Sophie Hannah - A Game for All the Family

I mumble something—it’s meant to be “Thank you”—on my way out of the room.

Halfway down the corridor, I hear footsteps slapping the lino behind me. I turn and see Lachlan Fisher. He’s holding something: a typed document. “For you,” he says.

“What is it?”

“All the Year 9s were asked to write stories. George gave me his before he left. He wanted me to have it: his last piece of work for Beaconwood. It . . . it meant a lot to him.”

“Thank you.” I take it from him. “I’ll give it to Ellen.”

“No. I mean, you can if you want, but read it first.”

“What’s it about? His family?” Wouldn’t it be great if the solution to the Donbavand mystery were contained in a fourteen-year-old’s creative writing homework?

“No, it’s not at all autobiographical.”

Then don’t waste my time.

“It’s about injustice,” Lachlan Fisher says, with a hard-blink for a heavy word. “And madness.”

I’ve had enough of both for one day, but I take the story and put it in my bag because he persuaded Lesley to talk to me and I owe him a good deed.

“Ellen’s story is about murder,” I tell him. “A weirdly real-sounding murder.”

He doesn’t like the sound of that at all. I watch him try to blink my words away.

“Mr. Fisher? Are you okay?”

He mumbles something inaudible, then turns and hurries back to Lesley’s office.

Chapter 9

No Lock on the Little Green Door

David Butcher, the Ingrey girls’ new music teacher, introduced himself to Lisette, Allisande and Perrine with the help of a Hungarian folk song. “My name is Mr. Butcher,” he said. “And so that you never forget it, here’s a song called ‘The Handsome Butcher.’ ” Then he cleared his throat and began to sing:

Seven locks upon the red gate,

Seven gates about the red town.

In the town there lives a butcher and his name is Handsome John Brown.

In the town there lives a butcher and his name is Handsome John Brown.

John Brown’s boots are polished so fine,

John Brown’s spurs they jingle and shine.

On his coat a crimson flower, in his hand a glass of red wine.

On his coat a crimson flower, in his hand a glass of red wine.

In the night, the golden spurs ring.

In the dark, the leather boots shine.

Don’t come tapping at my window now your heart no longer is mine.

Don’t come tapping at my window now your heart no longer is mine.

The Ingrey girls never did forget David Butcher’s name, but it wasn’t because of the butcher in the song. It was because Perrine murdered him.

(I know he has barely been introduced, but there’s no point allowing you to get to know him. He’s nothing more than a victim in this story, however brilliant and life-changing a music teacher he would have been if he’d lived.)

David Butcher did not fall to his death from one of Speedwell House’s upstairs windows. Instead, he was found lying cold and still on the library floor. It was one day when he arrived early for the lesson, and Perrine did too. When Lisette and Allisande entered the library at the correct hour, they found Perrine sitting curled up in a chair with a smirk on her face, and Mr. Butcher’s dead body at her feet.

There was not a mark on him.

“What did you do to him, Perrine?” Bascom wept.

“Nothing, Father,” came the nonchalant reply.

“Don’t ‘Nothing, Father’ me! Did you poison him? You must have poisoned him, since he has no visible wounds.”

“I don’t think she did,” said Sorrel Ingrey quietly. “I think she simply removed her mask—the one she always wears in our presence—and let him see who she truly is. I think that scared him so much, it stopped his heart.”

“Or perhaps she did nothing more than wish him dead,” Allisande suggested. “That might have been enough.”

“You’re talking about me as if I’m a witch,” said Perrine indignantly.

“Come on, Perrine.” Sorrel clapped her hands together. “I’m taking you upstairs to your room and locking you in there.”

“For how long?” asked Perrine.

“For as long as I feel like!” Sorrel snapped.

“Don’t forget the little green door,” Bascom told Sorrel. “You’ll have to push the chest of drawers up against it on the other side, or else she’ll be able to get out there. There’s no lock on that door.”

Lisette immediately rewrote “The Handsome Butcher” song in her head:

No lock on the little green door.

Put a chest of drawers in the way.

In this house there lives a killer and her name is Perrine Ingrey.

In this house there lives a killer and her name is Perrine Ingrey.

“What choice do Mum and Dad have, Perrine?” asked Lisette, who still desperately hoped a rational approach might prevail. “When you’re free to do so, you kill. If you would only admit it and promise to stop . . .” Lisette broke off when she realized none of her family were listening to her.

“Shouldn’t she have a worse punishment than being locked in her room for a while?” said Allisande. “This is her third murder!”

“I’d appreciate it if you would leave this to your father and me,” Sorrel said sternly.

Perrine was taken upstairs. Everyone heard the key turning ominously in the lock. Bascom Ingrey sat quietly weeping in an armchair in the corner of the library until his wife reappeared. She took one look at him and pursed her lips. “Pull yourself together, Bascom,” she said briskly. “This is no time for sentiment. We have important business to discuss.”

Sorrel sat down. “Girls,” she said. “We have difficult times ahead of us, but Dad and I have made a plan, and if we all follow it to the letter, everything will be all right. Okay?”

Lisette and Allisande nodded eagerly. Lisette wondered when this plan could have been made. Sorrel made it sound very new, but they had all only just now discovered David Butcher’s dead body.

“No matter how much we all wish it were otherwise, we must face facts,” Sorrel began solemnly. “Perrine is a killer. She has killed three times, and we can’t let it happen again. That would be socially irresponsible. We must call the police and tell them what we know. The only problem is that we have no proof. Perrine is extremely skilled at leaving no solid evidence of her crimes.”

Now Bascom joined in. “There’s a strong chance that the police wouldn’t be able to do anything, because we have nothing concrete to offer them, and they can’t just lock people up willy-nilly. So . . .” Hesitantly, he looked at his wife.

“So we’re going to have to fake the evidence,” said Sorrel. She produced a small knife—the one she used mainly to chop garlic—and held it up in the air.

Lisette and Allisande gasped.

“I’m going to plunge this knife into David Butcher’s heart,” said Sorrel. “And maybe slice his neck with it too. We need to make him look more murdered. It’s okay—he won’t feel a thing, so it’s not harming him in any way. I don’t want to do it—I hate the thought of vandalizing a corpse—but I need to, to make it look as if that’s how he died. A stabbing—something that can be witnessed .”

“You mean . . . ?” Lisette began tentatively.

“Yes. We four must pretend to the police that we all saw Perrine stab David Butcher with this knife. Then there will be proof, and hopefully they will lock her up for a long time. Of course, it will still be her word against ours, and I’ll have to make sure I wipe all my fingerprints off the knife, but I’m confident the police will believe us.”