A Question of Identity (15 page)

Rona smiled, shaking her head. ‘Sister dear, a country girl you are not! You'd soon miss the bright lights!'

‘I don't mean
live
there,' Lindsey said irritably, ‘just for weekends and holidays.'

‘And since when has your idea of a holiday been to bury yourself in the country?'

Lindsey smiled reluctantly. ‘Oh, all
right
. I suppose as long as friends invite me down occasionally, that will suffice.'

‘Precisely.'

They chose their food and wine, and gradually the tables around them began to fill up.

‘You're lucky to have this place right on your doorstep,' Lindsey remarked. ‘I have to get in the car to go anywhere.' She glanced under the table. ‘Where's Gus?'

‘Max took him this morning, since we'll be out quite a while. I'll collect him tomorrow. By the way, the Furnesses are back.'

‘Who?'

‘The owners of the house next door. They've finished their stint abroad and are moving back permanently.'

‘Good, that rules out any more weirdos,' Lindsey said, and didn't notice her sister's shiver.

‘They looked in yesterday,' Rona continued after a moment, ‘having inspected all the alterations and redecorations. Max has been keeping an eye on the work, and Charles brought a case of wine as a thank you.'

‘Now that's the kind of neighbours to have!'

Their
antipasti
were laid in front of them.

‘So – what do you think we're in for this evening?' Rona asked.

‘No idea, William didn't go into details. All he said was that Glenda had been going through more of her mother's things. You have got the photo, haven't you?'

‘I've got it,' Rona confirmed. ‘Have you met his wife?'

‘No; he says she never reads anything except magazines, and spends her time playing golf and bridge. Which is why he escapes to the book group once a month.'

Rona reached for the Parmesan. ‘If this
does
turn out to be something, Barnie asked me to write an article about it.'

‘Ah! So that's why you're interested, all of a sudden!'

‘Except that I don't suppose it will. Odds are it'll end in anticlimax.'

‘Then why did Mrs Thing nearly pass out when she saw the photo?'

‘Linz, she was an old lady. Perhaps it was just the shock of suddenly seeing something from the past.'

‘Well, I'm sticking to the illicit sex till we learn otherwise,' Lindsey said firmly, and turned her attention to her
crespelli
.

Dino was as good as his word; service was leisurely and they lingered over each course. By the time they were drinking their espressos, it was after seven thirty.

‘Where do these people live?' Rona asked, as, at last, she signalled for their bill.

‘Barrington Road. We'll be there in under ten minutes.'

‘Near Magda and Gavin, then,' Rona remarked, and wondered, with a shaft of unease, how her friend was, realizing guiltily that it was a week since she'd lunched with Magda and learned of her latest fears. She should have been in touch, but the murder, followed by dinner with the Trents and the return of the Furness family, had temporarily driven her out of mind. She'd phone tomorrow, she resolved.

As Lindsey had said, it was a short drive from the restaurant and entailed passing Farthings in Deans Crescent North. Rona glanced up at the lighted studio window, and wondered what Max had set his students this evening. Then they had turned into Barrington Road, and were drawing up outside a substantial-looking house.

‘Here we go, then!' Lindsey commented, locking the car. ‘Let's hope she's come up with something interesting.'

William Stirling opened the door to them. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a shock of greying brown hair and a ruddy complexion, whom Rona guessed to be in his fifties.

‘Come in, come in!' he said heartily, standing to one side. ‘Good of you to come. And you must be Rona – delighted to meet you. God, you're alike, aren't you?'

He took their jackets and led them into the sitting room. ‘Glenda won't be a moment; she's just getting the coffee. Please make yourselves comfortable.'

The spring evening had turned chill, and Rona was glad to see a live fire in the grate. On a rug in front of it, a red setter raised its head to survey them, sleepily thumped its tail, and went back to sleep. Glancing round the room, Rona's eyes came to rest on a framed photograph showing their host with, presumably, his wife and mother-in-law, standing in front of a church. Since the women wore fashionable hats, Rona guessed they were attending a wedding. The older woman was smiling at the camera, one arm linked with her daughter's, the other leaning on a stick. She of the fainting fit, Rona thought.

She looked away quickly as Glenda Stirling came in wheeling a trolley with a coffee pot, cups and saucers, and what looked like a carrot cake on a silver stand. Probably much the same age as her husband, her hair was a soft grey, but her skin, devoid of make-up, still had a youthful bloom.

‘I do hope we're not being a nuisance,' she said, after warmly greeting them. ‘I'm afraid this has all rather escalated; William had only intended showing the photo to his book group, in the hope that someone might remember the school.' She glanced apologetically at Rona. ‘But your sister kindly volunteered your services, and since you're known for solving mysteries, it was an offer we couldn't refuse!'

‘I'm not at all sure I can help,' Rona demurred.

‘But you've already found someone who was there, haven't you?' Lindsey prompted, and as Rona looked blank, added, ‘Kitty Little's sister.'

Glenda looked at her expectantly.

‘I've not exactly found her,' Rona said reluctantly, ‘but our mother knew her when she was young. She was actually at the school when it closed.'

‘That's wonderful!' Glenda exclaimed, adding quickly, ‘But I'm forgetting my duties! Do please sit down and let me give you some coffee. Then, when we're all settled, I can fill in a few details.'

When this had been accomplished and they were balancing plates of carrot cake on their laps, she continued, ‘The first thing I should explain is that my mother was a teacher all her working life. We used to tease her about it sometimes, because she was always recounting stories of pupils and teachers she'd come across in her long career. We knew – or thought we knew – every school she'd taught in. But she never even mentioned Springfield Lodge.'

‘She
taught
there?' Lindsey interrupted. ‘I thought she must have been a pupil?'

‘So did I, briefly, when I first found the photo. She grew up during the war and had been to lots of different schools; my grandfather was in the army, and while he was stationed in England the family kept moving to be near him. But when I saw the date I realized it didn't fit; in 1951, which was scrawled on the back, she'd have been twenty-two.'

‘Is she
in
the photo?' Rona asked, the thought occurring for the first time.

Glenda shook her head. ‘That's what has puzzled us ever since I found it: that she should have kept a photo all these years that didn't, on the face of it, have any connection with her.' She paused. ‘I presume William told you of her reaction, when I came across it a couple of years ago?'

Rona and Lindsey nodded.

‘It was . . . frightening, really. She snatched it out of my hand and started shaking violently. I thought she was having a stroke. Later, when she was calmer, I tried to ask her about it, but she refused point-blank to discuss the matter. I was sure she'd have destroyed it at the first opportunity, and couldn't believe my eyes when I found it among her things.' She looked round at them all, lifting her shoulders in bewilderment. ‘Why ever would she keep something that upset her so much?'

Rona said hesitantly, ‘I don't suppose . . .'

‘Go on,' Glenda invited, when she did not continue.

‘Well, I'm probably way off-beam, but you say she was a member of staff but isn't in the photograph?'

‘Yes?'

‘I just . . . wondered if she might be the one who's blacked out?'

She bit her lip, conscious that the rest of them were staring at her.

Glenda had paled. ‘Oh God,' she said softly. ‘I must say that never occurred to me.'

‘I'm sure she isn't,' Rona said quickly. ‘For one thing, if she
had
been, she certainly wouldn't have kept it, would she? All the same, her being on the staff does rather alter things, because if she's
not
the one blacked out, presumably she's the one who did it. I'd thought it might have been a disgruntled girl who'd been given detention or something, but for an adult it would surely have had to be something more serious.'

There was a brief silence. ‘Did you try to remove the ink?' Lindsey asked then. ‘By sponging it, for example?'

‘I started to,' Glenda replied, ‘which is why it's a bit smudged, but the ink has seeped into the paper, and I didn't want to risk damaging it.' She drew a deep breath. ‘Anyway,' she continued, ‘seeing it again reawakened my curiosity, and I went through her papers more carefully. And lo and behold, underneath a pile of exam questions and reports I discovered some diaries – only three, but the latest was for 1951.'

She picked up a volume from the table beside her. ‘It's a page-a-day format, and as you can see, big enough to write quite detailed accounts of one's doings.'

‘Does it help at all?' Rona asked, anxious to expunge her previous suggestion.

‘Actually, it raises a lot more questions. In the first few pages it records returning to Springfield Lodge for her “second term”,
which was the first indication we had that she'd been there herself. It was January, of course, and since we now know the school closed in December '51, she could only have been there just over a year in total. She'd already formed a close friendship with a fellow teacher called Susie Baines, and there are references to her almost every day. They seem to have spent all their spare time together, most of it discussing Susie's boyfriend, Andrew. A vicarious romance, as far as Mum was concerned.

‘Well, that continued throughout the term, and they met once or twice in the Easter holidays. But during the summer there's a distinct change of tone. Mum seems to have turned against Andrew for some reason, and several entries report having “long talks”
with Susie, with no detail as to what they were about. They also started to have quarrels, but again no details.'

Glenda leafed through the diary. ‘No mention of meeting during the summer holidays. Mum seems to have spent her time with various friends at the Festival of Britain, going to exhibitions and shows and visiting the Festival Gardens in Battersea Park. But in September, back at school, we have: “Long and difficult talk with Susie. I HAVE to make her see sense.” And a few weeks later, “Susie refuses to discuss it any more. I'm at my wits' end to know what to do.”' She looked up. ‘And that's the last mention of her. The diary continues for another couple of weeks, and comes to an abrupt end the second week in October.' She snapped the book shut, as if in confirmation, and looked round at them. ‘So what do you make of that?'

‘There's nothing that gives any hint that the school's about to close?' Lindsey asked.

‘Not a word. We only know about that because someone in the book group remembered it.'

Rona said slowly, ‘Then if it's not your mother who's scratched out, and it's her photo, it must surely be Susie.'

‘That's what I thought,' Glenda admitted, ‘but
why
? All right, they'd been great friends and then for some reason fallen out. But it's rather an extreme reaction, isn't it, and Mum wasn't a vindictive person. Why not simply throw it away?'

She paused. ‘The more I think about it, the more certain I am that something traumatic happened that last term – which might explain something else we could never understand. When Mum's arthritis got really bad and she was having mobility problems we wanted her to come and live with us, but she wouldn't hear of it. In fact, since we came to Marsborough six years ago she's never even been to visit – coming up with a variety of excuses for us to go and see her instead. It's almost as though she couldn't bear to come near the place.'

She looked down at the diary, as though the explanation might after all lie in its pages.

‘It would be interesting to know what those long and difficult talks were about,' mused William after a moment.

‘Exactly; if she'd been as frank about them as she was with earlier discussions about Andrew, we'd be a whole lot wiser.' Glenda looked at Rona. ‘I was wondering . . . if you could spare the time . . . if you could possibly take the diary and . . . study it, or something? As a biographer, you must have a trained eye for this kind of thing and you might pick up something I've missed.' She gave an embarrassed little laugh. ‘Or have I a nerve even asking you?'

‘I'd be very interested to read it,' Rona replied honestly. ‘I've been ploughing through Elspeth Wilding's diaries for the last few months, but this sounds much more intriguing.'

She reached for her bag, took out the photograph under discussion, and laid it on the arm of her chair. ‘I've been trying to work out what this group represents. It's not a class, because the girls are of different ages, and there's no sports gear or anything that might give a pointer. One of the Houses seems the best guess, but it would be a start if we could confirm that.'

‘Perhaps your mother's friend could help?' Glenda suggested hopefully.

‘If I can trace her, I'll certainly ask.' Rona hesitated. ‘Actually, I was at Springfield Lodge about ten days ago on a different matter, and took the chance to ask about the school.' She looked at William. ‘As I believe you were told, the present owner knows nothing about it. However, she did say she'd recently had a guest who'd attended the school.'