The Property of Lies

by Marjorie Eccles

  After Josie’s absence had been noticed in Assembly, which took place immediately after breakfast, enquiries revealed she had been missing for some time. The staff had immediately been instructed to carry on with lessons, and timetables were rapidly adjusted to allow Miss Cash and Miss Scholes to search the school.

  ‘How old is she?’ Reardon asked.

  ‘Fifteen, nearly sixteen. A nice girl, bright, interested in sport, something of a tomboy.’

  ‘Is it possible she has – er – run away?’ he asked, posing the same question that had occurred to Ellen. It was a reasonable assumption, but Miss Hillyard did not take kindly to it.

  ‘No, I do not think she has run away at all. I’ve spoken to her friends, the girls she shares a room with, and there’s more to it than meets the eye. They know more about this than they have admitted, but at present they are choosing to say nothing.’ Not for long, however, if she had anything to do with it, her expression said.

  ‘Josie Pemberton is not the sort of girl to play tricks,’ put in Miss Draper.

  ‘I sincerely hope that’s all it is, and not an escalation.’

  ‘Escalation?’ Reardon queried.

  The headmistress exchanged significant looks with Miss Draper, then took a deep breath. ‘I suppose you should know. I’m sorry to say, there has been a spate of rather foolish practical jokes being played here recently. There’s a strong possibility, I fear, that this may be another, though hopefully one that has not gone too far.’

  So this could be why he and Gilmour had been summoned here – and Ellen too, who, as far as he knew, hadn’t yet been made party to the full extent of these schoolgirl japes. Everyone, she had said, seemed determined to play them down, if not to conceal them deliberately. Such things didn’t happen in well-regulated schools. He could make a good guess at why the headmistress had now decided it was time to be to be frank about them, but Miss Hillyard was about to be disappointed, if he was right about that. Gilmour had already given help, it was the right thing to do, and Reardon was more than willing to do what more they could, unofficially, to assist, but unless she was still missing after the school had been thoroughly searched, the child’s disappearance wasn’t within the scope of the investigation here.

  All the same, he listened carefully to what she had to say about the silly, childish tricks as she described them, such as balancing a dish of water on the top of a door left ajar, so that whoever pushed it further open got a small drenching. A toad had been placed between someone’s sheets. The disappearing gym knickers, which Ellen had told him about. But then small sums of money, which was all the girls were allowed to keep, had also disappeared, as well as a quite valuable fountain pen, and later a Fortnum & Mason chocolate cake which had been sent to Selina Bright for her birthday.

  ‘Forgive me, Miss Hillyard,’ Reardon intervened. ‘Money? That really does sound more than a practical joke.’

  ‘I agree, but I do not believe we are harbouring a thief in our midst. For one thing, the gym things were later found stuffed behind a radiator in the locker room, and the money and all of the other stolen items – with the exception of the cake,’ she added with a glimmer of wry humour, ‘turned up in the end, so it had to be assumed they had all simply been lost or mislaid. I’m afraid it was the cake which caused suspicion to fall unfairly on one girl, with her fondness for sweet things.’

  ‘Which girl was that?’

  She sighed. ‘Her name is Antonia Freeman.’

  ‘But wasn’t it her gym things …?’ Ellen began.

  Miss Hillyard said, ‘That’s true. And the missing fountain pen was hers, too.’

  ‘Well, I don’t believe it’s unknown for that sort of thing to happen.’ All eyes turned to Miss Draper, who went on diffidently, ‘To divert suspicion from oneself, you know. Though one does wonder … would Antonia have the cleverness for that?’

  ‘Eve!’ said Miss Hillyard, gently reproving.

  Miss Draper flushed brightly. ‘Oh dear, I apologize. I shouldn’t have said that, poor girl. She’s not unintelligent, of course, far from it, that wasn’t what I meant.’

  Reardon, who thought this was doubtless all very interesting, but should have been gone into more thoroughly by the staff before it reached this point, brought them back to what they were here for – Josie’s disappearance. It seemed unlikely to him from what had just been said that this was just another joke. There would, as almost always in these cases, be a simple explanation, albeit one perhaps more serious, such as an accident. ‘What exactly did Josie’s roommates have to say?’

  Miss Hillyard’s lips tightened. ‘As I said, they are being very silly and refusing to say anything more than that they found her bed empty when they woke – and that they thought she had gone out to the lake for some rowing practice.’

  Lake? A quick glance passed between Reardon and Gilmour. They both remembered that lake, though to call it such might be a slight exaggeration. Not all that much bigger than a large pool, if Reardon remembered rightly. An idyllic spot, all the same, at the far end of the school grounds, abutting on to the forest beyond, not far from where a body had once lain beneath the snow. Very picturesque, fed by a gushing stream emerging from the woods and cascading down over boulders padded with velvety green moss into a deep, shady pool where fern fronds drooped to the water’s edge. He also remembered with less pleasure and more alarm a large tree trunk, which had fallen across one end of the pool and offered a sort of bridge to the other side, slippery and undoubtedly dangerous. A ramshackle boathouse of sorts. Also a leaky little rowing boat, moored to the edge. He couldn’t believe these women hadn’t seriously taken all this into account.

  But Miss Hillyard was continuing calmly, ‘Our games mistress, Miss Cash, is keen to have the girls taught to swim, but I have not encouraged them to use the lake; in fact it’s forbidden. I am not at all sure how safe it is. It’s deep and there may be rocks underwater. I hope we may have an indoor swimming bath installed, sooner or later. Meanwhile, it’s only Miss Cash herself who swims there.’ Her tone spoke volumes. ‘Although I have given her permission to teach rowing there to any girl who’s interested.’

  So the lame excuse Josie’s two roommates had given for not being surprised to find her already up and out when they woke did have some validity, in so far as it went, if Josie had been one of those who liked to practise rowing on the lake, as it seemed she had.

  All the same, Reardon hoped the leaky little tub he remembered had been replaced, or at least made seaworthy, or whatever the term was for waterproofing a boat – watertight, that was it. And even so.

  ‘Oh, but that was the first place we looked,’ Miss Draper said, before he had the chance to make the point. ‘Miss Cash had been there, and we were satisfied Josie had not.’

  Had Miss Cash been there all night, then, to know that? The pool was deep, as they had said. Reardon didn’t know just how deep, and could only hope it wouldn’t have to be dragged later. He had opened his mouth to say something they might not want to hear when there was a knock on the door.

  Miss Hillyard frowned at the interruption, but called out a brisk, ‘Come in.’ A girl appeared in the doorway, making no move to enter. She looked ill at ease, especially when she saw the room was full of people. She stood there, blushing and tongue-tied, a solid-looking girl with dark eyebrows and long hair in two plaits.

  ‘Well, Antonia, what is it?’

  For a while she looked as though she might turn tail and run. But then she stammered out, colouring to the roots of her hair, ‘I don’t want to sneak, Miss Hillyard, but I think I know where Josie might be.’

  NINE

  Vic Wetherby levered himself upright from his armchair and grabbed his walking stick. Steadying himself, he took his first tentative step forward, followed by several more confident ones round the room. He sighed with relief. It was OK. The hospital could have the damned crutches back and no regrets. He was going to be able to manage with just the stick from now on, like he’d insisted he
could to Gertie. In spite of this, he didn’t feel much more cheerful as he hobbled to the window and stood there, smoking, despondently looking at the bolting spring cabbages on his sun-baked vegetable patch. He began to fidget again about getting back to his neglected garden. He drew deeply on the cigarette and began to cough. For a moment or two he held it between his fingers, watching it burn down, then suddenly reached out for an ashtray and stubbed it out, half-smoked.

  He was smoking too much and that was the truth. He’d given up the fags years ago because of Mabel’s asthma and even kept off them after she died, because he did feel better without, just as she’d always told him he would. And then he’d gone and started again, after coming out of hospital. Living with his sister and her husband was enough to drive anyone into bad habits.

  He cut such ungrateful thoughts short. Gertie had turned up trumps, when all was said and done. After he’d been discharged from hospital, and was wondering how the hell he was going to manage to look after himself, even to making a sarnie or a cup of tea, hampered with them bloody crutches, she’d ordered her husband to drive over here and take him back to their bungalow in Kidderminster to stay with them until he could move about better. She’d always been a bossy wench, Gertie, and still treated him like her little brother, but she meant well. After telling him off twenty times for not having the common sense, at his age, to get someone else to look at the blocked spouting, somebody who would have had more nous than to reach out too far and fall off the ladder and fracture his thigh, she’d shut up and got on with seeing to it that he had three square meals a day, his washing done and a comfortable bed. But instead of giving him an earful all the time about how daft he’d been, he was treated to a string of complaints about that Doreen, her half-soaked daughter-in-law. Spent every penny, that one, used too much lipstick, couldn’t cook a decent meal, let alone keep her kids in order. Yak-yak-yak.

  Vic had good evidence of that last – they were right enough, the little ’uns, but they’d rampaged all over the shop when they’d been brought to visit their grandparents, and the middle one, a right little ’erbert, had managed to get a hold of one of Vic’s crutches, swung it round, and would have brained his little brother in the process, had Gertie not stopped him in time.

  He sighed again and automatically reached for another cigarette, but stopped halfway and put a humbug into his mouth instead. Smoking again, what had got into him? But sucking sweets instead, plus sitting about doing nowt, was causing him to put on weight. Sooner he could get back to his garden the better, he’d told his mate, Ron Fairlie yesterday. Ron had brought a few beers with him and it had been a right tonic, catching up with all the workplace gossip, which he missed more than he liked to admit. He’d been due to retire at the end of the year, but this how-de-do had brought it forward. He wouldn’t be into driving for a long time yet and, from what Ron had said, Ernie Woodman wasn’t thinking of taking him back for such a short time as would be left, miserable old sod.

  But it was only what Gertie had predicted. ‘You should have made plans for your retirement, our Vic. You haven’t, have you?’ Vic hadn’t. Except for more time in his garden. But he already grew so many veg he had to give most of them away, and he’d never seen the point of growing flowers. Leave them outside in the meadows and hedgerows, where they belonged.

  He hadn’t slept well last night, after Ron had left him. Facing that he’d have to do something about all that empty time ahead. And about that other thing he’d heard of from Ron. Which he’d better do now, or he might not do it at all. He wasn’t good with pen and paper, but he hadn’t much to say anyway. Just a few lines, and it was up to them after that.

  ‘Don’t rely too much on what Antonia says, Inspector,’ Miss Hillyard said later, when she and Reardon were alone. She had asked him into her private sitting room, to avoid constant interruptions, she said. Unlike her study or the staff room, it was not only quiet and comfortable, but bordering on the luxurious. A thick carpet, graceful old furniture that was almost certainly antique, polished until you could see your face. Deep, squashy chairs and soft colours. An artistically arranged silver bowl of massed roses, filling the room with fragrance. Taken all in all, it threw a new light on Miss Hillyard. ‘One doesn’t always know what she’s thinking and she may give you the wrong impression,’ she continued. ‘I’m afraid she is rather a difficult girl.’

  ‘Are you saying she’s a liar?’

  ‘Of course not. But she’s stubborn. She’s been the main target of all this tomfoolery that’s being going on and I’m convinced she knows who’s responsible, but she won’t say who it is.’

  ‘Too intimidated, perhaps?’

  ‘On the contrary. She isn’t entirely without spirit. But these so-called pranks are annoying and must stop, and they will. I have my own suspicions about the culprits. Meanwhile, just beware of putting too much weight on what Antonia says.’

  At the moment, she wasn’t saying anything, though she had led them to where Josie had been found. And, short of using thumbscrews, he couldn’t see how she could be made to say more. She had assumed a stubborn look which did not bode well for success and which told him she would be even less open to persuasion than Josie herself, who’d been too upset to make any sense. ‘I’m not a tell-tale,’ Antonia kept repeating stubbornly. ‘I just guessed where’d she be.’

  ‘Come along, Antonia, you can do better than that,’ Miss Hillyard had said severely. A threat of punishment hung in the air.

  She was shaking in her shoes but she still said no. ‘I just did.’

  They had left her to examine her conscience, Reardon thinking there must be better ways of getting her confidence so that she might give in and tell what she knew. Maybe Miss Keith, the art mistress, the one person who appeared to have any rapport with the girl, might be persuaded to get her to say more. And she must know more. She had taken them straight to where Josie had been fastened up, in one of the ground-floor rooms in … well, where else but that fateful east wing?

  The terrified girl had been carried out, exhausted, dazed and disorientated at what had happened, and given into the care of Matron, a capable ex-nurse who took charge and who, after a brief check to make sure there was no physical damage, gave her a milky drink and put her straight to bed between clean sheets in a darkened room and ordered everyone else away. ‘The last thing she needs is all this questioning just now. What she does need is to sleep the clock round, which she’ll probably do. I’ll let you know when she’s awake.’

  She was right, of course. There had already been too many anxious questions. Why had she gone there, in the middle of the night? the headmistress and Miss Draper had asked her. Oh, she couldn’t remember, she must have been sleepwalking or something. Who had shut her in that room, with the door jammed so that she couldn’t open it, however hard she tried? She didn’t know, she hadn’t seen. Could it, they suggested cautiously, even have been Antonia herself? Who had then led them to find her through guilt at what she had done? She shook her head vehemently and looked on the verge of tears, if not collapse, and Reardon was glad when Matron intervened and they had left off the questions and let the child go.

  He was having to do a quick turn-round on his opinions. However reluctant he had been to get himself and his men involved in this latest development, wanting to believe it had nothing to do with the main enquiry, now that the girl had been found, and where, he was beginning to think there was every chance it might be. What was the attraction in that derelict, creepy old shambles of a building that drew young women to court danger and go exploring it in the dark? The question of whether Josie had been shut into that room by the same person who had killed Mam’selle couldn’t be ignored, however horrific the implications of that were. If it was so, the indications were that the perpetrator was no outsider, but someone who lived at Maxstead Court, or had easy access to the premises. Not the first time that suspicion had cropped up, but it didn’t make Reardon any happier. He thought it was probably the reason why Josie wa
s refusing to say anything, perhaps through a misplaced sense of loyalty, or not daring to incriminate anyone by breaking this non-sneaking code they seemed to have, the one thing that just wasn’t done. Or she might actually be afraid.

  Reardon sighed. He wasn’t used to dealing with adolescent girls, but neither were any of his team. He didn’t relish having to do it, but he’d have to give it a go. ‘I’ll need to talk to all of them – Josie, and those other girls, too, the ones she shares a room with, and Antonia. They must know something. I’d like to do it while it’s still fresh in their minds that they’re in trouble – if they are – and I don’t want to leave it too long.’

  ‘I’ll arrange it, but can’t it wait until tomorrow? Josie may feel differently after she’s slept on it, and we’ve all had more than enough for today. They’re not the only ones who need some time to consider.’

  He saw the sense in this. At the moment, though, the girl who’d led them to Josie was the one who interested him the most and, after agreeing to do what she asked, he said, ‘Tell me more about Antonia, Miss Hillyard.’

  She didn’t reply immediately. Playing for time, she reached out for a dark green glass paperweight, which stood on the walnut Pembroke table next to her chair, and stared into its depths as if scrying, using a crystal ball. ‘She’s a bit of a problem,’ she said at last, looking up. ‘The truth is, she hasn’t made friends here and she’s not much liked – mainly, I’m afraid, because she can be rather a bully.’ For another moment or two she resumed her crystal gazing, then almost to herself she added, ‘Or has she become a bully because she is disliked? Which comes first? I’m never quite sure.’