‘I’ll be very quick. I understand the organizer of – what we were talking about – is a girl called Layla Riddock.’
He breathed heavily into the phone. ‘And you’re asking if I’m surprised?’
‘I can tell that you’re not – which is interesting.’
‘Before we take it any further,’ Morrell said, ‘anything I tell you has got to be absolutely unattributable. And I mean—’
‘Of course.’
‘Because normally I’d only discuss any of my students in this way with the police, and only then if there was some suspicion of—’
‘Sure.’
‘All right,’ Morrell said. ‘Layla Riddock… God almighty, do I really need this? Layla is… a dominant kind of girl. Stepdaughter of Allan Henry, yes?’
‘Allan Henry of Allan Henry—?’
‘Homes. With all the baggage that implies, and more. Obviously, I don’t have an overview of their domestic situation, but if I had to guess, I’d say that, like a lot of wealthy men with potentially problematical stepchildren, he’s been throwing money at her for years. Buying her compliance, until such time as she leaves home. She’s driving around, for instance, in the kind of car I couldn’t afford. Well… I probably could, but you know what I’m saying…’
‘Mmm.’
‘She’s an intelligent girl, but she’s got away with too much at home, which is why she expects to get away with the minimum of work at school. Swans around the place under this thin veneer of disdain at having to spend her days with children. You getting the picture?’
‘A bully, would you say?’
‘Not in the physical sense, far as I know. To be honest, I don’t think she’d lower herself. I think she can be intimidating enough, without resorting to physical violence. I mean, she’s quite…’
The line went quiet. Jane’s word had been ‘sinister.’
‘Something you’re thinking about, particularly?’ Merrily pulled her sermon-pad into the lamplight, reached for a fibretip. ‘Something which might save us both some time?’
She heard him breathe down his nose. ‘I’m thinking, inevitably, about the Christmas Fair we held at the school last year. Did you come?’
‘No, I was… a bit busy before Christmas. And Jane was off school, she wasn’t very—No, we didn’t come.’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I can tell you we were all quite surprised, to say the least, when Ms Riddock volunteered to take part in the fund-raising – a Christmas Fair being something she might normally consider well beneath her. What she did, she approached the teacher in charge of the event and volunteered to set up a fortune-telling stall.’
‘Oh, did she?’
‘Yeah,’ he said ruefully. ‘I thought that might get you. Made a few of the staff sit up when she appeared on the day in full gypsy costume. Very exotic – and very expensive, too, according to my wife. Long, low-cut black dress, big gold earrings – gold, not brass. Black hat with a dark veil. All very mature, very mysterious, just a bit sinister, I suppose – but that may be hindsight.’
She always looks… tainted, somehow, Jane had said. Merrily lit a cigarette.
‘Some of the staff had reservations from the start,’ Morrell said. ‘But as it was the first time in anyone’s memory that Layla Riddock’d shown any enthusiasm for anything apart from burning rubber outside the gates, they weren’t inclined to push it. So they set her up in the hall, back of the stage, behind a curtain. Somebody painted a sign – Gypsy Layla – and, as all the other stalls were fairly routine, people were queuing up to cross her palm with silver. Men, too, once they’d seen her.’
‘She’s very attractive?’
‘I suppose you would say she exudes a certain hormonal something. Something you don’t often find at school Christmas fairs, anyway.’
‘And was she good at telling fortunes?’
‘She was bloody good at frightening people,’ Robert Morrell said bitterly. ‘Wouldn’t have frightened me, as you probably realize by now. But I accept that a lot of people are taken in by that kind of rubbish, against all their better instincts. Anyway, I don’t know much about this sort of thing, but I gather that the usual routine is to tell the customers they’re going to cross the water, or come into some money, live long and happy lives, have lots of children.’
‘What was she using? Crystal ball?’
‘I wouldn’t know. She was certainly reading palms at some stage. Anyway, the staff started to notice that very few people were coming out actually smiling. And the ones who did, their smiles tended to be rather strained. Then some granny emerges very white-faced and almost fainting. One of the female staff sits her down, brings her a cup of tea, learns that Layla’s looked at her palm and advised her to start getting her affairs in order because she ain’t… got… long.’
‘Oh.’
‘Quite. There were several others, we found out later. One pregnant woman, for instance, had been told to prepare for the worst. Or, as Layla apparently put it, “I see a withering in your womb.” ’
‘You found this out on the night?’
‘Not all of it. Some of the stories came out over a period of days. But, I suppose, the atmosphere on the night itself… well, as Christmas Fairs go, it’s fair to say there was gradually less of an ambience of comfort and joy than one might have wished for.’
‘She wasn’t stopped?’
‘Oh, she was stopped. Eventually. One of the parents had been kicking up about it long before it became widely known that she was taking people’s money for predicting death and sickness. The guy was objecting on religious grounds. Eventually, to my shame, we had to use that as a way of bringing it to a close.’
‘Anyone talk to Layla afterwards – ask her why she was doing this to people?’
‘I had Sandra – the deputy head – haul her in on the Monday morning. Waste of time. The girl pretended she couldn’t understand what the fuss was about – she was simply passing on the information she was picking up. Psychically. She claimed there was a long line of gypsies on her father’s side – her real father. I wanted to make her an appointment with the schools psychiatrist…’
Merrily wrote down: Gypsies – ask J.
‘But Sandra talked me out of taking it any further. Let it go. Just make bloody sure Gypsy Layla and her crystal ball don’t get invited back.’
‘Any of the kids, the other students, go in to get their fortunes told?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Who was the parent who complained?’
‘A religious nutter. I’m sorry, I should say, one of our churchgoing parents, appalled that such a thing should be allowed to go on in an educational establishment, was threatening to take it up with the Director of Education. I was a bit short with him at first.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Is that important?’
‘Might be.’
‘Shelbone.’ A thoughtful pause. ‘David Shelbone. Father of – a fourth-year girl. And unfortunately he works for the council. He actually knows the Director of Education.’
Merrily kept her voice steady. ‘Layla know about this?’
‘Well, yes, of course, everybody did. I… the way we played it – and I’m not proud of this, but it seemed expedient at the time – Shelbone was still around, in another part of the school, so we had someone tip him off that people had been upset by the girl’s predictions. Sure enough, he comes rushing back. In God’s name, stop this wickedness! Embarrassing, really.’ Morrell chuckled. ‘But I don’t think anybody else went to have their fortune told after that. After a few minutes, Gypsy Layla walks away through the hall, head held high, grim little smile on her face. Crisis over.’