You’d have to walk at least ten miles to the nearest train station.’
‘I’ll hitch.’
I looked at her. ‘Maggie, don’t.’
‘Why not? My parents clearly don’t give a toss. He’s leaving me here all Christmas, that’s how much he loves me. Git.’
‘They’re paying £18,000 a term so you can get your education, Maggie. I’d say they love you a hell of a lot. And anyway, I’m here all Christmas too so it won’t be so bad.’
‘They’re sadists. Actual, factual sadists.’
‘Why do you hate it here so much?’
‘Why?’ she repeated. ‘Look around you, Nash. We’re in the middle of actual NOWHERE.’
I shrugged, looking around us beyond school land towards the moors and the hillsides dusted with icing sugar snow and spindly black trees. Coupled with the cinnamon smells rising up from the Fayre and the tinkling of a carol from somewhere, it felt like we were in a scene from a Christmas card. It was stunning. ‘That’s not so bad. It’s quite beautiful, don’t you think? Look at the snow on the hills, on the trees.’
‘And I hate nature.’
‘That can’t be the only reason you want to leave, the isolation.’
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘The food’s crap as well.’
‘Yeah it is a bit, isn’t it?’ I grinned.
‘And …’
‘What?’
She went to tell me something then stopped herself. ‘It’s like you said—the place is “fundamentally flawed”. Why else would we be allowed up on this very old, probably very unsafe roof, to scrub tiles. No one gives a crap about Health and Safety here, do they? No one gives a crap about us.’
‘Look, the parents are starting to arrive.’
Cars were trickling through the top gate at the far end of the driveway. There was the lightest fluttering of snow on the gelid air as a succession of Rolls-Royces, Mercedes, Porsches and Volvos rolled up the drive and parked up, their occupants following the signs through the formal gardens towards the stalls. I stopped scrubbing and walked to the West Turret roof to look down on the Orangery lawn. Stallholders had been at the school all morning, setting up their Christmas glögg, hickory smoked nuts, handmade crafts, wicker baskets, pomanders and tree ornaments. A ginger girl, Rosanna Keats, was standing at the arched entrance to the formal gardens, with a tray of glögg in little tumblers and a plate of sugared plums. Two girls standing next to her—I think it was the twins Hannah and Heather Bolan-Wood—bore fat chunks of stollen and gingerbread on little red and white napkins.
My mum and dad would have loved to see all this. They’d enjoyed it last year. Dad had gone on about his eggnog for months afterwards and Mum had bought these Hansel and Gretel tree ornaments which she said reminded her of me and Seb. Seb’d taken the piss, as he usually did at my school events, about our indoor and outdoor shoes, our ‘no whistling’ and ‘no TV except on Saturdays’ rules. He’d laughed all through the school concert, at the Pups forgetting their words and Regan Matsumoto’s tuneless trumpet recital. All the girls in my dorm kept going on about how hot Seb was. I’d just found him annoying. I’d have given anything to be annoyed by him again today.
‘Have you seen Regan recently?’ I asked, hugging the chimney pot on the Weather Station turret as the eerily distant sounds of the choir singing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ came floating upwards.
‘Huh?’
I sighed and hopped down off the turret roof to rejoin Maggie in the middle. ‘Regan Matsumoto. You know. Weird girl? Plaits?’
‘Best friend is a spine in the woods? Yeah, what about her?’
‘I haven’t seen her about this afternoon. Have her parents come to pick her up then? I didn’t see her go. She said she was staying here for Christmas.’
Maggie was clearly distracted. ‘Ssh,’ she said, not taking her eyes from whatever she was looking at on the west side of the school. ‘Come and look.’
I moved across to the Observatory turret, where she was hiding behind the chimney, and she pointed towards Edward’s Pond. A figure was walking by herself, carrying a white bag, towards the Birdcage. She looked round. It was Dianna.
‘What’s she doing?’ I said.
‘Dunno,’ said Maggie. ‘She keeps looking round, to see if anyone’s following her.’
‘She looks very furtive,’ I whispered.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Secretive. Like she’s doing something she shouldn’t. Maybe she is.’
‘Oh, she so is,’ said Maggie, her eyebrows going into suggestiveness overdrive. Dianna looked around again and disappeared into the trees.
‘Oh, come on,’ I said. ‘This is Dianna Pfaff we’re talking about.’
‘Yeah, I know. The Kate Middleton of Bathory School. Wouldn’t swear if her fanny hair caught fire. But what’s it about then? And what’s in that bag?’
I shrugged. ‘Candles for the procession or something? The route goes that way.’
‘The route’s already marked,’ said Maggie. ‘I watched Amy Sudbury and Helena Freemantle doing it this morning with white paint and gaffer tape.’
‘Okay well—’
‘Look, there she is again,’ said Maggie as Dianna’s blonde head appeared in the gap between the trees and the path from the Birdcage up to the Temple. She still had the bag. Then we lost her. ‘Damn.’
‘What is she doing up there?’ I said aloud.
‘I’ve got to know,’ said Maggie. ‘I’m gonna go and catch her red-handed.’
‘No, wait,’ I said, holding her arm. ‘Wait until she comes back down and then go and ask her.’
Maggie was just about persuaded. I went back to scrubbing the roof while she watched and waited for signs of movement in the gardens. Pretty soon, the gorgeous sugary smell of roasting chestnuts and the sweet notes of ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ came floating up to greet us from the scene below.
‘That bleeding caterwauling,’ Maggie muttered. ‘Seriously, I’ve heard better noises coming out of abattoirs.’
‘How many abattoirs have you visited then?’ I said, swilling off the last white remnants into the guttering.
‘Nash, Nash, she’s coming back, look!’
I put down the bucket and raced back over to the Observatory turret roof again, hiding behind Maggie as we watched Dianna coming back down the hill. She disappeared into the trees. When she reappeared, we saw that the white bag she had been carrying had gone.
I looked at Maggie. ‘Where’s the bag?’
‘Oh, we have sooooo got something on Princess Di.’
‘Like what?’ I asked. ‘We saw her walking into the valley with a bag. Big deal.’
‘Maybe she’s the dreaded Beast of Bathory, and in the bag are some more severed limbs! MWAH ahh AH!’
I laughed. ‘Come on, seriously.’
‘Let’s go and ask her about it now,’ said Maggie.
‘Not yet. We don’t want her to know we’re on to her. Don’t you know anything about espionage?’
‘Eh?’
‘Espionage. Spying. Look, we’re in the driving seat here—we’ve got something on her. If we go down there and let her know what we know—not that we