by Anne Digby
The friends went through to the main part of the boarding house silent and woebegone. Their costumes looked bedraggled and the worse for wear and they were cold and hungry. They'd had their fun – marvellous fun – and now they were going to pay for it. So was Mara! They just couldn't bear to think what her father's reaction would be when he heard about all this.
As they trailed into their rooms, Lucy Hubbard peeped across the corridor, hardly able to conceal her satisfaction.
'They don't think it's so funny now!' she told Anne Finch. 'I bet you anything you like that Mara's been kidnapped!'
'Oh, do be quiet,' said Anne. 'Anybody would think you wanted her to be, the way you've been carrying on.'
'She's just hiding somewhere,' said Ann Ferguson. 'Probably wants to teach her father a lesson. That's just what I'd do!'
While Tish and Rebecca were changing, Sue arrived back from Garth College and they told her everything. She was horrified.'
'I wondered why Papa couldn't bring me back from rehearsals! I was told to catch the minibus, because he was busy somewhere. Busy looking for Mara as it turns out! Oh, crikey!'
They lost no time in setting off for the dining hall. Elf and Margot raced on ahead, hoping against hope they would see Mara there. The other three took their time, keeping their eyes open all the way for some sign of her. It was getting dark now.
'D'you think she will turn up for tea?' asked Rebecca, as they passed the little lake in front of the music school. 'Can Mrs Barry be right and she's just in a temper?'
'She was in a temper all right,' said Tish, frowning. 'But I took it for granted that she'd just rush back to that sick room as fast as possible.'
'If only she had!' exclaimed Sue, in despair. 'She might still have got away with it! If Matron had found her asleep in bed when Lucy came back telling tales to Mrs Barry, I bet Mrs Barry would have told Lucy a thing or two!'
'Yes,' said Rebecca thoughtfully, 'Mrs B. might have given Mara a terrific lecture afterwards, but somehow I don't think it would have gone any farther. Oh, why did Mara have to go and do something stupid!'
'Let's hope it's nothing too stupid,' said Tish uneasily. At any rate, Mara didn't turn up for tea.
'Rebecca – here a minute.'
Straight after tea, Rebecca had rushed to the sports centre. She was beginning to feel slightly panicky about Mara and more than a little responsible too. She'd had the wild idea that Mara might be hiding at the sports centre and she'd searched all the shower cubicles. What a waste of time!
She was just on the point of leaving through the glass doors when she was stopped by Miss Willis and Joss Vining.
'Josselyn wants to tell you her news, Rebecca,' said the games mistress. 'I think you know something about it, already.'
One look at their portentous faces was enough for Rebecca. The thing that she'd been pushing out of her mind since Wednesday now came flooding back to her.
'It's true then?' she said to Joss. 'You're going?'
'Just for a year,' said Joss. 'I'm going to the States.'
A whole year, thought Rebecca. The year I really need you.
'Joss's father's going to be working in California for a year. There's a marvellous coaching set-up there and so Joss is going with him. All the officials here agree that it's absolutely the right thing for her at this stage in her game.'
'It sounds marvellous,' said Rebecca, trying to hide her woe. 'I – I'll miss you, Joss.'
'What you need now, Rebecca, is to enter some competitions in the Easter holidays,' said Miss Willis. She looked worried. 'I gather it's rather difficult with your parents abroad . . .'
'Yes,' said Rebecca. She and Mrs Ericson had been talking about it then! 'I don't see how I can.'
'If only you were that bit further on, we might have been able to get a sponsorship for you,' said Miss Willis. 'If you'd done well in some tournaments by now a local business might have been interested . . . but, of course, you've hardly had time yet. It's no use our thinking about that.'
Rebecca wanted to get away. She couldn't bear all this, not just now! Sara Willis could sense it.
'Run along and don't look so worried. This is a setback for you, but it's not the end of the world. We'll give you all the support we can at Trebizon, with or without Joss. We'll try and find you the competition you need in term time, even if we can't help in the holidays. Off you go!'
Gratefully, Rebecca pushed open the swing doors and ran outside. She heard Joss call out:
'Hey, Rebecca, is it true that Mara's gone missing?'
'Yes!' Rebecca flung back at her, running along the paved footpath, through pools of lamplight, away from the centre. Then the glass doors swung shut, leaving Joss in the warm and Rebecca out in the cold. If you hadn't dropped your bombshell, Joss, I'd never have been in that silly mood in the first place! thought Rebecca angrily. I'd never have let Mara go on the float. But even as that thought crossed her mind, she dismissed it. She was being unfair! She was just making excuses for herself!
She got back to Court House in time to see Papa drawing away in the big black car. He looked dispirited. Mrs Barrington was standing beneath the porch light with the other four, watching him go. Obviously, Mara still hadn't shown up. Rebecca walked across and joined them.
'Papa's just been back to check,' said Tish helplessly. 'Now he's going to look round the town for about the tenth time. And he's got my photo of Mara and he's going to show it to all the cab drivers.'
'I've phoned Syon House and asked Mr Slade to question his boys,' said Mrs Barrington briskly. If she were beginning to get worried she wasn't going to show it. 'This could be some silly publicity stunt for the concert.'
She paused. Then went on briskly, 'You five go and put your heads together. You know Mara best – where she could be hiding. Oh, and I've spoken to Miss Welbeck. If Mara hasn't shown up by eight o'clock she feels she'll have to inform the police.'
TEN
TRYING TO SOLVE THE MYSTERY
Back in Court House, girls appeared in the hall and on the stairs, asking questions. But the five friends brushed them all aside and made directly for the nearer of their two rooms.
'Sorry, Jenny, we just want to be quiet a while,' said Tish, meeting her at the door. 'We've got to try and think.'
'Let Jane and me make you some coffee or something then,' said Jenny Brook-Hayes. 'Where do you think Mara can have got to?'
'That's just what we want to think about!' said Rebecca irritably. 'Oh, sorry, Jen. No, don't bother about coffee.'
They went inside and shut the door and Rebecca sat down on her bed and buried her face in her hands.
'If anything's happened to Mara, it's all my fault. I should never have let her try on that blasted costume in the first place –'
'Stop it, Becky,' said Tish. 'We've got to find her, that's all.'
'We've got to think where she is!' agreed Sue. 'I can't believe anything's happened to her – but if it gets so that the police are called in, the whole thing will blow up and be in the papers and Mara's father –'
She didn't go on. She didn't have to. But Elf burst into tears.
'He'd just take her away from Trebizon straight away.'
'If it's anybody's fault, it's Lucy Hubbard's,' said Margot in a cold fury.
'Look you lot, we can do without the post mortems,' said Tish. She was walking up and down the small room, banging her right fist into her left palm. Her voice was steady. 'We've solved mysteries before, haven't we – Action Committee, remember? Let's try and solve this one. Let's go through all the possibilities for a start –'
Tish was a steadying influence at times like this. They all started to think properly about it.
'Well, number one, there's what Mrs Barry was suggesting,' said Rebecca. 'A publicity stunt. Curly laughed about it once. Kidnapping Mara from the float – remember?'
'But Curly would never –'
'Of course not,' agreed Rebecca. 'But some other crack-brained boys at Garth could have got to hear t
hat Mara was on the float this morning and might have grabbed her before she could get back to school. Just to raise more money for the Children's Fund . . .'
'It's possible,' said Sue, slowly. 'But surely a ransom note would have appeared by now. So everybody would know it was strictly for laughs.'
'If that's what's happened, they'll find Mara any minute now!' said Elf, cheering up briefly. 'Mr Slade's questioning all the boys. Mrs Barry's asked him to! Once they know how serious it is . . .'
'I don't think that is what's happened,' said Tish flatly. 'As Sue says, no ransom note. Besides, Mara would have raised the roof and made them let her go.'
'But you said she was in a fury, Tish. Maybe she liked being kidnapped,' Rebecca pointed out.
'Ah, that brings me to my theory, theory number two,' said Tish.
'What's that?' they asked eagerly.
'Well, just the simple, obvious one. Mara wants to teach her father a lesson. She wants to give him the fright of his life. So either she is hiding, somewhere really clever where we'll never find her. Or else –'
'She's run away?' realized Sue. 'She threatened to do that, remember? The day after the disco – the day we all had to go and see Miss Welbeck!'
Talk of the disco reminded Rebecca of something.
'My bike!' she said. She jumped up, took her torch from the top of her chest of drawers and ran and opened the sash window. 'I'll go to the cycle shed. Wait here. Let's see if Mara's taken a bike, mine in particular. She likes it.'
She went out by way of the window and returned three minutes later. Margot helped her back in.
'Well?'
Rebecca shook her head.
'No. All the bikes are there. If she has ran away, she's gone on foot.'
'What about train?' asked Sue. 'Or hitching a lift?'
'In a long white Arabian gown?' queried Tish. 'That's all she was wearing when she did a bunk out of the back door of the Market Restaurant. I put a cape over my highland gear to pretend I was her – remember? But she didn't even bother with a cape. Come to think of it, we left the other one behind in the restaurant.'
'Is that all she's wearing, that dress?' said Rebecca. 'You never told us that, Tish.'
'I've only just thought about it. Wherever she is, she must be freezing by now. Though I suppose she's got a jumper underneath.'
'She has,' said Rebecca. 'But if she's still wearing that dress, then she can't have run away! She might have been in a rage, but she's not that silly! She'd know full well that she wouldn't get far dressed like that. Somebody would be bound to stop her and ask questions.'
'Probably,' nodded Tish. She sighed. 'That brings us back where we started. The only thing that makes sense is Mara's hiding. And I don't think there'd be anywhere in the town. She'd want somewhere safe and warm and completely concealed –'
'Somewhere in the school, or the school grounds!' said Margot. 'Some place she knows well.'
'The prefects have been looking all afternoon,' said Elf.
'Well, I think we'd better look again,' retorted Tish. 'Let's get our capes and torches and get going.' She looked at her watch. 'Less than an hour to go now – ten past seven.'
They must find Mara before the police were called in!
They went out by way of the window; they didn't want half the girls in Court House following them. They wanted to think carefully – what sort of place might Mara choose to hide in?
'What about the basement in old school?' suggested Sue.
They crossed the courtyard and skirted round Norris House, then cut across the hockey pitches to get to main school quickly, their torch beams bobbing ahead of them. There was no moon.
Somebody was following them, but they didn't notice.
On the other side of the hockey pitches they cut into the dense shrubbery that sheltered old school from the east. The leaves rustled and whispered as they brushed through them and sometimes sudden shadows made them jump. They emerged from the bushes and stood above stone steps that led down to a basement door in old building.
'We haven't even considered theory number three,' Elf said suddenly. Her voice was little more than a whisper. 'That – that someone really has kidnapped Mara.'
They all looked at her uneasily.
She looked sheepish.
'I know it sounds silly, but when we went through those bushes just then, I suddenly thought of that funny little man I saw in the churchyard. The one in the pin-striped suit. I – I think he really could have been hiding.'
'Elf!' gasped Rebecca.
A cold shiver ran down her spine as a piece of a jig-saw fell into place in her mind. She remembered the man she'd seen sitting in staff gardens on Wednesday – just after Joss had dropped her bombshell.
'What is it, Rebeck?' rapped Sue.
'Small? Pin-striped suit? Rimless glasses?' asked Rebecca.
Elf nodded, uneasily.
'I've seen him, too!' Rebecca exclaimed.
'When?' clamoured the others. 'Where?'
She told them, hesitantly.
'I was in a blur at the time but there seemed something familiar about him. I just couldn't put my finger on it. Now I realize why –I'd never seen him before in my life. But I had a mental picture of him from the time you told us about him, Elf.'
'So it couldn't have been a day girl's father who'd come to church, then?' said Margot worriedly. 'I mean one of those Dads would hardly be hanging round the school in the middle of the week. Who was he, then?'
'The window cleaner I expect!' said Tish impatiently. 'For heaven's sake let's stop being morbid. He probably had a perfectly good reason for being there both times. We know Mara's only hiding. Let's get a move on and try and find her.'
Tish was steadying them again. They descended the steps to the basement door, suddenly feeling reassured.
Except Rebecca.
There had been something about that man. She could see him clearly now, a vivid flashback flung up suddenly from the dark recesses of her mind. Something purposeful. He had been waiting – and watching. But for what?
They emerged up the steps half an hour later, tired and dispirited. It had been a formidable job searching the basement.
It ramified in all directions under old school and they had searched every corner, cupboard and corridor.
'Now what?' asked Rebecca, brushing the cobwebs off her cape.
They all stood there in a huddle at the top of the stone steps, feeling helpless. Suddenly they heard running footsteps.
'Hey!'
A small figure in an oversize cape came flapping round the corner of the big building, waving an arm. As she drew near, Rebecca flashed her torch over her.
'Lucy Hubbard!'
'What do you want?' asked Tish furiously.
Lucy came straight up to them, slightly out of breath, trembling a little with excitement.
'I want to speak to you.'
'Well, we don't want to speak to you,' said Sue. 'Have you no idea how worried we are about Mara and it's all your fault! You've got a nerve showing your face near us.'
'I'm the one who's been worried about Mara all along!' said Lucy self-righteously. 'I knew she'd be kidnapped one day and all she's ever done is laugh about it. She's had her lesson now!'
Rebecca grabbed Lucy and shook her angrily. She was so tense she was at snapping point.
'Shut up! Shut up! If you hadn't shown up in town this morning none of this would have happened. Mara was only having some fun. How would you like to be hemmed in all the time, the way she's been all term? How would you like to have a watchdog following you around? Never feeling free!'
Lucy went suddenly very quiet and pale, not from the physical shaking but from the intensity of Rebecca's emotion. She was staring at her as though she almost understood for the first time – as though Rebecca's words had come as something of a revelation.
'All right, then.' Rebecca let go of Lucy. Her hands dropped to her side. 'What do you want?' she asked wearily. 'What did you want to speak to us about
?'
'I – I – 'Lucy's lips had gone dry and she licked them. The others were watching her with interest, now.
'What were you going to say?' prompted Tish.
'It's just – well, it's nothing really,' began Lucy. 'It's only that when I cycled back from the town at lunch time I came Churchgate way and I saw a car parked outside Churchgate. There was nobody in it. I don't suppose it means a thing –'
'What are you suggesting then?' asked Sue.
'Well,' Lucy said, feebly. She was still looking subdued. 'I suppose if somebody did kidnap Mara, they could have brought her in that car and locked her up – well, in the church, or somewhere like that.'
'It's certainly a funny place to park a car,' mused Rebecca.
They all looked at each other. Churchgate was a minor entrance to the Trebizon grounds, on the far distant side from the main gates. It was approached by a narrow winding lane that came directly up from the town and led nowhere in particular. Day girls' parents used the lane to drive up to church on Sundays. Trebizon's own little church, St Mary's, lay just inside the gate. But otherwise cars never came up the lane as there were no farms or houses along it, just one or two cottages back towards the town. Why had a car been parked there at lunch time?
'We might as well go and have a look,' said Tish.
Lucy stood and stared before deciding to walk slowly back to Court House. The friends turned their backs on her and ran as fast as they could across the grass, five bobbing lights and silhouettes, until St Mary's Church came in sight.
ELEVEN
TISH IS PROVED RIGHT – OR IS SHE?
Rebecca was the fastest runner and she reached the wicket gate first. It gave a long, low creak as she pushed it open. There was still no moon and the church looked eerie, a dark mass huddled amongst the trees. Bare branches moaned and swayed in the winter wind.
The five of them walked in nervous procession up the path, through the churchyard. Elf glanced nervously at the granite tombstone where the man had been concealed and hurried past it, as though fearful he might jump out. They reached the oak door into the porch and pushed it open.