There was no champagne to welcome Paddy Callaghan back to Longnor House on Sunday morning. After the due process of law had been carried out, Gillian drove Paddy back from the remand center. Cordelia had cooked a lavish Indian meal, and when Paddy walked through the door she was greeted with hugs, kisses, tears, cold lager, and the aroma of curry spices. After the emotional reunion, Lindsay walked over to the main building to tell Pamela Overton Paddy was back. The headmistress hurried off immediately to see Paddy in her rooms and Lindsay, who now felt even more uncomfortable in her presence, took the opportunity to file an exclusive story on Paddy’s release, complete with interview, to the Clarion.

After she had dictated the story, she spoke to the news-desk. “Lindsay here, Duncan. The copy for my exclusive on the girls’ school murder should be dropping on your desk any minute now, I’ve left a number where you can reach me if there are any queries.”

“I’ve just got it in front of me now, kid. Not a bad piece of work. Mind you, you’ve taken long enough over it; it should be good. When do I get you back working properly again?”

“If you gave me a job instead of shifts, you’d know the answer to that. I’m supposed to be in on Wednesday at one o’clock. So I’ll see you then.”

“Give you a job? I’d never see you then! I must be paying you too much as it is if you can afford to spend a whole week gadding about in England.”

Lindsay laughed. “I’d rather be suffering from an old slave driver like you than doing what I’m doing right now. I’ve not had a proper night’s sleep since I left Glasgow.”

Duncan’s voice had a chuckle in it. “That was always your problem, Lindsay, mixing business with pleasure. See you Wednesday.”

Lindsay sat in the headmistress’s study, smoking quietly and turning over the events of the last week yet again. She forced herself to think about the horrors of the previous day. Now that the first shock had subsided, she was able to think more objectively about Sarah’s suicide and her confession. It struck her that the confession was remarkably bare of essential detail. There was nothing about Paddy’s duffel-coat toggle, something known only to the murderer, the handful of people who had actually seen the body, Paddy, and the police. In itself, that was hardly world-shaking, thought Lindsay, though it would have made sense for Sarah, in the flow of her confession, to have said something like, “I made the garrote with the cello string I took from Music 2 in the morning when I was there with Miss Callaghan, and a toggle I took from someone’s coat in the cloakroom at Longnor.”