Child's Play

by Alison Taylor

  She shrugged. ‘Torrance is tough.’ With a huge sigh she added, ‘Imogen is not. She’s very, very fragile.’

  Therese turned towards her. ‘We thought Vivienne was weak, but look how she has surprised us all.’ Then, with a frown in McKenna’s direction, she asked, ‘Where is Vivienne?’

  ‘Still at the hospital,’ he said. ‘Sergeant Prys may he able to tell us more about Imogen when he comes back. He’s gone to see Torrance.’

  ‘That will please her,’ Therese remarked. ‘She is a little in love with him, but not as much as she is with Tonto. She has the T-shirt to prove that!’ A wicked grin momentarily transformed her, then her habitually lugubrious expression was back in place. ‘That is a joke,’ she went on. ‘A play on words. A horse’s height is measured in hands. Her T-shirt has a horse’s head on the front and on the back, the words “I like 16 hands between my legs”.’ She stared at him, a keen and surprising intelligence in her somewhat piggy eyes. ‘It is vulgar, yes, but I am not telling you this to suggest she is unwholesome.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked softly. ‘This is a very unnatural environment with little room for proper outlets. Things must get quite overheated at times.’

  ‘But not with Torrance. She isn’t interested.’ Therese paused. ‘She is truly more interested in horses. It may be what people call displacement, but I do not think so. She loves to be with them. Perhaps they help her to forget being human.’ Again, she stared at him. ‘And here, that is good. It keeps her sane. It is a pity Imogen had no such safety valve,’ she finished meaningfully.

  ‘Why say that?’ he asked. ‘Do you believe she killed Sukie?’

  ‘No!’ Suddenly, Justine sat down on the stairs, collapsing like a puppet with broken strings. ‘We do not, however much Dr Scott tried to persuade us.’ She looked up at him. ‘I’m glad she’s gone and I very much hope she never comes back. I’m not sorry about Matron, either.’

  He turned to Therese. ‘How did Mr. Nicholls know Matron had hit you? Did you tell him?’

  She shook her head. ‘It was Daisy Podmore. She was loitering on the landing when he arrived. She must have heard Matron shouting at me about Charlotte’s clothes. But then,’ she added, ‘she is always snooping.’

  ‘Matron told me,’ he began, ‘that you were after Nancy and Charlotte simply because there’s friction and bad blood between you. Is that all there was to it?’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Justine exclaimed. ‘She deliberately misled you. We were going to punish those two because they’d driven Imogen beyond endurance with their bullying. It was the last straw.’

  ‘Were they also using Sukie as a punchbag?’ McKenna asked. ‘Someone was. The pathologist found the evidence when he cut her up.’ At that bald, brutal statement, Justine put her hand to her mouth as if she were about to vomit.

  Mournfully, Therese nodded. ‘But she was not alone. Ainsley has suffered; Daria too, before she hit back, and Vivienne. Many of the little girls are also their victims.’ She gulped, and a tear slid down her cheek and dropped from her chin. ‘We have done what we could to stop them, but whenever we complained to Dr Scott, she would simply tell us that “the wheat must be sorted from the chaff”.’

  Justine let her hand fall to her lap. Her face was ashen. ‘If you remember,’ she said to Therese, ‘she also accused us of deliberately misconstruing the natural follow-on to her damned “Make or Break”.’ Her gaze rested on McKenna then. ‘Every year, the seniors put the first formers through this test of physical and mental endurance, and grade their performance. Dr Scott took the idea from military training.’

  ‘And I suppose Nancy and Charlotte passed with flying colours?’ he asked.

  ‘No, they didn’t,’ Justine replied. ‘They were bullied mercilessly for a long time. They learned the hard way how to survive.’

  ‘Do you know why Sukie was being bullied?’

  ‘Because she was there. Because it was her turn, just as it might be her turn to be Daisy’s crush. These things go round and round for ever.’

  ‘Why “Daisy’s crush”?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘Oh, she has a new crush every few weeks. She’s famous for it.’ Justine smiled wanly. ‘Her passions are almost like phoenixes. The old bird consumes itself as the new one rises from the ashes.’

  ‘And is Daisy another bully?’

  ‘I don’t think so; not yet. But she’s taunted about her lisp and the size of her breasts, so I expect she’ll turn the tables when she gets the chance.’

  ‘What about Alice Derringer?’

  ‘That one!’ Therese rolled her eyes. ‘Everyone leaves her alone. She is a little scorpion.’

  ‘Tell me what happened to Imogen,’ he urged. ‘How had she been driven beyond endurance.’

  ‘With utter wanton cruelty,’ Therese replied curtly.

  ‘You see,’ Justine said, ‘Imogen was always a brilliant swimmer, and when her stump had healed enough and the weather got warmer, she started going to the pool. She’d leave her crutches on the side.’ She stopped and brushed a hand across her eyes. ‘Nancy, or Charlotte, or one of their gang, used to run off with them. Imogen would flop about like a dying fish while they danced in front of her, calling her “Peg Leg” and “Cripple”, prodding her with the crutches but making sure they kept just out of reach. Yesterday,’ she added, her voice trembling, ‘she decided it was time Nancy had a taste of her own medicine. If only she hadn’t missed!’ she finished bitterly.

  ‘Did Dr Scott know?’

  ‘Of course, she did!’ Therese said contemptuously. ‘We told her! She said, “Imogen must learn to accommodate her new situation and its implications.”’

  There was little he could do but leave them with their grief and guilt and anger. He returned to the mobile incident room, wondering if the grief would stay with them long enough to become almost a friend and thought it probably would, although the guilt would not be so kind.

  ‘Is there a motive in there?’ he asked Jack, when he had finished relaying the story.

  ‘Only if Nancy or Charlotte were lying at the bottom of Menai Strait with a dented head.’

  ‘You don’t think Sukie’s death could be simply bullying that went too far?’

  Jack thought for a moment. ‘You’re suggesting manslaughter at most, whereas I’m positive it was far more deliberate. Eifion’s found pressure marks from where she was held down in the water, as well as a probable trainer imprint on her jeans.’

  ‘I see.’ McKenna pulled out a cigarette, then carefully put it back in the packet. ‘Nonetheless, the contemptible Nancy and her detestable sidekick warrant interrogation, but as they’re both over eighteen, we’ll do it at the station. Just make sure there’s a nice big audience when you take them away.’

  ‘I was planning to visit Avril O’Connor.’

  ‘There’s nothing to stop you. Those two can cool their heels in the lock-up for a couple of hours. It might do them a world of good.’

  11

  Shivering, Martha trudged along the bank above the foreshore, where the uncut grass was sodden from yesterday’s rain. Cold crept through the soles of her shoes, the wet hems of her trousers slapped against her ankles and she ached from head to foot, with the bone-deep pain that seemed to have been her lot for ever.

  The trees ahead grew so close to the water she could barely make out the bruised passage through the grass. Pushing aside the drooping branches, shying when the cold leaves slapped her in the face, she inched forward, scared of sliding helplessly into the Strait. She searched the ground before each step to make sure there was purchase in the squelching mud, while the water rushed past on her right. The tide was coming up in a hurry, driven by a thin north-westerly that had stolen all the warmth from the morning and was harrying more rain clouds about the mountains. Ever distrustful of her body and the sudden spasms that might afflict knees or hips or ankles, she crept gingerly forward, eyes firmly on the ground. The racing tide on the periphery of her vision made her dizzy and she
staggered alarmingly more than once.

  ‘Why am I doing this?’ she muttered. ‘Why the hell am I bothering?’

  Alice was a little ingrate, a spoiled, silly, nasty brat who had clearly decided to throw in her lot with the others of her kind infesting Freya’s proving ground.

  ‘And what else did I expect?’ Martha demanded, without expecting a response from the alien forces of nature that surrounded her. ‘She was seven when I sent her away. What right have I to expect her to feel anything for me?’ Because I feel so much for her, she thought, answering her own questions. She’s my child and I won’t abandon her.

  She bore on through the trees, with the same dogged persistence that made her fight the constant pain, sagging with relief when the tangle of mossy trunks and smothering foliage fell away to expose the entry to a small glade and a golden sandbank, where the furrows ploughed earlier by the galloping horses were not yet obliterated by the swirling tide. When she heard Alice, from somewhere near at hand, she stopped in her tracks. Carried by the wind, the words came to her with total clarity.

  ‘Of course,’ she was piping, ‘I knew immediately what had really happened to Dr Scott. When Mummy sacks someone on the spot, she says so-and-so is “considering their position”. The guff about extended leave is just to explain their sudden disappearance.’

  ‘Jeez!’ Daisy exclaimed. ‘What don’t you bloody know?’

  ‘When you’re telling the truth!’ There was a sharp, shrill note in Alice’s voice.

  ‘Nobody knows that,’ Grace said then with a giggle. ‘Not even Daisy herself.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ Daisy screeched.

  Martha heard someone whisper what sounded like ‘touché’ and a moment later the sound of flesh slapping flesh. She rushed forward as the screaming began, to find Alice and Daisy fighting furiously, while Grace, clad like the others in blue jeans and white T-shirt, straddled a rotting tree trunk, watching.

  ‘Stop that!’ yelled Martha. ‘This instant!’

  Neither of them took the least notice. They went on tussling and kicking and punching, moving ever nearer to the edge of the bank. Grace, however, waved her hand and said, ‘Hello, Mrs Rathbone.’

  Martha ignored her. She strode through the wet grass to where her daughter and Daisy were now rolling on the ground, locked in each other’s arms, a hair’s breadth from tumbling into the water. She snatched hold of the back of Alice’s shirt and, with every ounce of her strength, tugged and pulled until she had freed her from Daisy’s embrace. Suddenly released, Daisy spun like a wheel, right over the lip of the bank.

  Horror-struck despite herself, Martha dropped to her knees. She crawled forward until she had Daisy in view, expecting to find her dashed on a rock or already snatched by the tide. Laughing uproariously, the girl was spread-eagled on the sand, her eyes alive with devilment.

  12

  Torrance was propped up in bed against a mountain of pillows, her flaxen hair glinting in the sunlight. When Dewi walked into the room she smiled at him, then, without warning, began to cry. ‘Hell!’ she croaked, scouring wet cheeks with her fist. ‘Why am I bawling?’

  ‘You’re still in shock, dear.’ The policewoman sitting with her handed her some tissues from the box on the locker. ‘And you must be in pain.’

  ‘Are you kidding? I hurt in places I didn’t know I had.’ She massaged her throat. ‘It even hurts to speak.’

  Dewi dragged a chair round to the other side of the bed. ‘I’ve just looked in on Imogen,’ he said. ‘She seems to be holding her own.’

  ‘How many pills did she take?’ Torrance asked.

  ‘Thirty or so.’

  ‘It’s my fault,’ she said bleakly, plucking at the damp tissues on the bedspread. ‘I shouldn’t have let her have them. Up to a couple of weeks ago I was taking the pills away after she got them from Matron. She had to ask me when she wanted one.’

  ‘Why were you doing that?’

  ‘Because she’s a suicide waiting to happen!’ Angrily, she balled up the tissue. ‘She promised she wouldn’t overdose. She said she’d felt a bit more human lately, but I still counted them every night and every morning.’ She stared at him. ‘Damn it to hell! I should’ve known she’d crack after Sukie died.’

  ‘None of this is your responsibility,’ he insisted.

  She touched his hand. ‘You’re wrong, David. Justine and her crowd did what they could, but Imogen always kept them at arm’s length. She had to let me get close; I didn’t give her a choice. She was a real uptight Brit long before the accident, you know.’ Then she fell silent, lying motionless. Caught in the air currents, her hair wafted about with a life of its own. Eventually, she said, ‘Vivienne told me Dr Scott and Matron got fired. Is that true?’

  He nodded. ‘And not before time.’

  ‘Don’t be cruel,’ she chided. ‘Matron’s got nothing except the school and I guess she did her best.’

  ‘No, she didn’t. She stuck her head in the sand and let Scott do as she pleased.’

  ‘You think?’ She pondered the matter. ‘Maybe you’re right.’ Letting her head rest on the pillows, she closed her eyes.

  ‘I need to talk about the accident,’ he said gently. ‘Are you up to it, or d’you want a nap?’

  ‘Hell,’ she said mischievously, eyes still closed, ‘I wish you’d speak proper English. I get one word out of three. Napping is what horses do.’

  ‘It’s also what tipsters do when they think they’ve picked a winner,’ he added, sure she was teasing him.

  ‘Fancy your knowing that.’ She smiled sleepily, yawned and within seconds fell asleep.

  Thinking it would be better to come back later, he was about to move when she lunged towards him as if galvanised, eyes wide open and face aghast. Her fingers hooked like talons round his arm.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he gasped.

  Shuddering, she whispered, ‘I’m so scared!’ She stared at him fearfully, mouth working. ‘Of the dreams I had. The nightmares!’

  He laid his free hand on hers, feeling the strength in her fingers. ‘A massive bang on the head like the one you got would give anyone nightmares,’ he said comfortingly. ‘They don’t mean anything.’

  ‘Don’t they? I dreamt about Sukie.’ She paused. ‘And about Purdey. I dreamt she was impaled on a broken jump. There was blood spouting everywhere.’ A spasm crossed her face. ‘I was drenched in it. It was dripping from my fingertips.’ Involuntarily, she yanked her hands free and held them up, turning them this way and that.

  ‘See?’ he said. ‘No blood. And Purdey is absolutely fine. She gave Miss Attwill a hell of a ride this morning.’

  ‘A donkey would give Miss Attwill a hell of a ride,’ she remarked bitingly. ‘She’s so nervy she spooks the horses.’

  ‘Was Sukie a nervy rider?’

  Torrance clasped her hands. ‘She was no real match for Purdey, but she had to try because her family expected big things from her. Purdey cost an awful lot, you see; about five times as much as Tonto.’ She glanced up with darkened eyes. ‘Maybe Sukie expected it of herself, too. She needed something to take pride in. There was nothing left after she and Imogen broke up.’

  ‘Do you know why that happened?’

  ‘No. I wondered if there was some feud between their parents. They live very near each other.’ She looked at him, frowning. ‘You know, don’t you?’ Once again, her fingers reached for his arm. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘I may as well,’ he said, after a moment’s thought. ‘Everyone will know soon, in any case.’ He related the myths that lay behind the tragedy, wincing as her fingers dug ever deeper into his flesh. ‘But before she downed the pills,’ he added, ‘Imogen wrote us a letter, saying she was driving, not Sukie. She claims her parents took advantage of Sukie’s amnesia about the crash.’

  Torrance put her hands to her face and moaned, ‘Oh, God!’

  ‘Which puts a different complexion on things,’ he went on, ‘if, say, Sukie had suddenly recovered her memory.’

  ‘
Does it? How?’ Then witheringly, she exclaimed, ‘Hell! You surely don’t think Imogen killed her? No chance!’

  ‘Someone did. We’re sure of that now.’ He rubbed the marks her nails had left on his arm. ‘I think she was enticed out of the building, but I don’t know how.’

  ‘She’d go like a shot if she thought Purdey was hurt, or in danger,’ Torrance said. ‘But how would she know? You can’t see the paddock from the school.’ She paused.

  ‘You could hear a horse screaming, but then, everyone would have heard that and I certainly didn’t.’ Her voice dwindled away.

  ‘Yes?’ he prompted.

  ‘I did hear something,’ she said slowly, ‘but not a horse. I couldn’t sleep and I was looking out the window when a jet plane came over so low it made the trees rustle.’ Her dazed mind was so sluggish it hurt to remember. ‘Then I heard another noise,’ she went on, a faraway look in her eyes, ‘like someone had kicked a stone, you know?’ Her eyes focused. ‘There was someone in the woods, I’m sure, but it was too dark to see them properly.’

  ‘But not for them to see you.’ He looked at her, imagining how she must have appeared to the watcher, her hair like a halo in the night, marking her out as the next to die.

  13

  Long after Martha went in search of her child, Janet had remained at the water’s edge, absently picking out landmarks along the Anglesey coast but mostly killing time, with little enthusiasm for much beyond an early escape from this enervating place. Eventually she began reluctantly making her way across the lawn back to the school and, rounding the side of the building, circumnavigated the fire escape rather than take the shorter route beneath.

  From the forecourt, she could hear the slam of car doors and the sharp crack of raised voices. She arrived there as Charlotte was being pushed into the rear seat of a squad car, a policeman’s hand heavy on her blonde head. Nancy’s nasty face was pressed to the window of another car. Both cars then roared away with a flourish of spurting gravel, watched in sullen silence by a crowd of girls. Some were Charlotte’s worshipful subjects from the sixth form, some those who hung about Nancy like flies trapped in a spider’s web, but there were many younger ones, whom Janet assumed were the hangers-on and apprentice courtiers. When they noticed her there was a shuffling of feet and swivelling of cold eyes, and she felt their menace as if she faced a pack of wolves. Then, to her enormous relief, Jack appeared.