Free Killing Rachel by Anne Cassidy Page A

she’d been walking for about ten minutes. It was the colour of autumn, rust red and stood four storeys high, looking like a large country house. There were newer buildings attached to the side and back but these were mostly veiled with trees. The windows on the three lower floors were imposing, almost floor to ceiling, but on the fourth floor, where some of the sleeping areas were, there were dormer windows.
    She glanced over to the right. In the near distance she could see the lake and the boathouse. She quickened her step. Her bag was feeling heavy and although it was a grey cold day she was hot. She stopped for a moment and slipped her coat off, folding it over her arm.
    There was hardly anyone around even though it was just before one o’clock. At 1.15 the lunch bell would go and then the place would become busy. She was feeling hungry herself but it would be strange to go into the dining hall again, to queue up with a tray in hand and walk along the counter selecting her lunch. She thought she’d finished with all that. During those last weeks in the school when she’d sat her GCSEs she’d counted the days until she could pack her stuff and go to live in Anna’s house. Standing in front of the salad bar, her eye flicking across the giant bowls of coleslaw, bean salad and lettuce, she’d imagined making a single portion of food for herself. She’d use small pots and pans, chop up tiny bunches of herbs, slice half an onion and a couple of tomatoes. She’d pick up a handful of dried pasta only. Just enough for her; it would be luxurious.
    But just now she was hungry and would enjoy some salad and lasagne or quiche, a portion of garlic bread on the side.
    She walked through the main school car park and towards the quad, a small area of benches and rose bushes and gravel where students were allowed to sit quietly and talk or read or listen to iPods. She stopped for a second and glanced up at the windows at the very top of the building. At the corner was her old room, Daisy. To the left of it was Rachel’s room, Bluebell.
    It was here that Rachel said she’d looked up and seen the face of Juliet Baker in her room. Rose stared at the window for a moment, then she swivelled round and looked in the opposite direction at the line of trees that edged the car park. That was where Rachel had seen the ghost at night, its face bright amid the darkness.
    She made a tsk sound and carried on. What was it that Rachel had seen? Something real? Or something conjured up out of her own imagination?
    Rose walked on. She stepped inside the building and went up to the receptionist. It was someone she didn’t recognise, someone new. She gave her name and the woman looked at a printout and then gave her a visitor’s badge. Ten minutes later Rose had walked up the four flights of stairs and was standing on the landing next to a sign that said Eliot House .
    The bell went then for lunch recess.
    In the distance doors began to open and shut and there was the sound of students moving around on the floors below. There was no talking, just the sound of feet shuffling, stamping, sliding along the wood floors, moving towards the outside of the building where the students would head for the refectory.
    She went past the sign for Eliot House .
    It was part of the fourth floor of the building and it housed the students who were members of the House named after George Eliot. Eliot House students were the only ones who slept and lived in the original school building. It consisted of dormitories and shared and single rooms. It had bathrooms and a shower block and two small kitchens. There was a large common room full of armchairs and beanbags with a big television and table tennis tables.
    When Rose was a student in the school she could recognise all of the Eliot House girls and not just because of the small badges they wore. She knew twenty or so to talk to and a couple who were people she spent time with. Her closest friend in four and a half