A
flush of anger staining her cheeks, Freya stared at him, realising that her so far limitless influence was now heavily circumscribed and hostage to circumstance. Then, with an enormous effort of will, she pulled herself under control. Dropping her gaze, summoning more tears, she said, with a catch in her voice, ‘Please forgive me. Sukie’s death has been a terrible shock and, of course, it creates a dreadful crisis for the school.’ Gathering up her bag, she rose. ‘At such a time my place is with my girls and staff, and naturally I must be ready to receive Lady Hester and her husband.’
‘
Sit down, please. I haven’t finished.’ Stony-faced, he added, ‘You will remain here until someone has taken your statement and
I
shall be talking to the Melvilles.’ He punched a button on the telephone console to summon her escort. ‘Tell me,’ he asked, ‘could Sukie swim?’
‘
She could stay afloat in the pool, but she wasn’t a swimmer.’ Trying to regain lost ground, she went on, ‘Of course, the Strait and its shores are completely out of bounds and, in fact, fenced off for most of the length. The girls who go sailing are always accompanied by professional instructors and I don’t need to tell you no one swims in those treacherous waters.’
He
folded his arms and again regarded her steadily. ‘Dr Scott, if you seriously expect me to believe the girls stick to your rules, you’re taking me for a fool.’
Once
Freya had been taken to an interview room to make a statement about Sukie’s disappearance and its aftermath, McKenna set off for the school. Even if the Melvilles had left home as soon as they were told of their daughter’s death they would not arrive before ten o’clock that night, for north Wales was a long way from Newbury. It was a long way from anywhere, he reflected, both physically and psychologically, but it was a distance fostering prejudice rather than mystery. The English had a perception of Ireland, where his forebears had lived; they had views on Scotland, albeit mostly engineered by the Scots; they held opinions about the England beyond their own small patch; but somehow Wales, and particularly her remote and mountainous north, was lost in between. People visited for holidays, huddled together for safety, and left more ignorant and biased than when they arrived.
The
high granite walls around the Hermitage with their topping of trees laid deep shadows along a substantial stretch of the road, and although the sun was still well above the horizon, the car’s automatic headlights blinked on as soon as he hit the shadow.
A
driverless white security van, parked close to the wall, partially obscured the school name board and the gates were barred by an area patrol car. Recognising him, the driver backed away with a roar and the policeman manning the gates jumped to attention. ‘Where are the security guards?’ McKenna asked.
‘
In the patrol car, sir. I wasn’t sure if they’re allowed on site. Their boss has told them about the girl’s death, but said it would be better if they came on duty as arranged. They both did the evening shift on Tuesday and finished at two in the morning.’
‘
And where’s Randall?’
‘
He’s taken his dog to the vet’s for its booster jabs. Inspector Tuttle gave permission.’
‘
Keep the guards where they are for the time being,’ McKenna decided. ‘I’ll send someone down to take statements from them.’
The
way through the woods was a dizzying affair and twice McKenna overshot the sharp bends, his car coming to rest the second time mere inches from the trunk of an old oak. When he finally cleared the trees and the school came into view on the crest of the rise he was disappointed, for the gates, the drive, the tantalising barrier of trees, created an expectation that was not fulfilled. The place resembled a barracks, and the litter of police cars, vans and personnel carriers on the forecourt looked quite at home there. The huge wagon housing the mobile incident room was parked to one side under the trees, dwarfing its canteen trailer.
As
he shut the car door he heard the throaty, unmistakable voice of a German Shepherd, then Bryn crashed out of the thickets to his right, his handler a few feet behind. The dog’s paws were covered in mud.
McKenna
leaned against the car. Bryn sat on his haunches, gazing up at him, eyes alight with fierce intelligence. ‘So, what have you found for me?’ McKenna asked, meeting the dog’s gaze. He was sorely tempted to stroke the animal’s beautiful head.
The
handler smiled wryly. ‘D’you really want to know, sir? Fag packets, used condoms, glue and aerosol containers, bottles and cans by the barrow load, shoes and trainers, various items of clothing plus male and female underwear, a mountain of paper litter and all the other weird things people chuck over the nearest wall, including a flea-infested mattress, two Tesco trolleys, a brand-new duvet cover still in its wrappers and a child’s pushchair, minus the child.’ Clipping the leash on Bryn’s collar, he added, ‘And most of it’s probably nothing to do with the school. The boundary wall’s crumbling in a lot of places, so the site’s as leaky as a sieve even without the wicket gates every hundred yards or so along the wall. You can’t see the wickets because they’re choked with ivy and undergrowth, but believe me, the locals will know about them.’ He paused for breath, gazing fondly at the dog. ‘Bryn picked up the girl’s trail immediately,’ he reported. ‘Starting in her bedroom, it goes through the top-floor fire escape on the east side of the building, into the stable block for some obscure reason, through the woods and down to the Strait.’
‘
Can you show me without messing up the scent?’
‘
We’ve marked out another way in.’ Tugging the leash, he moved off, Bryn at his heels.
As
they crossed the forecourt, McKenna asked, ‘Any footprints?’
‘
Hundreds, I’m sorry to say. Except in the clearings, the ground won’t ever dry out properly and it’ll get so little sunshine there’s probably ice on the puddles all summer long. Where the trail ends, it’s just a sea of churned-up mud.’
Entering
the woods, McKenna glanced from side to side, expecting to see the hazy glory of bluebells, the glow of anemones, but there was only brush and tangled undergrowth. Ribbons of fluorescent tape fluttered gaily from low-hanging branches every few yards, at least one always in sight. Engulfed by trees, he could hear but not see small animals scurrying in that undergrowth, but those sounds died away as they pushed deeper. Soon all he could hear were their own footfalls and Bryn’s panting breaths.
‘
The place stinks like an open grave,’ the handler remarked, breaking the silence. ‘And it’s gone so bloody cold all of a sudden you’d think it was the middle of winter.’
McKenna
imagined Sukie, perhaps alone, perhaps not, flitting through these woods at dead of night and shivered. ‘That girl must have had a very powerful reason to come here in the darkness,’ he said, momentarily losing his footing as the path suddenly reached a steep slope. ‘It’s a nasty enough place in daylight.’
‘
To us, maybe, sir, but if the trees could talk, they’d have more than a few tales to tell.’ He too skidded then, in the mud lying treacherously beneath a carpet of dead leaves. ‘That said,’ he added, grabbing a branch to steady himself, ‘this is definitely Hansel and Gretel and Three Bears territory rolled into one, and if I saw a goblin peering between the tree trunks I wouldn’t he at all surprised.’
He
unleashed Bryn. The dog bounded off, waving his feathery tail, while the two men, walking crabwise, covered the last thirty or so yards down to the water’s edge. There was no escape from the trees, McKenna thought; they crowded the banks of the Strait, some trailing their branches, others leaning out at impossible angles, all of them stealing the goodness from the air. As he followed the other man along the narrow, trench-like path along the shoreline, leaves slapped him insolently in the face and dropped water on his clothes, even though there had been no rain for days.
When
the path dropped once more, the banks on either side began to rise, until men and dog were not only overwhelmed by trees tangled together overhead but overhung by roots exposed by erosion: long, twisted, sodden tentacles that sprang out here and there to catch at clothes and flesh. Not wanting to feel their touch, McKenna pressed his arms to his side and his balance was immediately compromised, for the mud beneath his feet was the sort he had once heard described as cannibal mud and it was trying to suck him in with each laboured step.
The
path debouched without warning into a dank, muddy clearing, from which another trail climbed upwards before disappearing into a dense grove. Clearing and the path were cordoned off, and under the huge, threatening shadow of Britannia Bridge, men and women in overalls literally combed the earth for whatever it might yield, while others made plaster casts of scattered footprints and the long gouges that criss-crossed the mud.
‘
Short of trying a match with every item of footwear in the school, I doubt if this will get us very far,’ Bryn’s handler commented. ‘And even if we got a match, who’s to say it’s relevant? This is obviously a well-frequented area.’
‘
Where does the trail end?’ asked McKenna.
‘
Right there.’ He indicated an area bubbling with dirty water and cordoned off with more fluorescent tape. ‘When forensics have finished,’ he went on, pointing to the carefully marked chunks of rotting wood and broken branch sticking from the mud, ‘Bryn’s going to sniff through that lot for a possible weapon.’ Tongue hanging out, Bryn was sitting near the cordon and, at the mention of his name, swivelled his head attentively. ‘I’m sure he picked up another scent on the path, aside from the dead girl’s,’ his handler added. ‘He could probably follow it back.’
‘
It’s rather a long shot,’ McKenna said. ‘The trail’s at least forty hours old by now.’
‘
But the air hardly gets disturbed because the trees are so dense.’
‘
I’ll make a decision once I get the initial autopsy report.’ McKenna looked at the people toiling in the mud. ‘They’re nowhere near finished anyway, so it’ll be a while before Bryn can do any sleuthing there.’ He turned, preparing to leave, then said, ‘By the way, are the trees interfering with communications?’
‘
Radio contact’s been OK so far, but the mobile phones are getting zapped.’ As McKenna began to walk away, the other man stopped him. ‘I don’t want to push it, sir, but Bryn shouldn’t be underestimated. He’s already had someone for wearing a skirt that used to belong to the dead girl. That’s how good he is.’
‘
Has he really?’ McKenna said. ‘How did that come about?’
‘
We were following the trail from the girl’s room and we’d just got to the bottom of the fire escape when I saw a crowd of girls coming up the path, so I held hack until they’d passed. One minute he’s standing quietly beside me, the next he took off so fast he pulled the leash out of my hand, going straight for the girls at the tail end of the crowd.’ The handler smiled crookedly. ‘He found the one he wanted within a couple of seconds and frightened the bejesus out of her.’
Within
yards of leaving the clearing, McKenna felt like the only human being left alive. He squelched along the defile through the cannibal mud and, in his haste, almost lost a shoe. Like a child, he looked only at the ground in front of him. When it began to rise he dared to glance upwards and saw his way marked by the beribboned branches. As he had descended, he climbed crabwise, digging in his heels at each step. At the top he stopped and leaned against a puny sycamore in near agony while his smoker’s lungs struggled to re-inflate themselves. Still with a band of pain tight round his chest, he set off once more, bathed in the deep green light that filled the woods like water. Now and then the sun found gaps in the dense foliage and flung dazzling rainbow spears to the ground, and when he finally broke cover he saw the school’s white walls had acquired a blushing, golden hue.
Stepping
over the spidery shadow cast by the antenna on its roof, he made his way to the mobile incident room which, littered with paper, cardboard boxes, overflowing waste bins and used paper cups, had clearly not been cleaned out since its last excursion. A fat, middle-aged constable with rolled-up shirtsleeves and his forehead beaded with sweat was lumbering back and forth, dragging behind him a black plastic sack already stuffed with rubbish. There was a strong but not unpleasant smell of air-freshener.
Aside
from the constable, the room’s only other occupant was Nona Lloyd, one of Bangor’s uniformed officers, although Sukie, her portrait greatly enlarged, smiled at McKenna as if still in the land of the living from her place on a whiteboard. Underneath the photograph the known facts of her brief life and mysterious death were neatly written in black felt pen. Eight unattended computers, screens flickering, sat about on table tops, and annotated plans of the grounds and buildings, fixed to cork boards along the walls, bristled with coloured pins.
Nona,
measuring the distances between the red-topped pins on a section of ground plan, turned when she heard footsteps. ‘Dr Roberts telephoned, sir,’ she told McKenna. ‘He wants you to call him.’
‘
Thanks,’ McKenna replied, then asked, ‘what are you doing?’
‘
Calculating the actual distance from the school to where Sukie went into the Strait.’ She stood back a little from the plan. ‘It’s not as far as it seems. Like with the drive,’ she added. ‘In a straight line, it’s barely five hundred yards from the front gate to the main school, yet it
feels
like miles. Everything gets distorted because of the way all the tracks twist and turn through the trees.’ Pointing from pin to pin, she defined the extent of Sukie’s final journey. ‘Give or take a few, it’s two hundred and ten yards from the school to the stables, then just another hundred and twenty through the woods to here.’ Her slightly stubby finger with its prettily manicured nail came to rest on the waterline below the place where Britannia Bridge sprang out across the Strait.
‘
Why did she go into the stables, I wonder?’ McKenna said, half to himself.
Nona
shrugged. ‘Maybe someone had left some tack lying about and she went to put it away. It’s expensive stuff, especially saddles. Then again,’ she mused, ‘she might have been getting a titbit for her horse. There are bags of apples and pony nuts in there.’ She glanced at him. ‘I had a good look around when we arrived. Inspector Tuttle said we needed to get the lie of the land as soon as possible.’
Looking
from one plan to another, McKenna thought Jack’s advice had been sound. The layout of the whole site had been superimposed on to an Ordnance Survey map, each building drawn to scale. The main school sat at the centre of Freya’s small realm, flanked to the west by the teaching blocks, sports hall and playing fields, and to the east by staff flats and the riding arena. The stables lay south-west, he reckoned, off the track leading to the sports hall, and beyond stables and pasture were a swimming pool and open-air tennis courts. That great swath of woodland also contained a chapel, workshops, greenhouses, electricity sub-station, and two individual houses, with the name ‘Scott’ written beside one and ‘Knight/Bebb’ beside the other. A little way upstream from where Sukie had gone into the water was a boathouse.