The Understudy
Page 27
That’s right: You can’t say that the bully is to blame for the suicide of your beloved child. Even though you know it to be true, people will queue up to tell you it’s not. And it’s not only enemies or strangers who will say this. Your nearest and dearest (those who haven’t hanged themselves) will say it, too. When you say that Imogen Curwood bully-murdered your Grace, they will frown and say, ‘Well . . .’ and ‘Ahem, I’m not sure . . .’ and ‘Ah, but you see, another child in your daughter’s situation would have said “Fuck you” before moving cheerily on. And, well, didn’t you and your wife recently have an acrimonious divorce? And . . . not that anyone wants you to think you’re to blame, but . . .’
But, but, but . . . your only child is still dead. Nothing is ever going to change that.
You could of course kill the devil who bully-murdered your child. It wouldn’t bring your beloved daughter back to life, but it would make you feel a hell of a lot better. Justice would have been done, at least. Except she’s fled across an ocean and is now beyond your reach. And even if you did follow and killed her in Arizona instead of in Kent or London, you’d be put to death. Arizona is a death penalty state.
And so what do you do, when you can’t do any of the quite reasonable things that might actually make you feel a little less dead inside? I wish I could report that you perform some brilliant maneuver to correct all these injustices, but I can’t. You fantasize about traveling to America and hunting the monster down, but you know you never will. So you try to accept your fate: the endless misery and grief, the burning feeling of injustice that never goes away. You accept it all, and try to get on with the empty, agonizing life you have left, hoping that one day the pain will start to ease ever so slightly.
In the meantime, you have plenty to keep you busy: mainly hiding your true self, which is bloated with bitterness. Nobody would like what you have become if you were to let that beast loose, so you have to conceal it behind a theatrical facade.
And then one day everything changes. Suddenly, your inability to do what you yearn to do to Imogen Curwood the bully-murderer doesn’t matter quite so much any more because a new girl enters your life—also a bully, also vicious; every bit as vile as Imogen. And even better: She’s from America! Imogen has gone there and, in exchange, Fate has sent this girl to England. To you.
The new monster’s name is Ruby Donovan . . .
I run all the way along the main road out of Villiers’s grounds. Once I’m past the gates, I wait until I’ve got my breath back, then pull my phone out of my bag. I have twenty-three new texts: one from Dan, one from Jess, and all the others from Elise, Bronnie, and Kendall.
Where are you?
What’s happening?
This is crazy!
We all need to meet and talk.
Carolyn, you can’t just go AWOL like this.
Can’t I?
I send a message to Dan and Jess saying, Don’t worry, all fine. Back later tonight, will explain then. Then I find Adam Racki’s mobile number in my contacts and ring it for the first time. He gave it to me last year when he took a group of students, including Jess, to New York for a week of workshops with Broadway professionals.
‘Adam Racki.’
It’s a name I used to hear and think nothing about, that used to be part of my ordinary life. Now it sounds very different. I don’t know what ‘Adam Racki’ means any more. To hear the man who owns that name speak it out loud, after everything I’ve just learned, makes me feel as if the ground beneath me has been pulled away.
Is it the name of a man who took an ordinary music box and worked for days or maybe weeks to turn it into the grotesque taunt that ended up in Jess’s locker? Is it the name of a head teacher who should have been protecting his students, doing all he could to ensure their safety and well-being, while secretly . . .
What?
I try to put together the story in my head—the most likely one I can come up with. Racki’s daughter Grace died after being bullied at Villiers by Imogen Curwood. Imogen was never punished. Instead, she went off to start a new life in America.
Then, years later, Ruby Donovan arrives from America, where she’s been unable to get into a performing arts school because she’s a nasty piece of work, too, and word has spread. But . . . how would Adam Racki know that? Did Kendall and Ruby lie to the rest of us, but tell him the truth about Vee’s death and the suspicions around Ruby’s role in it?
Wait. No, that didn’t happen. I know it didn’t, because I once eavesdropped on a conversation between Racki and Kendall that I shouldn’t have heard. It was last year, after I’d made my second complaint about Ruby’s disgusting treatment of Jess. I’d been called in by Racki for a meeting—one of the many pointless head-to-heads we had, where he spouted platitudes like ‘I’m sure we can sort this out, since they’re both lovely girls deep down,’ and I screamed at him about how evil prospers when good men do nothing.
He was running late on this particular day, so I sat and waited outside his office. I heard, through the door, the cadence of an American accent, and I wondered . . . could it be Superbitch Ruby’s mother? I walked over to the door and pressed my ear against it. Sure enough, it was Kendall. Racki was in full bullshitty flow, telling her he had no doubt that Ruby meant well, that she was such a lovely, talented girl, with such glowing references, sought after by every stage school in America. Pretty please, just for Adam, couldn’t Kendall persuade Ruby to try to smooth things over with Jess?
Neither of them could have known I was pressed against the door, listening. Which means Adam didn’t know about Kendall and Ruby’s lies, and Ruby’s fake references. He couldn’t have known. And if he didn’t know about Ruby’s past, why would he have brought in ‘Imogen Curwood’ in order to torment her—to get some sort of symbolic revenge? In which case . . . what the hell is going on?
‘Hello?’ Adam says now. ‘Is anyone there?’
‘Adam, it’s Carolyn Mordue.’
‘Hello, Professor Mordue.’
‘I need to talk to you urgently. Call me Carolyn, by the way.’
‘Um . . . I’m afraid—’
‘It’s non-negotiable. I need two hours to get to you. Tell me where you are, or where I can meet you.’
‘I’m still in my office.’
‘At the Academy? Fine. Wait there. I’m on my way.’
‘Can I ask—’
‘Face-to-face, you can ask anything you want. Not over the phone. Just stay where you are.’
I end the call and ring the local taxi firm number I stored in my phone earlier. When a woman answers, I say, ‘How much for a taxi from Villiers School all the way to central London?’
Adam Racki’s office door is open when I arrive. He’s standing by the window looking out at the spire of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the distance.
I walk in and close the door behind me. Before he has a chance to ask me to sit, I march over to his desk and sit behind it, in his chair. His mouth drops open. His opposite-of-a-poker face tells me that he’s shocked, but busy telling himself he shouldn’t be. This is Carolyn Mordue, he is thinking. She says and does outrageous things, remember? I’ve known some irritating parents in my time, but this woman is the most obnoxious by a mile. Still, to have the nerve to stride over and sit behind my desk, in my chair . . .
‘So,’ I say, leaning my elbows on a pile of papers. ‘Do you have something you want to tell me?’
‘Do I?’
‘That’s what I asked.’
‘You were the one who wanted to see me urgently.’
‘I was. Why do you think that might be?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘I’ve been to Villiers. I know about Grace.’
He remains absolutely still, by the window. I try to read his expression but it’s impossible.
‘I know about her killer, too: the real Imogen Curwood.’
‘Her killer? You seem to have been misinformed. My daughter took her own life.’
‘After being b
ullied by Imogen Curwood. In my book, that’s not suicide. It’s murder by bullying.’
Adam turns violently away. I can’t see his face. His whole frame starts to shake. It makes my heart feel heavy and sore to watch him. If Jess—Christ forbid—had killed herself after being bullied by Ruby, I would have made it my number one priority, my only goal, to end Ruby’s life. I’d have made sure it hurt, too.
Don’t start feeling sorry for him. Not without knowing the whole story. Remember the music box . . .
‘So,’ I say brightly. ‘Doubtless you’re going to say that I can’t prove you were the one in league with Lisa Daisley, that it’s all circumstantial.’
‘No.’ Adam turns to face me. His face is wet with tears. ‘You’re right. It was me. It was all me. Lisa was just the hired help. Irrelevant. I was the one.’ He looks up at the ceiling. Laughs. ‘Never did I dream that anything—any circumstance whatsoever—could ever induce me to admit it.’ He smiles at me suddenly, as if he’s only just noticed me there. ‘Murder by bullying. If you hadn’t said those words . . .’
This is so strange. He has the same face, but he looks nothing like the Adam Racki I’m used to seeing.
‘Wait here a moment,’ he says.
He leaves his office, closing the door behind him.
I can’t sit still. I pace up and down, wondering what it was about those three words, murder by bullying, that made him want to tell me the truth. Whatever he intends to show me might explain it. What can it be?
Unless . . . I breathe in sharply. What if it’s a trick? What if . . .
I run to the door, open it, and call his name. No response.
Shit. What do I do now? I don’t want to go running off somewhere, in case he comes back.
He’ll come back. I know he will.
Yeah, right. This man who’s hidden his true character and agenda from the second you met him. Forgive the pun, but you don’t know him from Adam.
What if I go back into his office and he comes back with some kind of weapon? Can I be sure he won’t try to hurt me physically?
Yes, I can. That’s a ridiculous idea. He’s never actually killed anyone. He wouldn’t.
Would he?
My eyes land on a part of the corridor outside Adam’s office that looks different. What’s that door, and why’s it open? I’ve never noticed it before. Some kind of cupboard, maybe.
I walk toward it. ‘Adam? Are you in there?’ Maybe he’s searching through some old files. ‘Adam?’
Pulling open the door, I see stone steps. It’s not a cupboard; it’s a staircase with a door separating it from the corridor. Cold air hits me, as if someone’s poured it over me. I look up and see, in the distance, a rectangle of sky. This staircase leads to outside. To the roof.
He’s on the roof.
‘Adam!’ I yell, running up the steps as fast as I can.
Soon as I’m up and out, I see him. He’s on the very edge, lurching forward, then back. ‘Taking my time, I’m afraid,’ he says apologetically. ‘Goodbye, Carolyn. And thank you. I mean that sincerely.’
‘No!’ I scream. ‘Adam, don’t jump!’ I lunge toward him and manage to grab his arm. That’s when he starts to pull.
10
The Final Act
B. A. Paris, Clare Mackintosh, Holly Brown and Sophie Hannah
CAROLYN
There’s nothing I can do. He’s so much stronger than I am, and he’s pulling me toward the edge, fast.
I scream. My thoughts blur to a sharp point of fear and all I can do is keep screaming as loud as I can. I stop and fall silent when my body tells me something has changed, something important. I open my eyes, only realizing as I do so that I’d screwed them tightly shut.
Adam’s hand has let go of me. That’s what I felt: him releasing me. He’s standing a short distance away. Close enough to the edge to jump, easily.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I have no right to take you with me.’
Think, Carolyn. What should you say?
I push my hair behind my ears to stop the wind blowing it across my face. ‘You owe me an explanation,’ I tell him.
‘Perhaps I do.’ He nods. ‘Yes, perhaps I do. As I say, you’re the only person who’s ever acknowledged that Imogen Curwood killed my Grace. That she murdered her.’
‘Of course she did. Seriously, no one else has ever said that?’
‘Not a single, solitary person. And when I used to say it—before I gave up—people argued with me, explained to me why I was wrong. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘I can.’
Adam’s face screws up in puzzlement. ‘Why? You’ve never . . . I mean, perhaps you have. Have you ever lost someone who meant the world to you?’
‘No. But . . .’ Fuck. I’m so the wrong kind of person to talk a suicidal man down from a roof. I don’t know how to sound sensitive and caring. Only angry and vengeful. ‘You don’t need personal experience of tragedy to know that people are shit, Adam. You just need eyes, a brain, and access to the internet.’
‘I expect you’re right. For a long time, I preferred to believe that people were basically good. Grace was good.’ He makes a strange noise, almost animal-like, and crouches down, tries to cover his head with his arms. I move toward him but he’s on his feet again, looking disoriented, as if he doesn’t quite know what just happened, what his body just did.
‘Some people are good,’ I say. ‘Lots aren’t, though. Imogen Curwood isn’t. Ruby Donovan isn’t, either—though, last year, whenever I said that to you, you told me I should try to be more understanding of poor Ruby, who was probably missing her friends and family in America and feeling insecure.’
‘I had to say that, didn’t I? You were putting pressure on me to expel her. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I needed to keep her here, where I could teach her a lesson.’ Adam sighs heavily. ‘Teaching her a lesson she’d never forget: That was the plan. That was always my intention. For her sake. Otherwise what Lisa and I were doing would have been completely immoral.’
‘Did you want to teach her a lesson or did you want to kill her? Or drive her to suicide the way Imogen Curwood drove your daughter to suicide?’
‘I always thought a suicide attempt on Ruby’s part would be the most pleasing outcome. Still. Made a total hash of it, didn’t she? I often come up here, you know. Have ever since I came to the Academy. Not to the edge, normally. I’d sit there, where you’re standing, where no one could see me, and think things through. Think about Grace.’
‘Sometimes you walked right up to the edge, though, didn’t you?’ I say.
‘Yes. How clever of you.’ He turns to smile at me with his new face, the one I’ve never seen on him until today. ‘I did. To reassure myself that if the pain ever became too great . . . And one day, there she was: Ruby. Sitting there, all innocent. I must admit, I forgot my plan to teach her a lesson. In that moment, I wanted to crush her out of existence. If Lisa and Bronnie hadn’t, between them, got Ruby out of the way just in time . . . To be fair to Lisa, I’d never sold the deal to her as any sort of murder plot. Just a few nasty tricks, I’d told her. Naughty old me. I saw Ruby down there in the courtyard and I couldn’t resist . . . improvising a little. Ah, well. All things considered, it’s good that Lisa and Bronnie scuppered my effort. Now we have a best-of-both-worlds scenario, I suppose. Ruby has learned her lesson, I think. Don’t you?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say truthfully.
‘Oh, I’m sure she has. Having been on the receiving end of Lisa’s and my little campaign, I doubt she’ll be doing any more bullying any time soon. And I proved to myself that I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to delivering justice: I tried to kill Ruby. I did it for Grace, and for the girl in America that Ruby killed. Vee, her name was. One life—a guilty, worthless one—for two innocent lives. That strikes me as an honorable equation.’
‘You’re aware of Ruby’s past, before she came to England? Did Kendall tell you the truth, then?’
‘I agree,’ I tell him. ‘Cunning enough to invent students who don’t exist to get more money.’
‘Ah, so you know about that too? How well-informed you are. The arts are terribly underfunded, as are most worthwhile things these days. Sadly.’
‘How did you find out that Kendall faked all of Ruby’s brilliant references?’ I ask him.
‘Hm? Oh, that. I suppose it was thanks to you that I stumbled on the truth.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. Last year, when you told me what Ruby was doing to Jess, it reminded me of Imogen Curwood, the way she tormented Grace. There were striking parallels. I thought, “A girl who has it in her to behave this way, and yet she gets such over-the-top, glowing references?” I smelled a rat. So I rang the school in question, the last one Ruby attended in LA, and soon found out the truth. I saw an opportunity: another teenage girl who’d got away with taking the life of one of her classmates. I honestly felt as if fate had given Ruby to me as a sort of . . . gift.’
‘Why bring Lisa Daisley into it?’ I ask. ‘I mean, presumably you had to pay her?’
‘Handsomely and happily. She was worth every penny.’ He takes a step back from the edge and looks down at his feet. Deliberately, he kicks the ground—the roof—with his right foot.
‘But why did you need her? As the head of OFA, if you’d wanted to make Ruby suffer—’
‘Again, fate helped me out. Several things converged unexpectedly. Don’t you find that often happens? You’re wondering what to do, and then the perfect solution lands in your lap, and it feels like magic.’
‘What do you mean?’