Child's Play

by Alison Taylor

  Child’s Play

  Alison Taylor

  Copyright © Alison Taylor 2014

  The right of Alison Taylor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2001by William Heinemann.

  This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  For Dorothy Bulled — for the title

  The Hermitage school, the characters and the events in this novel are wholly fictitious.

  Table of Contents

  Tuesday 6 June – Night

  Thursday 8 June

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  Friday 9 June

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  Saturday 10 June

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  Sunday 11 June

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  Monday 10 July

  Thursday 13 July

  Extract from Unsafe Convictions by Alison Taylor

  Tuesday 6 June – Night

  Sukie received the whispered message as the girls were filing out of the refectory after tea.

  ‘Imogen wants you to meet her in the stable yard at half-eleven. Tonight.’

  Even as her heart leapt with joy, her mind was flooded with doubts. ‘Why?’ she asked, searching the messenger’s face. ‘Why there, and not her room?’

  The other girl shrugged. ‘How should I know?’ She began to walk away. ‘I’m simply telling you what she said.’

  Sukie went to her own room and stayed there for the rest of the evening, counting minutes, so agitated that she only remembered about supper when Torrance knocked on the door to remind her.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll have an early night.’

  Torrance frowned at her. ‘You don’t eat enough.’

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘You’re not “OK”,’ Torrance snapped. ‘You’re really beginning to worry me.’

  ‘I am,’ Sukie insisted, wanting to be left alone. ‘Honestly.’ She smiled. ‘Honestly!’

  Once Torrance had left, albeit with some reluctance, Sukie leaned on the window ledge, watching night fall about the trees and the grounds. A breeze stirred the leaves now and then, and blew in gently on her cheeks. Shortly after ten thirty, she went to the showers.

  At eleven fifteen, clad in jeans and T-shirt, she walked quietly along the corridor to the fire exit. She met no one and no one heard her leave the building, for the door alarm had long ago been disabled. The girls could go in and out at will, or smuggle in anyone they wished.

  When she reached the bottom of the fire escape, a figure materialised in front of her.

  ‘Hell, you gave me a fright!’ Sukie exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’

  As she set off down the path, the girl who had earlier delivered Imogen’s message fell into step beside her. ‘Just keeping an eye on Imogen,’ she replied.

  Sukie glanced at her. ‘And you’re very good at that, aren’t you?’ she remarked sarcastically.

  ‘Matron calls me “a real little Christian”.’

  ‘She wouldn’t if she knew the facts,’ Sukie retorted, raising her voice as a military jet screamed overhead. ‘You only clean Imogen’s room so you can pinch her things.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ The girl stamped her foot and, in so doing, kicked a stone. It clattered down the path for several yards before rolling into the muddy verge.

  ‘Be quiet!’ Sukie hissed. ‘You’ll wake people.’ She quickened her pace, hoping her companion would take the hint and return to school.

  The girl glanced back at the building, and saw Torrance at her bedroom window, bright pale hair slung about her shoulders. After a moment’s thought, she trotted after Sukie. ‘It is a lie,’ she insisted, when she caught up with her. ‘I never touched anything except her pendant, and I only borrowed that!’

  ‘You stole it,’ Sukie said wearily. ‘And you lied to me when I found you with it.’ She hurried on towards the stables. ‘It wasn’t very Christian to tell me she’d given away my Christmas present, was it? That really hurt.’

  ‘Well, she’s got it back now.’ The girl’s voice was low and sullen. ‘So you won’t have to rat on me, like you threatened.’

  Sukie made no response. After all, what right had she to judge others? It was her own wilful stupidity that had destroyed both Imogen and their friendship, and left Imogen at the mercy of all comers.

  The yard was empty. Easing open the stable door, Sukie searched each stall in turn, then looked in the tack room before going back outside. ‘Where is she?’ she demanded.

  The girl shrugged. ‘She must have gone for another walk.’

  Sukie grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘Another walk? She’d be hard pushed to get this far!’

  She twisted free. ‘That’s all you know! She often comes out at night, so she can practise without half the school watching.’ Smugly she added, ‘And I help her!’

  Sukie could barely hold back her tears. I should be beside Imogen, she thought; I should be helping her, caring for her, trying to undo some of the dreadful harm I did.

  ‘She’s probably gone to the Strait,’ the girl offered. ‘She likes the view.’

  Without a word, Sukie ran out of the yard and into the woods, along the path that made a short cut to the water’s edge, expecting, at every turn, to come across Imogen, lying fallen, hurt and helpless. I couldn’t bear that, she realised; I couldn’t bear causing her more pain. She skidded down the last few feet of path and stood in the mud, looking in vain for the friend she had loved like a sister for as long as she could remember.

  Out in the Strait, where even at night the water was luminous, the currents already ran fast, although the tide would not peak for a few hours yet. Close by, the water was pitch black, lapping stealthily at the edge of the land.

  Hearing a movement behind her, Sukie whipped round.

  ‘I can’t think where she’s got to,’ the girl remarked. ‘She definitely said half-eleven.’ Peering at the ground, she screwed up her face in puzzlement. ‘If she’d been here,’ she commented, ‘her stick would’ve left marks, wouldn’t it?’

  Almost frantic with worry, Sukie again grabbed her shoulders, and began to shake her. ‘Where is she?’ Her voice rose. ‘What’s going on?’

  The girl pulled away, so violently that she stumbled and fell.

  As she scrambled to her feet, a glimmer of light caught Sukie’s eye. ‘Oh, God!’ she
whispered. ‘You didn’t give it back to her.’

  Even in darkness, the diamond found light to absorb and transform into cold and sinister brilliance. The girl fingered the chain round her neck, then dropped her hand as Sukie advanced, to raise it again in a stunning side-on blow as she came within striking distance.

  Sukie collapsed, face in the mud. Hesitating only briefly, the girl snatched up a broken branch and brought it down with every ounce of her strength on the back of Sukie’s head. Tossing aside the branch, she grabbed her arms and began dragging her towards the water. At first the weight of her body was astounding; once on the move, it skimmed over the mud like a sledge on ice, and slithered into the sea.

  The girl leaned over, pressing hard on Sukie’s shoulders until she was satisfied that not a flicker of life remained. With the tide sucking hungrily at her own feet, she straightened up and tried to kick Sukie afloat, but she moved barely a yard before drifting back. The girl waded thigh-deep into the water, the undertow pulling her off balance, and as Sukie’s lifeless fingers wrapped themselves around her leg, she gave the body a vicious shove, watching with elation as it was caught by the current and carried slowly out of sight beyond the overhanging trees.

  Shivering violently, her feet and legs numb with cold, she retrieved the branch, walked several yards upstream and slung it far out over the water. Then, triumphant, she retraced her way along the path, but well before she reached the school, her mood crashed, back to the familiar, dispiriting emptiness. She crept up the fire escape, caressing the diamond that nestled at her throat, wondering if all her fortune must be so hard won. As she pushed open the door of the fourth-form dormitory, she consoled herself with the thought that killing was absurdly easy.

  Thursday 8 June

  1

  The wall behind McKenna was adorned with an old railway station clock and a roundel of police dress swords with burnished hilts and polished blades. He had put up the clock when the office became his on promotion, but the swords, like the portrait of a youthful-looking Queen which hung above the door, had been there as long as anyone at Bangor police station could remember. The large oak desk was tidily arranged with an outward-facing nameplate bearing the legend ‘Superintendent M. J. McKenna’, tiers of stacking file trays and a pristine, leather-backed blotter.

  Systematically, he was opening the mail he had gathered from his doormat before leaving home. There were leaflets, pamphlets, bank statements, telephone accounts, a reminder to renew his ‘adoption’ of four horses and two donkeys at an East Anglian sanctuary, a letter of thanks from Blue Cross Animal Hospitals for his last donation, and a hand-addressed envelope with a first-class stamp and a Carlisle postmark. The only person he knew in Carlisle was the man from whom he rented his house, who had moved there when his company closed their North Wales plant. He slit the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper.

  Dear Mr McKenna

  I’m terribly sorry to say that I’ll have to give you notice to quit the house. The council’s written to tell me the ongoing problems with subsidence can’t be rectified, so they’ve no option but to condemn the whole terrace, put out compulsory purchase orders, then demolish the lot. The structural engineers reckon one or more of the houses could just collapse without warning. If that happened, they’d fall right on to the High Street shops.

  I’ll be in touch right away when I’ve got more to tell you. Like I said, I’m really sorry, and I’m completely gutted myself about losing the house because I was looking forward to coming back when I retire, if not before.

  Yours sincerely

  David Madoc Jones

  Feeling almost queasy with shock, he reread the few terse paragraphs.

  ‘Beautiful day, isn’t it?’ Jack Tuttle remarked, shouldering open the door. In one hand he carried two mugs of tea, in the other the morning’s official mail. ‘Going to be another scorcher,’ he added, putting his burdens on the desk. Then he saw the expression on McKenna’s face. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  McKenna handed him the letter.

  Jack sat down, reading while he stirred sugar into his tea. ‘So? It’s not before time, if you want my opinion. That street of yours is a complete dump. Even Dewi Prys would turn up his nose at living there, and he’s born and bred on a council estate. You should’ve moved out ages ago.’

  ‘I don’t want to move.’

  ‘So you’ve said before. You’ll miss the views, you’ll miss the peace and quiet, and your cats’ll have to find somewhere else to do their marauding.’

  ‘It’s not that—’ McKenna began.

  ‘It’s not as if you can’t afford to buy a house, is it?’ Jack went on. ‘Your inflated salary would run to a swish pad in Beaumaris or elsewhere on Anglesey.’ He grinned fleetingly. ‘Only impoverished inspectors like me have to shoehorn their families into boxes on Bangor’s outskirts.’ Watching McKenna replace the letter in its envelope, he sighed. ‘You knew this was bound to happen sooner or later. That terrace has been clinging to the side of Bangor Mountain for nearly two hundred years and threatening to lose its grip for the past twenty at least. That’s why no one’s buying the houses when they come empty.’ Injecting a note of enforced cheeriness into his voice, he said, ‘Look on the bright side. You’re not tied into a chain and you’ve got plenty of time to look for somewhere.’

  ‘I’ve got no choice, have I?’ McKenna said irritably, flicking the papers on the desk. ‘Anything urgent here?’

  ‘Just a missing persons inquiry Divisional HQ routed straight to CID. It’s really something uniform should deal with, but I suspect there’s a bit of back-covering going on because the missing person happens to be one of the girls from the Hermitage. The headmistress reported it early this morning. The girl, Suzanne Melville by name, was last seen about eleven on Tuesday night, going from the showers to her bedroom.’

  McKenna looked up sharply. ‘That’s almost thirty-six hours ago.’

  ‘Yes, but she’s seventeen,’ Jack responded mildly. ‘Dr Scott, the headmistress, was no doubt giving her time to come back under her own steam, which she may well yet do, with her tail between her legs, before the day’s out. So,’ he added, ‘how shall I handle it? Route it back to uniform, or waste valuable CID resources chasing some rich kid up hill and down dale?’

  ‘Send Dewi. Depending on what he comes back with, we’ll take it from there.’

  Jack raised his eyebrows. ‘Wouldn’t it be better for Janet Evans to go? You reckon her being a chapel minister’s daughter puts her near the top of the Welsh evolutionary tree, whereas Dewi’s knuckles still scrape the ground, as it were. Or, in other words, Janet’s posh and the Hermitage is certainly a very posh place.’

  ‘And no doubt it’s also full to bursting with girls and women to whom the comely Janet could prove an intolerable distraction.’

  2

  Some five miles outside Bangor, the Hermitage lay on the old Caernarfon road that had been rendered virtually obsolete when a bypass was blasted through the mountainside. With the disappearance of most of the traffic, the hedgerows and verges had returned to life, and driving along with Raybans obscuring his eyes, the car hood down and the sun blisteringly hot on his bare arms, Dewi thought he could well be on a country lane far from anywhere. His car was an unusual and quite rare Cavalier cabriolet that came into its own on days like this. When it rained, water leaked persistently through some deviously intractable chink between hood and windscreen.

  He drew up with a flourish on the gravel patch in front of the school gates, tooted the horn, switched off the engine and waited patiently for admission. The tall wrought-iron rectangles with their internal structure of more rectangles made, he thought, a determined geometric statement amid the unruliness of ivy-clad wall and overhanging trees. On a board fixed to the left-hand wall THE HERMITAGE was written elegantly in pale-blue Roman lettering on a dark-blue background, with the school motto, something unintelligible in Latin, on a furled banner beneath. The other wall bore warnings in br
ight-red on white: PRIVATE PROPERTY, KEEP OUT and GUARD DOGS ON PATROL.

  There was a view through the gates of a cube-like little house, painted white, from which a middle-aged, ruddy-cheeked man emerged, a young German Shepherd at his heels. He eased open one of the gates, sidled through and approached the car. ‘How can I help you?’ he asked.

  ‘By letting me in,’ Dewi replied good-naturedly.

  ‘What’s your business?’

  Dewi flashed his identification. ‘Sergeant Prys, Bangor.’

  ‘Ken Randall,’ the other man said. ‘How do?’

  The dog began circling the car and sniffing the tyres, then reared up and clamped its large, dusty paws on the top of the door, panting happily in Dewi’s face.

  ‘Nice dog,’ Dewi commented, tweaking the animal’s ears. ‘Pet or guard dog?’

  ‘Well,’ Randall began, smiling fondly at his four-legged companion, ‘he’s a bit of both, but to be truthful, really more of a pet. Anyway, there’s enough of the other around here already with the regular security guards. We just mind the lodge and let people in and out.’

  ‘Who does that when you’re not here?’

  ‘There’s an intercom. See?’ He pointed to a discreet box fixed on to the wall beside the gates. ‘The gates can operate either manually or electrically, so at night, or if I’m going out, I just flick a switch and them up there sees to things.’ He moved closer to the car and put his hand on the dog’s head. ‘Don’t mind me asking, but have you come about the girl who’s gone missing?’

  ‘I have indeed.’

  ‘Have you only just found out?’ he asked. When Dewi nodded, he said, ‘Well, to my mind, you should’ve been told yesterday, as soon as they knew she’d gone.’ Absently, he stroked the dog. ‘I told Dr Scott she should phone the police when she rang down here first thing asking if I’d seen the girl, but she just reminded me to mind my own business, like always. As it is, they wasted a whole day and, I dare say, half the night, footling around looking for her.’

  ‘Do girls go missing often?’