The Finishing School

“Cressida was pregnant?”


“Why wasn’t a proper investigation conducted?” Deirdre wants to know. “Your friend Gavin didn’t turn up any information, it seems. Not the affair, not the note, not the pregnancy. He must not have been a very good detective.”

“Madame Strauss—”

“Why was the case closed so quickly?”

“I understand how unpleasant this must be for you—”

“Unpleasant?” Deirdre repeats, her lips curling into a sneer. “I lost my daughter, Monsieur Bueche. She would have been better off dead! It was a lot more than ‘unpleasant.’”

“It was a tragedy,” he agrees, placating her. “A terrible tragedy. Madame Harzenmoser and I brought in the police at once and gave them everything they needed to conduct their investigation. We opened up the school to them. Whatever they needed. But if Detective Lashwood ruled it an accident, it wasn’t our place to disagree or challenge him.”

“He ruled it an accident by nine o’clock in the morning?” Kersti says. “How is that even possible?”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“Yes,” Deirdre responds, straightening her back. “Of persuading your friend to say it was an accident and shut the whole investigation down as quickly as possible.”

“There was plenty of evidence to warrant a proper investigation,” Kersti adds. “But that would have been terrible publicity for the Lycée. It would have damaged your reputation.”

“Of course it would have,” says Bueche. “But I wouldn’t have stood in the way of an investigation. I don’t have that kind of pull with the police.”

“We know how important the Lycée’s reputation is.”

“The students matter far more—”

“Monsieur Bueche,” Deirdre implores softly. “You didn’t want talk of suicide or extramarital affairs with students or the whiff of a possible crime to go public, so you asked your school chum to cover it up. At least tell us the truth. It’s not a crime.

“I’m accountable, too,” Deirdre continues. “I stood by and allowed it to be covered up. I let you and Madame Harzenmoser do nothing because I was protecting Cressida’s reputation—”

“Mrs. Strauss,” Bueche says, still cool and composed. “The truth is the gendarmes did search Cressida’s room that morning. What they found was a half-empty bottle of vodka. She’d been smoking outside on her balcony. Besides that she’d had that car accident a couple of years before—”

“How did the police know about her car accident?”

“I think it was Madame Hamidou who told them when she was questioned.”

“Why? It had nothing to do with anything. Why would she tell them about that?”

“She was trying to be helpful, I suppose,” he says. “It showed Cressida had a history of reckless behavior and heavy drinking. The police made their ruling based on the facts they had at the time. Did they probe enough?” He shrugs, cocks his head to the side. “Perhaps not. But I assumed they did the best they could with what they found. The suicide note came later. We didn’t see any point in reopening an investigation because of the note. Who would it have served? Certainly not you or your family, Madame Strauss. Not our students.” He pauses for a moment, seeming to gather his thoughts and carefully choose his next words. “I assure you that nothing I ever did was with the intent to conceal anything or protect anyone.”

He stands up and comes around to the other side of the desk. “Why bring it all back up now?” he asks Deirdre, his voice softening. “Is there a point? What can be done, really?”

“If someone pushed my daughter, I want to know. At the very least, I want it acknowledged.”

“It’s not going to be easy after all this time,” he says. “But I’ll support whatever you decide. If it’s what you need, I’ll help any way I can. Is there something you want me to do?”

“I’ll let you know,” Deirdre says, standing up. “I just want to say that you did Cressida a huge disservice by impeding a proper investigation. As did I.”

“Nothing was done intentionally.”

“Thank you for your time, Monsieur Bueche.”

Deirdre tucks her purse under her arm and hurries out of the office. Kersti notices the forgotten suicide note on Bueche’s desk and grabs it.

On her way out, she remembers something and stops. “Monsieur Bueche?” she says, turning back to him. “Why did you expel those two girls in 1974?”

“I beg your pardon?” he says, confused.

“Amoryn Lashwood’s friends were expelled in ’74. I know it was for vandalism, but it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Do you know what they wrote?”

“No. But it was just a couple of words on the statue—”

“The matter was very grave.”

“Students have committed far worse offenses and not been expelled,” Kersti points out. “Cressida included.”

“Those girls were also doing drugs and causing trouble. Madame Hamidou felt very strongly they had to be expelled and the Helvetia Society meetings banned.”

“Madame Hamidou did?”

“Oh yes, she was quite passionate about it,” he recalls. “She thought it was best for the school and I had to agree. It doesn’t happen often that we agree, I assure you. But she convinced me it was the right thing to do for the Lycée.”





Chapter 30





LAUSANNE—June 1998



Cressida holds the leather ledger in the palm of her hands with great reverence, as though it’s some sacred text, the Bible or one of the Vedas. It’s brown with embossed gold letters on the cover that say ledger. It reminds Kersti of her father’s old bookkeeping ledgers when she was a kid. He used to sit in the den after supper with a cup of vodka and piles of receipts and invoices, and enter numbers into columns. He’d have a black pen and a red pen, and there were always a lot of red numbers on the pages.

Cressida opens it slowly, her fingers noticeably trembling. On the first page, tucked deep into the fold, there’s an old photograph, square with a white border and the date in typeface. April 1974.

Cressida pulls it out. It’s a picture of the Helvetia statue, flanked on either side like sentinels by two long-haired teenage girls, their solemn faces backlit by the pale moon, their hands placed defiantly on their hips. The statue has a helmet of black hair spray-painted atop, which, Kersti thinks, must have been a bitch to clean and restore in a single night. There’s a word spray-painted on the Swiss cross of her shield, but it’s impossible to read in the dark, grainy picture. The engraved plaque at Helvetia’s feet is also defaced. Certain words in the slogan, which they can’t read but know by heart—“Preparing Young Women to Become Citizens of the World”—are crossed out and scrawled over with other words, also illegible.

Cressida turns it over and discovers a handwritten note on the back.

Do with this ledger what you wish. I’ve got no objections whatever you decide, only personal regrets. Amoryn El-Bahz.



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