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The sound of Maisie’s bedroom door slamming vibrated through the house and Caitlin pulled away.
‘Thanks,’ she said gruffly. ‘Anyway, you’d better tell me how the visit to Connie went.’
‘Right.’ Isla gathered her thoughts. ‘It went well, I think. Maisie played a blinder by bringing cat food and soup that persuaded Connie to let us in, and she made her a cup of tea.’
‘Maisie made Connie a cup of tea? Without being asked?’
When Isla nodded, Caitlin puffed air through her lips. ‘Just when I think my life can’t get any more surreal, Maisie starts being helpful. Whatever next?’
Whatever next, indeed? wondered Isla. The last few weeks had been crazy: bereavement, an estranged sister confessing that her glittering life was tarnished, a precious ruined dress, a stranger from America who’d grabbed her hands in the middle of the night.
‘Did Connie tell you anything we don’t know about Edith?’ Caitlin continued. ‘Though that wouldn’t be hard, seeing as we know so little about her.’
‘She did know a bit more. Apparently, her mum frightened her with tales of “poor Edith” freezing to death on Dartmoor, so Connie wouldn’t wander off as a child.’
‘Effective, but probably not what you’d find in a parenting manual: scare your child into submission.’
‘Her mum had lost two children already, one to TB and the other to the Spanish flu epidemic that swept through the village in 1919, so she was probably scared herself.’
‘Yeah, that makes sense. Poor woman.’ Caitlin frowned. ‘Did you say the flu hit Heaven’s Cove in 1919? Could that be a reason why Edith felt she had to stay? Did she or her family get ill?’
‘Perhaps. It gives us another avenue to explore at least.’
‘The sister detectives, back on the case.’ Caitlin gave a wry smile. ‘We can get cracking on that tomorrow, maybe.’
‘Yeah, sure.’
Tomorrow, thought Isla, which would be a day closer to Ben leaving for America and she would never see him again.
‘Oh, by the way,’ said Caitlin, walking to the hall table. She moved her newspaper and pulled out a mustard-coloured beanie hat that was lying beneath it. ‘Look what I spotted on the floor under the coat stand. Is it Paul’s?’
Isla felt her heart skip a beat. ‘Paul won’t wear anything on the yellow spectrum.’
He reckoned it didn’t suit his complexion but Isla decided not to add that fact. She got the feeling Caitlin already thought her boyfriend was high maintenance.
‘It’ll be Ben’s then.’ Caitlin wrinkled her nose. ‘I would return it to him but I can’t face that climb up the cliff. Perhaps you could nip it up to him before he leaves? You were always more athletic than me.’
Isla hesitated. The thought of seeing Ben again made her feel instantly more cheerful, yet nervous, too. He must have had a good reason for leaving without saying goodbye after their early hours meeting in the kitchen. He must have been embarrassed by Isla gazing into his eyes. He must think her rather pathetic and horribly boring – the poor, bereaved librarian who rarely set foot outside Devon.
‘What do you reckon?’ asked Caitlin, tilting her head and raising an eyebrow. ‘Will you drop Ben’s hat back to him before he goes home to America?’
Isla pushed down her misgivings and held out her hand for the hat. ‘I suppose I could. The walk will do me good.’
32
MAISIE
It was stupid watching it over and over again, painful even, but Maisie didn’t seem able to stop.
She clicked on the video for the eighth time and watched as viscous yellow liquid poured from the top of the doorframe where it had been balanced in a plastic tub. It arced through the air as Miss Welby stepped into the classroom.
If only she’d been moving a little faster it wouldn’t have made contact. But Miss Welby was a slow mover and the liquid – a gloopy mixture of food dye, flour and water – landed squarely on her head.
Maisie disliked Miss Welby intensely and the feeling was mutual. The fact that Maisie found algebra and statistics bewildering was incomprehensible to the middle-aged maths teacher who took every opportunity to accuse her of being lazy and not trying hard enough. The irony was that her accusations merely fuelled Maisie’s panic when faced with numbers and equations and dissuaded her from trying at all. What was the point when she’d get it wrong anyway and Miss Welby would humiliate her in front of the class? The teacher deserved to be humiliated herself – that’s what Madison had said.
But as Maisie clicked on the video again and watched the teacher’s expression change from shock and upset to hurt disappointment, she wished for the hundredth time that she’d never done such a cruel thing.
‘It’ll teach her a lesson.’ That’s what the girls in Madison’s group had told her. They’d encouraged her to carry out the joke but had denied all knowledge of it afterwards, when Maisie was suspended. And now, just when she was hoping the fuss had all died down and she could go back to school without it hanging over her, one of them had posted this video on TikTok. And whichever girl it was – the TikTok account was new and anonymous – had tagged her so she couldn’t miss it.
