The dormitories were named after saints, perhaps to inspire their occupants towards a life of purity and obedience. Allegra, Romily and Imogen were in St Helen’s,
known
as Hell’s. Down the corridor was Kat’s, from St Katharine’s. In the other wing of the school were Mag’s and Ag’s, after St Margaret and St Agnes.
‘I’m going to take a look,’ Allegra said determinedly.
‘No!’ exclaimed Imogen in a fierce whisper. ‘We’ve got to get back!’
‘But don’t you see? If Sophie’s up to something, we ought to know about it. That way we’ve got our ammunition ready if she finds out about us. She may already know.’ Allegra shot the other two a determined look. ‘Go back if you want to. I don’t care.’
Imogen looked at Romily and saw her own fright and anxiety reflected in the other girl’s eyes. She reached out involuntarily and clutched her friend’s arm, her hand chilly on Romily’s bare flesh.
Allegra ran lightly on tiptoe down the dark corridor towards Kat’s.
‘What shall we do?’ Romily said quietly.
‘We can’t just stand here.’ Imogen looked up and down the passageway, eerie in the darkness and without the usual scramble of rushing girls. She knew that she couldn’t bear just waiting for whatever it was to happen – whether it was Sophie returning from her mysterious errand or Myers appearing in the corridor, wearing her night-time hairnet and with her hideous towelling robe tied tightly round her barrel-like stomach. ‘Come on, let’s go after Allegra.’ She walked lightly down the hall, keeping to the shadows as though they might somehow protect her, while Romily followed behind.
They turned the corner and saw that Allegra had already opened the door to Kat’s and disappeared into the darkness. Imogen gave a tiny gasp. This was getting stupidly dangerous. They were familiar with the routines of their own house mistress but they knew nothing about Miss Jennings,
who
guarded Kat’s. She might be in the habit of striding about the dorms at night, making sure that all was well and that none of her charges was up and about when they were supposed to be asleep.
Romily and Imogen reached the open door and glanced at each other, worried and pale. Then Allegra loomed out of the darkness, looking shocked and yet gleeful.
‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, ‘look at this! Be very quiet. Silent as the grave.’
She led them through the doorway and into the blackness of the corridor beyond. All the boarding houses were laid out the same way: dormitory bedrooms divided up into cubicles on one side, and the house mistress’s room, a common room and other amenities on the other. Kat’s common room was in the same position as Hell’s, looking oddly familiar and yet strange at the same time. Allegra stopped at the doorway to it. She glanced round at the other two and held her finger up to her mouth to indicate absolute silence was required.
Imogen peered into the darkness. She could hear a curious rustling noise, and then the sound of heavy breathing and some short, high gasps. What was it? she wondered. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness and she could make out that two figures were lying together on the common-room sofa. Like Hell’s, it was long and large, big enough for about eight girls to sit comfortably when they were watching television. The figures were intertwined and furiously active.
It took a few more seconds for Imogen to register what she was seeing, but then she knew without a doubt. Her mouth dropped open and she felt a strange mixture of embarrassment, disbelief and a kind of excitement. There was Sophie Harcourt, lying half-naked on the Kat’s sofa, wrapped in the arms of Martha Young, and they were
snogging
furiously. Martha was wearing only a pair of knickers. One of her long legs was tucked over Sophie’s hips, and one of her hands was thrust down Sophie’s pyjama bottoms where it seemed to be moving. Her naked chest was pressed against Sophie’s.
Of course the girls thought and talked about sex all the time but the whole place was boy-mad. Everyone seemed to be pining away for some pop star or film actor, or else a boy they had met through friends or family. Every girl was desperate to be kissed, to move to first base and beyond. They were sex crazy – but, without exception, opposite-sex crazy. No one talked about any other kind of activity, as though it didn’t exist, and other girls were appraised only on their relative attractions for men.
Imogen’s heart started racing and she jumped back into the corridor, pressing her hand to her mouth. She knew that she should not be witnessing whatever it was she had seen: it was deeply intimate and private. She felt immediately tainted and dirty, as though she was a voyeur, preferring to watch other people rather than do anything herself. But she could also feel a fizzing, treacherously sweet excitement, filling her belly and making her almost uncomfortably aware of herself. Whatever Sophie was feeling now, she, Imogen, had never felt anything like this, having just had a glimpse of what awaited her, perhaps not with another girl but with someone, sometime in the future. It looked terrifying and tempting at the same time: could she really abandon herself as Sophie was doing? Could sex really do that to you? Could it really create the pleasure that Sophie seemed to be feeling?
‘Let’s go,’ she whispered to the other two. Romily looked pale and frightened, half horrified, while Allegra’s eyes were dancing and she was grinning widely.
There was no argument. The other two followed her
quickly
as Imogen led the way swiftly out of Kat’s and back to the safety of their own dormitory. They didn’t speak again as they made their way to their separate cubicles.
Imogen lay in her bed, staring into the darkness, unable to shake the image from her mind: all she could see was Sophie, pushing herself into Martha’s embrace, thrusting her tongue into Martha’s mouth, and Martha’s hand at its mysterious work inside Sophie’s pyjama bottoms.
‘Oh, God,’ she murmured to herself, hardly able to believe she was thinking it. ‘Poor Sophie. Poor, poor Sophie.’
Chapter 2
Stanley’s Restaurant
West Coast of America
2000
MITCH BENT OVER
his paperwork, laboriously filling in the answers to his homework. It didn’t come naturally to him, all this writing, and it wasn’t what he’d come into the catering industry for. He’d come because he wanted to cook, do things with his hands, taste things with his mouth, and make things he could see and feel. But he also knew that he needed an education to get on, so he was taking a night course in business and accounting at the local college. It was hard for him, especially when the only quiet time he had to study was after his late shift finished, at one o’clock in the morning, when he ought to be getting to bed, considering it was a six a.m. start the next day. But his blood was buzzing from service now even though the next day he’d be pole-axed with exhaustion, fit only for making stocks and prepping for at least four hours, with a break before the evening shift started all over again.
So here he was, still in his chef’s trousers – baggy black pants that didn’t show the spills – sitting in his boss’s office at the desk under the chipped aluminium lamp, making himself think about profits and percentages, and keeping going with the aid of Diet Coke.
A noise made him look up. In the doorway stood a woman wearing tiny denim cut-offs and a little pink T-shirt that strained tight across her large breasts. She shook out her canary-yellow curls, ran her tongue over her lips and said breathily, ‘Hi, Mitch. How ya doin’?’
Mitch felt apprehension creep along his veins. ‘Hi there, Jo-Lynn. Where’s Stanley? He here?’
She shook her head. ‘Uh-uh. I’ve come on my own.’
Ah, Christ. I’ve been expecting something like this
. Mitch had been noticing lately that his boss’s wife was taking an interest in him, and he’d been doing his best to deflect it. Jo-Lynn was an attractive woman, there was no denying that. Those long brown legs that she showed off so nicely in her little shorts were enough to give him a hard-on on their own, let alone those tits of hers, but he knew better. Stanley would not take kindly to the prospect of his pretty young wife being boffed by his sous-chef, and he was a large man with a meaty pair of fists on him. So Mitch had taken to keeping out of Mrs Baker’s way whenever she sashayed into the kitchen.
‘Actually,’ Jo-Lynn went on, ‘he’s asleep.’
Mitch just stared at her.
‘Pretty sound asleep, if you wanna know. I crushed up a couple of my sleeping pills in his Bourbon. I don’t think he’ll be stirring till morning.’
Mitch put down his pen, feeling uncomfortable. A nervous sweat was breaking out on his upper lip. ‘Why’d you do that?’
She looked at him coyly, acting a little shy and girlish. ‘Oh, you know … so that I could have some time on my own. A little bit of peace and quiet. You know what Stanley’s like. He ain’t easy. Sometimes I need …’ she sighed softly and smiled at him, lowering her lashes ‘… some relaxation.’
Mitch nearly jumped up in fright. ‘OK! Er … er …’ he stuttered. ‘Well … I …’
Jo-Lynn giggled. She advanced into the room, pushing out her ample bosom and giving him a look of burning lust from her china-blue, baby-doll eyes. ‘You’re so cute,’ she purred. ‘D’you know that? I love those brown eyes of yours and those muscles … how did you get ’em? You work out or something? You don’t get those slaving in a kitchen, or Stanley would be Mr fuckin’ Universe.’ She perched on the edge of the desk, gazing down at him. ‘I’m sure we could have lots of fun together.’ Leaning forward, she licked her lips again and whispered, ‘Stanley doesn’t have to know about it.’
‘Jo-Lynn …’ He tried to sound masterful instead of frightened but knew he was out of his depth with this temptress, who was not at all like the girls he remembered in high school or the waitresses in the diners he’d worked in.
‘How old are ya, Mitch?’
He put his pen down.
I guess I’m not going to get much more work done
. ‘I’m twenty-four.’
She smiled. ‘Huh! You look younger, honey. But I don’t mind.’ She leant forward again, showing him the vast lane of cleavage that ran between her breasts. ‘I like ’em young. Plenty of energy.’ An expression of distaste passed over her face. ‘Not like Stanley. He’s got nothing left. Not that he had much to start with.’
Curiosity overcame Mitch’s anxiety. He’d often wondered why a pretty thing like Jo-Lynn was married to an overweight, balding, sweating, two-bit chef like Stanley. ‘So, why do you stay with him?’
She gazed down at the desk then flicked her eyes back towards him, sadness in their blue depths. ‘It’s not like I got so many options, you know? I needed Stanley to get out of my home town and away from my piece-of-crap family. But I want something else … Stanley says you’re good, really good. You’re the best cook in the place, and the smartest. He thinks you can go far.’
‘Really?’ Mitch couldn’t help the pleasure welling up in him when he heard this. Stanley might be a shitty boss, but his praise was worth having. He thought Mitch might be able to cut it on his own – that meant something. After flunking high school he’d worked in cheap eating joints, flipping burgers and dipping fries in boiling oil, until he’d suddenly realised that maybe he’d found his way out. He’d begun to wonder if cooking – real cooking – was what he could do with his life, and if it could lead him somewhere else, into business perhaps, where he could really make his mark … It had taken him six years already but he’d worked his way up into a proper restaurant, and he was sure he could go further if he only applied himself.
Jo-Lynn nodded. ‘So how about it, Mitch? You and me? Right here?’ She cast a longing look at his groin.
‘No … no way, Jo-Lynn, I can’t do it …’
Her face hardened. ‘I hope you’re not gonna make a fool of me, Mitch,’ she said, a note of warning in her voice. ‘I’ve gone to a lot of trouble for this, you know.’
‘’Course not. But it’s more than my job’s worth, you know that.’ He tried to sound jokey and nonchalant.
‘You might find it’s more than your job’s worth not to.’ She dropped her chin coquettishly on to her shoulder. ‘If you’re not nice to me, I can always tell Stanley that you came on to me, made a pass at me …’
He was shocked. ‘You’d really do that, Jo-Lynn?’
‘Sure.’ Her blue eyes were suddenly flinty. ‘If you don’t play ball. Now, why don’t you bring that handsome face of yours round here and kiss me?’
Mitch floundered. He couldn’t believe he was turning down a gorgeous woman who was sitting there, inviting him to fuck her, but he couldn’t do it. For one thing, she was terrifying the life out of him. And whatever she said, it was just too risky. If he gave in once, he was sure she’d come
back
for more – she was the type to enjoy the thrill of the illicit. She’d make him do whatever she wanted, and eventually Stanley would find out anyway. ‘I’m sorry, I really am, but … I gotta study. I gotta do my homework.’
‘What are ya? Some school kid? Don’t fuck me around, Mitch, I’m warning you.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t do it. I’m sorry.’
Her face turned stony. ‘No one turns me down. No one. You’re gonna regret it, Mitch. I promise you that.’ She slid off the desk, turned her pert rear into his eye line, and looked over her shoulder at him. ‘You better think of some other town you’d like to work in, honey, ’cos you ain’t gonna be here much longer.’
Chapter 3
Westfield Boarding School for Girls
2000
THE MIDNIGHT GIRLS
didn’t meet for a week after they discovered Sophie Harcourt’s secret. It felt too dangerous, somehow: they’d come perilously close to being discovered themselves and it was best to hold off for a while until things had quietened down.
Imogen couldn’t help staring at Sophie in lessons, astonished that the other girl looked exactly the same as she had before: utterly innocent and normal, working away at her French verbs and preparing for the exams as though nothing had changed. Imogen had half expected to see signs of depravity on her face or maybe a new look of sophistication and knowledge, the kind of expression that Eve must have had after eating the apple. After all, Sophie had taken steps into the secret world they all longed to explore: she had experienced things they could only imagine.