Requiem Mass by Elizabeth Corley Read Free Book Online

gradually working towards the heart of it. She went back over that day, forced herself to relive all of its terrible detail, ending with the frightening climb back, then waiting at home for news of the body. Fresh tears rolled down her chin and dripped on to the plastic sheet. Never again, until today, had she been so frightened, so helpless, and so desperate to rewrite history.
    It had started out as such a beautiful day – 15 June. They had finished their exams and the Upper Fifth geography class wasgoing on a celebratory school trip. They had set out for the Dorset coast early in the morning with no cares, relaxed and happy. The party was made up of thirteen girls plus the geography master and the gym mistress in the school’s minibus. Much of the early talk had been about how terribly everyone had done in this or that exam, with everyone agreeing that the Physics papers had been compiled by an evil genius from hell.
    The five of them had sat on the bench seat at the back – well, four really, but Leslie always tagged along however lukewarm the welcome. Small for her age, with glasses and permanent braces, she was not the person to be seen with and had no close friends in the class. The other four, in the same netball team, the same choir, the same form, were inseparable friends – confident, boisterous Kate; stunning Octavia who was sure she would become a professional musician: quiet, athletic Carol, who sang like an angel and was fast rivalling Octavia for the lead soprano parts; and Deborah, the prettiest and least venturesome – not as clever but whose looks and surprisingly sharp sense of humour earned her a place in the select group.
    They had arrived at Durdle Door at eleven o’clock, in time for the first walk along the cliffs before a picnic lunch. The weather was glorious and they were soon stripped down to T-shirts and jeans. The sun burnt into spring-white skin and they relished the feel of its power reaching beneath the surface and starting the tanning that would occupy most of the long, idle weeks of the summer vacation.
    After lunch they set out on their second walk. As always, it had been Kate who had taken the lead, deciding which footpath to follow and striding out at a pace that soon left the shorter-legged Deborah far behind. At the top of one cliff, they flopped on to springy, cropped, coarse grass, flat on their backs, hypnotised by the gulls that wheeled above them against the cloudless sky. A light breeze whipped wisps of hair about their faces, tickling eyes and noses. For once, no one talked as they absorbed the atmosphere.
    Into the pure silence, Carol’s voice floated on the first notes of the Barcarole from the Tales of Hoffman . Instinctively Octaviapicked up the harmony, as her hand reached out to hold Carol’s, and perfect crystal drops of sound rose up into the limitless sky like larks’ song. When they finished, the silence returned. All of them realised they had shared a moment that would become a life-long memory. It did not need to be remarked upon.
    A gull’s raucous cry shattered the silence and they laughed, embarrassed as people are when emotions are shared unexpectedly. Deborah, always the first to venture words into silence, turned on her side to face Carol.
    ‘You know, with a voice like that you should be thinking of taking up music as a career too.’
    ‘D’you think so? As a matter of fact, I’ve been wondering about that and I think I’ve finally decided that I’m going to.’
    They all looked at her, surprised. Until that moment, Carol had seemed hellbent on becoming a doctor.
    ‘What?’ It was Octavia who seemed most amazed, though she and Carol were the closest of the four, always together, so close, Deborah thought, that were Carol more physically mature, she would have questioned the nature of their relationship. ‘You’ve never mentioned it before. Where did that idea come from, for heaven’s sake?’
    ‘I don’t know. It’s been growing on me