The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,42

Others, here and there, had heads bent low as they tapped and swiped on their phones. No one seemed aware that I existed.

I hunched forward again over the photograph and stared. That shadowy figure standing by the window, looking down at the rest of the school below from a second-floor classroom. Wasn’t that Ralph? His face was a darkened blur. Impossible to make out his features. But something struck me with force, something about the angle of his head, the haircut, his shape of his shoulders and upper body. Why did I think it was him? I blinked. It was impossible. What was wrong with me? Was I going mad?

The photograph swam and blurred and I wiped my eyes, struggling to focus again on the indistinct, shadowy figure hiding in the shadows, looking down on the assembled school.

How could I even imagine that? How could I think the man I’d killed had come back from the dead?

Thirty

I sat there for some time, struggling to steady myself. Finally, I opened my eyes and looked again at the photograph in my hand.

Could someone have doctored it, just this one copy? I looked again at the printed name label on the front of the large envelope. My name. My staff details. This was meant for me.

I examined with my fingertip the flap that I’d torn open. It was one of those commercial, self-sealing flaps. My brain whirred. Surely it was possible that someone had altered a copy of the photograph, then prised open the envelope in my pigeon-hole and swapped the faked image for the original one. Wasn’t it? Someone who had access to school during the working day, who could pop along to the ranks of pigeon-holes outside the staffroom without attracting attention. Someone who knew too much about what happened and wanted to scare me witless.

I looked at my hands, still shaking. If that was the case, they were doing a pretty good job.

I pushed the picture and the other papers back into the envelope, shoved it all into the depths of my bag and fled for the door. I almost bumped into Hilary who was just coming in.

‘Where’s the fire?’ Her teeth gleamed but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. I hesitated, staring at her. What did she know? What did any of them know?

I pushed past, muttering an apology and took the stairs two at a time, then ran out of the side door of the building and down to the Lower School car park, fumbling for my car keys as I went. I yanked open the driver’s door of my car and fell inside, then pulled out my phone and the flyer with the photographer’s details. I leaned forward against the hard rim of the steering wheel and stared wildly at the screen of my phone as I punched in the website address, then the code for the school’s shoot and finally the staff password to give me access.

I sat, heart pounding, palms clammy, and stared at my phone, waiting an eternity for the photograph to load. Go on, for heaven’s sake. Please. Help me out, here.

Finally, the pixels fell into place and the picture formed. I tapped on the screen and splayed my fingertips to zoom in as closely as I could on the Upper School building in the background. There he was. That shadow of a man, a step or two back from the window, concealing himself as he watched. I only realised how tightly I’d been holding my breath when it came rushing out again like air from a punctured balloon. He reminded me of Ralph. He really did.

The slightly turned head. That hairline I’d so often stroked, the soft skin along that neck. It was him. I couldn’t prove it. It was too blurry, breaking up already into nothing but pixels. But I felt it.

I fumbled in my bag for tablets and swallowed a couple down. I didn’t know quite how I was getting through them so fast, but I was running out. I’d need to go online for more.

I sat back and closed my eyes, seeing pulses of multi-coloured light floating across blackness. Chemicals coursed through my veins, calming my racing heart. What, then? It wasn’t just my copy. It was on the original photograph.

But what did it mean? Had he been there? Of course not. It was nonsense. It was madness. I was starting to doubt my own senses, my own sanity. It was a coincidence. Just like the random text messages