Report for Murder, Page 4

  “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 emphasized the lack of color 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, reveling in the magnificent colors of the changing trees against the gray 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 color 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 favorite work was portraiture, but she also enjoyed the larger challenge of a landscape. Now, looking at the contours of the land, she realized 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 color and movement in a corner of the gardens. In a sheltered nook, invisible from the school, two women were standing. Lindsay recognized 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 swiveled 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 toward 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 recognize 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 w
as 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 apologize. 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.”