Chalk Dust & Broomsticks, Chapter 23

In which Althea is attacked by an unknown assailant!

The Weight of the Crown

Althea stood up suddenly, a shiver running down her back and walked towards the window. The afternoon sun beat down on the sprawling housing estate, shining bright between two of the three giant multi-storey apartment complexes, but inside the new administration block, Althea Gardner had the climate control set to a punishing, glacial chill.

After the "Canteen Cull" meeting, Althea had retreated to her sanctuary. She felt the need to wash the day off her skin, the smell of industrial floor cleaner from the Infant Hall, the sight of Deirdre’s tearful defiance, and that nagging, inexplicable scent of cloves that seemed to follow her like a ghost.

She stood in her office, a room that was a monument to her own rising star. It was a space of glass, chrome, and deep-pile rugs that muffled the sounds of the school outside. In the corner sat her private shower cubicle, a luxury she had insisted upon during the remodel, a place to reset before evening meetings with the Governors, staff or parents.

She caught her reflection in the full-length mirror. Her dark skin looked sallow in the artificial light, her short, silver-black curls dampened by the humidity. She felt a sudden, sharp draft.

The water in the shower was just beginning to steam when the atmosphere in the room changed. The "strip of light" that had followed her from the hall didn't vanish; it intensified, stretching up the glass of the shower door like a jagged neon scar.

“Take that, you bitch,” came a voice, not a whisper, but a raspy, distorted sound that seemed to vibrate out of the very plumbing. It was a voice full of hate so cold it froze the steam in the air. Althea didn't even have time to scream.

She came crashing down in the shower cubicle. As she fell, her leg caught the sharp edge of the marble step, gashing her shin deep. Her back slammed against the chrome controls. Her assailant, a shimmering, vengeful presence, wielded the twin statuette, the bronze companion to the one Althea had used to dispatch Alex during the Christmas holidays.

The memory flared in Althea’s mind with agonizing clarity: the first statuette shattering against Alex’s skull, the way her hands had felt around Alex’s beautiful neck when the bronze hadn't been enough. Jane, the cleaner, had swept up the fragments the next day, assuming the Headteacher had simply been clumsy.

This time, the "twin" remained intact. The attacker rendered a brutal blow to the side of Althea's head. The world turned to a dizzying whirl of white noise and red pain before dropping into total blackness.

She was left for dead. The attacker, the restless vital spark of a friend betrayed, dissolved back into the shadows before the water could even wash the blood from the bronze.

When Althea regained consciousness, the world was a blurred mosaic of grey and silver. She was naked, shaken, and slumped awkwardly at the base of the cubicle. The shower was still running, the rhythmic drum-drum-drum of the water against her bruised ribs sounding like a distant funeral march.

For a few moments, the concussion pulled her backward in time. She wasn't in a London housing estate; she was in Marrakesh. She could see the orange sunset and feel the spray of an outdoor shower, Alex’s laughter echoing off the terracotta walls.

"Where am I? What the hell..."

The memory vanished, replaced by the stinging reality of the present. "Oh my God, I'm bleeding... and my head, oh my head..."

She sat up painfully, short of breath. The gash on her shin was quite deep, the blood swirling into the drain in a pale pink vortex. Shivering, she grabbed a designer towel and began mopping at the wound. Her mind raced, cataloging the possibilities. Althea Gardner collected enemies like some people collect stamps - disgruntled parents, the "obsolete" kitchen staff, Shirley Midnight with her bags of spice. Any one of them could have slipped into the block.

In a wet, feeble heap, Althea scanned her huge office through the glass. On her desk, a pile of mail sat waiting. At the very top was the dreaded result of the Ofsted Inspection from the Spring Term.

She clawed herself to a standing position, her vision "fizzy" and her balance precarious. She moved toward the desk, leaving a trail of damp footprints on the expensive rug. She found her clothes and dressed with trembling fingers, her teeth chattering from shock.
"Someone hit me," she whispered to the empty room. "Who would do that? I haven't got any enemies."

She knew she was lying. She had a graveyard of them.

She sat at her desk, trying to force her professional mask back into place. She routed through the mail, her eyes fixing on the crucial envelope.
"Have we passed? What good would that be now?" She felt a sob catch in her throat. "What good is any of it now that Alex is dead? We had such plans... How am I undone! Why did I let my temper get the better of me? Alex, forgive me, darling Alex... I didn't mean to hurt you. Please."
Tears washed through her fingers, mixing with the cold water still dripping from her hair. The enormity of it all, the blackmail, the murderous crime of passion, and now this physical assault, crashed into her like a tidal wave.

Althea began to see black spots in front of her eyes. As she reached for the letter, the "fizzing" in her head became a roar. Her consciousness slipped like a faulty gear. She slid from the chair to the floor, the letter fluttering down into the waste bin nest to the desk.

It was Dora, the General Assistant, who found her the next morning..

Dora had arrived early, her mind buzzing with the details of her own blackmail plot. She had planned to use the morning silence to "remind" Althea of certain indiscretions she’d witnessed, but the moment she pushed open the heavy oak door, her leverage vanished.

"Good morning Althea; oh hell, what has happened in here? Althea, what's wrong?"

She rushed across the plush carpet, her heart hammering. She was horrified by the sight of the blood on Althea’s head, the deep gash on her leg, and the ghostly pallor of her skin.

"Somebody has hit her," Dora breathed, looking around the room. "but who? And what with?"

Her eyes landed on the bronze statuette lying by the shower cubicle. It looked heavy, ancient, and utterly out of place on the wet tiles. Dora reached out, then pulled her hand back as if the metal were white-hot. "Better not touch it," she thought, the survival instincts of a veteran school staffer kicking in. "Potential murder weapon."

She knelt beside her boss, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “Don’t worry Althea. You’re going to be all right. I’m phoning for the ambulance now.”
As Dora dialled 999 for the emergency services, she looked at the prone woman on the floor. Her blackmail plot was instantly forgotten. In the face of this kind of violence, secrets felt like small, insignificant things. She stayed with Althea, accompanying her in the ambulance to the Accident and Emergency Department of Langwich General Hospital.

The administration block was silent once more, save for the lingering scent of cloves and the cold, unblinking eyes of the bronze statuette.
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