Free Child's Play by Alison Taylor Page B

flaxen plait moving through the crowd towards them. ‘We’ve got a visitor.’
    Dewi glanced round. ‘That’s Torrance.’ His face mottled with embarrassment. ‘She’s American. I met her this morning.’
    ‘ Hi, there, David,’ she said, then looked at McKenna and smiled.
    ‘ I’m Superintendent McKenna,’ he told her. ‘Can I help you?’
    ‘ Well, as we’ll be stuck here for hours, I guess I should sort out evening stables. Usually we do our own horses, but this isn’t usually.’
    ‘ Don’t horses live out in the summer?’ Dewi asked. Her eyes twinkled. ‘They do, but they still need watering and the once-over.’
    ‘ Will you need help?’ asked McKenna.
    She nodded. ‘I’d like to take Alice Derringer.’
    ‘ You’ll have to be supervised, of course,’ McKenna said blandly.
    ‘ How else?’ Torrance replied easily. ‘I’ll go get Alice.’
    McKenna watched her tap the shoulder of a thin, dark-haired girl. ‘I’ll send someone else to see the security guards,’ he told Dewi, ‘while you learn what evening stables is all about. You can also find out why she chose some kid to help and not one of the other horse owners, or, for that matter, whoever’s in charge of riding.’
    Dewi , absently watching Alice’s face light up with the same joy he had seen that morning, said to McKenna, ‘Have you heard about the clanger Bryn the Wonder Dog dropped? Alice was with the girl he targeted. So was Daisy Podmore,’ he added, pointing to the sumptuous-looking girl seated on Alice’s right. ‘They’re all best mates, apparently.’
    ‘ His handler mentioned it,’ McKenna replied. ‘Which girl was it?’
    As Alice scrambled to her feet, Dewi gestured to the girl suddenly exposed on her left. She too had dark hair and, like Alice, wore the green shirt of Tudor House. ‘She’s called Grace Blackwell.’ He grinned. ‘Her father’s a vicar, so her and Janet should get on like a house on fire.’
    ‘ How can a vicar,’ McKenna wondered, ‘afford to send his daughter here? Even if he’s got a good stipend?’
    Dewi shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s got a private income.’ After a moment’s thought, he said, ‘Then again, maybe he hasn’t. His daughter wears hand-me-downs as a matter of course. After she’d given us an ear bashing about letting dangerous dogs roam loose around the school, Matron told us Grace has quite a few of Sukie’s old clothes. They fit her perfectly, apparently.’
    ‘ Bryn didn’t touch the girl, did he?’
    ‘ All he did was cut her out of the group, like he was sorting sheep, and bark once,’ Dewi said. ‘There was no need for the fuss she kicked up, but she started screaming like a banshee. Daisy didn’t help, either. She added fuel to the flames by calling her a pathetic amoeba.’
    Accompanying Matron along the corridor from the refectory, across the central lobby and down the facing corridor, McKenna came to the conclusion that for all the building’s spare lines, austere proportions and wealth of windows, it was no less oppressive than the encircling woodland.
    Matron ’s room overlooked the Strait and the lawns, where the massed banks of rhododendron and azalea were touched with gold by the dying sun. She gestured him to a basket chair and squeezed her bulk into another, keeping her back to the window. ‘We don’t need the light on, do we? Not quite yet, anyway.’ Her voice dwindled away. Then, haltingly, she said, ‘Do you know, it’s been one of my greatest pleasures to watch night fall over the Strait, but never again.’ She shuddered. ‘ Never again!’ Her bosom heaved as she drew a steadying breath. ‘I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t stop myself. I can almost see her, being dragged into the depths by that terrible undertow. You can see it running even at low tide.’
    ‘ Menai Strait is notoriously dangerous.’ He paused. ‘I’m surprised there haven’t been other incidents.’
    ‘ The shoreline’s fenced off. It’s out