Jane Weir.’
‘Yeah, I’m just kidding. I know who you are.’
‘How do you know who I am?’
‘You’re the “fugly slut” that fucked Macy Aster’s cousin, right?’
‘Word gets around, I guess.’
‘Yeah. I don’t really know anyone in this school, but I do know that.’
‘You’re probably wrecking your reputation just by sitting here next to me.’
Lisa sat up in her seat and peered down the bus. ‘No one seems to care,’ she said. ‘And like I said, I’m not long for this town.’
They were quiet for a moment, Lisa opening the white purse she was holding on her lap and removing a tube of lipstick. She wasn’t dressed like a typical high-school girl. She wore a pleated moss-green skirt and a matching top that was embroidered. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and even though the day was lousy with rain, a pair of round white plastic sunglasses perched on her head. Her skin, with barely any make-up besides the lipstick, was flawless.
Jane was taking earbuds out of her own backpack when Lisa said, ‘What exactly you do to earn their wrath?’
The bus was merging onto the southbound highway that would bring them to Boston. Icy rain was pelting the windows, which somehow made it feel cosy in the final row, both girls slunk down, almost invisible. Jane told Lisa everything, how her and Macy had been best friends from kindergarten all the way through eighth grade. Well, maybe not best friends, because Macy was the type of girl who liked an ever-revolving cast of girls to fill that role. But they were definitely close. It was when they had both opted to go to Billington-Eccles High School two towns over (it was a school choice thing) that things changed. Once there, Macy made a new group of friends, wealthier girls, and began to pretend she barely even knew Jane. It hurt, but Jane decided to just let it go. Macy had always unnerved her anyway, and Jane fell in with a group of art kids, not the choicest group at Billington-Eccles but better than having no friends at all. Then something changed again in junior year. Macy was suddenly paying attention to Jane again, saying hi to her in the hallways, asking her to join her at lunch, even implying at times that it was Jane who’d dropped the friendship when they changed schools in their freshman year. It didn’t occur to Jane at the time, but this all started to happen after Jane won a State of Massachusetts student-artist award that came with an appearance on a local news broadcast and a $10,000 scholarship to a college of her choice. Macy kept saying things like, ‘You’re really talented, aren’t you? I mean, I knew you were, but now this proves it.’ Or she would say, ‘I don’t really get your paintings, but I get that you’re really good at them.’
All of this should have been a warning to Jane, somehow, but she was just happy to have her friend back. And then she was invited to the indoor swim party, billed by Macy as a pretty exclusive event. ‘My parents won’t be there, but still, I don’t want more than ten kids at this party, or maybe fifteen.’
In retrospect, Jane had decided that on the night of the party she’d been set up. When she arrived at Macy’s enormous house on Goose Neck, Macy made Jane do a shot of tequila in the kitchen before bringing her down to the subterranean pool (everyone kept saying how amazing it was, but Jane had always thought how creepy it was down there). The rest of the night was pretty blurry, Jane being handed shots to drink, and then all the ceiling lights were turned out so that it was only the pool that was...
