She had also printed a couple of copies of the full frame with Margaret Macdonald in profile looking remarkably upset—almost on the verge of tears, Lindsay thought. And, for her own amusement, she had printed up the shots she had taken of Cordelia. They were not particularly flattering, but they were good likenesses and very different from the other, posed photographs she had seen. There was a grittiness and determination in the face that casual acquaintance with Cordelia gave no hint of. Lindsay smiled to herself and cleared up. She let herself back out into the woods, carefully checking that all doors were locked behind her.

She slipped upstairs and sorted out the photographs. The ones of Lorna she put into a large envelope scrounged from Paddy, the others she put straight into her bag. Then she went downstairs to join Paddy.

“Mission accomplished,” she said.

“Good,” Paddy replied. “Pamela Overton has just been on the phone. She’s already had two calls from newspapers and has told them that you’re the only journalist who will be given any co-operation by the school, also that you’ll be supplying a story later today. She would like you to have breakfast with her, and after that she’s arranged for you to speak to Inspector Dart—he’s the one we all saw last night; he’s running the show as far as I can see.”

That was the last minute of peace Lindsay had all day. Breakfast with Pamela Overton was sticky and uncomfortable for both of them, and afterward, Lindsay felt she had been professionally stalled on every question apart from the purely superficial. She did know for sure that the fund-raising would go on and that Pamela Overton was anxious to get across the message that she was convinced it was the work of an outsider and that none of the girls was in danger. But that was all Lindsay had gathered in terms of fresh information.

She walked slowly up to the hall, where the police had taken over a small classroom and asked a uniformed constable if she could have a word with the officer in charge. After a brief wait she was ushered in. Over by the window, a young plain-clothes officer was sitting at a desk with a sheaf of paper around him. Behind the teacher’s desk stood a tall lean man whose face would have been handsome were it not for a mass of old pitted acne scars. He looked in his mid-forties, with graying sandy hair and sleepy gray eyes at variance with his sharp features and lined face.

Lindsay introduced herself and he looked keenly at her over the bowl of a pipe he was lighting. When he spoke, his voice was rich and slow. “I’m Inspector Roy Dart,” he said. “I’m running this investigation. What are you after?”