‘Can I just ask a question?’ Arrina interjected. ‘Where exactly did you hear about all this?’
As bad as things were between her and Tony, Arrina was sure that he could not have been the source of the gossip. Nor could any of the other police officers or paramedics on the scene that day. In fact, Arrina knew precisely who it must have been. But she wanted to hear Victor say the name aloud.
‘Well, Gillian DeViers was very concerned when she learned about these issues today. She thought it important that the board be apprised of the situation.’
‘Right,’ Arrina said. ‘Of course, she did.’ She gave a tight-lipped smile and a nod to Victor, then she spun around and walked off in the direction of her car.
‘This isn’t personal, my dear,’ Victor said, rushing to catch up with her. ‘It’s simply the optimum course of action in order to preserve the reputation of the college.’
‘Mmm-hmm,’ Arrina replied sharply. She reached in her bag for her keys as she approached her car.
‘Arrina dear, I’m not sure that driving right now—’
‘Don’t worry,’ Arrina said, opening the boot of the car and pulling a jacket out of it. ‘I’m walking home.’ She slammed the heavy boot down with a satisfying bang.
Then she strode off, glad of the steep incline of the path ahead. It took her up the first of four hills she had to hike over to get home. Out of breath, and with her feet scrambling for purchase on the thick layer of acorns and stones, Arrina was soon entirely occupied with going forwards.
There was nothing but moving foot after foot—around snagging thickets of gorse, over algae-slicked stepping stones, and through squelching mud—she kept on, draining her body of every ounce of energy. When Arrina finally got home, she could barely take off her muddy clothes and boots before collapsing into bed and falling into a deep sleep.
8
Arrina woke up to a cat on her face. Tinsel was curled into the nook between Arrina’s shoulder and neck, with his wiry body pressed against her cheek.
She had forgotten to feed him last night. This was Arrina’s punishment—a face full of fur and jutting ribs.
Arrina did not move. Did not even turn her head away. She could feel something terrible waiting for her on the other side of consciousness. If she pushed through to open eyes and morning light, then this thing would crash down. It would crush her.
Arrina tried to sink back into sleep. But she couldn’t. Somewhere in the distance was an insistent, irritating tapping sound. The sound drilled into Arrina’s mind and shattered her hopes for more sleep. Her eyes crept open to the brightness of the day.
Suspended. The full heft of that word landed with a thump on her chest. She’d never been in trouble like this before. Never got so much as a detention at school, even. Now this. The college was shut down, and she’d been removed from her post, ‘pending a formal review’, so she couldn’t even sort the problem out.
And Hugo. Poor Hugo. The image of his dead body flashed through her mind. Tears sprang to Arrina’s eyes. She quickly pushed the thought of him away.
It was replaced by the memory of Tony—straight backed and stern faced and calling her Miss Fenn, as though he had not even once lain right beside her in this bed and whispered, ‘Arrina,’ with his soft lips brushing against her ear.
‘Arrina!’ That wasn’t Tony, but Arrina didn’t know who it was. Adrenaline surged through her body as the distant tapping grew into a loud, thumping bang, which could only be a fist at her door.
Someone was coming for her. They were outside the house, trying to get in.
Arrina looked around the room for a weapon. Bookcases lined one wall. Opposite, the dressing table had a comb and wooden jewellery box on the surface but nothing else. Maybe the box was hefty enough. She could hit someone over the head with that.
But no. No, she promised herself, nobody was coming to hurt her. Killers didn’t knock on the front door.
She glanced over at the clock by her bed. It was only six thirty. There might not be a killer at the door, but at this hour of this day, knocking couldn’t mean anything good. Arrina pulled the bed covers over her head. Somewhere out of reach, her phone buzzed.
‘Arrina!’ came a shout so loud that it passed through the front door of the house then several thick walls and finally Arrina’s quilt. It was Julie!
Arrina’s racing heart did a pirouette of glee at this.
‘Tinsel,’ Arrina said, popping her head back out from under the covers, ‘it’s just Julie!’ Arrina gasped a few short breaths of relief. ‘As bad as things are,’ she continued, sitting up and stretching in her bed, ‘at least I’m not getting murdered this morning.’
Then as she stood up, her heart suddenly stopped midbeat. Julie’s keys! Oh no! Arrina had forgotten to return them last night after she’d cleaned up Do-Re-Mi. Arrina leapt over to the pile of mud-caked clothes from the night before and grabbed the café’s keys.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ she shouted, running to her front door. She could feel wry, sleep-rumpled hair bounce in all directions. She tried to rake it flat as she ran and straightened the baggy T-shirt she wore to bed. Finally, she gave her eyes a hard rub to remove the dampness there and opened her front door. ‘I’m sorry!’ Arrina said again. ‘I really—’
‘Why didn’t you call me?’ Julie interrupted.
‘I completely forgot I had them.’ She pressed the keys into Julie’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry. Really. I know I’m a terrible friend, but it absolutely slipped my mind to return them.’
Julie looked confused. She shoved the keys in her pocket and shook her head.
‘I’m talking about you getting suspended,’ Julie said. ‘I just went round to check on my mum before work, and as soon as I got in, my dad asked how you were doing with the whole suspension thing. I had no idea what he was talking about, and I stood there, blinking like an idiot in his hallway while he told me that it’s all around the village that you’ve been suspended from work. I turned right around and drove over here to see how you’re getting on. But now I see you’re doing the same eye blinking thing that I was, and... oh, goodness, this isn’t the first thing you’re hearing about it, is it? My dad said he was sure you’d know.’
Julie stopped to catch her breath while Arrina felt five years of effort to make a home in Heathervale all slip away.
‘I know about it,’ Arrina said, hearing the words all around the village echo through the hallway.
‘Thank goodness,’ Julie said. ‘I thought I’d really put my foot in it.’
‘No,’ Arrina said. ‘But I’m still half-asleep. I won’t be up to any discussions on the topic till I’ve had a cup of tea.’
‘And maybe a full English to pep you up?’ Julie suggested.
‘I’m not hungry,’ Arrina said. ‘But I could certainly do with a friend. Come on in.’
Arrina led the way to her kitchen at the back of the small cottage. Tinsel did his best to trip her up as she walked, in order to remind Arrina that he hadn’t been fed. She reached into the back of the cat cupboard for the food pouches labelled gourmet. She filled his bowl with the contents of one. He sniffed, nibbled, and worked hard not to look grateful for it.
Then Arrina made a pot of smoke-scented Russian Caravan tea. She poured a cup and took it over to the window seat on the other side of the room. Julie, constitutionally incapable of being still, fussed around in Arrina’s cupboards, pulling out jars of herbs and spices that Arrina wasn’t aware she owned.
Arrina had worked so hard in the past five years to make a life in Heathervale. She had run the White Elephant stall at the Summer Fête, organised hamper deliveries to the elderly at harvest festival time, donated prizes for the Easter Bonnet Parade, and so much more besides. And that was on top of her work at the college, where she tried to give the best possible opportunities to local young people. She’d thought she was doing everything right.
But in the past twenty-four hours, it had become painfully clear that she wasn’t.
> ‘Serious lapses in judgement,’ Arrina said after a minute or two. ‘That’s what the board said when they suspended me. They claim they’re just covering themselves, but maybe they’re right. The CCTV cameras were broken, and I didn’t call the police about it. I sent Sampson off-site, so there was no security. I might as well have rolled out a red carpet with the words Murderers Welcome on it.’
‘You don’t really believe that,’ Julie said. She took a pinch out of one of the small spice jars and dropped it into a mixing bowl.
‘Probably not. It’s still too early in the morning to really know what I believe.’ Arrina’s hands were wrapped tightly around her warm cup. Fragrant steam drifted over her cheeks.
‘Why didn’t you call me last night when you found out?’ The bowl in front of Julie was filling up with all sorts of pinches and pours of things. She mixed the contents briskly.
‘I just needed to get out for a walk,’ Arrina said. ‘In fact, I think that’s probably my plan for today too. And the next few days. Or forever, depending on what the board decides in the end.’
Arrina rearranged the cushions around her on the window seat, smoothing out the rough edges of the stones that surrounded it. She leaned back against the wall behind her and extended her legs across the full length of the broad sill.
The window seat in the kitchen was the reason why Arrina had first rented the cottage. The house was small and high up on a hill, with a road that only reached halfway up it. The place was at least four hundred years old, as far as Arrina’s research had showed, and it had the terrible plumbing and badly fitting doorframes to prove it. But it also had this window seat, which to Arrina was worth any amount of inconvenience. Or more precisely, the view from the seat was worth it.
Out of this window, Arrina could see an endless stretch of rolling hills—a truly green and pleasant land. Foot-etched trails criss-crossed these hills, just as they had for centuries. Shallow streams frothed over every rock and stone in their path. Houses clustered together like hens around scattered grain. Fields were hedge divided and then divided again, showing the splitting of inheritances through a time beyond any human memory or record.
Arrina doubted she would find a view as beautiful as this if she had to leave Heathervale behind and move on to find a job elsewhere.
Julie tapped a wooden spoon on the edge of a bowl. Arrina’s attention snapped back into the room.
‘Walking?’ Julie asked. ‘You’re going to go all Madwoman of the Moors, then?’
Arrina pictured it. She imagined setting out into the hills beyond her window and walking for the rest of the day. It had felt good to hike home from the village yesterday, but it hadn’t really fixed anything. And if she went outside, there was a chance of running into someone she knew.
Arrina thought once again about the news of her suspension being all around the village.
‘No,’ Arrina said. ‘Maybe not. In fact, I should probably spend the day polishing up my CV since it looks like I’ll soon be unemployed.’
Tinsel leapt up to the window seat and curled around Arrina’s feet. Usually, he only gave her affection when he wanted something. But he could also sense when Arrina really needed a little comfort herself. It was at times like this that she didn’t understand people who hated cats.
Julie clattered around loudly for a minute longer, shoving something into the oven and closing the door with a thump. Then she poured herself a cup of tea and came over to where Arrina sat. She shooed Tinsel further along the broad ledge and took his spot.
‘No,’ Julie said.
‘No, what?’ Arrina asked.
‘No, you’re not going to spend the day polishing up your CV because, no, you’re not going to get fired.’ Julie’s soft-featured face tightened into a frown that echoed this statement. ‘Just no.’
‘That’s very nice of you to say, but in the education sector—’
‘Look,’ Julie said, ‘I know I’m very fortunate to work for my family’s business, so I have no clue about the ins and outs of HR policies and suspension protocols and what it’s like in the education sector, but I do know that whatever you need to do with your CV, you don’t need to do it today.’ She plumped up a nearby cushion with a determined shake and thump.
The warm fragrances of cinnamon and nutmeg floated over to Arrina.
‘You’re making Christmas biscuits,’ Arrina said with a smile.
‘Well, the only cookie cutters you have are stars and Santas, so I didn’t have much choice.’ Julie took a sip of her tea.
‘And you know that I love them.’
‘That’s pure coincidence. As a baker, I go where the cookie cutters take me.’ Julie leaned over and gave Tinsel a stroke then straightened up to face Arrina. ‘But listen, today you have two choices, and neither of them involve updating your CV. You can either sit here and eat Christmas biscuits and wallow with me—and you know I’m a big fan of a wallow when it’s needed—’
‘You’ve got work,’ Arrina interrupted.
‘The world will survive a day without my millionaire’s shortbread and blackberry-and-apple crumble.’
‘I don’t know,’ Arrina said, breathing in the sweet fragrance of Julie’s incredible Christmas biscuits—cloves, cardamom, ginger, and yet more delicate spices underneath. ‘I’m not sure I could live without your baking.’
‘Well, obviously the world won’t survive two days without me, so your wallowing will have to be snappy. But I’m here if that’s what you need.’
‘What’s the other thing?’ Arrina asked, tickling the soft fur under Tinsel’s chin.
‘What other thing?’
‘You said I have two choices, though in fact, you mean two options. One choice.’
‘There’s the pernickety schoolteacher I know and love,’ Julie said with a laugh. ‘Right, you have two options. You can sit here and wallow for the day and deprive the world of my wonderful baking. Or you can fight.’
‘Fight?’
‘That’s what you’re going to do anyway, but I’m giving you the option of wallowing for a day before you do it.’
‘I can’t fight this,’ Arrina said, shaking her head. ‘It’s too big.’
Julie’s dark eyes travelled slowly across Arrina’s face, seeming to look for something specific. Her eyebrows scrunched together, and she chewed her lower lip.
Then Julie drew her legs up onto the window seat and prodded Arrina with her toes to make room for them to sit top-to-tail on the wide ledge.
‘When you arrived here,’ Julie said, ‘there were protesters at the college gates, and the local paper complained about the college in every edition for a year.’
‘Every edition?’ Arrina asked. ‘I don’t remember that.’
‘It’s possible that someone hid that from you,’ Julie said, turning to look out of the window. ‘But that’s beside the point right now. You never backed down to those protesters. In fact, if I remember correctly, you had your students bring lunch out to them and talk about all the wonderful classes the college had. And eventually, the protesters went away.’ Julie’s voice was calm and clear, with none of the tumbling franticness it usually had.
‘They would have left by themselves in the end.’
‘Then there was that boy who spray-painted his name in ten-foot letters along the back wall a couple of years ago,’ Julie said.
Arrina remembered the incident with a wry smile. She hadn’t been smiling when she’d found the enormous blue tag covering the wall a few days before parents’ evening.
‘Ryan Thompson,’ Arrina said. ‘He wrote his name right there on the wall. I don’t know how he thought he’d get away with it.’
‘You didn’t give up then. You could have just thrown him out of the college, but instead, you promised that if he cleaned it up, you wouldn’t involve the police.’
‘He was a good kid,’ Arrina said. ‘He just needed some help.’ She remembered the shock on his face when she’d showed up first thing the next morning to clean
the paint off with him. The two of them scrubbed away in silence for several hours until Ryan finally opened up to Arrina. His parents were going to pull him out of the college because of his bad grades. He’d scrawled the graffiti in a fit of anger about it.
‘Not calling the police would have been help enough, but then you also went on to tutor him in the evenings.’ Julie’s gaze was as intense as her voice, and Arrina couldn’t look away.
‘He was taking some tough courses and struggling with the workload,’ Arrina said. ‘I just gave him a little help till he caught up.’ A sharp meow from Tinsel reminded Arrina that she’d stopped stroking him. She ran a hand across his head. ‘I had an email from Ryan recently. He’s doing really well at university. He’s just about to head into his final year.’
‘And that’s all down to you,’ Julie said with a sharp nod, as though something had been decided. Julie swung her legs down from the window seat and went over to check on her biscuits across the room. ‘Anybody else in that situation would have given up and expelled the boy. But not you. You make a difference.’
‘This isn’t just some mixed-up kid, though,’ Arrina said. ‘This is the whole Board of Governors who’ve met up and voted to suspend me.’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t all of them,’ Julie said, returning with a tea towel slung over one shoulder. ‘Do they vote unanimously?’
‘No. Victor and a couple of the newer members he’s brought in have been voting down my ideas a lot recently. I thought it was just a difference of opinion, but maybe there’s something else going on.’
‘In this village, there usually is. I’ve lived here since I was born, but my parents aren’t from here, and that still makes me an outsider in some eyes. There’s no end to the hidden motives here that you and me aren’t privy to.’
‘In fact,’ Arrina said, sitting up a little straighter in the window seat, ‘it was Gillian DeViers who called the board and told them every tiny, incriminating detail of what happened yesterday. She must have done it as soon as she left the college.’
The Slay of the Land (The Heathervale Mysteries Book 1) Page 5