She was looking forward to hearing more about the children today but unusually Miss Girling didn’t seem to be at home. She’d gone round the previous evening, but to her surprise Miss Girling hadn’t answered the door, even though she could see through the front door’s frosted-glass window that a light was on in the kitchen at the back. When she’d telephoned this morning, the phone had rung and rung, and when she’d gone round again Miss Girling still hadn’t answered the door.
This was most unlike her neighbour. Once in a blue moon Miss Girling went to see a school friend in London overnight, but Agatha couldn’t otherwise think of an evening when she hadn’t been there. She never went to the pub for a drink, she didn’t seem to go on school trips overnight, she hadn’t any family left, or at least she’d never mentioned any. So where could she be?
Agatha couldn’t settle and at lunchtime she decided to try again, even though she knew that Miss Girling rarely if ever came home for lunch. Leaving the house, she walked to the little wicker gate that led to Miss Girling’s front door, went down the path and pressed the bell, and heard its loud ring. Peering through the window in the door, she saw to her surprise that the same light was still on.
This seemed very odd. Agatha hesitated – she didn’t know her neighbour that well, after all – but felt she must investigate. She walked around the side of the house nearest to her own. The blinds on both the kitchen window and the door were down, blocking any view into the room. This suggested that Miss Girling was away, but then why had she left a light on? Agatha was pondering this when she became aware of the faint sound of music. Putting her ear to the door she listened carefully. The music was coming from the kitchen – it sounded like pop music from a radio.
It was now that Agatha grew alarmed. It was one thing accidentally leaving a light on when you left a house, quite another to leave the radio playing. It didn’t seem right – not like Miss Girling at all. As Agatha walked back to her house, there was a set expression on her face. The one her husband liked to call her ‘I’ve made up my mind’ look.
The police were sceptical and reluctant to act on Agatha’s phone call, even when she described the oddness of the situation and her concern about Miss Girling. It was only when she threatened to make a formal complaint (something her husband had once told her to say) that a squad car was finally dispatched.
PC Willis turned up an hour later, looking grumpy. He followed Agatha to the next-door house, where he leaned on the doorbell for about a minute. Nothing happened except that a pair of wood pigeons who were canoodling on the roof rose up, flapping their wings in loud protest. Agatha showed the constable round to the back door where they could both clearly hear a radio playing. It was this that seemed to convince Willis that something was amiss.
The policeman pushed hard at the door, and it shook promisingly. ‘Step back, madam,’ he said, ushering Agatha out of the way. He was wearing heavy black leather boots, and he hopped forward on one leg and with the other kicked high up by the door handle. The wooden frame shuddered, the lock broke and the door crashed open, its edge splintering, and fell on to the kitchen floor with Willis on top of it, while Agatha peered in from behind him.
‘Keep back!’ the policeman shouted, from his position sprawled on the floor.
But it was too late; Agatha had a perfect view of the kitchen chair that had been kicked over and now lay on its side. Above it, a stout length of rope had been tied around a drying rack suspended from the ceiling; twelve inches below that, the cord’s other end had been tied and looped into a noose around Miss Girling’s throat.
39
Thomma had not seen Miss Girling for two days. She had promised to take him to church, but there had been no sign of her on Friday when he tried to find her at school, and she had not left any note for him.
He wondered if he should try to phone her early the next morning – hopefully in time for them to go to church. After all, she had given him the note with her number, which he had hidden deep in the toe of one of his shoes. It was a good thing he had, because that evening there had been a bed check – they had them at random, with Mr Gottingen looking through their bunks and personal belongings, confiscating what he called contraband. Once he had found a mobile phone, which was strictly forbidden; another time he’d located a purse full of English coins. Confiscated again.
Thomma remembered how when the boat they’d crossed the sea in had landed with a scrape and a thump on the beach, he’d woken up with a start and immediately checked that his little stash of euros was still safe in his pocket. It was, but not for long – when they’d got to the farmhouse annexe where they slept, they had all been made to take showers, and when he’d come back and checked his trousers, his euros were gone. As he’d learned soon enough, it was useless to protest. Mr Sarnat would have said they didn’t need money, since all their requirements were taken care of, and each boy was given an allowance in the form of chits, which they could exchange at the shop that was open in the main hall of the school twice a week. It had sweets and chocolate and magazines and toiletries but no stamps or writing paper.
That meant, of course, that no boy could do anything outside the college grounds or the residential block, since any activity like catching a bus or posting a letter or making a phone call required cash. Thank goodness, then, that whoever had taken his euros had not yet found the coins Miss Girling had given him. He had hidden them in a deep crack in an old beam in the wall behind his bed.
By bedtime on Saturday he had decided that it would be too difficult to try to get to the phone box to ring Miss Girling in the morning so instead he would go down to the bus stop at the end of the lane and wait for her to turn up. After all, she had said she would collect him and they would go together on the bus. Perhaps she had forgotten that she hadn’t mentioned a time. After breakfast he made his way cautiously to the bus stop and waited. But though several buses came past, there was no sign of Miss Girling, and after two hours he gave up. He was very cold and very sad; she must have forgotten.
At lights-out time in the dormitory, most boys went to sleep right away. But there was a small group of older boys who chatted. That night Thomma was worried and uneasy and he stayed awake listening.
He heard a voice a few bunks away say, ‘Did you hear that the old bag’s died?’
Thomma tensed up. They called any of the older female staff ‘old bags’, and this included Miss Girling. Had something happened to her?
‘Really? You sure?’ Another voice whispered in the dark.
‘I’m sure. I heard Cicero talking to Miss Looms in the office. They were yakking about sending flowers.’
‘What did she die of?’
‘She strung herself up.’
‘What? You mean she killed herself?’
‘That’s what Miss Looms told Cicero. They found her hanging in her kitchen, and Miss Looms said the police had to cut her down. Why would she go and do that?’
‘If I had a face like Miss Girling, I’d kill myself too.’ Both laughed loudly for a minute. Then they started talking about football.
Thomma lay stunned. Miss Girling was dead. To him she’d seemed to be a kind of saviour in this miserable place where he wasn’t even allowed to practise his religion. But now even this ray of light in his life had been extinguished. How could it have happened?
That boy had said she’d killed herself. Thomma didn’t believe it. She went to church and was going to take him with her. Why would she kill herself? She must have had a heart attack or something. Then he realised this couldn’t be – not if they’d had to cut the old lady down. Someone had harmed Miss Girling, he realised with a start. Miss Girling must have been murdered.
But why would anyone hurt her? Could it have anything to do with him? He tried to dismiss the thought – why would you kill someone for helping a boy go to church? Still, there was something very odd about her death – and about this place.
He shivered slightly, wondering what he should do. He felt a need to te
ll someone what was going on. He was worried about what they were being taught by Mr Gottingen. He had planned to tell Miss Girling about it when she took him to church. But now she was dead and he had no one to tell. He felt helpless and alone, and as the night slowly passed, increasingly afraid.
But then – he couldn’t have said what time it was, only that it was still pitch black outside – he remembered the slip of paper Miss Girling had given him. She’d written her number on it but that wasn’t going to be any use if she was dead. But there was another number on it. She’d said, If for some reason you can’t reach me and you need some help, ring this number.
It was still dark when he slipped out of the dormitory, closing the door silently behind him. He was clutching the paper Miss Girling had given him and the coins he had hidden in the beam. He skirted the perimeter of the yard outside the accommodation building and slipped out on to the road through a gap between two farm buildings. The boys all knew this way in and out of the farm.
At night there was a security guard on duty, but everyone knew he usually spent the night in the office in the farmhouse, dozing and watching TV rather than policing the grounds or monitoring the CCTV cameras.
When the boy reached the main road, he turned right. The village was a mile or so away, and he knew that on its small green sat an old-fashioned red telephone box. He thought it was still working because the boy with the aunt in France had lifted the handset and heard the ringing tone. He hadn’t been able to use it then because he had no money.
There was almost no traffic at this hour, just the occasional van or agricultural lorry, and Thomma was able to see their headlights from quite far away so he could get off the road into the trees and bushes before the vehicle reached him.
He had almost got to the village when behind him he heard a different engine sound. It was a car and quite a high-powered one by the sound of it. He’d reached a part of the road where there was a deep ditch between him and some heavy undergrowth and he was tempted to take a chance and stay on the road. It seemed unlikely that he had been spotted if the security guard was just watching TV in the warm office as usual.
But the car seemed to be going surprisingly slowly. This struck him as odd, so at the last possible moment he jumped down into the ditch, which was mercifully dry, and crouched down while the car passed by. As it moved away he cautiously lifted his head and looked as its back light faded into the distance. It was just starting to get light, a milky paleness suffusing the sky, and he could see quite clearly not only the car’s make, but its colour. It was a bright blue Mini and the driver was looking from side to side. It must be Cicero – the blue Mini stood outside the school all day and every day and the only person who drove it was Cicero. Someone must have been monitoring the CCTV cameras after all and spotted him leaving. He couldn’t go back now.
When the Mini had disappeared, Thomma waited for a moment, then climbed out of the ditch back on to the grassy verge. He was frightened but walked on, his eyes focused now on the traffic coming towards him for any sign of the Mini returning. In a few minutes he reached the village green and was about to cross the road to the red telephone box when he saw the Mini parked on the other side of the green. Walking away from it, towards the phone box, was Cicero.
Thomma drew back into the trees and watched. Cicero stopped beside the phone box, looking round in all directions as though he was waiting for someone. There were a few people about now; the village shop was just opening and a car stopped outside it. A few minutes later its driver emerged with a newspaper and a shopping bag. He didn’t take any notice of Cicero, who went on standing outside the phone box for a few minutes, then walked across the road and into the shop. He came out a few minutes later empty-handed, walked back to the Mini and drove off in the direction of the school.
Thomma guessed he had been asking if anyone had seen a boy. He stayed in the safety of the trees, watching the comings and goings on the green and at the shop, trying to summon up the courage to emerge into the open and cross the road to the phone box.
He was glad he waited because in a couple of minutes he saw the Mini coming back along the road from the school. It was clear that Cicero was leaving nothing to chance. But having circled the green without stopping, he drove away again. Thomma was shaking, partly with cold and partly with nerves. He knew he had to make a break for it; he couldn’t stay hidden in the trees all day. Finally, he ran across the road and into the telephone box where he quickly put in his money and dialled Miss Kingly’s number, realising as he did so that it wasn’t a local number – it looked quite different from Miss Girling’s number written above it.
As he watched anxiously to see if the Mini was coming back, a man answered. ‘Hello.’
‘I want to speak to Miss Kingly, please,’ said Thomma, reading the name Miss Girling had written down.
‘She’s not here at the moment but I can get a message to her. Can you tell me what it’s about?’
‘My name is Thomma,’ the boy said hesitantly. ‘Please tell her Miss Girling gave me her number. They said she killed herself but she can’t have because she was going to take me to church. I have escaped from the school. They’re looking for me and I’m scared. Please can she help me.’
‘OK, Thomma,’ said the voice reassuringly. ‘I’ve got that. Who is looking for you?’
‘Cicero. Cicero from the school.’
‘I can tell you are in a phone box. Please tell me the number written on the phone.’ Thomma read it out. ‘That’s good. Is there anywhere near the phone box safe for you to hide while I contact Miss Kingly? It will take me about fifteen minutes to do so, then I will ring the phone box and tell you what to do.’
‘I can hide in the trees across the road but I don’t know if I’ll hear the phone ringing.’
‘If you can’t hear it, come back to the phone box in fifteen minutes and ring me again. Have you got a watch?’
‘No,’ said Thomma, ‘but I can see the clock on the church tower. It says ten past six.’
‘OK,’ said the man. ‘If you don’t hear the phone ringing, call me again when it says half past six.’
‘I have no more money.’
‘Can you remember four numbers?’
‘Yes.’ That was something he was good at.
The voice spoke four numbers, enunciating each one slowly and clearly. He made Thomma repeat them back, then the voice said, ‘Dial these and you won’t need money. You’ll get straight through to me.’
Thomma put the phone down and ran back across the road to the trees, the four numbers embedded in his memory. He crouched down in the bracken, his eyes firmly fixed on the church clock.
*
A hundred and twenty miles away the phone rang in Peggy Kinsolving’s bedroom. She reached an arm out of the bedclothes and picked it up.
‘Morning, Peggy,’ said a cheerful voice. ‘Duty officer here. Sorry to disturb your beauty sleep. I’ve got a bit of an odd one for you. Young man or boy, sounds Middle Eastern but speaks good English, says he got your number from – sounded like Miss Curling.’
‘Girling,’ interrupted Peggy.
‘Ah good, you do know something about it then. He says she’s dead – “They say she committed suicide but she can’t have, because she was going to take me to church.” That’s what he said – maybe you can make sense of it. He also says he’s escaped from the school, but someone called Cicero is looking for him and he’s scared. He’s been hiding in a wood across the road from the telephone box. I told him to get back in hiding and I’d ring the box at half past six and tell him what to do. I gave him the emergency number in case he didn’t hear the phone ringing because he has no more money to ring again. Over to you. Hang on – just getting a fix on the phone box … It’s in a village about nine miles from Southwold in Suffolk.’
Peggy looked at her bedside clock. It was six seventeen. Wide awake now, she was thinking fast. ‘Get on to Suffolk Police HQ. Ask them to go and pick him up and take him somewhere
safe and look after him. If they get any enquiries from the school – it’s called Bartholomew Manor – tell them to stall them. Don’t admit they’ve got the boy. Either I or Liz Carlyle will be coming up to talk to him asap. If they are reluctant to get involved, tell them to consult the Chief Constable. He’s called Richard Pearson and he knows about the case.’
‘OK, Peggy. Received and understood – will do.’ He rang off.
At six thirty the duty officer’s phone rang again. He had just finished talking to Richard Pearson, the Chief Constable who had authorised the pickup of Thomma from the village.
‘It’s Thomma here,’ said the small voice on the phone plaintively. ‘What shall I do?’
‘Can you see the village shop from where you’re hiding?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, get back undercover and watch out for a police car. It will be a white car with Police written on the side. It will stop right by the shop and you should run as fast as you can and jump in. They will look after you until Miss Kingly can get up there to talk to you. Is that OK?’
‘Thank you,’ said Thomma and he put the phone down and ran back across the road to wait.
40
Dieter had lived a lie for so many years that it had become his companion and his security blanket. The truth of his background had long ago faded. If someone had flourished a magic wand and said, ‘You no longer have to pretend. Now you can be Dieter Schmidt again,’ he would have been terrified. As far as he was concerned, Schmidt no longer existed. For Dieter, his lie was his real life.
That his masters had never pressed Dieter Nimitz, their creation, into service had previously never bothered him; he had always been sure that one day they would appear like a tailor with a long unpaid bill and expect him to pay up. The payment could be anything, he had reckoned, though since they had been the ones who’d pushed him to take the job at the European Commission, he had always assumed these long-time masters of his would want him to supply information about the EU. How he would respond when they did appear was something he had asked himself from time to time, but the question was always left hanging in the air; he didn’t know the answer.
The Moscow Sleepers Page 19