The Stranger Diaries

by Elly Griffiths

  I had a fairly good weekend with Dad. He’s a bit twitchy about Miss Elphick’s death; I don’t know how much Mum has told him. He’s putting a bit of pressure on me to live with them but I’m not sure that Fleur is all that keen on this plan. Still, she was very nice to me. We took the kids to the swimming pool on Saturday. Ocean, despite her name (ha!), was scared of the water but Tiger is like a little fish. I do love him. He’s so sweet and he adores me, following me everywhere. Fleur got a babysitter on Saturday night and we (me, Dad and F) went out for a meal in China Town.

  It was great. There were just two big tables and everyone sat together. There were no knives and forks, only chopsticks, and there wasn’t even a proper menu — dishes kept appearing as if by magic, steamy and fragrant. Dad was happy because there were lots of Chinese people eating there — he’s keen on things being ‘authentic’ — and I think that Fleur was just glad to be away from the kids. We only drank jasmine tea but it seemed to affect Fleur as if each cupful was a double vodka.

  ‘How’s your love life, Georgie?’ she asked, crunching a piece of prawn toast.

  ‘OK,’ I said carefully. ‘Still going out with Ty.’

  ‘Have you got a picture?’ I showed her one on my phone. Ty on the beach holding a lucky stone — the sort with a hole in the middle, witch stones Miss Hughes says they’re called — up to the light.

  ‘Wow, he’s gorgeous,’ said Fleur.

  ‘He’s too old for you,’ said Dad, somewhat predictably.

  ‘Mum doesn’t think so. She’s started to really like him.’ This was stretching things a bit but Mum had said that she preferred Ty to Patrick.

  ‘How is Mum?’ said Dad, in a really heavy voice. I hate it when he calls her that, without the pronoun. It’s disrespectful somehow.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, manoeuvring rice and prawns into my bowl and hoping he would pick up on the signal.

  Fat chance. ‘She must be under a lot of strain.’

  ‘She’s OK.’

  ‘What with her friend dying and everything. And she seems to think that someone’s watching her.’

  He made it sound as if Mum was seriously cracking up.

  ‘Is she seeing anyone?’

  ‘A psychiatrist, you mean?’

  ‘No.’ He sounded quite shocked. ‘Counsellor, therapist. Someone like that.’

  ‘No, she isn’t,’ I said.

  It was only later that I wondered if Dad was actually asking if Mum was seeing someone, as in ‘having a relationship with’. Now that would be seriously weird.

  The rest of the weekend was fine, though. On Sunday morning Fleur and I took the kids to the park and F cooked a delicious lunch. I did some homework in the afternoon, then Dad drove me home at about four.

  When we got in, we were met by Mum, who seemed determined to confirm all Dad’s worst fears about her.

  ‘Something awful has happened,’ she said, at the door.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ I said. ‘I had a great weekend. Thanks for asking.’

  ‘What is it?’ said Dad, the ‘now’ unspoken.

  ‘Rick. He’s been killed.’

  I stopped, halfway through greeting Herbert. ‘Mr Lewis?’

  ‘Yes. He’s been killed. Just like Ella.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Dad. ‘What’s going on at that school?’

  I thought this was a bit unfair considering Ella had been killed at home but it turned out that Mr Lewis’ body had been found at the school, actually in R.M. Holland’s study. Mum tried to stop me hearing this bit but, of course, I wasn’t about to be shut out of the conversation. I noticed that Mum was a bit cagey about who found Mr Lewis’ body. Could it have been her? And, if so, what was she doing wandering around the school at the weekend?

  When Dad eventually left, he whispered as he hugged me, ‘If you need me, I’ll come and get you, any time of the day or night.’ Mum poured herself a huge glass of wine and sat on the sofa to have a nervous breakdown. I raced upstairs to message the group. Mum had said that it was confidential but I knew it would get out soon. Sure enough, while we were WhatsApping, I got a text from school saying that it was closed tomorrow ‘due to unforeseen circumstances’.

  ‘OMG cant believe Mr L is dead.’ That was Tash.

  ‘Must be a cereal killer.’ That was Venetia. She can’t spell.

  Patrick was so quiet that I thought he’d gone but, about ten messages later, he came up with ‘this is some serious shit’.

  ‘whos next.’ Venetia. ‘omg tell yr mum to be careful G.’

  ‘dont be stupid,’ Patrick came back.

  ‘I just mean sone’s killin all the english teachers.’ You could tell that Venetia was offended.

  ‘We have to tell Miss Hughes,’ I typed. ‘She’ll know what to do.’

  After the chat had stopped, I got a private text from Patrick.

  ‘we need to talk.’

  I didn’t get to talk to Patrick until Tuesday. On Monday we had a huge panic because Herbert went missing. I took him out for a walk in the morning. We got to the field so I let him off the lead and he was off, sniffing and racing round in circles. I got a text from Patrick, stopped to answer it and, when I looked up, Herbert had disappeared. It was awful. I called him and called him. I thought that he must have gone home. But, when I got back, no Herbert. Mum and I went back to the field but he wouldn’t come, not even for his special whistle. We were panicking now. Mum told our two nice police ‘minders’ and they went off in the car, looking for him. I kept thinking that it was all my fault. If only I hadn’t looked down at my phone. But Patrick seemed in such a state, saying that the police were after him, that they were waiting outside his door. I wondered if he was making it up but it turns out that it was true. The police really had come round to his house.

  When Herbert still didn’t come back, Mum called scary DS Kaur and she actually came. I couldn’t believe it. And she was brilliant. She made us calm down and think logically. We went into the garden to check the shed and DS Kaur (Harbinder to us now) heard a dog barking. The sound turned out to be coming from the old factory. I was scared to go inside but Harbinder was fearless. She found an open door and in we went.

  I’ve long suspected that there are unquiet spirits in the factory. There’s a story that a little girl was drowned there, in the cement, and that you can hear her crying at night. I don’t know if this is true but there’s definitely a poltergeist at work. I’ve seen lights at night, heard strange noises and there’s a sadness about the place, as there is in the Old Building at school. When we got inside, the supernatural activity was like a miasma. Mum and Harbinder didn’t notice. They were on the trail of Herbert, regardless of anything else. It was funny, they suddenly seemed quite alike, both single-minded and brave. I felt like a child tagging along behind them but sometimes, as Miss Hughes says, we have to listen to our inner child.

  Eventually we found him, locked in a tiny room where someone had clearly been sleeping. Harbinder was obviously very excited about the rough sleeper. The police are probably going to try to pin the murder on him/her. Mum was just thrilled to have Herbert back. I was too. We took him to the vet because he’d hurt his paw and, when we got him home, we put him on a cushion in the sitting room and gave him all his favourite treats: bonios, squeaky toy, sweetened tea.

  I went upstairs to write and to message Patrick. I heard Harbinder come round at about six-thirty and the familiar gurgle as Mum poured them both wine. Is DS Kaur a family friend now? I like her and admire her but somehow I don’t want her too close. Her aura is blue like an old-fashioned police light. I think she’d stop at nothing to get to the truth.

  We were back at school the next day. The Old Building was closed and there was actual police tape over the main doors. Everyone was very over-excited and, what with us all being crammed together in the crappy New Building, the atmosphere was febrile in the extreme. Patrick and
I just managed a few words before I went into registration.

  ‘Everyone thinks I’m a murderer.’ He looked wilder than ever, his eyes shadowed, his hair unwashed. I noticed that he was getting stubble too.

  ‘They don’t,’ I said.

  ‘Everyone’s looking at me.’

  ‘They’re probably wondering why we’re whispering together. They probably think we’re going out.’

  He laughed then. ‘I’m going to finish with Rosie. It’s not fair on her.’

  ‘Don’t be so melodramatic.’

  ‘I mean it, Georgie. Perhaps you and I should be together. Ty’s too old for you.’

  ‘You sound like my dad.’

  ‘I mean it. He doesn’t understand you. I do. We’re the same, you and me.’

  ‘See you later,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to go into class now.’

  Some things are best left unsaid.

  Mr Sweetman did another one of his special assemblies. He said that we mustn’t dwell on how Mr Lewis died but remember how he had lived. Fat chance of that. Everyone was obsessed with the murder. One person actually asked me if I thought my mum had done it.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I said. ‘Because she really wanted to be head of English.’

  Most people, though, believed in the crazed serial killer scenario.

  ‘What if it’s an ex-student?’ said Paige. ‘Ronnie Bellows really hated Mr Lewis and he was dead creepy. He always wore black and he listened to heavy metal.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘Case solved. Are you going to ring the police or shall I?’

  It struck me that I could actually ring the police. I had Harbinder’s special ‘panic number’ on my phone.

  Patrick and I met up at lunchtime. We wanted to go to the graveyard but the teachers were being really strict about not letting us go out of bounds. It was like that bit in Harry Potter when they think that the basilisk is loose in Hogwarts; teachers patrolling the corridors in twos, the caretakers manning the gates, everyone talking about who the culprit might be. We ended up in the art room. Patrick said that he had to work on his GCSE art coursework and I claimed to be working on a history project.

  We sat there surrounded by terrible self-portraits painted by the Year 7s. The room smelled of oil paint and pencils, which was curiously comforting. Patrick’s coursework was really very good. It was a seascape with a huge figure rising up out of the water, all greys and blues and baleful sky. It reminded me of a book I had read as a child, The Iron Man.

  ‘It’s Shoreham beach on a good day,’ he said. I saw that he’d signed the picture ‘Puma’, his science fiction alter ego.

  ‘I wish I lived nearer to the sea,’ I said.

  ‘You wouldn’t like it where I am,’ he said. ‘Most of the houses are chalets and holiday homes. No one really lives there. It’s too quiet in the daytime and the fog horns are on all night.’

  ‘What happened yesterday?’ I said. ‘You said that the police came round.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘They’d caught me on CCTV outside Miss Elphick’s house.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘Do they think you killed her?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I told them about seeing Mr Lewis and they seemed interested in that. He could have murdered Miss Elphick but now he’s dead too. The police probably think I killed both of them.’

  ‘Do you have an alibi for Saturday night?’

  I couldn’t believe I was asking this. I was actually asking my friend if he had an alibi for a murder. Patrick turned away so that I couldn’t see his face.

  ‘Yes. This is why I wanted to talk on Sunday. Vee came round.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s nothing going on between us,’ he said, but I thought he sounded very defensive. ‘I was on my own and I was lonely. Rosie’s parents wouldn’t let her go out. You were in London with your dad. I texted Vee and she came round.’

  ‘How long did she stay?’

  ‘She slept over.’

  I said nothing. On the one hand, I was shocked and not all that pleased. I didn’t believe for a second that nothing was going on between Patrick and Venetia. They might not be ‘going out’ but they were definitely sleeping together. I was furious that Venetia had lost her virginity before me and kept it a secret. Neither of them had breathed a word on MySecretDiary. On the other, I was glad Patrick had a good alibi.

  ‘I should go,’ I said.

  Patrick caught hold of my hand. ‘Don’t be angry, Georgie. It’s you I love.’

  ‘Stop saying that,’ I said. ‘You don’t love me. We’re like brother and sister.’

  ‘Vee says that she was my twin sister in a former life. She says we have the same soul.’

  ‘I think you’ll find that twins have their own souls.’

  Patrick was still holding my hand. ‘I’m so messed up, Georgie. I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask your twin sister Venetia?’

  ‘Don’t be angry,’ he said again. ‘Vee said you’d be angry if I told you.’

  ‘I’m not angry.’

  I was furious.

  Mum was still driving me home every day. She seemed very distracted, which was only to be expected, I suppose. We collected Herbert from Doggy Day Care and, as soon as we got in, I escaped upstairs. I was typing my diary entry when I heard Herbert barking and voices downstairs. DS Kaur. Auntie Harbinder. Our new best friend.

  I crept out and sat on the stairs, listening. Harbinder was talking about ‘forensics found at the scene’. She had a list of what she called ‘significant objects’ that had been found in R.M. Holland’s study the night when Mr Lewis was killed. She wanted Mum to tell her if she’d seen any of them. So Mum had been the one to find the body. I knew it.

  ‘There were three candles on the desk and some leaves and petals from a potpourri.’

  ‘I don’t remember seeing . . .’ Mum’s voice was indistinct.

  ‘And CSI found this. Here’s a photo from the scene.’

  God, I wished that I could see what it was. Luckily Mum asked the question.

  ‘I looked it up. Apparently it’s a stone called black obsidian.’

  Chapter 36

  I knew what I had to do. I had to see Miss Hughes. Unfortunately that was easier said than done. Mum was still watching me like a hawk and collecting me from school every day. Eventually I had to take Tash partly into my confidence. I just told her that I needed to see Miss Hughes privately and urgently. I think she assumed it was about creative writing. Tash asked her mother if I could come home with her after school on Thursday. The mothers conferred and said yes. It was agony waiting two days. I went out with Ty on Wednesday night, just for a drink in Steyning. We had a good time but I kept thinking about what Patrick had said, that I should be with him and not Ty. Is this true? I do feel a connection with Patrick that I don’t feel with Ty but, on the other hand, I feel safe with Ty and I don’t always with Patrick. Ty brought me home on the dot of ten and Mum was really nice to him, inviting him in for hot chocolate and asking him about his work and his grandparents. It was a bit cringy but I could see she meant well.

  On Thursday Tash and I left school together and waited at the Chichester bus stop. Tash got off at her stop but I stayed on the bus until it got to the sixth-form college. West Sussex sixth-form is like the New Building at Talgarth, modern and featureless with lots of glass and plastic everywhere. Mum approves of it because it gets good exam results but I’m rather dreading going there. At Talgarth I might be ‘Miss Cassidy’s daughter’ but at least I’m someone. At sixth-form college I think I could disappear altogether. In the prospectus they say they ‘treat their students like adults’, but that’s overrated, in my opinion. The only bright point would be being taught by Miss Hughes.

  I’d told her that I was coming and she was waiting in one of the classrooms. They’re all the same. This one was called something like B2 11-C. Goodness knows why.

  Miss Hughes was marking
papers but she got up when I came in. I was so pleased to see her. Unlike other people, she never changes. Her hair was in its neat grey bun and she was wearing a pinkish jumper with a frilly collar. Mum would have said that she looked ‘frumpy’ but, to me, she was just right. Safe and ageless.

  ‘Georgia.’ She never shortens my name. ‘How are you, my dear?’

  ‘I’m OK.’ I sat down opposite her. ‘Well . . . not really.’

  ‘Relax, Georgia. Breathe.’

  I closed my eyes. The classroom smelled like classrooms everywhere but Miss Hughes’ presence made it a safe place. I tried to breathe more slowly. Her voice was very soft and gentle.

  ‘What is it, Georgia?’

  I opened my eyes. ‘It’s about Patrick,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, you have discovered his true feelings for you.’

  ‘No. Yes.’ I was a bit thrown, to be honest. I had never thought of Miss Hughes caring who fancied whom. And, until that bizarre moment before class when he suggested we should be together, followed by his weird declaration in the art room, I had never thought of Patrick fancying me.

  ‘It’s about Mr Lewis’ murder. You know about that?’

  ‘Yes. A policewoman even came to visit me here.’

  ‘DS Kaur?’

  ‘A bright young woman but an angry one.’

  That sounded like Harbinder.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Patrick told me something . . .’ I told her about Patrick and Miss Elphick. About him seeing Mr Lewis outside her house that night. About Patrick spending the night with Vee and about the black obsidian being found in the study.

  ‘It was one of the stones you gave us for protection,’ I said. ‘It has to be.’

  She looked at me for a long time, really looked, her blue eyes both mild and terrifying. Then she said, ‘Have you mentioned this to anyone else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you heard the detective say that the stone had been found at the crime scene?’