Mr Becket, the deputy head, was waiting for me at the school gates. He stood with his arms folded, his face stern. ‘Lissa Blythe!’ His voice was as grim as his face. ‘The headmaster’s office. Right now!’
‘What’s up now?’ I demanded. I wasn’t in the mood to be polite. It had to be something to do with Diane, but at that point I was more angry than nervous.
I was kept in the headmaster’s outer office while Mr Becket stepped inside to announce my arrival. The secretary pursed her lips at me in an angry frown.
What had Diane come up with? I began to sweat and could feel guilt written all over my face. Mr Becket appeared at the office door. ‘Inside,’ he ordered.
With as much confidence as I could muster, I marched into the office.
But my confidence took a real knock when I saw what was waiting for me.
The headmaster was standing behind his desk and his face was grim. Beside him, Murdo. He was ashen-faced as if he’d just had a terrible shock. And there in front of them, sitting in two chairs, were Mr Connell and Diane. She was crying, sobbing back tears. When she heard me come in she jumped to her feet and rushed toward me. She held out her hands and I saw, for the first time, that they were bandaged.
‘Oh, Lissa. I’m so glad you’re here.’ She grabbed at the lapels of my blazer. ‘Tell them,’ she was pleading with me. ‘Tell them you saw everything. You heard everything.’ Her shoulders heaved with her sobbing. ‘Tell them it was him.’ Now she pointed one of her bandaged hands at Murdo. ‘He did this! Tell them he slammed down the desk on my hands … and you saw him doing it!’
Chapter Fifteen
Mr Knowles, the headmaster, beckoned me forward. Now, I was sure it was me who was ashen-faced. ‘I think we’ll hear this from Lissa herself,’ he said sternly.
Diane clutched at my arm. ‘She saw it all. She’ll tell you exactly what happened.’
Mr Knowles snapped at her. ‘Keep quiet, Diane.’
But she didn’t. She babbled on nervously, telling me everything I needed to know to back up her story.
‘He was so angry with me. I’ve never seen him so angry. And he made me put my hands in the desk and then … he slammed it down on my fingers. He’d made me stay behind after class. And he’s never liked me, ask anyone. He doesn’t like Lissa either.’ She turned to her dad then. ‘We don’t belong in this school, Dad. Neither of us.’
Mr Knowles looked at me. ‘We must know the truth, Lissa. This is a very serious allegation.’
My mouth was dry. So dry my lips were stuck together. I couldn’t have answered in that moment if you paid me. I looked at Diane, crying, squeezing my hand. Like my friend? Or was that a warning to back her up?
I looked at her dad. He was holding his anger in check. He believed his daughter without question. Would J.B. have as much faith in me? Somehow I didn’t think so.
And then my eyes fixed on Murdo. If only, at that moment, his look had been soft, repentant. Pleading even. Reminding me of how much I liked him, deep down.
But Murdo’s eyes were full of that fire he was so famous for. He didn’t look like a sheepish little Highland terrier, so much as a Rottweiler ready to go for my throat. He didn’t expect, or want my sympathy. He only expected the truth. Nothing else. But, there was something else in that look. It only took a second for me to know what that ‘something else’ was. Murdo wanted the truth. And he wasn’t expecting to get it. Not from me. Not from Lissa Blythe, who was always lying. Who had destroyed Ralph’s precious collage. Whose father was a crook.
Fine, I thought. I won’t let him down.
My voice trembled when I answered. ‘It’s all true. I saw everything. I saw him do it just like Diane said.’
Murdo drew in a shocked breath and his eyes never left me. I could feel them burning into me, although now I couldn’t hold his gaze. Instead, I looked at Mr Connell. He was nodding, as if he had only been expecting me to confirm Diane’s story.
Suddenly Murdo exploded, doing his own case no credit at all. ‘Tell the truth, Lissa! You know that is a downright lie!’
But his sudden outburst had only proved, to Mr Connell at least, that all we said was true.
‘This is the kind of man you allow to teach children!’ he demanded of Mr Knowles. ‘Well, let me tell you, I will make sure he will never teach children again. I’ll go to the authorities. I’ll go to the papers. I have connections, Mr Murdoch. I intend to sue you. I intend to sue this school. You picked on the wrong student when you picked on my daughter.’
Diane glanced at me, she wasn’t crying now. She’d won and her look seemed to say; ‘told you he’d be sorry.’