Violet wonders if this is normal behaviour for the small police woman; whether she is in the habit of sharing grisly anecdotes with 12-year-old schoolgirls.
“When did you last see him?” asks Eve, without making any attempt to produce a notepad.
“Mr Sixpence? It was about a week before Hallow’en. I know he wasn’t here by then because he’s normally the one who helps make the pumpkin lanterns and we all have to keep the seeds for him. It was Mr Tunstall who oversaw that this year. So the time I saw him before that will have been the last time, if that makes sense.”
“And where was that?”
“Just in the woods,” says Violet, weakly. “There’s a spot I like to go – it’s quiet and there are rhododendron bushes where I’ve seen a red fox slinking about. I just sit on the log and read my book until I get cold and then it’s time to head back to the dorm, or to Catherine’s – wherever I’m going.”
“That’s Catherine Marlish, yes?”
“The vicar’s daughter – my best friend,” confirms Violet. “I don’t mind staying at the dorm – I mean, it’s a gorgeous big house and everything, but I prefer it at Catherine’s. I don’t really have any other friends at the boarding house.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” says Eve, and appears to mean it. She leans in, two old pals having a gossip. “Truth be told, it must be hard to find a good pal in a place like this. All a bit stuck-up, don’t you think? I dunno, they just seem to act like they’ve got all the answers and everybody else is not much more than a lump of nothing. You’re the first normal teenager I’ve met!”
“I’m only 12,” points out Violet, as she gives in to a smile. She likes Eve immensely now.
“Bloody hell, you’d get served in most bars,” laughs Eve. “Hey, just quickly – what was Mr Sixpence up to when you saw him?”
Violet tries to keep her face neutral. This was what she had been afraid of when the message came through at breakfast. Somebody has reported Mr Sixpence missing. The police were coming to talk to staff and pupils. They had to be as honest as they could, but not worry. Everything was going to be okay. She doesn’t think she wants to tell her about the time she saw him naked and painted green, hiding in the woods while the teachers and Rev Marlish and the man with the deep voice had argued outside his cabin. That doesn’t sound great for anybody concerned. But she’s happy to tell her about the other thing she saw – the unwashed, strange-looking man she had glimpsed once before.
“He was talking to somebody,” says Violet.
“Oh yes?” asks Eve, conversationally. “Who?”
Violet looks away. “It’s ‘whom’,” says Violet, and wonders why she feels compelled to correct her. She shakes her head, angry at herself. “I’m sorry, I’m a bit all over the place today. It’s a bit of a shock. It’s sad. I’m trying to work out what I feel.”
“Don’t get your pigtails tangled,” says Eve, smiling. “And don’t worry about the ‘right’ feeling. Honestly, between you and me I reckon Mr Sixpence as you call him has got a bit sick of cutting down trees and skinning squirrels and listening to a load of rich-kid hippies whinge about getting nervous before gymkhanas. He’s a Traveller so I reckon he’s travelled on. But we have a duty to follow up on a report of a missing person, which is why I’m here, on this miserable bloody day, having this chat with you. The quicker you can help me out with something useful, the quicker I can sod off back to a nice warm office and a mug of tea. You understand, yeah?”
Violet presses her lips together in case the imp says something silly. She can feel the gathering storm. There’s a chill in the air; a purplish blackness to the sky. The air tastes somehow roasted. She wants to open her mouth, to pop her ears, but she doesn’t trust herself not to spoil this new friendship before it’s begun.
“I didn’t recognise him,” she mutters.
“Him?”
“He looked like the people you see on the news – the ones that Thatcher keeps moving on. The ones who caused all the fuss at Stonehenge. He looked like that.”
“They all look different, love,” says Eve, kindly.
“Straggly, then. Unwashed. I didn’t really see him properly at first because he was wearing a camouflage coat but he had these sort of patchwork trousers on, like Sinbad wears in those old movies. I think he’d been talking to Mr Sixpence. They looked like they could have known each other.”
“Did he see you?”
Violet shakes her head.
“Did Mr Sixpence? Does he know you and your friends? Do you spend a lot of time up there?”
Violet keeps her face inscrutable – tries to distil what is memory from what is imagination. “We all know where his bus is but we don’t go up there,” she says, brushing over the question. “There are mineshafts that you can fall down and never come out again. He gave us an assembly about that. So did Mr Rideal when he told us about the history of the two houses – the school and the dorm. Mr MacBride, he’s the head of pastoral, he always jokes that there are secret passageways and underground rooms in the old part of the house. He’s only joking though, I’m sure.”
“Were they talking, or arguing?” asks Eve, cocking her head as if trying to clear a troublesome blockage.
“Mr Sixpence doesn’t shout,” says Violet, shaking her head. “I literally saw them for a moment. It was Mr Sixpence who was doing the talking and all he was saying was that he couldn’t make it happen.” She nods, agreeing with a mental picture. “Couldn’t make it happen so it was going to have to be a no. I think that was it. The younger man, I can’t tell you anything else about him. I barely saw him.”
Eve purses her lips, her philtrum touching the tip of her nose. She sighs. “Do you see him with other people, up at that spot? Where the fox lies down in the rhododendron, you say? I should imagine a man like him would enjoy a place like that. Somewhere pretty.”
Violet shrugs and hopes it isn’t taken as a rude gesture. “He lives up there. It’s all pretty. Do you think he’ll come back – it’s just, I was hoping Mr Rideal might take me to be healed.”
Eve shoots her a look that is entirely at odds with all that has gone before. “To be healed?”
“It’s a gift he has,” explains Violet, dropping her voice. “He helps. He heals. It’s like Reiki but deeper.”
“And what’s Reiki?” asks Eve, her brow furrowing.
“You should ask Mr Rideal …,”
Eve seems to be having a conversation with herself. She sniffs, foully, and looks ready to spit. She changes her mind in deference to the company.
“Is it true?” asks Violet, suddenly. “That Mr Shell, the farmer who called you – is it true he saw blood.”
Eve licks her lips. There are wrinkles in her top lip and they seem more pronounced after she wets them with the pink tip of her tongue.
“I think you and I might be friends,” says Eve, at last. She wets her finger and holds it up, looking past Violet to where the gathering wind is whipping up shark-fins of silvery water. She watches as the fine strands of hair begin to swirl and dance upon her crown.
“Friends?” asks Violet, and her teeth feel fizzy with static.
“Oh yes,” says Eve.
Part II
17