The Circle of Sappho (26 page)

‘Yes. It is said Sappho fell in love with Phaon, a boatman, but it was unrequited and after he sailed away to Sicily she killed herself.'

‘Do you believe the story?'

‘No, I believe it was invented by men as they could not endure the thought of a woman loving another so passionately. If she did take her own life, I like to think it was because of Atthis. In my mind, Sappho heard Atthis had died and, unable to bear the grief, threw herself off the cliffs at Lefaka. And in that way they were reunited in another place to enjoy their love eternally.'

The more she heard, the angrier Elsa felt. It should have been her in the temple with Miss Leigh; by rights it should be a final year girl who was chosen to be Miss Leigh's companion. She had waited her turn patiently, but had been cruelly rejected. She could not help the way she was; her body was how God had made her. There was no doubt this was why Miss Leigh had rebutted her advances and had chosen this slip of a girl. She had not even chosen another final year girl, but rather this pubescent fourth year one. No, Miss Leigh had totally disrespected the Circle's tradition and now she would pay.

‘Will you still love me after I go away?' she heard Grace say.

‘You'll never leave my side or my heart, I promise you,' said Miss Leigh.

Enraged, Elsa smashed her fist against a tree.

‘I am sure I heard something, did you not hear it that time?'

‘I told you my love, we're quite alone here. I have prepared it that way.'

If she was to retain the element of surprise she had to rush into the temple now. She felt the knife taken from the school kitchen in her grip and then picked up a sharp stone in her other hand.

Once inside the temple, she had immediately thrust the knife into the girl. She had fallen to the ground, the knife still in her heart. She had then turned on Miss Leigh and hit her with the stone. Blood had gushed from her forehead. Beside the teacher she had found a suicide note and small bottle. It seemed obvious what the glass bottle held: poison. Miss Leigh now groaned. Elsa knelt down beside the teacher and unscrewed the bottle's top. She squeezed open her lips and poured the liquid down her throat, which caused the teacher to involuntarily swallow. She had then ripped the golden key from her waist. It was all too perfect. With the note and poison beside the bodies, it would be thought that Miss Leigh had killed the girl and then taken her own life; the wound to her head no doubt inflicted by the girl as she tried to defend herself from Miss Leigh's murderous attack.

With the key in her possession and therefore a more clandestine way back to the school, she could leave the boat; so giving the impression the couple had rowed themselves across, rather than coming via the underground passage.

Returning to the present, Elsa now pushed the stone as hard as she could and finally felt it budge. She managed to get it far enough open to allow herself to step through and into the temple. She would now attempt to find out exactly what it was that she had left on the island. The temple was in semi-darkness as she entered. She saw the place where she had left the bodies; a tragic boating accident Miss Jennings had called it. She laughed. It did not matter, she had thought; if she could not be Miss Leigh's ‘special girl', she would assume the Circle's leadership and choose her own.

As she moved toward the entrance, a voice spoke from the shadows.

‘I am interested to know what you believe is here on the island which will incriminate you as a murderer.'

Elsa immediately turned back toward the passageway but Swann blocked her way. She turned again and ran out of the temple. Swann pushed the stone to its closed position and then headed towards the entrance himself. The only way off the island was by boat, and as that was moored on the other side of the lake, the girl he now knew to be the murderer of at least three people was therefore trapped on the island.

Swann had arrived at the school while the girls were inside the assembly hall, at prayers. He had found Miss Jennings in her office and informed her of the Circle of Sappho. They had then talked to Tom and Swann had told them exactly what to do. They had carried out his instructions to the letter, as Elsa was now on the island. Once the plans were set, Tom rowed Swann across to the island and then returned with the boat, leaving Swann there. He had tied the boat to its mooring on the school side again, so giving the impression the island was deserted.

The diary entries had confirmed his increasing suspicion that there was another way onto the island, other than by water; that suspicion having been aroused after seeing the second inscription against the far wall of the temple, and witnessing the apparent ‘disappearance' of a person he believed he had disturbed whilst trying to unearth the diary.

On the way across the lake, Swann had finally discovered why Tom had been acting suspiciously. The gardener had been in love with Miss Leigh and although she was always friendly towards him, his love had been unrequited. After he had come across the dead bodies, and recovered from the shock, he had found the suicide note beside Miss Leigh. He could not believe what he read and in panic, had hurriedly put it in his pocket; he said he wanted to protect her reputation. Tom also confessed that he had seen the boat was missing during the morning – which Swann now assumed was actually taken by Elsa – and thought the teacher had taken it. Not wanting Miss Leigh to find herself in trouble, he had not mentioned it at the time to Miss Jennings, as he hoped it would be returned before the rest of the school returned from church. He had destroyed the letter, but remembered the essence of it, which he related to Swann as he rowed.

Swann had been waiting for an hour on the island, but the wait had proved worthwhile.

He now went through the temple entrance and out onto the island. It did not take long for him to find her. She had headed straight for the jetty, believing Swann had rowed the boat across in the time it had taken her to come the subterranean route. It was, of course, not there. She turned and saw Swann approaching down the path from the temple. She ran around the perimeter of the island trying to find a suitable place from which to dive into the water.

‘There is nowhere to go,' shouted Swann. ‘You might as well give yourself up.'

Undeterred, she continued looking until she found a little grassy outcrop, upon which she now climbed. By the time Swann caught up with her, she was in the process of discarding the dress she was wearing, realising the heavy material, once saturated, might drag her under the water. She now stood, naked, on the rock, her back to Swann.

‘Do not jump, it is dangerous!' he shouted. ‘There are rocks under the surface.'

His warning went unheeded and the next moment Swann saw the pale white body disappear over the edge. He ran forward to the outcrop and looked over. There floating in the water, face down, was the girl, a halo of blood starting to spread out beneath her. Swann assumed she had smashed her head against a submerged rock as she dived into the water. He broke off a branch from a nearby tree and tried to hook the body closer to the shore. As he touched her back with the branch, the body rolled over; as it turned face up Swann momentarily recoiled: along with two fully formed breasts, the body also displayed male genitalia. He had read about this kind of phenomenon – hermaphrodites they were called – but he had never seen one for himself. From what he could remember, the origin of the name had derived from the physical union between the Olympians Hermes and Aphrodite, and the name given to the resultant offspring: Hermaphroditos.

This was, Swann assumed, the ‘condition' Miss Leigh had not revealed to Grace regarding Elsa, and, as much as the teacher had felt threatened by her, she had also perhaps felt sorry for her, which was why she had not told anyone about it.

Swann realised his efforts to retrieve the body would be unsuccessful and stood up to carry out the pre-arranged signal to Miss Jennings, the shooting of his pistol, which would bring Tom across to the island in the boat.

With the murders at the school resolved, Swann turned his attention to the next pressing matter; that of finding out the truth about his father. He believed he knew someone who might be able to help him. She lived about an hour's ride away, so he hired a horse, waited for it to be saddled, and then rode off.

Mrs Hunter had been the Gardiners live-in nanny for as long as Swann could remember. She would be old now, if still alive. Swann realised he had not kept in touch or seen her since she had retired and left the Gardiners' employ. He assumed if she had died, he would have been informed, given he owned the property in which she lived.

When Mr Gardiner had passed away and Swann inherited the majority of his adoptive father's property, the solicitor acting on behalf of the estate informed Swann about the provision which had been made for Mrs Hunter. Mr Gardiner had purchased a cottage near his former employee's birthplace, to be held in perpetuity – or at least for her lifetime – where she would live rent-free, along with a yearly allowance. When Swann had inherited the estate, including the cottage, he was asked by the solicitor if he wished for this provision to continue. Even though Mr Gardiner stipulated the arrangement was ‘in perpetuity', the solicitor had said, somewhat conspiratorially, that if he wished to take back possession of the cottage there were ‘certain ways and means' that could be instigated in order for this to be made possible. Swann immediately responded that the provision was to continue and no more had been said on the matter.

Despite this, the fact he had never visited Mrs Hunter made him feel guilty. She had played an important part in not only Mary's life but his own too as they were growing up, and he held affectionate memories of her kindness at the time of his father's death and in the period following it. Before his father was murdered Mrs Hunter had worked closely with him, therefore if anyone knew what his father was really like it would, hopefully, be her.

As Swann rode the horse through fields and over hedges, letting the animal have its head across the flat land, he determined that if he was going to die tomorrow, he would learn the truth about his father first.

On reaching his journey's end, Swann brought the horse to a halt, dismounted and tied the reins around a tree that stood outside the cottage. He had arrived at the village and asked the first person he had seen for directions. They pointed towards a small wood, beyond which the cottage stood. As he walked to the door of the cottage, he remembered Mrs Hunter's warmth, the way she used to stroke his head when he could not sleep in the days, weeks and months after his father's death. But now here he was, arriving unannounced to visit somebody he had not seen for many years. For all he knew she might not even remember him. He hesitated for a moment, then knocked. If there was something to find out about his father from Mrs Hunter, then he at least wanted the chance to learn it.

The door was opened by a woman in her sixties. She was younger than Mrs Hunter would be and he wondered for a moment if he had come to the right cottage.

‘Can I help you?' she asked.

‘Mrs Hunter?'

‘Oh no, my dear, she is inside. Who shall I say is calling?'

‘Jack. Jack Swann. I was adopted by the Gardiners, who Mrs Hunter worked for before she retired.'

‘Wait here.'

The woman left the door ajar and went back inside. At least Mrs Hunter was still alive, Swann thought to himself.

The woman returned.

‘Come on through,' she said. ‘She has been expecting you.'

Swann paused momentarily. Expecting him? How could that be? He ducked his head under the front entrance and went inside the cottage. It was not too different to the one in which Mrs Leach lived, in Frome. In the corner, sitting in an armchair, was an elderly woman, but she was far too thin and frail-looking to be the robust, heavy-set Mrs Hunter he remembered.

‘Jack, is that really you?' asked the old woman in a soft voice.

‘You will have to go to her, my dear,' said the woman who had answered the door. ‘She cannot hear very well and is almost blind.'

Swann went forward and knelt down in front of her. He touched her hand with his own.

‘Hello, Mrs Hunter. Please forgive me for arriving unannounced.'

‘You do not need to apologise, Jack,' she replied. ‘It is so wonderful you are here.'

She put her free hand against his face and stroked his cheek.

As she did this, he sat and looked at this woman who had given him so much comfort and kindness when he had been growing up. He remembered her as a strong, capable woman, who would stand no nonsense but could always be charmed with a smile. But here she was now, her face drawn, her body shrivelled and the skin on her hand, which now stroked his cheek, was stretched almost translucent over a myriad of blue veins.

Now he was here, he did not know how to ask the question he had ridden all this way for. Although almost blind and deaf, she sensed there was something on his mind and she knew what it was.

‘Your father was a good man,' she said.

‘How do you know I am here about my father?' Swann enquired.

‘Most of the time I hear snippets of information and once I put them all together I add my own dollop of wisdom and usually find the truth somewhere within that,' she said profoundly. ‘I know you seek the people who killed your father.'

‘But how; I have not seen you in many years.'

‘I always knew what you were up to. I remember you would find your way to the servants' quarters,' she said, ‘I would always find you there. From what Mary tells me, you have not changed. I …'

‘You have seen Mary?'

‘She comes to visit me once a week. How wonderful she has at last found someone and they are to be married. It was Mary who arranged for Mrs Bailey to live here and look after me.'

At this, Mrs Bailey stepped forward and offered Swann a drink. He thanked her but declined. Mrs Hunter asked for her usual. Mrs Bailey smiled fondly as she turned and went into another room.