‘How did Dr Scott know? Children usually keep their imaginary lives to themselves.’
‘Alice made the mistake of sharing hers with that horrible Daisy Podmore, who, allegedly, is her best friend. I’ve never liked Daisy and I liked her even less after she went sneaking to Freya “for Alice’s own good”, which is always the rationale of someone out to cause trouble. When her little bomb turned out to be a damp squib, she was very put out.’
‘Why don’t you like Daisy?’
‘Have you met her?’
‘I’ve seen her,’ he said, ‘but not spoken to her.’
‘You’ll get a shock when you do, then,’ Martha said. ‘She’s got the most awful lisp I’ve ever heard, despite years of speech therapy. It’s so bad she almost reinvents pronunciation and, worse still, you feel virtually compelled to copy her.’ She met his eyes. ‘Yes, I know it’s not her fault, but I’m sorry to say I find her utterly repellent. It’s nothing I can put my finger on, it’s just there. Her parents are a total nightmare as well. Her mother’s a braying tart and her father’s an absolute slimeball. I say that even though I’ve only met them once and then only briefly, but with some people you know what they are as soon as you set eyes on them.’
‘How did Alice react to Daisy’s betrayal?’
‘She was really hurt. I told her to ditch Daisy and either make do with Grace Blackwell, who hangs around with them at times, or simply keep to her own company, but that caused an argument. As she pointed out, I’m not famous for my ability to choose wisely.’
‘How many times have you been married?’ he asked, thinking of Charlotte Swann’s fragmented background.
‘Twice,’ Martha replied. ‘I was thirty-two the first time and the marriage was dead in the water before Alice arrived three years later. I made the not unusual mistake of hoping a child would hind us together. Alice was eleven when I remarried and that marriage lasted two years.’ She fiddled with her cup. ‘I think there’s a sort of blind spot in my character and I’m afraid Alice has it too, if Daisy’s anything to go by.’ After a long pause she said, ‘To be honest, I’m not interested in being married. Alice is my whole life. I’ve never even wanted another child.’
‘Are you an only child, too?’
‘I had an older brother called Danny.’ She gazed at him, a distant look in her eyes. ‘Because of him, I tried not to love Alice too much, but it wasn’t possible.’ Taking a deep breath she went on, ‘Until Grandad died when I was ten, we lived a perfectly unremarkable life. My father was an accountant, Mother stayed at home, and Grandad had a small but absolutely rock-solid precision tool and instrument business. After he died the business went to my mother, and she discovered this wonderful flair for innovation and development. Everything just took off.’ She picked up another biscuit. ‘Danny wanted to go into the business once he’d taken his degree, but he died. He caught meningitis and died in the space of a few hours, so that’s really why I’ve so little patience with the trappings of security. Disease is a much greater hazard than a kidnapper or psychopath.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Sixteen. I dreamt about him the other night, you know, and I haven’t done that since just before my father’s last illness.’ She sighed. ‘But they do say that to dream of the dead is a sign of trouble with the living.’
‘Is your mother still alive?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘That’s why I’m awash with money, and why Alice will be one day.’ Munching the biscuit, she fell silent. ‘It’s odd,’ she went on after a while, ‘how many Hermitage girls stand to inherit through their mothers. Apart from Alice, there’s a French girl whose mother owns half Marseilles, I shouldn’t wonder, a German girl who looks like a carthorse whose mother owns an enormous sausage factory — what else? — and the ghastly Daisy will get some fine Home Counties properties, not to mention a couple of dozen very profitable retail outlets when her mother goes to heaven.’ She peered at him, questioningly. ‘Should I do something about extra security?’
‘We’ll be maintaining a strong police presence at the school, day and night, for the duration, and its very isolation helps us to ring fence the place.’ He chose another biscuit, eating instead of smoking. ‘However, we can’t ignore the possibility of kidnap and as it’s not an area where we have much expertise, our chief constable has asked for assistance. That, initially, will be an assessment of risk, based on intelligence.’
‘I read somewhere,’ Martha said, ‘that murders are usually committed by someone very close to the victim.’ She stared at him, face again webbed with anxiety. ‘I don’t know whether that makes me feel better or worse!’
9
Nona Lloyd, with some of her colleagues, was interviewing fifth formers in the library when the bell rang for morning break. The girls began to fidget immediately, several stood up, and as soon as one made for the door the rest, without a word to their interrogators, followed. They were just like Pavlov’s dogs, she thought, sticking her pen down the spine of her notebook.
As she was walking down the corridor, Janet came up behind her. ‘Any joy with your lot?’ she asked.
‘Not really,’ Nona replied. ‘How about you?’
‘A few interesting odds and ends,’ she said, turning into the lobby, ‘but nothing that’s likely to tell us who might have blood on their hands.’ At the door she stopped. ‘I was planning to escape for half an hour. Fancy a trip to the Antelope?’
‘It would be nice to breathe some fresh air, wouldn’t it?’ Nona remarked. ‘But shouldn’t we ask Mr McKenna first?’ Then she noticed the gap where his car had been. ‘Oh, he must have gone out,’ she added.
‘And what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,’ Janet said lightly, leading the way to her own car.
Although she was a few years older than Janet and a married woman, Nona always felt inadequate in comparison, even if the comparison existed only in her own mind and her presumed shortcomings mostly related to matters over which she had never had any control. Janet owned a physical elegance quite uncommon in Welsh women and her face, when not in the throes of a mood, could be beautiful. Her voice was unusually attractive too, Nona thought, as she listened to her talking about the morning’s interviews with the fourth formers.
The Antelope was a bare five minutes’ drive from the school and, following Janet to the terrace overlooking Menai Bridge, Nona began to wonder how she could improve her own pitch and diction. For the first time since she had joined the police six years before, she also started to consider her future. Janet, as a fast-track graduate entrant, would forever be at least ten steps ahead and she would always be somewhat upper-crust, at least by local standards, but there was nothing to stop Nona bettering herself where she could. Rather than let envy corrode her will, she should let it be a spur.
‘Coffee, tea or a cold drink?’ Janet asked, preparing to go to the bar.
‘Black tea, please.’
Watching her walk away, Nona realised that while the elegance was innate, the style could be borrowed and resolved to overhaul her own wardrobe at the first opportunity. Unlike Janet, she was condemned to wearing uniform at work, but it would take only a day in Chester’s exclusive dress shops to transform her off-duty wear. And her bank balance, she reminded herself ruefully, as Janet returned with their drinks.
Janet lit a cigarette, hungrily pulling smoke into her lungs. ‘This is the first I’ve had since breakfast,’ she said, noticing the frown Nona was unable to hide. ‘I need it.’
‘I’m not preaching, but cigarettes really are lethal,’ Nona said. ‘My uncle lost one of his lungs to cancer and now they’ve found a shadow on the other. Why don’t you try nicotine patches? They seem to be helping Mr McKenna to cut down.’
‘Yes, I’d noticed he wasn’t smoking so much,’ Janet mused. ‘That must be why he’s more miserable and bad-tempered than usual.’
Nona shrugged. ‘Better that than dead.’
‘How do you know, anyway?’ asked Janet. ‘About th
e patches?’
‘I saw the packet on his desk the other day.’
Janet grinned. ‘He’s probably got them stuck on every available inch of skin.’
‘Well, there’s not too much of that these days, is there? He’s gone terribly scrawny-looking.’
‘He’s always been thin.’
‘Yes, but not emaciated, like he is now.’
‘Don’t you think he’s still attractive, though?’
‘I suppose,’ Nona said slowly.
‘But then, if your husband’s anything to go by, Mr McKenna’s not your type, is he?’
Laughing, Nona said, ‘When Mam first met Gwynfor she said he was built like a young bull.’
‘And is he?’ Janet asked roguishly.
‘Janet, really!’ Nona’s face was bright pink. ‘It’s not like you to be crude.’
‘Blame that hormone-crazed atmosphere at the school.’
‘Those girls are a bit OTT, aren’t they? I don’t remember being quite so obsessed with sex at that age.’ Nona thought for a moment. ‘Then again, we went to school with boys, so that probably explains the difference.’ After another pause she asked, ‘Have they been quizzing you about boyfriends? They’ve tried it on me, even though I told them I was married.’
‘In their circles I don’t imagine being married stops people playing away from home,’ Janet commented. ‘Actually, they were more interested in Dewi’s love life. Not a few of them blush even at the mention of his name, so he could no doubt have a new career as a bit of rough for the posh girls if he wanted to. So could Sean O’Connor, come to that.’ She grinned again. ‘And Mr McKenna’s firmly fixed in Freya Scott’s sights, whether he knows it or not. She was trying to find out from me earlier what makes him tick. I told her I’d let her know when I find out myself.’
‘Have you heard anything about Sukie having a boyfriend?’
‘I’ve heard a great deal about her supposed pregnancy,’ Janet said, ‘but not a word about who could have helped her to get into that condition. Grace Blackwell, for one, was wittering endlessly about the pregnancy, but said repeatedly that Sukie wasn’t “like that” — in other words that she wasn’t one for the boys. I was tempted to ask her if she thought there’d been another immaculate conception, which probably isn’t the best remark to make to a vicar’s daughter.’
‘She’s the one Bryn nabbed for wearing Sukie’s old skirt, isn’t she?’ Nona asked.
Janet nodded. ‘I think Bryn quite scared her. She’s also worried about the rest of the hand-me-downs she’s got; she thought we were going to take them away. When I said not, Daisy started taunting her, saying she couldn’t wear Sukie’s clothes now in any case because next time Bryn smelled them on her he’d tear her to bits. So according to Daisy, Grace is back to wearing sack-cloth and ashes.’
‘Daisy’s rather horrible, isn’t she? She makes my skin crawl, even though I’ve barely passed the time of day with her.’
Janet stubbed out one cigarette and reached for another, saying, ‘My last until after lunch. OK?’ Then, she went on, ‘I’m not sure Daisy is as nasty as she seems. Deep down, I think she’s really unhappy and there could be much more to her relationship with Grace than appearances suggest.’
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘Well,’ Janet began thoughtfully, ‘as you’d expect, after Daisy’s little outburst, Grace got very snivelly. Daisy said she was only blubbing for my benefit, because she was always the first to preach about “the truth hurting”. So,’ she added, with a slight shrug, ‘I don’t know quite what to make of either of them, particularly as I’d already sat through a diatribe from Grace on the various sins that abound at the Hermitage.’
‘Sins?’ Nona echoed. ‘What kind of sins?’
‘The kind my father, as a man of the cloth like Grace’s father, is also inclined to condemn out of hand, even though they might only demonstrate the confusion and irrationality of the human spirit.’
Nona pressed for an answer. ‘But what did she actually say?’
‘She claims some girls get punished for nothing, yet others get away with murder — she actually said “murder”. That led to a lecture on the inevitability of divine retribution, as interpreted by her father, and a further discourse on the issue of sacrifice, again by reference to her father and the sacrifices he has to make to keep her at the school. Some sort of religious trust pays part of the fees, but he has to make up the balance.’
‘Well, then, nothing of what she says is unreasonable, is it?’
‘I suppose not,’ agreed Janet. ‘I’m just not keen on the subtext, because I think she’s sanctimonious and very envious. She had a lot to say about Sukie’s grandparents and their bottomless purses while in the same breath listing what she has to do without, including music lessons, even though she’s got a wonderful singing voice and leads the church choir at home.’
‘You should’ve asked her if she was jealous of Sukie.’
‘I did.’ Janet blew a plume of smoke skywards. ‘She admitted to being jealous of quite a lot of the girls at one time, before going through a process of resignation which has, she said, led to enlightenment. She now realises that an excess of worldly goods can corrupt the spirit; poverty, on the other hand, is positively uplifting.’
‘I see what you mean about her being sanctimonious,’ Nona remarked. ‘But she sounds a shade pitiful, for all that. I’d defy most people not to go a bit peculiar when they’re getting other people’s wealth rammed down their throats day and night.’
‘So would I,’ Janet said. ‘But I’ll still have a look at that paper we’ve had on child killers to see if she fits the profile. Jealousy can be very, very corrosive.’
‘But in her case it’s too vague a motive,’ Nona argued. ‘Why pick on Sukie, and not one of the others?’ She frowned. ‘And isn’t she a bit puny? She wouldn’t have the strength. By the way,’ she went on, lowering her voice conspiratorially, ‘did you know some of our less sensitive male colleagues have opened a book on the killer? I hope Mr McKenna doesn’t find out. He’ll crucify them.’
‘You’re joking!’ exclaimed Janet.
‘I’m not.’ Nona swallowed the dregs of her tea. ‘And guess who’s odds-on favourite at the moment.’
‘I’ve no idea. Who?’
‘Daisy.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she acts like a psycho, I suppose.’
‘So do plenty of the others.’
‘Yes, but Daisy’s got that awful lisp, and you can’t help thinking a flaw like that means there’s something bad about a person.’
‘What about Imogen, then?’
‘She wasn’t born that way. Anyway, think about it,’ Nona urged. ‘Daisy looks strong enough to dispatch a grown man.’
‘Every girl I’ve spoken to so far has calluses on her hands, as a result of wielding tennis racquets and lacrosse sticks. When I first saw them I felt quite nostalgic, because I used to get them, too. Then I remembered what sports did for my muscles, as well, so, barring a few of the very young ones, I’d say they’re all strong enough.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Nona conceded, getting to her feet. She unhooked her holdall from the back of the chair, eyeing Janet’s chic leather shoulder bag as she did so. ‘So if anyone asks me about having a bet,’ she went on, ‘I’ll tell them to put their money on a rank outsider. There are two hundred plus to choose from, without including the staff.’ As they left the terrace, she tried surreptitiously to match Janet’s long, easy strides, but it was hard, for although Janet was only a couple of inches taller, her legs seemed endless. ‘Haven’t you read that paper yet?’ When Janet shook her head, she said, ‘The theories are very interesting, but I’m not sure they hang together. Maybe they don’t go deep enough.’ Then she corrected herself. ‘No, they go astray because they’re based on the innocence of childhood when there’s really no such thing.’
‘You think not?’ asked Janet, unlocking her car. Nona slid into the passenger se
at. ‘People who commit murder as adults were just as capable when they were children,’ she said. ‘They don’t suffer some great moral collapse on their eighteenth birthday. Quite frankly, I’m surprised more children don’t kill, because they’ve had less exposure to socialisation processes.’ As Janet turned out of the car park into Treborth Road she added reflectively, ‘Mind you, the Hermitage girls get subjected to completely abnormal socialisation processes. In a way, they’re actually designed to bring out the worst, so not only is everything going to be exaggerated, but nobody can escape.’ She twisted round in her seat. ‘We couldn’t wait to get out of there, could we? Why was that? What did we actually feel?’
‘In a word,’ Janet replied, ‘threatened. At least, I did.’
‘Me, too,’ Nona told her. ‘But not by anything specific. It’s just a general feeling of menace, like thunder clouds that won’t blow away. Not only that, I literally find it hard to breathe, although that might he because of the trees.’
‘So, going on from that,’ Janet mused, ‘someone could feel so threatened that they’re compelled to kill, even if they weren’t in real danger.’
‘Yes, but it would still spring from a recognisable motive,’ Nona said. ‘Like envy, for instance, or greed, or gain.’
‘What about love, hate, and revenge?’ suggested Janet. ‘And what about just for kicks? That’s more than likely in that place.’
‘On the other hand,’ Nona observed, as the school gates came into view, ‘perhaps Sukie just got into a fight with someone and her death was completely unintended.’
‘Tipping her into Menai Strait was far from accidental.’
‘Not if the other person thought she was already dead and just panicked.’
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