Read Online Dead of Winter by Elizabeth Corley - Free Book Online Page A

where he had been told the stable block was located. As he stepped away from the gravel path and onto frozen lawn he looked back.
    St Anne’s had been established in a Victorian house bequeathed to a trust on the death of its childless owner. She had left the house, grounds and enough money to fund the foundation of a school on condition that,
‘The facility herein shall be for the sole purpose of the provision of a Proper Education to girls between the ages of ten and eighteen who possess exceptional Intellectual Capacity, Curiosity, a Precocious Talent for the Arts, Manners and Moral rectitude.’
    Since the 1970s the school had grown in reputation and scale, so that the original house was now used only for sixth-form tutorials, common rooms and staff facilities. Further classrooms – a multi-faith centre (alongside the chapel), a new drama building, computer rooms and a science wing – had been added thanks to private fund-raising.
    St Anne’s was popular with absentee parents who trusted the staff to care for and educate their children, and boarders accounted for most of the pupils. They lived in purpose-built houses named after previous headmistresses, each with its own small gardenor courtyard, communal sitting room and accommodation for a housemistress. It had taken Bazza’s team more than a day to search the premises thoroughly and they were still working through the grounds. He could hear their fog-muffled voices from points around him.
    Fenwick shivered and regretted his lack of scarf and gloves as he pulled his long winter coat tighter around his neck. Behind him the yellow lights from the main house glowed anaemically in the mist. Ahead he could see the outline of a teaching block and he walked towards it, careful of his footing on the slippery lawn, hoping to find someone who could give him directions to the stables. He climbed the steps and pulled open a heavy front door decorated with a holly wreath. Heat engulfed him and his ears said thank you.
    A cluster of girls looked up guiltily. They were cradling plastic cups of steaming hot drinks. Fenwick could smell chocolate, sour instant soup … and coffee.
    ‘I’m looking for the stables; I’m with the police,’ he explained, showing his warrant card, noting that they relaxed.
    ‘Go out of here and turn left, follow the brick path all the way round. Don’t go on the gravel and you can’t miss it,’ one of the girls explained. She was about his daughter Bess’s age and as confident. He smiled.
    ‘Thanks. Is there any way I can get coffee from that thing?’
    ‘Have you got a card?’
    ‘A what?’
    ‘One of these.’ She held up plastic ID. ‘You put cash on it and pay for things at school. We’re not allowed to have money in college, only when we go out.’
    ‘I haven’t got one. May I give you some money and borrow yours?’
    ‘Only if you don’t look at my picture – it’s gross.’
    Her friends sniggered nervously and then laughed outright when he failed to operate the machine. In the end the girl, Emily he noted surreptitiously from her card, helped him and he took the too-hotplastic cup of coffee with him as he followed their directions to the stables, sipping at it greedily and scalding his tongue.
    It was almost lunchtime when he found the art block so he waited in the hall for the classes to finish rather than risk missing the teacher. He drained his coffee and within minutes a bell sounded. Around him doors slammed open, then feet pounded the stairs in a mad rush. He estimated there must have been four classes in progress. As the first teacher passed he asked if she was Miss Bullock and was told she used the main studio behind him.
    As he turned, the studio door was opened by a girl who couldn’t have been older than eighteen but looked twenty. She was followed by three more, the last of whom glanced at him curiously and held the door for him. He stepped inside. The room had obviously been a barn and was enormous, double height