Tracy Banks’s bedroom, lit by a shaded table lamp, was a typical teenager’s room, just like Deborah Harrison’s, with pop-star posters on the wall, a portable cassette player, a narrow bed, usually unmade, and clothes all over the floor.
Tracy also had a desk against one wall and perhaps more books on her shelves than many girls her age. They ran the gamut from The Wind in the Willows to the Pelican History of the World. A row of dolls and teddy bears sat on the bookcase’s lowest shelf; they always reminded Banks that his daughter wasn’t that far away from childhood things yet. One day, they would disappear, as had most of his own toys: the fort with its soldiers, the Hornby train set, the Meccano. He had no idea where they had gone. Along with his childhood innocence.
Tracy herself sprawled on the bed in black leggings and a sloppy sweatshirt. She looked as if she had been crying. When Banks had got the message from his wife, Sandra, at his office, saying that Tracy was upset and wanted to talk to him, he had hurried straight home.
Now Banks sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his daughter’s hair, which was tied back in a ponytail. “What is it, love?” he asked.
“You didn’t tell me,” Tracy said. “Last night.”
“Are you talking about the murder?”
“Yes. Oh, it’s all right. I know why you didn’t tell me.” She sniffled. “You wanted to spare my feelings. I don’t blame you. I’m not mad at you or anything. I wish you had told me, though. It wouldn’t have been such a shock when all the girls at school started talking about it.”
“I’m sorry,” said Banks. “I knew you’d find out eventually and it would upset you. I suppose I was just trying to give you one more night of peace before you had to deal with it. Maybe it was selfish of me.”
“No. Really. It’s all right.”
“So what is wrong?”
Tracy was silent a moment. Banks heard laughter and music from downstairs. “I knew her,” she said finally.
“Knew who?”
“Deborah Harrison. I knew her.”
Apart from both being attractive blonde teenagers, Tracy and Deborah Harrison were about as far apart as you get in background and class. Deborah went to the expensive, elite St. Mary’s School, where she was carefully groomed for Oxford or Cambridge, and Tracy went to Eastvale Comprehensive, where she had to fight her way through overcrowded classes, massive apathy and incompetent teaching to get decent enough A-levels to get into a redbrick university. Now here was Tracy saying she knew Deborah.
“How?” he asked.
Tracy shifted on the bed and sat cross-legged. She pulled the duvet over her shoulders like a shawl. “You won’t get mad at me, will you, Dad? Promise?”
Banks smiled. “I’ve a feeling I’m not going to like this, but you’ve got my word.”
Tracy took a deep breath, then said, “It was in the summer. A few times I hung around with the crowd at the Swainsdale Center down by the bus station.”
“You hung around with those yobs? Jesus Christ, Tracy, I-”
“See! I knew you’d be mad.”
Banks took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m not mad. Just surprised, that’s all. How could you do that? Those kids are into drugs, vandalism, all sorts of things.”
“Oh, we didn’t do any harm, Daddy. It was just somewhere to go, that’s all. And they’re not so bad, really. I know some of them look pretty weird and frightening, but they’re not really. What did you used to do when you were a kid with nowhere to go?”
Banks would like to have to answered, “Museums, art galleries, long walks, books, classical concerts.” But he couldn’t. Mostly he and his friends had hung around on street corners, on waste ground or in empty schoolyards. Sometimes they had even broken into condemned houses and played there.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll let it pass for now. Carry on.”
“Deborah Harrison was down there shopping one day and one of the girls in the group knew her vaguely from dressage or swimming competitions or something, and they got talking. She came down a couple of days later- dressed down a bit-and started to hang out. I think she was bored with just staying at home and studying so she thought she’d slum it for a while.”
“What about her own friends?”
“I don’t really think she had any. She said most of her schoolfriends were away for the summer. Most of the boarders had gone home, of course, and the day-girls had all jetted off to exotic places like America and the south of France. Why can’t we go to places like that, Dad?”
“You were in France earlier this year.”
She slapped his arm. “I’m only teasing. It wasn’t a serious question.”
“When did Deborah first start joining in with the group?”
“Early August, I think.”
“And how did the others treat her?”
“They’d tease her about being a bit lah-de-dah, sometimes, but she took it well enough. She said somebody had to be, and besides, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.”
“What did she mean by that?”
“It was just her way of talking about things.”
“Did she ever flaunt her wealth, flash it about?”
“No. Not that I saw.”
“How long did she hang around with the group?”
“About three weeks, on and off.”
“Have you seen her since then?”
Tracy shook her head. “Well, she wouldn’t want to be seen dead with the likes of us now, would she? Not now she’s back at St. Mary’s.” Then she put her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, Dad. I just haven’t got used to the idea that she’s dead yet.”
Banks patted her arm. “That’s all right, love. It takes time. How well did you know her?”
“Not very well, but we chatted once or twice. She wasn’t so bad, you know, when you got to know her a bit. I mean, she wasn’t so snobbish. And she was quite bright.”
“Did you ever talk about school?”
“Sometimes.”
“What did she think of St. Mary’s?”
“She thought it was all right. At least the teachers were pretty good and the classes weren’t too big. She said they had a staff to pupil ratio of one to ten. It must be more like one to five hundred where I go.”
“Did she mention any teachers in particular?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“Patrick Metcalfe. Does that name sound familiar?”
Tracy shook her head. “No.”
“What kind of things did she say about school?”
“Nothing much, really. Just like, ‘You’d be surprised if you knew some of the things that go on there.’ That sort of thing. Very melodramatic.”
“What did you think she meant?”
Tracy looked down and rubbed her hand against her knee. “Well, there’s a lot of girls live in, you know, all together in the dormitories. I thought she meant, like, lesbians and stuff.”
“Did she imply that any of the teachers had any sort of sexual relations with the pupils?”
“No, Dad. Honest, I don’t know. I mean, she never really said anything. Not specific. She just implied. Hinted. But she was like that about everything.”
“Like what?”
“As if she knew more than she let on. And as if we were poor fools who saw only the surface, and she knew what really went on underneath. Like, we all swallowed the illusion, but she knew the underlying truth. I’m not trying to paint her in a bad way. She was really nice, but she just had this sort of tone, like, as if she knew more than everyone else.”
