A Watery Grave (Karen Cady Book 1), Penny Kline [book recommendations for young adults txt] 📗

don’t expect to find anything, it’s just that I can’t bear to think of Natalie’s killer still on the loose.’

‘Nor me,’ she said quietly, aware that finding the murderer and proving his guilt had become more than just an interesting diversion, more than a way of proving to her father that she was capable of helping him with his work. She had never met Natalie, but discovering who was responsible for her death had become important in a way she hardly understood.

‘Have a look at this.’ Russell was crouching by the heap of blue polythene sheeting, pulling at an old cardboard box that was half covered by a piece of broken chipboard. ‘It’s soaking wet, covered in mud. I suppose the roof leaks.’ He glanced at the corrugated metal ceiling then returning to dragging at the box.

Feeling around inside he lifted out a soggy newspaper, then half a brick, a chocolate wrapper – and a small notebook with a light blue cover. ‘It’s a diary,’ he said, turning the pages carefully, for fear the damp paper might disintegrate before they could read the entries – if there were any.

‘Let’s have a look.’

He handed it to her. ‘Take it out into the light. This year’s, is it?’

She rubbed at the cover, then nodded. The first page had spaces to fill in the owner’s name, address, next of kin, blood group and several other details. It was empty.

‘Let’s see.’ Russell took the diary and opened it at random. ‘November,’ he said. ‘No entries. Or in December.’ He started working backwards, then whistled through his teeth. ‘Look, nothing after the middle of March. Hang on – March the tenth – there’s something scribbled in ballpoint. Some initials.’

She moved closer and they studied the letters together. ‘The first one looks like a G,’ she said. ‘Then an E, or it could be an F.’

From the end of January, through most of March, the two letters had been filled in at intervals of four or five days. Now that they had other entries to go on it was clear that the initials were GF.

‘Glen Fortune,’ said Karen, laughing, then her expression changed. ‘Russell, you don’t think? If the entries stop at the end of March and Natalie was killed in April it could be . . . But that’s crazy, there must be dozens of people with the initials GF.’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he said doubtfully. ‘Look, you hang on to it. We won’t tell anyone, OK? I mean, we won’t tell anyone yet.’

 

 

Chapter Eleven

 

There were thirty-two pages in the telephone book. Thirty-two pages of people with names beginning with F. What was the point of checking to see how many had first names beginning with G? For all Karen knew the initials in the diary stood for something entirely different. Appointments at the hairdresser? Interviews for new jobs? If Karen had been meeting Simon would she have written SP in her diary? It seemed unlikely.

Russell had suggested that GF stood for Great Feeling. He had once known a girl who kept a record of how she felt each day. She had some theory about body rhythms that made people’s moods go up and down in particular patterns. Natalie was just the type to go for that kind of crazy idea. In any case, he had never heard her mention Glen and that pretty well let the guy off the hook. Karen was not so convinced.

She thought about it, trying to blot out the sound of Alex eating his third piece of toast, then gave up when he started telling her about a new movie that would be on at the Arts Centre for three nights the following week. ‘It’s set on a Greek Island. This group of people who try to set up an entirely different way of living.’

‘Sounds stupid,’ said Karen, ‘those things never work.’

‘What, the movie, or a new way of living?’

‘Both, and why d’you always call them movies? I suppose it’s because you want to sound like an American.’

Alex ran his fingers through his dark, wiry hair. ‘All right, well how’s this for a piece of news? Joanne Stevens has come back from her holiday and moved into a flat in Chatsworth Avenue.’

‘Really?’ Karen tried to sound only mildly interested.

So the man who had answered the door to Joanne – the man in the expensive suit – had been the landlord showing her round a flat. All that effort she had made, trying to work out if he was Joanne’s boyfriend, or even a hit-man hired to kill his sister, and all the time there had been a perfectly simple explanation.

‘All right,’ said Alex, ‘no need to scowl like that. I just thought you’d want to know.’

Karen smiled at him. ‘Thanks, Alex. Oh, and by the way, I like your new trousers. Did you have them made specially or were they selling off fancy dress costumes at that joke shop by the bridge?’

He made to chase her out of the room and she snatched her jacket off the hook by the front door, just in time to avoid her mother who was returning from the shops and would be so delighted to see her getting on well with Alex.

*

She had to stay on late at school, working on a project with Laura. On her way out of the building Glen caught up with her and asked if she could spare a minute.

Spare a minute? She had been looking for him all day, although now he was there she realised there was nothing she could say. Did you kill Natalie Stevens? Could the initials GF stand for Glen Fortune? He would tell her she was mad. Might even get angry, suggesting she was trying to stir up trouble. But in the split second that she watched his reaction wouldn’t he give himself