Lucy stared.
So Paul Rhynie was lying when he said he’d acted alone. He had an accomplice, just like Benedict Strachan did.
The grubby tie.
She held it up, focusing her headtorch’s light on the ziplock bag. There were scorch marks and smears of red on the green-and-yellow fabric — lipstick? Had to be, blood would’ve dried to a powdery brown by now. The tie wasn’t the only thing in there: something glittered at the bottom of the bag. An earring.
There was more than enough evidence here to put Paul Rhynie away for eighteen years to life.
Lucy stuck everything back in the folder, then stuffed the whole thing into her backpack.
Frowned.
Surely it couldn’t just be Paul Rhynie. It would be too huge a coincidence if the first file she looked at was the only one full of incriminating evidence. So she drilled through the next drawer along: ‘TILFORD-SMITH, ROBERTA’, skimming past the clippings and notes to the ‘ENTRANCE EXAM’ folder at the back. Another set of photographs and another signed confession.
I, Roberta Tilford-Smith, do hereby confess to the unlawful killing of one Luke Appleton, at four thirty pm, on the sixteenth of July 1975, in the public toilets near the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol. I alone am responsible for Mr Appleton’s death...
The photos were in black and white this time, showing her and another girl stabbing a tall thin man in a suit. He had his trousers and pants around his ankles.
The Bloodsmith thumped on the ladder. ‘I think I can hear someone coming, Kiddo.’
So, including Benedict Strachan’s victim, the body count so far was one homeless person, one prostitute, and one pervert. All people that society wouldn’t miss too much. People the police might not put a lot of effort into finding.
Jesus.
The drill screeched through another lock.
‘I’m serious, Lucy, we need to get moving!’
‘Will you shut up for two seconds?’
My name is Pavel Ivanovich Zakharov and I hereby confess to the murder of Mikolaj Lewandowski, a homeless man, in Vorontsovsky Park, Obruchevsky District, Moscow. I acted alone and take full responsibility for this man’s death.
It was as if they were all working off some sort of template confession, always making sure to claim they acted alone. Bet their accomplices’ confessions would be exactly the same: everyone covering up for each other.
‘Ahem.’
‘For God’s sake! All right, OK? I get the...’
She looked down, but it wasn’t the Bloodsmith standing at the bottom of the ladder, framed in the dim glow of her headtorch — it was Argyll and the headmaster. The pair of them staring up at her with a mixture of sadness and disappointment. Even though it was after midnight, they were both wearing their dark-grey suits and academic robes.
Lights flickered on, flooding the place with a warm white glow, sparkling back off the brass fittings and marble tiles as Argyll held up a file. ‘Is this what you were looking for?’
She licked her lips.
Sod.
47
Lucy threw Pavel Zakharov’s confession down at them. ‘So, what, this is your blackmail bank?’ Grabbing a handful from the other open drawer — clippings and notes detailing Roberta Tilford-Smith’s accomplishments and dodgy business dealings. ‘There have to be thousands of these in here.’
‘Ah, dear Lucy’ — the headmaster clasped his hands behind his back and frowned up at her as if she’d just said something stupid in class — ‘nice though it is to see you again, I have to admit that I’m a little surprised to find you here. Rummaging through our records. Having clearly broken in to conduct an illegal search without a warrant.’ The frown became a pained expression. ‘You will, I hope, understand if that rather taints what might otherwise have been a pleasant reunion.’
‘Really?’ She hurled the notes and clippings at his fuzzy-bald head, but they scattered on the way down, fluttering to the marble floor around him. ‘Because I got the feeling you didn’t like me very much. Especially when you SENT A PAIR OF THUGS TO KILL ME!’
There was a moment’s silence, then an indulgent sigh. ‘Thugs, Lucy? I’m sure I don’t know any—’
‘Dr Lockerby and Dr Meldrum. And in case you’re wondering, it didn’t end well for them.’
‘Oh dear. That does sound unpleasant.’ He turned to his assistant. ‘Argyll?’
‘I’m disappointed, Lucy. I know you’ve had a serious head injury, but this... wanton destruction is beneath you.’
‘Oh, I’ll give you wanton bloody destruction!’ She clambered down the ladder. Slammed her palm against one of the locked drawers. ‘Want to explain why every file I’ve looked at has a murder confession in it?’
‘I trusted you, Lucy. I let you read Benedict Strachan’s file, if you promised to obey the rules, but you didn’t, did you? You took photos on your phone, even though I expressly forbade it. And don’t bother denying it; did you really think we wouldn’t have security cameras in here?’
‘In what way is that even vaguely comparable? I’m talking about murder!’
‘If nobody follows the rules, we end up with chaos.’
‘ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?’
The headmaster put a hand on Argyll’s shoulder. ‘Perhaps I could interrupt, for just a moment?’ His voice was like golden syrup: ‘Lucy, I don’t want you to think I was eavesdropping, but I couldn’t help overhear you talking to someone as we came in. I’d hate to think of them running about the school at night, in the dark; they might injure themselves. Where are they, and how did they manage to avoid our security cameras?’
She blinked. ‘He’s... waiting outside the school gates, with the rest of my backup. Patrol cars, Operational Support Units, dogs, firearms team.’
‘Excellent.’ The headmaster clapped his leathery hands. ‘I do love an imaginary insurance policy. We know you don’t have any of those things, Lucy. So, I’m going to ask you again: where is your mysterious friend?’
‘Going for help. They’ll be here any minute now.’
‘No they won’t. Argyll, perhaps you’d be so kind as to locate DS McVeigh’s elusive friend for me?’
Argyll pulled out his phone and poked at the screen, wandering off a couple of paces as he held it to his ear. ‘Vanessa? Sorry to disturb you so late, but I’m afraid we have an intruder on school grounds. Can you get the house leaders to wake everyone up, please?... That’s right: we need every building and classroom searched. Oh, and there will be house points for whichever group catches our unexpected visitor... Thank you.’
The headmaster nodded. ‘There we are; he’ll be found, safe and sound. Now, you were saying something about a pair of doctors trying to kill you?’
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know.’ Jabbing a finger at Argyll. ‘Ask him.’
‘And you were able to defeat these doctor assassins? How very resourceful of you.’ A sigh. ‘I genuinely had hoped we could be friends, Lucy; your test scores really were quite remarkable. But I’m afraid your interest in St Nicholas College has caused some of our parents to feel concerned about the safety of their children. I do hope you’ll understand.’
‘Understand?’
‘I’ll just be a moment.’ He produced a mobile of his own, selected a contact and listened to it ring.