Jolly Foul Play: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery (22 page)

Though it was early afternoon, not evening (the day was bare and pale, a white sky above us so blank it made me shiver even in my heavy woollen coat and hat), the crowds all around us, chattering so excitedly, really did drag my mind backwards to the Tuesday of Bonfire Night. I could still see the burned-out pile of blackened sticks beside the pavilion, and I knew without looking the spot where Elizabeth had fallen.

There were crowds of Deepdean girls, in their grey coats and striped House scarves, and smaller clumps of Fareham girls in the purple and yellow of their school. Out of the pavilion jogged the teams, and a cheer went up.

‘Go it!’ shouted Kitty, getting into the spirit at once. ‘Play up!’

Our team looked cheerful as they waved their sticks – they had been training hard, I knew, and great things were expected from them this year. Only Florence was serious. She looked as impressive in her sports kit as ever, but under her blaze of red hair her face was now undoubtedly pale and drawn. She turned to her team, though, and spoke to them just as a captain ought, and I could see that they were all ready to do their best. The captains’ sticks cracked against each other (I flinched a little at that) and then the team took up their positions on the field. Daisy nodded at the four of us, and we knew, as much as Florence turning to
her
team, that that was our cue. We clasped our hands together – Lavinia’s rough and rather pinching, Kitty’s firm and slender, Beanie’s small and fluttering and Daisy’s easy and familiar as my own – and then slipped away to our positions. We had agreed to begin our re-creation with the moment Miss Barnard began to speak, at 7.30.

We threaded our way through the crowd and all stood together between the bonfire and the pavilion, where Elizabeth and the Five had been on Tuesday; Beanie as Una, Kitty as Florence, Lavinia as Enid, myself as both Lettice and Margaret, and Daisy as Elizabeth. On the field, the sticks cracked again, and the game had begun.

I stared at my wristwatch. I knew that Daisy would be timing us all. Miss Barnard’s speech had gone on for five minutes, and in that time no one had moved, not even to stoke the fire. I stood still as the noises of play washed over me. The hands of the watch moved. It was 7.35. Miss Barnard stopped speaking. Lavinia as Enid began to walk between the pavilion and the blackened pile of sticks as though she was carrying wood to the fire. Una and Florence (Beanie and Kitty) walked away from Daisy and me towards the pitch and the place where the younger girls had been lined up to watch the fireworks. Of course, Margaret had gone with them on Tuesday, but now I had to be Lettice, and re-enact her final argument with Elizabeth.

I turned to Daisy, and she winked at me. She positioned herself in the very spot where Elizabeth had fallen, near the pavilion, just outside the circle of the bonfire light. I looked at my wristwatch again – 7.39, and the moment that Lettice ran away into the woods. Enid was still stoking the fire. As Margaret, I moved towards where the Big Girls had been standing, paused for a moment and then walked back towards the woods, exactly what Margaret had done with Astrid. Margaret and Lettice were now both out of the action, and it was 7.40, time for the fireworks to begin.

As Florence, Kitty moved forward to stoke the fire, taking over from Lavinia. Enid drew back from the fire, towards the pavilion – which of course was what must have happened. If Enid had gone towards the trees, she would have stumbled across Margaret and Astrid. But she was now blocking Florence’s path. Florence had to walk round her to reach the wood pile. Kitty, as Florence, walked back to the bonfire, dropped her invisible wood and turned back to the pavilion. I saw something, then. Although Enid and Una were in darkness, outside the light from the bonfire, Florence would be constantly watching. If someone else had tried to get to the bonfire during the time she was stoking it, she would see them at once. On her second trip to the pavilion, though, Kitty paused for a moment longer, scooping up not just the wood from the pile, but pretending also to pick up the rake and the hockey stick. She began to walk back towards the fire, and then paused behind Elizabeth. In one smooth movement she raised her right hand, the one which must be holding the stick. Balancing the wood and the rake under her left arm, she brought her right down over Elizabeth’s head. Then she bent, put down the rake and went rifling through Elizabeth’s clothes. It was all over very quickly, and she resumed her walk back to the fire, throwing the wood and the hockey stick in quite casually, before turning to go back for more fuel. Florence could have committed the murder.

After the next trip, Kitty stopped. It was 7.45, and the moment when Lettice should have taken over stoking duty. But, of course, she had not – now was the most likely time for the murder. But who would move first, Una or Enid? Then Lavinia sighed and shrugged. As Enid, she had been standing quite close to Elizabeth, but now she turned and walked the four paces to the side of the pavilion. I counted the seconds in my head as she bent down, picked up an armful of wood, and then picked two objects up from the side of the pavilion. The rake and the hockey stick, of course. Unlike Kitty, she made her arms look rather full, and she moved quite slowly back towards Daisy the way Enid would have, as though she did not want to drop anything. I realized how heavy the armful must have been for Enid, and how difficult to balance. It would certainly have taken a great deal of strength and skill to hit Elizabeth with the hockey stick without dropping the wood and the rake. Tall, well-built Una might have done it, and muscular Florence, as we had seen, but Enid, who had been too weak to lift branches in Oakeshott Woods? It did not seem likely.

Lavinia went walking up to Daisy, moving slowly and carefully (she had been thirty seconds now), then raised her right arm and made a hitting motion towards Daisy’s head. Daisy turned and raised an eyebrow at her, and Lavinia grinned. Then she mimed bending down over the place where Daisy ought to have fallen and putting something next to the body – the rake. She went rifling through Elizabeth’s pockets (she had been seventy seconds now), then straightened up again, as though she had just noticed the time. Indeed, it was 7.49 now, and the final fireworks were going off. Lavinia had to rush towards the fire, but as she arrived, Beanie came over to stand beside her.

‘What are you doing?’ I heard Lavinia say crossly.

‘I’m being Una!’ said Beanie. ‘It’s 7.51 – I have to be here now, don’t I, otherwise Charlotte couldn’t see me stoking the fire a minute later.’

‘But—’ said Lavinia. ‘Oh. You’re right!’

She was, I realized, and that meant something else. Charlotte had
not
mentioned seeing Enid next to the bonfire after the fireworks, so she could not have been there. Therefore there was no time for her to have done the murder, and no way for her to get back to the bonfire and leave the stick without it seeming suspicious. We could rule her out!

‘Then the shout went up,’ I said, my words masked by another cheer. ‘And … there, she’s been found.’

I turned, and went back to Daisy. There she was, quite unharmed still, standing above the spot on the grass where Elizabeth had been discovered.

‘Perfectly on time,’ she whispered. ‘Deductions, please.’

‘Enid couldn’t have done it!’ said Kitty and I at the same time.

‘Florence stopped stoking the fire at 7.45,’ I explained. ‘You saw Lavinia. She didn’t have time to kill Elizabeth and drop the stick in the bonfire before Una arrived, and if she’d been there at the same time as Una, Binny or Martha would have seen her. And Enid’s not very big or strong. I don’t think she could have carried everything
and
hit Elizabeth hard enough to kill her.’

‘Very good!’ said Daisy. ‘I agree. By that argument, though, Una would have had time. She could have done exactly what we saw Lavinia demonstrate, and then come to the fire with her load of wood. That would perfectly fit with what we know – Una is certainly still a suspect. What about Florence?’

‘She could have, while she was stoking the fire,’ Kitty said. ‘She’s so strong. It would have been easy for her. We thought that the murder must have happened at 7.45, but if Florence did it, then it could have happened earlier. Florence can hit things one-handed, I’ve seen her. She would have barely needed to pause, and she had time to drop the stick in the fire afterwards.’

‘So we still have two suspects left,’ said Daisy, nodding. ‘Did anyone else have any deductions? I know I have another.’

‘Yes,’ I said slowly. ‘There is one more thing. I realized when I saw Kitty and Lavinia picking up the stick and the rake. The murderer must have left them there beforehand. It wasn’t a mistake, and they can’t have been there by chance. So this murder must have been planned, from the moment the Five arrived at the sports pitch. It wasn’t someone taking an opportunity. It was—’

‘Purposeful!’ said Daisy, beaming. ‘Oh, EXACTLY, Hazel! This murderer knew what she was going to do, and waited for the right moment. This murderer is clever. I’ve always thought so, from the moment we found out the truth about the rake. This proves it. Yes, very good. Either Una or Florence has been very clever indeed, and very calculating.’

But Kitty’s brow had furrowed. ‘That’s all very well, but which one of them was it?’ she asked. ‘We still don’t know who has Binny. What if she’s trapped somewhere? Or what if she’s—’

She paused, and I looked at Daisy, concerned.

But Daisy had frozen, staring across the pitch. ‘Just look!’

The match was still going on – there were five minutes left of the first half – and the ball was furiously in play. Clementine was chasing down a Fareham forward, who was coming dangerously close to shooting distance. Our goalkeeper was crouching, face tense. But of course, Daisy was not looking at the hockey. She was nodding at a man in a greatcoat. I knew who I would see even before I turned – it was Inspector Priestley again.

‘Ooh! Inspector Priestley!’ said Beanie. ‘What is he doing here?’

‘He’s here to find Binny, of course!’ said Daisy. ‘The police were called in for Rose, and again when Binny went missing. You have to call the police for missing children. And if the Inspector is here for Binny—’

‘We might be able to tell him about Elizabeth!’ I said.

‘We must have evidence, though,’ said Daisy. ‘And we don’t have the stick.’

‘We can get it!’ I said.

I had been staring at the Inspector while I thought about this. I blinked and saw that he was looking at us all. His brow furrowed and his face broke into a crinkled smile. He raised his hand to wave, and the whistle blew time on the first half of the match. Girls swarmed the pitch – it was a most exciting score, with Deepdean one goal behind Fareham – and the Inspector threaded his way through them all, coming towards us.

‘Oh, Lord!’ gasped Beanie. ‘He’s coming over!’

‘Of course he is. We must greet him,’ said Daisy, tipping her chin up. Now that she is taller, she is almost up to the Inspector’s shoulder, but as always, she is so confident that she could be looking him in the eye. ‘And we must find out how much he knows about
our
case.’

She said
our
with a slight inflection on it, the way she says
our
school, and the way she might say
our
Inspector. Inspector Priestley was
hers
, just like Deepdean, and just like me.

Inspector Priestley approached, and I was glad to see that he was smiling.

‘Ladies,’ he said, and then, more quietly, ‘Apologies, Miss Wells.
Detectives.
Only I can’t say that out loud, under the circumstances. Are you well?’

‘You’re here for my sister,’ said Kitty, face pale.

The Inspector stopped smiling. ‘You’re the other Miss Freebody!’ he said. ‘Of course. You have a look of her – the cheeks. My apologies. I didn’t mean to make light of the situation. You are right, we are here to find your sister.’

‘You all think she’s run away,’ said Kitty in a rush. ‘But she didn’t! She was taken, I know it.’

The Inspector raised his eyebrows. ‘You think she was
taken
?’ he asked.

‘Yes! By—’ Kitty stopped, and looked at Daisy.

I looked at her as well. What would she say? Would she pass on what we knew easily, or make the Inspector struggle for it?

‘Does this have anything to do with the tragic accident that I have been told took place on Tuesday evening?’ asked the Inspector. ‘Your new Headmistress has told me all about it. But surely there is no mystery there. The culprit has been asked to leave the school.’

At that, Daisy went scarlet. ‘Jones isn’t the culprit!’ she said. ‘He was framed! And – oh bother, all right – it wasn’t an accident. Elizabeth Hurst was murdered, and Binny’s missing because she knew the murderer’s motive, and was going to reveal it to the school. She’s been taken, just like Kitty said.’

It sounded so unbelievable, when she said it. We had never had such a thin story to present to the Inspector. My heart sank.

The Inspector, as I knew he would, looked sceptical. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘It is not always murder, you know. Sometimes accidents do happen.’

‘Of course we’re sure!’ blazed Daisy. ‘We are detectives! We have solved three cases so far!’

‘But this doesn’t have to be your fourth,’ said the Inspector gently. ‘The girl stepped on a rake, I gather. It was a mistake, a very sad one.’

‘It wasn’t the rake! It was a hockey stick! It was thrown onto the fire to burn, but it didn’t take. It’s still there. We’ll show you. When the match begins again, and they’re all looking the other way.’

The Inspector looked worried. But he sighed. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘If you are able to give me evidence, I can reconsider. In the meantime, though, I suppose I ought to be enjoying the match.’ He looked about him and cleared his throat. ‘Er, up Deepdean!’

‘You,’ said Daisy crossly, ‘have much to learn about the science of fitting in.’

The players lined up again, and the whistle blew. Florence darted forward to gather up the ball, and I noticed again how very pale she looked. Did she know she was one of the last two suspects? Was this her guilty conscience?