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likely. Morale is low. Enrolments are down for next year and we’ve lost several students already. Other parents are talking of taking their daughters away.’
    Gemma remained silent, her eyes flicking over the desk’s polished surface.
    ‘It’s so unfair,’ the principal said. ‘And illogical. The school had nothing to do with the girl’s disappearance.’
    That remains to be seen, thought Gemma, and said, ‘Please tell me what happened.’
    ‘One of our Year 10 students, Amy Bernhard, disappeared one morning. One minute she was here with her friends in the school grounds, next minute .   .   .’ The principal made an expressive gesture with her hands. ‘Vanished into thin air.’
    Gemma noticed that when Beatrice de Berigny smiled, the upper part of her face, especially her eyes, remained unmoved.
    ‘Miss Lincoln, if the parents knew that the school had initiated an investigation of its own, it would surely encourage them to recover their faith in us. It would indicate that we are prepared to go to any lengths towards solving this case. And preventing anything like this from ever happening again.’
    Gemma wondered what she could do or find that the police wouldn’t have covered already. ‘Do you have any sense of what might have happened to Amy?’
    Miss de Berigny looked across to the large French windows. ‘I have a feeling that it wasn’t family problems. Although I do know there were issues with her stepfather.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Two failed marriages,’ she said. ‘It must be hard for a young girl growing up with all that going on.’ Again, she hesitated, then lowered her voice. ‘But what troubles me are the rumours. Nothing of substance. But they don’t go away.’
    ‘Rumours about what?’ Gemma was intrigued. ‘And from where?’
    ‘That’s just the problem—no one knows. A couple of teachers told me that some of the girls told them that Amy and her friends had a secret. Something they alluded to—you know the way girls tease each other. “We know something you don’t know” sort of thing.’
    ‘But you have no idea what this secret might have been?’ Gemma asked.
    Miss de Berigny shook her gleaming head. ‘When I asked Tasmin and Claudia, they said they’d only been teasing. That there was no secret.’
    ‘And you believed them?’
    Miss de Berigny looked hard at Gemma. ‘I had to. I had nothing to go on. Nothing to support my questions. As I said, it was all rumour. You can’t imagine how rumours develop and flourish in this sort of environment. Three hundred girls and their hormones.’
    Gemma wrote the words ‘rumours of a secret’ and circled them with a big question mark.
    ‘It’s a year now and there’s been no trace of Amy Bernhard. Her mother still hopes,’ said Miss de Berigny. Gemma felt a sudden pang. ‘But the police are overworked,’ the principal continued, ‘and new crimes tend to push old ones out of the picture. Sergeant McDonald felt you’d be the best person for this sort of investigation.’
    Miss de Berigny folded her hands gracefully in front of her on the desk. ‘The school committee also thinks that obtaining your services is a good idea. Would you be willing to undertake such an investigation on the school’s behalf?’
    Gemma hardly had to consider. ‘I can do that,’ she said.
    Miss de Berigny smiled, her eyes joining the rest of her face. ‘May I ask how one goes about this? I know nothing of these sorts of things.’
    ‘I’d go over the police case notes,’ said Gemma, her mind racing ahead and wondering how in hell she’d get hold of those, given that she was dealing with an ongoing investigation. ‘I’d check out witness statements, re-interview people where it looks interesting—’
    ‘What do you mean “re-interview where it looks interesting”?’ said Beatrice de Berigny, her interruption taking Gemma by surprise. ‘Well, with witness statements, for instance, the police are so stretched that sometimes