‘She was Abigail Keene in the play,’ he said. ‘We had to work closely together.’
‘Did you see her yesterday?’
‘Not at the Arts Centre,’ he said, deliberately misunderstanding. ‘You know that. She didn’t turn up. She was dead.’
‘But earlier?’ His mother leaned forward and he could see the fine lines around her eyes and on her forehead. Without any make-up she looked old, desiccated. ‘ Did you talk to her earlier? At college?’
John considered carefully but could not decide what line to take.
‘I can’t remember,’ he said flatly. ‘She might have been there. Why do you want to know?’
Jackie Powell stood up.
‘I don’t want you involved in this,’ she said quietly. ‘The police will be asking questions everywhere. I don’t want you involved.’
There was a trace of hysteria in her voice. He thought she was going to cry. He sat up, irritated by the unwelcome emotional demand.
‘Look,’ he said, trying unsuccessfully to control his impatience. ‘What’s the matter?’ He had his own life to lead. What problems could she have? He viewed his parents almost as if they were a different species-respectable, untroubled, invulnerable.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She took a tissue from her dressing-gown pocket and blew her nose. ‘ I’m just upset…a young girl like that. It might have been you.’
He got out of bed and pulled a T-shirt over his head.
‘No,’ he said deliberately. ‘You mustn’t worry about that. I can look after myself. It wouldn’t have been me.’
John walked to the sixth-form college from Barton Hill. The prosperous streets of the estate were empty. Most of the families who lived there had two cars. The children would be driven to school or to the childminder. The parents would already be at work. Most people needed two incomes to support a mortgage on Barton Hill. John wondered how his father managed it.
When he left the estate he avoided the main road, and chose instead the narrow red-brick terraced streets, sauntering, his hands in the pockets of the leather jacket which had been last year’s Christmas present. He thought again about his portrayal of Smollett, a criminal, an outsider, trying to work out how he could give some depth to the character. He refused to see the play as a jolly jape, a pantomine. He wanted to be good. He ran over the lines in his head.
There had been a heavy frost and the cars still parked in the street were covered in ice. He watched irate motorists, already late for work, messing with kettles and de-icer spray. He saw how many of them left the keys in the ignition when they went back to their houses to replace the cloths and kettles and cans. Some of them even left the engine running. It would be child’s play, John thought, to steal a car like that from right under the bastards’ noses. Not that most of them were worth nicking. The majority were tiny Japanese hatchbacks or clapped-out family saloons.
He walked on, crossing Hallowgate Square to the grocer’s shop on the corner to buy a Mars bar for his breakfast. The car park of the Grace Darling Centre was still roped off and policemen were searching the garden in the middle of the square and the bushes by the drive. He pretended to take no notice and continued down Anchor Street, past the shop and Joe Fenwick’s flat, to the college. When he got there he felt fit and healthy and ready for anything.
His first lesson was history and everyone was talking about Gabby. They sat in a small group around the radiator, warming their hands as they waited for the teacher, speculating wildly about what might have happened to her. He was the centre of attention because he had been at the Grace Darling the night before.
‘Come on!’ they said. ‘Didn’t you notice anything?’
‘No,’ he said. He was beginning to enjoy the interest. He wished he had something to tell them.
‘Weren’t you there when they found the body?’
‘No,’ he said again, smiling, remembering. ‘I left early. I didn’t see a thing.’
The sense of excitement and wellbeing remained with him all morning.
Gordon Hunter arrived at Hallowgate Sixth-Form College at lunch time. He was met at the main door by a mute adolescent with greased black hair and acne and taken to the staff room. A maternal woman made him tea and introduced him to Ellie Smith, Gabriella Paston’s personal tutor. Hunter looked around him and thought that teachers had never been like this when he was a lad. Ellie had long red hair and wore a very short skirt and black tights. She sat in a low chair with her legs stretched ahead of her, crossed at the ankle, and ate coleslaw from a plastic tub with a fork. Perhaps, Hunter thought, there was something in further education after all.
‘Personal tutor?’ he asked. ‘ I don’t understand. What does that mean?’
‘I monitored her general progress,’ the teacher said, ‘ in all the subjects she was taking.’ She pressed the lid on the coleslaw tub and bit into an apple. Hunter saw the stain of red lipstick on the apple’s green skin. He was finding it hard to concentrate on the woman’s words. Ellie munched and continued: ‘In a college this size we felt it’s important that there’s a member of staff responsible for the pastoral care of the young people. We all supervise a small group of students. They’re not necessarily the people we teach, although Gabby was in my English group.’
‘And what was it like?’ Hunter asked. ‘Her general progress.’
Ellie shrugged. ‘She wasn’t a star academically,’ she said, ‘though I think with a lot of work she would have scraped through English and Art at ‘A’ level. Her real enthusiasm was drama and by all accounts she was outstanding at that. She was preparing to audition for RADA and the Central School. There was no guarantee, of course, that she’d be able to take up a place even if she was offered one. The grants for drama courses are discretionary. I tried to make her see that she might have to consider an alternative but she was so keen I don’t think she really took it in.’
‘How did she get on with the other kids?’
‘Very well. She was lively, popular, always at the centre of the action.’
I bet she was, Hunter thought.
‘She was very attractive,’ he said. ‘That didn’t cause jealousy?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Ellie said. ‘Not in this case.’
‘Did she ever talk about her family, her background?’
‘Not willingly.’ Ellie Smith became earnest. Hunter thought she would be competent, caring, too idealistic perhaps for her own good. ‘When I first became her tutor I asked about her parents. I try to get to know the kids as individuals. She told me that they’d been killed in a car crash when she was young and she’d been brought up by relatives. I never met her guardian. For the past year she’s been living with friends in Otterbridge.’
‘Yes,’ Hunter said. ‘Did she tell you why she left home?’
‘No. She was very quiet at about that time, rather withdrawn, but she never talked about problems with her family. I wasn’t too worried about her. I’d met Prue Bennett several times through courses at the Grace Darling and she seemed a perfect substitute. Gabby was obviously happy there so I never pried.’
‘You had no indication recently that Gabby had been worried about anything?’
‘No. But I’d say that experience had made her very good at hiding her feelings. In all the time that I supervised her she never confided in me.’ She paused. ‘I had the feeling she was acting,’ she said. ‘All the time. None of us really knew her.’
‘Wasn’t there anyone she might have got close to? Boyfriend?’
Ellie laughed. ‘She had lots of boyfriends,’ she said. ‘Half the Upper Sixth were infatuated with her. But I think she kept her feelings strictly under control. Unless…’ She paused again, uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. Hunter was momentarily distracted. He had never been out with a teacher.