Backstab

By Aubade Teyal

Lennox is sent to a new school to stay out of trouble. But one of the girls disappears and Lennox comes under suspicion. She decides to hunt for the missing girl herself and uncovers a series of crimes. It seems nowhere is safe; and the people she trusts the most, are the ones who have been deceiving her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skillywidden
• Release date: Jan 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370302468

Aubade Teyal

Aubade is a writer, a thinker, a lover, and a believer. She writes to share these passions. Find out more about her books, and the Guardians series, at aubadeteyal.wordpress.com

Book preview

Backstab

By Aubade Teyal

Text copyright 2016 Aubade Teyal

Find out more: aubadeteyal.wordpress.com

Chapter One: Servants’ Quarters

Chapter Two: Term Starts

Chapter Three: The Night Before

Chapter Four: Missing

Chapter Five: The Police Car

Chapter Six: First Day

Chapter Seven: Mrs Kennedy’s Announcement

Chapter Eight: Hunting

Chapter Nine: Balreaig

Chapter Ten: Girls

Chapter Eleven: Calgacos

Chapter Twelve: Fight

Chapter Thirteen: Reparation

Chapter Fourteen: Morality

Chapter Fifteen: Embrace

Chapter Sixteen: Sophine

Chapter Seventeen: Fight

Chapter Eighteen: Echo

Chapter Nineteen: The Croft

Chapter Twenty: The Mark

Chapter One – Servants’ quarters

Lennox was in Saskia’s room. Browsing. Shopping. Lennox knew it was Saskia’s room because her name was in the books and her face was all over the walls, in every photo. Saskia, with wheat blonde hair and dashing eyebrows, wearing a different outfit in every picture.

Lennox didn’t need much: a pair of denim leggings, a top. She had to be careful what she took. Some items were too distinct. There was a dress made of white silk, it ran through her fingers like rain. She held it up and wondered what it would feel like to wear such a dress. She pushed it back into the wardrobe. She was wasting time. She needed to get on with business.

Lennox was walking down the corridor, a pair of black leggings in the bag on her back, when Frances appeared, smothered in a staff apron, and slightly out of breath.

‘What are you doing? You’re not supposed to come up here.’ Frances exclaimed. ‘And I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Mrs Trance wants you.’

Her hair, faded like forgotten oranges, was combed tight into a coil. Her seashell eyes were shrinking with suspicion.

‘I’m coming.’

‘Hurry!’

Mrs Trance’s office was drawing room, vast and elegant, with glass-cased bookcases, and a vintage sofa white as dust. Behind an ornate, empty desk, Mrs Trance presided, elderly, defiantly high heeled, and perennially bone thin.

She did not invite Lennox to sit, but she studied her as the bag of purloined clothing grew heavier on Lennox’s back.

‘Do you remember what I said to you the last time you stood before me?’ she asked.

Lennox had been trying to forget.

‘You said Pineham would make me into someone new, someone better.’

Outside, clouds eclipsed the winter sun, and Mrs Trance’s stately room darkened.

‘And?’ Mrs Trance asked, without looking up. ‘Have you begun to change?’

They both knew the answer.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘I am,’ Mrs Trance’s head snapped up. ‘You are as feral as when you first walked through my door.’

Feral. Evil. Psychotic. Freakish. She’d heard it all before.

She had attended, and been expelled from, too many schools to count. Not one school had changed her, instead they had purified her, so she became more resolutely non-conformist, and her peers became irritations which chafed like a tight shoe.

‘However, I’ve asked you here for another reason. When you came, we spoke briefly regarding your fees.’

‘My father…’ begun Lennox.

‘…has been impossible to contact. He has no idea you are here. Apparently, he has not even paid your fees at Calgacos. To be honest, I’m beginning to wonder whether he exists.

Beneath Mrs Trance’s grey eyes, and pale powdered skin, was a hard-headed businesswoman.

‘He works…’

‘In the forces, abroad. Master Torkil mentioned that, too.’

Master Torkil was her previous headmaster, from Calgacos, the only school she regretted leaving. It wasn’t the perfect school. It encouraged bullying, was brutally cold and specialised in extreme levels of fitness training. It was presided over by enigmatic Masters, more like monks than teachers. But it had been within the castellated walls of Calgacos, she had found, and become besotted, by Kellas. He had made Calgacos terribly dear to her.

‘I know your history.’ Mrs Trance continued. ‘I was curious. I called King’s College, another of your previous schools. That was an interesting conversation. It seems you can be quite vicious when provoked.’

Lennox looked longingly at the door. Up until this point, her stay at Pineham had been relatively painless. As the rest of the girls had already left for their winter holidays, Mrs Trance had given her some ground rules, and left her to drift undisturbed through the weeks and rooms of the vast, eighteenth century mansion house.

Today, the other girls were due back, and Lennox’s peace was about to be broken.

‘Unfortunately, they couldn’t tell me much about you, other than the manner of your ignominious departure. I had to keep digging. I kept phoning. Soon enough, I came across another former school. It might have been the 10th school I tried. It wasn’t hard to find. It made me wonder. How many schools have you attended? And how many have you left without paying the fees?’

Lennox could not answer. When she left a school, it was never on good terms. The girl they thought was quiet, turned out to be psychotic. There was not much more to say. They were in too much of a hurry to be rid of her.

‘Your outbreaks of violence intrigue me.’

And were ruining Lennox’s life.

‘This school exists for girls like you.’ Mrs Trance added. She pulled open a drawer and flourished an envelope. ‘This is a wedding invite from one of my alumni. She came here 8 years ago, failing all her subjects, barely attending school, seeing a man twice her age and bullying her mother who was suicidal with despair.’

The envelope was waved through the air, then deftly returned to its drawer. ‘Now she’s marrying a millionaire."

As the silence thinned, Lennox wondered why a girl would drive her mother suicidal. She could only imagine what having a mother felt like.

‘I see what you’re thinking.’ Mrs Trance nodded. ‘You want to know how we changed her life around.’

Lennox looked at her feet, anywhere but at Mrs Trance.

‘It is simple. I turn the girls into ladies. They don’t need top grades. They don’t need money. They don’t need trophies, certificates, or elite sport. They just need to believe they are better; that they are ladies. That’s what I give them. I open doors for them. They leave able to hold their head high in any society. I can do the same for you. There is only one barrier.’

Lennox wondered how old Mrs Trance was. She cultivated the face of a younger woman with her scarlet lips, her skin hidden beneath layers of colour. But her hands were laced with age, and her eyes misted.

‘Money.’

Lennox shut her eyes.

‘Is there anyone else in your family who might be able to help?’

Lennox had been asked this question before. It was embarrassing for everyone.

‘No.’

‘Surely there is someone… A grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, friend…’

‘No.’

Mrs Trance sat back in her chair.

‘Let’s be very clear about this. You have no fixed address, no family home. Your father is posted abroad, and you have no other connection in this country to call on.’

Lennox shrugged.

‘When you stay on an army base, you live there. Everyone you know lives there. It is your world.’

‘You’ve not been on an army base for a long time. You’ve been at school. You’ve met plenty of people.

Most head teachers only asked these questions when they were trying to get rid of her.

‘This leaves me with only one option. You will earn your keep. You are 16, aren’t you?’

Lennox nodded. She was fifteen but it didn’t count as a lie. When no one celebrated your birthday, age ceased to matter. She would be 16 soon enough.

‘Then you will study during school hours, and after hours, work under Mrs Leslie’s instruction as staff. And you will be grateful. Is this understood?’

Mrs Trance ran a small house bell on her desk. The door opened and Mrs Leslie appeared, her dome shaped hair, soft as a pin cushion and thin as lace.

‘Show her to the servant’s quarters,’ Mrs Trance announced, ‘Put her in the room with Frances.’

Chapter Two – Term Starts

Lennox’s new home was a small box room with a low ceiling and a square deep-set window, down the corridor from the kitchens. There was a small dresser, a porcelain table lamp, and just enough room for twin beds with ivory, quilted eiderdowns.

Mrs Trance gave her a long blue staff dress to wear, high around her neck, low around her wrists. Over the top, Lennox put on the obligatory house apron, frilled at the shoulders, and belted tight as a girdle.

‘It is important to Mrs Trance that we are as well presented as the house we keep,’ Mrs Leslie explained, smoothing down Lennox’s apron and casting a nervous look at her wild dark hair. ‘Frances will help you.’

Frances, when they found her, was halfway up the grand stairs, polishing the wooden steps and panels.

‘Lennox will be joining the staff,’ Mrs Leslie explained. ‘And she’s come to help with these stairs.’

‘Just as well,’ Frances muttered, ‘Since I wasted most of the morning looking for her.’

Lennox was given a rag, a jar of polish and set to work at the top of the stairs, far enough away from Frances so she didn’t have to talk. Panel by panel, they drew closer.

‘No money?’ Frances asked.

‘No.’

‘Then welcome to hell.’

‘What do you mean?’

She’d been at Pineham for several weeks. During that time, she had been left alone, mostly. It had not been too bad. Kellas, and Calgacos, were not so far away.

‘You’ll see.’

After the stairs were completed, they moved onto polishing the silver in the dining hall. Mrs Trance wanted the house perfect for the girls’ return. If they were to be ladies, they had to inhabit a fine house; Pineham had to be grand.

Unlike Calgacos, where they had eaten in the basement on mismatched benches and tables, Pineham’s dining room overlooked its lawns, and the arboretum beyond. Lennox had been quick to explore the ancient trees, and the shadows beyond.

The rumble of a car announced the arrival of the first girl. She slipped into Pineham’s imposing hall, her footsteps light as a breeze. Then came a flood of cars, spilling out girls with heavy luggage and loud voices. Pineham was transformed. As Lennox and Frances polished silver spoons, they watched, and a feeling of nausea grew in Lennox’s belly.

Behind them, the dining room clicked open.

‘Girls, your help is required.’

It was Mrs Leslie. She withdrew as soon as she had spoken. She was on display, in the entrance hall, along with Mrs Trance, welcoming the girls back, reassuring parents, her soft hair in a bun, her soft voice always agreeing.

‘The luggage.’ Mrs Trance pointed to where an assortment of bags and suitcases were piling up. ‘The girls need help.’

The next hour taught Lennox all she needed to know about the Pineham girls. Most of the bags were over-packed, and very few girls attempted to carry their own belongings. While the Pineham girls spent the afternoon racing between their rooms, giggling and gossiping, Lennox lugged their bags upstairs, weaving her way past oblivious girls.

From the moment she stepped into the hallway, Lennox could see Cherry was different. Stunning. Tall and slim, her hair was a dark wave falling down her back, her eyes were deep as ink. She greeted Mrs Trance and Mrs Leslie personally, and spoke directly to Frances.

‘Frances,’ she called, handing over a suitcase. ‘You’ve no idea how I’ve struggled without you.’

Cherry was surrounded by baggage, brought in by her muted parents. Like paid retainers, they drifted away once Cherry had waved them goodbye.

‘And who is this?’ she asked, studying Lennox as she came forward to take a suitcase.

‘My new assistant.’ Frances smiled for Cherry’s benefit only. ‘Lennox.’

‘Lennox?’ Cherry narrowed her eyes.

‘Is everything alright?’ enquired Mrs Trance, stepping forward.

‘Of course!’ Cherry’s face was smooth again. ‘Now I’m home again.’

Mrs Trance glowed with satisfaction.

Cherry led the way to her room, trailed by Frances then Lennox. When Cherry paused to greet a friend, or hug, or wave, Frances paused too; Lennox followed suit. They were a procession, for Cherry was akin to royalty. The younger girls paused to stare as Cherry passed by.

Cherry had a corner room on the top corridor, it was vast and comfortable, full of home comforts. Dominating the room was a double bed piled with cushions, beside it a dressing table, hung with drapes, and framed with a mosaic edged mirror.

When the door to her room swung shut behind Lennox, Cherry turned on her.

‘So, you come from Calgacos?’

‘Yes.’

Lennox had heard about Cherry. Frequently. Cherry was the only girl from Pineham spoken of at Calgacos. The walls of Pineham were high, the gates always shut, and the girls rarely ventured out, yet one boy, Shergar, had found a way. He and Cherry met regularly. Lennox had seen them together, in the village.

‘Shergar spoke of you.’ Cherry said.

Nothing good, Lennox was sure.

‘And did he…?’ Cherry paused and smiled. ‘Did he speak about me?’

‘He wasn’t in my house. I didn’t see a lot of him.’

More to the point, Lennox could not remember anything Shergar had said she dared repeat. It had all been bragging. That was all the other boys had wanted to hear.

She tried to leave. There were more bags downstairs. But Frances was blocking her way, staring disapprovingly. Lennox ignored her, pushed past, and disappeared down the corridor. Several flights later, Frances caught up, hurrying down the stairs to join her.

‘How could you be so rude?’ she demanded.

‘I wasn’t.’

‘Yes, you were. Cherry adores Shergar! He is her everything. She talks about him every night. And you had nothing to say to her about him. Nothing!’

Lennox scowled, quickened her pace, turned a corner, and walked straight into Mrs Trance.

It happened too quickly for Lennox to think. Mrs Trance staggered back and, instinctively, Lennox grabbed hold of Mrs Trance’s shoulders, pulled her steady.

‘Now, you’re in trouble,’ whispered Frances from behind.

And she was right.

Chapter Three – The Night Before

Mrs Trance detached herself from Lennox, stepped back to a safe distance, and regarded Lennox as she might a tear on her hemline.

‘Don’t ever touch me again,’ she hissed in Lennox’s ear.

Lennox averted her gaze, studied her feet and pretended contrition.

‘There you are,’ cried Cherry, appearing at the top of the stairs, smiling at everyone, distracting Mrs Trance and Frances, inadvertently rescuing Lennox, and then rushing down to join them.

Lennox hurried away while Frances waited for Cherry. There were plenty more bags in the hallway and Lennox needed to get a safe distance away from Cherry and her questions.

It was difficult talking about Shergar. Lennox had little to say, less that was good. More worrying still, was the thought of Cherry asking Shergar questions about Lennox. Shergar knew too much about Lennox, and all of it bad. He bore a scar on his handsome face which she had unwittingly given him. Cherry needed to lose interest in Lennox. Fast.

When the bags were done, Lennox followed Frances down to the staff quarters, into the kitchen, for a mug of tea and an oatcake.

Behind them, sweating over saucepans, her considerable girth blocking all view of the oven beyond, was Cook. She might have been friendly, if she hadn’t been cooking for 100 hundred girls, with no help.

‘On your feet,’ said Mrs Leslie, when she peeked through the door. ‘Dinner to serve.’

Frances was up at once, her tea half drunk. Lennox looked at the of trollies, poised by the door, and sighed. Dinner would be painful.

The dining room overlooked the formal gardens at the front of the house and was laid for a formal dinner. A discreet handbell was rung by Mrs Trance, and the girls filed in.

They were no longer the same girls from the afternoon’s excitement: the giggling, the noise, the chatter; all gone. Mrs Trance oversaw the procession from her seat at the head of the table. Cherry seated herself at Mrs Trance’s left-hand side. When every girl was seated, Mrs Trance raised a hand towards her fork. At this signal, all the girls followed suit, holding their cutlery like diamonds, dissecting their food without enthusiasm or appetite.

Frances faded back against a wall and stared blankly ahead. Lennox followed her example mutely. She had never seen anything like this; a school so controlled, so subdued. She watched Mrs Trance from the corner of her eye. Diminutive, her cheeks an oil canvas grey, she was barely eating herself. This was not dinner. This was a lesson, and Mrs Trance was conducting it with rigid control.

Until Cherry, delicately carving a tomato, eyes on Lennox, said,

‘I hear our latest arrival comes from Calgacos.’

Mrs Trance’s eyes narrowed.

‘I was under the impression Calgacos only took in boys.’ Cherry continued gaily. ‘I don’t know what is more intriguing, that Lennox went to Calgacos, or that she left it, mid-year, to come here.’ Cherry should have recognised Mrs Trance’s look. She should have stopped. ‘I didn’t get