I’m worried that you, the head teacher, openly refer to your haunted, troubled pupil as Nelly, and don’t think that might freak me out. That you see her primarily as Nelly Dean from a musical version of Wuthering Heights that was never staged, and not as Florence Liddon, which is her real name. That you don’t realise that I don’t want my daughter anywhere near a girl everyone sees as lovely and good-hearted but damaged and vulnerable. That’s what people at Vinery Road think about Philip Oxley.
‘What happened?’ I blurt out. ‘I mean, I know no one knows, but … I’ve heard conflicting stories – that it could have been an accident, that it definitely couldn’t have been an accident … ’
‘Well … the inquest didn’t deliver a verdict of accidental death,’ Dr Adebayo says in a no-nonsense voice. ‘The police believed it was deliberate.’
‘You mean … ’
‘Suicide was never suspected by anybody, I don’t think. Since nothing was ever established for certain, most people at The Morrow like to tell themselves it was an accident – kids messing about and it went horribly wrong, that kind of thing. Personally, I’d rather face facts. It’s an unsolved murder.’
The phone on the desk starts to ring and Dr Adebayo picks it up. ‘Hello? What?’ She sighs. ‘All right, I’ll come now.’ To me she says, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m going to have to leave you here for a few minutes. Apparently there’s an angry villager at the gates demanding to see me and only me, and threatening to vandalise one of our vehicles. Most of the local folk are lovely and don’t mind us one bit, but there’s one or two of the more elderly ladies who regard our school buses as the enemy of their green and pleasant village, which they believe we’ve ruined forever. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve calmed the old dear down – sit tight.’
She marches out of the room on her red heels, closing the door behind her.
I’m not going to sit tight. I’m going to do the opposite – find Kitty and leave without wasting any more time here. Traumatised servant characters from a cancelled Wuthering Heights musical and vicious revenge-seeking old ladies beating down the doors? No thanks. There has to be another school for Kitty. We can move house if we need to; I can relocate to the Boston office. Kitty can go to an American school.
I open the door to leave Dr Adebayo’s room and find an obstacle in my way: an unusually tall, bony girl with dark-brown shoulder-length hair and a heavy fringe that falls to just above her eyes, which are large and a pale, clear blue. She looks like a peculiar grown-up in school uniform and is holding a navy rucksack with the school’s name and crest on it in white.
‘You’re Dr Sonia Woolford,’ she says. I don’t know who she is or how she knows. I nod. Fleetingly, I worry that she’s about to tell me Dr Adebayo has been slaughtered by the furious pensioner.
‘My name’s Florrie. Florence Liddon.’
Nelly.
The next words she comes out with nearly stop my heart. ‘I need to talk to you. We haven’t got much time.’
‘Is Kitty okay?’
Florrie looks puzzled. ‘Your daughter? Yes, she’s fine. Oh! I’m so sorry if I worried you. No, this isn’t anything to do with your daughter.’
I exhale slowly.
Florence Liddon starts to talk. Fast. ‘I knew you were coming – that Kitty was coming. Always very exciting when a prospective new girl comes for a taster day!’ She attempts a light-hearted grin, but it soon falls off her excessively serious face. ‘You know how gossip spreads in a place like this. I heard that the new girl’s mum was a famous scientist, and I Googled you, and you are.’
‘I’m not sure I’d call myself—’
‘Yes, you are – you’ve been interviewed on TV. You work for a company that’s about to launch a new way of testing for early cancer, a test that needs only a few strands of a person’s hair. That’s right, isn’t it? Your company’s going to be the next multi-billion-pound company in the UK?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t like to—’
‘You’re a brilliant scientist,’ Florence insists. ‘That means you’re clever.’
Not clever enough to get myself out of this situation as fast I’d like to. ‘Florence, I can’t really—’
‘Yes, you can.’ Her wide blue eyes drill into me. ‘You have to talk to me. There was no angry old woman!’
‘What?’
‘It was me that rang Dr A and said that, pretending to be one of the gate staff. I do good accents.’ After a pause, she adds with an undertone of pride, ‘I’m an actor.’
I know, Nelly.
Her meaning takes a second or two to sink in. She’s telling me that she deliberately lied to get Nina Adebayo out of the way. So that she could talk to me.
‘I know you know about Lucy. Everyone knows –everyone who comes here finds out. She was murdered. It was never solved. She was my friend. The thing is, I’ve been going over and over everything, since it happened. I’ve got stacks of notes. Then a few weeks ago, I spotted something I hadn’t noticed before, and now I think I know who did it – I’m sure I do – but I can’t think how to prove it. And then we were told about Kitty coming today and that her mother was this great scientist and I thought, “She must be one of the cleverest people in the country. She’ll know what to do.” I tried talking to Dr A about my suspicions but she told me I was being ridiculous. She said that if I carried on like that, I’d have to leave The Morrow.’ These last words are whispered, as if to leave would be a dreadful fate.
‘I refuse to leave until I’ve solved Lucy’s murder.’ Florence straightens her back defiantly. ‘No one cares about it except me!’
‘Florence, I’m sorry, but I’m in no position to—’
‘Ssh!’ she hisses, cutting me off. ‘Did you hear that? She’s coming.’ Florence opens her rucksack, pulls out a large envelope and a book: Wuthering Heights. ‘Read Charlotte’s introduction and read all my notes. Lucy’s family was from Yorkshire too – she’d lived there most of her life, and only started at The Morrow six months or so before the auditions for the show. That’s one reason why she was such a brilliant Cathy – her Yorkshire accent. And the man missed—’
Florence breaks off as she hears what I hear: high heels clacking on stone steps. They sound near.
‘What man?’ I ask.
Florence shakes her head, gestures at my bag and whispers, ‘Hide them.’
And I do. I can’t think why I don’t refuse. I could so easily say, ‘I’m afraid I can’t get involved in this, Florence. I’m very sorry.’
By the time Nina Adebayo appears on the landing beside us, Florrie-the-actor is composed and ready to perform. ‘Hello, Dr A. I was just entertaining Dr Woolford, in case she got lonely without you, haha.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Florrie.’
As soon as we’re alone together inside her office, Dr Adebayo asks, ‘She didn’t … say anything about Lucy Ross, did she? I’d hate to think she’d been pestering you.’
‘No,’ I lie. ‘She hardly said anything at all. She just asked me if I needed anything.’
All the way home, while Kitty chats excitedly beside me in the car about the lovely day she’s had, I think about the sentence Florence Liddon didn’t finish. And the man missed. What had she wanted to tell me? Was the man Lucy Ross’s murderer? Had he missed some crucial piece of evidence that he’d left behind, something Florence had recently found. Was that how Florence knew who had killed Lucy? Or was the man a policeman – the investigating detective, maybe – who’d neglected to notice something essential.
Florence’s Liddon’s extensive notes give me a lot more information than I got from Nina Adebayo. I’ve had to wait until today, Saturday, to read them. I persuaded Rich to give Kitty the lift I was supposed to be giving her, to a sleepover at her friend Isobel’s house. ‘Remember to remind Isobel’s mum to look out for any sign of That Boy hanging around outside her house, and to ring us immediately if anything happens.’ Rich nodded wearily. We’d both told Kitty not to tell too many people about her
social plans, just in case, but it was important to be vigilant all the same.
Once she and Rich had left the house, I opened the envelope Florence had given me. It’s taken me a while, but I’ve got to grips with all the information now, I think.
Wow. Who’d have guessed that a teenage production of a Wuthering-Heights-based musical could cause so much misery? There’s a vast amount of detail here, but nothing I’ve noticed so far gives any indication of who might have pushed Lucy Ross out of a window.
I realise I’m assuming Florence Liddon is a reliable source. Why? For all I know, she might be entirely detached from reality. I think about her sitting morosely beside the Death Window, maybe hoping to notice some detail even now that would offer a clue: a jagged piece of red material attached to a splinter in the window frame or something like that.
In my mind, I hear her say, She was murdered. It was never solved. She was my friend. No one cares about it except me.
I know how it feels to be the only one who cares. The staff at Vinery Road, the students, the other parents … they don’t really care that the behaviour of Philip Oxley is ruining my daughter’s life, turning her into someone who’s scared of other human beings, scared to leave the house. When they’re not busy pointing out that Kitty’s tormentor is in foster care and suffering from post-traumatic stress himself, they make sympathetic noises in our direction, but not a single one of them loses sleep, or can’t eat properly any more, or ever rushes to the bathroom to vomit, or makes a silent pact with God that she’ll immediately donate ten thousand pounds to charity if only He would make That Boy drop dead.
I torment myself, often, by considering what will happen at Vinery Road once we take Kitty out. Will the teachers be relieved that the Philip Oxley problem has been solved? Maybe without Kitty around, he’ll behave more normally and it’ll be as if the whole thing never happened. There will be no Florence Liddon, that’s for sure – no one unable to forget that beautiful, talented, kind Kitty Woolford was driven away by the obsessive lunacy of Philip Oxley; no one determined to address that injustice by, for example, pushing Philip out of a high window.
I wipe my eyes and turn my attention back to Florence’s notes. There were two Heathcliffs in The Morrow’s musical rendition of Wuthering Heights, or, rather, there would have been had the show gone ahead: Giorgio Frasco and Cameron Lee. This, according to Florence, was because Cameron was by far the better actor and singer – definitely leading-man material – but Giorgio was dark and ‘slightly savage’, whatever that means, and more suitable for Heathcliff. Cameron was a brilliant student who could learn any number of lines within days, whereas Giorgio had already been suspended once for violence against another boy, and there was talk of him maybe being expelled. The two teachers in charge of the production were the music and drama teachers: Tracey Maxwell and Susannah Gate.
Maxwell was adamant, according to Florence, that, since he’d auditioned, Giorgio should be given the chance to play Heathcliff, that he’d be brilliant, that this great opportunity would be the very thing to turn his behaviour around. Gate was vehemently against this plan and had been overheard by pupils referring to Giorgio as ‘a nasty little shit’. She wanted her star drama student, Cameron Lee, to play the part, and argued that it didn’t matter one jot that Cameron was tall and skinny with pale skin and ash blond hair. Lucy Ross, who was playing Cathy, very much wanted Cameron Lee as Heathcliff too, but Giorgio Frasco’s mother, Maria, was able to make a convincing case to the then headteacher that her son was being slandered in a most unprofessional way by the drama teacher. She lobbied for Susannah Gate to be fired. In the end, the only solution that seemed to calm the situation and keep everyone happy was for Giorgio and Cameron to share the part of Heathcliff, appearing in two each of the four performances.
However, according to Florence, the peace brought about by this compromise was an uneasy one. A girl called Ariella Braelin-Louise Huxley, whose name turned out to be even more ridiculous than Nina Adebayo had led me to believe, refused to accept that she hadn’t got the part of Heathcliff. She knew she wasn’t as good a singer as Lucy Ross, so the role of Cathy was beyond her reasonable reach, but she was easily as good a singer as both Giorgio Frasco and Cameron Lee. Both she and her mother believed she was the best actor in school, and that to assume that Heathcliff must go to a boy was pure sexism. Ariella produced many documents expounding the virtues of ‘colourblind casting’, which was common practice in professional theatre, apparently, and meant that one didn’t necessarily cast white characters in white roles – and indeed, the notion of ‘white roles’ was thought to be racist.
There were several other problems too. Max Pethers, who was due to play Joseph, Heathcliff’s servant, fled from the drama studio in tears one day after his costume shrank in the wash, Giorgio Frasco teased him about it, and Ariella Huxley said, ‘What does it matter, really? He’s only Joseph.’ Max’s mother, school office manager Jenny Pethers, went to the head and demanded a letter of apology, with specific reference to the words ‘only Joseph’. Next to this information, Florence has written in brackets: ‘This wasn’t a we’re-all-a-team-and-we-all-matter-equally thing. Jenny P has a massive chip on her shoulder because her husband is one of the school’s gardeners, and he used to be a driver for a barrister called Simon Appleton-Drake, and she sees her family as being the servant classes. Most Morrow families are wealthy. The Petherses aren’t at all.’
Beneath this note Florence has added, with a different pen and in new brackets: ‘But Jenny Pethers PRETENDED it was about valuing all cast members equally. But that’s a lie. If e.g. Max had been playing middle-class Mr Linton, Edgar’s dad, and Ariella had said, “He’s only Mr Linton”, Max would still have got upset, but Jenny wouldn’t have. No proof of this but I KNOW. It wasn’t a minor character thing for Jenny, it was a servant character thing. You can totally tell she loathes the Morrow kids she sees as rich and privileged, like me, though she tries to hide it.’
It’s clear from Florence’s notes that something horrendous happened at almost every rehearsal. Ariella Huxley’s mother burst into one and announced that, after the insult of her daughter being cast as Isabella Linton, she had handed in notice for both her children to leave The Morrow the following term. Florence has inserted an asterisk here, with a linked note at the bottom of the page: ‘After Lucy’s death, the Huxley family changed their minds and decided to keep Ariella and Rocky at The Morrow. It’s pretty obvious they wanted to be on hand to enjoy every minute of the school’s misery. Also, with no more Lucy Ross at the school, Ariella H was definitely the best female singer, so Lucy’s death must have felt like a promotion for Ariella.’
The boy playing Hindley Earnshaw came down with glandular fever; Lucy Ross had a fight with Cameron Lee and snogged Giorgio Frasco purely to annoy him; music teacher Tracey Maxwell argued bitterly with drama teacher Susannah Gate about whether one of Heathcliff’s songs could and should contain the word ‘cunt’.
Lucy Ross’s mother, a child psychologist who uses puppet-work and role-play to resolve disputes between children and teenagers, volunteered to come into school to do a conflict-resolution workshop, and her offer was eagerly accepted. She talked to the whole cast of I Am Heathcliff ! about the benefits of Emotional Freedom Therapy, Meditation and something called the Bob Snape Technique. Florence has added here in brackets: ‘Emotional Freedom Therapy means tapping pressure points on your body while reciting positive statements e.g. “Even though a terrible thing has happened, I deeply and completely love myself.” The Bob Snape Technique is something Lucy’s mum invented herself and is very proud of. It’s a technique for dealing with people we can’t stand in a way that minimises conflict and drama. Bob Snape is a painter/decorator/repair man who used to do work for Lucy’s family. He is a really decent man but the most boring person Lucy’s mum has ever met. She wanted to minimise contact with him but definitely didn’t want to hurt his feelings or cause trouble, so she was very polite and friendly to him, at the s
ame time as making sure she didn’t have to spend more time with him than necessary.
‘So, e.g., the Bob Snape Technique means saying, “Thank you for inviting me for afternoon tea, Bob. I’d have loved to come, but I’m busy that night.” The Bob Snape technique for The Morrow students would have meant Giorgio being polite and friendly to Cameron at all times, and Mrs Maxwell being polite and friendly to Mrs Gate at all times, and if they didn’t want to hang out together and didn’t actually like each other, instead of saying “I hate you, leave me alone”, they should have smiled and said, “Oh, I’d have loved to do X with you but I’m afraid I’m busy.” The key is to treat people at all times as if you don’t want to hurt them or distress them, though you do want to make sure you’re not with them any more than you need to be. It’s protecting yourself at the same time as protecting other people. Lucy’s mum has found that if you don’t express hostility, your anger and dislike of the person actually decreases, and soon the basic polite friendliness is easier to achieve. She thought that too many people at The Morrow, both staff and students, mistakenly believed that honestly airing every feeling and grievance was a route to peace. Lucy’s mum saw it as a route to more war. She was about to make us all do an embarrassing Bob-Snape-Technique role-play exercise, but luckily Max Pethers said he was feeling sick, and he looked a bit pale, so Mrs Gate said maybe we should end the session early and all get some fresh air.’
I’m shaking my head as I read this. Spare me these shrinks and their well-meaning advice, I think. The Bob Snape Technique wouldn’t work with Philip Oxley. Nothing works with him: not polite and friendly firmness and not a screamed ‘Fucking leave my daughter alone, you pasty-faced stalker freak!’