‘I’ll ask him to come down.’ She continued onto the landing and found the guest bedroom door ajar.
‘Marcus, Agnes wants to know if you are hungry.’ She paused at the door.
‘Yeah, I’ll just dry my hair. I can’t find my clothes – do you know where she’s put them?’
Lena called out that he should come into her room as they were in her wardrobe. She was like a child with presents as she unwrapped and laid out all the new shirts, covering the bed, and then she piled up the new socks and folded the three pairs of cord trousers. She was bending over the bed when he walked in wearing just a towelling dressing gown and put his arms around her.
‘Hey, I slept like a log, and you were right, I feel a lot more human now.’ He hugged and kissed her neck and she turned in his arms, smiling.
‘Listen, I have tossed out all those awful old clothes and you can have a fashion display. I think I have got all the right sizes.’
He walked around the bed. ‘Are you crazy – when did you buy all this gear?’
‘This morning, so you take what you want to wear for today and then go and have something to eat.’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘You shouldn’t have done this, Lena.’
‘Oh, and I suppose you want me to take it all back, do you?’
‘No, of course not, but you make me feel like a schoolkid whose mummy’s gone and got his clothes.’
‘You don’t like the styles?’
‘Of course I do: you always have impeccable taste – not necessarily my own, but this stuff is really nice, thank you.’
She wrapped her arms around him, smiling, and he kissed her cheek. She picked up some dark green cords and then a dark green polo shirt, holding them out to him, along with new underwear and socks by Calvin Klein.
‘Here you go, try these on.’
‘At least let me pick what I want to wear.’ He sounded tetchy.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, don’t be so prissy, and you need to have a shave.’
He clutched the clothes and gave a rueful smile. ‘Can Agnes make me pancakes?’
‘Of course she can. Do you want maple syrup or bacon with them?’
‘Both,’ he called over his shoulder as he walked out. When he got to his room he kicked the door shut behind him and threw the clothes onto his unmade bed. It had always really annoyed him the way she would pick and choose his clothes; it made him feel not only like a kept boy but a ten-year-old one. She wanted him to dress like a country gent – tweeds and cords – whereas he preferred his old shirts and jeans and fully intended retrieving them from wherever she had thrown them out.
By the time he had shaved and dressed in the cords, with the hideous polo shirt, even pulling on his new socks, which were cashmere, he felt less angry and berated himself for being so ungrateful.
Agnes had made a pile of pancakes with crisp bacon and a pot of honey was open on the table.
‘No maple syrup, Agnes?’
‘Well there is but Mrs Fulford thought you’d prefer honey.’
‘Well I don’t, I want the syrup and black coffee.’
‘Yes, sir, that colour suits you – brings out the green in your eyes.’
He laughed; she flushed and put down his pancakes with the syrup. She asked if she could just say something that he might feel was not her business.
‘By all means, Agnes, fire away.’
‘It’s just that Mrs Fulford’s office phone rings constantly and she has spent so little time in there and you know how methodical and tidy she is.’
She poured his coffee as he tucked into the pancakes with relish.
‘I happened to be passing the office and there are papers and files on the floor and over her desk; it just seems so unlike her.’
‘Well maybe, Agnes, considering the emotional strain we are under at the present time it’s no wonder she’s not been concentrating on work.’
‘I just thought I’d mention it to you, Mr Fulford.’
He put down his fork and turned towards her, becoming irritated by the way she hovered around him.
‘And?’ he asked.
‘Well I took out the garbage as usual and there’s bags full of clothes in the bin; some of them have been cut up – all your shirts and trousers.’
He sighed and promised that he would talk to Lena, and if Agnes didn’t mind he would appreciate it if she left him to have his breakfast in peace. She obviously did mind as she pursed her thin lips and walked out, closing the kitchen door sharply. He no longer felt hungry and pushed the plate aside, but he drank his coffee as he contemplated having to have a serious talk with Lena. Not only must she have cut up his old clothes, but he thought he had also better ask her about her work and lastly tell her that if he did remain at the house it would be in the guest bedroom. He decided that he would call Simon Boatly and see if he would reconsider helping him out financially.
Reid had tried to speak to the headmistress again but could spend only a short time with Miss Harrington as she had parents’ meetings coming up, and was brusque and impatient. She told him that Serena Newman had been very distressed at the disappearance of Amy and had caught a very bad cold so her parents were keeping her at home until she was recovered. Reid found her to be very dismissive and decided he was not going to go into any details about the journal, but he did ask to speak with Mrs Vicks.
Mrs Vicks was alone in a classroom, marking a stack of exercise books; she replaced the cap on her pen and pushed the books aside as he entered. Thanking her for sparing him some time, he sat himself on top of one of the girls’ desks in front of her raised teacher’s desk.
‘Still no news?’ she asked sadly.
He pondered whether or not he should go into the complicated details of the reason he was there, but instead cut to asking if she had been aware of any signs that Amy was distressed about anything before she had disappeared. Mrs Vicks said she hadn’t been.
‘Would it be possible to look at some of Amy’s exercise books? And have you ever noticed any difference in her handwriting?’
‘Well I can give you access, but as I said before she is very accomplished in all her subjects.’
Mrs Vicks went to a large cupboard and opened it to reveal neat stacks of different coloured exercise books. She spent some time sifting through them before selecting several with Amy Fulford’s name on a white label on the cover. As she was checking them he asked about Serena Newman.
‘Yes, the poor girl has come down with a very nasty virus, it will be a few days now that she has not been back to class.’
She placed the books in front of him, and opened the top one.
‘This is Amy’s history book; we were doing the Roman Empire, and as you can see her essays are very well researched, and I encourage the pupils to add unusual items that will create interest and be informative beyond the dates and historical references.’
Reid saw that the writing was neat and methodical and without a single spelling error, as Mrs Vicks flicked through the pages pointing out her high marks. He asked if she would turn back a page. She leaned over him, pointing with her finger to the essay heading ‘The Murder of Caesar’.
‘This is very interesting: Claudius Caesar of the infamous I, Claudius died of suspected food poisoning and here you see Amy’s supposition that he did in fact die from ingesting deadly mushrooms; she proposes that although there was never any proof of this poisoning it was possibly the deadly toxins that attacked the tissues of his body, which could have been the reason behind the descriptions of his convulsions and irregular breathing. Although death is recorded as a heart attack, his organs failed after eating a mushroom described as “Death Cap”, which breaks down the red blood cells.’
He was taken aback, as he recalled reading the mention of mushrooms in Amy’s journal, and asked if any of the other pupils had also written about the poisonous mushrooms.