Page 17 of When We Were Friends
‘You have?’ Morgan leant forwards.
‘I skimmed the last newsletter and was about to delete. Then I saw your message. Did anyone else read the whole letter?’
They shook their heads.
‘Remember Miss Moo Moo?’
Of course, their nickname for the French teacher, Mlle Vachon.
‘She must be… what, pushing her mid-seventies now,’ continued Emily, ‘but is still as active as ever. She’s set up a French club for adults. It’s going to be held in Dailsworth library every Saturday morning, starting in the middle of March, the eighteenth.’
‘She’s still around here?’ asked Morgan. ‘I’ve never seen her.’ But then Dailsworth was a town, not village, with a population of a hundred and fifty thousand.
‘What’s she got to do with Hugo?’ asked Tiff.
‘Once, when Hugo and I were… alone…’ Emily pursed her lips. ‘He mentioned how his mum and Miss Moo Moo were quite close, what with both of them being French. He kept it quiet. It wouldn’t have been cool if people discovered he hung out with a teacher off school grounds.’
‘She might know where Hugo and his family disappeared to,’ said Paige.
Paige didn’t sound enthusiastic, but she was helping out, Morgan couldn’t ask for more than that.
‘It’s worth a shot,’ said Emily. ‘How quickly did he move away?’
‘I did the pregnancy test two months after prom. Visited his house. It was empty,’ replied Morgan. The black coffee stared up at her like it had that day back in 2004 when she’d gone to the girls’ favourite café in Dailsworth and ordered a cup after seeing the pink line, all alone, as she would be from that point on. Oh, she’d have the support of Mum and Dad, when they’d calmed down, but it wasn’t the same. The waitress had asked Morgan where her friends were and she’d burst into tears and run outside, not knowing yet, without it being born, that her love for that baby would carry her through the darkest moments; it would feel like the best moments of her life so far being rolled into one – winning the maths prize for three years running, solving cases like The Case of the Injured School Cat, sneaking out with the girls to go for a midnight swim in the school’s outdoor pool, that buzz in the stomach at the first sight of snow, the purple gleam of the tin of Quality Street at Christmas.
‘We could drop into the library at the end of this French club next Saturday,’ said Tiff. ‘I’m free.’
Emily drained her cup. ‘Can we agree on a finite amount of time for this case? No offence, but I don’t want it to drag on forever. Why don’t we make a concerted effort, within a set timeframe?’
‘I don’t need to get to the Isle of Wight until Wednesday 12 April, after Easter Monday,’ said Tiff.
‘I work five days a week but I’m owed lots of holiday…’ said Morgan. ‘How about each of us try to find out what we can the next few weeks, hopefully that will throw up some leads, and then… maybe we could, say, spend a few days together, maybe even a week solidly working twenty-four-seven on this?’ Morgan ran a hand across her forehead. ‘I know it’s such a lot to ask, but I feel like focus is the only answer.’ She noticed Paige slowly nodding, which gave her the confidence to continue. ‘How about the first week of April, from Saturday 1st to Saturday 8th? That way I can give my boss good notice that I want the time off. Unless any of you already have plans for Good Friday? It ties in really well for me because Olly’s away on a Physics field trip that last week before the Easter holidays. I haven’t put him in the picture yet in case it’s a lost cause and our investigations come to nothing but dead ends. You work too, Paige. Does that timing suit?’
Paige took out her phone and checked her calendar app. ‘There are only a couple of appointments I might not be able to move.’ She shrugged. ‘The first to eighth works for me. Felix is away on business that week. I guess it’s as good a time as any.’
‘Okay, and next Saturday, I’ll see if I can switch shifts, a colleague owes me,’ said Morgan. ‘That way, I can go to the library too and go into the supermarket later instead. If we can at least come up with a couple of leads by Easter, then when you all… go back to your lives… that might be the point I tell Olly what I am doing, and he and I take it from there. I’m more hopeful now. Thanks so much everyone.’ Her voice caught. ‘You can’t imagine how much this means to me.’
‘What if our fourgiftsdon’t work?’ said Emily. ‘Christ. Doesn’t it sound cringey now, calling them that, as if our strengths were oh-so special. I guess that’s teenagers for you. But yes, I hate to be the harbinger of doom, but I reckon my gift has gone for good.’
‘Remember our oath?’ said Tiff and she smiled. ‘It’s as if we thought we had superpowers.’
‘True, but even though everyone laughed at the prom, no one could deny how we brought answers to the questions that tormented other pupils,’ said Paige. ‘Mind you…’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘Our oath seems a tiny bit over the top now: The Secret Gift Society swears through its blood…’
Morgan joined in. ‘To only act for the good.’
Emily started speaking too. ‘Its four powers to serve those in need of defence. All hail…’
Then each woman spoke their own gift, in the appropriate place.
‘Logic,’ said Morgan, a shiver running down her spine.
‘Kindness,’ said Emily, in an unsure tone.
‘Empathy,’ Tiff said and she yawned.
‘A sixth sense,’ said Paige, humour in her voice.
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