The
large-scale floor plan of the main school showed him that the basement area housed the boiler room and maintenance and general stores, and the ground floor the refectory, kitchen and domestic offices, administration offices, headmistress’s study, Matron’s surgery, staff and pupil common rooms, a computer room and the library. Dormitories, night duty station, Matron’s flat and the infirmary were on the first floor, while the attic floor was sixth-form territory. He smiled wryly when he saw the label ‘Smokers’ Den’ on a room adjacent to the sixth-form common room.
Leaving
Nona to her measuring, McKenna shut himself in the cubbyhole reserved for senior personnel. As soon as he lifted the telephone receiver, static crackled in his ear.
‘
I’m sorry to say,’ Eifion Roberts began, ‘that you’ll have to proceed on the basis of balanced probabilities for now, but first things first. She died from asphyxia due to drowning in salt water, but there’s also a great deal of mud, vegetable and other debris in her mouth, some of which gravitated to her lungs, indicating shallow water. She ingested a small amount of food about five hours before she died, which was probably no later than the early hours of Wednesday morning.’
‘
How d’you know?’
‘
I said
probably
, Michael,’ the pathologist reminded him. ‘Some fifty hours elapsed between when she was last seen on Tuesday and her being pulled out of the water this afternoon. Taking all known factors into account, including the effect of immersion on the process of decomposition, she’s been dead some forty-three to forty-six hours.’ He paused and McKenna heard paper rustle. ‘The body’s free of disease, she didn’t smoke, and I found no alcohol and no signs of the use of controlled substances. Oddly, she wasn’t particularly well-nourished — in fact, her stomach’s a little shrunken. The hymen,’ he went on, ‘was ruptured, but not necessarily through sexual intercourse. Riding, gymnastics and tampons are other possible culprits. There was no semen present, she wasn’t pregnant and hadn’t given birth. When the diatom tests are completed I’ll be able to tell you approximately where she drowned.’
‘
She
seems
to have entered the water about two hundred yards downstream of Britannia Bridge. You should have samples from the area within the hour.’
‘
Why d’you say “seems”?’
McKenna
rubbed his forehead. ‘Bryn followed her from the school to the water’s edge, but that doesn’t constitute proof. The scent could be a leftover from another trip, particularly as she went via the stables.’
‘
He’s not stupid! He’d have trailed her back were that the case. She was hardly likely to swim home up the Strait.’
‘
Are you
sure
she didn’t go off one of the bridges?’
‘Fall
ers and jumpers usually look as if they’ve dropped a hundred and fifty feet onto concrete instead of water. She hasn’t got a single broken bone.’
‘
A man fell off Menai Bridge some years ago and survived with barely a scratch.’
‘
Quite,’ Roberts agreed. ‘I look on him as the exception that proves the rule.’
‘
You’re not helping, Eifion.’
‘
That’s what I meant by balanced probabilities.’
‘
Then tell me what probabilities to balance.’
‘
Although you don’t know enough about her to discount suicide, there are more certain ways of disposing of yourself than lying face down in the shallows.’
‘
So what about an accident?’ McKenna argued. ‘Perhaps she fell and stunned herself.’
‘But what was she doing there at that time of night in the first place? She wasn’t dressed for trysting.’
‘
Girls don’t necessarily, these days.’
‘B
ut they
will
dab on the lipstick and perfume, which she hadn’t. In my view, she’d thrown on the first things to hand and that suggests she went out in a hurry, probably to do something of a practical nature. Don’t forget,’ Roberts went on, ‘she was ready for bed when last seen. Who saw her, by the way? Did she speak to them?’
‘
No. Two form mates just caught a glimpse of her.’ McKenna fidgeted with his pen. ‘Aren’t you making a lot of assumptions?’
‘
I’m creating a hierarchy.’ After a moment’s silence Roberts asked, ‘You say she went to the stables? Any idea why?’
‘
Not a clue. Her horse was in the paddock with the others on Wednesday morning. Nor was there a single hoof print anywhere near the trail Bryn followed.’
‘
Right. I’ll get back to work and I need to know as soon as possible about any injuries or falls she’d had in the past month or so.’
‘
How badly damaged is the body?’
‘
She’s had less of a battering than people usually get in the Strait, but there are still plenty of contusions and lacerations, including some to the head. But such are the biochemical changes caused by immersion in water it’s a bugger trying to distinguish between ante- and post-mortem injuries.’
‘
How soon will you be able to report on the injuries?’
‘
Once I can exclude pre-existing trauma, perhaps twenty-four hours. The harbour master tells me low tide occurred just after one on Wednesday morning, so she wouldn’t have moved far until the tide picked her up as it rose. She’d be near unrecognisable had she been carried under the bridges and through the Swillies up to Puffin Island where the tide turns, so she was probably washed out the other way, caught in the currents and brought back.’
As
McKenna crossed the forecourt to the school the policeman at the doors saluted. ‘Inspector Tuttle’s kept everyone bar the cooks in the refectory, sir,’ he said, holding one door open, ‘which is down that corridor to the right. The cooks are still clearing up after the evening meal.’
The
subdued roar of many voices reached McKenna long before he had walked the length of the corridor. Opening one of the refectory’s heavy double doors, he stepped into a room that looked at first sight as big as a football pitch, seething with girls, staff and police officers. Evening sunshine poured through huge windows, here and there touching silvered epaulettes, small hair ornaments and spectacle frames.
Long
tables, simple slabs of unadorned wood on sturdy legs, had been pushed together to form an unbroken length around three sides of the room. At the far end, under a panoply of portraits, smaller tables stood on a dais, with women of varying ages, sizes, and manner of dress grouped around them on plain wooden chairs. In the well below, girls sat in rows on the floor, while others rubbed shoulders with the police officers, social workers and solicitors on the benches at each table. Leaning, sitting and squatting against the opposite wall were still more girls. The noise in the room bounced off the ceiling, humming in McKenna’s ears.
Every
girl wore a navy-blue skirt, he noticed, but their shirts were striped with the house colours of red, blue, yellow and green. Searching the sea of faces, he located Dewi, in earnest discussion with an ample woman dressed as a nurse. As he threaded his way around the crowded walls, causing a stir of interest, faces turned to look and he felt the scrutiny of many eyes.
‘
This is Matron,’ Dewi said when McKenna reached them.
‘
Are you in charge?’ she asked. The remnants of a Scottish accent quavered in her voice. ‘I’d like to talk to you.’
‘
Is it important?’
Tears
suddenly welled in her large, slightly bulging eyes. ‘Of
course
it’s important! It’s about poor Sukie.’
‘
Give me fifteen minutes or so,’ McKenna told her, then drew Dewi out of earshot. ‘The security guards who were here Tuesday night are down at the main gates. See what they’ve got to say about visitors, whether official or not, trespassers and, most important, the girls’ nocturnal activities.’ He looked at the girls once more and saw an epidemic of yawning breaking out. ‘How many have been seen so far?’
‘
Fifty. Sixty, maybe,’ Dewi said. ‘We started on the lower-school kids so they could get away to do their homework before bedtime.’
‘
Any pointers yet?’
‘
No, sir. Not a thing.’ He paused, gazing absently around the room. ‘Something might show up when we start collating statements, but even though the girls have been under surveillance since coming out of lessons, I expect there’ll be a lot of cross-contamination in what they tell us. Or,’ he added with a frown, ‘don’t tell us. Everyone, from the deputy head to the smallest kid on the block, gives you the feeling she’s scared to open her mouth without the headmistress’s say-so.’
‘
Then we need to make them realise that if someone in this room
is
a killer, any one of them could be the next victim.’ From the corner of his eye he saw a girl with a long flaxen plait moving through the crowd towards them. ‘We’ve got a visitor.’
Dewi
glanced round. ‘That’s Torrance.’ His face mottled with embarrassment. ‘She’s American. I met her this morning.’
‘
Hi, there, David,’ she said, then looked at McKenna and smiled.
‘
I’m Superintendent McKenna,’ he told her. ‘Can I help you?’
‘
Well, as we’ll be stuck here for hours, I guess I should sort out evening stables. Usually we do our own horses, but this isn’t usually.’
‘
Don’t horses live out in the summer?’ Dewi asked. Her eyes twinkled. ‘They do, but they still need watering and the once-over.’
‘
Will you need help?’ asked McKenna.
She
nodded. ‘I’d like to take Alice Derringer.’
‘
You’ll have to be supervised, of course,’ McKenna said blandly.
‘
How else?’ Torrance replied easily. ‘I’ll go get Alice.’
McKenna
watched her tap the shoulder of a thin, dark-haired girl. ‘I’ll send someone else to see the security guards,’ he told Dewi, ‘while you learn what evening stables is all about. You can also find out why she chose some kid to help and not one of the other horse owners, or, for that matter, whoever’s in charge of riding.’
Dewi
, absently watching Alice’s face light up with the same joy he had seen that morning, said to McKenna, ‘Have you heard about the clanger Bryn the Wonder Dog dropped? Alice was with the girl he targeted. So was Daisy Podmore,’ he added, pointing to the sumptuous-looking girl seated on Alice’s right. ‘They’re all best mates, apparently.’
‘
His handler mentioned it,’ McKenna replied. ‘Which girl was it?’
As
Alice scrambled to her feet, Dewi gestured to the girl suddenly exposed on her left. She too had dark hair and, like Alice, wore the green shirt of Tudor House. ‘She’s called Grace Blackwell.’ He grinned. ‘Her father’s a vicar, so her and Janet should get on like a house on fire.’
‘
How can a vicar,’ McKenna wondered, ‘afford to send his daughter here? Even if he’s got a good stipend?’
Dewi
shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s got a private income.’ After a moment’s thought, he said, ‘Then again, maybe he hasn’t. His daughter wears hand-me-downs as a matter of course. After she’d given us an ear bashing about letting dangerous dogs roam loose around the school, Matron told us Grace has quite a few of Sukie’s old clothes. They fit her perfectly, apparently.’
‘
Bryn didn’t touch the girl, did he?’
‘
All he did was cut her out of the group, like he was sorting sheep, and bark once,’ Dewi said. ‘There was no need for the fuss she kicked up, but she started screaming like a banshee. Daisy didn’t help, either. She added fuel to the flames by calling her a pathetic amoeba.’
Accompanying
Matron along the corridor from the refectory, across the central lobby and down the facing corridor, McKenna came to the conclusion that for all the building’s spare lines, austere proportions and wealth of windows, it was no less oppressive than the encircling woodland.
Matron
’s room overlooked the Strait and the lawns, where the massed banks of rhododendron and azalea were touched with gold by the dying sun. She gestured him to a basket chair and squeezed her bulk into another, keeping her back to the window. ‘We don’t need the light on, do we? Not quite yet, anyway.’ Her voice dwindled away. Then, haltingly, she said, ‘Do you know, it’s been one of my greatest pleasures to watch night fall over the Strait, but never again.’ She shuddered. ‘
Never
again!’ Her bosom heaved as she drew a steadying breath. ‘I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t stop myself. I can almost
see
her, being dragged into the depths by that terrible undertow. You can see it running even at low tide.’
‘
Menai Strait is notoriously dangerous.’ He paused. ‘I’m surprised there haven’t been other incidents.’
‘
The shoreline’s fenced off. It’s out of bounds, anyway.’
‘
So Dr Scott told me, but I’m sure the bounds, and a good many other rules, get broken.’
‘
Where
is
the Head?’ she asked.
‘
Making a statement at the police station.’
‘
Does she know what’s going on here?’
‘
Of course.’
‘
Doesn’t she mind?’
‘
I’m afraid it’s out of her hands.’ He let her come to terms with the sudden transfer of authority, before saying, ‘Why did you want to see me?’
‘
I want to know what happened to Sukie.’ In the deepening dusk her eyes were like those of a hunted animal. ‘Please tell me,’ she implored.
‘
She drowned,’ he replied bluntly.
‘
Did she kill herself?’
‘
At the moment we’re not in a position to say.’
She
balled her hands into fists and stared at them. ‘Well, I think you’ll find she did,’ she concluded.
‘
Why should she?’ asked McKenna.
‘
Well,’ she said slowly, ‘perhaps she thought she was pregnant. My goodness, I’ve seen more girls panic that way than I care to remember.’ Her mouth worked. ‘She had looked peaky of late,’ she went on. ‘And she was off her food. Oh!’ she wailed. ‘Why didn’t she
tell
me?’
‘
Do you keep a record of the girls’ menstrual cycles?’
Not
unless there’s a need. They often come on at the same time, anyway. So do some of the staff. That can happen when women live together.’
‘
I can assure you that Sukie wasn’t pregnant,’ he said quietly. ‘However, she could have had other worries. Tell me,’ he went on, ‘who were her friends? Who would share her confidences?’
She
hesitated. ‘Well, she seemed to get on with most people.’
‘
That’s not what I asked you. To whom was she close?’
‘
Lately, you mean? I can’t really say,’ Matron replied. ‘I’m not being difficult,’ she rushed on, sensing his impatience. ‘But at my age, you know things aren’t always how they look. In places like this, people come together for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with friendship or affection.’ She drew another deep, firming breath. ‘All I know for sure is that she idolised Torrance Fuseli, the American girl who approached you in the refectory. Although,’ she commented sourly, ‘if you ask me, it wasn’t
you
she was interested in.’
‘
Was it one-sided heroine worship, or something deeper?’
‘
I don’t know!’ She sniffed and pulled a snow-white handkerchief from her pocket. ‘I don’t seem to know
anything
any more. Sukie’s death has knocked everything sideways.’ She dabbed her eyes. ‘It’s a terrible thing to say about such a tragedy, but knowing she was dead was actually a relief! There’s no more need to fret about what
might
have happened.’
‘
You must know
something
about her relationship with Torrance,’ he coaxed.
‘
But I don’t! I just know she worshipped her. But as for what Torrance felt about Sukie — well, Torrance is the only one who knows that, and
she
won’t be telling.’
‘
No? Granted, we only met briefly, but I found her quite forthright.’
‘
But that’s the trouble, isn’t it? If she’s got any feelings, she hides them. Nothing ruffles her feathers, not even a death.’ Fretfully Matron rubbed her bare arms and he heard the rasp of flesh against flesh. ‘Only myself and the deputy head knew Inspector Tuttle had taken Dr Scott to the mortuary. We were on tenterhooks waiting for her to come back, but he came back alone. Then he made everyone go to the assembly hall. I was standing right next to Torrance when he told us about Sukie and she didn’t turn a hair. She didn’t even seem surprised. She went a bit quiet for a while, but by the time you turned up she was back to normal. As you must have noticed,’ she added pointedly.
‘
Don’t you like her?’
‘
I don’t know her. I sometimes wonder if she doesn’t run as deep and dark as those wicked waters outside.’
‘
What’s her background?’ he asked.
Matron
snorted. ‘Money, of course. Her family owns half the oil wells in America, I shouldn’t wonder. Apart from young Alice Derringer, she’s probably got more money coming her way than anyone here.’
‘
She asked for Alice to help with the horses. Are they particularly friendly?’
‘
Yes.’ She nodded thoughtfully. ‘I thought it was odd, too, when I saw them leave the refectory together.’ She fell silent and despite her earlier vow, turned to glance outside. ‘Mind you,’ she said, after a while, ‘Alice is a Tudor girl. Torrance is captain of Tudor House.’
‘
And which house did Sukie belong to?’
‘
Windsor. Charlotte Swann’s their captain and Nancy Holmes is captain of York.’
She
seemed to close her lips rather firmly then, but the light was now so dim he could have been mistaken. ‘What about Lancaster House?’
‘
That’s Imogen Oliver’s.’
‘
Which of them is head girl?’
‘
Oh, none of them. Ainsley Chapman’s the head girl. She’s won a Cambridge exhibition, so she’s leaving next month.’