Child's Play

by Alison Taylor

  ‘How did Imogen feel?’

  Justine shrugged. ‘I don’t know. These days she says little. She’s a shadow of the person she was.’ She hit her lower lip. ‘But if 1 couldn’t be annoyed about something as trivial as the house captaincy, what chance has Imogen to express the appalling anguish she must feel?’ With another frown, she unlaced her fingers and folded her arms. ‘Dr Scott constantly messes with the school’s dynamics. She experiments, without caring that her actions have consequences, and she only got away with the house captaincy business because no one had the heart to cause Imogen more sorrow. She deliberately exploited our feelings for her own ends.’

  ‘Tell me where Sukie fitted in,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that saying in English?’ she asked, eyes as bleak as snow. ‘Happy as a pig in muck? That was Sukie, until early this year, and then she was so sad you wanted to weep for her.’ She crossed her legs, swinging her right foot. ‘I’d never taken much notice of her before. She coasted along without causing trouble and although she wasn’t outstandingly good at anything, she didn’t find it hard to keep up. I’m sorry I can’t he more specific, but the only remarkable thing about her was her friendship with Imogen.’ She moved again, uncrossing her legs, refolding her arms; talking of Sukie clearly disturbed her equilibrium. ‘You may hear some very silly rumours,’ she went on. ‘When they stopped speaking to each other, some said it was an affair turned sour, which is absolute rubbish. You can sense such relationships and I’m convinced there was nothing like that between them.’ Staring despondently at her hands, she fell silent.

  ‘How much do you actually know about Imogen’s accident?’

  ‘Just that she’d been in a car smash. Dr Scott told us on the first day of spring term.’

  ‘How was Sukie’s absence explained?’

  ‘A bad case of food poisoning.’

  ‘Were you satisfied with those explanations?’

  Again she shifted uncomfortably. ‘They failed to account for the broken friendship that was so obvious once they both returned, or for the terrible grief that troubled them.’ Miserably she went on, ‘And because we didn’t know we couldn’t help them, and it’s been very, very hard for us, too. You see, there’s the same cross-section of personalities here as there would perhaps be in a small village and the same mix of problems. So Imogen’s accident was an event...’ Suddenly, she looked lost.

  ‘Are you trying to say,’ he asked quietly, ‘that when a member of a small community is maimed it has implications for everyone?’

  ‘Yes!’ she exclaimed, nodding vehemently. ‘But we had to behave as if nothing had happened. Dr Scott told us the bare facts, set in motion her plans for Imogen and expected us to fall in line, but people cannot be so easily directed. I think Imogen needed to dwell on the past until she was strong enough to leave it behind...as with her false leg. Do you understand? She couldn’t use it until what was left of the old one had healed.’ She began to weep, almost bewildered by the powerful backwash of emotion. ‘She hasn’t had the chance to heal! When I first saw her after the accident the shock was like a punch in the guts. For Sukie, it must have been absolutely devastating. Imogen looked after her, she was her buffer and she made up for Sukie’s bloody horrible home life, and then, suddenly, they can’t even bear to be in the same room. I’m not surprised Sukie was pregnant,’ she added wretchedly. ‘She must have been desperate for affection. And now she’s dead.’

  ‘Whatever Dr Scott would like you to believe, Sukie wasn’t pregnant,’ he told her.

  ‘No?’ Tears coursing down her face, Justine looked up at him. ‘But she was still desperately unhappy and I should have done something.’ She choked back a sob. ‘I’m ashamed of myself and my parents will be ashamed of me.’

  ‘There’s no call to blame yourself,’ McKenna said gently.

  ‘There is!’ Reddish blotches discoloured her creamy complexion. ‘I was taught never to turn a blind eye or take the line of least resistance, but I’ve done both.’

  ‘Your own welfare must come first. Taking up someone else’s cause can be risky.’

  ‘That,’ she retorted contemptuously, ‘is how people always justify letting evil prosper.’

  ‘You’re not engaged here in fighting evil and you have no more than a civil duty towards your fellow pupils.’

  ‘You’re wrong!’ He held his breath in anticipation of some dramatic disclosure. She stared at him, her face a picture of misery, but simply said, ‘Some people are stronger than others, so the greater responsibility must fall on them.’

  Watching her scrub away the tears with the heel of her hand he felt, for the first time since he had entered the school gates, something bordering on optimism, for he was sure that the bitter lessons Justine had learned at the Hermitage would one day help to mould her into a formidable force for good.

  For a while he let her be, then put to her some of the other pressing questions that Sukie’s death had raised, but she had little to tell him.

  As she rose to go, Freya suddenly appeared at the door. ‘Why have you been crying?’ she demanded, scrutinising Justine’s face.

  ‘Because I’m upset,’ Justine replied. ‘I’m upset about Sukie and I’m upset about Imogen.’

  ‘My dear.’ Freya patted her arm. ‘Everyone is upset. Tragically, Sukie is beyond our help, but we’re doing everything in our power to guide Imogen through this dreadful period.’

  Justine’s face betrayed her doubt. ‘I don’t think I believe you.’

  ‘As you said, Justine, you’re upset.’

  Freya turned away and, the exchange terminated, Justine had no choice but to leave, but more than once she glanced back as she walked away.

  ‘She’s a remarkable young woman,’ McKenna said.

  Standing ramrod straight by the window, Freya threw a stern shadow towards him. ‘Many of my girls are remarkable, Superintendent, and although I can’t remember the last time I saw Justine cry, she’ll be able to cope with whatever you said to make her cry.’ Her eyes glittered like the diamonds on her fingers. ‘Ainsley, however, is delicate and highly strung, as is common with an intellect such as hers, and I’m appalled by what you did to her.’ Her fury was like an entity. ‘Now, I’m told you’re threatening her with arrest.’

  ‘It was Ainsley’s own decision to absent herself from the interview,’ he pointed out. ‘She, like everyone else, is obliged to answer my questions.’

  ‘She assures me she has nothing to tell you.’

  This was an argument about territory, he told himself, and about power, and for the time being, it was his lot to appease. ‘People rarely appreciate how much they know,’ he said, ‘so we tease it out, strand by strand. When I talk to her again, she can have someone with her, but not, for obvious reasons, a staff member or a fellow pupil.’ Her shadow pointed like an accusing finger across the polished floor, and he felt incredibly wearied by this battle of wits and wills. ‘Perhaps you should tell her why she can’t be let off the hook,’ he suggested. ‘A word with Imogen might also be a good idea. I appreciate her fragility, but she was closer than anyone to Sukie and whatever happened last Christmas won’t have wiped out a lifetime of friendship.’

  ‘Why do you say “whatever happened”? You know what happened.’

  He shrugged. ‘A figure of speech, Dr Scott.’

  As she moved away from the window her shadow seemed to impale him. Imogen’s counselling is at a critical stage. Please bear that in mind and make sure you say nothing to disturb her very hard-won balance.’ Then she stopped herself. ‘I’m sorry! That sounded offensive. I’m afraid I’ve had a very trying morning, which the unexpected arrival of Alice Derringer’s mother, all the way from Quebec, did nothing to help.’

  ‘Like other parents, she must be very anxious.’ He smiled at her, deliberately and disarmingly. ‘I’m sure you set her mind at rest.’

  When Freya smiled back the gesture transformed her from martinet to minx. ‘I didn’t, as a matter of fact. She wants to
see you. Our Martha never deals with the monkey when she can collar the organ grinder just as easily.’

  7

  Torrance’s first lesson of the morning was a double period of chemistry. Her mood, like the chemicals she handled, was unstable and unpredictable, veering from anger about the unjust way Dr Scott had blamed her for the upset at breakfast to an ominous uncertainty about Alice, for although Torrance knew Alice was good with animals, and sensible and efficient, she knew little else about her. She might well be recklessly arrogant, as the headmistress insisted, and perhaps, Torrance thought despondently, that explained why Alice was now deliberately and pointedly ignoring her. Or possibly, she argued with herself, Alice had been persuaded that any association with her would only lead to trouble.

  At any other time Torrance would have faced Alice and demanded an answer, but suddenly even something simple and reasonable appeared hugely daunting, set about with ambiguity and riddled with dangerous possibilities, and with an appalling sense of shock she realised that the confident, optimistic person she had always believed herself to be no longer seemed to exist. She felt terribly insecure and terribly threatened. When she dropped a retort holding nitric acid and merely watched the smoke rise as the acid burned into the wooden bench, she realised she also felt frighteningly helpless.

  She downed tools and left the laboratory quite some time before break. Emerging from the classroom block into a brilliant day as yet unmarred by rain clouds massing behind the distant mountain peaks, she strode off, head down, scuffing gravel. Dewi, a passenger in one of the security vans, saw her as she crossed the forecourt and the policeman on duty outside the main block nodded to her. Another policeman, posted at the second-floor fire exit, also nodded as she opened her bedroom door. Within five minutes she was back out, booted and breeched, hair coiled inside a snood, hard hat swinging from her fingers, wearing a white T-shirt with a horse’s head printed on the front.

  When she reached the paddock she found Tonto and Purdey grazing muzzle to muzzle, well away from the crabby skewbald mare that dominated the herd, and she leaned on the fence for quite some time observing the ebb and flow of their silent interactions. Briefly Tonto lifted his head to acknowledge her presence, then returned to pulling at the thin grass. Hoping the grazing in the adjoining field would be fit by the autumn, Torrance went to the tack room for a leading rein and, slipping through the gate, approached Purdey. The little mare stood quietly as she clipped the rein to the head collar and followed Torrance amenably into the yard. To handle, she was as docile as a rabbit; it was only under saddle that she showed her true colours, when her fine breeding and outstanding speed turned her into a handful that had often proved too much for Sukie’s limited capabilities.

  ‘Poor baby,’ Torrance said softly, stroking her neck. ‘What’ll happen to you now?’ she wondered, imagining the horrors that might befall an unwanted horse. As she buckled up the girth, it occurred to her that there was nothing to prevent her from buying Purdey. She vaulted gently into the saddle, resolving to approach the Melvilles at the earliest opportunity.

  She took Tonto to the foreshore when the tide was out, and let him gallop to his heart’s content up and down the mile or so of safe sand. At other times they went into the woods, going round and round the endlessly interweaving tracks. He seemed to find the arena, large as it was, claustrophobic and had several times decamped by taking a flying leap over the fence, so she schooled him now on the rides.

  Purdey, in contrast, loved the disciplined environment of the arena. Usually Torrance would ride her through the woods for a while to let her limber up, then head for the arena, but today she went up the tarmac path towards the school’s main block. Daisy’s nasty story about Sukie’s ghost had spread through the school like wildfire after Grace screamed in the night and although she had convinced herself it could only be a story, Torrance still dreaded encountering a ghastly, dripping figure in the strange green gloaming that washed through the trees.

  Knowing Purdey would sense her mood, she made a superhuman effort to force the thoughts away. As she passed him, she gathered another nod from the dutiful policeman and then, looking neither to right nor left, she squeezed Purdey into a trot, listening intently to the rhythm of the hoof beats on the hard ground.

  8

  After Freya introduced him to Martha Rathbone, McKenna waited until the headmistress had closed the study door behind her, with something of a thud, before saying, ‘Shall we find somewhere more private? There’s a nice pub down the road.’ He steered her out of the school, slowing his pace so that she could keep up with him, for she limped heavily. From somewhere near at hand but out of sight, he could hear the regular clip-clop of hooves.

  ‘Could we go in your car?’ she asked. ‘I’m so tired I’m not even sure which day it is.’

  He had parked his car, a sapphire-blue Jaguar, under the trees and its bodywork was spattered with pollen. ‘How did you get here?’ he asked, gunning the engine and turning in a wide circle to face the drive.

  ‘I hired a car at Manchester airport. My chauffeur’s on holiday because I wasn’t planning to return to Britain until the end of term.’

  Once the guardian police moved out of the way, he drove out through the gates. The photographers and reporters craned forward to peer through the car windows, then backed away, faces dull with disappointment.

  ‘I don’t think they’ve recognised me,’ Martha remarked. ‘Thank heavens for small mercies, eh?’

  He was not surprised. She bore hardly any resemblance to the newspaper photographs he had occasionally seen. In an old suede jacket, denim jeans and cotton shirt, she looked homely and ordinary, distinguished only by the fine, clear eyes and obstinate mouth Alice had inherited. Curly brown hair flopped around a lined, unmade-up face and even her voice lacked any pretension.

  ‘I noticed you limp,’ he commented.

  ‘I’m rheumatic,’ she said. ‘It runs in the family. So far, it hasn’t caught up with Alice, but she’s got her own problems. Asthma can be very nasty.’ Surreptitiously, he looked at her fingers, devoid of rings and as gnarled as exposed tree roots. ‘We’re not from very good stock, I’m afraid,’ she went on. ‘Had we been animals, we’d have been put down at birth.’

  He was further surprised when the landlord at the pub greeted her warmly.

  She asked for coffee and biscuits, then followed McKenna to a table by one of the small, deep-set windows. ‘I bring Alice quite often,’ she explained, draping her jacket over a chair back. ‘She likes to have lunch here, much to Freya’s disgust, I may add.’

  ‘Alice must find ordinary experiences hard to come by. A pub lunch can only be good for her.’

  ‘I only wish there could be more of them. Our way of life is totally unnatural.’ She nibbled a biscuit, dropping crumbs on the table.

  ‘The Hermitage is full of girls in a similar position.’

  ‘And look at them!’ she exclaimed. Scooping up the crumbs and dusting her hands over the ashtray, she added, ‘They’re no more than fodder for Freya’s crude psychological experiments. If Alice weren’t relatively settled, I’d send her somewhere else, but that said, to my mind one boarding school is very like another. There’s too much of a marketplace mentality about them these days, as if they’re supplying a product rather than helping children to grow into useful citizens.’ Suddenly she grinned. ‘Freya’s quite Jesuitical in her approach, you know. “Give me the child, and I will give you the man”, except that she gives you the woman, moulded as much as possible in her own image.’ Her face clouded. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk about her like this.’

  ‘Her philosophies must go down well with most parents,’ he ventured, lighting his fourth cigarette of the day. ‘She’s got what you might call a full order book.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, just like a double-glazing salesman with a superb sales pitch. She mainly targets the nouveau riche, playing on elitism and good old English snobbery, forever dropping names and titles and past successes,
and people buy into the image. They believe the school must be good because the fees are so high, the same way they think a swanky dress shop won’t sell you tat. And yes,’ she added, pre-empting comment, ‘I did fall for it. My second husband was the one who opened my eyes. Five minutes with Freya was enough to convince him she is, as he put it, “full of shit”, if you’ll excuse the language.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ he said, nonplussed.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry! You’ve got far more important things to do than listen to this.’ She picked up her cup and took a large gulp. ‘Freya did her best to convince me Sukie Melville killed herself, but if that were the case the school wouldn’t be crawling with police. Do you actually know how she died?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I see.’ She chose another biscuit, which she broke into four neat pieces. ‘On the way back, I worked myself into a near frenzy thinking about homicidal maniacs and kidnappers.’ Worry was drawing more lines on her face. ‘I don’t bother overmuch about my own security, but Alice has been surrounded by what I call the negative trappings of extreme wealth since she first drew breath, simply because the world’s full of lunatics and she’s an obvious kidnap target. As she well knows,’ she added ruefully. ‘A couple of years ago she started fantasising about being kidnapped and deprived of an ear or thumb to he enclosed with the ransom note I’d get. Naturally, Freya wanted to consult a psychiatrist. Oh, do excuse me!’ She yawned then, covering her mouth with those crooked fingers. ‘Anyway, I flatly refused. I suspect it was primarily a plea for my attention, although Alice claimed she was just bored.’