Soul Beach

told you at the start, I need help but not if you think it gives you the right to try to fix me.’
    ‘I see.’
    After three hundred yards, take the exit.
    Lewis ignores the woman on the sat nav.
    TAKE THE EXIT , she insists. Her irritation sounds very real .
    This time, he does as he’s told. Between me and the electronic bossy boots, he’s outnumbered.
    Triti’s school is in a tiny, cutesy town twenty miles from Brighton. It’s the kind of place parents must love and kids must hate: three pubs and three small supermarkets, so the chances of getting served alcohol under-age are almost zero.
    Keyes School for Girls is an old stone house, behind a new, sharp-edged red-brick wall with a fiercely pronged gate. Lewis parks on the main road, and we get out and look through the bars.
    He sniffs. ‘Bit footballers’ wives, isn’t it?’
    That’s exactly what it is. Lush green grass that no one’s ever played hockey on. A car park to the side full of solid but flashy four-by-fours. A pavilion with a glass roof that I just know will contain an overheated swimming pool.
    ‘Ah. School’s out, right on time.’ Lewis nods and as we watch, girls begin to trickle out of the front and side. ‘Jesus, all those hormones,’ he says, and not in a way that makes me think he sees them as potential dates.
    ‘They go to school on Saturdays?’
    ‘Yes. Leisure, practical and social pursuits to prepare our girls for a rounded life beyond academia , according to their website.’
    ‘Rounded?’ I think of the messages to Triti and I shiver. Which of these girls sent them? We move back towards the car as the trickle becomes a pour. There are pretty girls, plain girls, fat, thin. Though not many fat ones, now I study them closely. Is ‘Salli’ at work again, spreading her poison? Not that Triti was even fat to begin with . . .
    ‘Now we wait,’ Lewis says. ‘See where the older ones like to hang out after school. I definitely don’t want to risk getting nicked for trying to chat up schoolgirls on the premises.’
    It’s easy to spot the sixth-formers, as they wear their own clothes rather than the crimson school uniform. The older girls split into two posses – one heads for S tarbucks and the other to a smaller, funkier coffee shop in the town’s art gallery.
    ‘You should go for the gallery,’ I tell Lewis, ‘the indie girls will go there and they’re the sort that are slightly more likely to talk to a guy like you.’
    ‘Hmm. A guy like me. Meaning?’
    ‘Nothing. Just that you look nervous. I mean, you’re welcome to the others if you prefer. They’re bound to be the in-crowd. They might be a bit scarier . . .’
    He heads towards the gallery without any more persuasion. I stand outside Starbucks for a moment, wondering if I can really do this. I close my eyes, force myself to think of Triti and of how she must have felt every time she received another one of those evil messages, and how she must feel again now: completely alone. Then I push open the door. This is no time to be a wimp.
    It’s packed in here: not just schoolgirls but couples and families, too. While I queue for my gingerbread latte, I try to guess which of the half a dozen tables occupied by ‘Keysies’, could be my best bet. Each of the groups has its Queen Bee: could the platinum blonde be ‘Salli’, or is it the girl with the dark red crop whose fingers twitch like a smoker’s?
    A girl leaves amid lots of showy air kissing and it makes my mind up. I race towards what I think might be the only spare chair left in the place.
    ‘Is it OK if I sit here?’
    The two girls who are left give me the once-over. I’d say they’re Year Thirteens. They’re dressed in Abercrombie – bought, I’m guessing, on some recent girlie weekend in New York – but one has spots and the other has a brace, and I have a sudden hunch that these are not the people who hounded Triti to her death.
    But I bet they know who did.
    I sip my latte, and take out my notebook. Lewis said no one can ever resist sneaking a look at what someone’s writing in a notebook, and as I pull a pen out of the spiral binding, I sense the girl with the brace glancing at me. I pretend to write some more, and then I chew my pen, as though I’m seeking inspiration. Finally, I look at her, as though something’s just occurred to me.
    ‘I don’t suppose either of you two know anything about Keyes School, do you?’
    The spotty girl smiles. ‘You could say that. We’ve both