The Pact Read Online Free Page B

documents to assist in your lesson planning. If you wish to use it to communicate with the outside world, I am afraid you will have to travel quite a distance to get a signal.”
    Parva could believe that. Here she was in the middle of Wales, surrounded by hills, the only way out a network of roads so minor that even a twenty-mile drive might take the best part of half a day. She suddenly found herself wondering if flashlights and mirrors were forbidden too, just in case it led to a spate of attempts to communicate with someone on the other side of the valley.
    “Is there something wrong?”
    Parva wasn’t aware that she had been smirking, but there was always the chance, and so she assumed the most serious expression she could come up with.
    “No, Miss Arbuthnot.”
    The headmistress pointed at the locked drawer. “In that case I take it you are happy with this arrangement?”
    Parva shrugged. It didn’t look as if she had much of a choice. “I can’t say I am,” she said, “but I’ll comply if that’s what’s needed for me to work here.”
    Miss Arbuthnot gave her a triumphant smile. “Indeed it is, Miss Corcoran. I’m very pleased to see you’ve decided to play ball.” She got to her feet. “If you’d like to come with me I’ll show you around, get you settled in, and of course introduce you to the girls. I can tell you’re dying to meet them.”

 
    5
     
    Miss Arbuthnot allowed Parva to get her bags from her car (and gave the gleaming black Mini a disapproving look as she did so) before instructing her to leave them in the headmistress’s study while they toured the school. Parva deliberately left her laptop locked in the car boot, just in case the old lady had any more tricks up her sleeve and she found herself without her luggage as well as her phone. She could just about manage without the mobile, but without her computer, and the contact numbers she’d backed up on it, she would be totally lost. As she dragged her suitcase away from the car she tried to dismiss thoughts of the Mini not being there when she returned for it.
    For God’s sake, girl , she thought, it’s a school, not some sort of cult commune .
    At least, she hoped it wasn’t.
    “We start the day with school assembly,” said the headmistress, leading Parva away from her office and down a narrow path that corkscrewed its way between high hedgerows.
    “Is the assembly hall in the main building?” Parva asked, looking around her.
    “Goodness me, no,” came the reply. “We don’t have a hall.”
    As they emerged into the open Parva realised why as, with some degree of pride, Miss Arbuthnot gestured to the robust, medieval-looking building complete with stained glass windows and bell tower in front of them.
    “We have a chapel.”
    “Striking.” To Parva it looked anything but. In fact it more resembled the kind of thing you might find on some windswept mountain than in a posh girls’ school.
    “Would you like to take a look inside?”
    Absolutely not. “Of course.” Parva gave the woman a big smile and led the way to the heavy oak door.
    It was locked.
    “You can never be too careful,” said the head mistress, producing a heavy iron key from somewhere about her person and rattling it into the gaping keyhole. It took a little bit of effort but eventually, after a grinding of tumblers that suggested the lock could do with a decent oiling, the door creaked open.
    The inside was quite a revelation.
    Parva had expected dusty carpets, mouldering hymnbooks and dusty hassocks, but instead the building she walked into was spotless and decorated to the point of decadence. The pews had been fashioned from a deep mahogany that had been given just the right delicate layer of varnish. The lectern looked as if it must have cost a fortune, and the two manual organ was obviously a recent, and expensive, addition.
    ‘This chapel has been here for at least five hundred years.” Miss Arbuthnot was making her way down the aisle as she