Suspicion

by Leigh Russell

  Chapter 12

  My feet made no sound on the thickly carpeted stairs. One tread creaked and I froze, listening, but there was no other sound. Feeling more than ever like an intruder, I called out loudly, but no one answered. It felt wrong to be going upstairs in her house without Sue knowing I was there. She could be asleep, and my unannounced appearance might shock her, even though my intentions were innocent and she had invited me to her house. Besides, it was possible that she was ill or had suffered some terrible accident. She might have slipped in the shower and hit her head, knocking herself out.

  ‘Sue! Sue! Are you there? I’m coming upstairs. Sue!’

  I continued up the stairs.

  There were four doors leading off the landing. One on my left stood wide open. Inside was a bathroom with a sloping ceiling, neat and pretty enough, and spotless, but kitted out from a bygone era, with an avocado bath suite and white tiles dotted with yellow flowers. With its outmoded furnishings, the bathroom should have smelt of lavender and talcum powder instead of which there was a fresh tangy citrus scent. Gingerly I opened the second door to find a deep cupboard with a neat pile of pink and white towels.

  The next door led to a small office with a pine desk and matching chair. A monitor, keyboard and lamp were neatly arranged on the desk, along with a stack of cardboard folders, an old-fashioned paper notebook and a painted ceramic pot of pens, and along one wall was a row of metal filing cabinets. Dark wooden beams across the ceiling looked as though they had been there for hundreds of years. Held back by embroidered sashes, pale curtains hung on either side of a lattice window, smaller than windows in modern houses. Approaching the desk, I saw that the notebook was in fact a black diary, with one week on display per page. Aware that Sue might come in at any moment, I glanced over my shoulder to check she wasn’t watching before reaching for the book.

  Several of the pages were blank. Others had cryptic notes about an unnamed man referred to only as “he” or “him”, along with entries noting when she was due to see him and comments about gifts which “he” had given her. Some weeks there was no mention of “him” and once she had written that “he wants to stop”. There was no explanation, but I assumed she meant he wanted to end the affair. I scanned through a whole month without finding anything to indicate who “he” was, but I could guess. Hearing a creaking noise, I hurriedly replaced the diary and moved away to continue my search for Sue.

  The last door opened on a bedroom. Glancing inside, I barely noticed a flowery duvet cover and matching curtains, and hardly recognised my own shocked features glaring at me from the mirror above the dressing table on the wall opposite me. I have no idea how much time elapsed while I stood staring at the woman lying on a bed to my right. She was propped up against several pillows with her face turned towards the door, so that she appeared to be looking straight at me. Framed in blond hair, her face had a bluish tinge and she stared at me without blinking, her lips stretched in a horrible grimace. One glimpse of the distorted face was enough. I had found Sue.

  For what felt like hours, I stood gazing at her in silence, my legs trembling. At last, I took a step towards her and called her name, in the desperate hope that she might still be alive. Not daring to touch her, I went no closer but stood, stupefied, calling her name. On the bedside table I saw a half empty bottle of whisky and a few white pills scattered beside a small bottle. A chair, upholstered in flowery fabric matching the duvet and curtains, lay on its side beside the bed. Without thinking, I reached out to set it upright then drew back in panic, aware that it would be wise to leave the house at once without touching anything else. Discovering the body of my husband’s mistress was serious enough. If I was spotted at the scene of her death, and Nick and Sue’s relationship subsequently came to light, my position could become extremely difficult.

  No one but Rosie knew that I had learned about Nick’s affair with Sue, but it took only one person to be indiscreet for a rumour to spread. I had to go and speak to Rosie at the first opportunity and persuade her not to tell anyone about our conversation. Or perhaps it might be better to say nothing and deny knowing anything about the affair, if Rosie went to the police or spoke to the papers. My urgent priority was to get away from Sue’s house without being seen, and appear surprised and shocked when the news of her death reached us. If Nick learned where I had been on the afternoon of Sue’s death, he might suspect I had discovered his infidelity and had gone there to kill her.

  As I was running down the stairs, it struck me that when the police found Sue’s body they were bound to come across her diary and discover she had a lover. Like me, they might wonder whether she was having an affair with her boss. They might even suspect he was responsible for killing her.

  Feeling sick, I raced back up the stairs, grabbed the diary, shoved it in my bag, and dashed out of the house.

  Once outside, I breathed a sigh of relief because there was no one in sight. Pulling up the hood of my jacket, I strode back up the hill to my car, crouched down behind the steering wheel, and drove away, restraining myself with difficulty from putting my foot down and exceeding the speed limit. The last thing I wanted was to be sighted anywhere near Sue’s house, or caught on a security camera around there.

  Driving away, I struggled to make sense of what had just happened. By the time I reached home, the front of my shirt was damp with my tears. Whatever she had done, however abominably she had behaved, Sue had not been a bad person. Her only transgression had been to fall in love with my husband. I, of all people, could hardly blame her for that, having succumbed to his charm and good looks myself.

  Thanking my lucky stars that Nick was out for the evening, I had a shower. Locked in the bathroom, I studied the diary, page by page. According to the entries the affair had started after Christmas, four months into Nick’s headship. I grew more convinced than ever that their affair had taken place in the mornings before the school day began. Hiding my distress was going to be difficult, but there was nothing to be gained by challenging Nick about his relationship with Sue. To do so would risk causing irreparable damage to our marriage, and there was no point now that she was dead.

  I hid the diary at the back of a drawer, beneath my underwear, before making some supper, and forcing myself to eat. Whatever else happened, I had to keep a clear head and make sure no one had any reason to regard me as anything other than a dutiful wife to the headmaster. My husband, especially, must have no inkling that I had uncovered his secret.

  If Nick had ended his affair with Sue as a result of my emails, as I had intended, she might have become depressed and committed suicide as a consequence of her disappointment. There was no way anyone could know that I had written those malicious emails, but Sue must have understood that Nick had chosen me over her. I had managed to work that much out, at least. I imagined her begging him to leave me, and his blunt refusal. Thinking about it, Nick never allowed anyone to deflect him from his purpose, an admirable determination that could also make him unsympathetic towards the needs of others.

  If my emails had prompted him to end the affair, and she had killed herself as a result, then I would be indirectly responsible for her death. It was crazy that she had seen me as a rival for Nick’s affections when he had only known her for a year, but it certainly seemed as though she had blamed me for the end of their affair.

  The more I thought about it, the less I cared what had happened to her. She was a crazy predator, and a marriage wrecker, who had deserved to die in bitter despair after she had failed to steal my husband away from me. Not only that, but she had taken a particularly cruel revenge on me, making me feel responsible for her death when it had all been her own fault for seducing Nick in the first place. Perhaps she had intended to destroy me with guilt. I was stronger than she realised.

  But every time I closed my eyes I saw her face, glaring and discoloured, until it was hard to convince myself that I was blameless. At the very least, I had tormented her during the last days of her life.

 
Chapter 13

  It was hardly surprising that my sleep that night was disturbed by nightmares. After dozing restlessly for a couple of hours, I fell into a convoluted dream in which a scarecrow woman with a white face and stiff limbs stalked me around a school of interminable corridors. Her footsteps echoed behind me but every time I turned a corner, she hovered in front of me like a ghost. Although I dared not speak to her, I knew who she was. Once I saw Nick striding ahead of me, and called out to him to help me, but he vanished through one of the doors along the corridor and I couldn’t find him although I searched in every room. I woke feeling drained, aware of my heart pounding. But at least I still had a beating heart.

  My sister knew me better than anyone else. Although she was seven years older than me, we had been close when we were growing up, perhaps because we had lost our mother to cancer when we were only six and thirteen. It must have been hard for Jen, as a teenager, but I only ever remember my sister being strong and cheerful, a stabilising presence throughout my teens. She cared for me as a mother might have done, and the sister of my childhood memories was a comfortable plump figure, although she was tall and stringy as an adult. She assured me she had been a rebel, but her wild streak had passed me by, and I still regarded her as steady, someone to rely on in troubled times.

  These days we didn’t get to see one another as often as we would have liked. We both lived busy lives and had little time for social calls. Jen lived about thirty-five miles away and, with four children and a career as a part time GP, she was even busier than me, so we hadn’t seen one another for six months, not since Christmas. A week earlier she had called to say she was travelling to Northampton, leaving her children at home with their father.

  ‘It’s about time Tony did something around the house,’ she had laughed down the phone. ‘Not that he’ll be much use. More likely the kids will be looking after him while he puts his feet up and complains about having too much to do.’

  Jen had explained she was going to Northampton for a conference, and was keen to take advantage of the rare opportunity to stop off at Edleybury on the way, if I was free.

  ‘It’ll only be a flying visit,’ she had said. ‘Just for coffee. I have to be in Northampton for two.’

  ‘You can stay for as long as you like. You know you’re always welcome.’

  ‘I wish I could stay longer, but you know how it is. Places to go, people to see, not enough hours in the day and all that jazz. But I couldn’t travel north and not try to come and see you.’

  When we had arranged Jen’s visit I had been really excited about seeing her, but with all the drama taking place, I didn’t feel like seeing anyone, least of all the one person who might see straight through my protestations that everything was fine.

  My hopes of covering up my feelings evaporated as soon as she set eyes on me, and I knew straight away she was not fooled for a moment by my forced smile.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked, pulling back from my embrace and screwing up her eyes to scrutinise my face. ‘You look–’ On the point of telling me I looked dreadful, she broke off. ‘You look tired,’ she concluded kindly. ‘You look really tired. Have you been under the weather? You’re not overdoing it, are you?’

  ‘I’m fine, honestly I am. It’s just nearly the end of term, you know, and the end of our first year here. It’s been quite a – well, it’s been a busy year.’

  She gave me a guarded smile. ‘It’s more than that though, isn’t it?’

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.

  ‘Lou, what is it? Tell me what’s wrong.’

  I forced a laugh to conceal my distress. ‘I’m fine, really.’

  She stared at me for a moment. ‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘If you say so. But you will tell me if there’s anything wrong, won’t you.’

  I nodded. ‘Sure. You know I will. No secrets, eh? If there was anything seriously wrong, I promise you’d be the first to know.’

  Seeing there was nothing to be learned by pressing me, she began to talk about her children, two of whom were at university while another was taking A Levels, and the youngest was doing his GCSEs. From what Jen told me, they seemed to be doing well, and she didn’t appear worried about them.

  ‘I’ve always told them, it’s not about the performance on the day, it’s about the preparation beforehand. And they’ve been hard at it for months. As long as they’ve done enough work, they’ll sail through.’

  I wished all the parents who sent their children to Edleybury shared Jen’s philosophical attitude, but it was easy for her to be relaxed, with her bright and diligent children. Over coffee, she brought me up to date with news about her family, and her work, and a new kitchen she was having installed after a flood, before steering the conversation around to me again.

  ‘I’m doing all the talking. Come on, what have you been up to?’

  After learning my husband’s been unfaithful, I sent insulting emails about his mistress to all the staff, and forced Nick to dump her unceremoniously, all of which drove her to commit suicide, I thought.

  For a wild instant, I was tempted to tell Jen everything. Instead I said, ‘I’ve taken up tennis again. I play a regular weekly game with one of the PE teachers I’m friends with here, and it’s taken a while to get to know the place, but recently we’ve all been preoccupied with getting ready for the end of year Gala Dinner and Ball, which is a massive deal here, the event of the year. You wouldn’t believe the fuss that’s made, or expense they go to. It’s worse than planning a wedding. And then there are exam arrangements and parents’ evenings, and Nick’s having meetings with the governors and the bursar, and the marketing team, and goodness only knows who else besides, all working up to the end of the year. I’ve had to host an evening for the female staff – it’s a bit sexist really, but they’ve always done it here, and the school is ruled by its traditions.’

  ‘You could change the tradition,’ she suggested drily.

  I wasn’t surprised. Jen had always been fiercely feminist. Although she was careful not to criticise my choices, it was clear to me that she had been bitterly disappointed at my ready acceptance of a role where my sole responsibility was to support my husband. Clearly it hadn’t occurred to her that without my marriage I would still have been a class teacher answerable to my previous head of department, or some other petty egoist. At best I might have risen to become a head of department myself, struggling to impose my will on a few colleagues within the artificial bubble of another school. As things had turned out, I was in a privileged position, married to the headmaster of a prestigious public school, enjoying the status and the lifestyle that the role attracted.

  ‘Nick’s planning to make enough changes next year, without my adding to them,’ I replied with a smile. ‘The governors are a lot of old stick-in-the-muds and it’s taken him a while to persuade them to agree to his vision for the future.’

  ‘His vision?’

  ‘Yes. Not many people know about this yet, apart from the governors and the senior management team, but he intends to make the school co-ed throughout, not just in the sixth form, and he’s also planning to spread the responsibility around.’

  ‘What do you mean, spread the responsibility around?’

  ‘He’s going to appoint a director of studies, so there’ll effectively be two deputy heads instead of one. The director of studies will oversee academic affairs, and the existing deputy will be in charge of the pastoral side of things. Up until now, it’s all been looked after by one deputy head, but Nick thinks, quite rightly, that it’s too much for one person to do everything. A lot of schools have split the roles like that, and it seems to work.’ On the spur of the moment, I added, ‘I think he might want one of the deputies to be a woman.’ That was a fib but I thought it would please Jen.

  ‘Another break with tradition?’

  ‘I should say so. Nick feels it’s about time Edleybury moved into the twenty-first century.’

  I paused, aware that I w
as parroting what Nick had said to me.

  ‘So what will Nick do, if he isn’t in charge of the academic and pastoral life of the pupils?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll still retain overall responsibility, of course, but these days the role of a head is more to do with marketing the school than with the day-to-day running of the place.’

  ‘Does he mind?’

  ‘The marketing? No, not at all. He enjoys it. And of course it involves a lot of travelling, for both of us.’

  Hearing myself talk about Edleybury, my life sounded pretty dull. Introducing girls into a boys’ school was hardly going to change the world, but Jen made a decent stab at looking interested.

  ‘So they’re keeping you busy,’ she said, when I had finished my recitation. ‘And you’re still enjoying it here?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Louise, you would tell me if there was anything wrong, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ I lied. ‘I don’t know why you keep going on about something being wrong. You know if there was anything, I’d tell you.’

  Just then we heard the front door slam and Nick called out to us from the hall.

  ‘Lou, I’m home. Is your sister still here?’

  The opportunity to tell Jen about Sue had passed, and I was pleased I hadn’t mentioned what had happened. The fewer people who knew about Nick’s affair the better. But as we carried on chatting about our life at school, the corpse I had seen was never far from my thoughts, and I was grateful to Nick for keeping the conversation flowing. He didn’t appear to notice anything unusual but Jen was observing me closely, and I could tell she was troubled. For my part, I was partly preoccupied with wondering whether the body had been found yet.