Maisie Coleman

Signs of Suicide

 

“I am not a police officer, I am not a detective. You girls may call me Ms. Severin.”

 

The young woman stood in the common room of a Girls’ Boarding School. Rather than being daunting and gothic, it was a post-modern redbrick house, utterly devoid of character. The common room itself was painted in what Severin suspected to be a shade of ‘drab’, and almost certainly carpeted in ‘plebeian blue’. The furniture was angular and it was cruel but fair to say that the housemates fitted their surroundings perfectly.

 

“Anoushka Ghan’s parents have employed me to carry out a private investigation into this matter of her death yesterday, Saturday 12th, August.”

 

The flustered matron quickly interjected, “Of course, we know it was suicide girls, and dreadfully sad too. Mr and Mrs Ghan would just like to know why Anoushka did what she did, that’s all. None of you are guilty of anything and no one’s going to get in trouble. Isn’t that right?”

 

Severin raised her eyebrows, and a discerning observer would have noticed the expression of malevolent humour that flashed across her face “We’re all guilty of something, Mrs Emmet. Oh, come now,” Mrs Emmet had looked dreadfully worried, Severin did her best to amend the situation “No, no. All I want is information. Now, this incident took place yesterday. The police reports say Anoushka had shown no signs of instability until that Saturday morning, apart from being perhaps, more secretive than usual. Is that correct?”

 

The roomful of concerned girls nodded emphatically.

 

“Well, in that case, all who were not present at the boarding house on the weekend, and who feel they have no relevant information concerned with this matter, may care to leave at this point. I would ask the girls who roomed with Anoushka to stay please.”

 

There was a murmuring, a shuffling, and a drifting of bodies until only four girls and the house matron were left, the rest having retired to their rooms, or the hockey fields, or wherever it may be that teenage girls go on Sunday mornings.

 

Severin surveyed the remainders; two pleasant-faced blondes, presumably twins, a rather dowdy, curly-haired brunette, a petite Japanese girl, and of course, Mrs Emmet, matron and worrier extraordinaire. Oh well then, best start at the beginning.

 

“Okay ladies, if you would please tell me your names. We’ll begin with you two.”

 

The twins tittered nervously.  Oh dear, thought Severin, even in a murder investigation, ask a silly teenage girl a question, and all they can give you is inane giggling. She had to admit though, it had a certain undeniable charm.

 

“I’m Bryony, this is Lowanna. We’re twins”

 

“American?” The accents were unmistakable.

“No, actually, Hong Kong. Our parents are still there, that’s why we’re boarding”

 

“Oh” Severin turned to look enquiringly at the Japanese girl, who returned only a blank stare.

 

Mrs. Emmet quickly supplied the facts “This is Tse-Lung. She just joined us this month, but I’m afraid she doesn’t speak English. She comes from Nagasaki.”

 

Severin nodded, turning to face the inquisitive, rather derisory personality standing apart from the others, “And lastly we have - ?”

 

“Carla.” The voice was clear, dull and abrupt.

 

“And why are you boarding, Carla? Where do your parents live?”

 

“My parents live half an hour away. I’m on scholarship, actually. Boarding included”

 

“Oh, a clever one. And myself? I, as mentioned before, am Ms. Severin. Well Mrs. Emmet, now the introductions are over, I’m sure there are probably a million things you’d be wanting to do. The girls will be alright with me, and I’ll just be asking them a few questions, but feel free to stay.”

 

Mrs. Emmet was hesitant, wondering if it was her duty to remain and look after the guest. But, as was generally the case, the terrible thoughts of what all the other unsupervised girls were doing right at that moment sent her bustling off fairly rapidly. Tse-Lung, Nagasaki, followed her out. Severin moved as if about to call her back, but changing her mind, gave a resigned sigh.

 

She turned to face the three remaining girls. “I would like to see the room where Anoushka slept, please” The small group moved off.

 

After mounting a large staircase, they made their way to the eastern wing of the building. The bedroom was square and plain. There were five beds, all parallel, against one wall, with a bedside table next to each and cupboards. There was also a large desk surrounded by chairs, and it was upon the nearest of these Severin sat, motioning the girls to do the same.

 

She shuffled her papers, cleared her throat, shifted in her chair and finally looked up from the collection of files in her hands “So, it seems you four all shared this room with Anoushka. What kind of girl was she? Or perhaps I should get to the point, did she have a boyfriend?”

 

Carla laughed, “No boyfriend, no”

 

Severin frowned, “You’re certain? I only ask because Anoushka left the homework room early to come back to the dormitories and take a phone call. We now know that the phone-call was from her mother. Anoushka’s mother had been cleaning her daughter’s room and found several letters of an, er, amorous nature, all from a boy named William. You never heard her talk of anyone named William?”

 

Bryony suddenly looked a great deal more interested “No, never, I’m sure I would have remembered. You asked us before what she was like. Well, she was really sweet, you know. Like, really nice. She didn’t talk much ever, especially not about guys or anything.”

 

Carla expanded, “She was Sri Lankan, you know, notoriously shy personalities. I don’t remember her ever talking about a boy. She was…a very thin, very weak girl. I suppose that must be why she jumped. She wasn’t strong enough to deal with getting in trouble for having a secret boyfriend.” Case closed, her manner seemed to say.

 

Lowanna was outraged. “Ohmigod, Carla, how can you say mean things like that. That’s horrible, and what would you know, anyway. I mean, no one’s going to kill themselves over that. She wouldn’t have been in that much trouble, it’s just embarrassing.”

 

Severin changed the topic “So what did you think when you were told Anoushka was dead? I think you all received the news not long after the gardener found the body?”

 

Carla, certainly the sharpest of the lot, answered first “Yeah, they found her in the garden beneath our dorm window, at about quarter past three. We found out straight away. We were just coming back from prep.”

 

“You weren’t Carla. You’d gone to the doctor’s,” Severin glanced at her police reports, “Yes, it says that all boarders were at prep, witnessed by two teachers, from 12:50pm – 3:10pm. At 2:25pm, Mrs Emmet witnesses to escorting Carla to the doctor’s clinic across the road.”

 

“Yeah, sorry, that’s right, I felt a bit fluey the day before and had an appointment. It finished around 3:10, and I met up with the twins and Tse-Lung coming back from prep. Matron gave us the news as soon as we got back to the House.”

 

“And what did you first think when you heard?”

 

“At the time all I could think was, do people really do it like that these days? You know, just take a blind leap out into dark and cold…And do they scream the whole way or is it more like falling into a deep sleep. And do they start off just going to close the window, but when they get there go, ‘oh, instead of closing it, I think I’ll just jump out’.”

 

Severin looked at the girl. Carla didn’t seem to realise the macabre effect she was having on the others. Bryony looked angry and broke the silence, “Whatever. Look, anyway, we think we know why she jumped.”

 

“Oh, yes?”

 

“Well, we didn’t want to say to the police, ‘cause it’s not nice at all, and we don’t really have any proof…but she was stealing stuff from us.”

 

Severin’s eyebrows shot up “That seems a bit out of character. Especially if she was as shy and sweet as you say she was.”

 

Carla was quick “Yeah, I know…but it’s always the last one you’d expect, isn’t it”

 

Where did people get these ridiculous clichés from? And she was a smug one too, that Carla. Severin wanted to shake her, “Really? I generally find it’s always the first one. The obvious is nearly always true.”

 

Lowanna looked confused, “Yeah, I guess Anoushka was an exception. The police even found all this stuff of ours in her locker…we sort of just told the police we gave it to her to look after and keep it safe. We didn’t want to upset her family even more, but she must have stolen it.”

 

“Here,” said Bryony, going over to the second closet and bringing out a small bundle, placing it on the table, “This is exactly what was in her locker. We haven’t really sorted it out properly, what with the police and everything”

 

There was a necklace, silver, with a small dangling red glass heart, an envelope with photos of a mousy girl, and a $10 note. Severin held up the final item, a small baby-blue jacket, noticing the expensive brand label.

 

“Yeah, that’s mine”, said Bryony, ‘I didn’t even know it had gone missing. And that necklace is Lowanna’s, those photos are Carla’s and we think that’s probably Tse-Lung’s money.”

 

“Not exactly a princely sum is it?” Severin examined the back of the top photo “Love always and forever, Susan Prince. Sweet, if a little intense.” She returned to matter at hand, ‘And how long had this been going on, things going missing?”

 

“About a year I think. Well, ever since Anoushka started boarding. Things had gone missing before of course, but those we’d just lost. It only started to be really noticeable when Anoushka came” Bryony looked at the others, “But I suppose that phone call with her mum must be why she jumped, not all this.”

 

“Her mother doesn’t seem to think that her daughter was that upset during their conversation. She certainly wasn’t crying or seemingly distressed, in fact, she was laughing.” Severin pointed across the room “Is that the window where she – ? ”

 

“Uh huh.” They made their way over and stood crowded around the large, plain window frame, looking down into a garden whose ominous taped-off area still told of yesterday’s tragedy.

 

Carla interrupted the silence “I suppose she just, dived out, or something”

 

Severin replied cautiously “Well, hardly. The police found a line of dirt from the sills on the seat of her pants. She would have climbed out, sat on the edge, and then somehow mustered up the courage to push off. That’s funny.” Severin ran her finger along the sill “This is spotless. Have any of you girls been cleaning since yesterday?”

 

She looked around. The girls shook their heads. “Tuesday’s cleaning day. And we never do the sills anyway…It’s a bit weird actually, they’re normally pretty dirty.”

 

“Yeah, none of us would have cleaned them. Especially not you Carla, you dirty pig…you’re always filthy”

 

“Yeah, funny. Good one.” Carla was not amused. Evidently the subject was an old one.

 

Severin interrupted before the argument blew up, “OK. Thank you girls for your help, I’d like some time in here alone, please.” She noticed the twins looking a little put out, “And don’t worry that I’m going to go through any of your stuff, I just want to have a quick look around.”

 

The girls shuffled out, looking back at her suspiciously. She waved. As soon as they had left, Severin returned to the window, leaning out, head tilted, “Now, what have we here…”

 

*           *           *

 

It was the next day that Severin returned to the boarding school. It had been a restless night, not solving, but rather resolving what to do. She was unsure still…could it really be justified?…somehow, she knew it was.

 

She entered the eastern dormitory. Carla was alone, perched on the edge of her bed reading a glossy magazine.

 

“Hello Carla. Where are all the others?”

 

She threw the magazine down. “On leave. Shopping” she added, by way of explanation.

 

“Well, that’s rather fortunate, since you are the one I’m to see. Here we go, I brought these for you to sign” she said, handing Carla single sheet of paper.

 

“Oh…what is it?”

 

“A full confession. Do you need a pen?”

 

The murderer didn’t flinch “No, no, I have one” She leant over and picked up the pen she had been using to fill in a quiz on ‘Trash or Trendy?’ just five minutes before.

 

“Those girls were right, you don’t know how to clean. You forgot to wipe under the sills.”

 

Carla calmly contemplated this “I never even thought of that.” Not guilty, not angry, not scared, but completely impassive. “I suppose you want to tell me how you worked it out?”

 

Severin could not look her in the eye. She began her story, telling for the first time an account that would be much repeated “You reached the Doctor’s clinic, as Mrs Emmet witnessed. You were seen going in the door, but there was no appointment, I checked. Instead you returned to dormitory, as you had planned. Why? To steal, of course, as you have been doing for years. You went looking, looking, looking for what? For money, for clothes, for jewellery, for any shiny material thing you wanted. Were you on your hands and knees going through Bryony’s drawers when she came behind you, returning early after her argument with her mother on the phone?”

 

Carla had drifted into a deep concentration as she stretched her memory. She spoke, “Anoushka was frightened, upset… it was ridiculous, she didn’t even have enough personality to be angry. But she could still get me into a lot of trouble. So I screamed at her. I told her no one would believe her if she tried to tell on me. Told her she was weak, pathetic. Everyone laughed at her, hated her because she was weak. And it was true.”

 

Severin shifted, her body was suddenly aching, “And then…then you played on a guess…something you had suspected, something that would destroy her. How did you find out, by the way?”

 

Carla laughed unpleasantly, “What? That she was a dirty, ugly, little lesbian? I found her pictures, when I was looking through her cupboard. In an envelope sticky-taped to the back of the drawer. It’s the usual hiding place, people generally hide the good stuff there. Drugs, cash…most important things.

 

“But she only had photos of some girl…and not a family member or anything, it was some Anglo girl. I was in a hurry to find some money so I just put them back quick. I didn’t even think about it until later, when I started noticing she was getting quieter. It was like she was in love or something, disgusting…”

 

Severin paused for a moment, thinking aloud, “Hmm, Susan Prince…Prince…William. Well, that explains that. So you did what? Told her you would tell everybody that she was a lesbian…and a thief too, no doubt. Get her expelled, disgrace her family, lose her friends…She had accidentally stumbled on your transgressions, and your revenge would be to expose her and destroy her life.”

 

Carla was speeding up, her voice rose. She unconsciously began to stand while she spoke, “She was over at the window by then. She started screaming, but not at me, at herself. I don’t know. And she climbed out, feet first, until she was just sitting on the ledge, her back to me, talking to herself…like she was crazy or something.

 

“So I came up behind her, my head next to hers. You’re so dirty, you make me sick. You’ve destroyed everything, you disgusting lesbian. I’d kill myself if I were anything like you. Just pushing her a little in the right direction. She’d never have the guts to jump by herself.  I don’t even remember if I did push her in the end, I think she slipped.”

 

Severin was grim, “And she didn’t fall right away, did she? She caught the ledge with her hands, her weak wrists straining, her sweating hands slowly sliding off…”

 

“I just looked at her. She didn’t even ask for my help, she couldn’t even try and save herself. She whimpered like a kicked dog, like a disappointed kid. I just watched while her fingers slipped away. Then nothing. A thud. Nothing”

 

The two young women sat in silence, picturing the helpless, grasping girl falling to her death. The silence lasted…

 

Severin snapped out of her trance. She had to finish it, to get it over with. “And then you set about cleaning up the mess. Planting all the things you stole in her locker, along with the photos of Susan which you planned to pretend were yours, so no one suspected. After all, she kept her end of the bargain. She never told anyone what you did.

 

“Then wiping the ledge so no one would find traces of her clawing hand marks…you forgot to wipe underneath, by the way. Some quite fascinating thumbprints there. And then there was the fact that, although the little pilferings had been occurring for more than a year, Anoushka didn’t really have any of the stolen property. Plenty here, you made sure, but nothing at home. The mother had searched her room, remember.

 

“And then, the psychology didn’t really fit, did it? The timing of these crimes, the planning, the judging of human reactions, the power tripping. That took brains, a methodical, quick, callous, little mind. You’re a scholarship girl. And our criminal had to be driven. Driven and passionate. It was hate, wasn’t it?”

 

Yes, it was. And it was pouring out of Carla’s every follicle. Seething in the diseased mind of the bad seed, “They were all stupid. They didn’t deserve to have anything. They didn’t earn it, they didn’t work for it, and they were judging me for being poor. They treat me like I’m nothing…and what are they? Spoon-fed, spoilt little rich girls. I was laughing at them the whole time…I couldn’t believe it when one them found me. I think I was more angered that she had outwitted me than anything else. Pure fluke, though, luck.”

 

“No Carla, it wasn’t luck for her. Anoushka died. She who had done nothing, who would do nothing. It was not right for her to die, it wasn’t her time. Can you not see that? Can you not see how wrong it was?”

 

Carla stared, bored, almost uncomprehending. She read the confession through, sighed…and signed. She looked up at Severin with a smile, ‘Here you go.’

 

Severin took her proof. She should have felt a sense of achievement, getting such a skilled little liar to come clean, but she only felt tired. What a waste. A waste of a sweet, confused girl and a waste of –

 

She broke off her train of thought to look at the murderer, calmly sitting on the edge of the bed, swinging her legs. Fifteen years! An age, Severin remembered, to feel love, friendship, joy and pain more acutely than ever before and more passionately than one ever would again.

 

But this girl seemed to feel nothing, no shame, no remorse. Severin knew there was only one end for people like her. But would the girl know herself, know what to do now? She was clever, yes, but so severely lacking in human emotion, in decency. She was a cold blooded, cold hearted killer.

 

Carla was taken aback; Severin’s dagger blue eyes were searching, scanning her with such a look of compassion that her body froze. Her legs stopped swinging, and she felt suddenly very cold. Uneasiness crept over…

 

Severin rose, crossed the floor as if to exit, but hesitated at the door. Without looking at the girl, the girl who thought so little of taking another’s life, she spoke soft and low, “It’s rather cold in here, Carla. See to it that the window gets closed.”

 

Banshee: a female spirit, whose appearance warns a family that one of them will soon die.
 

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