Introduction

The sudden death of a pupil in Fleat House at St Stephen’s - a small English private boarding school in deepest Norfolk - is a shocking event that the headmaster is very keen to call a tragic accident.

But the local police cannot rule out foul play and the case prompts the return of high-flying Detective Inspector Jazmine ‘Jazz’ Hunter to the force. Jazz has her own private reasons for stepping away from her police career in London but reluctantly agrees to front the investigation as a favour to her old boss.

Reunited with her loyal Sergeant, Alastair Miles, she enters the closed world of the school, and as Jazz begins to probe the circumstances surrounding Charlie Cavendish’s tragic death, events are soon to take another troubling turn.

Charlie is exposed as an arrogant bully and those around him had both motive and opportunity to switch the drugs he took daily to control his epilepsy.

As staff at the school close ranks, the disappearance of young pupil Rory Millar and the death of an elderly Classics Master provide Jazz with important leads but are destined to complicate the investigation further. As snow covers the landscape and another suspect goes missing, Jazz must also confront her own personal demons…

Then a particularly grim discovery at the school makes this the most challenging murder investigation of her career. Because Fleat House hides secrets darker than even Jazz could ever have imagined…

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Excerpt

Prologue

St Stephen’s School, Norfolk January 2005

As the figure took the stairs leading to the sixth-form cor- ridor – a maze of shoebox-sized studies, one per boy – the only sounds were the clanking and stirring coming from the antiquated radiators, inefficient cast-iron sentinels that had struggled to warm Fleat House and the boys within it for the past fifty years.

One of the eight boarding houses that made up St Stephen’s School, Fleat House had taken its name from the headmaster at the time it was built a hundred and fifty years ago. Known as ‘Fleapit’ by its current inhabitants, the ugly red-brick Victorian building had been converted into student accom- modation just after the war.

It was also the last house to benefit from much-needed refurbishments. Within six months, the corridors, stairs, dormitories and common rooms would be stripped bare of the torn, black linoleum that covered the floors; the yellowing walls would be re-papered and freshened with magnolia and the archaic shower blocks would be re-equipped with glis- tening stainless-steel fitments and glossy white tiles. This, to appease today’s demanding parents who insisted their chil- dren live and learn in comfort akin to a hotel, not a hovel.

Outside Study Number Seven, the figure paused for a moment, listening. Being a Friday, the eight boys on this floor would have signed out and walked to the pub in the nearby market town of Foltesham, but it was as well to be sure. Hearing nothing, the figure turned the handle and went in.

Closing the door quietly and switching on the light, the figure was aware almost immediately of the ingrained, musty smell of teenager: a mixture of unwashed socks, sweat and raging hormones which had, over the years, permeated every nook and cranny of Fleat House.

Shuddering, the smell triggering painful memories, the figure nearly stumbled on a pile of underwear thrown care- lessly onto the floor. Then, reaching for the two white tablets placed on the boy’s locker every night and replacing them with identical ones, the figure turned, switched off the light and left the room.

On the nearby staircase, a small figure in pyjamas froze as he heard approaching footsteps. In a panic, he dived into the small alcove under the stairs on the landing below, merging with the shadows. Being caught out of bed at ten o’clock would get him punished and he couldn’t take any more of that tonight.

Rigid in the darkness, his heart hammering, eyes squeezed tightly shut as if this would somehow help, he listened, breathless, as the footsteps climbed the stairs inches above his head, passed him, then mercifully retreated into the distance. Shaking with relief, he crept out from his hiding place and hurried along the corridor to his dormitory. Climbing into bed and checking the time on his alarm clock, knowing there was an hour before he could allow himself the sanctuary of sleep, he pulled the blankets up over his head and, finally, let the tears come.

Approximately one hour later, Charlie Cavendish entered Study Number Seven and flung himself onto his bed.

Eighteen years old, eleven o’clock on a Friday night and he was gated like a child in this crap-heap of a rabbit hutch. And he had to be up for bloody chapel at seven tomorrow. He’d missed it twice so far this term and couldn’t afford to do so again. He’d already been hauled into Jones’s office over that stupid thing with Millar. Jones had made noises about expulsion if he didn’t mend his ways but it galled Charlie to have to keep his nose clean. His father had made it clear he wouldn’t fund his gap year without a decent set

of A level results and a school report to match.

Which would be a goddamned bloody disaster.

His father didn’t approve of a gap year in any case.

Hedonism was anathema to him and the thought of his son lolling on some Thai beach, probably high on drugs, was not what he had in mind, especially if he was the one paying for it.

They’d had an almighty row about Charlie’s future just before the beginning of term. His father, William Cavendish, was a high-flying barrister in London and it had always been assumed that Charlie would follow in his footsteps. Growing up, Charlie had never given it much thought.

Then, as he headed into his late teens, it had slowly dawned on him what was expected, seemingly without regard for his own wishes.

Charlie was a wheeler-dealer, an adrenalin merchant; that’s how he saw himself. He enjoyed living on the edge. The thought of a life stuck in the hierarchical, stuffy atmosphere of Inner Temple turned his stomach.

Besides, his father’s idea of ‘getting on’ was completely outdated. It was all different these days; you could do what you wanted. All that respectability bollocks belonged to his parents’ generation.

Charlie wanted to be a DJ and watch beautiful, half-naked women prancing around a dance floor in Ibiza. Yeah. That was more like it! And . . . you could make loads being a DJ.

Not that money was ever going to be a serious issue. Unless his unmarried, fifty-seven-year-old uncle suddenly decided to start having kids, Charlie was going to inherit the family estate with thousands of acres of farmland.

He had plans for that too. All he had to do was sell off a few acres with planning permission to a developer and he’d make a bloody fortune!

No, it wasn’t his future finances; it was the fact that his tight-arsed father held fiscal dominion over him now.

He was young. He wanted to have some fun.

These were the thoughts cascading through Charlie Cavendish’s mind as, absent-mindedly, he reached for the two tablets he had taken every night since the age of five and picked up the glass of water left there for him by Matron.

Placing the tablets on his tongue, he took a generous swig of water to wash them down before replacing the glass on his bedside locker.

For a full minute, nothing happened and Charlie, sighing, continued to ruminate on the unfairness of his situation. But then, almost imperceptibly, he felt his body begin to shake.

‘What the hell . . . ?!’

The shaking intensified, becoming uncontrollable, and suddenly Charlie felt his throat constricting. Panicking now, uncomprehending and gasping for breath, he managed to stagger the few steps to the door. He grasped the handle but in his increasing terror, he fumbled with it, unable to turn it before collapsing semi-conscious, one hand at his throat, his mouth foaming. Deprived of oxygen, the lethal toxins coursing through him, his vital organs gradually shut down. Then his bowels relaxed and, little by little, the young man who had once been Charlie Cavendish simply ceased to exist. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

How did the author use the atmosphere of the book to contribute to the story?

This is Lucinda Riley’s only classic mystery – did you feel influences of other grert British mystery writer’s?

What did you think of Jazz’s reasons for stepping away from police work and then agreeing to get invovled in this case?

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