8 Top Marks for Murder

by Robin Stevens

  ‘And remember Paris,’ I said. ‘If you do find any men who fit, do everything you can to find out whether they or their wives have recently been to Paris. And whether they smoke!’

  ‘Yes, exactly!’ said Daisy. ‘Now, I want reports from you all at the end of the night – and I want proper investigation, detectives. No shoddy work!’

  Kitty rolled her eyes. ‘You never trust us,’ she said.

  ‘With good reason!’ snapped Daisy. ‘No one is as good at observation as I am, not even Hazel, and I have been training her for two years.’

  ‘Training me!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’ve been a detective for exactly as long as you have.’

  ‘Hush, Watson,’ said Daisy. ‘You have improved marvellously in that time. And, Beanie – remember that you are a crucial part of this mission. As well as all that, you must be looking about you all the time for the man you saw. I know you say you didn’t get a good look at him, but posture and gestures are everything.’

  ‘Yes, Daisy,’ said Beanie, frowning and chewing her plait. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Daisy. ‘Really, this mystery man doesn’t stand a chance!’

  7

  For me, that afternoon was made of lists. I copied out what seemed like endless names, until I really felt I knew every person who would be stepping through Old Wing door that evening. And it was a good thing I did … but I only discovered that later.

  I had given Kitty, Beanie and Lavinia their own parents to watch – it seemed only fair – and I gave Daisy Amina’s people, for I knew she would be watching them jealously anyway, whatever her list said. Beanie had the couples from the first-form parents, Lavinia had the second formers’, Kitty had the third formers’. Daisy had the rest of the fourth form and the fifth form, and I had the Council members and Big Girls’ parents. I also – privately – memorized the names of the single men and women, which included Clementine’s father. Of course, it seemed likely that Beanie was right, and she had seen a married couple – but what if she had not? What if the pair she had seen were both on the RSVP list, but not as a couple? Or what if the victim was a woman who was never supposed to arrive at Deepdean, although the man was? Or the other way round – the woman was a guest on the RSVP list, but the man was not? We had only found one invitation in the woods, after all, and we had no way of knowing whether it had belonged to the man or the woman. I have detected enough cases not to know that we should never make assumptions. But I did not say so to Daisy, not when her eyes were so bright and there was a skip in her step at last, not when she was in control of a case, and of the Detective Society, and happy.

  The afternoon passed in a blur and I was not the only one distracted. The school was fizzing with excitement about that evening’s concert. It was rumoured that some really rather famous Old Girls would be performing – most excitingly Artemis Turnbull, the opera singer. Half-melodies came faltering and floating out of the music practice rooms, and the corridors echoed with singing. Sophie Croke-Finchley was missing from lessons, of course, to prepare for her piano solo, and Beanie was also missing, for she was a member of the choir. (‘Who wants to sing in the choir!’ said Daisy to me. ‘No one notices you!’)

  In English, Miss Dodgson was so distracted that she set us Big Girl work by mistake, a composition on someone called A. E. Housman, who none of us had ever heard of. We stared at Miss Dodgson’s title (‘Terence, this is stupid stuff.’ Explain why we should care about poetry) blankly.

  ‘Is that a poem?’ Daisy hissed, unimpressed. ‘If it is, I don’t see the point.’

  We all sat paralysed, none of us willing to point out that we had never even read the poem. Luckily, just then Miss Dodgson caught sight of Miss Lappet outside the classroom and leaped up to speak to her about adjustments to the walking play, leaving us free to talk.

  ‘My papa’s coming tonight,’ said Clementine smugly. ‘So’s Sophie’s parents and Amina’s. What about your people, Daisy?’

  Lavinia kicked her chair.

  ‘Busy,’ said Daisy unconcernedly. ‘But my uncle’s coming to Leaving Prayers.’

  I was quite sure that was a lie. I tried not to make a face at her.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, though, does it?’ asked Amina, turning round in her chair to stare at us. ‘Whether or not they’re here, I mean. My parents are always telling me to be good and not wicked, even though they’re hardly perfect themselves. But if they weren’t here, I’d miss them. It’s bad either way. You know.’

  And she smiled at Daisy.

  Daisy glared back at her. ‘I don’t know anything,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Oh …’ said Amina, blinking, ‘See here, I was only trying to be nice!’

  There was a frozen pause, during which the whole form looked from Daisy to Amina and back again.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Lavinia at last, ‘Sophie’s going to bungle her solo, I know she is.’

  ‘Hey!’ said Clementine, and the tension was broken. We knew how to behave when there was nothing more than dorm pride at stake, and, as we all began to rag each other as usual, I felt quite relieved.

  After dinner, we trooped down to school in a tidy crocodile, a little too warm in our formal blazers and hats under the early evening sun. English summer days stretch on for ever, the sky still a clean blue until hours after lights out, the sun striking onto our faces before the wake-up bell sounds. It makes me feel a little dizzy, as though I never really sleep, and I felt rather dizzy now – and not only from the lonely knowledge that my parents, and Daisy’s, would not be there that evening. After all, we were on a case. Had the Inspector really listened to my telephone call? Had he really believed me, and would he come and help us?

  Each of the Detective Society members were clutching lists in their hands. It ought to be simple, I thought: one victim, one suspect, one crime; but my thoughts were in a tangle that only became more knotted the more I worried at them. Say we discovered that one of the fathers was unexpectedly without his wife. How could we be sure that we knew the reason for it? How could we prove what he had done? We had a hat, a few smudged footprints, an invitation and a matchbox – and our word; the word of five silly, scared schoolgirls …

  … And then we were stepping through Old Wing entrance, and my thoughts were cut short, because we found ourselves in an atmosphere that at first felt quite unlike the Deepdean I know.

  Old Wing entrance hall is large and square, with wooden floors and wood-panelled walls. Usually the effect is rather like stepping into an echoing, school-smelling box. But this evening it was very different. A long piece of plush red carpet had been unrolled across the floor, and candles glowed on long, thin candelabras. And the whole space was absolutely swarming with grown-ups.

  Fathers and mothers in beautiful clothes circled about, clustering together in chattering groups. They looked so imposing and sensible, just like people at my father’s parties back in Hong Kong. I tried to remind myself of what Daisy and I have learned – that simply appearing old and important does not mean you really are – but it was rather difficult in the circumstances.

  Miss Lappet, her ship-like figure encased in a beetle-shiny purple dress, was standing with her feet together, nodding and smiling with all her teeth at the grown-ups as they went by, and next to her was our cool, elegant headmistress, Miss Barnard, her hair newly waved, and wearing a soft grey silk gown, saying a gentle word to each set of parents as they arrived.

  Just behind her was another tall, thin woman in a long-sleeved black dress, her striking, sharp-featured face looking oddly familiar – and then she and Miss Barnard both made the same little motion with their lips and I understood what I was seeing.

  ‘That’s Miss Barnard’s sister!’ whispered Kitty to me. ‘Her name is Mrs Rivers!’

  I realized I knew Mrs Rivers – her name was on my list of single women, one of the Council members. I had imagined her as old – a white-haired lady who looked rather like our friend Alexander’s grandmoth
er – but in real life her hair was dark and her face a more interesting version of Miss Barnard’s. She was very beautiful for a grown-up, and a wedding ring with a large ruby glinted on her finger.

  ‘She’s on the school Council,’ Kitty was still whispering. ‘Her husband was the head, but he died last year and she’s taken over. She’s meant to be awfully fierce. She was the one who made sure Barny was hired.’

  I stared at Mrs Rivers with interest. I wondered whether this was why Miss Barnard was always so calm and serene – because her sister was determined enough for both of them.

  Daisy motioned to Kitty, Beanie and Lavinia, and we all crowded around her.

  ‘All right, Detectives!’ she whispered. ‘The game’s afoot. Use your lists – and in the event you do find a likely suspect, investigate him thoroughly. Be charming, be rude, be confused – I don’t mind, as long as you make sure that he doesn’t get away without explaining why he’s alone. Ready?’

  We all nodded.

  ‘Then let’s go!’ cried Daisy.

  And our mission began.

  8

  Despite my recent practice at the Rue, I am still nervous when faced with this sort of bold detective work. For a while, everyone seemed to mix up into a tall, chattering, well-dressed blur, and then I began to pick out faces from the crowd.

  Daisy moved towards a round, calm woman who looked just like Rose and Jose, and a man with glasses who looked exactly like Sophie Croke-Finchley. Next to them were a man and a woman who stood out starkly from the rest of the pink-and-white tweedy mothers and fathers.

  They both had light-brown skin, and clothes that I could tell were expensive. The woman was wearing a pretty little cloche attached to a wispy chiffon scarf that was tied under her chin, and matching gloves, and the man was in a high felt hat. They were talking together as they stared at the crowd, and the man was smoking an elegant cigarette. They looked rather proud and unapproachable, but then the man bent and whispered something into the woman’s ear, and her face creased up in a huge smile. Of course, it wasn’t hard to guess whose parents they were, but that grin left me in no doubt. These were Mr and Mrs El Maghrabi, Amina’s parents. I should not have been watching them, but I was too fascinated to look away.

  ‘Mama! Baba!’ cried Amina, rushing up to them with her arms out, her smile just as wide as her mother’s.

  I saw one mother whisper something to another, pursing her lips disapprovingly, and felt myself bristle, for I knew what they were saying. Not quite nice, not quite English – all the things they might say about my parents. And for the first time I wondered whether it was in fact a good thing that my father was not here. I saw that Amina knew what the whispering people were saying, and I saw that she had decided not to care, and I wondered, suddenly, if her dramatic stories were calculated to make herself defiantly stand out, just like our friend George’s clothes do.

  My eye was suddenly drawn away from the El Maghrabis to a slender, fair-haired man in a beautifully tailored suit. He looked like someone I knew, I thought, or perhaps that was just because he was so handsome. He moved like something coiled and ready to spring, and I saw mothers flutter as he passed them and fathers gaze at him open-mouthed. I thought for a moment that he was on his own, but then an equally tall and handsome dark-haired woman in a beautiful long-sleeved dress, a bright silk scarf knotted jauntily about her neck, parted the lookers and gigglers. He took her hand, pulled her to him and kissed her on the cheek in front of everyone. I blushed.

  ‘That’s Mr and Mrs Thompson-Bates!’ said Daisy, suddenly beside me. ‘Lallie Thompson-Bates’s people. Lavinia’s playing her in the exhibition match tomorrow, you know. The father’s an awfully good tennis player. He goes to Wimbledon every year and he nearly beat Bunny Austin last time.’

  ‘Oh! I’ve seen him in Lavinia’s tennis magazines,’ I said, realizing.

  ‘Quite so,’ said Daisy. ‘Now, stop gaping at Kitty’s ruled-out suspects and try to find some of your own, if you please.’

  ‘What about you?’ I asked her. ‘Why are you talking to me instead of investigating?’

  ‘I am giving you some much-needed guidance,’ said Daisy. ‘Also, Sophie’s mother just walked in so her father’s ruled out. Ooh, look, there’s Pippa Daventry’s father! Remember that rumour about him having a secret wife in Australia during our case last year? Perhaps he’s murdered her! Oh no, bother, there’s his wife in that awful pink outfit. Well, that’s one to cross off your list.’

  Then I caught sight of someone rather more promising. This man was tall and red-haired, and he made me think of a sleek wicked fox. He was smoking a cigarette, and quite alone – that is, until the Big Girl Jennifer Stone went running up to him squealing, ‘Daddy!’

  ‘That’s Mr Stone!’ said Daisy. ‘Is he one of your suspects, Hazel? I happen to know through Uncle Felix that although he pretends to be a banker, he is secretly a smuggler – remember I told you about him during our first case?’

  ‘He’s not on my list of couples,’ I said, showing her. ‘He was only ever supposed to arrive on his own.’

  ‘Bother!’ said Daisy. ‘Ooh, hold on, there’s Astrid Frith with a man— Excuse me!’

  She wriggled away through the crowd, and I was left watching Jennifer Stone and her father. What if the murderer was a single man, as I had thought?

  ‘… Little Jenny Wren!’ Mr Stone was saying. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Like you care!’ Jennifer grumbled. ‘You didn’t come last exeat, and you told me you would.’

  ‘Now, look, I couldn’t help that. I was travelling – you know how it is. Paris one day, Rome the next. But I’m here now, aren’t I?’

  Jennifer scowled, but I felt electrified. Paris! And recently too! I could not ignore that – I would be a bad detective if I did. I took out my other list and circled Mr Stone’s name.

  Daisy came darting back up and seized my arm. ‘One for you! Alice Murgatroyd’s father’s alone, and he shouldn’t be!’ she said. ‘Mrs Murgatroyd was on the RSVP list. I heard him telling Alice that her mother is “off learning mysticism in India”, which is exactly the sort of thing you would say if you’d just killed her in the woods.’

  Alice was a Big Girl who was rather hard and cool (she smuggled cigarettes into House every term and was quite rude to younger girls), but all the same, I thought, she did not deserve to lose her mother. No one did. I circled Mr Murgatroyd’s name on my list.

  Then we all heard Beanie shriek.

  We turned round, hearts pounding, and saw her running into the arms of a large bald man in a very loud checked suit. He did not look as though he belonged at Deepdean any more than Mr and Mrs El Maghrabi did – he was burly and (I knew that this was what the other parents were thinking as they stared at him) rather common-looking, but it was clear that Beanie did not care in the slightest.

  ‘Daddy!’ she shrieked, kissing him on both cheeks.

  ‘My little Becky!’ he said affectionately, ruffling her hair. ‘Not so little any more – look at you!’

  Then Beanie stepped backwards and looked about, and her expression changed. I watched it fall, from excited joy to frightened confusion.

  ‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘where’s Mummy?’

  9

  I reached out to seize Daisy’s hand, and found that she was already reaching for mine. We clung to each other in horror as Mr Martineau said, ‘Oh, Becky, I’m so sorry to disappoint you. Mummy isn’t feeling very well again. We were all packed to come, and then she had a funny turn and … well, she’s had to go back into hospital for a few days. But she wanted me to tell you that she loves you, and she wishes she could be here.’

  ‘But she promised,’ said Beanie emptily, her lip trembling. ‘She promised she’d be here, she promised, and so did you.’

  ‘Now, you know Mummy’s not been well. You know that.’

  ‘BUT YOU PROMISED ME!’ Beanie shouted at him, shaking her hands out of his grasp, and she went running away towards the Old Wing cloakroom.r />
  The rest of the Detective Society went pounding after her. We were missing the opportunity to watch our suspects further – but, despite what Daisy says, some things are more important than the case at hand.

  We found Beanie hiding behind a clump of coats and sobbing.

  ‘I’m not crying,’ she said loudly. ‘Only babies cry and we’re almost fifth formers now.’

  ‘BEANIE!’ said Kitty, and she went diving behind the coats and dragged out Beanie, who looked very mournful.

  ‘I just thought Mummy would be here,’ she said. ‘She was supposed to be here.’

  Daisy and I looked at each other. Mrs Martineau was supposed to be getting better – that was what we had been told, although exactly what illness she had was mysterious to us. But if she was getting better, why was she not here?

  And it was impossible to ignore that we had been looking out for a husband without his wife, and here one was. The fact that he was the father of one of the Detective Society’s members was a horrid shock, but not enough to rule him out.

  ‘Here,’ said Lavinia roughly, and I could see she had had the same thought. ‘If you want to know more suspects, Mr North’s alone, just like the list said he’d be. Very suspicious. And I just saw my father come in without stupid Patricia. He might be the murderer. Wouldn’t that be a turn-up for the books?’

  Both Daisy and I flinched, and tried not to look at each other. ‘Don’t be an ass, Lavinia. You don’t want parents who are murderers,’ said Daisy quickly. ‘That’s not a nice thing to say. But if he’s here alone, then he’s certainly a suspect.’

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Beanie, ‘but it wasn’t Mummy and Daddy I saw. I’d have recognized them anywhere, and it wasn’t them. I’m not upset because I think they’re mixed up in this case. It’s not that at all! It’s just – Mummy was supposed to be BETTER!’