Foxton Girls: A British Boarding School Crime Thriller (Annie O'Malley Crime Thriller Series Book 2) Read online

  Foxton Girls

  K.T. Galloway

  Foxton Girls

  Published worldwide by A.W.E. Publishing.

  This edition published in 2021

  Copyright © 2021 by K.T. Galloway

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Also by K.T. Galloway

  Corn Dolls

  Foxton Girls

  We All Fall Down

  To Gran B, thank you for passing down your cheeky sense of humour.

  And to Gran and Grandad S, thank you for my love of all things horror!

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  UNA

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  LILY

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  We All Fall Down

  We All Fall Down

  Prologue

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  Prologue

  Florence’s gaze flitted between the bedside clock and the man beside her. She loved him, she’d decided, not that it really mattered anymore as in precisely twelve minutes she would be dead.

  She thought she may as well make the most of the time she had left. Flipping over on to her stomach, Florence let her hand trace a path over the scars on the man’s naked torso. She felt him shiver and wake.

  “You’re still here? What time is it?” he said, his voice thick with sleep.

  “Ten to,” Florence replied.

  Ten minutes.

  She stretched her arms out and tried to roll on top of him. He pushed her away gently and eased himself up on to his elbows. The bed creaked under the shifting weight of his body.

  “Go home.”

  Eight minutes.

  The man dropped his legs out of the covers and perched on the edge of the bed; his head held in his hands, palms covering his eyes. His nails were bitten to the quick, the skin at the edges rough and red, peeling away from their flattened nail plates. After a moment he stood. He made his way in the dark to the door, a sliver of light peeking in under the threshold illuminated the floor by his feet. More scars twinkled white against his skin. The light flooded the room as he opened the door.

  “Please, Florence. Go home.”

  Four minutes.

  Florence gathered up her clothes and slipped into them without a word.

  One minute.

  She stepped out of the dark room and didn’t look back.

  Midnight.

  Florence barely noticed the loud chirruping from her phone as she ran down the stairs of the small cottage. Sure footed with practise she reached the bottom before taking it out of her pocket and checking. Heart pounding, she looked down at the illuminated screen. Midnight exactly. The message was right on cue.

  It’s past your curfew. Get home before I tell the headmaster.

  Pleasantly surprised at the lack of threat or swearing, Florence felt like the elastic band around her chest had snapped. She figured the sender was only in the early stages of drunkenness. Either that or she was typing with her left hand, unwilling to relinquish her glass long enough to type a more worthy message. Whichever it was, Florence stuck her middle finger up at her phone and pocketed it as quickly as she could. She was perhaps less dead than she had been fearing. She hoped when she got home the wrath wouldn’t descend upon her in all its glory; even at seventeen it still scared her.

  She stood still for a moment as her heart rate returned to resting. The bedroom floor creaked above her head and she heard the door slide open, so she tiptoed quickly to the hallway and found her boots by the front door. The air outside was crisp with the first October frost. Florence’s breath clouded in front of her with the stark change in temperature from the warmth of the thick-walled old cottage with its real fire and knitted blankets.

  She took the long way back. Walking along a small footpath that led through woods choked with oaks and sycamores, the leaves starting to turn golden and red around their edges. Bramble bushes lined the pathway, threatening to catch at Florence’s feet and legs. Without a falter in her step, Florence’s hand reached out and stroked the tree where Emily was found hanging by her neck. She whispered a few words as she passed: not stopping, not looking. Florence felt her skin raise with goose bumps, a cold shiver ran up her neck and into her scalp like icy fingers stroking away under her thick auburn hair. Florence kept her eyes ahead, not looking back. She knew if she turned, she would see Emily swinging slowly in the night just as she had been when they’d found her. Instead, Florence quickened her pace forwards.

  The night was illuminated by a full moon, but the canopy of trees kept the path under a blanket of darkness. Luckily, Florence knew the route well. She came to the front of the large stately building she called home in less than twelve minutes. There would be no point climbing the stone stairs to the ornately carved heavy front door as it would be locked up tight, protecting all those who lay beyond it. Instead, Florence crept around the side to one of the service doors and lifted the latch. With the door closed behind her she slipped out of her shoes and tiptoed silently down a servant’s corridor. Florence lived in the west wing of the old Georgian building which, for the last hundred years, was home to Foxton’s School for Girls.

  The school was still and quiet, the lights out. A smile threatened to lift Florence’s cheeks as she snuck past the closed doors to her left and right. A little further on was the kitchen, the door slightly ajar, a woman could be seen slumped over the island sound asleep, drink still in hand. Florence thought she looked like the stereotypical American mum; coiffed fake blonde hair, hourglass figure, pinny wrapped around her dress. Except this was rural Norfolk, sunny England, and this was real life, which was anything but stereotypical.

  Just past the door to the kitchen were the stairs. Almost grinning now, Florence climbed them, looking forward to getting into her own bed safe and sound and free from a thrashing. Perhaps tonight she wouldn’t be dead at all.

  “Good evening, Miss Haversham.”

  Florence recognised the quietly powerful voice of her head teacher and screwed up her face, inches away from her door and her bed. She turned to face the man who towered over her.

  “Hi, Dad,” she whispered.

  One

  DAY ONE

  Annie bumped the door open with her hip and entered the office to a small cheer. It would have boosted her confidence, but she was not oblivious that the cheer was, in fact, for the tray of Starbucks that was wobbling precariously on the tips of her fingers.

  “O’Malley,” Detective Inspector Joe Swift said, grabbing the tray before it toppled to the floor. “Has anyone ever told you what an asset you are to this team?”

  He gav
e Annie a wink and started dishing out the drinks to the rest of the officers in the small team that made up their county branch of the Major Crime Unit. The four of them, Annie O’Malley, DI Joe Swift, DS Annabelle Lock, and DC Tom Page, were the only ones in the large open, plan office that was normally a hub of activity. The officers from other teams were obviously not as eager to start before eight, then again, maybe the others hadn’t been called in at the crack of dawn by their boss.

  “You only ever call me in when you want something!” Annie replied, grabbing her own flat white and dropping her bag on a desk that she had earmarked as her own because she had been here more often than not recently, despite not being actual police.

  The office quietened as they all sat down and sipped their drinks. DI Swift tapped away at his keyboard, letting out the occasional grunt and hammering at the keys.

  “You know me!” he said eventually, swinging his screen around so Annie could see it and beckoning her over.

  Annie slid her chair across the worn-out carpet tiles and stopped at Swift’s side. His computer screen was emblazoned with the image of a large stately home. Happy looking girls in blazers and red and yellow striped ties held books in neat classrooms, they walked joyfully down wood panelled corridors, and smiled through safety goggles in an impressive looking lab. Foxton’s School for Girls was written in bold, clean point at the bottom of the page. Unobtrusive, as though the reader should already know the name of the school, or they were in the wrong place.

  “What’s this?” Annie asked, nodding her head at screen which now showed a photo of the older students in rather short, grey PE skirts, brandishing hockey sticks and perfect white smiles. She raised an eyebrow at Swift whose face lit up in a flush.

  “Shut it, O’Malley,” he said, clearing his throat and clicking on the link marked students.

  Annie didn’t push it. Even though she’d been working in Swift’s team for nearly three months now, ever since he’d brought her onboard to help find two young missing girls, Annie didn’t know that much about Swift’s personal life except that his wife vanished into thin air a couple of years ago. Making jokes about schoolgirls was probably a little low, especially at this time in the morning.

  The page loaded and the first thing that caught Annie’s eye was the scrolling red banner informing students to contact their House Parent or Head Girl if they felt the need to talk. It was all very officious.

  “Local, posh, girls’ school,” Swift said once his cheeks had returned to a normal colour. “Foxton’s. Been around as a building for hundreds of years. Converted to a school in the last century, and run by the current headteacher for about twelve, thirteen years. It’s very prestigious, fees are astronomical.”

  Annie was waiting for the punchline. She knew places like this, knew that what lay inside the grand facade was glossy, primped, and untouchable. She patted her frizzy, dark red curls, unconsciously trying to flatten them. Parents didn’t pay those fees for their girls to turn out like she had. Failed police officer, failed psychotherapist, failed daughter and sister.

  “Right,” Annie said, still non-the-wiser why she was at work so early. “And the reason the Guv called me in here for a meeting at eight was…?”

  “Because he loves seeing your face!” Swift snorted, not unkindly.

  Annie gave Swift a withering look, trying to hold back a smile herself. DCI Strickland, their Guv, had tried to recruit Annie back to the police force after she had helped to bring home the missing girls that summer. But Annie had tried being a uniformed officer ten years previously and had not made it past the training period, instead she’d retrained as a psychotherapist and worked in probation. So, DCI Strickland had decided to hire her as a consultant psychotherapist to Swift’s small MCU team instead. They could call on her whenever they needed an extra pair of hands. This was only her second case, and she was apprehensive that DCI Strickland was just using her consultancy as a cover-up to bring her in as a dogsbody.

  But Annie knew that DCI Strickland did not love seeing her face. Mainly because having to hire Annie as a consultant and not a PC was pushing his budgets in a direction he tried to avoid at all costs. Strickland also tried to avoid Annie at all costs now too, doubling back on himself whenever he saw her walking the corridors of the station.

  “Swift, O’Malley.” Strickland’s voice boomed across the open plan office. “Here. Now!”

  “Summoned,” Annie whispered under her breath, giving Strickland a salute when his back was turned.

  “O’Malley,” Swift said, his eyes wide. “Some of us don’t want to lose our jobs, thanks. Toe the line.”

  Strickland’s office was tucked away in the far corner of the large open, plan room. Swift gave a rap at the door, rattling the glass etched so visitors knew who they could find inside.

  “Enter,” Strickland boomed, and Annie snorted ironically.

  “Chief,” Swift said, pushing the door open and holding it for Annie.

  “Guv,” Annie said, full of professionalism.

  The DCI’s office was dark and inherently masculine. Grey walls and thick wooden furniture that looked like it had never been polished took up most of the small space. Annie had no idea how he found what he needed on his huge desk, or the desk itself, it was so hidden in paperwork.

  “Sit,” the man barked, as Swift shut the door and blocked out all the light.

  Annie groped about in the darkness and felt her way to a chair, hoping she wasn’t about to end up sitting in Swift’s lap, or worse, Strickland’s. As her eyes adjusted from the bright light of the main office she took in the Chief Inspector. Strickland always looked like he was one sausage roll away from a coronary, his pink face blended into his pink neck like a can of corned beef popping free from its tin and he needed to go up a few sizes in a collar that strained with every ragged breath he drew. Annie always found herself holding her own breath in his presence, as if this could delay the inevitable stroke.

  “Foxton’s,” he said, more strained than normal. “Tell me what you know?”

  Annie looked to Swift for this one.

  “There’s been a suicide,” Swift said. “One of the sixth form.”

  Annie thought back to the happy looking hockey photo and wondered what had happened to cause one of those students to take her own life.

  The DCI grunted.

  “Why are we getting involved in a suicide, Chief?” Swift asked.

  Strickland shuffled in his seat, the chair spinning from side to side as he tried to right himself.

  “Evans noticed something weird in the pathology report,” Strickland said, coughing, his face puce. “Go and see him when you’re done here. But I’m reluctant to close the case and pass to the coroner until this has been sorted. Hopefully it’s a case of dotting the t’s and crossing the i’s but until that’s done, we treat this death as suspicious.”

  Dotting the t’s? Annie bit her lip.

  “Chief,” Swift said, rising from his chair and pulling at his own collar.

  It was hot in the DCI’s office; a mix of testosterone and lack of windows made the air too thick to breathe. Strickland flung open a drawer in his desk, it rattled and stuck where paper jammed into the runners. With sausage fingers, Strickland flicked through the files and pulled one out. It was thin and yellow, and looked pretty nondescript.

  “Emily Langton.” Strickland handed the file over to Swift as a trickle of sweat dripped down his temple. “O’Malley, I want you in on this one to talk to the girls who knew Emily. Try and find out what was going on in her life, school life mainly. And talk to Emily’s parents only and I mean only, if you absolutely have to.”

  “Chief,” Annie said, eyeing the thin folder in Swift’s hands.

  She got up to leave too, the stench of coffee and masculine authority was making her stomach churn.

  “And Swift, O’Malley?” Strickland looked ready to burst. “Whatever you do, keep this one on the down low. I do not want the press involved. I do not want the local commu
nity getting wind of what has happened. And I DO NOT want any gossip. Do you hear me?”

  Annie stopped in her tracks, turning back to Strickland, as Swift pulled the office door open letting in a wash of cool air.

  “Can I just ask why it’s so important to keep this case so secret, Guv?” she asked, realising a bit too late that the purple tint on the tip of Strickland’s nose was a sure sign that she probably couldn’t ask.

  “The headteacher, William Haversham, is a close and personal friend of mine,” Strickland spluttered, as though Annie should already know this. “We play golf. Our wives drink together. It would be very embarrassing if he felt he couldn’t trust my team.”

  Strickland put both hands on his desk and hauled himself up to his full height. Towering over Annie despite her long legs.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me,” he continued, his fingers turning white with the exertion of holding up his body weight. “I’ve got a meeting to get to.”

  Annie followed Swift out into the bright, coffee smelling open plan office, nearly getting whacked on the backside as Strickland slammed his door shut behind them.

  “I think that went quite well,” Annie said, smiling. “Don’t you?”

  Two

  The morgue had never been Annie’s favourite place. Ever since she keeled over in her university dissection class when the lecturer had wheeled out not only a cadaver but also a tub of feet. That had been one in a comedy of errors in an undergraduate degree that Annie hadn’t realised would involve dead bodies. She had only picked it for the psychology.