Fracture

be.

Allie’s hackles rose. Something was wrong.

She swung her torch around the room – the beam illuminating ghostly stone columns bearing the marks of ancient chisels, like scratches made by claws.

A shuffling noise arose behind them, as if the light had awakened something.

Allie whirled, pulling Rachel behind her and dropping into a low, defensive crouch, holding her torch like a truncheon.

‘This is so awesome,’ Zoe whispered, turning on her torch. ‘Best idea ever.’

Allie sagged, the adrenaline flooding out of her. ‘Bloody hell, Zoe. Why didn’t you say something earlier? You scared me to death.’

‘Hi, Allie. I’m here. Right where you told me to be.’ Zoe’s cheerful tone segued swiftly into alarm. ‘Blimey, Rachel, you don’t look so good. Maybe you should sit down.’

Looking back, Allie saw that Rachel’s complexion had gone an odd pale green.

‘Rachel!’

‘Totally fine,’ Rachel insisted, wobbling.

Taking her arm, Allie navigated her towards a dusty crate. ‘Let’s sit you down. You look like you’re going to be sick.’

‘Just… startled.’ Rachel’s voice was faint. ‘Thought we were dead. Nothing major.’

‘Put your head between your knees,’ Zoe ordered.

‘What’s wrong with Rachel?’ Sylvain emerged from a corridor as nothing more than a bright torch beam with a French accent.

‘Zoe scared us.’ Allie glared at the younger girl accusingly. ‘Rachel had a heart attack.’

‘Not a heart attack, exactly,’ Rachel murmured, her voice muffled as her face was still pressed against her knees. ‘But my life did flash before my eyes. I’m really sorry about Robert Peterson.’

They all stared at her.

‘Who’s Robert Peterson?’ Allie and Zoe asked at the same time.

‘I know him,’ Nicole said, ducking through the same doorway Allie and Rachel had just used. ‘He was in my physics class last year. A super student with very thick spectacles.’

‘I kissed him once,’ Rachel said. ‘He slobbered.’

‘Gross,’ Zoe said, looking repulsed.

Nicole just shrugged. ‘And yet you are alive.’

‘Somehow,’ Rachel conceded.

‘Where’s Carter?’ Nicole asked looking around the vault-like space.

‘I’m here.’ They all turned as Carter’s torch appeared through the corridor, gradually brightening as he neared them. Allie pointed her torch at him until they could see the shape of his body in the dark.

‘Then we are all present.’ Nicole’s voice was solemn. ‘Let’s begin.’

FIFTEEN

They gathered in a circle on the dusty floor. The only light came from their torches. It occurred to Allie they looked as if they should be playing a party game – ‘I Never’ or ‘Spin the Bottle’.

But this was a very different kind of game.

Looking around the circle of familiar faces watching her expectantly, she knew they wanted the same things she did. Answers. Resolution. Justice.

She couldn’t give them that.

‘You all know why we’re here.’ Her voice echoed off the cold stone walls. ‘After what happened last night, I –’ With a glance at Nicole she corrected herself. ‘Nicole and I – we don’t think Isabelle and the others are on the right track. We want to figure out who the spy really is. So we’ve mapped out where everyone was when all the stuff happened.’ The others looked at her expectantly. ‘We still don’t know who the spy is. But we think we know who it isn’t.’

She leaned back and the French girl scooted forward. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a sleek ponytail at the nape of her neck; when it caught the torchlight it gleamed like granite.

‘We started from the basis that we do not think the spy is a student,’ Nicole began. ‘Only the most senior Night School students have the kind of access this person has. So… it would have to be one of us.’ She swung her torch slowly around the circle, illuminating their faces one after another. ‘And I don’t think it is.’

‘Why not?’

It was Rachel who spoke, and they all turned to stare at her.

‘What do you mean why not?’ Surprise made Allie’s voice squeak.

Rachel shrugged. ‘It could be one of us. We don’t follow each other constantly.’

Alone among them, Nicole did not seem surprised by this. ‘Yes. So, just in case, I researched each of us. Each time something happened, I could account for where we all were. When the knife was found in the chapel, not one of us could have done it. You’ – she pointed at Rachel – ‘were in the library.’ Rachel nodded. ‘Allie, Zoe and I were together. Carter and Sylvain were also there, along with Jules and Lucas and every single Night School student,’ she said. ‘And I have worked this out for the other incidents as well. At no time could the same senior student have done these three things. It is not one of us.’

‘It’s one of the teachers.’ Carter’s voice sounded hollow.

Even though she had worked this out with Nicole that morning, hearing it said made Allie’s heart turn to ice in her chest. And she could see by the looks on the faces around her she wasn’t alone. Sylvain had his head in his hands. Rachel looked drawn. Even Zoe appeared troubled, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, her brow creased.

‘Yes,’ Nicole said quietly. ‘It has to be one of the Night School instructors. Someone very close to Isabelle. They have the freedom, the access and their time is more difficult to track.’

‘Then why couldn’t it be Eloise?’ Zoe asked, frowning.

Allie thought of that sheet of paper on the bed this morning. Eloise’s name with a line drawn through it. The strange mixture of disappointment and relief she’d felt.

‘Eloise was with us right before the knife was found,’ she explained. ‘Whoever placed it in the chapel did it between the time when the other Night School students passed and when we came by later – otherwise someone would have seen it. Eloise didn’t have time to get there and arrange it all before we arrived. So if no one intruded on to the campus last night – and Raj says they didn’t – it couldn’t be her.’

As they absorbed this, Nicole swung her torch in a little circle. ‘Blaming her for it is… how do you say? Theatre.’

The temperature seemed to drop further in the cold crypt.

‘If that’s true then one of the teachers accusing her is actually the one working for Nathaniel,’ Sylvain said.

‘It would make sense,’ Rachel said. ‘They’ll stop looking if they all believe the spy is Eloise.’

Allie nodded. ‘And while they’re not looking, the real spy could be doing…’

Nicole finished the thought for her. ‘Anything.’

Zoe, her face scrunched up with thought, was trying to work it all out. ‘If we’re right about Eloise then that means the spy is either Zelazny, Isabelle, Jerry or Raj —’

‘It’s not my dad.’

Rachel’s voice was sharp, and the others swung around to look at her.

‘Rachel’s right,’ Allie said. ‘No way is it Raj. He loves this place and Isabelle too much. And it can’t be Isabelle for obvious reasons.’

‘Could it be one of Raj’s senior guards?’ Sylvain asked. ‘A few of them have full access.’

But Nicole had thought of this, too. ‘Three guards are allowed access,’ she said. ‘Only two of them were working here the night Ruth was killed.’

The cellar fell silent. The list of possible spies was very short now.