V.L. McDERMID

Report for Murder

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by The Women’s Press Ltd 1987

Copyright © Val McDermid 1987

Val McDermid asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007385089

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007301775

Version: 2018-04-06

Dedication

For Gill

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

PART ONE: OVERTURE

1

2

3

4

PART TWO: EXPOSITION

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

PART THREE: FUGUE

13

14

15

16

PART FOUR: FINALE

17

18

19

20

21

PART FIVE: CODA

22

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Foreword

I grew up reading mysteries. From Agatha Christie to Ruth Rendell, from Rex Stout to Chandler and Hammett, I devoured them all. But what started me working on the first Lindsay Gordon novel, Report for Murder, in the mid-1980s was the chance to march to a different drum.

There was a new wave breaking on the shores of crime fiction, and it was led by women. Even though there had never been any shortage of female protagonists in the genre, you’d have been hard pressed to find many you could call feminists. But by the early 80s, a new breed of women had emerged.

They were mostly PIs, though there were a few amateurs among them. What marked them out was their politics. Whether they called themselves feminists or not, they were strong, independent women with a brain and a sense of humour, but most of all, they had agency. They didn’t shout for male help when the going got tough. They dealt with things on their own terms.

Another key difference was that these stories were organic. They weren’t random murders bolted on to a random setting. The crimes grew out of their environment – the particular jobs people did, the lives they led, the situations and recreations they were involved in.

devoured every one of those books I could get my hands on. Sara Paretsky, Barbara Wilson, viSue Grafton, Marcia Muller, Mary Wings, Katherine V Forrest and a dozen others showed me how to write about real lives within the frame-work of murder and suspense. Their protagonists took on the male establishment when they had to, and they didn’t back down. They didn’t shy away from confronting difficult issues either.

I loved them.

I wanted to write my own version of those women. A Scottish version, a woman as firmly rooted as her American sisters, but one who would have to accommodate different laws, different customs, different politics and different histories. I didn’t have the nerve to make her a PI because I didn’t know any at the time. And I suspected women PIs in the UK would have very different professional lives to their US counterparts.

What I did know was journalism. I became a journalist after I graduated from Oxford, just to bridge the gap until I could support myself writing fiction. (I always had the absolute conviction that day would come, a conviction not shared by anyone else back then . . .) I thought if I made my character a journalist, I’d be on safe ground. I knew what journalists were capable of and how we went about circumventing the doors that were closed to us. I knew the rhythm of our working lives and what made a good newspaper story.

In other respects, Lindsay Gordon has congruences with my own background. She’s Scottish, she shares my politics, and she’s a lesbian. It would, however, be a mistake to conflate us. Our personalities are quite different. (Except that we both have a fondness for fast cars and good whisky . . .) She’s far more headstrong and stubborn than I am, for example, and much more willing to take risks.

I’m proud to say that Lindsay was the first out lesbian protagonist in UK crime fiction. It never crossed my mind that she wouldn’t be a lesbian, because those American novels had given me permission to put whoever I wanted centre stage. But the books were never ‘about’ being a lesbian. Lindsay doesn’t wrestle with her sexuality or her gender, nor does she ever apologise for it. It’s only one part of her identity and it’s not one she has a problem with. The gay characters in the books are part of a wider landscape, one that accommodates all sorts and conditions of people.

That was a very deliberate choice on my part. When I was growing up on the East Coast of Scotland, there were no lesbian templates for my life. No books, no films, no TV series, and certainly no lesbians living open lives. I decided that if I was going to write fiction, I was going to give the next generation of gay women a character they could celebrate. I never describe her physically and that’s deliberate too. I wanted her to be a chameleon, to take the form of whatever her readers needed. They could identify with her if they wanted. They could fantasise her as lover or friend or colleague.

Report for Murder was published in 1987 and the Lindsay Gordon books have never been out of print in the UK. I think those early choices I made go some way to explaining why the books have remained so popular. This series is all about character and story, not special pleading or righteous argument.

Each of the books is set in a different world – a trick I learned from reading P D James! My own experiences were the springboard for my imagination in the creation of those environ-ments. Report for Murder is set in a girls’ boarding school; Common Murder, at a women’s peace camp; Final Edition, in the world of newspapers; Union Jack, in the milieu of union politics; Booked for Murder in publishing; and Hostage to Murder moves between Glasgow and St Petersburg in the course of a tense kidnap and murder thriller.

I never intended to write so many Lindsay Gordon novels. Originally I planned a trilogy. (Mostly because the book I really wanted to write was the third one but I couldn’t figure out how to get there without writing the first two.) I even packed her off to live in Half Moon Bay with a view of the ocean so I wouldn’t be tempted to write about her any more.

But she wouldn’t let me go. As soon as I’d despatched her, I had a great idea for another book that gave her the starring role. And then another, and another . . .

Lindsay Gordon took a hold of me and for almost twenty years, she wouldn’t let me go. I hope she has the same effect on you.

PART ONE: OVERTURE

1

Lindsay Gordon put murder to the back of her mind and settled down in the train compartment to enjoy the broken greys and greens of the Derbyshire scenery. Rather like home, she decided. Except that in Scotland, the greens were darker, the greys more forbidding. Although in Glasgow, where she now lived, there was hardly enough green to judge. She congratulated herself on finishing the detective novel just at the point where Manchester suburbia yielded place to this attractive landscape foreign to her. Watching it unfold gave her the first answer to the question that had been nagging her all day: what the hell was she doing here? How could a cynical socialist lesbian feminist journalist (as she mockingly described herself) be on her way to spend a weekend in a girls’ public school?

Of course, there were the answers she’d been able to use to friends: she had never visited this part of England and wanted to see what it was like; she was a great believer in ‘knowing thine enemy', so it came under the heading of opportunities not to be missed; she wanted to see Paddy Callaghan, who had been responsible for the invitation. But she remained unconvinced that she was doing the right thing. What had made her mind up was the realisation that, given Lindsay’s current relationship with the Inland Revenue, anything that had a cheque as an end product couldn’t be ignored.

The fact that she cheerfully despised the job she was about to do was not a novel sensation. In the unreal world of popular journalism which she inhabited, she was continually faced with tasks that made her blood boil. But like other tabloid journalists who laid claim to a set of principles, she argued that, since popular newspapers were mass culture, if people with brains and compassion opted out the press would only sink further into the gutter. But in spite of having this missionary zeal to keep her warm, Lindsay often felt the chill wind of her friends’ disapproval. And she had to admit to herself that saying all this always made her feel a pompous hypocrite. However, since this assignment involved writing for a magazine with some credibility, she was doubly pleased that it would avoid censure in the pub as well as provide cash, and that was enough to stifle the stirrings of contempt for Derbyshire House Girls’ School.

Paddy, with the contacts of a life membership of the old girls’ network, had managed to persuade the features editor of Perspective to commission a piece from Lindsay about a fund-raising programme about to be launched by the school with a Gala Day. At that point, Lindsay was hungry for the cash and the prestige, so she couldn’t afford the luxury of stopping to consider if it was the sort of project she’d actually choose to take on. Three months ago she’d reluctantly accepted redundancy when the Daily Nation discovered it needed fewer journalists so that it could pay its print workers their ‘pound of flesh'. Since then, she had been applying for unlikely jobs and frenetically trying to make a living as a freelance. That made the call from Paddy all the more welcome because it meant a relatively quiet weekend away from the demands of the telephone— which would soon stop disrupting her life altogether if she didn’t earn enough to pay the last quarter’s bill.

At that unwelcome thought, Lindsay reflected with relief on the money she would receive from the Derbyshire House job. It seemed poetic justice that such a bastion of privilege should stake her. Good old Paddy, she mused. Ever since they’d met in Oxford six years before, Paddy had not only been a tower of strength in emotional crises but the first to offer help when life got Lindsay into one of its awkward corners. When Lindsay’s car staged a break-down on a remote Greek mountainside it was Paddy who organised the flying out of a spare part. When Lindsay was made redundant it was Paddy who found the cousin who told Lindsay the best thing to do with her less-than-golden handshake. And when Lindsay’s lover died, it was Paddy who drove through the night to be with her. The daughter of two doctors, with an education begun at the ‘best’ schools and polished off at Oxford, Paddy Callaghan had shaken her family by deciding to become an actress. After four years of only moderate success and limited employment, however, she had realised she would never make the first rank. Always a realist, and fundamentally unaffected by four years of living like a displaced person, she reverted to type and decided to make sure that the rising generation of public schoolgirls would have a better grounding on the stage than she’d had. When the two women first met, Paddy was half-way through the teacher training that would take her back to her old school in Derbyshire to teach English and Drama. It had taken Lindsay quite a long time to realise that at least part of her appeal for Paddy was her streak of unconventionality. She was an antidote to the staid world Paddy had grown up in and was about to return to. Lindsay had argued bitterly with Paddy that to go back to her old environment was copping out of reality. Though the argument never found a solution, the friendship survived.

Lindsay felt sure that part of the reason for the continuation of that friendship was that they had never let their separate worlds collide. Just as Lindsay would never drag Paddy off to a gay club, so Paddy would never invite Lindsay to one of her parents’ weekend house parties. Their relationship existed in a vacuum because they understood and accepted the gulf that separated so much of their lives. So Lindsay was apprehensive about encountering Paddy on what was firmly her territory. Suddenly all her fears about the weekend crystallised into a panic over the trivial issue of what she was wearing. What the hell was the appropriate gear for this establishment, anyway? It wasn’t something that normally exercised her thoughts, but she had gone through her wardrobe with nervous care that morning, rejecting most items on the grounds that they were too casual, and others on the grounds that they were too formal. She finally settled on charcoal-grey trousers, matching jacket and burgundy shirt. Very understated, not too butch, she’d thought. Now she thought again and considered the vision of the archetypal dyke swaggering into this nest of young maidens. God help her if St George hove into sight.

If only she’d brought the car, she could have brought a wide enough selection of clothes to run no risk of getting it wrong. But her crazy decision to opt for the uncertain hands of British Rail so she could get some work done had boomeranged—you could only carry so much for a couple of days, unless you wanted to look like the wally of the weekend tipping out at the school gates with two cabin trunks and a holdall. As her paranoia gently reached a climax, she shook herself. ‘Oh sod it,’ she thought. ‘If I’m so bloody right-on, why should I give a toss what they think of me? After all, I’m the one doing them a favour, giving their fund-raising a puff in the right places.’

With this bracing thought, the train shuddered into the station at Buxton. She picked up her bags and emerged on to the platform just as the sun came out from the autumn clouds, making the trees glow. Then through the glass doors she caught sight of Paddy, waiting and waving. Lindsay thrust her ticket at the collector and the two women hugged each other, laughing, each measuring the other for changes.

‘If my pupils could see me now, they’d have a fit,’ laughed Paddy. ‘Teachers aren’t supposed to leap around like lunatics in public, you know! My, you look good. Frightfully smart!’ She held Lindsay at arms’ length, taking in the outfit, the brown hair and the dark blue eyes. ‘First time I’ve ever seen you fail to resemble a jumble sale in search of a venue.’

‘Lost weight. It’s living off the wits that does it. Food’s a very easy economy.’

‘No, darling, it’s definitely the clothes. Who’s the new woman, then?’

‘Cheeky sod! There’s no new woman, more’s the pity. I went out and bought this all by myself. At least six months ago, too. So there, Miss Callaghan.’

Paddy grinned. ‘All right, all right. I’ll take your word for it. Now, come along. I’m parked outside. I’ve got to pick up a couple of things from the town library then we can shoot back to the school itself and have a quick coffee to wipe away the strain of the train.’

In the station car park, they climbed into Paddy’s battered Land Rover. ‘Not exactly in its prime, but it’s practical up here,’ she apologised. ‘Highest market town in England, this is. When the snow gets bad, I’m the only member of staff who can make a bid for freedom to the local pub. You still got that flashy passion wagon of yours?’

Lindsay scowled. ‘If you mean my MG, yes I have.’

‘Dear, oh dear. Still trying to impress with that retarded status symbol?’

‘I don’t drive it to impress anyone. I know it’s the sort of car that provokes really negative reactions from the 2CV brigade, but I happen to enjoy it.’

Paddy laughed, ‘Sorry. I didn’t know it was such a sore spot.’

‘Let’s just say that I’ve been getting a bit of stick about it lately from one or two people who should know better. I’m seriously thinking about selling it just for a bit of peace and quiet from the purists who think you can only be right-on in certain cars. But I think I’d miss it too much. I can’t afford to buy a new sports car. I spend a lot of time in transit and I think I’ve got a right to be in a car that performs well, is comfortable and doesn’t get like an oven in the summer. Plus it provokes interesting reactions from people. It’s a good shorthand way of finding out about attitudes.’

‘Okay, okay. I’m on your side,’ Paddy protested.

‘I know it’s flash and pretentious,’ Lindsay persisted. ‘But then there’s a bit of that in me anyway. So you could argue that I’m doing women a favour by forewarning them.’

Paddy pulled up in a Georgian crescent of imposing buildings. ‘You are sensitive about it, aren’t you? Well, if it’s any consolation, I’ve never thought you were flash. A little over the top sometimes, perhaps …’

Lindsay changed the subject abruptly. ‘What’s this, then,’ she demanded, waving an arm at the buildings.

‘Not bad, eh? The North’s answer to Bath. Not quite on the same scale. Rather splendid but slightly seedy. And you can still drink the spa water here. Comes out of the ground warm; tastes rather like an emetic in its natural state, but terribly good for one, so they say. Come and see the library ceiling.’

‘Do what?’ demanded Lindsay as Paddy jumped down. She had to break into a trot to catch Paddy, who was walking briskly along a colonnade turned golden by the late afternoon sun. They entered the library. Paddy gestured to Lindsay to go upstairs while she collected her books. A few minutes later she joined her there.

‘Hardly over the top at all, dear,’ Lindsay mocked, pointing to the baroque splendours of the painted and moulded ceiling. ‘Worth a trip in itself. So where are all the dark satanic mills, then? I thought the North of England was full of them.’

‘I thought you’d appreciate this,’ said Paddy with a smile. ‘You’re in altogether the wrong place for dark satanics, though. Only the odd dark satanic quarry hereabouts. But before you dash off in search of the local proletarian heritage, a word about this weekend. I want to sort things out before we get caught up in the hurly-burly.’

‘Sort out the programme, or my article?’

‘Bit of both, really. Look, I know everything about the school goes right against the grain for you. Always embraced your principles so strongly, and all that. I also know that Perspective would be very happy if you wrote your piece from a fairly caustic point of view. But, as I tried to get across to you, this fund-raising project is vital to the school.

‘If we don’t raise the necessary £50,000 we’ll lose all our playing fields. That might not seem any big deal to you, but it would mean we’d lose a great deal of our prestige because we’ve always been known as a school with a good balance -you know, healthy mind in a healthy body and all that. Without our reputation for being first class for sport as well as academically we’d lose a lot of girls. I know that sounds crazy, but remember, it’s usually fathers who decree where daughters are educated and they all hark back to their own schooldays through rose-tinted specs. I doubt if we’d manage to keep going, quite honestly. Money’s become very tight and we’re getting back into the patriarchal ghetto. Where parents can only afford to educate some of their children, the boys are getting the money spent on them and the girls are being ignored.’ Paddy abruptly ran out of steam.

Lindsay took her time to answer while Paddy studied her anxiously. This was a conversation Lindsay had hoped would not have had to take place, and it was one she would rather have had over a drink after they’d both become accustomed to being with each other again. At last she said, ‘I gathered it was serious from your letter. But I can’t help feeling it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the public schools felt the pinch like everyone else. It seems somewhat unreal to be worrying about playing fields when a lot of state schools can’t even afford enough books to go round.’

‘Even if it means the school closing down?’

‘Even if it means that, yes.’

‘And put another sixty or seventy people on the dole queue? Not just teachers, but cleaning staff, groundsmen, cooks, the shopkeepers we patronise? Not to mention the fact that for quite a lot of the girls, Derbyshire House is the only stable thing in their lives. Quite a few come from broken homes. Some of their parents are living abroad where the local education isn’t suitable for one reason or another. And others need the extra attention we can give them so they can realise their full potential.’

‘Oh, Paddy, can’t you hear yourself?’ Lindsay retorted plaintively, and was rewarded by scowls and whispered ‘shushes’ from around the reading room. She dropped her voice. ‘What about all the kids in exactly the same boat who don’t have the benefit of Mummies and Daddies with enough spare cash to use Derbyshire House as a social services department? Maybe their lives would be a little bit better if the middle classes had to opt back into real life and use their influence to improve things. I can’t be anything but totally opposed to this system you cheerfully shore up. And don’t give me those spurious arguments about equal opportunities. In the context of this society, what you’re talking about isn’t an extension of equality; it’s an extension of inequality. Don’t try to quiet my conscience like that.

‘Nevertheless … I’ve had to come to the reluctant conclusion that I can’t stab you in the back having accepted your hospitality. Shades of the Glencoe massacre, eh? Don’t expect me to be uncritically sycophantic. But I won’t be doctrinaire either. Besides, I need the money!’

Paddy smiled. ‘I should have known better than to worry about you,’ she said.

‘You should, really,’ Lindsay reproached her. ‘Now, am I going to see this monument to the privileged society or not?’

They walked back to the Land Rover, relaxed together, catching up on the four months since they had last seen each other. On the short drive from Buxton to Axe Edge, where Derbyshire House dominated a fold of moorland, Paddy gave Lindsay a more detailed account of the weekend plans.

‘We decided to start off the fund-raising with a bang. We’ve done the usual things, like writing to all the old girls asking for contributions, but we know we’ll need a bit of extra push. After all, most of our old girls are the wives and mothers brigade who don’t exactly have wads of spare cash at their disposal. And we’ve got less than six months to raise the money.’

‘But surely you must have known the lease was coming up for renewal?’

‘Oh, we did, and we budgeted for it. But then James Cartwright, a local builder and developer, put in a bid for the lease that was £50,000 more than we were going to have to pay. He wants to build time-share holiday flats with a leisure complex. It’s an ideal site for him, right in the smartest part of Buxton. And one of the few decent sites where he’d still be able to get planning permission. The agents obviously had to look favourably on an offer as good as that. So our headmistress, Pamela Overton, got the governors mobilised and we came up with a deal. If we can raise the cash to match that £50,000 in six months, we get the lease, even if Cartwright ups his offer.’

Lindsay smiled wryly. ‘Amazing what influence can do.’

Although Paddy was watching the road, Lindsay’s tone of voice was not lost on her. ‘It’s been bloody hard to get this far,’ she complained mildly. ‘The situation’s complicated by the fact that Cartwright’s daughter is one of our sixth-formers. And in my house, too. Anyway, we’re all going flat out to get the money, and that’s what the weekend’s all about.’

‘Which is where I come in, yes?’

‘You’re our bid to get into the right section of the public consciousness. You’re going to tell them all about our wonderful enterprise, how we’re getting in gear, and some benevolent millionaire is going to come along and write us a cheque. Okay?’

Lindsay grinned broadly. ‘Okay, yah!’ she teased. ‘So what exactly is going to happen? So far you seem to have avoided supplying me with any actual information.’

‘Tomorrow morning we’re having a craft fair, which will carry over into the afternoon. All the girls have contributed their own work as well as begging and scrounging from friends and relations.

Then, in the afternoon, the sixth form are presenting a new one-act play written especially for them by Cordelia Brown. She’s an old girl of my vintage. Finally, there will be an auction of modern autographed first editions, which Cordelia and I and one or two other people have put together. We’ve got almost a hundred books.’

‘Cordelia Brown? The chat-show queen?’

‘Don’t be snide, Lindsay. You know damn well she’s a good writer. I’d have thought she’d have been right up your street.’

‘I like her novels. I don’t know why she does all that telly crap, though. You’d hardly believe the same person writes the books and the telly series. Still, it must keep the wolf from the door.’

‘You can discuss the matter with her yourself. She’s arriving later this evening. Try not to be too abrasive, darling.’

Lindsay laughed. ‘Whatever you say, Paddy. So the book auction rounds the day off, does it?’

‘Far from it. The high point is in the evening - a concert given by our most celebrated old girl, Lorna Smith-Couper.’

Lindsay nodded. ‘The cellist. I’ve never seen her perform, but I’ve got a couple of her recordings.’

‘More than I have. I’ve never come across her, as far as I know. She had left before I came to the school - I didn’t get here till the fifth form. And it’s not my music, after all. Give me Dizzy Gillespie any time.’

‘All that jazz still the only thing you’ll admit is music, then? You’ll not be able to help me, in that case. I’d love to get an interview with Lorna Smith-Couper. I’ve heard she’s one of the most awkward people to get anything out of, but maybe the good cause together with the old school ties will make her more approachable.’

Paddy turned the Land Rover into a sweeping drive. She stopped inside the heavy iron gates, leaned across Lindsay and pointed. ‘See that folly on the hill over there? It’s called Solomon’s Temple. If you look straight left of it you can just see a corner of the stupid green acres that all this fuss is about.’ There was an edge in her voice and they drove on in silence. Ahead of them stood Derbyshire House, an elegant mansion like a miniature Chatsworth. They swung round a corner of the house and dropped down into a thick coppice of birch, sycamore and rowan trees. After a hundred yards, they emerged in a large clearing where six modern stone blocks surrounded a well-tended lawn.

‘The houses,’ said Paddy. ‘About half of the girls sleep in the main building and the more senior ones sleep here,’ she pointed as she spoke, ‘in Axe, Goyt, Wildboarclough and my house, Longnor. The two smaller ones, Burbage and Grin Low, are for teachers and other staff.’

‘My God,’ said Lindsay, ‘the only thing this verdant near my school was the bloody garden of remembrance behind the local crematorium.’

‘Very funny. Come on, Lindsay, do stop waving your origins around like a red flag and have a drink. I can feel this is going to be a good weekend.’

2

Paddy and Lindsay were stretched out in Paddy’s comfortable sitting-room. It was furnished by the school in tasteful if old-fashioned style, but Paddy had stamped her own character on it. One wall was completely lined with books and the others were covered with elegant photographs of stage productions and a selection of old film posters. The chairs were upholstered in leather and, in spite of their shabbiness, they were deep and welcoming. By the window was a large desk strewn with piles of papers and exercise books and in the corner near the door was a cocktail cabinet, the only piece of furniture that Paddy had carted around with her everywhere for the last ten years.

Lindsay nursed her glass and drawled, ‘So what’s this one called?’

‘Deep Purple.’

‘Great hobby, making cocktails. Of course, I’d never have your flair for it. What’s in this, then?’

‘One measure Cointreau, three of vodka, blue food-colouring, a large slug of grenadine, a measure of soda water and a lot of ice. Good, isn’t it?’

‘Dynamite. And it goes down a treat. This is certainly the life. What time’s dinner? And should I change?’

‘Three quarters of an hour. Don’t bother changing, you’re fine as you are. Tomorrow will be a bit more formal, though; best bib and tucker all round. We’ll have to go over to the staffroom shortly, so I can introduce you to the workers.’

Lindsay smiled. ‘What are they like?’ she asked, slightly apprehensive.

‘Like any collection of female teachers. There are the super-intelligent, witty ones; the boring old farts; the Tory party brigade and the statutory radical - that’s me, by the way. And a few who are just ordinary, unobjectionable women.’

‘My God, it must be bad if you’re their idea of a radical. What does that mean? You occasionally disagree with Margaret Thatcher and you put tomato sauce on your bacon and eggs? So am I going to like any of this bunch of fossils?’

‘You’ll like Chris Jackson, the PE mistress. She comes from your neck of the woods, and apart from being a physical fitness freak is obsessed with two things - wine-making and cars. You can imagine what we have in common, and it isn’t overhead camshafts.’

Lindsay grinned. ‘Sounds more like it. I don’t suppose …?’

Paddy returned the grin. ‘Sorry. There’s a large rugby player in the background, I’m afraid. You’ll also like Margaret Macdonald, if she can spare enough time from this concert to say hello. She’s head of music, and a good friend of mine. We sit up late and talk about books, politics and what passes for drama on radio and TV.’

Lindsay stretched, yawned, then lit a cigarette. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘Train’s tired me out. I’ll wake up soon.’

‘You better had. You’re due to meet our magnificent headmistress, Pamela Overton. One of the old school. Her father was a Cambridge don and she came to us after a brilliant but obscure career in the Foreign Office. Very efficient and very good at achieving what she sets out to do. High powered but human. Talk to her - it’s always rewarding, if unnerving,’ Paddy observed.

‘Why unnerving?’ Lindsay was intrigued.

‘She always knows more about your area of competence than you do yourself. But you’ll enjoy her. You’ll have a chance to judge for yourself tonight, anyway, before the guest of honour gets here. Ms Smith-Couper has not said when she’ll be arriving. Her secretary simply said some time this evening. Really considerate.’

Paddy got to her feet and prowled round the desk, her strong, bony face looking puzzled. ‘I’m sure I left myself a note somewhere … I’ve got to do something before tomorrow morning and I’m damned if I can remember what it is … Oh, found it. Right. Remind me I have to have a word with Margaret Macdonald. Now, shall we go and face the staffroom?’ They walked through the trees to the main house. In a small clearing over to one side, a few floodlights illuminated a building site.

‘New squash courts,’ Paddy explained. ‘We have to light the site because we kept having stuff stolen. It’s very quiet round that side of the school after about ten - an easy target for burglars. Chris Jackson is champing at the bit for them to finish. Pity we can’t hijack the cash for the playing fields, but the money came to us as a specific bequest.’

The two women entered the main building by a small door in the rear. As they walked through the passages and glanced into the classrooms, Lindsay was struck by how superficially similar it was to her own old school, a crumbling comprehensive. Both had had the same institutional paint job done on them; both used pupils’ artistic offerings to brighten the walls; both were slightly down at heel and smelled of chalk dust. The only apparent difference at first sight was the absence of graffiti. Paddy gave Lindsay a quick run-down on the house as they walked towards the staffroom.

‘This is the kitchen and dining-room. The school has been in the building since 1934. Above us are the music rooms and assembly hall - it was a ballroom when Lord Longnor’s family had the house. There are classrooms, offices and Miss Overton’s flat on this floor. More classrooms on the second floor, and the top floor is all bedrooms. The science labs are over in the woods, on the opposite side from the houses. And this is the staff room.’

Paddy opened the door on a buzz of conversation. The staffroom was elegantly proportioned, with a large bay window through which Lindsay could see the lights of Buxton twinkling in the darkness. About twenty women were assembled in small groups, standing by the log fire or sitting in clumps of unmatched and slightly shabby chairs. The walls were occupied by a collection of old prints of Derbyshire and a vast notice-board completely covered with bits of paper. The conversations did not pause when Lindsay and Paddy entered, though several heads turned briefly towards them. Paddy led Lindsay over to a young woman who was poring over a large book. She was slim but solidly built, and seemed bursting with a vitality that Lindsay only dreamed of these days. Her jet black curly hair, pink and white complexion and dark blue eyes revealed her Highland ancestry and reminded Lindsay painfully of home.

Paddy interrupted the woman’s concentration. ‘Chris, drag yourself away from the exploded view of a cylinder head or whatever and meet Lindsay Gordon. Lindsay, this is Chris Jackson, our PE mistress.’

‘Hello there,’ said Chris, dropping her book. She still had the accent Lindsay had grown up with but had virtually lost under the layers of every other accent she had lived amongst. ‘Our tame journalist, eh? Well, before everybody else says so without meaning it, let me tell you how grateful I am for any help you can give us. We need to keep these playing fields, and not just to keep me in a job. We’d never get anything nearly so good within miles of here. It’s good of you to give us a hand, especially since you’ve no real connection with the place.’

Lindsay smiled, embarrassed by her sincerity. ‘I’m delighted to have the chance to see a place like this from the inside. And besides, I’m always glad of work, especially when it’s commissioned.’

Paddy broke into the pause which followed. ‘Chris, you and Lindsay are from the same part of the world. Lindsay’s from Invercross.’

‘Really? I’d never have guessed. You’ve hardly any trace of the accent. I’d have said yours was much further south. I’m from South Achilcaig myself, though I went to school at St Mary Magdalene in Helensburgh.’

The two women launched into conversation about their origins and memories of the Argyll-shire villages where they grew up, and discovered they had played hockey against each other a dozen years before. Paddy drifted off to talk to a worried-looking woman seated a few feet away from Lindsay and Chris. Only minutes later their reminiscences were interrupted by raised voices from Paddy and the other woman.

‘I had every right to excuse the girl. She’s in my house, Margaret. On matters of her welfare, what I say goes,’ Paddy said angrily.

‘How could you blithely give her permission to opt out when it’s so near to the actual concert? She is supposed to have a solo in the choir section. What am I supposed to do about that?’

Startled, Lindsay muttered, ‘What’s going on?’

‘Search me,’ Chris replied. ‘That’s Margaret Macdonald, head of music. Normally Paddy and her are the best of pals.’

Paddy glared at Margaret and retorted, ‘Far be it from me to put my oar in, but Jessica did suggest the Holgate girl could perfectly well handle an extra solo.’

The other woman got out of her chair and faced Paddy. ‘I make the decisions about my choirs, not Jessica Bennett. If the girl had come to me with her demands, I would not have given her permission to skulk in a corner and avoid her responsibilities. She’s not the only person who has reasons for wanting to have nothing to do with this concert. But some people just have to struggle on.’

‘Look, Margaret,’ said Paddy more quietly, realising the eyes of the staffroom were on them, ‘I’m sorry this has put you out. I know how much you’ve got on your plate. But in my view it would be far worse if I’d sent the girl off with a flea in her ear and she ended up throwing a fit on the concert platform. And in my view that would have been quite possible.’

Margaret Macdonald opened her mouth to retort, but before she could speak the staffroom door opened and a tall woman entered. As she moved into the room, the conversations gradually started up again. The music teacher turned sharply away from Paddy, saying only, ‘Since you have told the girl it will be all right, I must abide by your decision.’

Looking slightly stunned, Paddy returned to Lindsay and Chris. ‘I’ve never known Margaret to behave like that,’ she murmured. ‘Incredible. Hang on a minute, Lindsay; I’ll go and bring the head across.’ She walked over to the tall woman who had just entered and who was now chatting to another mistress.

Pamela Overton was an imposing woman in her late fifties. She was dressed in a simple dark blue jersey dress and wore her silver hair over her ears in sweeping wings which flowed into an elaborate plaited bun on her neck. Paddy went over to her and exchanged a few words in a low voice. The two women joined Lindsay and Chris.

Paddy had scarcely finished the introductions, with Lindsay lost in admiration at Pamela Overton’s beautifully modulated but unquestionably pukka voice, when there was a knock at the door. It was opened by one of the staff who stepped outside for a moment. Returning, she came straight to Miss Overton’s side and said, ‘Miss Smith-Couper is here, Miss Overton.’

Pamela Overton had hardly reached the door when it was flung open to reveal a woman in her early thirties whom Lindsay recognised instantly. Lorna Smith-Couper was even more stunning in the flesh than in the many photographs Lindsay had seen of her. She had a mane of tawny blonde hair which descended in a warm wave over her shoulders. Her skin was pale and clear, stretched tightly over her strong bone structure. And her eyes shone out from her face like hard blue chips of lapis lazuli.

As Lindsay watched her sweep into the room, she was aware of Paddy turning to face the door. And she sensed her friend’s body stiffen beside her. Only Lindsay was close enough to hear Paddy breathe, ‘Jesus Christ Almighty, not her!’

3

After dinner, Lindsay and Paddy skipped coffee in the staffroom and walked back through the trees to Longnor House. All Paddy had said was, ‘They’ll be too busy with the superstar to notice our absence. And besides, we’ve got the excuse of having to be back in case Cordelia arrives early.’ Lindsay was struggling to remain silent against all her instincts both as a friend and as a journalist. But she realised that to press Paddy for information would be counter-productive.

Dinner had not been the most comfortable of meals. Lorna Smith-Couper had greeted Paddy with an obviously false enthusiasm. ‘Dearest Paddy, whoever would have expected to find you in such a respectable situation,’ she had cooed. Paddy had smiled coldly in return. Her attempts to drift away from the group that had immediately formed around the cellist had been thwarted by Pamela Overton, who had suggested in a way that brooked no argument that Paddy and Lindsay should join Lorna and her at high table. Lorna had ignored Paddy from then on and had devoted herself to her conversation with Pamela Overton, after pointedly saying to Lindsay, ‘Anything you hear is completely off the record, do I make myself clear?’ As it happened, she said nothing that anyone could have been interested in except Lorna herself.

The meal itself had come as a pleasant surprise to Lindsay, whose own memories of school and college food had left her disinclined to repeat the experience. A tasty vegetable broth made with a good stock was followed by chicken and mushroom pie, baked potatoes and peas. To finish there was a choice of fresh fruit. She remarked on the quality of the food to Paddy, but her friend was too abstracted to do more than nod.

Back in Paddy’s room, Lindsay stretched herself out in a chair while Paddy brewed the coffee. From the kitchen she called out, ‘Sorry I’ve not been much company.’

Lindsay saw her chance to dig an explanation out of Paddy and immediately called out, ‘Dinner was a bit of a strain. I could hear my accent becoming more and more affected with every passing sentence. But I thought you said you’d never met our guest of honour?’

There was a lengthy silence filled only by the sound of the percolating coffee. When Paddy eventually spoke there was deep bitterness in her voice. ‘I didn’t realise I had,’ she said. ‘I only ever knew her as Lorna. In that particular circle, first names were all we ever seemed to exchange.’

She returned to the living-room and poured coffee for them both. ‘You make it sound like a John Le Carré novel,’ Lindsay said.

‘Nothing so dramatic.’

‘You don’t have to tell me about it unless you want to. No sweat.’

‘I’d better tell someone before I blow up. It goes back, oh, eight or nine years. I was doing bit parts in London and the odd telly piece. Looking back at it now, the people I used to hang around with were a pretty juvenile lot, myself included. We thought we were such a bunch of trendies, though. We were heavily into night-clubbing, getting stoned, solving the problems of the world, and talking a lot about permissiveness without actually being particularly promiscuous. A depressing hangover from the sixties, our crowd was. It was all sex and drugs and rock and roll. Or at least we tried to convince ourselves it was.’

Paddy looked Lindsay straight in the eye as she spoke, not afraid to share her shame with someone she trusted. ‘An expensive way of life, you see. And not easy to sustain on the sort of money I was making. But I found a way to finance it. I started dealing dope. No big-time hard stuff, you understand, but I put a fair bit around, one way or another. So there were always people coming round to my flat to score some dope. Regular customers, word of mouth, you know.’ Lindsay nodded. She knew only too well the scenes that Paddy described. ‘One of my customers was a musician, a pianist. William. Came several times with his girlfriend. The girlfriend was Lorna.’

Lindsay pulled out two cigarettes from her pack and lit them. She passed one to Paddy who inhaled deeply. ‘You see what this could mean?’ she asked. Lindsay nodded again as Paddy went on. ‘All she’s got to do is drop a seemingly casual word when there are other people around and bang, that’s my job gone. I mean, okay, most of our generation have dabbled with the old Acapulco Gold at one time or another but nobody talks about it now, do they? And no school, especially a public school, can afford to be seen employing a teacher who is known to have dealt in the stuff. It’s no defence to say I’ve never so much as rolled a joint on school premises. What a story for you, eh?’

Paddy abruptly rose and poured two brandies. She handed one to Lindsay and paced the floor. Lindsay sensed her anguish. She knew Paddy had worked hard to achieve her present position. That hard work hadn’t come easily to someone who was used to having the world on a plate. So it was all the more galling that even now it might come to nothing because of a way of life that hadn’t seemed so risky at the time. Lindsay ached for Paddy. She tried to find words that might help.

‘Why should she say anything? After all, she’d be admitting her involvement in the drugs scene and she’d surely be loath to damage her own reputation,’ was all she could manage.

‘No, she wouldn’t do herself any damage. You see, she never used the stuff herself. Always took the deeply self-righteous line that she could feel good without indulging in artificial stimulants. As to why she should say anything - well, why not? It might be her idea of fun. She could always say she had the best interests of the school at heart.’

Lindsay was silent. She got to her feet and went to Paddy. They held on to each other tightly. Lindsay prayed Paddy could sense the support she wanted to offer. Then, relieved, she felt the tension begin to seep out of her friend.

The moment was broken by a single peal of the telephone. They smiled at each other, then Paddy went to her desk and picked up the phone, pressing the appropriate button to take an internal call.

‘Miss Callaghan here … Oh good, I’ll be right over.’ She put the phone down and started for the door. ‘Cordelia’s arrived. I’ll go and collect her from the main building. There’s some cold meat and salad in the fridge. Could you stick it on a plate for me? She’ll doubtless be starving. Always is. Dressing’s on the top shelf, by the tomatoes.’ And she was gone.

Lindsay went into the kitchen to carry out her instructions. Her mind was still racing over Paddy’s problem, though she knew there was nothing she could do to improve the situation. She was also considering the more general problem of how to persuade Lorna Smith-Couper to grant her the sort of interview that would provide more than just a piece of padding for her feature on the school. Then there was Cordelia Brown. She might also be good for a feature interview to sell to one of the women’s magazines.

Lindsay had never met the writer, but she knew a great deal about her from what she had read and from what mutual friends had told her. Cordelia Brown was, at thirty-one, one of the jewels in the crown of women’s writing, according to the media. She had left Oxford half-way through her degree course and worked for three years as administrator of a small touring theatre company in Devon. Then she had gone on to write four moderately successful novels, the latest of which had been short-listed for the Booker Prize. But she had broken through into a more general public awareness with a television drama series, The Successors, which had won most of the awards it was possible to be nominated for. A highly acclaimed film had followed, which had appeared at precisely the right moment to be described as the flagship of the re-emergent British film industry. All of this, coupled with an engaging willingness to talk wittily and at length on most subjects, and an acceptable quota of good looks, had conspired to turn Cordelia into the darling of the chat shows.

As she shook the dressing and tossed it into the bowl of salad, Lindsay had to admit to herself that she was looking forward to their meeting. She had no great expectations of finding the writer sympathetic; on the other hand, she might be considerably more pleasant than her television appearances would lead one to imagine. She heard the door opening and the sound of voices. She went to the kitchen door just as Cordelia dropped a leather holdall to the floor. The woman had her back to Lindsay and was speaking to Paddy. Her voice sounded richer face to face than it did coming from the television set which managed to strip it of most of its warmth. The accent was utterly neutral, with only the faintest trace of the drawl Lindsay had become familiar with at Oxford and with which she had renewed her acquaintance earlier that evening at dinner. ‘There’s four or five boxes, but I’m too bloody exhausted to be bothered with them now. Let’s leave them in the car till tomorrow.’

Then she turned and took in Lindsay standing in the doorway. The two women scrutinised each other carefully, deciding how much they liked what they saw, both wary. Suddenly the weekend seemed to hold out fresh possibilities to Lindsay as Cordelia’s grey eyes under the straight dark brows flicked over her from head to foot. She felt slightly dazed and weak with something she supposed was lust. It had been a long time since she had felt the first stirrings of an attraction based on the combination of looks and good vibes. Cordelia, too, seemed to like what she saw, for a smile twitched at the corners of her wide mouth. ‘So this is the famous Lindsay,’ she remarked.

Lindsay prayed that her face did not look as stricken as she felt. She nodded and smiled back, feeling a little foolish. ‘Something like that,’ she answered. ‘Nice to meet you.’ She found herself desperately hoping that what she’d heard about Cordelia’s taste in lovers was true.

She was spared further conversational efforts just then by the demands of Cordelia’s stomach.

‘I say, Paddy, any chance of some scoff?’ she demanded plaintively. ‘I’m famished. It took much longer than I thought to get here. The traffic was unbelievable. Does the entire population of London come to Derbyshire every weekend? Or are they simply all desperate to see the new one-act play by Cordelia Brown?’

Paddy laughed. ‘I knew you’d be hungry. There’s some salad in the kitchen. I’ll just get it.’ But before Paddy could make a move, Lindsay had vanished into the kitchen. Cordelia shot a look at Paddy, her eyebrows rising comically and a smile on her lips. Paddy merely grinned and said, ‘I’ll fix you a drink. What would you like?’

‘A Callaghan cocktail special, please. Why the hell do you think I was prepared to come back to this dump?’ As Paddy mixed the drinks, Lindsay returned with Cordelia’s meal. She promptly tucked in as though she had not eaten for days.

Paddy strained a Brandy Alexander out of the shaker and passed it to Cordelia, saying, ‘Lindsay is writing a feature about the fund-raising.’

‘Poor old you. But you’re not an old girl, are you?’

‘Do I look that out of place?’ asked Lindsay.

‘No, not at all. It’s simply that I knew that I’d never seen you before either at school or at any of the old girl reunions. I’d have remembered. I’m good at faces. But you’re not one of us, are you?’

‘No. I know Paddy from Oxford. I was up when she was doing her teacher training. And she talked me into this. I’m freelancing at the moment, so it’s all grist to the mill.’ Lindsay’s response to the assurance of the older woman was to adopt the other’s speech pattern and to polish up her own accent.

‘And what do you make of us so far?’

‘Hard to tell. I haven’t seen enough, or talked to many people yet.’

‘A true diplomat.’ Cordelia resumed eating.

Paddy chose a Duke Ellington record and put it on. As the air filled with the liquid sounds, Lindsay thought, I’m always going to remember this tune and what I was doing when I first heard it. She was embarrassed to find she could hardly take her eyes off Cordelia. She watched her hands cutting up the food and lifting the glass; she watched the changing planes of her face as she ate and drank. She found herself recalling a favourite quotation: ‘A man doesn’t love a woman because he thinks her clever or because he admires her but because he likes the way she scratches her head.’ She thought that perhaps the reason her relationships had failed in the past was because she hadn’t looked for such details and learned to love them. She was surprised to find herself saying rather formally, ‘I was wondering if there was any chance you could be persuaded to give me half an hour during the weekend? I’d like to do an interview. Of course, I can’t guarantee that I’d be able to place the finished feature, but I’d like to try if you don’t mind me asking on a weekend when you’re intent on having fun with your old friends.’

Cordelia finished eating and put her plate down. She considered her glass for a moment. She turned to Paddy and said in a tone of self-mockery familar to her friend, ‘What do you think, Paddy? Would I be safe with her? Is she going to lull me into a false sense of security and tempt me into indiscretions? Will she ask me difficult questions and refuse to be satisfied with easy answers?’

‘Oh, undoubtedly!’

‘Very well then, I accept the challenge. I will place myself in your hands. Shall we say Sunday morning while the school is at church?’ Lindsay nodded agreement. ‘And don’t feel guilty about dragging me away from old friends. The number of people here I actually want to see can be counted on the fingers of one thumb. And there are plenty of others I’ll be glad of an excuse to avoid. Such as our esteemed guest of honour.’

‘You’re not alone there,’ said Paddy, struggling unsuccessfully to make her words sound light-hearted.

‘You another victim of hers, Paddy?’ asked Cordelia, not waiting for a reply. ‘That Smith-Couper always had the charm and rapacity of a jackal. But, of course, she’d left before you arrived, hadn’t she? A fine piece of work she is. Beauty and the Beast rolled into one gift-wrapped package. Do you know what the bitch has done to me? And done it, I may say, in the full knowledge that we were both scheduled for this weekend in the Alma Mater?’ There was a pregnant pause. Lindsay recalled that Cordelia had started her career in the theatre.

‘She’s suing me for libel. Only this week I got the writ. She claims that the cellist in Across A Crowded Room is a scurrilous portrait of her good self. Though why she should go out of her way to identify herself with a character whose morals would not have disgraced a piranha fish is quite beyond me. That aside, however, she is looking for substantial damages, taking into account the fact that the bloody thing made the Booker list and is about to come out in paperback. If she was going to get in a tizz, you’d think it would happen when the book came out, wouldn’t you? But not with our Lorna. Oh no, she waits till she’s sure there’s enough money in the kitty. Infuriating woman.’ Having let off steam, Cordelia subsided into her chair, muttering, ‘There you are, Lindsay, there’s the peg to hang your feature on. The real-life confrontation between the Suer and the Sued. By the way, Paddy, I hope I’m not bedded down within a corridor’s length of our Lorna. The temptation to get up in the night and commit murder most foul might be altogether too much for me!’

Through her infatuated daze, even Lindsay could detect the acrimony behind the self-mocking humour in Cordelia’s voice. ‘Luckily not,’ Paddy replied quickly, ‘she’s in Pamela Overton’s flat.’ She went on to explain that Cordelia was to occupy the guest room in Longnor, while Lindsay was to have the room next door, its occupant having volunteered to give up her room to the visitor in return for the privilege of sharing her best friend’s room for the two nights.

‘Fine by me,’ yawned Cordelia. ‘Oh God, I must have a shower. I feel so grubby after that drive, and I need something to wake me up. Okay if I use yours, Paddy?’ Paddy nodded. Cordelia opened her holdall and raked around till she found her sponge-bag, then headed for the bathroom, promising to be as quick as possible.

‘Another drink?’ Paddy demanded. ‘You look as if you could use it. Quite a character, isn’t she?’

‘Wow,’ said Lindsay. ‘Just, wow. How do you expect me to sleep knowing she’s only the thickness of a wall away?’

‘You’ll sleep all right, especially after another Brandy Alexander. And if you’re really lucky, maybe you’ll dream about her. Don’t fret, Lindsay. You’ve got all weekend to make an impression! Now, just relax, listen to the music and don’t try too hard.’

With those words of wisdom, Lindsay had to be content until Cordelia returned, pink and glowing from her shower. She apologised for her lack of manners in dashing off. ‘If I hadn’t taken drastic action, I’d have been sound asleep inside five minutes. Which would have been remarkably rude. Besides, I did want to talk,’ she added with a disarming grin, as Paddy announced that, since it was ten o’clock, she was going on her evening rounds of the House to check that all was well and everyone was where they should be. Left alone with Cordelia, Lindsay found herself at a complete loss. But Cordelia was too generous and perceptive to let the younger woman flounder, and before long they were talking avidly about the theatre, a shared passion. By the time Paddy returned half an hour later, Lindsay’s nervousness had been subdued and the two were arguing with all the affectionate combativeness of old friends. Paddy was quickly absorbed into the conversation.

In the small hours of the morning, she eventually saw her two friends to their respective rooms and made a last circuit of the house before she headed back to bed. Cocktails and conversation had driven away her earlier fears about Lorna. But as she prowled the dark corridors on her own, her thoughts returned to the cellist. Somehow Paddy would have to make sure that Lorna’s presence could not leave a trail of wreckage in its wake.

4

Lindsay was drifting in that pleasant limbo between sleep and wakefulness. A distant bell had aroused her from deep and dreamless slumber, but she was luxuriating in her dozy state and reluctant to let the dimly heard noises around her bring her up to full consciousness. Her drifting was abruptly brought to an end by a sharp knock on the door. Her nerves twitched with the hope that it might be Cordelia and she called softly, ‘Come in.’

But the door opened to reveal a tall young woman carrying a tea-tray. She was wearing a well-cut tweed skirt and a fisherman’s sweater which engulfed the top half of her body. ‘Good morning Miss Gordon,’ she said brightly. ‘Miss Callaghan asked me to bring your tea up. I’m Caroline Barrington, by the way, second-year sixth. This is my room. I hope you’ve been comfortable in it. It’s not bad really, except that the window rattles when the wind’s in the east.’ She dumped the tray on the bedside table and Lindsay struggled into a sitting position. Caroline poured out a cup of tea. ‘Milk? Sugar?’ Lindsay shook her head as vigorously as an evening of Paddy’s cocktails would permit.

Caroline walked towards the door, but before she reached it, she hesitated, turned, and spoke in a rush. ‘I read an article in the New Left last month about women in politics - that was by you, wasn’t it?’ Lindsay nodded. ‘I didn’t think there could be two of you with the same name. I enjoyed it very much. I was especially interested, you see, because I might go into politics myself after university. It’s rather given me a boost to realise that there are other women out there with the same sort of worries.’

Lindsay finally managed to get her brain into gear. ‘Thanks. Which party do you favour, by the way?’

Caroline looked extremely embarrassed, shifting from one foot to the other. ‘Actually, I’m a socialist,’ she said. ‘It’s something of a dirty word round here. I just think that things ought to be changed - to be fairer. You know?’

Half an hour later, Lindsay felt she had been put through an intellectual mangle. Never at her best in the morning, she had had to struggle to keep one step ahead of Caroline’s endless stream of questions and dogmatic statements about everything from student politics to the position of women in Nicaragua. Trying to explain that things were never as simple as they seemed without bruising the girls idealism or patronising her had not been easy, and Lindsay wished they’d been having the conversation over a cup of coffee after dinner, the time of day when she felt at her most alert. Finally, the buzz of a bell made Caroline start as she realised that this was neither the time nor place for such a discussion.

‘Oh help,’ she exclaimed, leaping off the end of the bed where she had settled herself, ‘that’s the breakfast bell. I must run. You don’t have to worry - staff breakfast is pretty flexible, and Miss Callaghan’s waiting to take you across. Blame me if she moans on at you about being late - I’m always in trouble for talking too much. See you later.’

‘Thanks for the tea, and the chat. Oh, and the use of your room. Maybe we’ll have the chance to talk again. And if we don’t, enjoy the weekend anyway,’ said Lindsay, wondering to herself how quickly she could manage to wash and dress. She almost missed Caroline’s words as she dashed through the door.

‘Sure. But don’t ask me to join the fan club for our concert star.’ And she was gone, her footsteps joining the general background clamour that the bell had released.

Over a breakfast of scrambled eggs and mushrooms, Lindsay told Paddy about her early morning visitor. Paddy laughed and said, ‘She’s full of adolescent fervour about the joys of socialism at the moment. She was always an idealistic child, but now she’s found a focus, she’s unstoppable. Her parents’ marriage broke up last year, and I think we’re getting a bit of referred emotion in the politics.’

Lindsay sighed. ‘But she’s not a child, Paddy, and her views are perfectly sound. Don’t be so patronising.’

‘I’m not being patronising. But in a closed world like ours, I don’t believe the opinions of one individual make a blind bit of difference.’

Lindsay, who should have known better after six years’ friendship with Paddy, allowed this red herring to set her off into a familiar fight about politics. It was an argument neither would ever win, but it still had the power to absorb. In spite of that, Lindsay found herself continually glancing towards the door. Paddy finally caught her in the act, grinned broadly and relented.

‘She’s not coming in for breakfast. She always does an hour’s work first thing in the morning, then goes for a run. She even did it when we went on holiday to Italy four years ago. You won’t see her much before ten-thirty, I’m afraid,’ said Paddy.

‘What makes you think I’m looking for Cordelia?’

‘Who mentioned Cordelia?’ asked Paddy innocently. Lindsay subsided into silence while Paddy started reading her morning paper. Lindsay felt fidgety, but was not certain if this was simply because she was in an alien environment, or because of Cordelia’s disturbing effect on her. She found herself studying the half-dozen or so other women at breakfast. Chris Jackson was deeply engrossed in a book about squash, and the two other women at her table were also reading. Lindsay’s gaze moved to Margaret Macdonald who was sitting on her own. A magazine was open by her plate, but although she kept glancing at it, she was obviously not reading. She was not eating either, and the eggs and bacon on her plate were slowly congealing. A bright red sweater emphasised the lack of colour in her face. Every time someone passed her or entered the room, she started, and her eyes were troubled.

As they rose to leave, Lindsay quietly remarked, ‘She looks scared stiff.’

‘Nervous about tonight, I suppose. Who wouldn’t be? There’s a lot hanging on it,’ Paddy replied in an offhand way before bustling off to put her cast through their paces one more time before the afternoon’s performance. Left to herself, Lindsay thought again about Margaret Macdonald. Paddy’s explanation didn’t seem to go far enough. Not knowing the woman, however, there was nothing Lindsay could do to find out what was troubling the teacher so.

She strolled back to Longnor House, revelling in the magnificent colours of the changing trees against the grey limestone and the greens and browns of the moorland surrounding the school. There were even patches of fading purple where the last of the heather splashed colour on to the bracken. Lindsay decided to run upstairs for her camera bag so she could take some photographs before the day became too crowded. After all, if she waited till the quiet of Sunday, she might miss the sunshine and the extraordinary clarity of the Derbyshire light.

A few minutes later, she was wandering through the grounds, pausing every now and again to change lenses and take a couple of shots. She took her photography seriously these days. It had started as a hobby when she’d been a student, and she had gradually built up an adequate set of equipment that allowed her to work on all sorts of subjects in most conditions. She had also picked the brains of every photographer she had ever worked with to the extent that she could now probably do the job as well as many of them. Her favourite work was portraiture, but she also enjoyed the larger challenge of a landscape. Now, looking at the contours of the land, she realised that a short scramble up the hillside would give her the perfect vantage point to catch the main building, its gardens, and the valley leading down to Buxton. Thankful that she was wearing jeans and training shoes, she began the steep climb up through the trees. After ten minutes’ brisk walking, she was out of the woods and on top of a broad ridge. From there, it was all spread before her. She took several shots, then, just as she was about to descend, her eye was caught by a splash of colour and movement in a corner of the gardens. In a sheltered nook, invisible from the school, two women were standing. Lindsay recognised the vivid scarlet of Margaret Macdonald’s sweater.

Hesitating only for a moment, she quickly grabbed her longest lens and slotted it into the camera body. She flicked the switch from manual to motor drive and set her legs apart to give herself more stability. Swiftly she focused and began to shoot. She could see clearly who was with the teacher now. Margaret looked as if she was pleading with Lorna Smith-Couper, who suddenly threw her head back in laughter, turned and stalked off. The music teacher stood looking after her a moment, then stumbled blindly into the wood. Lindsay had been surreptitiously photographing people without their awareness or consent for a long time. Journalists called it ‘snatching'. But for the first time she felt she had behaved shabbily - had in fact spied on what did not concern her.

Before she could ponder further on what she had seen, her attention was distracted once again. She had caught the flash of a running figure in the direction of the main gates. She swivelled round and could tell even at the distance of half a mile or so that the runner was Cordelia. She waited till Cordelia was nearer, then swung the camera up to her face again and steadily took a couple of pictures. Like the earlier photographs, they would be no great shakes as portraiture - they’d be too grainy for that. But as character studies, they’d do very well. Even the familiar barrier of the camera, however, could not distance Lindsay from the surge of emotion she felt at seeing Cordelia. There was nothing for it but to go back down the hill and hope the craft fair would bring the chance to talk to her. Lindsay knew that Paddy wouldn’t be there this time to interrupt because she would be busy with her dress rehearsal. And she also knew that Cordelia would not be watching the run-through. One of the last things she had said to Paddy the night before was that she never attended rehearsals. ‘I always prefer to wait for the finished product,’ she had said. ‘Any changes or cuts I can sort out with the director. But I’ve served my time dealing with the bumptious, egocentric shower of know-alls that make up such a large part of the acting profession. There is one in every cast who always knows better than you how the damn thing should be written.’

Her rich laughter echoed in Lindsay’s memory as she scrambled quickly down the hillside. She noticed she wasn’t as nimble as she used to be and resolved to start going to the gym again as soon as she got back to Glasgow. She was back in her room with twenty minutes to spare before the start of the craft fair. She had just slipped out of her jeans and into a skirt when there was a knock at her door. She called out permission to come in as she squeezed into a pair of court shoes, expecting Caroline to breeze in. But when the door opened, it was Cordelia who appeared.

‘Hi there,’ she said. ‘I heard you come in as I was changing. Are you coming down to the hall to have a look round ahead of the hordes? The front drive’s already filling up with cars. I suppose the locals can’t resist the chance of a good poke around. Amazing how curious the great unwashed are about the supposed mystique of public schools.’

‘Yes, aren’t we, though! That’s part of the reason why I agreed to come. I feel extremely curious about how the other half is educated,’ said Lindsay wryly, smiling to take the sting out of her words.

‘But you went to Oxford! Surely that must have given you some idea, even if you didn’t have the misfortune to spend your childhood in one of these institutions,’ Cordelia remarked as they walked down the corridor.

‘Yes, but by that stage, one is well on the way to being a finished product. You forget, I’d never come across people like you before. I wanted to see how young you’d have to catch kids before their assumptions and preconceptions become ingrained. How much comes from schooling and how much from a general class ethos imbibed at home along with mother’s milk and Château Mouton Rothschild.’

‘And how much of what made you the woman you are comes from home rather than education?’

‘I suspect about equal amounts from each. That’s why I’m a mass of contradictions.’ By now they were walking through the woods and Lindsay was well into her stride. ‘Sentimental versus analytical, cynical versus idealistic, and so on. The only belief that comes from both home and education is that you have to work bloody hard to get what you want.’

‘And do you?’

‘Sometimes - and sometimes.’

They fell silent as they entered the main building, neither willing to pursue the conversation into more intimate areas. A large number of people were milling around the corridors, ignoring the arrows pointing them towards the main hall. Lindsay and Cordelia struggled through the crowds and nodded to the girls as they slipped into the hall. But even here there was no peace. All the stalls were laid out in readiness, and behind most of them schoolgirls were making last-minute adjustments to the displays. Lindsay looked around and from where she stood she could already see stalls of embroidered pictures, knitted garments, stained-glass terrariums and hanging mobiles, hand-made wooden jigsaws and pottery made in the school’s kiln. As Lindsay and Cordelia stood admiring a stall of patchwork, the senior mistress called out from her vantage point by the doors, ‘Two minutes, girls. Everyone get ready.’

Lindsay had moved on to look at a display of wooden toys when she saw Chris Jackson hurrying through the hall. She made straight for Lindsay and spoke to her in a low voice. ‘Do you know where Paddy is?’

‘She’s rehearsing with the cast in the gym.’

‘No, they’re having a half-hour break. I thought you might have seen her. I’ve got to get hold of her now.’

‘Hello Chris, long time no see. Hey what’s up?’ asked Cordelia, joining them.

‘I’ve got one of the sixth in floods of tears behind the stage. She’s just had a stand-up row with a couple of other sixth-formers. The girl is absolutely hysterical, and I reckon Paddy’s the only one who can deal with her. There’ll be chaos if we don’t sort it out. And soon.’

Immediately, Cordelia took control. She grabbed a couple of passing juniors and said, ‘I want you to find Miss Callaghan for me. Try Longnor, or her classroom or the staffroom. Tell her to come to us at the back of the hall as soon as possible, please.’ The girls scuttled off at top speed. ‘I wasn’t Head of House for nothing,’ she added to the other two. ‘Wonderful how they respond to the voice of authority. I say, Chris, sorry and all that, I hope you didn’t think I was trying to usurp you?’

‘No, you were quite right. I lost my head for a moment when I couldn’t find Paddy.’

‘But what on earth happened?’ asked Cordelia, putting the question that Lindsay was longing to ask.

Chris said, ‘Sarah Cartwright’s father is the developer who’s trying to buy the playing fields. Apparently she said something about it being a real bore to have to give up Saturday morning games for this, and the others rounded on her and told her straight out that if it wasn’t for her rotten father we wouldn’t have to do it at all. That set the cat among the pigeons and it ended with Sarah being told that her classmates take a pretty dim view of what has happened; she’s more or less universally despised, they informed her. So she’s weeping her heart out. Paddy’s the only one who can help; she’s the only one that Sarah lets near enough. In spite of the fact that I spend hours in the gym with the girl, I may say.

‘She’s gymnastics mad. She wants to teach it, but you need temperament as well as talent for this job. Mind you, this is the first time I’ve seen her lose her cool. I’d better get back there now till Paddy comes, in case the girl makes herself ill. Besides, I’ve had to leave her with Joan Ryan, who is neither use nor ornament in a crisis.’

‘Do you want either of us?’ asked Cordelia. ‘No? Okay, we’ll wait here for Paddy and send her through to you as soon as she appears.’ At that moment, the doors opened and people surged into the hall, separating Lindsay from Cordelia. She saw Paddy arrive and be hustled off to the rear of the hall. It seemed to Lindsay as she browsed round the stalls that there was no need for Cordelia’s play; there were altogether too many mini-dramas taking place already. So much for her quiet weekend in the country.

PART TWO: EXPOSITION

5

The play was an unqualified success, Cordelia had used the limitations of cast and sets and turned them into strengths in the forty-five minute play which dealt wittily, sometimes even hilariously, with a group of students robbing a bank to raise money for a college crèche. As the audience sat applauding, Cordelia muttered to Lindsay, ‘Always feel such a fraud clapping my own work, but I try to think of it as a way of praising the cast.’ There was no time for more. Even before Lindsay could reply, the young local reporter intent on reviewing the play was at Cordelia’s side.

‘Any other plans for this piece, Cordelia? Are we going to see it again?’

‘Certainly are,’ she replied easily, switching the full glare of her charm on him. ‘Ordinary Women start rehearsing it in a fortnight’s time. They’re doing it for a month as half a double bill at the Drill Hall. Though I doubt if even they will be able to give it more laughs. That was a remarkable performance, wasn’t it?’ And she drifted off with the young man, giving Lindsay no chance to produce the detailed critical analysis of the play she had been preparing for the past five minutes.

She couldn’t even discuss it with Paddy who, with her young cast, was surrounded by admiring parents and friends from the nearby towns. So she perched in a corner of the hall as the audience filed out and scribbled some notes in her irregular shorthand about events and her impressions. So far, she had no clear idea of the shape her feature was going to take but, by jotting down random thoughts, she could be reasonably sure of capturing most of the salient points. She had also found that this method helped her to find a hook for the introductory paragraphs and, in her experience, once the introduction was written, the rest fell neatly into place. The problem here was going to be striking the right tone, she mused as she stared out of the window into the afternoon sunlight. Beneath her was the flat roof of the kitchen block, surrounded by a sturdy iron railing which enclosed tubs of assorted dwarf conifers. She admired the mind that could appreciate details such as the decoration of an otherwise depressing expanse of flat roof. Beyond the roof, the woods stretched out, and she caught a glimpse of one of the other buildings as the breeze moved the trees.

Lindsay was roused from her reverie by Cordelia’s voice ringing out over the public address system. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. The book auction is about to begin and you really mustn’t miss any of these choice lots.’

The hall was filling rapidly again. Paddy wove through the crowds and made her way to Lindsay’s side. ‘We’re doing very well so far,’ she said. ‘And I recognise at least a couple of book dealers among that lot, so perhaps we’ll get some decent prices. There are one or two real rarities coming up. Shall we find ourselves a seat?’

Bidding was slow for the first few lots, all newish first editions by moderately successful writers. But it soon became brisk as the quality began to improve. An autographed first edition of T.S. Eliot’s Essays Ancient and Modern fetched a very healthy price, and a second edition of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando with a dedication by the author climbed swiftly and was bought for an outrageous amount by the doting mother of one of Paddy’s fifth-formers. Paddy whispered in Lindsay’s ear, ‘That woman will try anything to get her Marjory to pass A level English.’ Lindsay bid for a couple of items, but the things she really wanted were beyond her means. After all, she reasoned, it was crazy to spend more than she would earn this weekend on one book. Her resolution vanished, however, when it came to lot 68.

Cordelia grinned broadly and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, what can I say? A unique opportunity to purchase an autographed first edition of a priceless contemporary novel. The One-Day Summer, the first novel of Booker prize nominee, yours truly. A great chance to acquire this rarity. Who’ll start me at a fiver?’

Lindsay thrust her arm into the air. ‘Five pounds I am bid. Do I hear six? Yes, six. Seven over there. Ten from the gentleman in the tweed hat. Eleven pounds, madam. Eleven once, eleven twice … twelve, thank you, sir. Do I hear thirteen? Yes, Thirteen once, thirteen twice, sold for thirteen pounds - unlucky for some - to Lindsay Gordon. A purchase you’ll never regret, I may say.’

An embarrassed Lindsay made her way over to the desk where the fourth-formers were collecting the money and wrapping the purchases. She didn’t feel much like facing Paddy’s sardonic grin right away, so she slipped down to the end of the hall by the stage and crossed through the heavy velvet curtains to the deserted backstage area where all the music rooms were situated. As she rounded the corner of the corridor, she saw Lorna Smith-Couper coming up a side corridor. The cellist did not notice Lindsay, because she was turning her head back to talk to someone coming round the corner of the corridor behind her. Without thinking, Lindsay slid through a half-open door and found herself behind the heavy backdrop of the stage. She could hear every word of the conversation in the corridor. Lorna Smith-Couper was speaking angrily.

‘I don’t know how you could have the nerve to put such a proposition to me. I may be many things, but shabby I’m not - and to let this place down now would be shabby in the extreme. You think money can buy anything. That’s astonishing for a man your age.’

The reply was muffled. But Lorna’s retort came over loud and clear. ‘I don’t care if your life depends on it, never mind your pathetic little business. I intend to play tonight and no amount of money is going to change my mind. Now, take yourself out of here before I have you removed. Don’t think you’ve heard the last of this, I’m sure the world will be delighted to hear how you conduct your business affairs.’

The man stormed off furiously down the corridor, past Lindsay’s hiding place. She leaned against the wall, exasperated with the melodramatic excesses that the weekend seemed to be producing. All Lindsay wanted to do was to get inside the skin of this school to write a decent piece. But every time she thought she was making some headway, some absurdly histrionic confrontation spoiled her perspective. Either that or, as happened even as the thought came into her head, Cordelia Brown appeared out of nowhere and reduced her to a twitchy adolescent.

Cordelia had just finished the auctioneering and had decided to slip out through the backstage area and down the back stairs behind the music rooms. ‘Hey,’ she said when she saw Lindsay, ‘the only reason I came through this way was to avoid you journos. But here I am, caught again.’

‘Sorry, it’s my nose for a scoop. I just can’t help it. But I wasn’t actually looking for you, honestly. Simply poking around,’ said Lindsay contritely.

‘Don’t apologise. I was only joking. You must never take me seriously; I’m incorrigibly frivolous. Lots of people hate me for it. Don’t you be one, please.’ Cordelia smiled anxiously, yet with a certain assurance. She was sharp enough to see the effect she had on Lindsay, but was trying not to exploit it; she never found it easy to guard her tongue, however. ‘By the way,’ she went on, ‘what on earth possessed you to spend all that money on my book? I’d have given you a copy if you’d asked.’

Lindsay mumbled, ‘Oh, I don’t have the book - though I’ve read it of course. It seemed to be for a good cause at the time.’

‘Oh-oh, the young socialist changes her tune!’ A glance at Lindsay’s face was enough to make her add, ‘Sorry, Lindsay, I don’t mean to be cheap. Look, hand it over and I’ll stick a few words in it if you want.’

Lindsay gave the book to Cordelia who fished a fountain pen out of her shoulder bag. Above the scrawled signature on the flyleaf, she scribbled something. Then she closed the book, embarrassed in her turn, said, ‘See you at dinner,’ and vanished down the side corridor where Lorna and the man had come from. Lindsay opened the book, curious. There she read, ‘To Lindsay. Who couldn’t wait. With love.’ A slow smile broke across her face.

Twenty minutes later, she had changed into what she called her ‘function frock’ for the evening’s activities and was again firmly embedded in Paddy’s armchair, clutching a lethal-tasting cocktail called Bikini Atoll, the ingredients of which she dared not ask. Paddy had relaxed completely since the previous evening. After all, she had argued to herself, the day had gone off well: much money had been raised and no one had so much as mentioned the word dope. Now she was gently teasing Lindsay about Cordelia before an early dinner. The meal had been put forward to six because of the evening’s concert, and Cordelia bounced into Paddy’s room with only ten minutes to spare. She looked breathtaking in a shiny silk dress which revealed her shoulders. She was carrying a shawl in a fine dark blue wool which matched her dress perfectly.

‘Hardly right-on, is it, my dears?’ she said as she swanned across the room. ‘But I thought I’d better do something to bolster the superstar image.’

‘We’d better go straight across; you’ve missed out on the cocktail phase, I’m afraid. We’ve been invited by my House prefects to sit with them tonight, so we’ll be spared the pain of eating with dear Lorna,’ said Paddy.

‘Terrific,’ said Cordelia. ‘I’ve managed to avoid her so far. If it weren’t for the fact that she plays a heavenly cello, I’d give this concert a miss and make for the local pub for a bit of peace. Oh, by the way, Paddy, how is the Cartwright girl?’

As they walked through the trees, Paddy said that Sarah was feeling somewhat embarrassed after her earlier outburst. She had decided to go to bed early. ‘I popped up earlier with some tea and I’ll take a look later on,’ said Paddy. ‘She’s very overwrought. I worry about that girl. She keeps too much locked up inside herself. If she’d let go more often, she’d be much happier. Everything she does is so controlled. Even her sport. She always seems to calculate her every move. Even Chris says that she lacks spontaneity and goes too hard for perfection. I think her father is probably very demanding, too.’

The subject of Sarah was dropped as soon as they entered the main building by the kitchen door. Cordelia remarked how little it had changed in the thirteen years since she had left. She and Paddy were deep in the old-pals-together routine by the time they arrived at the dining hall; it was only the presence of the Longnor House prefects and their friends which changed the subject. On sitting down to eat, Lindsay was immediately collared by the irrepressible Caroline who demanded, ‘Do you mostly work for magazines like New Left, then?’

Lindsay shook her head. ‘No, I usually write for newspapers, actually. There’s not a vast amount of cash in writing for magazines - especially the heavy weeklies. So I do most of my work for the nationals.’

‘Do you write the things you want to write and then try to sell them? Is that how it works?’

‘Sometimes. Mostly, I put an idea for a story to them and if they like it, either I write it or a staff journalist works on it. But I also work on a casual basis doing shifts on a few of the popular dailies in Glasgow, where I live now.’

Caroline looked horrified. ‘You mean you work for the gutter press? But you’re supposed to be a socialist and a feminist. How can you possibly do that?’

Lindsay sighed and swallowed the mouthful of food she’d managed to get into her mouth between answers. ‘It seems to me that since the popular press governs the opinions of a large part of the population, there’s a greater need for responsible journalism there than there is in the so-called “quality” press. I reckon that if people like me cop out then it’s certainly not going to get any better; in fact, it’s bound to get worse. Does that answer your question?’

Cordelia, who had been listening to the conversation with a sardonic smile on her face, butted in. ‘It sounds awfully like someone trying to justify herself, not a valid argument at all.’

A look of fury came into Lindsay’s eyes. ‘Maybe so,’ she retorted. ‘But I think you can only change things from inside. I know the people I work with, and they know me well enough to take me seriously when I have a go at them about writing sexist rubbish about attractive blonde divorcees. What I say might not make them change overnight but I think that, like water dripping on a stone, it’s gradually wearing them down.’

Caroline couldn’t be repressed for long. ‘But I thought the journalists’ union has a rule against sexism? Why don’t you get the union to stop them writing all that rubbish about women?’

‘Some people try to do that. But it’s a long process, and I’ve always thought that persuasion and education are better ways to eradicate sexism and, come to that, racism, than hitting people over the head with the rule book.’

Cordelia looked sceptical. ‘Come on now, Lindsay! If the education and persuasion bit were any use do you think we’d still have topless women parading in daily newspapers? I know enough journos to say that I think you’re all adept at kidding yourselves and producing exactly what the editor wants. You’re all too concerned about getting your by-line in the paper to have too many scruples about the real significance of what you are writing. Be honest with yourself, if not with the rest of us.’

Her remarks had the salutary effect of injecting a little reality into Lindsay’s attraction towards her and she scowled and said, ‘Given how little you know about the work I do and my involvement in the union’s equality programme, I think that’s a pretty high-handed statement.’ Then, realising how petulant she sounded, she went on, ‘Agreed, newspapers are appallingly sexist. Virginia Woolf said ages ago that you only had to pick one up to realise that we live in a patriarchal society. And the situation hasn’t changed much. But I’m not a revolutionary. I’m a pragmatist.’

‘Ho, ho, ho,’ said Cordelia hollowly. ‘Another excuse for inaction.’

But Caroline unexpectedly sprang to Lindsay’s defence. ‘Surely you’re entitled to do things the way you think is best? I mean, everybody gets compromises thrust upon them. Even you. Your books are really strong on feminism. But that television series you did didn’t have many really right-on women. I don’t mean to be rude, but I was …’

Whatever she was was cut off by Paddy interjecting sharply, ‘Caroline, enough! Miss Brown and Miss Gordon didn’t come here to listen to your version of revolutionary Marxism.’

Caroline grinned and said, ‘Okay, Miss Callaghan, I’ll shut up.’

The conversational gap was quickly filled by the other girls at the table with chatter about the day’s events and the coming concert.

As they finished their pudding, Pamela Overton came over to their table. ‘Miss Callaghan,’ she said, ‘I wonder if I might ask for your help? Miss Macdonald and the music staff are extremely busy making sure that everything is organised for the girls’ performances in the first half of the concert. I wonder if, since you seem to know Miss Smith-Couper, you could help her take her cello and bits and pieces over to Music 2 so that she can warm up during the first half?’

Paddy swallowed her dismay and forced a smile. Of course, Miss Overton.’

‘Fine. We’ll see you in my flat for coffee, then. Perhaps Miss Gordon and Miss Brown would care to join us?’ With that, she was gone.

Caroline sighed, ‘She’s the only person I know who can make a question sound like a royal command.’

‘That’s enough, Caroline,’ said Paddy sharply. The three women excused themselves from the table and walked through the deserted corridors to Miss Overton’s flat, Paddy muttering crossly all the way. Fortunately, Lorna was in her room changing, so coffee was served in a fairly relaxed atmosphere. Miss Overton reported on the success of the day and revealed that, by the end of the evening, she hoped they would have raised over £6,000. Lindsay was impressed, and said so. Before anything more could be said, Lorna appeared and announced she was ready to go over to the music room. Paddy immediately rose and grimly followed her out of the room, as Pamela Overton apologetically revealed that she too would have to leave, to welcome her special guests. Lindsay and Cordelia trailed in her wake and made their welcome escape up to the gallery where they settled in among the sixth form and those of the music students who were not directly involved in the concert.

Cordelia said, That woman makes me feel like a fifteen-year-old scruff-box, I’m so glad she wasn’t head when I was here; if she had been, I’d have developed a permanent inferiority complex.’

Lindsay laughed and settled down to enjoy the concert. In the hall below she saw Margaret Macdonald scuttling through the side door to the music rooms. Members of the chamber orchestra were taking their places and tuning up their instruments. Caroline and several other seniors were showing people to their seats and selling programmes which, Paddy had told Lindsay, had been donated by a local firm of printers. Caroline also slipped through the curtains, returning five minutes later with a huge pile of programmes. Cordelia leaned over and said to Lindsay, ‘I’m going to the loo, keep my seat,’ and off she went. Lindsay absently studied the audience below, and noticed a girl with a shining head of flaming red hair go up to Caroline, who pointed to the door beside the stage. The redhead nodded and vanished backstage. About eight minutes later, she re-emerged with Paddy. They left the hall together. ‘One damn thing after another,’ thought Lindsay ‘I wonder what’s keeping Cordelia?’

The lights went down and the chamber orchestra launched into a creditable rendering of Rossini’s string serenade No.3. Half-way through it, Cordelia slipped wordlessly into her seat, Lindsay surfaced from the music and smiled a greeting.

Then the senior choir came on stage and performed a selection of English song throughout the ages, with some beautifully judged solo work conducted by Margaret Macdonald. The first half closed with a joyous performance of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and the audience applauded loudly before heading for the refreshments. Lindsay and Cordelia remained in their seats.

Cordelia leaned over the edge of the balcony. Suddenly she sat upright and said, ‘Hey, Lindsay, there’s something going on down there.’ Lindsay followed her pointing finger and saw Margaret Macdonald rushing up the hall, looking agitated. The velvet curtains were still swinging with the speed of her passage. She headed straight for Pamela Overton and whispered in her ear. The headmistress immediately rose to her feet and the two women hurried off backstage.

‘Well, well! I wonder what that’s all about? Something more serious than sneaking a cigarette in the loos, by the look of it.’ As Cordelia spoke, the bell rang signalling the end of the interval, and the audience began to return to the hall. Meanwhile, Miss Macdonald came scuttling back through the hall, gathering Chris Jackson and another mistress on her way.

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ mused Cordelia. At that moment, Pamela Overton emerged on to the stage. So strong was her presence that, as she stepped towards the microphone, a hush fell on the hall. Then she spoke.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am deeply sorry to have to tell you that Lorna Smith-Couper will be unable to perform this evening as there has been an accident. I must ask you all to be patient with us and to remain in your seats for the time being. I regret to inform you that we must wait for the police.’ She left the stage abruptly and at once the shocked silence gave way to a rumble of conversation.

Lindsay looked at Cordelia, who had gone pale. When she met Lindsay’s eye, she pulled herself together and said, ‘Looks like someone couldn’t stand any more of the unlovely Lorna.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on, Lindsay, you’re the journalist. What sort of “accident” means you have to stay put till the police get here? Don’t you ever read any Agatha Christie?’

Lindsay could not think of anything to say. Around them, the girls chattered excitedly. Then Paddy came down the gallery to the two women. Her skin looked grey and old, and she was breathing rapidly and shallowly. She put her head close to theirs and spoke softly.

‘You’d better get backstage and see Pamela Overton, Lindsay. We’ve got a real scoop for you. Murder in the music room. Someone has garrotted Lorna with what looks very like a cello string. Pamela reckons we should keep an eye on our journalist. You’ve been summoned.’

Lindsay was already on her feet as Cordelia exclaimed, ‘What?’

‘You heard,’ said Paddy, collapsing into Lindsay’s seat, head in hands. ‘No reason to worry now, Cordelia. Dead women don’t sue.’

6

Lindsay hurried on down the hall, aware that eyes were following her. She pushed through the swathes of velvet that curtained the door into the music department. Uncertain, she listened carefully and heard a number of voices coming from the corridor where she had seen Lorna quarrelling with the unknown man earlier. She turned into the corridor and was faced with a door saying ‘Music Storeroom'. The passage turned left, then right, so she followed it round and found Pamela Overton and another mistress standing by a door marked ‘Music 2'. Beyond them was a flight of stairs.

Even in this crisis, Pamela Overton was as collected as before. ‘Ah, Miss Gordon,’ she said quietly. ‘I am afraid I have to ask another favour of you. I was not entirely truthful when I said there had been an accident. It looks as if Lorna has been attacked and killed. I don’t quite know how the press operates in these matters, but it seemed to me that, as you are already with us, it might be simpler for us to channel all press dealings through you. In that way we might minimise the upheaval. Does that seem possible?’

Lindsay nodded, momentarily dumbstruck by the woman’s poise. But her professional instinct took over almost immediately and she glanced at her watch. ‘I’ll have to get a move on if I’m going to do anything tonight,’ she muttered. ‘Can I see … where it happened?’

Miss Overton thought for a moment then nodded. She walked to the door and, with a handkerchief round her fingers, delicately opened it, saying, ‘I fear I may be too late in precautions like this, since others have already opened the door. By the way, it was locked from the inside. The key was on the table by the blackboard. There was some delay while Miss Macdonald searched for the spare key.’

Lindsay crossed the threshold and stood just inside the room. What she saw made her retch, but after a brief struggle she regained control. It was her first murder victim, and it was not a pleasant sight. She realised how wise she’d been to avoid it in the past when she’d reported on violent death. Then, there had always been someone else to take over that aspect of the job. But this time it was up to her, so she forced herself to look, and to record mentally the details of the scene. There had been nothing peaceful about Lorna Smith-Couper’s end. She had been sitting on a chair facing the door, presumably playing her cello. Now she was slumped over her instrument on the floor, her face engorged and purple, her tongue sticking grotesquely out of her mouth like some obscene gargoyle. Round her neck, pulled so tight that it was almost invisible amidst the swollen and bruised flesh, was a wicked garrotte. It did indeed seem to be a cello string, with a noose at one end and a simple horn duffel-coat toggle tied on to the other end to enable the assassin to tighten the noose without tearing the flesh on his - or her - fingers.

Lindsay dragged her eyes from this horror and forced herself to look around with something approaching professional detachment. She noticed that all the windows were shut, but none of the casements appeared to be locked. Then she turned, revolted and overcome, and went back to the corridor. ‘Where can I find a quiet telephone?’ she demanded.

‘You’d be best to use the one in my study,’ said Miss Overton. ‘Ask one of the girls to show you the way. I must stay here till the police arrive. Is there anything else you need?’

‘To be perfectly blunt, I need a comment from you, Miss Overton,’ Lindsay replied awkwardly.

‘Very well. You may say that I am profoundly shocked by this outrage and deeply distressed by the death of Miss Smith-Couper. She was a very distinguished woman who reflected great credit on her school. We can only pray that the police will quickly catch the person responsible.’ With that, Miss Overton turned away. Lindsay sensed her disgust at the situation in which she found herself and understood it very well.

She walked back down the corridor towards the hall. Just before she re-emerged into the public gaze, she paused and took out her notebook. She leant on the window ledge to scribble down the headmistress’s words before her memory of them became inaccurate. For reasons which she didn’t understand at all, she was more determined than usual to be completely precise in quoting the headmistress. Then she stared briefly out into the night. The last thing she had expected was to find herself caught up in a murder and part of her resented the personal inconvenience. She was also aware of her own callous selfishness as she thought to herself, ‘Well, this is really going to screw up any chance I might have had with Cordelia.’

Then Lindsay pulled herself together, gave herself a mental ticking-off for her self-indulgence, reminded herself that as sole reporter on the spot she stood to make a bob or two, and resolutely shoved the vision of the dead musician to the back of her mind. There would be time later to examine her personal feelings. She glanced up at the gallery, but Cordelia and Paddy were no longer there. Lindsay looked around her for a face she recognised and spotted Caroline half-way up the hall. She went over to her and asked to be shown the way to Miss Overton’s study. Caroline nodded and set off at a healthy pace. Half-way down the stairs, she turned and said conversationally, ‘I say, not wishing to talk out of turn and all that, but what has happened to the Smith-Couper person? I mean, everyone staff-wise is running around in circles like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. What’s all the fuss in aid of? And why are the police coming?’

‘Sorry, Caroline, it’s not for me to say. I’d like to tell you, but I’d be breaking a confidence.’

‘Oh, I see, grown-up conspiracies, eh? Anything to protect the kiddie winks,’ the girl retorted, smiling.

Lindsay laughed in spite of herself. ‘Not quite. It’s just that it’s not right for me to pass on what I’ve been told in confidence.’ A little white lie, she thought, and that’s not going to fool Caroline.

‘I see. So you’re not actually dashing to the phone to tell the world’s press about murder most foul, then?’ Caroline said mischievously. They had reached Pamela Overton’s quarters, so Lindsay managed to avoid giving an answer by vanishing through the door indicated and into the study with only a word of thanks. Caroline shrugged expressively at the closed door then took herself off. Lindsay turned on a side-light and sat down at a desk which was fanatically tidy. All that adorned its surface was a telephone, a blotter and a large pad of scribbling paper. Lindsay pulled the paper towards her and roughed out two introductions. ‘A brutal murderer stalked a top girls’ boarding school last night (Saturday). A star cello player was found savagely murdered as she prepared to give a concert before a glittering audience of the rich and famous,’ read the first, destined for the tabloids. The other, for the heavies, was, ‘Internationally celebrated cellist Lorna Smith-Couper was found dead last night at a girls’ public school. Her body was discovered by staff at Derbyshire House Girls’ School, just before she was due to perform in a gala concert.’ Then she jotted down a series of points in order of priority; ‘How found? When? Why there? Overton quote. No police quote yet.’

Within minutes she was on to her first news-desk and dictating her copy to one of those remarkably speedy typists who perform the inimitable and thankless task of taking down the ephemeral prose of journalists out on the road all over the world. It was well after ten when she finished. A good night’s work, she thought, but tomorrow would be a lot tougher. She’d have to file copy again with more detail to all the dailies, and act as a liaison for Pamela Overton, her staff and the girls. And some time within the next few hours, she would somehow have to develop the roll of film in her camera. Someone would pay a good price for what were almost certainly the last photographs of the murder victim. She would, of course, have to crop Margaret Macdonald right out of the frame. No one wanted a photograph of an unknown music teacher.

She sat smoking at Pamela Overton’s desk, using the waste-paper bin as an ashtray. She was strangely reluctant to return to the centre of events where a good journalist should be. The police would be here by now, and she would have to get a quote from the officer leading the investigation. But that could wait. The police would be too busy at present to be bothered with her questions. She was jotting down a few notes to herself about her course of action in the morning when there was a knock at the door. Before she could answer, it opened and Cordelia came in.

‘I hoped I’d find you here,’ said Cordelia. ‘Paddy reckoned Pamela Overton would have sent you here to do your stuff. I’m not interrupting you, am I?’

‘No, I’d just finished phoning copy over. It’s debatable how much any of the newspapers will be able to use at this time of night. But the radio news will give it plenty of airtime, and I’m afraid that by tomorrow morning we’ll have the whole pack of journos on the doorstep. And how Pamela Overton imagines I’m going to cope with that lot, I do not know,’ Lindsay replied wearily.

‘Paddy says the boss will probably ask you to stay for a couple more days.’

‘Not beyond Monday, I’m afraid. I’ve got a dayshift on Tuesday on the Scottish Daily Clarion,

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