Jolly Foul Play: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery (14 page)

The bell for the end of lunch rang. ‘Ugh!’ groaned Lavinia. ‘Games!’

Kitty looked at me. ‘
Games
,’ she said, raising her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t you say we needed to look for clues?’

I could feel my heart speeding up. Although Games meant facing Daisy for the first time after our argument, it also provided the perfect opportunity to hunt for clues at the scene of the crime. I realized that I was actually looking forward to getting onto a sports field.

It was a cold, wet English day outside. The trees on the sports field stood up ghostily out of the mist at the edges of the pitch, moisture shivering off them onto the grass in heavy patters.

It was strange to step through the gates and see the field again, the grass hardly even showing a mark of all the feet that had crossed it on Tuesday evening. Except there, between the lines of the hockey pitch and the pavilion, and showing up horridly darkly against the silver-green ground, were the remains of the bonfire, and close to that was the spot we all knew to avoid, the place where Elizabeth Hurst had fallen on Tuesday night. The rain had made all the blood wash away. There would be no clues there.

The changing room in the pavilion was subdued. Even Clementine was dampened, and Beanie whimpered as she pulled on her games knickers. I felt like whimpering too, from the cold and the upset in my chest. Daisy kept glaring at me, but not speaking to me. I knew that I had been the one to slap her – but she had been so awful to me. How were we to make it up this time, and if we could not, what would it do to the case? I had not yet told Daisy about what Beanie and I had overheard, and I did not know where she had gone at lunch. Neither of us had ever solved a case without each other before. How were we to deduce the answer to this one without sharing all the information that we needed?

‘Buck up, Beans,’ said Daisy, with one more flick of her eyes at me, and she put her chin up and marched out onto the pitch. Beanie, Kitty and Lavinia all looked from me to Daisy, unsure what to do. Then, of course, they followed her. ‘Sorry, Hazel,’ Beanie whispered to me as she went.

‘It’s all right,’ I said stupidly, stumbling after them. But I did not mean it.

Third and fourth formers take Games together on Thursday afternoons, and when we arrived outside again, most of the third form was already waiting, Binny Freebody in the lead. She smirked at Kitty, and Kitty glared at her and muttered about impertinent little sisters.

‘I heard that,’ said Binny, scowling. ‘And see here, Kitty Freebody, you may think you’re so grown up, and you and your friends know everything. But you don’t. You’re just as in the dark as anyone, all you bigger girls. You’ll see. There are things about this school that only we younger years know, isn’t that right?’

All her friends shifted about and nodded, although I saw little Martha Grey blush. Once again, I had the feeling of power shifting. The third formers ought to be afraid of us fourth formers, but now it was us who stepped back from them. Sophie Croke-Finchley clutched her hockey stick protectively, and Rose Pritchett looked pale.

Kitty, though, snorted. ‘You are quite the worst little sister imaginable,’ she said. ‘If only someone would bump
you
off next!’

‘Ooh!’ said Binny with relish. ‘That’s a horrid thing to say. Don’t let a mistress hear you talking like that!’

Just then Miss Talent, the games mistress, strode up, glaring and tugging at the whistle on a string around her neck. ‘Form up into teams, girls!’ she barked. ‘You! You! You! And you! You’re one team, and the rest of you are the other. Stop groaning! You! Fetch the hockey sticks. You’ll have to get out one of the spares – there’s been one missing since yesterday. Hurry up, we don’t have all day! Now come back here and jog. Go! Down to the end of the field and back. And don’t look so lumpish! At the double, girls, quick!’

I never thought I would miss Miss Hopkins, our old games mistress, but, well, life is surprising. Miss Talent’s Scottish barks followed us down the field as we ran on our warm-up lap, cross about that missing hockey stick. She seemed half convinced that the third formers had hidden it – which, I thought, they probably had. My neck was warm and the chilly air clung to my arms and legs, making me feel uncomfortably hot and uncomfortably damp and short of breath, even in the cold. I watched Daisy lope away at the front of the pack, Kitty just behind her, and was resentful.

By the time we began the hockey game proper, I was already wheezing. Lavinia and I hovered back in our usual spot in defence (the little third former Alma was in goal, looking very nervous behind her padding). Binny and her friends had all managed to get themselves on our team, with Clementine, while Kitty, Daisy and Beanie were on the other. I could see from Kitty’s face that she was still cross with Binny, and even before they clashed sticks and began, I knew it would not be a friendly match at all. Kitty had her teeth set, and she began to make great lunges forward, passing back and forth with Daisy, leaping high over attacking sticks and almost bowling Clementine over as she went.

Daisy came down the field towards me, and dread pooled in the pit of my stomach. She looked so determined. How could I stop her? I readied myself, stick out – and she whisked round me as though I was not even there, putting the ball neatly in the back of the goal. She had not even met my eye.

But then Kitty began to exhibit some very odd behaviour indeed. She pelted down the field towards Lavinia and me again, and I readied myself for another awful steamrolling. But then, instead of passing sideways to Daisy, she seemed to stumble, and the ball went flying to the left to land in the long grass under the trees.

Lavinia grumbled, and went lumping off to fetch it, coming back a few minutes later with her legs and games socks covered with leaves. It made me think of something … I almost remembered it … but then it was gone as Miss Talent shouted at us.

‘Hit it, Temple! Good grief, girl, hit the ball! Have you learned nothing in four years?’

Lavinia managed a weak, resentful hit, glaring hotly at Miss Talent as she did so, and the ball was back in play. But only a few minutes later, Kitty came pelting at us once again, and the same thing happened. Off the ball flew, thunking against a tree trunk this time and dropping out of sight.

‘FREEBODY MAJOR, BADLY PLAYED!’ roared Miss Talent. ‘Wong, fetch it now!’

I sighed. I did not at all want to go digging about in the mould at the bottom of the trees, but the key to surviving Games is to seem vaguely willing, and anyway, it was better than facing Daisy again. So off I went at a stumbling jog (I have perfected this – you appear to be making an effort, when really you are moving no quicker than walking) after the ball.

Kitty really had hit the ball hard. At first I could not find it. I stared about, disgusted at the thought of digging my fingers into the black bits of leaf and the wet leaning grasses.

‘HURRY UP, WONG!’ roared Miss Talent behind me. ‘Ach, Wells, fetch a new ball! We can’t wait!’

Then I saw the ball, tucked under a bramble just where its thorns would bite my fingers trying to pull it out. I stepped forward to get it, but at that moment, most luckily, I realized what was really going on. I was not
supposed
to find this ball straight away. Kitty is an excellent shot, and so she must have sent it deep under this bush on purpose. And I saw her reasoning. There might be a clue here. We had heard that rumour from Martha about someone rushing towards the trees at the edge of the field, just before the fireworks went off. Kitty was giving me an opportunity to see if it was true, and if it was connected in any way with Elizabeth’s death. It was an excellent piece of detective work on her part.

So I crouched down, as though I was still hunting for the ball, and began to work my way across the ground. I still did not want to touch the wet leaves, so I took up a twig and poked my way into hollows and lumps of grass. Raindrops fell on the back of my neck, making me shiver, and I kept glancing across at the game. I could tell that Kitty was doing her best to distract Miss Talent while I worked, and that Beanie and Lavinia were helping her. Then Daisy suddenly made a most impressive play, and scored a goal. She went into an enthusiastic victory dance with Kitty, and Miss Talent grumbled and tried to break them apart. My heart did its own strange dance in my chest. Had Daisy noticed what I was doing? Was she trying to help as well?

But then she did glance my way with a most bitter glare, and I realized I must have been mistaken. I looked down quickly, my heart thumping, and kept on searching.

I found a pair of games knickers, and a sock, waterlogged and fading. A Fry’s chocolate wrapper (no chocolate inside). And then I saw something else that made my heart race. It was a hairclip, a pretty silver one with a delicate filigree flower. It looked clean, only a very few leaves covering it. It could not have been here long. This was contraband, not regulation at all. Very few girls could get away with it without a mistress ordering them to remove it.

But a prefect could.

‘HURRY UP IN THERE, WONG!’ bellowed Miss Talent, and of course I had to jerk upright, clutching the ball in one hand and tucking the clip into my games knickers with the other. I came galloping back onto the field rather awkwardly, as the clip burrowed down and dug determinedly into the top of my leg, and nodded at Kitty. I wanted to tell her that I had at last found a clue.

She must have understood my meaning, for she waved her stick at me, and so the message passed between the members of the Detective Society. I saw Daisy raise her hand – it might have been to me, or it might have been to tuck a flyaway piece of hair behind her ear – and then the game continued. I felt broken by what had happened between us. It was truly dreadful, to be fighting with someone who ought to be your friend and to be hiding things from them. In a way, I was almost glad that she knew about Alexander … at least I was no longer lying.

I wondered if this was how the murderer felt, how all the Five were feeling. And I had a rush of pity. It hurts to do bad things, even the small sort of bad things that I have done. I have been part of investigating four murders now, and I am just as sure as I ever was that murder is never worth it. It does not make you happier, or better. It only tears you apart.

Kitty did not fling the ball away again. She did not have the chance. The third formers on our team got the bit between their teeth and began to score goal after goal. It was nearly a rout. Daisy and Kitty’s team lost by four goals to fifteen.

Binny and her friends all jumped about cheering, and I clutched my stick tight in my hands. They were still chilled and damp from the leaves, and quite uncomfortable. I felt just as uncomfortable inside. Daisy would not even look at me.

Then Lavinia came up to me and gave me a bump, shoulder to shoulder. ‘Chin up,’ she said, peering at me with her face frowning as it always does. I think that was Lavinia’s way of saying that it would be all right, though how she knew the sad things I had been thinking, I do not know. Perhaps Lavinia is more noticing than I have always thought.

To Kitty’s great annoyance, Binny and her friends went off on a jubilant lap of the pitch, while Miss Talent shouted at them. The rest of us congregated by the pavilion.

The remains of the bonfire were piled up, just where they had been, the charred sticks all horribly damp and black, quite soggy in the rain. I looked between them and the heap of fresh firewood that hadn’t been used up on Tuesday, still stacked in the dry next to the pavilion. It was twenty paces between the two, and the dry wood was so close to the pavilion that it would have been the easiest thing in the world for the murderer to scoop up the rake from where it was leaning, under cover of going back for more wood, and take it to where Elizabeth was standing.

Lavinia went up to the bonfire and began to kick through it with the toe of her shoe.

‘Ugh!’ said Clementine. ‘Leave it!’

‘It’s only fun,’ said Lavinia, kicking away, but I saw her flash a glance at me, eyebrows frowning, and knew that she had only said it for the benefit of the other dorm. Lavinia was hunting for clues in her own way. ‘Don’t be such a bore, Clementine.’

‘You are disgusting!’ said Kitty, understanding. ‘Really, Lavinia!’

I wriggled as the clip dug into my thigh again. I still had not had a chance to take it out and hide it somewhere safer, or to tell the others about it.

Daisy finally gave me a look, up and down, and I quailed a little. Then she stepped forward and began to toe through the rubble herself. She made it look as though she was doing it idly, but I knew that was all show. Daisy can never be still, but she never makes a motion that does not have a reason behind it. Then I saw her stiffen, a movement that I knew like looking at myself in the mirror.

‘Golly,’ she said. ‘How odd! That bit of wood there, it’s not a piece of wood at all. It’s a hockey stick.’

‘Oh!’ said Beanie. ‘It must be the missing one, the one Miss Talent was cross about! But how did it get
here
? And why is it …
oh
.’