Paddy looked bewildered. “I don’t know . . . It’s true that I took her to Music 2 because I knew that nobody else would be using it and I wanted to get her on her own in the hope that she might open up a bit. I don’t remember the other things she says happened—but then, I was very abstracted. I was worried about her; I had the play on my mind; and I was still twitchy about Lorna. So they might have happened. I honestly can’t say definitely that they didn’t take place. After all, there’s no reason why the girl should lie.”

“But of course there is,” argued Cordelia. “She could be protecting either herself or her father.”

Paddy shook her head. “I don’t think she’d have deliberately done something that would cause me trouble. I’m closer to the girl than anyone else in the school. I can’t believe she would calculatedly lie about me.”

Lindsay interrupted gently. “I know it’s hard to believe, Paddy, but try to think objectively. Don’t you think that Sarah might just do anything for her father’s sake? Even to the extent of killing?”

Paddy considered the question. “She’s cool enough under normal circumstances to pull it off, I suppose. And she feels passionately protective of her father. Perhaps she might not be too worried about putting me in a spot if she looked at it as a straight choice between him and me. But when it comes to murder—I can’t believe that. For one thing, I don’t think she knew the music department well enough to set it up. And besides, she was so upset after her row on Saturday morning, I doubt if she’d have been able to compose herself sufficiently to get it all together. No, I can’t see Sarah as the killer at all.”

Seeing that this line of conversation was upsetting Paddy, Lindsay decided on another approach. “Is there anything you can think of that might give us a new line to work on? Anything at all? Some little detail you might have noticed but not bothered about—in the room or in the music department?”

Paddy slowly shook her head. “Nothing springs to mind. Don’t you think I’ve already been through it a million times in my head these last three days?” She rubbed her eyes with her fists. “After all,” she sighed, “there’s not a lot else to fill my head.”