‘What happens at a vigil anyway? We don’t have to, like, say prayers or anything, do we? Or sing? I’m not singing.’
‘It’s not church, Jess, so I doubt it. But I don’t know either. We’ll just have to see, won’t we?’
‘Wonder who’ll be there?’
Chloe pointed in the direction of the hot dog concession. ‘Dunno. Loads of people from the forum, I think. I reckon it’s that way. Exit P, by Gate 12. There.’
They managed with difficulty to fight their way sideways across the tide of girls streaming straight ahead to the gates, to a small static enclave of sheepish-looking fans standing awkwardly around. Jess and Chloe joined the group and stood at the back, staring curiously at the huge blown-up photograph of one of their own – a dumpy, freckled girl in her school uniform, staring into the camera with a fake smile on her face.
‘So that’s what she looked like,’ breathed Jess.
The canvas was propped on a folding trestle table covered with an Indian throw and a cardboard sign saying ‘RIP – ROSE EMILY SHARP. VIGIL 10 p.m.’. An older woman was passing through the group, picking small candles on circles of tinfoil-covered cardboard out of a large crate carried by a sad-looking man behind her and handing them out to the assembled girls.
Jess still couldn’t stop fidgeting. She hitched up her errant bra strap and adjusted her OnTarget crop top so that it covered half an inch more midriff. ‘My ears are ringing. Are your ears ringing? That was the best one yet, don’t you think? Eight concerts and that was definitely the best. You never know, he might’ve been winking at me. I tweet him so much. He might’ve recognised me!’
Chloe rolled her eyes. If it weren’t for their mutual adoration of OnTarget, they would never have been mates, she thought. Jess had only contacted her on the forum last year after she, Chloe, had posted the photo of Shawn Barrett visiting her in hospital, when she’d had leukaemia, right before the bone marrow transplant that saved her life. They’d met up and Chloe could tell straight away that Jess was ‘one sandwich short of a picnic’, or ‘away with the fairies’, as her mum would say – but she could be a right laugh too. It was always Jess who made them get up at 4 a.m. to queue for the in-store performances or to be the first in line for when the ticket office opened. Jess was the one who organised them to get to whichever hotel the band were rumoured to be staying in, and who spent the longest on the forums trying to get the band members’ attention. Any of them would do, but they both loved Shawn the most. He was the hottest by a long shot with his olive eyes and tan muscled chest; more man than boy.
‘You and all the other fifteen million . . . anyway, shhh, settle down – we’re here for MissTargetHeart.’
‘She’s so lucky. All these people here for her.’
‘Jess, MissTargetHeart isn’t lucky, for fuck’s sake, she’s dead.’
‘Yeah, sorry . . . I don’t see why we have to stand around with candles. These candles are shit, like the ones we had at infants’ school in the carol concerts. It’s embarrassing. It’s not like we knew her anyway.’
‘We kind of knew her,’ Chloe said quietly.
Both girls fell silent for a moment.
‘Do you know anyone who ever actually met her?’ Chloe asked.
‘Jade and Kai did, I think.’
‘Jade? Don’t mention that girl’s name to me.’
As always, the thought of Jade sent a deep and uncomfortable frisson through Chloe, a shiver of guilt and shame. Fear, too. She had seen how vicious Jade could be; worse, the other girl was proud of it. ‘I’m a proper Scorpio,’ Jade had said once. ‘Cross me and I’ll sting you.’
Jess’s eyes widened as Chloe said this. ‘Shit, speak of the devil – she’s, like, right over there.’
Chloe, panicking, looked in the direction of Jess’s pointing finger until she saw the couple snogging disrespectfully to their right. It was hard to miss Jade, with her badly dyed long blonde hair. It seemed to swamp her boyfriend, Kai, as if she was swallowing him alive. Chloe had known, of course, that Jade would likely be at the gig, but she’d hoped that the massive crowd would mean their paths wouldn’t cross. No such luck, it seemed.
Chloe and Jess slipped into the crowd before Jade saw them, just as the woman who had handed round the candles picked up a microphone, switched it on and tapped it. The main stadium audience had mostly dispersed now, and the small crowd assembled for the vigil turned its attention to the woman.
‘Er . . . hi . . . and thank you so much for coming. As you know, we’re here to pay our respects for a fellow OnTarget fan – my beautiful niece Rose who was tragically murdered two days ago in Kingston . . .’
The woman’s voice faltered and she blinked hard behind large red-framed glasses. A middle-aged couple next to her was clinging together, openly sobbing.
Jess nudged Chloe and pointed at the crying woman. ‘That’s MissTargetHeart’s mum and dad. I saw their photo on the news.’
Rose’s aunt gulped and contained herself. ‘Sorry, girls and’ – she looked around and identified one or two males present – ‘boys. I promised I wouldn’t get all emotional, but it’s hard. Anyway, so, what we’d thought we’d do shortly is all light our candles and stand still for two minutes thinking of our Rose and praying that she’s in a better place now. But first, we have a policeman who wants a quick word with you all. This is Detective Inspector Lennon.’
Everyone present, including Chloe and Jess, perked up at the sight of the rangy man who stepped forwards. He was quite fit for an old bloke, thought Chloe, although she didn’t usually find men in their thirties attractive. He was wearing proper jeans, not the shapeless dad-jeans her father favoured, and a well-cool battered leather jacket. She imagined him rugby-tackling a burglar to the floor and found it gave her a little thrill of excitement.
The detective took hold of the microphone and spoke, his expression grave as he scanned their faces. A woman stood beside him, quite old but fit-looking, her hair in long auburn corkscrew curls. His sidekick, Chloe guessed. She wondered if the curls were natural.
‘I won’t keep you for long. I’m hoping that you might be able to help us in our search for Rose’s killer. I gather that you all heard about this vigil from either Twitter or the OnTarget forum on their website, and, under the name MissTargetHeart, Rose was an extremely active participant on both sites.’
‘Extremely annoying participant more like,’ whispered Jess to Chloe, who cringed again, wishing Jess would shut up. ‘Smug cow. Acted like she was gonna, like, marry Shawn when she totally didn’t stand a chance.’
‘Shh, Jess. Stop it. I can’t hear him.’
‘I’m bored,’ Jess said. ‘And I need the loo.’ She stalked away, pushing through the crowd towards the Ladies, leaving Chloe to listen to the hot detective without any more distractions. He talked for a few more minutes, telling them to report anything at all that seemed unusual or in any way worrying, and Chloe briefly pondered this. Many of the things said on the forums could be described as unusual and/or worrying, she thought.
When Jess came back she seemed totally spaced-out, a look of stunned joy on her face.
‘What’s up with you?’ Chloe hissed. ‘Did you meet Jesus in the toilet or something?’
Jess smiled mysteriously. ‘It’s nothing. What did I miss?’
‘It’s clearly not nothing!’
‘Shhh,’ Jess said primly, as though she had been the attentive one from the start. Several Bic lighters were going around the crowd and they were all lighting their candles. OnTarget’s song ‘Forever Together’ came on and the girls all immediately joined in, their thin reedy voices swelling together as the tiny candles flickered and steadied. Rose’s parents and her aunt now too all cried, as did many of the girls, even though hardly any of them could have known her.