The Matriarchs of St Denise

Heads down, bottoms up, by Mark Danelaw

The first part: Introduction, can be found here.

The next night Annabelle made the phone box rendezvous as usual and waited for the call back.

“Hello Guardian, how’s tricks?” she said jovially.

“Tricks are very interesting, how is your backside tonight?” Guardian replied.

Annabelle blushed and almost cursed him again.

“This is a private call,” he added, “None of the team are listening in tonight, so the ice pack anecdotes for your tail end are a secret safe with me.”

Annabelle could not helping smiling, “You are so getting off on this aren’t you?”

“Just a little bit,” his voice carried a shrug, “I mean what’s not to like?”

“You dirty old man,” she laughed.

“Not so much of the old or I will put you over my knee,” he quipped.

“After this case is done I might just let you.” She didn’t know why she said that and winced hard.

“You’re on, but I’ll buy you dinner first of course, discipline around the office could do with perking up, we can set a precedent… anyway enough of all that… we have been looking into those three women you named. It gets very interesting. There is a shell company with only one customer: St Denise School. We knew this before, it is what put us on to this malarkey in the first place, but this is where it gets very interesting. The directors of this company are one Edith Cardwell and a Mary O’Sullivan. Cardwell is 96 and in a home for the infirm. She is the great aunt of one Lady Elspeth Cardwell deputy chair of the school trustees. She evidently visits the old bird every month and has power of attorney,” Guardian explained.

“That is pretty much bang to rights,” Annabelle said excitedly, but she wasn’t sure how this fitted in with what she found out.

“Not quite, no evidence of malfeasance, but O’Sullivan is also in a nursing home, she is 91. She is a distant cousin of one Helen Holt… who also judiciously visit her and who also has power of attorney,” the Chief Superintendent told her.

“Holt? Then that’s the connection, we have a dodgy conflict of interests right there,” Annabelle began to see it falling into place.

“Now it gets very interesting,” Guardian continued.

Annabelle thought it was already damn interesting and she had forgotten to breathe.

“All of the payments were signed off by Margret Clements, the Headmistress, all except one. There was an overpayment or a duplicate payment or some such discrepancy. The signature on that one was one Rachel Denton,” Guardian reported.

“They are all in on it… but something doesn’t quite add up, does it? What about Horton-Grange, the daughter I mean?” Annabelle pressed him.

“Nothing connecting her to any of it, except that her mother is also on the board of trustees, but she does seem to be a bit of a wild card. Petty misdemeanours and rumours following her…” Guardian said.

“No one likes her here at school, not many, she isn’t a very good teacher,” Annabelle said, “She is definitely in on it I think.”

“Get a look at those files Anna, see if there are any discrepancies, loose ends or out and out evidence,” Guardian said.

“Yes boss, I am on it,” Annabelle said.

“Contact at 10.15 or thereabouts in two nights,” Guardian said and hung up.

***

Annabelle moved through the dark like movie assassin. The corridor was dark and she hid in every alcove and hollow to listen as she crept forward. In the movies there might be CCTV, guards or even laser traps; here was much worse; school prefects, an army of sadistic young women hiding in wait and immune from curfew. St Denise might as well have let lose hungry Rottweilers.

She remembered being ambushed by the relatively benign Daphne Penrose-Gough on her first sortie. Her first ever spanking; she blushed. In truth it was Helen Hart’s’ cane she feared most. Her arse still hurt and she already had Saturday Detention to look forward to.

Now constable, how did you obtain this information and why is it incomplete? Well your honour I was searching a school office without any warrant and I was caught and given a thoroughly sound thrashing on my bare backside by an irate housemistress.

There was a sound somewhere, a footfall? Maybe just a door in another part of the building, yes, she was sure of it. However, something else was clicking, or softly knocking, a rhythmic sound; she paused to listen. It took almost 20 seconds to deduce that it was the radiator.

There was rectangle of light on the parquet floor up head. Nothing moved. “Okay,” she whispered as a mouse.

The outer office door opened in a trice and she slipped inside. Surprise; there was none, but her nerves hard wired to expect one exploded in her head and chest anyway. She was in.

Keeping to the shadows she crept to the inner door she had discovered last time. This had been when the lights had come on and she had been caught by Rachel Denton. This time there was nothing.

“So far so good,” she mouthed soundlessly.

She risked a flash of light to put a tight beam on the lock. It was tricky and she gritted her teeth with concentration. I hope I can relock this, she thought as it clicked and yielded.

“Bingo,” she said, louder than she meant.

There were a row of cabinets all locked, but as she had found on her first visit one key fitted all. Each draw was keenly labelled, expenses, pay, purchases; she found six draws so labelled and opened each in turn. Too damn many, she realised.

“Shit,” she said too loudly and stood in defeat for several seconds.

“Okay Anna, caution to the fucking wind,” she sighed. Then taking a random file from the date range they were pursuing she took out 10 pages from the middle, careful to leave the file open so that the documents could be returned.

Then heedless of sight or sounds she powered up the photocopier and ran off 10 copies. With a deep breath she returned the files unmolested and took 10 more pages, or thereabouts, it was random.

It took 25 minutes to copy random pages from several files from four of the six cabinet draws. When the copier shut off with her torch she had never felt so relieved. She listened. There was nothing.

It might only be a sample, but it was a hefty wodge of paper, almost half a ream. She swiped a folder and went out the ways she had come.

The bathroom across the hall from her room was vacant and lockable. The toilet seat was too hard to sit on in Annabelle’s condition but it made a good desk, so she knelt on the floor. There were a lot of papers, too many even now.

What started out as hopeful soon became a grind. There was entry after entry: T-shirts, books, sports equipment, garden trowels at one point… all of them for different reasons, from different places… all trivial and mostly petty cash items. There had to be something here.

It was three in the morning and less than a quarter of the papers read that Annabelle decided to give up.

***

Margaret Clements sat and stared at the papers. It was all so trivial, just tiny payments here and there, but she did not remember any of them. Also for the most part she never signed off on the small stuff, so why was her name on so many of these transactions.

“I must have signed off on these, but I don’t remember Ducky, I don’t even remember Gardener’s Week, did we do that, was it a village fete thingy?” she was completely confused.

“Could…?” Ducky ventured and then closed her mouth.

“What are you thinking?” Margret pressed her; there was desperation in her eyes as if she would grab at any straw just then. She was slipping, wasn’t she?

“I… I have signed in your name before now, well it was just easier; you know small stuff, but not this much. I am sure that no more than one or two of these are down to me… but well… maybe someone else in the office downstairs… the Bursar or someone… did the same thing?” Ducky was red in the face at this admission.

Clements gave Ducky a hard stare and slowly shook her head.

“I know, I know, sorry,” Ducky cringed and wanted to melt away like the witch in Oz.

“After school tonight… you and I are going to have a long conversation in which my cane will feature heavily and your pants won’t,” Margret scolded her secretary.

“Yes Ma’am,” Ducky was puce.

“Any other thoughts?” the Headmistress turned back to the matter in hand.

“I could set it all out in a spreadsheet, maybe… I don’t know, maybe we can make out a pattern… shed some light?” Ducky was eager to please now but her buttocks clenched.

“Good idea, thank you Ducky,” Margaret sighed.

***

Katherine Horton-Grange telephoned her mother with a sense of hope and trepidation. At least London was a long way from Hadley Hall and if her mother did react negatively to the conversation at least her bottom was a long way out of range.

“Hello mother,” Katherine said brightly, her smile was cautious.

“I wondered when you would deem to call,” Josephine said in a neutral voice.

“You got my letter with all the…” it only just then occurred to Katherine that she hadn’t spoken to her mother since she had reported on her debts and outstanding expenses.

“Oh, yes quite a total,” Josephine sounded prickly.

“You did ask for everything,” Katherine countered, “Thanks by the way… the cheque was most useful.” She had actually spent most of it on her debts; most of it.”

“I did… quite a credit card bill and so much back rent,” Josephine said in breezy voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Yah… sorry about that, I totally flaked it didn’t I?” Katherine had hoped that this was now all in the past. Her six month, now a little under five month deadline, now looked somewhat worryingly real.

“So you called me to apologise or just to thank me?” her mother sounded deadpan, she already knew better.

“Sure… thanks, but actually… well you said about a job?” Katherine put in quickly.

“Go on,” Josephine was wary now.

“How about a business venture?” her daughter positively gushed.

There was silence at the other end of the phone. Josephine had closed her eyes and was silently counting to 10. The girl was a feckless dreamer. She could not hold down a job or apply herself to anything and now she thought she was a businesswoman. “What kind of business?”

“You know, the usual sort,” Katherine sensed this was not going well.

“The usual sort, there is no usual sort, what are you talking about? What business, who is in it with you and how much is it going to cost me?” Josephine sounded impatient now.

“A shop, an absolutely cool idea, I know this photographer and he…”

“He?” her mother’s voice went up an octave.

“Look we get a shop that is half gallery and half, well shop… films, cameras… that sort of thing. Upstairs there is a studio for all kinds of photoshoots…” Katherine explained.

“Photoshoots?” Josephine could not believe this, she had just bailed her daughter out of a porn racket and now she wanted to dive back in.

“Oh nothing like that,” not just that anyway, “We do respectable family portraits, wedding pictures, maybe a few casting shots for acting résumé’s…” she shouldn’t have added that bit. “It will take time to build up the photography side, that’s where the shop comes in… we sell wall space for photographic artists, people with an interest in photography who will come in for film or a camera… see the pics and buy them, or not, it doesn’t matter we make on the exhibition fees.” Katherine bit her tongue. Had she said too much?

To Josephine it actually sounded like a good idea. “Just who is this photographer?” she said.

“Oh he is old, at least 36 or something, he is married,” separated and totally into me, she didn’t say, “He has quite a name… worked with all the big models…” and quite a few porn stars.

“How much are we talking? I mean you are after more money aren’t you?” Josephine said.

“Not sure… six months’ rent and a deposit and maybe a bit for some stock… we have a few cameras… but…”

“How much?”

***

Ducky stood self-consciously to attention in front of the headmistress’s desk, her pale freckled complexion a shining red with a blush. With her ginger hair piled up in a bun there was no hiding the colouring on her neck and face.

Margaret, who had been scanning the spreadsheets for answers didn’t look up. It was good work by Ducky, but it held no answers, not that she could see. She shrugged, putting the work down and she now regarded Ducky with a hard stare. “So you think it is acceptable to forge my signature on school documentation, do you?”

“No Ma’am,” Ducky’s voice was a muted whisper.

“Perhaps you signed yourself some extra expenses?” the headmistress suggested.

Ducky gaped in absolute horror, “I would never…” she gasped.

“I know Ducky, I really know that, but can’t you see how it looks?” Margaret sighed, “We already have some unaccounted for discrepancies and this just muddies the waters.”

Ducky winced and looked as if she might cry. She nodded, “I understand I was only…”

Margaret stood and took up the cane she had set aside. “No spanking this time, it is too familiar and I think we both like it too much…” she said.

“Yes Ma’am,” Ducky hated failing her headmistress.

“Skirt off and your things… then I want you to bend over that chair,” she pointed with the cane.

Ducky nodded and stooped to unzip the tight woollen skirt before slipping it off.

“I am not going to count, let us see how many is needful shall we?” Margaret sighed.

Daunted by a sad expression Ducky nodded again as she stepped out of her knickers.

“I will lock the door, someone might come in,” the older woman said, she did not want to enjoy this, she needed to make a point, but she knew she would and after even Ducky would too.

“You should leave it wide open so people can see… I deserve it. In fact I deserve a good thrashing in front of the whole school,” Ducky pouted.

“Oh spare me the martyred hyperbole you silly girl,” the Headmistress scolded, “You don’t deserve that, but I am going to thrash your bare bottom until you can’t sit down.”

Ducky was puce now and turned to show her bare bottom as she faced the back of the chair.

“Over you go, head down and bottom up please,” Margaret told her.

As Ducky moved forward Margaret felt a lump in her throat, a swelling matched elsewhere, curse her libido. It couldn’t be helped, a good hiding was needful. Still she watched with relish as her secretary pressed her hips to the back of the chair and folded herself over so that her bare bottom was elevated and proffered for the cane.

Ducky felt a small surge of arousal as she always did, but this was overshadowed by her apprehension, as it always was. Today though, she felt ashamed of failing her headmistress and wished fervently that no part of her enjoyed such chastisement as she needed to be thoroughly punished.

In times past she would even have begged for no mercy or double whatever Margaret had in mind for her; but that was impudent and none of her business. Her bottom was the property of Margaret Clements and was hers to thrash as she saw fit.

The headmistress tapped the cane three times on the upturned bare bottom as she marvelled at its smooth astonishing whiteness. She could smell Ducky’s arousal and was acutely aware of her own. It was a curse and a distraction from true discipline.

Margaret caned once and hard. It was a sharp cut of crafted wood upon tender skin that landed with a biting crack. The line of white on white was as vivid as cream upon snow.

Ducky heard the hiss-thwack and then felt the harsh touch bisecting both her bottom cheeks high where it currently curved uppermost. It hurt less than she remembered; it was always did. The pain unfolded slowly and sank like a lead bar into her the rounds of her behind.

Margaret watched the white line turn pink and then darken still as she waited for it to raise a little. Then she caned again; just below and harder the first stroke.

The first stroke was still developing as she took the second and this time she grunted and grimaced. She felt the third on the lower half of her bottom a few fingers width above the subtle crinkle of buttock meeting thigh. It really hurt now and she tried to hold on.

The headmistress studied the three red lines, as they now were, rising proud to describe the rounds of Mercy’s bare bottom. A taste of what was to come she now decided. She was going to be strict.

“Do you regret your foolish impudence?” Margaret said.

“Yes Ma’am,” Mercy’s voice was strained and her breathing had become uneven.

The fourth stroke came low and uncompromising, so tantalisingly close the tender band that bordered her womanish core and for the first time Ducky yelled.

“You will feel this when you sit,” Margaret told her and caned in again high.

I will sit? Such a consideration, Ducky allowed the idle mockery. She so wanted to beg.

There were more strokes, lower and in between previous welts; most aimed at the under-curves of Ducky’s bottom, most drawing a heartfelt wail. She was crying now, properly crying and her bottom hurt; hot and hazed with sharp biting cuts crossing the red pain and sometimes other strokes.

Margaret eyed the maroon morass of welted bottom and freely surrendered to her intimate rain. There were few places left to strike and Ducky had begun to sob. Her assistant’s bottom was shapely but small and only 15 or more strokes had quite ruined it for a day or so. Let’s call it 15 and give her 24. She caned again.

Ducky screamed. Her tears were in free fall and she gave little pained shouts as extra strokes sliced in.

Margaret didn’t count, not the first round nor her added nine; but she could not quite stop. She caned thrice more and then discipline prevailed.

“I trust this has been a lesson to you,” the headmistress said pompously.

Ducky nodded, but stayed in place for more, she had not been dismissed.

“You may rise,” she was told.

It was with uneven grace that she gained her feet and with sniffs pawed at her bottom. “Thank you Ma’am,” she said.

The headmistress offered her right hand to shake, swapping the cane to her left hand. Ducky dropped to her knees and holding the cane kissed it. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “Thank you, I mean it.”

“I know you do,” Margaret smiled and guided Ducky to her feet.

“May I go to the corner, Ma’am?” she asked.

“You may.”

Ducky made no attempt to repair her dress and walked purposely to the empty corner of the room and took up position; arms folded into the small of her back and her welted bare bottom sticking out in obscene surrender.

Next chapter: I have been spanked and now I am humble