Free Dark Winter by David Mark Page A

voluntary work in Sierra Leone. Building schools, a bit of teaching here and there. I knew some of the places she was familiar with. It was enough for us to become friends.’
    McAvoy cocks his head. A fourteen-year-old girl, and a woman perhaps two decades her senior?
    ‘She had friends her own age, of course,’ says Vicki, as if reading his thoughts. She moves her empty glass in slow, steady circles. ‘She was an ordinary girl, inasmuch as there is such a thing. She liked pop music. Watched
Skins
and
Big Brother
, like they all do. I never saw her room but I don’t doubt there were some Take That posters on the wall. It was her writing that set her apart. That and her faith, although that wasn’t something we ever really discussed. I’m not really that way inclined. I put “creature of light” on official forms when they ask my religion. That or “Jedi”.’
    McAvoy smiles. Without thinking, he takes a large swallow of his drink and feels the pleasing warmth of its passage down his throat.
    ‘I just leave it blank.’
    ‘Not a believer?’
    ‘Nobody’s business,’ he says, and hopes she will leave it at that.
    ‘You’re probably right. Daphne certainly never shoved it down anybody’s throat. She wore a crucifix but she was quite literally a buttoned-up sort of girl in her school uniform, so she couldn’t be accused of flaunting her beliefs. We only got talking because I’d been intrigued by some of the answers she’d given in class. It must have been about a year ago. I was on a three-week posting at the school. We were doing
Macbeth
.’
    McAvoy screws up his face and tries to remember the passage that he had memorised for performance day at school. ‘And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray, in deepest consequence—’ He stops, embarrassed.
    ‘I’m impressed,’ says Vicki and as her face breaks into a grin, McAvoy is dazzled by the transformation that the simple act of smiling has upon her looks. She is casually cool enough to sit alone in a jazz club, rather than too unremarkable to attract a companion.
    ‘I did it when I was thirteen,’ says McAvoy. ‘I had to recite that in front of a room full of parents and teachers. I still shudder when I think about it. I don’t think I’ve ever been as scared.’
    ‘Really? It’s never bothered me,’ she says, as the interview evolves into a chat between friends. ‘You couldn’t get me off the stage when I was a kid. I’ve never been the shy type.’
    ‘I envy you,’ says McAvoy, and means it.
    ‘I didn’t think you could be a policeman if you were shy,’ she says, crinkling her suddenly pretty eyes.
    ‘You just have to learn how to hide it,’ he says with a shrug. ‘How am I doing?’
    ‘You had me fooled,’ she whispers. ‘I won’t tell.’
    McAvoy wonders if he is playing this right.
    ‘So,’ he says, trying to get them back on track. ‘
Macbeth
?’
    ‘Well, long story short, I was asking some questions of the class. Something about evil. I wanted to know which of the characters in the play could be called truly good and which truly bad. All the other kids had Banquo and Macduff down as heroes. Daphne disagreed. She put just about everybody down the middle. She said you couldn’t be one thing or another. That good people did evil things. That evil people were capable of kindness. That people weren’t always one thing. She can’t have been more than twelve or thirteen when she was saying this, and the way she said it justintrigued me. I asked her to stay back after class and we just got talking. My contract with the school eventually became a six-month thing, so I got to know Daphne pretty well. Obviously, the other teachers knew she had been adopted and that she must have seen some hellish things, but how much was in her official record I couldn’t say.’
    ‘So how and when did she tell you about her time in Sierra Leone? About what