Selected as the Great Read in the August issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. “Come in,” said a high-pitched voice. “Just push it.” Gemma did so and found herself in a large, bright north-facing room where two tall French windows overlooked the driveway and the dark green masses of fig trees. The principal advanced, her hand outstretched in a welcome, a wide red smile showing perfect white teeth, dark hair glossy in a French roll. “Miss Lincoln. Beatrice de Berigny. Thank you so much for agreeing to come.” The two women shook hands, and Gemma sat in the proffered leather chair. After the gothic, incense-filled Reynolds place, this room with its well-appointed academic furnishings seemed another universe. Yet something was stirring Gemma’s instincts in a negative way. Miss de Berigny smoothed her black skirt over her knees as she sat on the other side of the colonial cedar desk, laptop in front of her. With slightly too much ivory foundation, dark red lipstick and pencilled eyes, Madame de Berigny’s face had more than a suggestion of a mask, thought Gemma. “I’ve been told you’re the right person for this job,” the principal was saying, shrewd eyes glittering under the almost invisible brows. In the gaps between her words, distant chromatic minor scales reached impossible velocity. “Detective Sergeant Angie McDonald recommended you,” Miss de Berigny continued. “You know her?” “For many years,” Gemma said. “We worked together when I was in the police service.” “You are no doubt aware of the dreadful incident that befell our school last year. The disappearance,” she could barely say the word, “of one of our most promising students.” She hesitated. “It is still unsolved. Although the police claim everything possible is being done.” Gemma recalled reading about Netherleigh Park in the newspapers and nodded. She remembered it didn’t seem likely the girl had run away. Her bank accounts had remained untouched. “As you can imagine, it’s had a very bad effect on the school,” Beatrice de Berigny was saying. “Far worse, in fact, than I would have thought 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 Ten 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 toward 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 Tamsin 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.
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