pubic region. Susan looked away; she didn’t want to witness this indignity, and she didn’t care what anyone said or thought of her.
But she couldn’t shut out the sound of Glendenning’s voice.
“Hmm. Interesting,” he said. “No obvious signs of sexual interference. No bruising. No lacerations. Let’s have a look behind.”
He flipped the body over; it slapped against the table like meat on a butcher’s block. Susan heard her heart beating fast and loud during the silence that followed.
“No. Nothing,” Glendenning announced at last. “At least nothing obvious. I’m waiting for the test results on the swabs but I’d bet you a pound to a penny they’ll turn up nothing.”
Susan turned back to face the two of them. “So she wasn’t raped?” she asked.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Glendenning answered. “Of course, we won’t know for sure until we’ve had a good look around inside. And in order to do that…” He picked up a large scalpel.
Glendenning bent over the body and started to make the Y incision from shoulders to pubes. He detoured around the tough tissue of the navel with a practiced flick of the wrist.
“Right,” said Banks, turning to Susan, “We’d better go.”
Glendenning looked up from the gaping incision and raised his eyebrows. “Not staying for the rest of the show?”
“No time. We don’t want to be late for school.”
Glendenning looked at the corpse and shook his head. “Can’t say I blame you. Some days I wish I’d stayed in bed.”
As they left Glendenning to sort through the inner organs of Deborah Harrison, Susan had never felt quite so grateful to Banks in her life. Next time they were in the Queen’s Arms, she vowed she would buy him a pint. But she wouldn’t tell him why.
Chapter 3
I
St. Mary’s School wasn’t exactly Castle Howard, but it certainly looked impressive enough to be used as a location in a BBC classic drama.
Banks and Susan turned through the high, wrought-iron gates and drove along a winding driveway; sycamores flanked both sides, laying down a carpet of rust and gold leaves; double-winged seeds spun down like helicopter blades in the drizzle.
Through the trees, they first glimpsed the imposing gray stone building, with its central cupola, high windows and columns flanking the front entrance. Statues stood on the tops of the columns, against a frieze, and double stairs curled out at the front like lobster claws.
St. Mary’s School for Girls, Banks had read, was founded in 1823 on forty acres of woodland by the River Swain. The main building, completed in 1773, had been intended as a country house but had never been lived in. Rumor had it that Lord Satterthwait, for whom the house had been built, lost much of his fortune in an ill-advised business venture abroad, along with the money of a number of other county luminaries, and was forced to flee the area in disgrace for America.
The grounds were quiet this morning, but a group of girls in maroon blazers saw Banks pull up and started whispering among themselves. The car was unmarked, but Banks and Susan were strangers, and by now everyone must know that Deborah Harrison had been murdered.
Banks asked one of the girls where they might find the head, and she directed him through the front door, right down to the back of the building, then along the last corridor to the right. Inside, the place was all high, ornate ceilings and dark, polished wainscoting. Susan’s footsteps echoed as they walked. It was certainly a far cry from the institutional gloom of Eastvale Comprehensive, or from Banks’s old redbrick school in Peterborough, for that matter.
They walked along the narrow corridor, noting the gilt-framed paintings of past heads on the walls. Most of them were men. When they reached the door marked “Dr. J.S. Green: Principal,” Banks knocked sharply.
Expecting to be asked into an anteroom and vetted by a secretary first, Banks was surprised when he and Susan found themselves in the head’s office. Like the rest of the building, it had a high ceiling with elaborate cornices, but there its ancient character ended.
The wainscoting, if there had been any, had been removed and the walls were papered in an attractive Laura Ashley print. A shaded electric light hung from the old chandelier fixture, and several gunmetal filing cabinets stood against the wall. The bay window dominated the room, its window seat scattered with cushions that matched the wallpaper. The view through the trees to the river, Banks noticed, was magnificent, even on a drizzly November morning. Across the river was St. Mary’s Park, with its pond, trees, benches and children’s playground.
“What do you think?” Dr. Green asked, after they had introduced themselves and shaken hands.
“Pardon?” said Banks.
She took their raincoats and hung them on a rack in the corner. “I couldn’t help but notice that you were ‘casing the joint’ as they say,” she said.
“Hardly,” said Banks. “That’s what the bad guys do.”
She blushed slightly. “Oh, dear. My gaffe. I suppose criminal parlance is not my forte.”
Banks smiled. “Just as well. Anyway, it’s very nice.”
The tall, elegant Dr. Julia Green looked every bit as Laura Ashley as her walls. The skirt and waistcoat she wore over her white blouse were made of heavy cloth; earth colors dominated, browns and greens, mixed with the odd flash of muted pink or yellow, like wildflowers poking their way through the undergrowth.
Her ash-blonde hair lay neatly piled and curled on her head, with only one or two loose strands. She had a narrow face, high cheekbones and a small nose. There was also a remote, unattainable quality about her that intrigued Banks. She might be one of the pale and distant beauties, but there was no mistaking the sharp glint of intelligence in her apple-green eyes. Right now, they also looked red from crying.
“This is a terrible business,” she said. “Though I suppose you have to deal with it all the time.”
“Not often,” said Banks. “And you never get used to it.”
“Please, sit down.”
Banks and Susan sat in the two chairs opposite the small, solid desk. Susan took her notebook out.
“I don’t know how I can help you,” Dr. Green went on, “but I’ll do my best.”
“Maybe you could start by telling us what kind of a girl Deborah was.”
She rested her hands on the desk, tapered fingers laced together. “I can’t tell you very much,” she said. “Deborah is…was…a day-girl. Do you know how the system works?”
“I don’t know much about public schools at all.”
“Independent school,” she corrected him. “Public school sounds so Victorian, don’t you think? Well, you see, we have a mix of day-girls and boarders. The actual balance changes slightly from year to year, but at the moment, we have 65 day-pupils and 286 boarding. When I say that Deborah was a day-girl I don’t describe her status in any way, just note the simple fact that she came and went each day, so one didn’t develop any special relationship with her.”
“Relationship?”
“Yes. Well, when you live in such close proximity to the pupils, you’re bound to get to know more about them, aren’t you?”
“In what way?”
“In any number of ways. Whether it be the crisis of Elizabeth ’s first period, Meredith’s parents’ divorce or Barbara’s estrangement from her mother. These things can’t help but come out from time to time with the boarding pupils.”
