By
four o’clock, Jack had called to confirm that the body in the mortuary was indeed Sukie’s. McKenna set in motion the mechanics of an investigation made daunting by the prospect of interviewing and protecting almost three hundred potential witnesses, and of probing an equal number of possible suspects. Discussing strategy, manpower and cost over the telephone with the deputy chief constable, he was reminded not to overlook the extreme sensitivity of this particular situation and so, harnessing the other man’s worries to extract more resources, he said, ‘Until cause of death is known, we presume homicide, as usual. I need a mobile incident room and enough personnel to leave a contingent of officers on twenty-four-hour guard duty. I’d also be grateful,’ he added, ‘if you’d deal with both the school governors and the media. As you say, it’s a sensitive situation and the kind of thing that sets the media salivating. A brief statement about the girl’s death and our continuing enquiries should suffice for now.’
Jack
caught the tail end of the conversation as he walked in. He took off his jacket, slung it over a chair and sat down.
‘
Where’s the headmistress?’ asked McKenna.
‘
I stuck her in the CID room with Janet and a hot drink. She’s very, very shaken. She’s also desperate to get back to spread the sad tidings.’
McKenna
glanced at his watch, then reached for a cigarette. After some moments of silence, he said, ‘We’ll start as we mean to go on; in other words take control from the outset.’ He coughed, then put the cigarette in an ashtray. ‘When you go back to the school,’ he went on, ‘get the staff and girls together, and tell them
only
that Sukie’s been found dead. Nothing else.’
‘
Questioning them all is going to be a logistical nightmare.’ Pausing to loosen his tie, Jack added, ‘If I rope in everyone apart from the dog handlers, I’ll have twenty-one bodies, which should be enough to start on the staff and sixth formers, with a few spare to keep tabs on the rest. That said,’ he went on, ‘at least half the officers are due off shift in the next few hours.’
‘
I’ve been promised all the help and manpower we need, so just dangle the overtime carrot.’ McKenna retrieved the cigarette. ‘The most pressing dilemma is how we interrogate over two hundred juveniles while maintaining their right to have the support of an independent adult.’
‘
Do we need to bother at this stage?’ Jack argued. ‘We won’t be asking anything contentious in the first round and, depending on the autopsy findings, maybe not at all.’
‘
Yes, we
do
need to bother. We need to be fireproof. The deputy chief is rounding up a posse of social workers and solicitors to sit in with the girls.’
‘
And after all that, we’ll probably find Sukie fell into the water when she was up to some mischief or threw herself off Menai Bridge. Or Britannia Bridge, as it’s nearer.’ He grimaced. ‘Poor kid.’
‘
How did you leave things?’
‘
I stopped the search when you called in case we accidentally mucked up a crime scene. We’ve bagged what personal property was lying about — sports gear and so forth — and sealed her room after taking some of her clothing for the dogs. I’ve also fixed a hasp and padlock to the door as the lock doesn’t work.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘On the top floor, where the sixth-form bedrooms are, the fire door alarms don’t work either. I’m having them checked to see if it’s just down to poor maintenance or if they’ve been disabled.’
‘
Have the dogs turned up anything?’
‘
Not so far.’
‘
Not even Bryn?’
‘
It was gone three before he arrived. He was out late last night on exercise with Mountain Rescue.’ Jack smiled briefly. ‘And unless he gets his statutory rest period his nose goes on strike.’
‘
If he’s operational when you get back, tell his handler we need to know as soon as possible exactly where Sukie entered the water.’ After a moment’s thought, McKenna continued, ‘And it might be better for the other dogs to be stood down temporarily, so they don’t interfere with him.’ Again he fell silent, before saying, ‘We’ll have to play this by ear for the time being, I’m afraid, and use our instincts. What’s your impression of the school? So far, that is?’
‘
Let’s say it seems to conform to most of the expectations I took with me. It’s certainly a world apart, but I’d say dislocated, rather than distinguished, by privilege. It’s also extremely claustrophobic, but that’s probably because it’s surrounded by acres of dense woodland. Then again,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘the main building was obviously designed as a virtual prison and you can still see where grilles were cemented into the window openings. The sixth-form bedrooms used to be cells for the most disturbed patients. The doors are over three inches thick, with massive external locks and peepholes. The holes are covered with plywood now.’
‘
And the girls?’ McKenna asked.
‘
The few I’ve seen in passing look the same as most other teenagers: lost and miserable. I felt sorry for them. And yes, I know,’ he added, as McKenna was about to speak, ‘my view of teenagers relates directly to the way my own are behaving. At the moment they’re swotting for A levels night and day. I just hope,’ he said with feeling, ‘in fact, I’m
praying
, that both of them get exactly the same passes and grades.’
‘
They’re identical twins,’ McKenna said. ‘Isn’t that kind of thing a foregone conclusion? Well, probably not,’ he mused, answering his own question. ‘I wonder if there are any twins at the Hermitage?’
‘
There aren’t. I’ve already checked the registers. And I’ve requested a PNC check on all current staff and those who’ve left in the last five years.’ He grinned rather wolfishly. ‘The school secretary initially refused, allegedly on the grounds of confidentiality, when I asked for the information, so I pointed out that obstructing the police is a criminal offence. Even then, she argued about getting Dr Scott’s permission, but I get the impression they need “Dr Scott’s permission” for anything and everything. Initiative isn’t encouraged.’
‘
Perhaps she can’t forget being in the army,’ McKenna suggested. ‘What about the groundsman? Is it Sean O’Connor, as Dewi thought?’
Jack
nodded. ‘Yes, but apart from the incident we already know about, he’s clean as a whistle. Similarly, the lodge keeper, Ken Randall. He’s sixty-two and a widower. His wife died from cancer five years ago.’
‘
Children? Previous employment?’
‘
Two sons, both married, both in full-time employment, both living along the coast,’ Jack answered. ‘Randall used to be a Department of Transport driving examiner. He took early retirement when his wife was dying, then probably found afterwards he couldn’t cope without something to do. He’s been at the Hermitage going on four years and, although his old job must have honed his powers of observation, I wouldn’t lay odds he knows much more than Dewi’s already wormed out of him. Dewi reckons he’s exceedingly disaffected and therefore quite likely to shoot off his mouth at the first opportunity.’
‘
I wouldn’t bet on that,’ McKenna commented. ‘Disaffected or not, he’ll temper whatever he says with the security of his job and housing in the forefront of his mind. Anyway, he’ll be formally interviewed, once we’re fully organised. For now, the girls and staff take priority. The security guards,’ he went on, ‘are very much part of your logistical nightmare and not only because they live all over north Wales. The company operates a rolling system where no guard works the same site for any length of time so, for the sake of efficiency, I asked headquarters to handle the initial interviews.’ With a wry look, he continued, ‘And, for a change, none of the guards has a criminal record. I expect we’ll find they alibi each other.’
‘
Only up to a point,’ Jack remarked. ‘They must be very thinly spread. There are four on duty between six in the morning and ten at night, and two overnighters, which is wholly inadequate by any standard in a place as big as that, teeming with the offspring of the mega-rich. Still, I’m sure we’ll find a lot more to criticise before we’ve finished.’
‘
As long as no one gets sidetracked by prejudice,’ McKenna commented quietly. ‘Nonetheless, everyone needs to be aware of the fact that the Hermitage is effectively a closed institution and no doubt riddled with institutional neuroses. The school’s norms of behaviour and thought will probably seem dysfunctional, if not actually disordered.’
‘
If my experiences so far are any indication, the school’s norms are dictated by the headmistress.’ Getting to his feet, Jack shrugged on his jacket. ‘I’d better be off. By the way,’ he added, face betraying his feelings, ‘who’s breaking the news to Sukie’s parents? Poor devils! This is every parent’s worst nightmare come true.’
‘
Berkshire police. They’ve also been asked to pass on anything known about the family’s background and to find out if there was a boyfriend on the scene.’
‘
I’d be surprised if there weren’t,’ remarked Jack. ‘Sukie was a very pretty girl.’
*
The first stupendous shock hit Freya when she looked on Sukie through the window of the mortuary viewing room and in the minute or so she remained there more shocks buffeted her from every direction. When Jack led her from the cool, gloomy building into the heat of the car park, she groped and stumbled like a soldier blinded by mortar fire.
Instead
of taking her back to the school, he drove her to the police station and left her in a cluttered but tidy office with a young policewoman whose name Freya immediately forgot. Offered a hot drink, she asked for tea, hoping the errand would force the policewoman to disappear for a while, but she returned, it seemed, within minutes.
Freya
tried to ignore her. Beyond the initial civilities, the young woman made no attempt to impose herself, but her presence alone was sufficient distraction. Desperate for time and peace to retrench, Freya began to feel angry. When she could no longer contain her tears she was furious, even though she had no idea why she should weep. Little by little, she had been steeling herself for the worst since yesterday and in a bizarre way its arrival brought relief. Now the mystery of Sukie’s disappearance was resolved, she could concentrate on the practicalities of containing whatever had led the girl to her death.
The
waiting became an eternity. Because no one had told her why she must wait, she began to feel intimidated and even afraid, and the bland young policewoman acquired the threatening aura of a gaoler. Freya judged her to be in her mid-twenties and, on the evidence of dress and general demeanour, not the product of a common background. She spoke well, too, without a trace of the raucous local accent. Freya was considering how to reassert herself in this wholly alien situation when the inspector returned.
With
barely time to collect her wits, she found herself whisked along a corridor and into a large, airy room where a thin, good-looking man about her own age sat behind a desk. The inspector put her in a chair and left.
‘
Sukie’s family has been informed of her death,’ the other man told her. ‘I understand her parents are now on their way here.’
‘
What?’ She blinked rapidly.
‘
I said—’ he began, but she cut him short, inhaling threadily.
‘
I didn’t catch your name.’
He
gestured to the nameplate on the desk. ‘I am Superintendent Michael McKenna, and I’ll be supervising the investigation into Sukie’s death.’
Trying
to push away the thought of that secret, superior piece of knowledge nestling like a grenade in the hand of someone at the Hermitage, Freya said, ‘I assume she drowned herself.’ Clasping and unclasping her hands, she added, ‘And I can only conclude that, tragically, some private misery drove her to commit suicide rather than seek help. Girls of her age are, unfortunately, often prone to hysterical behaviour that has drastic consequences.’
‘
We don’t know if she drowned.’
She
screwed up her face into a parody of bemusement. ‘But she must have done! She was pulled out of Menai Strait.’
‘
She could have been dead when she entered the water.’
‘
I do not believe,’ Freya said, putting all the authority she could muster into her voice, ‘that a killer is lurking behind the walls of my school.’
Waiting
for him to respond, she studied his face. He had unusually fine features but, like the rather beautiful eyes, they were drawn with weariness and, perhaps, even disillusionment.
‘
What
you
believe, Dr Scott,’ he commented, meeting her gaze, ‘has become an irrelevancy.
We
proceed on the assumption of suspicious death. Sukie died not long after last being seen on Tuesday night, so if someone did indeed push her into the Strait, that person has had ample opportunity to cover his or her tracks.’ For a moment he regarded her wordlessly, before saying, ‘While a suicide, from the school’s point of view, would no doubt be the preferred option, in that your liabilities would be significantly reduced, please refrain from speculation. I’ve no doubt that your word is taken very seriously and any theory you care to promote would quickly gain hold, to the detriment of our investigation.’