The Stranger Diaries

by Elly Griffiths

  ‘The first bit is directly from the book,’ I say. ‘Up until Admirable woman.’ I’ve brought my copy with me, an old Dover edition with a cover showing a woman in a sumptuous white satin dress that Anne Catherick could never have afforded. I’ve marked the place and pass the book over to the two detectives.

  Neil reads with his mouth slightly open. Harbinder has scanned the page in seconds.

  ‘Well, our man has definitely read The Woman in White,’ she says. ‘If it is a man.’

  ‘It goes on a bit, doesn’t it?’ says Neil, weighing the book in his hand as if it’s a piece of meat.

  ‘Do you teach The Woman in White in school?’ asks Harbinder.

  ‘No. It’s not on the syllabus.’

  ‘What about with your adult students? Your creative writing classes?’

  ‘Sometimes. I use it as an example of the use of multiple narrators.’

  ‘Do you recognise anything else here?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘The Ravening Beast is the name of an unpublished book by R.M. Holland.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ says Neil.

  Harbinder answers him. ‘He’s the writer who used to live at the school. About a hundred years ago. His study’s on the top floor of the Old Building. He wrote that ghost story, The Stranger. It was on TV a few years back.’

  ‘So everyone would know about this . . . this Ravening Beast?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘We don’t teach R.M. Holland and he’s not on the syllabus, either. But even people who have heard of Holland won’t know of The Ravening Beast. It was never published and the manuscript has vanished. There are extracts in his diaries, that’s all.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ says Neil. ‘I thought only Adrian Mole wrote a diary but everyone’s at it.’

  Harbinder gives him a look. ‘Let’s concentrate on your diary, Clare. Who would have had access to it?’

  ‘Access?’ It seems such a stiff, legalistic word.

  Harbinder sighs patiently. ‘Who would have been able to write in your diary? Do you always keep it at home?’

  ‘No. I often take the current book to school. I write in my breaks sometimes.’

  ‘Did you take it with you this week?’

  ‘Yes.’ I’d been intending to write on Halloween, whilst waiting for the rehearsal to begin, but then I went up to Holland’s study and saw that figure in his chair. I went home immediately, leaving Anoushka to cope with Little Shop of Horrors.

  ‘Where do you keep it when you’re at school?’

  ‘In my bag or in my locker.’

  ‘Where’s the locker?’

  ‘In the English common room.’

  ‘Is it locked?’

  ‘No.’ The keys vanished long before I arrived at the school.

  ‘It’s not much of a locker, then, is it?’ says Neil, with an abrupt laugh.

  Harbinder ignores him. ‘We’ll need to take fingerprints of everyone in the English department,’ she says. ‘Handwriting samples too, to eliminate them. We already have yours but we’ll also need your daughter’s.’

  ‘Georgie’s?’

  ‘Yes. She’s the one at home with you. We need to eliminate her too.’

  That’s another chilling word. Eliminate. I think of the diary entry. I have already disposed of one of these creatures.

  I say, ‘Do you think the person who wrote this is the person who killed Ella?’

  Harbinder and Neil look at each other, as if deciding how much to tell me. Eventually Harbinder says, ‘There was a handwriting match between the first entry you showed me and the note found at the scene. There just weren’t enough words for it to be conclusive.’

  For a moment I’m genuinely afraid that I’m going to vomit or faint. It’s one thing to fear a thing for yourself, another to hear it confirmed in a matter-of-fact way by a Detective Sergeant. It’s as if the angel of death has flown over the room, flapping his grisly wings.

  Hell is empty.

  ‘But that doesn’t mean that this person,’ Harbinder taps my diary with her gloved hand, ‘is the perpetrator. It’s always a mistake to believe letters purporting to be from killers. That’s what held up the Yorkshire Ripper case, back in the seventies. They believed that “I’m Jack” tape and had voice experts analysing the accent, wasting hours of manpower, and it was just some nutter who wanted attention. That might be the case here too.’

  ‘But the note at the scene . . .’ I say.

  ‘Yes,’ says Harbinder, ‘that makes it a little more significant.’

  ‘Whoever wrote that had read The Stranger,’ I say. ‘Hell is empty is a key line in the story. It’s what they have to shout when they get to the ruined house.’

  ‘I remember,’ says Harbinder. ‘And a load of crap it was too. So the quote could be from The Stranger. But it seems more likely it’s from The Tempest — that’s a GCSE text, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘So anyone in the English department would be familiar with it?’

  ‘I suppose so. But you can’t think . . .’

  ‘We have to follow every line of investigation,’ says Neil. ‘We’ll need all your diaries too.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘How many are there?’ said Neil.

  ‘About thirty,’ I say. ‘I’ve been keeping a diary since I was eleven. On and off.’ That was the year I started secondary school. I was obsessed with a boy I used to see at the bus stop and almost every entry ends: Saw PB or Did Not See PB. I stopped keeping a diary when I was at university but started again when things started to sour with Simon. First entry of my new single state: Ten weeks since Simon left but I’ll never measure my life in terms of him again.

  ‘Why do you need them all?’ I ask.

  ‘We know someone wrote in at least one of your previous diaries,’ says Harbinder. ‘We need to check the rest out. Even if they didn’t write in them, they may’ve read them, left fingerprints.’

  I don’t want to give them my diaries. I imagine Harbinder reading them with that contemptuous smile lifting the corner of her mouth. Or regaling her colleagues with the choicest incidents. ‘Now she thinks she’s pregnant after a one-night stand with a taxi driver!’

  Neil obviously takes my silence for terror. And he’s not far wrong.

  ‘We’ll issue you some police protection,’ he says. ‘A patrol car will watch your house and we’ll give you a special number that you can ring if you’re worried.’

  ‘Do you really think I might be in danger?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ says Harbinder. ‘This person’ — she taps the book again — ’seems keen to protect you, if anything.’ After a pause she says, ‘Still, it might be just as well not to go out after dark.’

  I drive home in a state of shock. Has a murderer been reading my diary? Has he (I think of him as a he, while I noticed that Harbinder did not commit herself) been following my innermost thoughts, the feelings that I would be too embarrassed to express out loud? All the times I’ve resented Simon and Fleur, my petty jealousies at work, my ridiculous belief that I’m going to write a book? Did he read that awful entry about Ella? Was that why she was killed? I have already disposed of one of these creatures. It doesn’t bear thinking about. And someone had not only read my diary but written in it. The tiny, sinister script that apparently matched the note found by Ella’s body. Had the writer been close to me at work or at home? Was he, as the police seemed to think, someone I actually know?

  When I get home I have a raging headache and just want to go to bed with a hot water bottle and some aspirin. But I’m greeted by the pungent smell of frying mince and onions and, in the kitchen, Georgie and Ty are cooking.

  ‘We thought we’d cook you a proper Sunday lunch, Mum,’ says Georgie, tipping in a tin of tomatoes. ‘It was Ty’s idea.’

  Suddenly I think of my grandparents i
n Scotland, the table loaded with roast meat and potatoes. Everything golden and glistening, tasting strongly of itself. The blue and white gravy boat steaming in the centre. Today’s lunch seems to be spaghetti bolognaise, heavy on garlic and oregano. I’m still feeling slightly sick and my stomach churns at the thought of the meal to come but there’s no denying that it’s a very sweet gesture. Ty is chopping up a green pepper, taking a lot of care to keep the pieces the same size. Georgie has laid the table and made a rather lovely arrangement of holly and ivy. Herbert is watching her as she stirs the sauce. I don’t want him to get fat so never feed him scraps. Georgie does though and he’s expectant. He loves human food.

  ‘I brought some wine,’ says Ty. He wraps a napkin round the bottle like a proper barman and pours me a glass.

  ‘Thank you, Ty.’ I try not to take too big a gulp. Ty pours Georgie a glass too but I decide not to say anything.

  I need some ibuprofen but don’t want to take them with the wine so I force myself to sit at the table and chat. I try to find out whether Ty has ambitions beyond working in a pub and I’m pleased to find out that he is thinking of applying to university next year.

  ‘I’ve got A-Levels,’ he says. ‘English, IT and art. Not great grades but maybe I could get in to do English somewhere. I liked English at school. I had a really good teacher.’

  People often remember their English teacher fondly. It’s never maths or ICT. This is something that sustains me on the days when my Year 8, Group C, are being particularly devilish, the idea that one day a Booker prize winner will mention me in their acceptance speech.

  ‘You need good grades for English,’ says Georgie, rather tactlessly.

  Ty blushes. ‘Media Studies then. Or Creative Writing.’

  ‘Mum teaches creative writing,’ says Georgie. ‘Why don’t you go to her class?’

  Ty mutters something incomprehensible. I take pity on him and say, ‘Good luck. Let me know if I can help with your personal statement or anything.’

  ‘I might not go to university,’ says Georgie. ‘I might just travel or something like that.’

  Immediately my headache ratchets up several notches.

  ‘It’s too early to decide yet,’ I say. ‘You could travel and go to university. Take a gap year.’

  ‘Fleur went to Thailand on her gap year.’

  I bet she did. ‘There are lots of options,’ I say, keeping an encouraging smile firmly fixed on.

  ‘Anyway,’ says Georgie, ‘writers are born, not made.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I read it somewhere,’ says Georgie. ‘How can you tell if pasta is done? Do you have to throw it at the wall?’

  I manage to eat a good helping of the pasta. Ty has thirds and seems delighted with their culinary prowess. ‘It’s just like the sauce at Pizza Express,’ he keeps saying. Georgie scowls, perhaps realising that this is not the compliment he imagines it to be. There’s cheesecake to follow and Georgie even makes coffee in the machine, the way I like it. They won’t let me clear away either, so I go into the sitting room and toy with the Sunday paper. The magazine has gold and red stars on the cover and a model wearing a dress that seems to be made from bottle tops, the sort I used to collect for Blue Peter. ‘Five Fashion Fireworks’. Oh God, it’s November the fifth. Guy Fawkes Night. I’ll have Herbert shivering and whimpering all night as idiots set off bangers. We’re quite isolated here but you can hear the fireworks for miles. I often wonder if this was what it was like in Sussex in the war, hearing the guns from France.

  Ty leaves at five, just as the first rockets go off. Herbert jumps on the sofa and jams his head under my arm.

  ‘Poor baby,’ Georgie strokes him. ‘It’s just people commemorating someone being tortured to death, Herbie. Nothing to worry about.’ She says this every year.

  ‘Georgie,’ I say. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

  Instantly she looks wary, the good mood engendered by the meal fizzling away.

  ‘I went to see the police this morning,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to scare you, but they think there’s a chance that . . . a chance that Ella’s killer might be . . . well, interested in me.’

  ‘Interested in you?’ Georgie’s face is pale and her dark eyes (like mine, people say) are huge.

  ‘He wrote something,’ I say. ‘Something that was left at the scene of the crime.’ I don’t want to tell her about the diary; she might panic, imagine someone creeping into the house, pen in hand. Is that, in fact, what happened?

  ‘There’s going to be a police car outside the house,’ I say, ‘protecting us. And I’ve got a number to ring if I’m worried about anything. I’ll give it to you too. These are just precautions, however. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. The police are pretty close to finding the person who did it.’ I try to voice this outright lie with conviction.

  ‘Are they really?’

  ‘Yes. The police are very efficient these days, you know. It’s all forensics and stuff.’

  She still looks pale so I take her hand. ‘It’s all right, darling. We’ll be fine. But we must be sensible. I don’t want you coming home alone. I want you to wait for me at school.’

  Now she just looks mutinous. ‘What if you’ve got a rehearsal?’

  ‘You can work in the library.’

  ‘Great. Thanks very much.’

  ‘It’s not for long. Just until the police have made an arrest.’ Herbert whimpers behind the cushions as if he realises how unlikely this is.

  ‘Can I go to Tash’s?’

  ‘If you stay together. I’ll speak to her mum. Explain the situation.’

  ‘What about Ty? Can I still see him?’

  ‘I suppose so. As longs as he picks you up and drops you off.’ For the first time I’m glad that Ty is a fully grown man with a car. ‘Just be careful. Promise me that you will.’

  ‘I will,’ she says, pulling Herbert out from behind the cushions and putting him on her lap. ‘But I’m sure it will all be OK.’

  This is meant to be my line, I think.

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ I say.

  A crash outside makes all three of us jump and the sky explodes into multicoloured stars.

  Chapter 22

  I drop my diaries at the police station on my way to school. Last night, when I couldn’t sleep, I found myself reading the old volumes. A snapshot of the years.

  ‘Good day. Had swimming. Saw PB.’

  ‘I am more unhappy than I have ever been in my life. Karen told Alison who told ME that Peter is going out with Sue Frost, from Alleyns.’

  ‘Tomorrow I go to Bristol to start university. My whole life lies before me like a tapestry . . .’

  ‘I refuse to hate Simon because that way he wins but secretly I do hate him, with a passion beyond anything I felt when I loved him.’

  ‘Spoke to Rick today. Forced myself to say it plainly: there can never be anything between us. He asked if it was because he is married. I wanted to say no, it’s because you are you.’

  I leave the diaries in reception, which is like a grim version of Argos, full of desperate-looking people sitting in nailed-down chairs waiting to be called to talk to officials behind glass partitions. I don’t bother with taking a ticket and waiting my turn, I just leave my package, addressed to DS Kaur, on the front desk. I’m sure it’ll get to her.

  Georgie is waiting in the car. Our new regime starts today — I will take her to school and collect her. If I had my way, she would never be out of my sight. I rang Simon last night and told him a highly edited version: my name was found in a note possibly written by the killer and they are giving Georgie and me extra protection, but they don’t think we’re in any danger. Simon — predictably — started demanding that Georgie go and stay with him.

  ‘She can’t miss school,’ I said. ‘This is a vital year for her.’
>
  ‘I can homeschool her.’

  ‘You’re at work all day.’

  ‘Fleur can then.’

  ‘With two young children? She’d love that.’

  So Simon reluctantly gave way. Georgie’s going to him this weekend anyway. I have to admit that I’m quite relieved about this. I could laugh — or cry — when I think that I believed, in coming to Sussex, I was bringing Georgie up in a safe, rural community. Suddenly London seems far safer.

  As usual Georgie disappears as soon as we get through the gates of Talgarth. At least she’ll be safe here, I think. Year 11s aren’t allowed off-site anymore after a few shoplifting incidents in the village. I park in my usual space, by the gate. Ella used to park next to me and I still can’t get used to not seeing her sporty black Golf with its ‘Stronger in Europe’ sticker. Now her space is taken by Rick’s blue Volvo. I recognise the car instantly. I used to see it outside my house all the time. And, what’s worse, Rick is sitting in the driving seat. Waiting for me.

  I try to pretend that I haven’t seen him, taking my time getting my briefcase and coat out of the boot. When I straighten up, he’s there, standing behind me.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he says.

  ‘I’m running late,’ I say. The detour to the police station, while brief, had cost me fifteen minutes. It’s eight forty-five and the Monday briefing, run by Rick, is at ten to nine.

  He accompanies me as we walk towards the school.

  ‘The police want to see me again,’ he says. ‘They know about Hythe.’

  I don’t stop, skirting a group of students loafing by the double doors of the Old Building and heading for the stairs. ‘They read about it in my diary,’ I say, on the first step.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The police wanted my diaries,’ I say. ‘I’d written about you and Ella in Hythe.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  We’re climbing the stairs and I try not to look at him. I think of Alice Holland taking her ‘dying fall’ from the top landing, the shattered bannister, the sickening sound as the body hit the ground.