by James Oswald
I have no answers as I stare up at the line of trophy boards in the common room. Harriet was never a sporting house, but we were good at debating. It’s nice to see that tradition still holds. It looks like we’ve won the cup almost every year since I left. Not that I ever had anything to do with the debating society. None of the names from my years ring any bells either.
‘You should really report to the housemistress before wandering around here, you know.’
I know who’s spoken even before I turn. Daphne, Mrs Jennings called her. She’s less intimidating now that we’re on the same level and I know her name.
‘Sorry. It doesn’t feel like trespassing when you grew up in a place. Mrs Jennings said I’d be OK to have a nosey around. It’s been a while, but some things never change, right?’
I was meaning the long list of winning teams for the debating cup, but Daphne clearly has other ideas.
‘They still talk about it. What you did.’
‘What they think I did.’ I shake my head at the memory, quietly pleased that it’s turned into one of the legends of this place. There can’t be too many girls who are expelled from school on their last full day. For a moment I think Daphne’s going to call me a liar, tell me to leave, but she just sniffs, turns and walks out. I’m tempted to follow her, but there’s another way to get to where I want to go.
The tiny back stairs lead up to dormitories on the first floor, the iron bedsteads empty. At the far end of the corridor are the bedsit studies, where the more senior girls sleep. It doesn’t take long to find Izzy’s room. The name tags are still attached to the doors, although I’m sure they’ll be reassigned soon. I’m surprised at how pleasing I find it to see that Izzy had my old room, even though generations of pupils must have passed through it in the intervening years.
The door’s not locked, and when I push it open I can see why. Izzy’s things have been packed up and taken away. The cleaners have been through here too, and the bed’s been stripped to a bare mattress, hairy blankets neatly folded at one end, pillow at the other. The first time I saw this room it was almost exactly the same, a blank canvas awaiting my teenage creativity. Thinking about the posters I Blu-Tacked to these walls makes me blush. Where are those boy bands now?
But I’m not here to wallow in the past. I’m here for clues. Time to act like a detective, even if I’m not likely to be one for very much longer.
I start with the bed, checking under the mattress for anything that might have been tucked away there. It’s the same basic wooden frame I slept on, a large storage drawer built into the base. That’s empty, but pulling it right out reveals a useful hidey-hole at the back. Either Izzy never realised it was there or she cleared it out before she left.
None of the other hiding places I remember have anything in them either, which makes me suspicious. Standing on the bed, I reach up and run a finger along the top of the hanging cupboard. No dust at all; this place has been deep-cleaned.
‘Were you looking for anything in particular?’
I’m not easy to spook, but Daphne’s voice startles me. I hide it in a swift turn and stare. ‘This was my room when I was here. It’s not changed much.’
‘How . . . apt. I’ve heard you weren’t really a team player either.’
‘I’m still not. Not really.’ I pull the chair out from the desk and sit down, leaving the housemistress standing in the doorway. ‘So what’s the real story with Izzy? This isn’t the first time she’s done a runner, is it?’
‘Isobel is a difficult child. She’s bright, quick on the uptake, but she lacks motivation. And everything is a personal insult, no matter how innocent or insignificant.’ Daphne leans against the door frame. ‘I’ve seen it before in children with . . . older parents. They grow wise young, but it’s not true wisdom. They rail at the world because the story they’re told doesn’t fit with the facts they see.’
A psychology student, I’d bet good money on it. I change the subject. ‘This room is very clean.’
She shrugs. ‘All the rooms are clean. I don’t like paying someone to do half a job. This will be reassigned for the autumn term. Only fair its new occupant doesn’t have to put up with the mess left behind by last year’s girl.’
‘So you don’t think Izzy’s coming back? I had this room for two years here. Left half my stuff in the drawers over the summer holidays.’
‘I know she’s not coming back. Her father called and explained to me in great detail exactly why, and every single word of it was a lie. Doesn’t matter though. If he wants to withdraw her from school there’s nothing I can do about it. She’s sixteen, education’s no longer compulsory. It’s a shame, but I can’t help being a little relieved too. Disruptive pupils are hard work.’
There’s the ghost of a smile in Daphne’s eyes as she makes her final statement, but it soon enough disappears. I recall the headmistress’s words. ‘You worry about her, don’t you?’
‘I worry about all the girls placed in my care. But, yes, Isobel especially. For all her faults, she deserved better. It might surprise you, but I even tried to offer her a scholarship.’
‘Why would you do that?’ The question’s out before my brain catches up. ‘Wait, you thought Roger DeVilliers pulled her out of school because he couldn’t afford the fees?’
She shakes her head. ‘I know. Stupid, really. But you’re right. Girls who’re coming back next year can leave their belongings here over the summer. This room’s only clean because Mr DeVilliers instructed that all Isobel’s things be packed and shipped home. Her trunk’s still waiting to be picked up.’
There’s something about the way she drops this piece of information into the conversation that makes me think she’s been trying to tell me all along. I glance out of the window, see my car parked far away across the main lawn, white and boxy and with a huge space in the back. Sooner or later I was going to have to speak to the DeVilliers anyway. It’s only an hour or so’s drive.
‘You know, I can probably help you with that.’
Cat isn’t happy with me. While Daphne’s finding the caretaker to load Izzy’s trunk into the back of my car, I let her out of her cage, stick her on the grass in front of the main school building for a leg stretch. When I carry her drinking bowl over to the water fountain to fill, she just follows me like she’s a duckling and I’m her mother duck. A couple of ineffectual laps at her drinking bowl and then she stalks back into her carry-cage, turns around a couple of times and settles down to sleep.
‘Be like that, then.’ I close the cage door and strap the box back on the front passenger seat.
‘T5 Estate. Don’t see many of them around these days. Used to watch them doing the Touring Car races back in the day.’
I turn to see a grey-haired man in loose brown overalls wheeling a sack barrow with an old school trunk strapped to it. It’s only when he gives me a cheeky wink that I recognise him.
‘Mr Bradshaw? I’d have thought you’d be retired by now.’
‘I only work part-time these days, Miss Constance. Mostly tending to the grounds, you know. Better to keep busy than sit at home mouldering away.’
Between the two of us we manhandle the trunk into the back of the car. It’s surprisingly heavy, but how much of that is down to the tooled leather and how much is the contents, I can’t tell. I’m still trying to decide whether I’m going to go through it before I deliver it to Izzy’s parents or ask her mother when I get there. With any luck her father will be in the city.
‘They tell me you’re a policewoman now,’ Mr Bradshaw says, proving that gossip is still the lifeblood of the private school. I haven’t the heart to tell him that ‘policewoman’ is frowned upon nowadays.
‘Detective constable no less. Hence the plain clothes.’
‘Always reckoned you’d make something of yourself. Even before . . . Well, you know.’
Mr Bradshaw has the face of
a man who spends most of his life outdoors, but even so I can see the blush spreading from his neck upwards. Such is the power of a reputation, however ill-deserved it might be.
‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr B.’ I close down the back door of the car and walk round to the front, passing the passenger side and the cage on the seat. ‘You wouldn’t like a cat, would you, by any chance?’
‘A cat?’ Mr Bradshaw’s face wrinkles in confusion, then he shakes his head slowly and sniffs. ‘Not with my allergies. Mrs B’s not a fan of them neither.’
‘Ah well. It was just a thought.’ I open the door, look around, surprised neither house- nor headmistress has come to make sure I’m leaving, or to remind me of the responsibility I’ve taken on with Izzy’s trunk. They’re probably just glad to see the back of it, her and me.
‘You take care now, Miss Constance.’ Mr Bradshaw holds the door for me while I climb in, then closes it gently as if I were some society debutante. I start the car and wind down the window at the same time. He’s got his head cocked slightly to one side, and for a moment I wonder if there’s something wrong with him. Then I realise he’s listening to the rumble of the engine. A couple of blips of the throttle has him smiling wistfully, even if I’m worried that the exhaust might have more holes in it than the manufacturer intended.
‘Porsche did a lot of the development work on that, you know.’ He nods at the bonnet and the lump of metal underneath. I know a bit about cars, but I never knew that until now. The chances of my remembering it are slim too, but that was always the way with me and school.
17
I don’t stop all the way from Saint Humbert’s to Harston Magna. The drive always felt interminably long when I was a child, but aided by the satnav on my phone it takes just over an hour. With each mile closer, I debate whether or not to pull over and open up Izzy’s trunk, go through the contents for clues as to where she might have gone. There’s never a suitable place to stop though. All the lay-bys have trucks parked in them, or sales reps eating service station sandwiches. I know a couple of places near the village where I could probably park up unseen, but then I run the risk of a local dog walker stumbling across my crime. Worse still, they might even recognise me.
The closer I get to the DeVilliers home, the more nervous I become. If I thought going back to school was bad, then coming here, coming home, is even worse. There’s little more than a couple of fields and a small bit of woodland between the Glebe House and Harston Magna Hall, where my parents live their uncomfortably separate lives. If I’m lucky I can get in and out without them ever knowing I was close by. I don’t much like trusting to luck though.
It’s been five years since I was last here, and not much has changed in the village. Not much has changed in the past five hundred years, for that matter. It’s an odd little place, tucked away out of sight in the rolling arable fields of Northamptonshire. No more than a couple of dozen houses and cottages, clustered around the hall and the church, it’s a lasting monument to a distant feudal past, with my father the lord of the manor, looking down on the serfs beneath him. Except that the farmland is all tenanted these days, and worked by huge machines rather than gangs of forelock-tugging men. Most of the houses have been sold too, the estate dwindling down the years as the more reckless heads of the Fairchild family have squandered their inheritance.
There are no cars parked outside the Glebe House when I pull up by the front door, and it occurs to me I should probably have called ahead to make sure someone was in. That would have meant calling Charlotte for the number though, and the fewer people who know where I am the better. I’m reaching in through the open passenger door to let Cat out when I hear a voice behind me.
‘This is private property, you know. And we’re not interested in buying anything.’
‘Just as well I’m not selling, then, Mrs DeVee.’ I turn to face her and give myself a hell of a shock. I remember Margo DeVilliers as an elegant lady, always well presented; indeed, the sort of person who might have a daughter like Charlotte. The woman staring at me now looks haggard, there’s no other word to describe her. She’s also unsteady on her feet and as she comes closer, head bent forward to get a better look at my face, I can smell the gin on her breath. I resist the urge to check my watch, but it’s early to be hitting the sauce hard.
‘Constance Fairchild. As I live and breathe. What in heaven’s name are you doing here?’
At least she’s recognised me. The last time I was here I had hair down past my shoulders and the ugliest pair of spectacles my parents could find for me. Laser eye surgery’s a godsend, and I found long hair to be quite a hindrance when I was in uniform.
‘I brought Izzy’s trunk home. You couldn’t give me a hand getting it out of the back, could you?’
Something like panic sweeps over her face at the mention of her daughter’s name. I’m not sure that’s the reaction I was expecting, and neither am I sure she’s in any fit state to lift a designer handbag, let alone a heavy-tooled leather trunk. Perhaps I’d be better leaving it in the back of the car. I could take it away with me, except that right now I’m not entirely sure where I’m going.
‘What are you doing with Isobel’s trunk?’ Margo’s voice wavers between slurring and alarmed, as if it was a bomb I’d brought her and not her youngest daughter’s worldly goods and possessions.
‘I know she’s missing, Mrs DeVee. Run away. Charlotte told me. Asked me to try and find her. I swung past Saint Bert’s on my way here.’
‘But you can’t. You mustn’t.’ Margo shakes her head and the motion makes her stagger sideways. Acting on instinct I reach out to steady her and she all but collapses into my arms. I knew she dieted too much, but there’s nothing to her. And this close up I can smell something more sour than the alcohol on her breath. She’s not well.
‘Why don’t we get you inside, eh? Have a sit down and a cup of coffee. It’s been ages since I’ve seen you. Must be loads of gossip to catch up on.’
I’m all too aware I’ve left Cat in the car as I steer Margo up the shallow steps and in through the front door. Nothing much has changed in the Glebe House since I used to babysit Izzy half a lifetime ago, although the kitchen is messier than I remember it ever being. A bottle of gin sits on the counter beside an empty tin of tonic water and a glass with a wilted slice of lemon in it. I ignore them and look for the kettle, the cupboard where the coffee lives and the little wooden stand with the mugs on it. Instant’s not my favourite, but it’ll have to do.
Margo’s slumped down in one of the mismatched wooden chairs around the old kitchen table by the time the coffee’s made, her eyes locked on the gin bottle but her body lacking the strength to fetch it. I can only imagine what’s happened to her in the past few years to turn her into this shadow of her former self.
‘Here you go. White, one sugar. That’s how you used to like it, right?’
She looks up at me as I place the two mugs on the table beside her, pull out another chair and sit down. Then she buries her head in her hands and bursts into tears.
‘You’re not married, are you, Connie?’
It’s taken a whole mug of coffee, several sheets of extra strength kitchen roll and far too many longing glances in the direction of the gin bottle for Margo DeVilliers to recover her composure enough to speak. My training makes me give her the time she needs, even as I worry about Cat stuck in her cage in the car. At least the windows are open and it’s an overcast day.
‘No. I’m not married.’
‘Boyfriend?’ Margo hesitates, then adds, ‘Girlfriend?’
That brings a slight smile to my lips, soon wiped away by the realisation that there’s been no romance in my life for a very long time indeed. I shake my head. ‘Not right now, no. Police work doesn’t mix well with having a social life. Or any kind of life at all, I guess.’
‘That’s right. I remember Charlotte telling me. Y
ou joined the police. Can’t imagine your father was best pleased about that.’
‘The only thing that would please him would be marrying me off to some titled chinless idiot with a vast estate somewhere so I could provide him with grandchildren to brainwash.’
‘Such bitterness in one so young.’ Margo takes a drink from her mug, steals another look at the gin bottle. ‘But then I guess Earnest always brings that out in people. In the end.’
There’s an almost wistful quality to the way she says my father’s name that sends an involuntary shiver down my spine. Time to change the subject.
‘Do you know where Izzy’s gone?’
Margo stiffens. ‘That child. How she can be so different from her sister? How she can be so difficult when we’ve given her so much?’
Not a no, then. That’s a start.
‘Charlotte told me she phoned you. Did she use her mobile, or was it a land line?’
‘I really don’t remember.’
‘Well, did she phone the house, or your own mobile? I assume you have one?’
Margo looks across the kitchen table and I see a slim smartphone lying there. She doesn’t complain when I pick it up, and neither is it password-protected. The call log only goes back a few days though, so either it’s a brand-new phone or someone’s deleted the records. I put it back down on the table, just out of her reach.
‘Did you know she was going to run away? Did you suspect she might? What about her father?’
She opens her mouth to answer, but says nothing. Closes it again and shakes her head.
‘Is he the problem, then? Has Roger been abusing her in some way?’
‘You really shouldn’t be asking these questions. I know you mean well, Connie, but it’s none of your business.’ She looks away from me, but not to the gin bottle this time. Now it’s the kitchen window with a view out to the front drive that calls to her. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that she doesn’t want to be seen here with me. Can I be bothered pushing this investigation further when it’s clear nobody involved wants me poking my nose into it?
