Dead Popular Read online

  With thanks to my brother, Nick Franklin

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Dedication

  The Beach

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  The Beach

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Sue Wallman

  Copyright

  THE BEACH

  The waves rolled on to the sand with a slow, gentle swish. It was the loudest sound on the beach. From somewhere up on the cliffs, beyond the wind-stunted trees, came the distant thump of music and the hum of excited chatter. Light from the partial moon gave the water a slight shine, like tarnished metal. Small crabs the size of coins burrowed in the damp sand and insects skittered on the surface. Seaweed lay in stranded heaps.

  Beyond the narrow strip of sand were pebbles, smooth, pockmarked and occasionally sharp. In the half-light it was hard to see what was pebble and what was shadow. At the bottom of the cliffs were rocks and tufty bits of grass, and sun-bleached litter, which had been deposited by the wind, and trapped. The air was warm and the sea breeze was slight.

  A perfect autumn day had slipped into a mild night.

  In daylight hours, children had clambered on the rocks, seeing how far they could go before having to jump back down on to the pebbles.

  Tonight, a teenage girl in a stunning black dress was sprawled inelegantly across three large rocks. Face down, bones shattered, blood seeping out of her lifeless body.

  CHAPTER 1

  I stared at myself in the mirror above the chest of drawers. I was Kate Lynette Jordan-Ferreira, future award-winning sculptor, not-bad singer, thrower of an unexpectedly successful beach party in the third form, and brand new House Prefect. And, it had to be said, someone who turned heads. I was beautiful. It was a fact, and part of who I was. This was my room, the coolest one in Pankhurst House, the most sought-after of the three boarding houses for girls at Mount Norton School. Some notable girls had passed through Pankhurst throughout the years and we were proud to be following in their footsteps.

  Lifting the edge of the duvet cover towards me, I observed with satisfaction the pale peach-coloured piping. Only fifth-formers were entitled to that colour in their rooms. It matched the curtains. Lower years had to put up with the vulgarity of garish orange. Ohmygod Orange, Meribel called it.

  Where were Meribel and Lo? I sat up. We’d agreed to arrive early and soak in the top-floor experience before we had to join in the bustle of the new term. The announcement that I’d been made House Prefect happened at the end of the summer term, and I’d been entitled to choose who would join me in these much-coveted rooms as my deputies. Nobody was in any doubt I’d choose those two. Every successful person at Mount Norton had at least two best friends in their boarding house they could name as deputies if called upon. I’d picked up on that early on.

  I hoped I’d earned the House Prefect title, but I knew it might have been secured by my father in return for a hefty donation to the school, and the overgenerous gifts we sent to the housemistress Miss Wibberton, also known as Wibbz, at the end of every term. Being considered for the role wasn’t a transparent process but, to be honest, I didn’t much care if the role wasn’t exactly earned.

  Unfortunately Wibbz had been sacked in the holidays; word on the group chats was she’d shown some prospective parents round while drunk. We were shocked she’d been booted out, but not so much about the alcohol. The Majestic Wine delivery-van driver and Wibbz were well acquainted, and had been for years. There was a new temporary housemistress whom I was yet to meet, as she’d been talking to the newbie first-formers in the junior common room when I’d arrived. She’d sounded young and stern, the complete opposite of the Wibbster.

  I willed my friends to come through the door, so we could get on with being us. This year mattered. It might be the last for which the three of us were together. If Lo didn’t get another scholarship, she’d have to go to sixth form somewhere else. If Meribel carried on not doing any work and going on modelling assignments, she might be slung out too.

  Bouncing off the bed, I went across to the large sash window. Nobody could say that view wasn’t spectacular. Beyond the black metal fire escape and brick-paved courtyard, the back lane and the squat, expensive bungalows with more glass than brick, was the sea. Today it was glorious and glittering. Further up the lane, out of sight of my window, were the large car park and the start of two paths, a zigzag one which led down to the beach, and the other which went along the cliffs until it eventually hit a hotel. Walkers and runners were funnelled round it and through an executive housing estate to reach the next part of the coastal path.

  A couple of seagulls screeched, and then it was silent again. The large window unlocked easily and opened upwards smoothly. Before I could step out on to the fire escape, there was a noise from the landing and I rushed to my door.

  “Ta-dah,” I said as I pulled my door open dramatically. “Welcome!” There was nobody there. The building was old and creaky, and thinking somebody was there when they weren’t had happened before, when I had a room on the first and then second floor. It was unnerving, but for some reason the sharp loneliness of it almost winded me. I thought of Elsie Gran, my grandmother, driving home without me and my substantial luggage.

  I moved to the top of the stairs and sat down, planting my bare toes in the woven squares of tough carpet. I’d spent a lot of my life sitting on various stairs, waiting or listening.

  “Kate?” Meribel’s voice sung up the stairwell. I’d signed in. She knew I was here.

  I sprang to my feet and peered over the banister to see her black hair, sleeked into a ponytail, brown toned arms and a turquoise crop top.

  “Woo-hoo!” I shouted.

  She tipped her head back so she could see me and shrieked, “Yay! I can’t believe we’re the top-floor squad.”

  Her bracelets rattled as she charged up the remaining stairs, clutching her jacket, which she discarded on the top banister. She hugged me lightly as she air-kissed me, stooping to be approximately near my cheeks. “I’m so jealous Lo got to spend time with you over the summer and I didn’t.”

  “Next time,” I said.

  “It’s been so busy. Work, boyfriend … life.” She flopped her head to mime exhaustion, and then righted it to say, “Let’s see these rooms, then.”

  I hadn’t done more than glance into the other two rooms, but now I showed Meribel round like a proud estate agent. The only flaw was the cracked tile in Meribel’s shower, and once we’d established it wasn’t a hair, she stopped freaking out.

  Next September we’d be across the road in a purpose-built sixth-form block called Davison. Its ugliness was offset by the fact that it had an enormous common room, open to either sex from any boarding house, and as fifth-formers we were now entitled to use it.

  This year we’d have the best of both worlds: the third floor to ourselves and access to Davison common room. It was going to be fun.

  Meribel, Lo and I had seen our rooms when they’d belonged to last year’s fifth-formers. I
t was an offence to walk into someone else’s room without permission, but the then House Prefect, Veronica, and her two deputies were on a theatre trip to London and there’d been no staff around to catch us.

  My room had been Veronica’s; I’d been astounded by it, and not just because of the view and the all-important fire escape. There’d been an eye-blast of colourful, textured canvases of varying sizes, but one so large it covered almost the entire wall. I’d wondered how she’d got it into the room, until on closer examination I saw that it had been pieced together in six separate parts. Bottles of paint stood amongst her make-up. Piles of Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Porter and Elle were stacked in one corner, and there was a compact sewing machine on top of her dark-wood desk. She must have had the desk delivered; it wasn’t standard issue. I didn’t remember much about how the other rooms were decorated. I suppose I knew from the beginning I wanted that one.

  “This is fabulous,” said Meribel as we walked around. “But there should be a lift up here. Three staircases to get to my room is a killer.”

  “Go over to Davison and speak to Veronica,” I joked. Veronica liked starting petitions, but usually about more noble things.

  “Hi!”

  We wheeled round. Lo always seemed smaller in real life than she did in my mind. Her coppery hair was loose and wavy. She only ever tied it back for exams, dancing or smart occasions. It gave the impression she was more relaxed than she was. Her skin had freckled over the summer, making her eyes appear even bluer. She accidentally gave off strong English upper-class vibes – before she opened her mouth and spoke with her Essex accent.

  “Lois!” I squealed. “Finally!”

  I rushed to hug her. The last time I’d seen her was at Pisa airport, after she’d spent a week with me and my parents at their three-month rental.

  “You OK?” I asked.

  Lo grimaced. “Yeah, apart from a train journey in a carriage with the world’s loudest, most annoying kids in the seats behind me.”

  I nodded sympathetically. Meribel and I were always driven to school: Meribel by her family’s chauffeur, me by Elsie Gran in her old Volvo, listening to audiobook thrillers.

  Lo hugged Meribel, and we hustled Lo into her room, where she stared round it as if she couldn’t remember any of the details from when we’d done our reconnaissance.

  “This room is huge. It’s worth being friends with you, Kate Jordan-Ferreira,” she said, with raised eyebrows. I knew she meant it playfully.

  “Time for a catch up,” I announced and plummeted on to her bed. The others piled on and we arranged the pillows around us with me in the middle. It was strange to think that before I’d joined the school in the third form the two of them hadn’t really been friends. We’d got to know each other on a school-organized trip to a gig in Ryemouth, and the three of us had sung and laughed all the way back on the minibus.

  Meribel was the one with the height and desire to pursue modelling, but all three of us were striking. We made a powerful threesome.

  Meribel told us about her autumn-wear shoot in Berlin, sweating in jumpers and coats in a humid park. Lo described arriving at a muddy field for a camping trip with her family, including her younger brother and an unfeasibly large number of cousins. She hilariously re-enacted the arguments about where they were going to pitch their tents, switching accents seamlessly. I showed them a video on my phone of me singing at my father’s birthday party in a bar in Milan. I belted out the top notes like a pro. The singing lessons at school had really helped, and so had the figure-hugging dress I’d bought for the occasion. The best thing about the video was the way my father looked at me with a pinch of pride. Meribel and Lo whooped more loudly than anybody had in the bar.

  “What’s Wibbz’s replacement like?” I asked, as I frisbeed my phone to the end of the bed, out of sight, so I wouldn’t obsess over the fact that Elsie Gran hadn’t messaged to say she’d got back home in one piece. She often forgot. It was fine.

  Meribel, who had just placed her head on my shoulder, lifted it. “You mean you managed to avoid her? Lucky you. She shook my hand and practically crushed my fingers, and gave me an intense stare.”

  “Me too,” said Lo. “Her name is Ms Calding. She’s about one hundred years younger than Wibbz and not so wobbly.”

  “Yeah, she’s pinched and bony, but not in a camera-loving way,” said Meribel.

  “The first-formers will be petrified of her,” said Lo. “Perhaps that’s the point. At least she’s temporary.”

  “Anyone’s going to be a disappointment after Wibbz,” I said.

  We took a moment to reminisce about some of Wibbz’s finer moments, such as the time she dropped the engraved glass Pankhurst Achiever’s Award in assembly, and when she sat down too heavily on a chair in the junior common room and it collapsed, taking several of us to heave her out of its frame. The time she went shopping and left her new underwear in the junior common room. It had been fascinatingly enormous and surprisingly frilly, and she’d taken it well when she discovered it dangling from the top corners of an oil painting in the dining hall.

  “So … mini announcement,” said Lo when there was a pause. “I have to work hard this year. Less time-wasting at the beach for me.”

  “Time at the beach is never wasted,” said Meribel. “Sea air is good for your skin. Fact.” She patted her cheek.

  “There’ll be a record number of applications for the sixth-form scholarships,” said Lo.

  “Since when did this start being a school parents fought to get their kids into?” said Meribel. “I thought the mission statement was to be good at the arts but a little bit crap on the academic side.”

  “It probably got bigged up in a newspaper supplement,” I said.

  That prompted Meribel to tell us about an article she’d read about a café in Spain where they simulated earthquakes. She started searching on her phone for it. I closed my eyes. You could always hear the sea in Pankhurst, so long as a window was open. It was good to be back.

  “It feels weird being here again, don’t you think?” asked Lo, half-reading my mind.

  “A bit,” I said. I was used to switching between places, having had lots of practice. I’d bounced between various schools: Dubai where my parents lived, whichever Mediterranean spot they chose to rent over the summer to get away from the desert heat, and Elsie Gran’s little house crammed with broken furniture and things lying around waiting to be recycled.

  “Feels the same as ever,” said Meribel. She yawned and stretched, and I tickled her armpit. She shrieked and tried to lift my arm to retaliate.

  The bell rang and we flopped down on the bed, and lay there with Lo.

  “My stomach’s rumbling,” said Meribel. “D’you think Squirrel’s made any of those no-bake date-and-cranberry brownies today?”

  “Or proper brownies,” said Lo. “With actual chocolate in. Or her mini cupcakes with exploded blueberries.”

  It wasn’t cool to go down immediately after the bell rang, even if we knew in this case it meant tea and cake in the junior common room. We waited a while before rolling off the bed, checking our faces on our phones, and strolling down the three sets of stairs.

  Meribel was first, and I bumped into her at the bottom because she’d stopped abruptly. I saw a woman ahead of us, with dark blonde hair in a blunt bob standing with her thin arms crossed. She was maybe early twenties, pale-skinned with no make-up and dressed in a three-quarter-sleeved stiff white shirt tucked into tailored navy trousers. In the context of Mount Norton staff she was relatively attractive, but that really wasn’t saying much. I knew she must be Ms Calding.

  The three of us spread out into a line.

  “Girls,” she said as she approached us, her voice matching the crispness of that shirt. “Lateness won’t be tolerated. You are to come downstairs immediately after the bell goes.” She looked at my skirt, many inches above the limit. “Own clothes must conform to regulations.” And then she thrust her hand forward for me to shake, and said, “
Kate Jordan-Ferreira, we haven’t yet met. You’re House Prefect, I gather? I’m sure we’ll get to know each other well.” Her handshake was cold and firm, and her smile wasn’t reflected in her eyes. I wondered if she knew what a big deal it was being House Prefect. I would be asked to contribute my views on anything to do with Pankhurst. I would be giving speeches throughout the year, and sitting in on interviews with potential new girls. I had the power to give behaviour points to girls in the lower years, and I could skip meal queues, and reserve whichever table I wanted in the dining hall.

  I had a suspicion life at Pankhurst was about to change, and not for the better.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Oh, God, another year of Clemmie,” said Meribel as we walked into the junior common room for first-day tea.

  We knew where Clemmie would be – on the velvet sofa next to Paige, with her other admirers close by. She looked exactly the same as she had last term, i.e., pretty in a blonde clichéd sort of way with a face that made it clear you had to have a good reason for daring to speak to her. I don’t know why I thought she might be different after a summer cantering around the countryside, or whatever she did when she wasn’t at Pankhurst. I tended to mute her on social media in the holidays, which was dangerous, of course. It would have been more sensible to keep an eye on her.

  “Look, girls! It’s our new House Prefect,” said Clemmie. She stood up and applauded. The new first-formers sitting cross-legged on the rugs looked at each other, clearly wondering if this was a thing, and if they were expected to clap too. As Paige, a less shiny version of Clemmie with thinner hair and lips, laughed behind her hand, you could see them work it out: this was sarcasm.

  I nodded at her, without smiling. I hoped it looked icily regal. It said: Yes, I’m House Prefect. I know you wanted it to be you, but it’s not. So. Suck. It. Up.

  General chatter in the room slowly resumed. Second-formers brought us small white bone-china plates, cakes on trays and dainty mugs of tea. As of tomorrow, tea would be self-service in Pankhurst dining hall.

  There was a buzz in the room at first-day tea with around seventy-five girls crammed into the room. Everyone was there apart from the sixth-formers at Davison, who would join us for dinner later. New girls watched established ones. People exchanged news from the last nine weeks of summer. They grumbled about rooms, and pulled apart cakes to check for raisins. Past wrongs were remembered.