by Anne Digby
'Oh, Sue, Sue! Can I come with you?' begged Holly. 'I got all changed for running, but some seniors are using the track! Harri's stayed to watch them, but I'm dying to do some running.'
'We're jogging all the way down to the town today!' said Tish quickly and with great presence of mind. 'It's much too far for you and besides, it's out of bounds for First and Second Years!'
'Sorry, Hol,' said Sue.
'Which way are you going to the town?' asked Miss Morgan.
'Oh, we hadn't decided –' began Tish. The three friends exchanged looks. What a horrible web of deceit they were getting enmeshed in. They didn't want to take the risk of Holly coming down on to the beach. 'We were wondering about the beach way,' said Tish, 'but on second thoughts we've decided to go along the top road. Haven't we?'
'Yes!' said Sue quickly.
'Much better that way,' added Rebecca. The top road was definitely out of bounds for the juniors, whereas part of the way, by the beach, was not. 'Come on, we'd better get going.'
Then to their consternation, Miss Morgan propelled Holly forward. She wanted to do everything possible to encourage the girl's new found interest in running – and it was good the way these three had helped her. But she could see how disappointed Holly was now.
'Well, why not let Holly tag along with you as far as the main gates?' she said. It wasn't so much a question, as a command. 'That won't be too far for her.'
'Oh – er, right,' said Tish. 'Right. Let's go.'
'Don't take her any further than the main gates, mind!'
'No, Miss Morgan!'
They turned away from Juniper House and set off by the quickest possible route across the grounds to the main gates that led out on to the coast road, with Holly Thomas in tow. It was going to take them a good five minutes.
'Oh, Tish, are we going to make it all right?' whispered Rebecca.
'I think so. As soon as we've ditched Holly at the gates, we can cut across the road there – there's a little path that drops down behind the headland and into Mulberry Cove. We should just about make it.'
When they reached the gates Holly said, 'I'm still fresh! I'm not a bit out of breath. Let me see how far I can run with you, please Sue. Let me show you!'
'No!' said Sue, quite snappily. 'Of course not. Shoo!'
They were so anxious about time by now that they didn't even wait to see if Holly turned back straight away. They just took it for granted that she would. They came out on to the top road, paused to make sure that it was free of traffic, then shot straight across without even looking back.
And that was another unfortunate thing.
Because Holly loitered by the high wrought iron gates of Trebizon School, peering along the road, watching them as they ran. In her imagination she was running with them, keeping up with them, all the way down into the town . . .
Then her eyes grew round. Less than fifty metres along the road, they peeled off into some gorse bushes, shouting and laughing. There seemed to be some kind of little path there, that dropped down towards the sand dunes and, far beyond that, the sea. They weren't going to the town at all! They were going down to the sea.
She could have gone with them after all! She had loads and loads of energy left, she was hardly limping at all. Her leg was getting much stronger. Didn't they realize? Perhaps she should show them just how strong! Perhaps she could give them a surprise?
The reason that Rebecca and Co. were shouting and laughing was sheer relief, because one look at the distant, grey-crested sea told them that the tide was still going out.
And as they dropped down behind the headland and then into the secret empty silence of Mulberry Cove, sheltered from the wind, they were just in time to see the last finger of sea creep back from the sands beyond the cove – and Mulberry Island was an island no longer!
'Hurray!' said Tish.
This was perfect timing. They started to run, as fast as their legs would carry them. The tension of the past few minutes gave the adventure even more excitement now; added savour.
Rebecca, a sprinter, streaked ahead, running in a straight line for the island, her fair hair billowing out behind her, the wind stinging her cheeks and rushing down the front of her track suit which was open at the neck.
'Isn't this glorious!' she cried.
Half-way across Tish drew level with her and now their shoes made noisy sucking noises in the wet sand with its eddying puddles where the sea had been so briefly before. Sue was only a little way behind.
'Running where nobody's run before!' shouted Tish above the wind, her black curly hair almost standing on end. 'We're nearly there!'
She spurted on then, leaving Rebecca and Sue behind, and was the first to reach the island. Soon the three of them were scrabbling up the steep sandy banks of the uninhabited lump of land, wild and scrubby with a few bent trees and the derelict cottage sitting on the top of it. 'Quick!' laughed Rebecca in excitement. 'Let's go straight up and explore the artist's house. We've got about ten minutes, haven't we?'
They were on Mulberry Island. This was wonderful fun! And none of them heard the faint voice, far behind them in the distance, carried away on the wind:
'Wait for me! Oh, wait for me!'
'There's a huge great iron bedstead up here!' Rebecca cried out in wonderment. She had climbed up the rickety staircase to explore, leaving the other two still down below. 'He left his bed behind. And a bookcase with some books still in it, all covered in cobwebs – and there's a swallow's nest! Inside the room!' She cupped her hands to her mouth and called down. 'Quick, you must come and look.'
'We've found a tin of biscuits. It's never been opened!' That was Tish's voice, shouting up the stairs. 'But we can't hang around, you know! Come on, Rebeck. Time to get back now.'
'Oh, all right then,' said Rebecca, with great reluctance.
She stepped over to the window, to take one quick look through it. There was no glass in the window and she was able to lean out. What a lovely outlook the man had had from here – straight across to the mainland, with a beautiful view of Mulberry Castle, high above the cove . . .
'Rebecca!' cried a faint little voice.
Dropping her eyes from the distant castle to the expanse of wet sand they'd just traversed a few minutes earlier, Rebecca went rigid.
It was an alarming sight!
A small figure was coming this way, very slowly indeed, limping painfully and clutching her side.
'Holly Thomas!' she gasped.
She thundered down the stairs and shouted to the other two:
'Holly followed us! I've just seen her. She's almost here!'
Sue went pale. Tish groaned.
The three of them rushed down the steep path, over-grown with weeds and brambles, that led from above and then half scrambled, half fell down the steep bank that dropped down to flat sand below.
'Holly!'
She was sitting on a slab of rock, clutching her side. Her face was creased up with pain, but through the pain she was shining-eyed, triumphant.
'I made it. See, I made it! I'll just have a bit of a rest, I've got a stitch, and then I'm going up there to look at that house –' She pointed. 'Wouldn't it make a lovely secret den?'
'Holly!' Sue ran across to her. 'You stupid idiot. What did you follow us for? You can't look at anything, there isn't time!'
'You can't even have a rest!' said Tish, curtly. She was glancing at her watch. 'Come on, up you get.' She and Sue together, one on each side, helped Holly on her feet. 'We've got to run!'
They bundled her along between them. She was limping and very slow, still clutching her side. 'I only want a little rest, Tish –'
Rebecca brought up the rear. They were going hardly faster than walking pace. She scanned the sand ahead of them; she could see a tongue of sea creeping forward, trying to join up with a tongue of water on the other side.
'Why can't I have a rest?'
'Because the tide's just about to turn, that's why. Now shut up!'
'It's tu
rned!' cried Rebecca then.
They all saw it at once – and heard it. Whooosh!
The first tongue of sea raced across the sands ahead of them, followed by another and then another. It all happened very quickly.
'Lift Holly on my back, Sue – hurry!' shouted Tish. 'I think we can still make it. We've got to move a lot faster than this, though. And we're going to get our feet wet, too.'
'We're going to get more than our feet wet,' said Sue. Holly was suddenly tearful and looking scared, scrambling hastily up on to Tish's back. 'What do you think, Rebecca?'
'How can we tell?' said Rebecca, staring at that ribbon of water that now separated them from the mainland.
'Okay, Holly?' said Tish edgily. 'Right, let's go if we're going, shall we?'
SIX
TWO VERY ANGRY PEOPLE
By eight o'clock that evening Margot, Elf and Mara were feeling sick with worry and so were the rest of the Fourth Years in Court House. So was the principal of Trebizon School.
'What on earth should we do now, George?' asked Miss Welbeck, at her home in the school grounds. 'Should we inform the police?'
Colonel George Peters, a very dear friend of hers who lived in the town and a school governor, had come straight over to see her, as he always did in moments of crisis. Miss Morgan was there, too. She had spent the past hour driving round the town and up and down the top road, searching for some sign of the missing girls.
'I've been to Fenners – all the usual haunts – but nobody's seen them,' said the Juniper housemistress, looking pale and distraught. 'They were definitely going to the town. I gave them strict instructions not to let Holly go any further than the main gates, but clearly they disobeyed me – and the four of them must still be together, wherever they are. Somewhere in the town, presumably! But where?'
'And there's no chance that they could have come back by way of the beach and got into difficulties, trapped in a cave, perhaps?' queried Colonel Peters.
'There's no sign of them at all there. There's no sign of anybody,' replied Miss Welbeck. Not only her own prefects, but a party of senior boys from Garth College, some brothers of the missing girls amongst them, had scoured the beaches between the school and the town, even going into the caves in Mulberry Cove and shouting and calling. 'Harry says none of our girls has been in the bay since about four o'clock this afternoon. It's been such a windy, dismal day.'
Harry was the school's lifeguard.
'And there are no boats or surfboards missing?'
'Definitely not, George.' Miss Welbeck shivered. 'I'm glad to say. And there's no possibility at all that they would have gone for a swim on their way back. Not in this cold, windy weather.'
Colonel Peters walked across to the window of the principal's sitting room and stared out into her garden. 'It's late,' he mused. 'Very nearly dark.' He swung round to face Miss Morgan. 'The little one's got a gammy leg, you say? Could have found it hard slog then? Might have had difficulty making it back?'
Miss Morgan nodded.
'Then it seems to me somebody might have stopped and offered them a lift,' he said. 'It would have been as they were coming along the top road, on their way back from the town. Because if the little 'un had been in difficulty on the way there, they'd just have turned back straight away. If they were picked up, the vehicle would have been travelling in the Clifford direction. It's only a possibility, Madeleine, but it's one we have to allow for.'
'I'd better ring the police, hadn't I?' said Miss Welbeck.
'I'm afraid so, Madeleine.'
While Elf, Margot and Mara sat huddled together, keeping a tense and silent vigil, listening for the slightest sound that might herald the return of their friends to Court House, the brothers of the missing girls at Garth College were making endless cups of coffee in the kitchen at Syon House.
Robbie Anderson, Justin Thomas and Edward Murdoch had searched the town after helping to search the beaches and had now returned exhausted. They were frantic with worry about their sisters – and not just their sisters, either. David Murdoch was away on a school trip and so missed it all.
Justin, the most sensitive – and the most imaginative – of the three of them, was pale and trembling by this time.
'Cheer up, Justy,' said Robbie. 'Nobody could possibly have kidnapped them. Not four of them! Not if you knew my sister! It'll be some kind of crazy prank, just you wait and see.'
But secretly Robbie was resolving to be up at first light, to check those caves in the cliffs at the back of Mulberry Cove again. They'd already checked them once, but at least it would be something to do.
'I thought Sue was the responsible kind,' said Justin bitterly.
Colonel Peters had taken charge of the situation and when Miss Welbeck's phone rang, very late that evening, he took the call. He was hoping that it would be the police with some news by now.
But it was a young reporter from the local newspaper.
'Good evening,' he said in a pleasant voice. 'Mrs Tarkus has just telephoned me and said there are some Trebizon girls missing and I wondered if Miss Welbeck would be kind enough to make a statement –?'
Under his breath, Colonel Peters cursed that local lady, a busybody who disapproved of modern youth and was always stirring up trouble for the local schools, which did admittedly rather dominate the town at times.
'Oh, dear, not Mrs Tarkus again?' he said, pretending to laugh. Then, in a level tone: 'Look here, my good man, these are not Miss Welbeck's working hours and right now she is entertaining friends to drinks. If you have anything important to discuss with her, I suggest you phone her at her office tomorrow, during school hours.'
'Yes, sir. Of – of course,' said the reporter, disconcerted.
Colonel Peters replaced the phone and walked through to the sitting room to rejoin Miss Welbeck and Miss Evelyn Gates, the senior mistress at Trebizon.
'I'm afraid Mrs Tarkus has been busy already,' he said, mopping his brow. 'That was the press. I've managed to put them off – for the moment.'
'The police. Now the press,' said Miss Welbeck. She looked grey with worry. 'And still no news of the girls.'
'With Ishbel Anderson involved,' said Miss Gates drily, 'I can't help feeing in my bones that some high jinks lie at the back of it all.'
'If that proves to be the case and the school's reputation were to be damaged because of it,' said the principal, slowly and thoughtfully, 'then I would find it very difficult to forgive those responsible.'
'In the meantime,' said the colonel, 'I've told the press that you're entertaining friends to drinks. So how about pouring me a scotch, Madeleine, dear? I could certainly do with one.'
*
'Ooh, isn't this fun?' giggled Holly, from the floor. It was pitch dark in the bedroom of the old cottage. 'I'm really cosy and warm. And I'm not a bit scared. Didn't I say this would make a good den?'
'Oh, do shut up!'
'For goodness' sake let's all try and get some sleep!'
'We've got to get up early, remember?' said Tish, tersely. 'Like dawn, for instance. We're not exactly supposed to be here.'
She shivered. They'd made Holly a bed on the floor with some old cushions and found a moth-eaten carpet to cover her with, so that she'd be warm and comfortable for the night. But poor them – they had to make do with being huddled together on the big iron bedstead with only a couple of torn curtains they'd found for covering. And the wind was blasting in off the sea straight through the window frame that hadn't any glass in it, the one where Rebecca had leaned out to admire the view.
Even fully dressed in their track suits they were cold. But it wasn't just the cold that kept them awake for a long time after Holly had gone to sleep: it was worry and suspense as well.
'All murder is going to be let loose when they find us,' said Tish, miserably. 'We could have made it back – I know we could.'
'Don't be so sure about that,' said Sue.
It was Sue who had made Tish come back. Tish had set off at a gallop with Holly on
her back and Sue had hung back, with Rebecca hovering between the two, not quite knowing what to do. Then suddenly Sue had raced past Rebecca and caught up with Tish and grabbed her by the arm, jerking her to a halt.
'No, Tish! If it were just us three we'd make it easily, but we can't chance it. Not with Holly. We don't know how deep that water's going to be by the time we get there –'
They'd stood there arguing furiously and then –
'Look, the whole thing's decided,' Rebecca had said, pointing. The water was gradually spreading. 'Even if we could have made it, I don't think we can risk it now. Come on, let's go back to the cottage.'
Later, from their vantage point on top of the island, they'd actually seen the search party in Mulberry Cove, just tiny distant figures, and had shouted and waved and tried to attract their attention. But the light was poor and the wind so loud it had drowned their faint cries. They'd watched helplessly as the search party had left the cove. They were stranded for the night!
And with no electricity, no torches, not even a box of matches – and darkness fast approaching – they'd got the beds organized, demolished the tin of biscuits between them and settled down for the night.
'I know we could have made it,' Tish was insisting. 'It wasn't very far. 100 to 1, we would have made it.'
'It's the 1 that worried me,' Sue retorted.
'Please stop arguing you two,' pleaded Rebecca. 'Let's try and get some sleep.'
It was dawn when she awoke. She was the first to wake up.
A beautiful dawn; the wind had dropped and the birds were singing and the sky was streaked with pink and purple. Nothing seemed quite so bad now.
Rebecca tip-toed to the window, taking with her the ragged curtain that had been her bedcover, intending to hang it out as a signal to the mainland. She stared across the shimmering sea to the cove. The tide was low again but not low enough. Spring tides, that was all.
Suddenly she realized that somebody was moving about over there.
Leaning out of the window, she waved the curtain frantically and cried 'Help!', startling the others in the room into immediate wakefulness.