‘You either didn’t find it here, or you get a warrant and come back so we can make it official.’ Argyll held the file against his chest, crumpling his school tie. ‘I can’t begin to describe how much trouble I’d be in if anyone found out I was doing this.’ Then he placed the file on the desk in front of her. ‘But, like I said, I’m trusting you.’
‘Understood.’ Lucy opened the folder.
There was a fair bit of paper inside: maybe seventy or eighty pages? She slid it all out and flicked through the sheets. They’d kept every test Benedict had done as part of the entrance procedure — the same ones she’d taken, the year after — IQ test; EQ test; aptitude test; personality test; history, maths, science, and English tests. All of them filled out in black biro and an eleven-year-old’s handwriting. Each one came with an evaluation by one or more staff members, commenting on Benedict as a prospective student and boarder.
She sorted it all into piles, pretty much covering the desktop. ‘His mum and dad only live in the Wynd, why not commute?’
‘We don’t accept day-boys, or day-girls. If you come to St Nicholas, you’re here full-time. It’s the only way we can be sure our students get the full benefit of their education.’
Bet they said the same at Jonestown and Waco.
Lucy started at the beginning — the aptitude test.
Strange how the memory of taking it was so clear: what felt like hundreds of boys and girls, all crammed in with her, sitting in the draughty Grand Hall at their little wooden desks on their hard wooden chairs while a big clock tick-tick-ticked down the terrifying seconds until their fate was decided. The scent of panic, deodorant, and linseed oil filling the air till it was so thick you could chew it.
Argyll looked over her shoulder. ‘Ninety-six percent of all applicants fail the first test. When I reviewed Benedict’s this morning, it was obvious he was struggling with issues.’ Pointing. ‘It’s not so noticeable on the multiple-choice questions, but where he has to give actual written answers it’s clear there’s an undercurrent of tension to them. As if he’s doing his best to hide some fairly unpalatable opinions, but he’s proud of those opinions at the same time, if that makes sense?’
She frowned down at the test.
DESCRIBE A HORSE:
Horses are ungulates, but unlike rhinoceroses or giraffes, their evolution has been efficiently bent to the will of man, giving them an advantage over the more lowly creatures in their clade. Even though their numbers have not increased under human patronage to the same extent as pigs and sheep, their utility to mankind has largely saved them from consumption (with the exception of a small number of less intellectually advanced cultures, such as the French and Belgians).
‘You got all that from this?’
‘When you’ve been reviewing student applications for as long as I have, you get a sense for these things. That talk about “bending evolution to the will of man”, and the casual racism towards French-speaking nations, all dressed up as scientific fact. It’s got “red flag” written all over it, for me.’ A shudder. ‘Next thing you know he’ll be asking the school library if they’ve got any books on eugenics, and taking an unhealthy interest in racism, antisemitism, and vivisection.’ Argyll poked one of Lucy’s piles of paper. ‘You should read his “What I did over the summer holidays” essay. If that doesn’t give you the heebie-jeebies, I don’t know what—’
Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ twiddled out from beneath Argyll’s academic robe.
‘Sorry.’ He answered it, turning to face the stacks for a cheery ‘Good morning, Myung-Hee, how can I help you?’ Then one hand came up to massage his forehead and the smile disappeared from his voice. ‘I see... Yes... OK... No, you did the right thing. I’ll be there right away... Yes... Bye.’ Argyll slipped the phone back in his pocket, stared up at the ceiling, and sagged. ‘Someone’s broken their arm on the football field, and given who their father is...’ He pursed his lips. ‘Well, let’s not go into that, but I have to pop out for a minute and supervise. Are you going to be OK in here, on your own, bearing in mind you’re really not supposed to be here at all?’
‘I promise not to burn the place to the ground.’
He blinked at her, chin pulled in as if that might actually have been a possibility. ‘Good. Er... No burning things.’ And then he was off, the clicker-clack of his brogues on the marble tiles fading as he navigated the technically-not-a-maze. Then, finally, the faint hollow thump of the records-room door closing.
Right — first things first.
Lucy pulled out her own phone and fired up the camera, spreading Benedict’s essay out to make it easier to—
‘What are you doing?’
Shit.
She flinched hard in her chair, spinning around, setting the thing squealing.
‘Oh, Detective Sergeant McVeigh...’ Charlie closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘What did the assistant headmaster specifically tell you?’
She whittled her voice down to a razor-edged whisper. ‘How the hell did you get in here?’
‘He said no copies to leave this room. That includes pictures on your phone, and you know that.’
‘Nearly gave me a heart attack!’
‘He trusted you.’
‘I’m trying to catch Benedict Strachan before he kills someone else, OK?’ She turned back to the desk, holding her mobile up to get a whole sheet of A4 on the screen. ‘Watch the door.’
‘What if he asks to check your phone?’
‘Fine.’ Lucy held out a hand. ‘Give me yours, then.’
‘Oh, no. I’m having nothing to do with this. Argyll told you how much trouble he’d be in if anyone found out he’d helped you!’
Back to the essay. ‘Am I breaking any laws? No. So help me do my job and go watch the door.’ The photo app made that annoying fake shutter sound, clicking away as she took both sides of every sheet. Then did the same with the teachers’ comments.
‘Is this what you do when someone tries to get close to you? You don’t just push them away — you shove them down the stairs!’
Next up, the official evaluation: click, click, click, click.
‘Come on, DS McVeigh, don’t do this to him.’
‘You’re not watching the door, Charlie. You want to help, or not?’
Emotional Quotient test: click, click, click, click, click.
‘God’s sake... Apart from anything else, he’s expecting you to read this stuff while he’s away. What are you going to do when he gets back and asks you about it? Scroll through your phone?’
Yeah, Charlie maybe had a point about that.
She didn’t need the maths test, or the multiple-choice bits, or the IQ test, as long as she had the teachers’ notes — prompting another flurry of clicks.
She glanced up at him. ‘How did you get in here?’
He hooked a thumb towards the nearest stack of filing drawers. ‘I took the lift, like a civilized person. It wasn’t locked.’
So much for the founding fathers’ cunning plan to keep everything up here secret.
‘Then you can sod off back the way you came, before someone catches you.’
‘You’re a very difficult person to save from themself, you know that, don’t you?’ Charlie gave a long rattling sigh, frowned at her like a disappointed parent, then turned and walked away, disappearing through the gap between two sets of filing cabinets. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you...’