Child's Play

by Alison Taylor

  10

  When next Dewi saw Torrance she was inside the arena, leaning far out of the saddle to latch the gate.

  The security guard beside him needed no persuasion to park for a while and pulled up on the grass beside the rough wooden fencing. ‘Big, isn’t it?’ he commented, surveying the vast expanse of sand. A row of jumps was lined up on the far side.

  ‘Horses tend to need plenty of room,’ Dewi replied, with barely concealed sarcasm.

  Torrance took Purdey through one circuit at the walk, then round again at the trot, before coaxing her into an elegant extended trot across the arena’s diagonal. Once at the far corner, she set the mare cantering fluidly in figures of eight.

  ‘Why does she keep looking at her watch?’ the security guard asked, as Torrance and her mount thundered past at the gallop on the other side of the fence. The mare was snorting and kicking up sand, her neck dark with sweat.

  Dewi thought for a moment, then took a wild guess. ‘It’s all to do with discipline,’ he said. Hoping that was enough to cover his ignorance, he saved himself the bother of further invention by getting out of the van.

  Torrance had stopped near the jumps. She dismounted, lashed the reins to the fence and began hauling the striped poles across the arena.

  ‘D’you want some help?’ he called.

  ‘If you’re offering,’ she shouted back.

  Leaving the guard to stare, he vaulted the fence and, under her instructions, moved uprights and dragged poles. She shifted the things as if they weighed next to nothing, he thought, ploughing ankle deep in the sand that had already filled his shoes. Ten minutes hefting left him puffing and ruddy-faced, while she still looked as fresh as a daisy. When she remounted he leaned against the fence, arms spread out, right leg crooked behind him, watching what was arguably poetry in motion.

  Purdey owned the rare ability to adjust her stride to the distance between the jumps, and she took them effortlessly, flying over one after another with her ears well pricked. If I buy her, Torrance said to herself, setting her at the last line of fences, we could take up hurdling. The first, a four footer, disappeared underneath and the second, six inches higher, rushed towards them. The mare took off, forelegs tucked well under, hindlegs flowing. In mid-air, something happened. Torrance felt herself rocket skywards and the reins were torn from her hands. Then, in a jumble of sensations and colours, she plummeted to earth and the world went black.

  Dewi saw her ejected from the saddle. He saw her tumble, seemingly in slow motion, to the ground. He watched her crash head first into one of the uprights, yet still remained by the fence, immobilised by shock. Only when Purdey skidded to a halt a foot from his nose did he recover his wits. Showing the whites of her eyes, the mare was trembling from head to foot and lathered with sweat. He picked up the ends of broken rein, knotted them around a fence post, then ran to Torrance, yelling over his shoulder to the guard.

  She was in a heap by the shattered fence, a blue and white striped pole across her body, her left foot trapped in the stirrup iron and her right twisted sickeningly beneath her. He threw the pole to one side with the strength of Hercules and as he laid his finger on her neck, she let out a groan that sounded like the last breath expelled by the newly dead. There was a pulse, but it was very slow and her flesh was already growing clammy.

  The shadow of the guard fell over him. ‘I’ve called for an ambulance,’ he said, kneeling down. ‘Shouldn’t we get her into the recovery position?’ he urged.

  ‘When I’ve checked her back.’ Dewi was already kneading each vertebra. ‘It seems OK,’ he said at last, ‘but that’s not to say she hasn’t broken her shoulders or ribs or pelvis. Let’s turn her on her side. You hold her head and for God’s sake, don’t let it twist.’

  Once she was rolled into position, the guard eased open her mouth and probed inside with his finger. ‘Her airway’s open,’ he reported and at the same moment Torrance emitted another groan.

  Surveying the tangle of boot and stirrup iron, Dewi said, ‘We’d best leave her leg until the paramedics get here.’ He touched her neck again. ‘She’s very cold. Have you got a blanket in the van?’

  ‘There’s my jacket. It’s behind the seats.’

  Running to and fro through the sand was, Dewi thought, like trying to run in a dream. He draped the jacket over Torrance, then held her wrist. Her pulse was still slow, but regular, and he could hear her breathing: deep, slow inhalations that lifted his leaden heart a fraction.

  The guard was on his knees examining the saddle. ‘Seen this?’ he asked, holding up the girth. Two buckles and two snapped leather straps dangled from its end. ‘You fasten the girth to these buckles and the buckles are stitched to the saddle under here.’ Taking care not to nudge the saddle, he lifted the flap. ‘Somebody’s cut partway through the straps and left just enough to keep the girth in place until it was put under real pressure, like when the horse was jumping. This was no accident. In your book it was attempted murder.’

  The blood-chilling howl of a siren brought people running from the school, but they simply milled around at a loss on the forecourt as the ambulance went from view behind the trees.

  Red-faced and puffing, Matron set off in pursuit, but Freya stopped her.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she demanded.

  ‘I don’t know!’ Matron squawked.

  Freya turned to the policeman by the door. ‘Do you know?’ she demanded, breathing in his face like a dragon.

  ‘There’s been an accident, ma’am,’ he told her, listening with one ear to the exchange on his radio. ‘A girl called Florence was thrown from her horse. Sergeant Prys is going with her to the hospital.’ Freya opened her mouth to speak but he held up his hand to silence her. When the radio message finished, he said, ‘Superintendent McKenna is on his way back as we speak. His orders are that no one is to attempt to leave the site and he wants everyone to assemble immediately in the refectory. And you need to get a vet here fast to check on the horse.’

  11

  Torrance’s crashing fall was common knowledge almost before the ambulance had cleared the grounds. Accounts were embellished with each new telling and, quite deliberately, McKenna played his own part in intensifying the drama.

  Standing on the refectory dais to address the whole school, he reminded them that one of their number was already dead, before saying, ‘For the past three days, Torrance Fuseli has been exercising Sukie Melville’s horse. Now she has had a terrible fall. If she lives — if — she could well be brain-damaged and crippled.’ He paused, his gaze raking over the sea of faces below.

  Many of the younger girls were already weeping. ‘Torrance’s fall was no accident. Someone wilfully sabotaged the saddle, intending this to happen. That person,’ he added, his words slow and measured, ‘intended to kill her.’

  Beside him on the dais Jack, still with a blinding headache, thought that McKenna was making scant impression in several quarters. Freya had been relegated to the floor of the refectory and the staff, obviously more intrigued by her sudden demotion, watched her constantly while whispering to each other. Among the girls he could detect boredom on many faces, as if one death and one attempted murder were of no consequence.

  Charlotte had devoted half the morning to preparing for her interview with McKenna and in anticipation of the summons she skipped the lesson before break to rifle her wardrobe. Now, almost beside herself with disappointment and resentment, she remembered the agonies of indecision she had suffered before selecting the soft grey linen slacks and silvery-coloured silk vest she eventually donned, and the further dithering that preceded the choice of a light, floral scent to mist on neck and wrists. Only the jewellery presented no difficulties, for she had already decided to wear her newest diamond earrings and the matching bracelet. What an awful waste of her time, she thought angrily, watching McKenna’s mouth open and close without hearing a word he said, and all over some silly horse and its stupid rider. Everyone knew Torrance rode like a demon, so she h
ad only herself to blame for being injured. Then, wondering at last what that injury might entail, Charlotte began to sweat and tremble, for when Imogen had dragged her maimed and hideous body back to school after the accident, Charlotte had been violently sick. Since that time she would run in the other direction rather than face Imogen, but bloody images of twisted metal and mutilation nonetheless filled her head and the dread, dead clump of Imogen’s false foot was never far from her ears. Although Matron gave her sleeping tablets to vanquish the nightmares, Charlotte soon discovered that the demons haunting her days were all the mightier for their enforced idleness during the hours of darkness. Oh, God, she beseeched, while McKenna droned on, if only Sukie’s death could release her from their hold.

  Sitting directly behind Charlotte, engulfed in her perfume, Imogen felt sick and was frantically casting around for a means of escape from the claustrophobic press of bodies. Should she struggle upright they would, she knew from experience, ostentatiously edge aside to let her hobble past and, in so doing, make her the focus of hundreds of pairs of eyes. Bile rose and fell in her throat, her guts heaved stormily and her leg hurt so brutally that she wanted to scream, as if her splintered bones were still rammed under the dashboard of the car or a butcher were smashing a cleaver relentlessly through her thigh. The pain was inconceivably vicious and, because it emanated from something that no longer existed, utterly ridiculous. Her leg was dead before it was severed from her body and, like other mysteriously dead flesh, it had gone first to the pathologist, and then to be reduced to smoke and ashes in the hospital incinerator. How could it still hurt?

  She tried to listen to what McKenna was saying and wrestled again with her attention when his dark-haired companion took up the lecture, but her mind was consumed with images of Torrance, the latest hostage to fortune, with both legs shattered, even now being set upon in the aseptic atmosphere of the operating theatre by masked men with knives and saws. She wanted to weep and howl and scream until the festering grief drained from her; instead, she must be stoical and sensible and philosophical, because Dr Scott — ignorant, insensitive, cruel Dr Scott — demanded the sacrifice of her feelings for the sake of her teachers and fellow pupils.

  The accident was a defining experience that had acted upon Imogen’s personality like an earthquake, causing destruction of seismic proportion and exposing unsuspected and terrifying fault lines in her parents and in herself. Albeit with something artificial and inadequate, her leg could be replaced, but the friendship with Sukie was annihilated and Imogen soon knew for which she would grieve most. The hope she had nursed of repairing that terrible rift perished on Wednesday morning when she learned Sukie was missing, for they had been too close for too long not to know, even after the accident, when the other was in peril.

  Imogen’s sob jolted Vivienne from her torpor. She glanced along the row, to see her rocking jerkily back and forth, the false leg rising of its own accord before thumping back to the floor. Heads turned, necks craned and faces mottled with embarrassment as others watched, but no one offered help. Angrily, Vivienne stood up and, bruising knees and treading on feet, pushed her way towards Imogen. She picked up the silver-topped cane from the floor under the bench, tucked it under her arm and, hefting Imogen upright, half dragged and half pulled her towards the doors, trampling many more toes as she went. With Imogen’s arm slung about her shoulders, she walked her out of the refectory without a backward glance.

  ‘Thanks,’ Imogen muttered, while the lift creaked upwards. She knuckled her eyes, but the tears persisted.

  ‘No problem,’ Vivienne said, leaning against the handrail, ankles crossed. ‘Charlotte’s perfume was knocking me out, anyway.’

  ‘Me, too.’ Imogen tried a wan smile.

  ‘Will McKenna send a posse after us, d’you think?’

  ‘There’s no need. He’s got uniforms by the fire exits.’

  ‘Has he really?’ Vivienne said, as the lift ground to a stop. ‘I’ve not been upstairs since breakfast. I thought they’d have gone.’ She hauled back the two gates, then waited for Imogen to unlock her door, but her hands trembled so violently that the heavy iron key rattled out of the huge old mortise and fell to the floor.

  It lay there, Vivienne thought, rather symbolically. With the cruellest clarity she remembered the day Dr Scott presented that key to Imogen to safeguard the painkillers she kept in her room. Another bloody consolation prize, she said to herself, as she bent to retrieve it.

  ‘I’ll make coffee.’ She headed for the common room.

  Mystified, Imogen looked after her. As she held a fixed impression of Charlotte as a vacuous but dangerous nincompoop, so did she of Vivienne as someone damned by her own weakness. Her friendliness was unexpected, but the sudden decisiveness she had shown in the refectory was remarkable.

  The policeman at the fire exit rose when he saw Vivienne approaching. ‘Shouldn’t you be in the refectory, miss?’

  ‘I had to come up with one of the girls,’ she told him with a smile. ‘She isn’t very well. I’m making her a drink.’

  When he saw her approaching, the policeman had thought she looked positively sullen, like so many of these rich girls, but the smile she gave him transformed her. He followed her into the common room. ‘Which girl would that be?’

  ‘Imogen.’ She switched on the kettle. ‘The one with a false leg.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  ‘Are you allowed a drink?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say no. I’m parched. It’s a hot day.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Lining up three clean mugs, she said, ‘We’re all terribly worried about the girl who fell off the horse. I probably shouldn’t ask, but is there any way you could find out how she is?’

  ‘Hasn’t Superintendent McKenna said?’

  ‘I’m not sure he knows,’ she replied innocently. ‘He’s still downstairs, talking to people.’

  He nodded, walked to the window and, head inclined, spoke into the radio clipped to his shoulder. After several minutes’ silence and more mutterings, he came back to take the steaming drink she held out. ‘Much obliged,’ he said, leaning on the back of a chair, which creaked under his weight. ‘Superintendent McKenna will tell everybody when he’s ready, so keep it to yourself. And you didn’t get this from me — OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Your friend’s going to have a very sore head for a few days and she’s sprained her ankle. Apart from that she’s fine.’

  Surprising both of them, she kissed him on the cheek. His beard was a little scratchy, but he smelt nice and not at all like the proverbial pig. Before he could recover his wits, she picked up the other drinks and went.

  Imogen was in a chair by the window, clutching a half-empty glass of water, her face grey with pain. Her leg was propped against the bed like part of a shop-window dummy, the stump to which it had been fastened a lump beneath her skirt.

  Vivienne put Imogen’s coffee on the counter. ‘Have you just taken some pills?’

  Imogen nodded.

  ‘How many have you had today?’

  ‘Two at breakfast, two now.’

  Scrutinising the label on the brown plastic bottle, Vivienne said, ‘That was your midday dose. You can’t have any more until supper, then that’s it until the morning.’

  ‘I’m allowed more if I need them.’ She snatched the bottle, as if Vivienne were likely to fling it through the window.

  Holding her mug in both hands, Vivienne put it to her lips. ‘It’s a slippery slope, Imogen. Take care you don’t find yourself at the bottom, like me.’

  ‘I want it to stop hurting.’ Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

  ‘Even prescribed medicines can turn your whole existence into a miserable cycle of scoring, consuming and getting stoned one way or the other.’ She paused. ‘What’ll you do when the doctors realise you’re addicted and cut off your supply? They will, you know.’

  At a loss for an answer, Imogen said, ‘You can smoke if you want, only lock the door first.’ W
hen Vivienne failed to move she added, ‘Lock the door, anyway. Scott’s sure to send someone to pry and I don’t feel like talking.’

  ‘I’ll shut up, then.’ Vivienne walked to the door and turned the key in the lock, then reached into the pocket of her skirt, where she kept her cigarettes and lighter during the day.

  ‘I didn’t mean you.’ Imogen watched her. Vivienne had very elegant legs, she thought, with savage envy, and she made a cigarette seem like a smart accessory.

  Smoke dribbling from her nostrils, Vivienne returned her look. ‘By the way, Torrance will be fine. She just sprained an ankle and bashed her head.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘I’m sworn to secrecy, but it’s official.’

  ‘You bribed that copper, I’ll bet.’ Suddenly, Imogen shuddered from head to foot. ‘Thank God she wasn’t really hurt!’

  ‘Not like Sukie, you mean?’ Ignoring Imogen’s sharp intake of breath, she asked, ‘Had any thoughts about that?’

  Imogen tried to shake her head, but her neck was almost rigid.

  ‘Well, I doubt it was an accident.’ Vivienne sank on to the bed and, picking up the false leg, began to examine it from the toes upwards, the cigarette stuck at the corner of her mouth. ‘And I don’t believe the pregnancy story, whatever Scott’s putting about, but that said, there’s no denying she’d been pretty down in the dumps lately, so she might well have topped herself.’ Speculatively, she gazed at Imogen. ‘What do you think?’

  Imogen made no response. As the ash on Vivienne’s cigarette grew longer and began to droop, she leaned awkwardly from her chair to offer a tin holding the remains of a scented candle.

  ‘Ta.’ Vivienne took it from her. Still investigating the artificial leg, she enquired, ‘What was making Sukie so bloody miserable? You knew her better than anyone. You’ve got to have some idea.’

  ‘I don’t!’

  Vivienne stared at her. ‘Maybe not,’ she agreed thoughtfully. ‘You hadn’t had much to do with her lately, had you?’ Again, there was no response. ‘Why was that? What went wrong between you?’