jacket to wear. They had called Keeley, and discovered that she too had received the same email and arranged to meet her in fifteen minutes so they could go together.
“I bet the sly tart wasn’t going to tell us,” Emma said. “Bet she was going to go on her own.”
“She’d push anyone out of the way to get what she wants,” Ashleigh agreed, rifling through the wardrobe and pulling out possibles.
Emma grunted and peered around the room, making faces at what she considered to be minging tat.
“I love your room,” she lied.
“Can you believe it?” her friend blurted. “Something finally happening in this dead town! What if the celeb is a rock star or a footballer or someone off telly or films? What if we get papped? This could be the best night of my life! The start of something really big! Fame, Emma – proper fame!”
Emma looked at her own clothes. She hadn’t dressed for something so potentially glitzy. All she had anticipated was a typical Friday night hanging round on the beach outside a bar, cadging Breezers off the lads. She watched as Ashleigh selected her best leather jacket, a cheap copy of something Beyonce had worn once, and then started to apply her Saturday-Night-in-Ipswich face so she could pass for seventeen or eighteen.
“I’m not going in this,” Emma declared decisively. “I’m not gonna be the ugly one next to you and Keeley in your glad rags and prozzy paint that make you look better than you are. I’m going back home and changing.”
“You look fine!” Ashleigh commented, hardly looking.
“I don’t want to look ‘fine’!” Emma screeched back at her. “‘Fine’ isn’t going to get me in Hello, or a snog off a millionaire footballer so I can sell my story to the News of the bleedin’ World, is it?”
“You don’t have time to change. We’ve got to go if we’re gonna be there on time.”
“Then we’ll have to be late! I am NOT going like this! I haven’t even got my clubbing bra on!”
Ashleigh pouted her freshly glossed lips in the mirror. “I’m not waiting,” she said flatly. “There’s no way I’m missing a minute of this and Keeley won’t neither. These celebs don’t hang about. They do their appearance then jump back in their limos – it says so on Popbitch.”
“Fine!” Emma shrieked, flinging the word back at her. “Some mate you are! You go with Keeley and I’ll get a lift of my own. Selfish cow! And by the way, no amount of concealer is going to cover up those zits and you should’ve shaved your tache!”
She slammed the door and returned to her own house. The boys she had passed earlier jeered as they cycled by. They too had heard the news and were already heading to the Landguard Fort.
Emma sat in front of her small dressing table and worked quickly. She was about to phone around and beg a lift off someone when a text beeped in. It was an unknown and impossibly short number, but that fact was lost on her.
From: 7734
Get out of the house Emma!
The cops r coming 4 u!!!!!!
The girl swore, swept up her bag and coat and tore from the bedroom. Tottering down the road in her heels, she hurried as fast as she could and cut down the first turning to get off her street. She wondered if Ashleigh and Keeley had received similar texts. If this was about Sandra Dixon, the police would want to talk to them as well. She reached into her bag to call them. Then, remembering Ashleigh’s attitude, spitefully decided to let the girl find out for herself. It would be hilarious if a visit from the law caused Ashleigh to miss out on the biggest event to hit Felixstowe for years. Serve Keeley right as well.
Emma was so engrossed in relishing that thought that she didn’t notice the car crawling along the road beside her.
“Oi! Oi!” called a voice as a hand reached out and flicked up her short skirt.
Emma swerved aside and yelled abuse as she fell into a hedge.
Kevin Stipe was leaning out of the passenger window of an old Fiesta, snorting like a delirious pig. Behind him, two more lads she recognised from school were hooting on the back seat.
“Morons!” she bawled.
“Where you going on your own?” Kevin asked. “Where’s the rest of your posse?”
“Same place you’re heading I expect!” she replied.
“Ha ha!” the boys laughed. “Get in, we’ll give you a lift.”
“No way, losers!” she refused.
“Take you forty minutes to walk there from here, Lemon Face,” Kevin said. “You’ll miss the best bits. Everyone’s gonna be there.”
Emma considered the offer quickly. She knew they were right, but she didn’t want to be seen dead with any of them. They were spotty lads in hoodies and fleeces. But how else was she to get to the end of the peninsula, down the long View Point Road, on time? No chance in these heels. Besides, there was every likelihood the police would be out looking for her once they discovered she was not at home.
“Go on then,” she said. “But I’m ditching you soon as we get there – understood? So don’t get any ambitious ideas.”
The rear door opened. “Get in, Sexy Legs.”
“Err, in your dreams, mentals!” she snarled. “I’m not getting in the back of no car with you, Brian Eastland, and as for you, B.O. Humphries…”
“Shame!” they booed.
“Come on then,” Kevin relented, getting out of the front seat and squeezing alongside the boys in the back. Emma didn’t thank him, but clambered into his vacant place and slammed the door.
“What is that stink?” she complained, turning to the driver whose hood was pulled up over his head. “You lot drinking meths or something?”
“Here!” she cried in sudden recognition. “Danny Marlow! What you doing?”
“That’s our Baz’s overalls,” he told her, meaning the smell. “He does decoratin’. I bunged them and the turps rags under the seat. Don’t worry, you won’t get paint on you.”
“That’s not what I meant!” she said. “What you doing in this motor?”
Behind her, Kevin tapped her on the head and leaned into the gap between them. “’S all right,” he said. “It’s his brother’s car, innit. It’s not nicked or nothing.”
“But he’s like, in our year – so that makes him the same age as us!”
Kevin guffawed. “See!” he laughed. “You are good at numbers – Sarky Baxter would be proud!”
Fifteen-year-old Danny revved the engine and, even as Emma hastily fastened her seat belt, the Fiesta roared away.
Conor Westlake had left the house as soon as he received the email from 7734. A mad night out would do him the world of good after today. The haunting image of Sandra Dixon’s pale face glaring up at him was a memory he wanted to wash away, or at least dilute. The fridge at home was empty though so he hoped to bump into some of his mates down at the Landguard. None of them were answering their phones right now, but he was certain they’d be there.
A cold wind was blowing in from the North Sea and the darkening sky looked threatening. He pulled his hood up and continued walking. When he joined View Point Road, he saw that there were many other young people heading down the peninsula, like a great herd of thirsty beasts seeking a watering hole. Most were on foot, but there were also some cars driving past and groups of cyclists. Two figures were even weaving in and out on Rollerblades. The skateboarders who usually hung out near the cinema were here as well.
The road was long and, apart from a kink at the beginning and end, ran a tediously straight course. On the right, behind its high