Child's Play (37 page)

He
waited, regarding her thoughtfully. When the weeping abated to snivelling, he said, ‘For the time being, we’ve got to keep you apart from the rest of the school. We’ll put you in one of the empty staff flats, but you won’t be alone,’ he added hurriedly, as she dropped her hands to expose a face blotched with terror. ‘There’ll be someone with you constantly.’

Janet
took Daisy to the dormitory to pack an overnight bag while McKenna went in search of the newly promoted deputy headmistress. He scoured the building from top to bottom, but found only a few junior teachers, randomly attached to various groups of girls. Miss Knight, he was told, had called the senior staff to a crisis meeting at her house. When he asked who held the keys to the vacant staff flats, no one appeared to know, so, using those Jack had taken from Nicholls, he breached Freya’s erstwhile redoubt.

There
was still a faint whiff of her perfume about the room. As he rifled the key safe screwed to the wall, he half expected to feel her hand on his shoulder and, when he looked at the empty chair behind the magnificent desk, he could have sworn he saw her shade. Removing a pair of keys labelled VACANT STAFF FLAT 1, he realised that he wished she were there in person, so that he could thrust in her face the terrible harm she had done.

16

Halfway
up the path from the stables Martha said exasperatedly, ‘You
still
haven’t given me a decent explanation. What’s the matter? Has the cat got your tongue?’ She grabbed Alice’s shoulder. ‘For the last time, why were you and Daisy fighting?’

Alice
shrugged her off and, staring mutely and determinedly at the small patch of ground in front of her feet, plodded on towards the school.

Martha
walked behind her on to the forecourt, sorely tempted at every step to help Alice along with a few kicks. Then she saw Daisy and Janet Evans, going in the direction of the staff accommodation block. A bulging leather backpack hung from Daisy’s shoulder.

Expecting
comment on this, if on nothing else, Martha glanced at her daughter, but Alice seemed not to have noticed them. She walked straight in through the double doors and all but cannoned into McKenna, who was standing in the dim lobby. Nona was at his side.

‘
I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said. ‘We need to talk.’ He led them into the visitors’ room and something about his manner alerted Martha long before they were seated. When Nona closed the door and leaned against it, barring escape, she began to worry. ‘What is it?’ she demanded. ‘What’s happened?’ When he remained silent, she asked, ‘And where’s Daisy gone? I saw Janet Evans taking her somewhere.’

‘
Daisy’s been moved to one of the staff flats,’ he replied.

‘
Please, don’t prolong the agony.’ Martha put her hand to her forehead. ‘What’s going on?’

‘
She’s told him about Torrance.’ Alice’s hands were clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists.

Martha
frowned at her. ‘Told him what?’

‘
She said she saw Torrance raping Sukie.’

Martha
’s mouth fell open.

‘
She’s lying,’ Alice added.

‘
It’s a devastating allegation,’ McKenna said. ‘She also claims that Sukie intended to report the rape.’

Alice
met his eyes defiantly. ‘And she
also
said Torrance killed Sukie to keep her quiet. She’s lying about that as well.’

‘
How do you know?’

‘
I just do!’

‘
Why didn’t you tell us about Daisy’s allegations?’ he asked. ‘You’ve had plenty of opportunites.’

‘
Because I don’t believe her.’

‘
What you believe is immaterial. You deliberately suppressed absolutely crucial information.’

‘
Only if it was true,’ Alice retorted. ‘And it isn’t!’

Finding
her voice, Martha said, ‘You can’t possibly know whether it is or not. You had no right to keep it to yourself.’ She looked searchingly at her daughter and saw yet another stranger. ‘Were you trying to protect Torrance?’ she asked. When Alice nodded warily, Martha responded savagely, ‘Well, you went a funny way about it! If you’d reported what Daisy told you, Torrance probably wouldn’t have had an accident. Don’t you realise that? Suppose she’d been killed? It’s pure luck she wasn’t.’

McKenna
intervened. ‘We can’t be certain of a connection,’ he said. He turned his attention to Alice. ‘You like Torrance, don’t you?’ he asked softly.

‘
So?’

‘
Is that because she lets you help with the horses, or is there another reason?’

‘
Like what?’

Almost
imperceptibly he shrugged. ‘Perhaps she’s made inappropriate overtures to you as well.’

Alice
clamped her lips together, breathing noisily through her nose, her chest rising and falling sharply. Her skin was grey, and here and there dark bruises were beginning to show themselves.

‘
She’s going to have an attack.’ Martha struggled to her feet. ‘Where’s that blasted inhaler?’

Gazing
fixedly at McKenna, Alice shook off her mother’s ministrations. ‘I don’t need it,’ she said, a gasp between each word.

‘
Then when you feel ready,’ McKenna told her, ‘perhaps you’ll answer my question.’

‘
Oh, for God’s sake!’ Martha snapped, standing protectively behind Alice’s chair. ‘Can’t you see she’s almost beside herself?’

‘
All the more reason to get to the truth,’ he said shortly. ‘If only for Alice’s sake.’

‘
All Torrance has ever done,’ Alice began, ‘is be nice to me.’ The breath whistled in her chest. ‘Oh, and she occasionally ruffles my hair.’ She challenged McKenna once more. ‘I’ll bet Daisy never told you what
she
did to Sukie, did she?’

‘
No. What was it?’

‘
She stuffed some broken twigs under the saddle.’ With another pause for breath, she added, ‘Sukie was thrown as soon as she put her weight on Purdey’s back. Daisy laughed herself sick.’

‘
Why did she do it?’

‘
It was her idea of a joke.’

It
was attempted murder, and only a psychopath would find amusement in that, Martha thought despairingly. ‘She must have tampered with the girth,’ she told McKenna. ‘She
must
have done.’

‘
Not necessarily,’ he replied.

Voicing
the thoughts now besieging her own mind, she went on as if he had not spoken, ‘And God knows why, but she probably killed Sukie.’

‘
Don’t overreact,’ he chided. ‘I’m not defending Daisy’s actions, but pranks like that aren’t uncommon. A warped sense of humour doesn’t make someone a killer.’

Alice
groped in her jeans pocket for the inhaler. She snapped off the cap, rammed the end into her mouth, drew in a draught of medication, then glanced up at Martha. ‘I wish you’d sit down,’ she said curtly, before turning away. ‘You’re crowding me.’

Looking
down on her daughter’s small, dark head, Martha was tempted to slap her, while at the same time wanting to weep. Her child was all but lost to her, befouled in the murk of Freya Scott’s netherworld. She leaned over to pick up her bag, a sob welling in her throat. Barely able to trust her voice, she said to McKenna, ‘Let me know when you’ve finished.’ Then, pushing blindly past Nona, she made her escape.

Once
outside the visitors’ room, Martha sank into the nearest chair. Her whole body ached cruelly, especially her legs, confined as they were in trousers that were still wet from when she had crawled through the grass after Daisy.

McKenna
followed within moments. Standing over her, his mood indecipherable, he said, ‘I can’t continue to question Alice if you’re not there.’

‘
Good.’

‘
Are you coming back in?’

‘
No, I’m not.’ Painfully, she straightened her back and meeting his gaze, added, ‘I’m banking on your compassion, Mr McKenna. You know as well as I do that she’s not up to it.’ Then she offered him a bleak, lopsided smile. ‘You don’t look too good yourself,’ she remarked. ‘About ready for the knacker’s yard, I’d say.’

He
perched on the edge of the chair next to hers, staring at his clasped hands. ‘Not only am I beginning to feel as if we’ve been here for ever, but we seem to be going backwards rather than forwards.’

‘
But that’s not as bad as feeling you’ve been dragged down to Freya Scott’s destructive level, is it? Because you
have
been and the more you pursue Daisy’s story the deeper you’ll sink.’

‘
Come on, Mrs Rathbone,’ he chided. ‘You know I’ve got no choice.’

‘
But you’ve got a choice about the
way
you do it. And when.’ Massaging her thighs, rocking gently in her seat, she went on, ‘God forbid you might think I’m trying to tell you how to do your job, but I know these girls much better than you. Granted, I’m prejudiced, by being Alice’s mother and by disliking Daisy so intensely, and I’m well aware that prejudice will always find ways of disguising and exploiting itself; nonetheless, I just don’t believe Daisy’s telling the truth.’ Frowning, now rubbing her shins, she said, ‘And that’s not because I don’t
want
to believe it, or because I’m trying to prevent Torrance from being destroyed.’ She looked across at him. ‘She will be, whatever happens. Not to put too fine a point on it, innocent or guilty, she’s damned either way. You can’t save her, but you could perhaps save someone else in the future.’

‘
I don’t understand.’

That
lopsided smile made another brief appearance. ‘I’m not sure
I
do, either. My brain’s getting somewhat ahead of itself.’ She paused, marshalling her thoughts. ‘If you take Daisy’s story to its logical conclusion, Torrance could end up on trial for killing Sukie and with denial as her only defence she wouldn’t fare too well. Now, if Daisy
is
lying, imagine how crazed with power she’d become if that happened.’

‘
And because feelings like that need constant stimulus to keep them alive,’ McKenna added, ‘she’d try it on again.’

‘
Yes.’ Martha nodded. ‘I’m sure she would. Not perhaps so much for the malicious satisfaction, but because she loves drama and the buzz it gives her. She seems to
need
it, to make her feel she matters and that’s probably why she tells lies.’ She turned in her seat to face him. ‘She and Alice were knocking ten bells out of each other earlier, but Grace Blackwell actually provoked the fight by saying even Daisy herself doesn’t know when she’s telling the truth. Daisy swore at her, then I heard what sounded like a slap.’

‘
So why was Daisy fighting with
Alice
and not Grace?’

‘
Perhaps Alice was stopping her from battering Grace — I don’t know, but I’d like time to find out. That’s what I meant when I said you had a choice about how and when you deal with things.’ Her next smile held a little optimism. ‘And don’t think Alice won’t come clean. Once she really understands the implications of all this, not only for Torrance, but for Daisy and herself, she’ll tell me the truth, at least about the brawl. People’s behaviour, you see, is a circle of consistency. Alice only digs in her heels
so
far — in the end her intelligence gets the better of her mulishness.’

‘
Are you clutching at straws?’ he asked gently. ‘Barely ten minutes ago you were convinced Daisy killed Sukie and tried to kill Torrance.’

‘
Heat of the moment,’ she replied wryly. ‘And as I said, prejudice will out.’ Her face fell then. ‘You warned me yesterday about usually finding the killer close to home, didn’t you?
Please
give me time to talk to Alice,’ she entreated, touching his arm with her gnarled, trembling fingers. ‘I can’t bear the thought that Torrance might have done something to her. I must find out!’

17

With
Nona beside him, McKenna stayed on the forecourt until Martha’s car vanished around the first bend in the drive. A moment before then Alice, in the passenger seat, turned to look, not at them, but at the school.

‘
Aren’t you taking a bit of a risk, sir?’ Nona asked doubtfully. ‘Suppose they don’t come back?’

‘
They will,’ he told her, setting off for the mobile incident room. ‘Stupid is one thing Martha Rathbone definitely is not.’

‘
Where’s she staying?’

‘
Down the road, at the pub. She says the food’s good and it’s very homely.’

‘
She’s an odd woman. Considering how rich she is, she’s got absolutely no side to her at all. It’s like her feet are literally screwed into the ground.’

‘
She simply has her priorities straight.’

Nona
followed him up the steps. ‘By the way, sir, I’ve packed up Imogen’s things and done a list, and I took her room apart in case I missed something. I moved the bed, and looked behind the shelves and cupboard as well as the radiator.’ Trotting after him into the little office, she added, ‘I even stripped the bedding and shook out the pillowcases and duvet cover.’ As he sat down, she leaned against the doorpost. ‘I put her jewellery in the safe here. There’s quite a bit of it, including a platinum and diamond tennis bracelet that must have cost a bomb, but I’m not sure if I found the particular necklace she was talking about in her letter. It would’ve helped to know what I was looking
for
,’ she went on. ‘I mean, is it an actual
necklace
? If it is, it could be a match for the bracelet. On the other hand it could be a pendant. She had a couple of those and both looked as if they could’ve cost what Sukie paid out.’

‘
If that’s in fact what Sukie bought. It could have been a present for her mother.’

‘
Mr Tuttle was going to ask Sukie’s father about it.’

‘
We’ll leave him to do that, then,’ McKenna replied. ‘It’s the least of our worries at the moment.’

‘
What if Imogen’s parents bring it up?’ Nona argued. ‘They’re due here any time, aren’t they?’

‘
They don’t know she’s lost it,’ he told her irritably. ‘They haven’t seen her letter yet.’ Then he smiled an apology. ‘I’m sorry, Nona, I’m very tired. You will be, too, if you don’t get off home for a few hours’ sleep. You’ve a long night ahead of you.’

She
swallowed. ‘What d’you mean, sir?’

‘
Didn’t I tell you? You’re babysitting Daisy. I want you back at eight to relieve Janet.’

*

McKenna was finishing his lunch when Jack telephoned from the police station.

‘
I thought you were going to see Avril O’Connor.’

‘
She wasn’t in, so I came back here,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll try again later.’

‘
Are you making any progress?’ McKenna asked, lighting a cigarette.

‘
What do you think?’ Jack replied. Nancy’s standing on her rights, with the aid of her brief, and Charlotte’s collapsed in a fit of hysterics, also aided and abetted by her brief.’

‘
Why?’

‘
Well, because Imogen took a swipe at her yesterday, Nancy reckons she’s the victim of an assault. She wants to know what we intend to do about it and the solicitor’s simply jumped on the bandwagon, as they do.’

‘
What’s that got to do with the bullying they indulge in?’

‘
A great deal, apparently,’ Jack said. ‘They claim they’re just protecting themselves from other bullies. Therefore we can’t pick on them to the exclusion of these alleged other bullies. Needless to say,’ he went on mordantly, ‘Nancy and Charlotte reckon it’d be more than their lives are worth to give us names, so they’ve got us over a very big barrel.’

‘
You’re being conned.’

‘
Probably, but I’ve no intention of risking an official complaint, which would be the next step if I don’t back off.’ Jack paused. ‘That said, I’m not releasing them just yet; they can sweat a bit longer.’

‘
Daisy Podmore claims they threatened to slash Sukie’s horse,’ McKenna told him. ‘She’s also come up with a nasty tale about lesbian rape.’ Quickly he relayed the gist of Daisy’s interview. ‘So, if she’s telling the truth, Torrance has to be prime suspect in Sukie’s murder.’

After
a long silence, Jack said, ‘I’m
extremely
dubious. The Torrance
I’ve
seen just doesn’t fit the picture.’

‘
But in actual fact we know very little about her,’ McKenna pointed out. ‘Everyone has a secret face.’

‘
Maybe,’ Jack conceded, ‘but she nowhere near fits the profile either.’

‘
We just cobbled together some ideas, not a proper profile. And at its best, profiling is far from being an exact science.’

Jack
sighed. ‘It makes no odds, anyway. You’ve got to proceed on the assumption. When do you intend to question her?’

‘
She won’t be fit for interview under caution before tomorrow at the earliest. And I haven’t taken Daisy’s formal statement yet — I can’t until the protocols are sorted out. Her parents are abroad, so we’ll have to get her a responsible adult as well as a solicitor.’

‘
Where are her parents?’

‘
Italy, according to Miss Knight. She’s going to ring their hotel. It’s very civil of her to find the time,’ McKenna commented acidly. ‘She spent most of the morning in a staff meeting and now I’m told she’s burning up the telephone lines trying to get Nicholls to change his mind about sacking Scott.’ After a moment he added, ‘But not about Matron, apparently. She must be expendable.’ He pulled on the cigarette, then coughed. ‘Why don’t you,’ he went on when he had caught his breath, ‘challenge Nancy and Charlotte about their threat to slash Purdey?’

‘
Is that wise?’ asked Jack. ‘As soon as they set foot back in the school, they’ll be out looking for whoever grassed them up and taking reprisals when they find out.’

‘
I’ve got Daisy under guard in one of the staff flats.’

‘
Yes, but Nancy and her cohorts could have given most of the school a thrashing before they realise who snitched. It’s too risky.’

‘
You’re not thinking straight,’ McKenna said rather testily. ‘They already know
someone
ratted on them.’

‘
Needless to say, Imogen’s suicide note was common knowledge before she was even carted off to the hospital,’ Jack said. ‘They assumed it was her. I didn’t see any need to correct them. What I could do, though,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘is have another go at them about Tuesday night, because if I remember correctly, none of the sixth form has an alibi, not even to the extent of being able to alibi each other. Nor did any of them apart from Torrance — if she was telling Dewi the truth, that is — remember hearing anything out of the ordinary.’

‘
Suppose,’ McKenna began, fidgeting with a pen, ‘Sukie was lured out, by someone who knew about the threat to Purdey, on the pretext that it was about to be carried out?’

‘
Sounds good,’ Jack agreed. ‘So who knew, apart from Daisy?’ Without waiting for a response, he went on, ‘Who else has made allegations about Torrance? Who else has suggested Torrance had a motive for killing Sukie? Unless Alice is being very economical with the truth,
she
only knows what Daisy told her.’ He paused. ‘And as Daisy likes seeing people thrown off horses, she’s an ideal candidate for the sabotaged saddle. Not only that, she fits the profile beautifully.’

‘
Martha Rathbone overheard Grace Blackwell accuse Daisy of not knowing herself when she’s lying, just before
Alice
and Daisy started knocking hell out of each other. There’s real tension between those girls, but whether it’s relevant to us is another matter.’ McKenna stopped speaking, then said forcefully, ‘This investigation gets more labyrinthine by the minute. It’s one person’s word against another’s from start to finish — not only that, we have to re-evaluate every word as soon as it’s uttered and every nuance as soon as it suggests itself, and I doubt if we’ll he any the wiser once Daisy and Torrance have been formally questioned.’

‘
Eifion might still be able to lift fingerprints off Sukie’s shirt,’ Jack reminded him. ‘And there’s the partial footprint on her jeans. But I wouldn’t advise,’ he went on, ‘waiting on the outcome. There’s a horrible sense of danger in the school, but from where or whom, I’ve no idea. I just don’t think the run of disasters is quite done with yet.’

‘
I hope you’re wrong,’ McKenna said. ‘Still, Daisy’s out of harm’s way, or, depending on your point of view, temporarily neutralised. Alice is, too. As for the rest, we’ve taken every possible precaution.’

‘
Are you sure about that?’ Jack asked quietly. ‘Aside from the fact that we may be looking in entirely the wrong direction, I’ve been thinking about the pressure Nicholls was putting on for us to pack up and leave. It occurred to me he might have got rid of Scott and Matron because he knows they cooked up Sukie’s murder between them and, following the well-trodden path, decided to let them disappear into “retirement”, the way bent coppers slither off the hook.’

‘
Neither possibility had escaped me. That’s why I’ve still got fifteen per cent of the force’s manpower placed strategically around the place, why Matron’s confined to her flat and why Freya Scott isn’t allowed to set foot over any threshold except her own.’ McKenna was about to disconnect the call when he remembered something. ‘By the way, Eifion faxed a name and telephone number for you.’

‘
That’s for you, as a matter of fact,’ Jack replied. ‘The old cottage by the pier is coming up for sale privately and that’s the contact, if you’re interested.’

McKenna
made several more telephone calls, first to establish that Imogen’s parents had arrived at the hospital, then to find out if Berkshire police wanted him to interview them about the allegations in her letter. He was asked to hold fire until Imogen was fit to give a preliminary statement.

Next,
with great reluctance, he called John Melville, for a description of the jewellery Sukie had purchased the previous Christmas.

‘
Yes, I saw it,’ John agreed. ‘But I’m afraid I have only the vaguest recollection of what it looked like.’ His voice was clipped, even brittle, and he sounded completely sober. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand, Superintendent, why that is. As it was the festive season, I was bound to be more drunk than usual, wasn’t I?’

Ignoring
the barb, McKenna asked, ‘But it was a gift for Imogen?’

‘
I believe so.’

‘
And it was a necklace?’

‘
It was a gemstone drop on a chain and that’s as much as I can tell you.’

McKenna
smoked another cigarette while he mulled over the various factors, mostly imaginary, that were sure to thwart any plans to buy the cottage by the pier. In the end he reached a compromise with himself: unless there was sufficient garden space for his cats he would go no further and thus block disappointment before it was able to frustrate him. He called the number and made an appointment to see the cottage on Monday evening, then set about wondering how to repair the rift with the pathologist, immensely touched by the man’s refusal to stop caring, even in the face of wilful and unreasonable hostility.