“You better had. You’re due to meet our magnificent headmistress, Pamela Overton. One of the old school. Her father was a Cambridge don and she came to us after a brilliant but obscure career in the Foreign Office. Very efficient and very good at achieving what she sets out to do. High powered but human. Talk to her—it’s always rewarding, if unnerving,” Paddy observed.

“Why unnerving?” Lindsay was intrigued.

“She always knows more about your area of competence than you do yourself. But you’ll enjoy her. You’ll have a chance to judge for yourself tonight, anyway, before the guest of honor gets here. Ms. Smith-Couper has not said when she’ll be arriving. Her secretary simply said some time this evening. Really considerate.”

Paddy got to her feet and prowled round the desk, her strong, bony face looking puzzled. “I’m sure I left myself a note somewhere . . . I’ve got to do something before tomorrow morning and I’m damned if I can remember what it is . . . Oh, found it. Right. Remind me I have to have a word with Margaret Macdonald. Now, shall we go and face the staffroom?” They walked through the trees to the main house. In a small clearing over to one side, a few floodlights illuminated a building site.

“New squash courts,” Paddy explained. “We have to light the site because we kept having stuff stolen. It’s very quiet round that side of the school after about ten—an easy target for burglars. Chris Jackson is champing at the bit for them to finish. Pity we can’t hijack the cash for the playing fields, but the money came to us as a specific bequest.”

The two women entered the main building by a small door in the rear. As they walked through the passages and glanced into the classrooms, Lindsay was struck by how superficially similar it was to her own old school, a crumbling comprehensive. Both had had the same institutional paint job done on them; both used pupils’ artistic offerings to brighten the walls; both were slightly down at heel and smelled of chalk dust. The only apparent difference at first sight was the absence of graffiti. Paddy gave Lindsay a quick run-down on the house as they walked toward the staffroom.

“This is the kitchen and dining-room. The school has been in the building since 1934. Above us are the music rooms and assembly hall—it was a ballroom when Lord Longnor’s family had the house. There are classrooms, offices, and Miss Overton’s flat on this floor. More classrooms on the second floor, and the top floor is all bedrooms. The science labs are over in the woods, on the opposite side from the houses. And this is the staffroom.”