The Stranger Diaries

by Elly Griffiths

  It feels so shocking somehow to think that Miss Elphick’s body is inside that box. Actually, it’s not a box, more like a wicker casket with flowers entwined, very pretty. When people go up to read or speak, they have to pass right by it, just a few metres away from a dead body, a corpse. All the words for death are horrible. But death isn’t horrible, Miss Hughes says, it’s just a transition from one state to another.

  Mr Sweetman reads something from Scripture, trying a bit too hard to sound sincere. The words are beautiful though. I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord. One of the relatives is next with that poem, ‘Do not stand at my grave and weep . . . I am not there, I did not die’. For me this is less successful. We should weep and she did die. All those weasel words: passed away, fell asleep, safe in the arms of Jesus. I always think this when I visit old graveyards (a favourite pastime of Mum’s). ‘Joe Bloggs. Fell Asleep 10th May 1884.’ Well, why on earth did you bury him then?

  There are a few hymns, sung rather raggedly by the choir with Miss Rossetti taking all the solos. The organ sounds tinny and faint. It’s an electric one because no one plays the original organ anymore, with its painted sides and its pipes soaring up to the ceiling. This chapel was added after R.M. Holland’s time, when this was a private school. It’s vaguely Art Nouveau with stained glass windows depicting lilies and knights. It’s not really old, it has no deep energy.

  The vicar talks about Miss Elphick. ‘A dedicated teacher who inspired so many young people.’ It doesn’t sound as if he knew her very well. Neither of her parents gets up to speak. Then another hymn and the men in black are lifting the wicker coffin onto their shoulders. Miss Elphick’s family follow behind. ‘They’re having a private interment,’ I hear Mum telling Tash’s mother. Interment, that’s another euphemism. They are going to bury her. Tash and I look at each other and sneak out past our mothers, who are now talking to Mr Lewis and his wife. There are going to be refreshments in the old dining hall, which should give us a chance to catch up with Miss Hughes and the rest of the group.

  As we walk back down the aisle, I see the policewoman standing at the back. She’s with the man who was also here the other day, grey-haired, rather bovine-looking. To my surprise, as I pass, she says, ‘You must be Georgia Cassidy.’

  ‘Georgia Newton,’ I say. I don’t approve of patriarchal surnames but nevertheless it annoys me when people assume I share Mum’s.

  ‘I’m DS Kaur and this is DS Winston.’

  ‘Hallo,’ I say, rather awkwardly. I can see Miss Hughes’ plaits disappearing into the crowd.

  ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ says DS Kaur. She’s small with dark skin and dark shoulder-length hair. Not pretty, exactly, but kind of striking. Her eyes are deep-set and the skin around them is shadowed. She looks as if she wouldn’t rest if she was on the trail of a murderer. Which she is, of course.

  ‘Did Miss Elphick teach you?’ DS Winston asks.

  ‘In Year 10,’ I say. ‘Excuse me, I must catch up with my friends.’ I don’t want to lose my chance of talking to Miss Hughes.

  We meet outside the dining hall. People are already queuing up for food and drink. It’s only midday, obscene really. I can’t see Mum anywhere.

  ‘That was a farce,’ says Patrick.

  ‘Her body should have been released to the elements,’ says Venetia.

  ‘I thought some of the singing was nice,’ says Miss Hughes kindly. ‘Especially Amazing Grace.’

  ‘That was Miss Rossetti,’ I say. ‘The choir were quite bad, I thought.’

  ‘It’s not what Miss Elphick would have wanted,’ says Tash. ‘She was a very spiritual person.’

  ‘She was indeed,’ says Miss Hughes. Of course she knew Miss Elphick well; they were friends. No wonder she is looking so sombre today.

  ‘We should have our own ceremony for her,’ I say. ‘Maybe on the winter solstice.’

  ‘A lovely idea, Georgia.’ Miss Hughes puts her hand on mine and I feel energy rushing through my veins.

  ‘That’s what I said,’ says Venetia, rather sulkily. She’s jealous of my bond with Miss H.

  Another teacher comes up to talk to Miss Hughes, and Tash and Venetia drift away towards the food. Patrick takes my arm. ‘Georgie, can I talk to you? In private.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Let’s go upstairs.’

  There are no notices up but we know the rest of the school is out-of-bounds today. The caretakers are still shepherding people into the hall so there’s no one to see us running up the back staircase. We go up to the first floor. R.M. Holland’s apartments. There’s a different energy up here. You could be in a different world, a different time. It’s not just because there are carpets and proper light shades. It’s deeper than that. I can just imagine R.M. Holland, quill in hand, or Alice drifting along like Lady Macbeth, candle held aloft.

  Patrick doesn’t seem to notice the atmosphere. He strides along, trying door handles. He’s not in school uniform. He’s wearing a dark suit and, from the back, he looks like a stranger.

  ‘They’re all locked,’ I say. I’m not actually sure if that’s true. I think I once heard Mum say that most of the keys are lost.

  We reach the spiral staircase that leads to Holland’s study. I’ve been here once before with Mum and I remember what she told me about the footprints in the carpet. Suddenly I feel as if Alice’s spirit is very near.

  ‘Let’s go up,’ says Patrick.

  ‘It’s locked,’ I say.

  ‘No, it’s not. Dodgy Dave always forgets.’

  I don’t want to go into the study with Patrick. We’re like brother and sister but for some reason I don’t want to be alone with him. He looks so grown-up today, handsome but also slightly intimidating. Also, the petty law-abiding side of me does not want to be discovered in the attic room with Patrick O’Leary. I can just imagine what my mother would say. She’d probably make me take the morning-after pill.

  But Patrick is climbing the stairs. I follow, putting my feet carefully in the embossed footprints. When I get to the top of the stairs and step into the study, my heart stops. There’s a man sitting in Holland’s chair, his arms stretched out like a zombie. For a moment I think: it’s him, he’s come for me. Like the man in The Stranger. I start to move backwards but Patrick’s laugh stops me.

  ‘Do you like my dummy?’

  ‘What?’ The spell is broken. ‘Did you put that there? Why?’

  Patrick shrugs. He’s in darkness so I can’t see his face but his voice sounds hard and abrasive, the sort of voice he uses with his rugby mates.

  ‘Just for a laugh. A few of us came up here on Halloween. It’s from the textiles department.’

  ‘Where did you get the clothes?’

  ‘Left over from Oliver.’ The show Miss Elphick put on last year. ‘That’s probably Mr Pickwick or someone.’ I don’t correct him. I’m thinking: this is what Mum must have seen on the night of Halloween. That’s why she came home early and in such a state. For a moment I almost hate Patrick.

  ‘Georgie,’ he says, in an entirely different voice. ‘I need to talk to you.’ He sits on the little velvet chaise longue in the corner and pats the seat next to him. After a moment’s hesitation, I sit down next to him.

  ‘What do you want to talk to me about?’ I say. I try to stop myself looking at the photographs on the walls and on the desk. It’s ages since I’ve been up here and I wish I had time to appreciate it. But Patrick says, plunging me back into reality, ‘The police are here.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘The policewoman, DS Kaur, talked to me just now.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Nothing much. The other one, the man, asked if Miss Elphick had taught me.’

  Patrick runs a hand through his hair.

  ‘Georgie, I think they suspect me.’

  I stare at him. ‘Why would they suspect you?’

/>   ‘They’ve found out about the valentine card. They’re asking what I was doing on the night that she was killed.’

  ‘What were you doing?’

  He doesn’t answer for a second and then he says, head in hands, ‘I went round to her house.’

  ‘What?’ I very much hope that I’ve misunderstood.

  He looks up and now he looks young, much younger than sixteen. He looks almost like my little brother Tiger, who is not three yet.

  ‘I went to Miss Elphick’s house. I just wanted to see her. I was upset. She shouldn’t have told Mr Lewis about the card. Then everyone in the form knew. I had to switch classes. I pretended I didn’t mind but I was . . . upset.’

  I can understand this. Patrick made light of it at the time but it must have been embarrassing for him — one of the coolest boys in school — to be known to have a crush on a teacher.

  ‘Why now?’ I say. ‘Valentine’s was ages ago.’ I had two cards: one from a boy in my Spanish class and one of unknown origin. I didn’t know Ty then or I’m sure he would have come up with something red and sparkly, involving animals wearing clothes.

  ‘Miss Hughes told me to,’ says Patrick. ‘She said that the unresolved feelings were blocking my spiritual progress. She said I had to make amends.’

  Immediately I am jealous. Patrick has been having private meetings with Miss Hughes. I try hard to squash these feelings. Jealousy is a purely negative emotion.

  ‘Did you see Miss Elphick?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I knocked on the door but there was no answer. I just hung around waiting. I was in the shadows by the church so no one saw me. But I saw him. I saw him leaving her house.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mr Lewis.’

  Chapter 19

  Patrick asks me not to tell anyone. He’s only confiding in me now because he’s worried he hasn’t got a proper alibi for the night that Miss Elphick was. He told them that he was playing Call of Duty on his computer (classic ‘normal teenager’ behaviour) but he was actually writing on MySecretDiary. He was alone in the house because his parents were at a party (they’re very sociable, Patrick’s parents, I can tell Mum slightly disapproves) and his older brother was out with his girlfriend.

  ‘It looks bad,’ he keeps saying. ‘What if someone saw me at the house?’

  ‘But we ought to tell the police about Mr Lewis. I mean, he could be the murderer.’

  It sounds absurd even as I say it. Mr Lewis is a teacher; reliable, boring sometimes, given to saying things like ‘here’s a fun factoid about John Steinbeck’. He can’t be a murderer, a person who goes around in a mask carrying a dagger dripping with blood. Incarnadine, as Macbeth and R.M. Holland would say. Mr Lewis was sitting in front of us in the chapel just now, his arm around his wife, wiping his eyes occasionally. He seemed upset but he didn’t seem wracked with guilt. Surely, if he’d killed Miss Elphick, there would be some wracking going on?

  ‘No!’ says Patrick. And he grabs my arm, looking grown-up again. He’s very strong, I think. He works out every day and he plays rugby. He could overpower me in an instant. But then reality reasserts itself. This is Patrick, my friend, my almost brother, one of The Group. He wouldn’t hurt me. He’s upset and he needs my help.

  ‘You can’t tell anyone,’ he says. ‘They’d find out I was there and they would think I killed her. You can see the headlines, can’t you? Disturbed Teen Kills Teacher After Rejection. “Friends say Patrick O’Leary was a loner who liked playing war games on his computer”.’

  I laugh, despite myself. ‘Blonde teacher,’ I say. ‘They’d be sure to mention her hair, if not her bra size.’

  Patrick doesn’t laugh and he doesn’t let go of my arm.

  ‘Promise you won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘I promise.’

  He lets go.

  ‘Swear by the circle.’

  To swear by the circle is to invoke the power of our group — our coven, if you like. If I break the oath, we’ll all suffer.

  ‘I swear by the circle,’ I sigh.

  Patrick stands up and tries to smile, as if this has all been a bit of a joke, a bit of rugby players’ banter.

  ‘We’d better go down,’ he says. ‘They’ll think we’re up to no good.’

  Up to no good. It’s a strange phrase. Old-fashioned but also somehow sinister.

  ‘You go first,’ I say, trying to keep my voice light too. ‘We’d better not be seen together.’

  I listen to Patrick’s heavy steps descending the spiral staircase. I’m alone in Holland’s study, as I’ve always wanted to be. I look round the room. There are two windows, one an odd shape like a shamrock with a stained glass flower — a poppy, I think — in the middle, the other a normal, sloping attic sort. Holland’s desk is under this window, with a carved chair, currently occupied by the dummy. The walls are papered in red, slightly faded with a watery stripe, but you can hardly see the colour because two of the walls have bookshelves up to the ceiling and the other two are covered with framed photographs. There’s also the chaise longue, where Patrick and I have been sitting, and a small fireplace with an iron grate. It’s the centre of the house, I think. A glowing red heart under the eaves.

  I should go back downstairs, eat sausage rolls and speak about Miss Elphick in hushed tones. But I want to spend a few more minutes in here first. It’s almost as if R.M. Holland is protecting me against what lies below: secrets and threats and death itself. I get up and look at the photographs on the walls. They are all black and white, mostly showing men with beards and women with hooped dresses. There are a couple of university pictures: a large one entitled ‘Peterhouse 1832’ showing a crowd of students in gowns outside a college that looks just like St Jude’s, and another of four young men holding guns. ‘Peterhouse small bore club’ runs the handwritten message underneath. I wonder if people made jokes about the name even then.

  There are only two pictures of him alone. One shows him in this room, sitting in the chair now occupied by the scary dummy, and pretending to write. Who took it, I wonder? Alice, in a rare moment of domestic bliss? The other shows him in a deckchair on the lawn, where the netball court is now. He looks relaxed, legs stretched out in front of him, wearing a panama hat and raising a hand to the invisible photographer. I look at the caption underneath. ‘With Mariana,’ it says.

  But there’s no one else in the picture.

  I manage to slide into the dining room without being noticed. Mum is talking to her friend Debra; they are both alternately wiping their eyes and laughing so I presume they are talking about Miss Elphick. Tash and Vee are talking with some girls in my year. There aren’t that many students here and, with the exception of Vee, who goes to a different school and isn’t wearing uniform anyway, we all look rather self-conscious in our blue sweatshirts. I can’t see Patrick anywhere. I go over to the group. One girl, Isla Bates, is crying in that really fake way, wafting her hand over her eyes to dry the non-existent tears.

  ‘It’s just, like, so sad,’ she is saying. ‘I loved Miss Elphick.’

  ‘It is sad,’ says Tash, patting Isla on the back and crossing her eyes at me.

  ‘They’re saying the killer is still out there somewhere,’ says Isla’s friend, Paige.

  Of course the killer is still out there, I want to say. You don’t need to be a criminal mastermind to work that one out. Instead I say, ‘The detectives were at the funeral. The ones investigating the case.’

  Isla gives a little scream. ‘Where?’

  ‘They’re undercover,’ I say, straight-faced, ‘so you can’t spot them.’

  ‘They could be in this room,’ says Vee. ‘In fact, the killer could be here too.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Isla clutches her. ‘Seriously. Don’t.’

  I can’t stop myself looking over to where Mr Lewis is standing with Mr Sweetman. They are talking very intentl
y, heads together. Mr Lewis looks the same as ever — tall, a bit untidy, rather beaten down by life. He can’t be the murderer. Can he?

  ‘Did you see the Sweetman’s wife?’ says Paige. ‘Over there, in the black trouser suit. Talking to Miss Palmer.’

  I look over and see a slim blonde woman in sharply-cut trousers. She’s exactly the wife I would have picked out for our head teacher attractive but hard. Her aura is bright but insubstantial, sunlight reflecting on shallow water. Miss Palmer, who is really sweet, looks as if she is finding her hard-going.

  ‘She’s really pretty,’ says Isla. ‘What a shame.’ Isla is one of the girls who makes a big thing about fancying Mr Sweetman.

  ‘She’s a lawyer,’ I say. I think I’ve heard this from Mum.

  ‘They’ve got two really cute kids,’ says Paige. ‘My friend babysits sometimes.’

  ‘No way,’ says Isla, as if this is the most amazing news ever.

  Tash catches my eye. ‘Must go and see someone,’ she says, grabbing my arm. Vee follows us as we make our way through the crowd (there are still loads of people here, though I can’t see Miss Elphick’s family anywhere) towards Miss Hughes. She is standing on her own by the drinks table. But she doesn’t look awkward or lonely; she is smiling gently as if thinking benevolent thoughts.

  ‘Hallo, girls,’ she says. ‘Enjoying the funeral meats?’

  Miss Hughes is a vegan.

  ‘Isn’t that from Hamlet?’ I say. ‘Something about funeral baked meats?’

  ‘Clever girl,’ says Miss Hughes. ‘ “The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables”. It’s about Gertrude marrying again so soon after her husband’s death.’

  I can tell Vee is impatient with this. She hates it when I get a quote right. ‘Miss Hughes,’ she says, ‘who do you think killed Miss Elphick?’