The Understudy

by Sophie Hannah

  I follow the path indicated and arrive after a nearly ten-minute walk at a large building with a porticoed front. There’s a solid oak door that looks as if it must weigh about thirty tons and require an army to pull it open. Nothing I do with its handle can persuade it to move.

  I ring the bell to the right of the door and wait.

  After about half a minute, the door is opened by a middle-aged woman with tortoiseshell-framed glasses on a chain around her neck and a helmet of silver hair. ‘May I help you?’ she asks me with a cautious smile. She’s wearing a pale blue suit with a black cowl-neck jumper. There are two strings of pearls around her neck that look real. Her shoes, perfectly coordinated with the rest of her outfit, are black with blue bows on them.

  My mind flies immediately to a problem I don’t yet have and probably never will: What will Carolyn Mordue the musical theater librettist wear? She’ll need a very different wardrobe from Carolyn Mordue the law professor, who hasn’t had her unruly hair professionally done in years, who wears black trousers, scuffed black slip-on pumps, and whatever blouse happens to fall out of the wardrobe first. Professor Carolyn doesn’t give a toss what she looks like, but I want to go into my new career, assuming I get to have one, looking perfect for my role, like this woman standing in front of me. I don’t know who she is or what she does here, but everything about her hair, outfit, and manner tells me that she’s somebody very senior at one of the most expensive and prestigious boarding schools in the country and that it would be almost impossible for her to be anything or anywhere else. What does Andrew Lloyd Webber wear most days? Maybe if I . . .

  For God’s sake, focus, woman!

  ‘My name’s Carolyn Mordue,’ I say with a smile.

  ‘Lovely to meet you. I’m Audrey McBeath, the deputy head of Villiers. Who are you here to see?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m here without any sort of appointment, in the hope of talking to somebody—no one in particular, just anyone who can help—about one of your former pupils.’

  ‘Ah! Adrianna de Miquel, no doubt.’

  ‘No. Not her.’

  ‘Really?’ Audrey McBeath raises her eyebrows. ‘You’re not a journalist, then?’

  ‘Nope. Law Professor, University of Cambridge. Much duller.’ My credentials worked with Simon Lowings. I can’t believe the Deputy Head of Villiers would be immune to the ‘Professor at Cambridge’ effect.

  ‘And which former pupil are you here about? We have quite a few famous ones, though none quite so stellar as Adrianna.’

  ‘Lisa Daisley. Does that name ring any bells?’

  ‘Of course,’ Audrey McBeath says smoothly. ‘We rarely forget our girls, particularly not those who come here on full scholarships as Lisa did. Her family were poor as the proverbial church mice, but Lisa was—is—extremely bright. I remember her well.’

  ‘How long was she a pupil here?’

  ‘Her whole school career.’

  And you didn’t like her.

  I don’t know why I’m so sure I’m right. Audrey McBeath has done and said nothing unprofessional or untoward. Still, I trust my instincts.

  ‘So, that would be . . . what? Age eleven or twelve to sixteen? Eighteen?’

  ‘No, our girls start in Year Nine. And most, though not all, stay to do A-levels here. Lisa did. She left after Year Thirteen.’

  ‘So, aged eighteen?’

  ‘That’s right. What’s your interest in Lisa?’

  ‘I’m happy to tell you, but it’s kind of a long story,’ I say. ‘Is there any chance . . .?’ I nod at the cavernous flagstone-floored entrance hall behind her.

  ‘Of course. Do come in.’ She opens the door wider and stands back. ‘How rude of me to keep you on the doorstep. I’m afraid my office is full of workmen’s stepladders at the moment. Oh, don’t ask, or I might cry.’ She does the opposite and laughs. ‘They were supposed to be finished two weeks ago. This way—we’ll go to Deryn’s office instead.’

  I follow her along two wood-paneled corridors. Framed drawings and paintings line the walls, most of them about a hundred times more original and better executed than the hackneyed dross and pretentious non-art I see in the windows of, respectively, Cambridge and London art galleries. ‘You evidently have talented students,’ I say.

  ‘Hm? Oh, the pictures! Yes, art is one of our strengths. Actually, we’re equally strong in the sciences, but we can’t put that on the walls. Ha!’

  I wonder if Lisa Daisley was good at art, and if any of her paintings are on these walls. As I walk alongside Audrey McBeath, I imagine how I would feel if I turned a corner and saw a portrait in oils of Fake Imogen and Bronnie Richardson, arms linked. Self Portrait With Evil Plot Bestie by Lisa Daisley.

  I shake my head at my own foolishness as Audrey says, ‘Here we are!’ There’s a gold plaque on the door that says Deryn Simmons, Head Teacher. With the corridors being as beautiful as they are, I’m expecting great things from the room I’m about to walk into.

  I’m not disappointed. There are large, mullioned bay windows with a view of the most perfect rectangular green lawn I’ve ever seen. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, many bowed in the middle, cover two whole walls. In front of these there’s a semi-circle of armchairs, and, on the other side of the room, a tall gray filing cabinet, a large leather-topped desk, and a high-backed leather chair. Behind these, with hardly any space between them, are several rows of framed official Villiers school photographs, each of which looks as if it contains the entire school population, teachers and pupils, all sitting in rows. It’s slightly dizzying to look at: all those tiny dot-faces.

  ‘Is Lisa Daisley in one of those?’ I ask Audrey, nodding at the pictures.

  ‘Probably several. She was here for many years. Please, do sit down. Would you like some tea or coffee?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  When she perches on the edge of the desk instead of sitting behind it or in one of the comfy chairs, I decide that I didn’t imagine the very subtle tone of discouragement in her voice when she asked if I wanted a drink. She wanted me to say no. She’s been perfectly friendly, but she wants me to leave sooner rather than later.

  Why? Because she’s busy, or because of my interest in Lisa Daisley?

  ‘Tell me about Lisa,’ I say.

  ‘What do you want to know? I’ve already told you, she’s very bright and comes from a family with no money to speak of. Why are you interested in Lisa, if you don’t mind my asking? Has she . . .’

  ‘Has she done something? Is that what you were going to say?’

  My question is met with a rather desperate smile. ‘I’m wondering how I can help you, that’s all.’

  I don’t see any point in stalling. ‘This might take a while,’ I warn her.

  She walks over and sits in the chair beside me. ‘I have some time,’ she says.

  ‘There’s been some trouble at my daughter’s school, which started when a new girl, Imogen, arrived.’ I tell her about the music box, the pill bottle with the wrong name on it, the fall downstairs, the graffiti, the noose, the slate, all the strange comments Fake Imogen made. ‘The head of the school did nothing to help us,’ I say bitterly. ‘We—me and three other mums—were the ones who found out that Imogen wasn’t who she was pretending to be. We were the ones who sent her packing.’ In case Audrey hasn’t already worked it out, I add, ‘She was Lisa Daisley.’

  ‘I see,’ says Audrey McBeath.

  ‘Can you think of any reason why Lisa would do something like that?’

  ‘No. No, I can’t.’

  I wait for her to say more. That better not be all she has to offer.

  Eventually, seeing that I’m waiting, she says, ‘I can’t say I knew Lisa hugely well when she was here—and the actor you spoke to, he’s right in a way. She wasn’t an easy girl to get to know. Her parents . . . As my colleagues and I always say: You meet the parents and suddenly the children make perfect sense.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Lisa’s moth
er was rather brusque and critical. And her father was extremely socially awkward. They both were, really. A peculiar family. Ah, well!’ She pats her lap.

  It’s a signal for me to leave, now that she’s satisfied her curiosity.

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell me about Lisa that might be of use to me?’ I ask.

  ‘Use for what purpose? I don’t quite understand . . . You say that she joined your daughter’s school under false pretenses, so . . . presumably she’s now been removed and won’t be causing any problems in future?’

  ‘Is the name Ruby Donovan familiar to you?’ I ask her.

  ‘No. Not at all. Who is she?’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘How about Bel—Annabel Richardson? Or Bronnie Richardson?’

  ‘Never heard of either of them.’

  ‘Elise or Sadie Bond?’

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘Someone’s been helping Lisa to do all these horrible things to other girls, and I thought, if you maybe recognized any of those names as someone who had some connection to Lisa . . . but clearly you don’t, so . . .’ I break off with a heavy sigh. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure why I’m here. I just . . . all this confusing stuff has happened and I want to try to work out what the hell’s going on.’

  I stand up, walk over to the window, and stare out at the grass. When I’m sure that Audrey can’t see any part of my face, I introduce a tremor into my voice, to give the impression that I might be crying. ‘I thought if I could find someone who had known Lisa, who maybe knew what made her tick . . .’

  ‘I quite understand,’ says Audrey, ‘but I’m afraid . . .’

  ‘Oh, it’s not your fault,’ I say. ‘It’s just that my daughter was bullied last year, and the bully totally got away with it, and now this: Lisa pretending to be Imogen and doing all these things, and I have no idea why . . .’ I sniff and shudder. Turns out I quite enjoy acting.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ says Audrey McBeath, her voice gentler than it has been previously. ‘Why don’t you wait here while I make us a pot of nice strong tea and find some tissues? Deryn usually has some on her desk, but I can’t see any.’

  Unbelievable. She’s a Nice Strong Tea truther. Nuclear war devastated your home? Have a nice strong cup of tea! It’ll cure everything!

  I murmur about how embarrassed I am to be making a fuss, and before too long Audrey’s arm is draped around my shoulders and she’s promising to tell me everything she can remember about Lisa Daisley when she comes back with the tea. Finally, after I’ve surely earned several Oscars, she leaves me alone in the head’s office.

  Please let the filing cabinet not be locked.

  I clocked the little keyholes in the top right-hand corners of every drawer the second I stepped into the room. None of the keys are there, so if the drawers are locked . . .

  They aren’t. Infuriatingly, they also don’t contain any files full of addresses or confidential records. In the top drawer there are some Reebok trainers and tennis balls. The second drawer is full of bottles of perfume: Shalimar, Caleche, Jo Malone’s Amber and Lavender, one I’ve never heard of, called Subterfuge, that smells strongly of lemons even before you open the bottle.

  Drawer after drawer disappoints me. That’s it. There’s nowhere else in the room to search—the desk doesn’t have any drawers. Looks as if I’m going to be relying on Audrey McBeath’s tales of the Lisa she knew, after all, hoping something in what she tells me might provide a clue.

  I have to know. Which of them has been helping her?

  I’m eager to find a way for it to have been Bronnie, despite her solid alibi for the slate incident. I fear it might have been Elise, and I don’t want it to be. Hard as I try, I can’t think why Elise would want to enlist Lisa Daisley to kill Ruby, or scare Jess, or do any of it.

  What about Kendall? What if she secretly wants to kill her own daughter? I could hardly blame her. After all, her daughter is Ruby Donovan, Superbitch. It might have been Kendall who leaned across a table in a bar one night and whispered to Lisa, ‘Okay, this is how we’ll do it. First we’re going to scare the living daylights out of Jess Mordue. I’ve got this music box . . .’

  Something occurs to me that hasn’t before: Whoever engaged Lisa Daisley to perform these dubious services to terror and disharmony must have actively wanted her to act like a freak. She didn’t try to blend in or act normal. From the day she arrived at OFA, she behaved like a weirdo, setting off as many alarm bells as she could.

  So that everyone would believe that all the threatening incidents were her doing.

  The plan, presumably, was for us all to be absolutely sure Imogen was the bad apple. Why? So that, when Ruby was killed by the falling slate and it was clear that Imogen couldn’t have done it, everyone would nevertheless suspect her? ‘Somehow, it must have been her,’ we’d all say. ‘She must have arranged it.’ Yet we’d be unable to prove it. And, meanwhile, the true culprit, the one who hired Lisa Daisley, would have got away with murder.

  I curse under my breath. This theorizing is getting me nowhere. I walk over to the school photographs on the wall. Beneath each photo, inside its frame, is the date it was taken and the full list of names of all the teachers and pupils pictured.

  When would Lisa have been at school? I work it out as best I can and find a photo with a date that I hope will work. Scanning the faces close up, it doesn’t take me long to find Fake Imogen. Her hair’s much shorter and she’s slightly heavier, but it’s unmistakably her. Despite being certain, I want to check. I look at the list of names of pupils on the second row. There it is: Lisa Daisley, at the center of a string of names.

  I blink and take a step back. It can’t be . . .

  It’s not Lisa’s name that’s shocked me off balance. It’s the one next to it. The girl standing to Lisa’s right, presumably. Yes: The caption beneath the picture says left to right.

  I look at the girl standing beside Fake Imogen. She’s not smiling. She’s wearing round wire-framed glasses and has thick auburn hair in a long plait that’s draped over her shoulder.

  Her name, according to the list I’m staring at, is Imogen Curwood.

  ‘I should have told you straightaway,’ says Audrey as we sip our tea. ‘Every time you asked me if I knew this name or that name, I was frightened you’d ask about Imogen Curwood. That name is a very significant one at Villiers, you see. And you’d said that the student Lisa pretended to be was called Imogen, though you didn’t mention a surname, and then you asked about all those people I’d never heard of.’

  I should have asked about Imogen Curwood, too—if Audrey recognized the name. Why hadn’t I? ‘Why is Imogen Curwood significant to Villiers?’ I ask now, reminding myself that it’s the girl with auburn hair in a long plait that I’m talking about. Not Lisa Daisley.

  ‘Nobody at Villiers likes to talk about it, because it’s a stain on our otherwise excellent reputation,’ says Audrey. ‘We weren’t officially culpable, but we didn’t do enough to stop it. If we’d been more vigorous, less naïve—’

  ‘About what? Did Lisa Daisley harm the real Imogen Curwood in some way?’ This is surreal. Am I about to hear that Lisa killed Imogen, then adopted her identity?

  Audrey’s expression tells me I’m way off the mark. ‘No. I don’t know why Lisa has been using Imogen’s name. Especially . . .’ She breaks off.

  ‘What? For God’s sake, spit it out.’

  ‘Imogen Curwood was a troubled girl. Academically, she was brilliant. But she was pathologically competitive and if she thought anyone had wronged her she would take against them and . . . well, victimize them. That’s the only way to describe it. So when another girl, Grace, had the audacity to outshine her, she became a target.’

  ‘Imogen bullied her?’

  ‘Horribly. And Grace was a sensitive girl. She went to a teacher for help, and I believe Imogen was spoken to, but it didn’t stop the bullying. Imogen was clever enough to find new, subtler methods of
tormenting Grace.’

  Like Ruby.

  ‘Grace took her own life, in the end,’ says Audrey, almost in a whisper. ‘It was a terrible tragedy. A girl with her whole life in front of her, a lovely, kind, talented . . .’ She stops and covers her mouth with her hand.

  If I’m ever diagnosed with a terminal illness, I swear to God I’ll spend my last few months on earth hunting down vicious teenage bullies and shooting them dead. Ruby’ll be top of my list.

  ‘What happened to Imogen Curwood?’ She’ll be next on my list, unless someone’s taken care of her already.

  ‘Her family moved to America, to give her a fresh start.’

  Again: so like Ruby. Crossing the Atlantic to escape a horrible, guilty past. Ruby coming this way, Imogen Curwood going that way . . .

  ‘Her name was never in the public domain in relation to Grace Racki’s death, but everyone associated with Villiers knew, and—’

  ‘What did you say?’ I leap out of my chair, sending my teacup flying across the room. ‘Did you say Grace Racki? R-A-C-K-I?’

  Audrey nods. The room spins. I make an effort to breathe. Drops of tea drip from the fingers of my right hand.

  ‘What was Grace’s father’s name, do you happen to remember?’ I manage, somehow, to force the question out.

  ‘I do,’ says Audrey. ‘Poor man, he was utterly devastated. The whole family was, of course, but him especially. Adam, his name is. Adam Racki.’

  There are outrages and pernicious offenses all around us in this world that I would once not have believed possible. For instance: You can be the heartbroken father of a teenage girl who committed suicide and still be told that there are certain things you mustn’t say about suicide because they’re insensitive and will trigger people.

  You can’t say that if teenage girls are relentlessly bullied, they might hang themselves, like my darling Grace did, because then more bullied teenage girls might get ideas. Another danger of you pointing out this self-evident fact is that more bullies will think, ‘Ooh, if I make her life hard enough she’ll hang herself and I’ll win.’ In order to avoid the twin perils of encouraging bullies and encouraging suicides, a father who has lost his daughter in this appalling way cannot say, ‘Bullies cause suicides.’