I know depression is a thing and I’m not supposed to just say, ‘Pull yourself together, woman,’ but … PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, WOMAN!
Phew, there, I’ve said it. Writing it down is very therapeutic. It’s like shouting into the wind. No one can hear you, but it still makes you feel better somehow.
17
When Beth returned to the town hall there was no sign of Ferguson or Rodgers but Black was on the phone to someone and he was calling that someone ‘sir’, so she assumed it was DCI Everleigh. Black looked grim-faced, so she left him to it and walked over to a table. She hung her bag and jacket on a chair then spotted a large brown sealed envelope lying face up on the table. It had the words ‘DS LUCAS BLACK’ written on it in capital letters with black marker, so there wasn’t even a clue in the handwriting. Either someone had placed it there while he was on the phone, or he hadn’t spotted the envelope when he walked into the room.
Beth picked up the envelope just as Black groaned, and she turned to see him looking completely exasperated as he ended the call. Her questioning look at least solicited an answer.
‘Everleigh,’ he said. ‘I wanted to go up to the school to speak to the head and Alice’s teachers, but he’s told me to hold fire.’
‘Why?’
‘He wants to talk to the headteacher first.’ When she did not respond, Black explained, ‘Collemby’s head was parachuted into the school a few years back when it was failing, and he turned it around. Morgan, his name is, and he’s done it before. The press call him a super-head because he advises other schools in the area. He’s been in the papers, knows all the local politicians.’
‘Friends in high places?’
‘Including some very senior police officers, according to Everleigh.’
‘I don’t understand why that should prevent us from doing our job,’ protested Beth. ‘A girl has gone missing.’
‘We seem to be the only people who suspect she might have come to harm. The school is playing it down, and so is Everleigh, who still thinks Alice will just walk back through her own front door, and you can bet he is parroting the view from on high. Everleigh wants to assure this super-head that our intentions are pure and that no one is suspecting anyone of anything.’
‘Even though Alice might have been seeing one of her teachers?’ she asked. ‘Which wouldn’t surprise me, from what I’ve been hearing about the school.’
‘What actual evidence do we have of that?’ he snapped. ‘Beyond a photo of Alice smiling at a young teacher she may or may not have had a crush on and a vague report from a nosy neighbour about a man with a bare torso in her bedroom window, who, frankly, could have been anyone.’
When he said it like that, Beth had to admit it sounded weak. ‘Kirstie told me that Collemby Comp is not like other schools. There’s at least one teacher living with a former pupil and there are rumours about others.’
‘Rumours are just that,’ said Black. ‘Rumours. What we need are facts.’
He seemed determined to pour cold water on everything. ‘What do we do now, then?’
‘We wait until we’re given the go-ahead to speak to the teachers and, in the meantime, we explore other lines of inquiry.’ It was then he noticed the envelope she was holding. ‘What have you got there?’
Beth handed it to him. ‘It was on the table.’
Black opened it, pulled out a folded piece of paper and started to read. Beth noticed the look on his face. It was somewhere between surprise and wonder.
‘What is it?’
‘Pages,’ he said. ‘From a journal.’ And in case it wasn’t entirely obvious: ‘From Alice Teale’s journal.’
‘Oh my God.’ Beth immediately went to his side to look at them too. ‘Who sent them?’
He turned the now empty envelope upside down and gave it a shake to see if anything else fell out. There was no note, only the pages from Alice’s journal. ‘There’s nothing here. It’s an anonymous sender.’ Like Beth, he was wondering who had sent these pages and why. One thing they could both agree on was that this was a hugely significant development. Black had already handled the pages as he pulled them from the envelope, but he placed them almost reverently face up on the nearest table so Beth could read the words as well without contaminating them further before he could get them forensically examined.
Each page had the words ‘The Journal of Alice Teale’ printed on it, just like Daniel had said.
‘It looks genuine,’ said Beth.
‘If it isn’t Alice’s journal, then it’s a particularly elaborate hoax by someone who knew about the original,’ said Black. ‘We’ll get Forensics to look it over, but I’m thinking it’s the real thing.’ He scanned the pages. ‘There’s no date, so no way of knowing when she actually wrote this. And it’s only a couple of pages.’
Beth pointed at the first words. ‘So, line number one: Every word I have written here is true, but I’ve changed the names to protect the guilty.’
‘That’s a joke, right?’ he told her. ‘It’s usually “I’ve changed the names to protect the innocent”, so why does she want to protect the guilty?’
‘Because there are too many of them,’ said Beth, and she quoted Alice: ‘I can’t out everybody.’
Black read a section aloud: ‘I’m guilty, too. I’ve done some very bad things. I’ve hurt people, I’ve been immoral, by most people’s standards, but mostly I am guilty of not seeing what was right in front of me. It should have been so obvious because it was there all the time. I have been entirely blind. Everything has changed. Now I can see it all clearly, view things exactly as they really are, with no secrets, lies or pretence. It’s all been stripped away, and nothing will ever be the same again. The old Alice Teale is dead.’
‘Let’s hope that isn’t prophetic.’
Beth then read: ‘She is gone for ever, along with her stupid doubts and fears and all the secrets she has carried around with her for so long. What remains of her is not going to take it any more. I want everything out in the open.’
When they had finished reading the pages, Beth said, ‘Wow.’
Black just muttered, ‘Yeah,’ but the way he said that single word left her in no doubt that he also appreciated the significance of the pages.
‘And we have no idea who sent it?’
‘There’s no note or explanation, just a plain brown envelope with a local postmark.’
‘The pages were torn out of her journal,’ commented Beth, ‘but who by? And why? I doubt it was Alice. I mean, why would she? It seems so personal.’
‘It wouldn’t be her,’ Black agreed, ‘but were these pages sent by a killer and, if so, why? To taunt us, maybe,’ he suggested. ‘Or to throw us off the scent?’
‘What if it isn’t a killer,’ asked Beth, ‘but someone who read the journal and wants him caught?’
‘She carried it with her,’ he reminded her. ‘How could anyone get hold of it without being involved?’
‘They found it? After she was taken?’
She looked down at the words again. ‘But why these pages precisely, and not others or the whole thing? It’s a bit enigmatic.’
‘Deliberately so.’ He added: ‘It’s like she is writing a partial truth but not giving us the whole picture in case anyone else gets hold of this. Alice couldn’t have known she was going to disappear, but she did seem to realize she was on to something. The question is – what?’
‘What secrets could a small-town teenage girl have that could be so important?’
‘She’s seen or heard something?’ Black offered.
‘Or experienced it herself.’
‘Someone has done something terrible, and she knows about it but no one else does. Whoever it was, it must have come as a shock to her, because she berates herself for being so blind and not understanding it all until now.’
Beth nodded, and continued: ‘Not yet, though. There’s something I need first.’
‘What would she need?’ Black wondered. ‘Time? Help?’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘If she’d seen or experienced something, it would be her word against theirs. She would need proof, or no one would believe her.’
‘This is the part I find most intriguing,’ said Beth. ‘Keep your sharp tongue in check, Alice, for once in your stupid bloody life, and carry on for just a little while longer, acting out all the parts, like you’ve always done. God, she’s so hard on herself.’
‘But how she could possibly be all those contradictory things,’ said Black. ‘How can you be a virgin and a slut, an ice queen and a hot babe? I don’t really get that.’
‘She says it herself,’ said Beth. ‘She’s playing a part when she’s being each of those things. Acting it. Who she is depends upon the audience.’
‘Then there’s the last lines,’ he reminded her. ‘Who cares what they think of you, Alice? None of that matters now. It’s all over. At least, it will be. Soon.’
‘Does that mean she’s going to confront someone,’ asked Beth, ‘or …’
‘End it all herself? It’s all over,’ he said again. ‘At least it will be. Soon. What if Alice was so disgusted with the world that what she actually needed was a way to leave it? If you read that entry through again, it sounds like a suicide note.’
Beth did just that before concluding, ‘Yes, it does,’ then she asked: ‘But if Alice Teale really did kill herself, then how come we can’t find her? And who sent these pages?’
18
In the short time they had been in the town hall, the sky had clouded over and it was now threatening to rain. The streets were narrow here and many of the buildings tall, which reduced the amount of light that shone down on to the grubby brickwork, when it shone at all. It left the whole town looking like it needed a thorough clean and gave Collemby a dark and foreboding look.
‘There’s something about the atmosphere here,’ said Beth as they got into the car. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘Not really.’
‘You don’t find it gloomy?’
‘Well, yes, it is gloomy, but that’s down to the Victorian architecture and the weather, not the town’s atmosphere.’
‘I don’t think it’s just that,’ she muttered as he drove them out of the square. ‘It feels …’
‘What?’
‘Different. I don’t know. I realize it sounds stupid, but it’s like there’s a tension in the air.’
‘You’re right,’ he said with conviction.
‘Do you really think so?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It does sound stupid.’
There didn’t seem any point in arguing with him further. ‘Where are we going now?’
‘I want to talk to this barman, Ricky,’ he said, ‘but he won’t be at the club yet, so there’s time to follow up another lead. We got a call about a sighting of Alice Teale.’
‘A recent one?’ Could Alice still be alive? And why hadn’t he mentioned this before?
‘The call was recent but the sighting was a couple of weeks back,’ he said. A young girl thought she saw Alice in a car down by the derelict railway station.’
‘How old was the girl, and was she sure it was Alice?’
‘Thirteen, and no. She wasn’t a hundred per cent certain, but her older sister is in Alice’s year so she does know her, at least by sight. She described the car as a big black one.’
‘No make or model?’
‘The kid doesn’t know anything about cars, didn’t even notice the badge as it went by. She said it was going too fast and almost knocked her and her dog over. Probably a young lad who doesn’t know how to drive properly. It swerved out of their way and that was when she saw Alice, she thinks, in the front passenger seat, and she reckons she heard a bang.’
‘Why would Alice be down at the derelict railway … Oh!’ exclaimed Beth. ‘It’s a lovers’ lane, isn’t it?’
‘A popular spot for courting couples,’ said Black diplomatically.
‘Does Alice’s boyfriend drive a big black car?’
‘Chris doesn’t own a car. He does have a driving licence and his father lets him drive the family car, but it’s dark grey.’
‘It could look black in the dark,’ said Beth. ‘But Chris said his mum was cool about them getting together in his bedroom. Why would they need to go down to the railway station, when it’s not private?’
‘So, it wasn’t Chris, then,’ he speculated. ‘It was your mystery man, the one in her bedroom.’
‘I’d say that’s more likely – and what if Chris found out? Sexual jealousy is one of the more common motives for murder, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ agreed Black. Then he recalled her words in the town hall before they had been distracted by the envelope. ‘You said you’d heard things about the school. What kind of things?’
Beth was tempted to use Kirstie’s phrase – ‘Have you got all day?’ – but knew Black would be unimpressed if she failed to stick to the facts. At least he was more interested in the rumours he’d been so dismissive of earlier. ‘According to Kirstie, Collemby Comprehensive has a long and well-known history of inappropriate teacher behaviour and the head has struggled to clamp down on it.’
‘What kind of behaviour?’
‘At the lower end, affairs between married teachers, which complicates matters in the staff room –’
‘And at the not so lower end?’
‘I was coming to that.’ She had barely drawn a breath before he interrupted. ‘Relationships between male teachers and female pupils.’
‘More than one?’
‘Numerous, apparently, over the years.’
‘Even though it’s illegal and has been for years?’
‘According to Kirstie, the teachers there used to consider it a perk of the job. Now that they can be sacked or even jailed for it, it’s far less commonplace, but she claims it still goes on. It’s just hidden.’
‘And what about her mate? Was Alice involved with a teacher?’
‘I asked,’ said Beth, ‘but she said, “No way.” She was adamant Alice wasn’t seeing anyone except Chris.’
‘Then we’re no further forward,’ he said. ‘All she gave us is gossip.’
‘That’s what I asked for,’ protested Beth. ‘And she did give us a couple of names. Alice’s drama teacher is Simon Nash. He’s young, supportive and good-looking. Kirstie reckons Alice really liked him, but not in that way. She did say he sometimes gave her lifts home after rehearsals. Then there is their English teacher, Mr Keech,’ said Beth, ‘who is openly living with a former Collemby pupil.’
‘How does he get away with that?’
‘He reckons their relationship started long after she left the school, and that’s a grey area. She’s nineteen.’
‘And did it?’
‘Kirstie says not and, apparently, it isn’t his first offence. He’s the bad boy of Collemby and the girls line up for him, so Kirstie says, but she claims that she and her friends can see right through him.’
‘Then Alice is unlikely to have fallen for him,’ said Black. ‘Unless, of course, Kirstie is lying.’
‘One girl made a complaint against him,’ said Beth.
‘What kind of complaint?’
‘Indecent assault. He was accused of grabbing her breasts and the whole school heard about it.’
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing. The girl withdrew the complaint; it wasn’t considered credible.’
‘Interesting.’
When Beth had finished relating the ‘goss’ Chloe had provided, Black said, ‘I see what she means when she says Collemby is not a normal school. And neither is the town from what I’m hearing.’
‘Alice called it a town full of secrets.’
‘It’s also a town full of gossip, some of which might just be worth checking out.’
Black checked his watch then said, ‘And I know the perfect place to start.’
The trail down to the abandoned railway station was little more th
an a rough track. It was wide enough for cars, but full of holes where the weather had worn the surface away, and Black’s car bumped along.
‘You would definitely need a reason to come down here,’ said Beth, as she was bounced in her seat yet again.
‘There used to be a standing joke in Collemby,’ said Black, as he pulled the car over on to rough ground near the old railway line. ‘If someone was having a fling with a girl, their mates would say, “He’s just putting her on the train.”’
‘How romantic.’ Again, Beth wondered how he had all this local knowledge and whether he had any past association with the town. It was obvious why couples would have chosen this location, though. It was set back from the town, it covered a large area, if you included its numerous outbuildings and sheds, it was bordered by woodland that had slowly encroached on the site over the years, and there were several places to discreetly park a car away from prying eyes.
They got out of the car and walked towards the station platforms. Beth surveyed the abandoned buildings. There was no evidence of structural damage, but they had evidently not been used in a long time. It crossed her mind that if you were looking for somewhere to hide a body one of these outbuildings might serve the purpose.
‘Has anyone searched here?’ she asked him.
‘For signs of Alice? Fraser got the uniforms to take a look down here, but they’re all boarded up and there were no signs of a break-in. You won’t find Alice Teale down here.’
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