19

They got back to the town hall with the full intention of leaving it again as soon as they had checked for messages. It looked as if Ferguson and Rodgers had both gone home for the night, because the door to the major-incident room was locked. Black had to find his key to admit them. The first thing they noticed were the envelopes. There were three of them on the table Black usually worked from. When had they arrived and who had placed them there? Like the first envelope they had received, these were all large and brown with a local postmark and Lucas Black’s name and rank on them in block capitals. He noticed from the postmarks that, although they had all arrived together, they had not been sent at the same time but over a period of three days, and he cursed the vagaries of the postal system.

Black opened each one carefully and upended them to allow the papers to gently fall on to the table without him having to touch them. Each envelope contained journal extracts, and Black wanted them to be examined by Forensics later, but they needed to read the words Alice had written now, before the pages were sent off. He used the blunt end of a pencil to separate the pages and position them on the table so each one could be scrutinized. There were seven extracts in total.

The first was innocuous enough, Alice detailing her excitement at receiving the journal from her brother and stating that she loved him. Black wondered what the point was of sending that one? The second was more intriguing.

‘I’m just a walking shadow?’ Beth read. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means she’s depressed, doesn’t it?’ said Black. ‘That’s what it sounds like to me.’

‘Could be,’ Beth agreed. ‘And who is He? The only one who gets her, the one who can see through her like she is made of glass?’

‘Her teacher, her brother, a secret lover?’ Black offered.

‘It might be her brother,’ said Beth, ‘but why not say so?’

‘Maybe she’s embarrassed by how close they are because of all the gossip, or perhaps it’s someone else entirely. Alice said she has a secret. Maybe this is it.’

‘She’s a bit dramatic, isn’t she?’ observed Beth.

Black shrugged. ‘She’s a teenager; they’re all dramatic.’

‘Are they?’ she asked. ‘Were you?’

‘Judging by the number of rows I had with my old man, probably, yes. Everything is amplified at that age, isn’t it, so it’s all a big deal. Kids fall out with each other one day and are friends again the next. If you throw in relationships, which are nearly always overblown, then you end up with a drama.’

‘I don’t remember it being quite like that.’

‘Youngsters are all daft, always have been. Look at Romeo and Juliet. He thought she was dead then he killed himself; she woke up and realized he was gone so she stabbed herself.’

‘Oh my God,’ blurted Beth.

‘Don’t tell me I’ve ruined it for you, Beth. Even I’ve seen it.’

‘No, no!’ she protested, waving her hand animatedly at him. ‘It’s Shakespeare!’

‘I know it’s Shakespeare. I might not be as educated as you are, but I’m familiar with Romeo and Juliet.’

‘Not the play,’ she almost shouted. ‘The quote.’ And when he obviously had no idea what she was talking about, she added: ‘A walking shadow. That’s Shakespeare.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘but not Romeo and Juliet?’

‘No, it’s Macbeth, I think,’ and she took a breath while she tried to remember it before reciting: ‘“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more.” We studied it in English.’

She pointed to the paper with Alice’s words on it. ‘I’m just a walking shadow,’ she repeated, ‘which comes just before “a poor player”, meaning an actor. So, I think it means that He knows Alice is acting but she doesn’t call herself an actor. It’s as if it’s a phrase they share, something they both understand.’

‘Perhaps this is an older man who has taught her things, along with a bit of Shakespeare. The same person who is responsible for her disappearance, even.’

‘She has English teachers,’ she said, ‘and Shakespeare will be on the curriculum. Plus, there is the young drama teacher.’

‘We’ve narrowed it down, at least.’

‘Unless I’m wrong,’ Beth conceded, ‘and it has no significance.’

‘I think it is significant,’ he said. ‘I think it’s their thing. She’s been playing a part all this time and this is the one person she can reveal her true self to.’ Black noticed Beth’s face change then. ‘What is it?’

‘“A walking shadow” is Macbeth’s speech, when he learns his wife is dead,’ said Beth. ‘And actually, she kills herself.’

‘Another hint at suicide,’ said Black.

They both fell silent for a time while they read the extract about morals and how changeable they were. When they reached the end Beth read aloud, ‘What if there were no morals at all? What if we were free to love and be loved by anyone we wanted? At least that would solve my little problem.’

‘That backs up the idea that Alice Teale was seeing someone she shouldn’t be,’ said Black.

‘Someone married, perhaps?’ Beth wondered.

Their suspicions were heightened when the next extract was a damning critique of her sex life.

‘This certainly supports the theory that she might have been seeing someone else,’ said Beth. It would also provide Alice’s boyfriend with an obvious motive.

The next extract was from the time when Alice acrimoniously broke up with Tony and he did not want to accept it. The significance of these words seemed clear: ‘That’s when he called me a fucking bitch. Those were his last words before I walked out of the door,’ recited Beth.

‘He’s angry,’ said Black, ‘but just how angry? Normal angry, or …?’ Then he said: ‘And who is sending these bloody extracts to us, and why?’

‘They hint that Chris and Tony have a motive for making Alice disappear,’ she said, ‘so I think we can rule them both out as likely senders. Neither of them looks good here.’

Next, they read the extract that concerned Chloe and Kirstie.

‘Bit harsh on her mates,’ Beth observed once she’d finished. ‘One of them, anyhow. I don’t suppose Chloe would be too pleased if she read that about herself. Makes her sound like a drama queen.’

‘Particularly if she has no inkling that that’s how her best mate feels about her. It would be quite a betrayal.’ Then he said: ‘And what about the other girl, Kirstie? What’s with the reference to my lips are sealed?’ he said, almost to himself.

Beth picked up the paper again and read that passage aloud. ‘Kirstie and I both know Kirstie’s little secret, and some secrets ought to stay that way until they are ready to be let out, so in consideration of Kirstie, my lips are sealed, which is kind of appropriate, really.’ She looked up at Black. ‘Why would that be appropriate?’

‘You could go back and ask Kirstie?’ he suggested.

‘You think she’ll tell me?’

‘Doubtful, but it will be interesting to see if she tries to bluff or lie her way out of it.’

‘It’s very timely, this, isn’t it?’ observed Beth. ‘The journal extracts landing in our laps so soon after we spoke to them?’

‘So, the sender must know we’ve spoken to them both,’ he said, ‘or at the very least that we would be planning to speak to them because they are close to Alice.’ They transferred their attention to the seventh and final extract, which once again referred to Alice’s brother, Daniel.