Bitter Enemies by R.A. Spratt

Author:R.A. Spratt
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2017-11-23T05:00:00+00:00

Pattie Bracks was a journalist from the local paper and she could not be more delighted. The unveiling of a statue would be lucky to get three inches of column space on page sixteen, but the disappearance and probable drowning of a headmistress at the country’s most exclusive boarding school was going to make national news. And she was right there live when it happened so she had lots of great photos. The boat smashing into the jetty, the headmasters falling in, children rescuing their teachers and Colonel Hallett hitting Ian over the head with a crutch for trying to help him. It was all going to look fabulous in the paper the next day.

Friday had gone back to her dorm room to change into dry clothes, but she was not there long before there was a knock at the door. The Headmaster had sent a messenger to fetch her back to the swamp bank.

Friday trudged down the hill. She would have liked to have had a shower. It’s hard to feel dignified with a kilo of swamp mud stuck to your scalp. When she saw the Headmaster it was clear he was in even worse shape. He hadn’t even changed his clothes. He was standing on the bank, still in his water-logged suit, with a blanket draped around his shoulders as he watched the scuba divers search the water.

Sergeant Crowley looked dejected too. He was overseeing his officers as they collected evidence, making sure they did it properly and not using their own sandwich bags from their lunch as they had done in the past. He had a senior officer overseeing him which was making him nervous.

So far, the scuba divers had found nothing except decades of contraband that students had thrown into the swamp over the years. Some of it was quite valuable. One diver pulled up a very first model Apple Macintosh computer. Apart from being entirely waterlogged and having a few barnacles growing on it, it was in surprisingly good condition so it would soon be snapped up by a museum.

There wasn’t much to see, just bubbles emerging and occasionally an item of clothing or personal effect handed up to an officer with evidence bags waiting on the deck.

‘Barnes,’ snapped the Headmaster.

‘It wasn’t me,’ protested Friday. She could see that the Headmaster was angry and ready to take it out on anybody.

‘You’re supposed to be the girl genius,’ said the Headmaster, ‘so figure this out. Where can Mrs Thompson possibly have disappeared to?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Friday. ‘There are too many variables. The changing tide moves everything about under the water. And there is so much debris under there.’ Friday indicated the deck of the jetty where a large pile of rubbish was stacking up. A scuba diver was just handing up what looked like a tandem bicycle.

‘Isn’t that the bicycle you lent me and Melanie to ride into town last year?’ asked Friday.

‘She probably threw it in,’ said the Headmaster. ‘I’ve never met such a lazy girl.

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