regarding Jenny Shepherd to come forward and speak to me or one of my team.’ He nodded to the back of the hall. Like everyone else, I looked around and I jumped when I noticed Andrew Blake leaning against the door frame, two uniformed police officers beside him. Valerie was presumably tied up with the Shepherds.
‘Alternatively, you can speak to one of your teachers if you find that easier,’ Vickers said. Every head in the hall turned back to face him, as synchronised as the crowd at a tennis match. ‘They’ll be able to help. Don’t think that what you know isn’t worth telling us. We’ll decide if it’s useful or not. What we’re looking for is information about Jenny – in particular her friends in and outside school, and anything strange that you might have heard from her or about her, anything out of the ordinary. Was there anything worrying her? Was she in any kind of trouble? Was she involved in any disagreements with other students or anyone else? Was there anything going on that she was keeping a secret from grown-ups? If anything, anything at all occurs to you, please don’t keep it to yourself. But I would say one thing: try not to gossip among yourselves before you talk to us. It’s all too easy to talk something up until you’re not sure you can distinguish between what you know and what you’ve heard.’ He looked around the room again. ‘I know there will be a great temptation to speak to the media about this. They are very good at getting information out of people – better than the police, sometimes. But you can’t trust them, and you really shouldn’t talk to them, as your headmistress says. If you have something to say, talk to us.’
The girls nodded, hypnotised. For a man who was about a thousand points down on the glamour scale from Inspector Morse, Vickers had done pretty well.
What he hadn’t done, of course, was answer the questions they had really wanted to ask. So for the rest of the day, in between supervising study groups and developing emergency revision plans for the exam students, I tried to deal with the speculation that was raging through the school.
‘Miss, did she have her head cut off? Someone said her head was, like, gone?’
‘I heard that she was stabbed hundreds and hundreds of times, yeah? And all her guts were hanging out, and you could see her bones and everything.’
‘Miss, was she tortured? I heard she was all burned and cut.’
‘Was she raped, Miss?’
‘How did she die, Miss?’
‘Who killed her, Miss?’
I was as repressive as I knew how to be. ‘Get on with your work, girls. You’ve got plenty to do. The police will find out who did it.’
I actually felt sorry for them. Despite their bravado, the girls were scared. As an introduction to mortality, it was a tough one. What teenager doesn’t think she’ll live for ever? To have one of their own snuffed out so violently was a shock, and they needed to talk about it. I got it. But it made for a tiring sort of day.
I was still at the school at half past five, as Elaine had predicted. The last of the girls in my care had just been collected by her father, a fat-necked man in an expensive suit, driving a Jaguar. He had taken the opportunity to tell me what a waste of his time it had been to make him collect his daughter, and that as usual the school had completely overreacted. I wondered what exactly was usual about the murder of one of his daughter’s contemporaries, but I managed not to say anything as the girl climbed into the car, mute and round-eyed with misery. I could practically hear her begging me not to make things worse by arguing with him, so I smiled serenely.
‘We’re just doing our best to make sure the girls are safe. That’s the most important thing, I’m sure you agree.’
‘It’s a bit late now to worry about keeping the girls safe. Horse and stable-door stuff, this. And you get yourselves a nice little holiday into the bargain by closing the school for the
‘Alternatively, you can speak to one of your teachers if you find that easier,’ Vickers said. Every head in the hall turned back to face him, as synchronised as the crowd at a tennis match. ‘They’ll be able to help. Don’t think that what you know isn’t worth telling us. We’ll decide if it’s useful or not. What we’re looking for is information about Jenny – in particular her friends in and outside school, and anything strange that you might have heard from her or about her, anything out of the ordinary. Was there anything worrying her? Was she in any kind of trouble? Was she involved in any disagreements with other students or anyone else? Was there anything going on that she was keeping a secret from grown-ups? If anything, anything at all occurs to you, please don’t keep it to yourself. But I would say one thing: try not to gossip among yourselves before you talk to us. It’s all too easy to talk something up until you’re not sure you can distinguish between what you know and what you’ve heard.’ He looked around the room again. ‘I know there will be a great temptation to speak to the media about this. They are very good at getting information out of people – better than the police, sometimes. But you can’t trust them, and you really shouldn’t talk to them, as your headmistress says. If you have something to say, talk to us.’
The girls nodded, hypnotised. For a man who was about a thousand points down on the glamour scale from Inspector Morse, Vickers had done pretty well.
What he hadn’t done, of course, was answer the questions they had really wanted to ask. So for the rest of the day, in between supervising study groups and developing emergency revision plans for the exam students, I tried to deal with the speculation that was raging through the school.
‘Miss, did she have her head cut off? Someone said her head was, like, gone?’
‘I heard that she was stabbed hundreds and hundreds of times, yeah? And all her guts were hanging out, and you could see her bones and everything.’
‘Miss, was she tortured? I heard she was all burned and cut.’
‘Was she raped, Miss?’
‘How did she die, Miss?’
‘Who killed her, Miss?’
I was as repressive as I knew how to be. ‘Get on with your work, girls. You’ve got plenty to do. The police will find out who did it.’
I actually felt sorry for them. Despite their bravado, the girls were scared. As an introduction to mortality, it was a tough one. What teenager doesn’t think she’ll live for ever? To have one of their own snuffed out so violently was a shock, and they needed to talk about it. I got it. But it made for a tiring sort of day.
I was still at the school at half past five, as Elaine had predicted. The last of the girls in my care had just been collected by her father, a fat-necked man in an expensive suit, driving a Jaguar. He had taken the opportunity to tell me what a waste of his time it had been to make him collect his daughter, and that as usual the school had completely overreacted. I wondered what exactly was usual about the murder of one of his daughter’s contemporaries, but I managed not to say anything as the girl climbed into the car, mute and round-eyed with misery. I could practically hear her begging me not to make things worse by arguing with him, so I smiled serenely.
‘We’re just doing our best to make sure the girls are safe. That’s the most important thing, I’m sure you agree.’
‘It’s a bit late now to worry about keeping the girls safe. Horse and stable-door stuff, this. And you get yourselves a nice little holiday into the bargain by closing the school for the
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