Murder at School

The letter

At break we met up: the sun had reappeared and we all chose to sit in the shade. Once we were all settled, I explained what had happened last night and this morning. Again I pulled out my phone as proof and told them about what had happened with the police earlier.
When I'd finished, May was in tears. "Poor Emerald, she did what she was forced to and still got punished for it!" She dropped her head to her hands and April lightly placed her hand on May's shoulder.
"Christmas," Summer began, and I looked up at her. "Why didn't you tell us? This is all such strong evidence, and together we could've probably gotten answers before Emerald was killed!" Her voice got louder, before reducing itself to a whisper. "Why didn't you tell me? I could've come with you and given you an instant alibi earlier."
I was shocked. I've never seen Summer acting like this and we've been friends since pre-school.
"No, Summer. I'm sorry. I just... Wasn't thinking," I pleaded.
"You didn't trust me. You didn't trust any of us," she whispered spitefully.
"No, no that's not it. I honestly didn't realise you'd want to know everything that any of us found out! Besides I was worried it would put you in danger."
"Danger? Really; that's all you could come up with? Just because it's murder doesn't mean that we're always in danger."
"You're wrong. We are. Emerald was forced to kill by an unknown person, and that could be anyone, but we literally have no clue who. This morning, I checked Emerald's pockets for her phone...but it wasn't there. If this person was aware that we were talking to Emerald at all about the case, they'll probably know-"
"But this doesn't mean that we were in danger before this morning."
"But we were. Remember that note I got that said 'stop'? I bet that was from Emerald. The whole time she was trying to protect us from the person who forced her to become a murderer-let's call him Mr. X because I'm sick of saying a paragraph each time-because she obviously knew we were onto her. She warned us and we persisted to continue with what we believed was right. And now she's dead..."
"And it's our fault," Melody finished, in a whisper. We all sat in silence as that sunk in. Around us we could hear the willow branches of other trees sweeping the ground in the wind; cries from boys playing football wafted in our direction; a lone bird chirping in the air.
Then Hartness broke the silence. "Okay guys, we need to stop thinking like this. Do we have any clues to help us identify this 'Mr. X'?" Everyone else shook their heads when I remembered something. I reached into my blazer pocket and my hand closed around something that crumpled.
Revealing the blood-stained envelope, I spoke. "Like this?" I saw May look away because of the blood, and April was trying not to gag. "I noticed when I found it that it had my name, and it was the only one with a capital letter. I thought that was important." I opened it and laid out the objects inside: some money, and a letter. Both were blood stained. We all stared at the letter, which seemed to be written in some sort of... Foreign language.
istmasChray, Iyay amyay osay orrysay. Iyay idday otnay antway otay oday ityay utbay Iyay adhay onay oicechay. Iyay asway orcedfay otay byay otway iendsfray ofyay omwhay Iyay atedhay. easePlay earclay myay amenay. Emeraldyay xx
What did it mean? I asked everyone if they knew what sort of language it was, but they didn't. Silence.
"Maybe it's not some sort of language?" Hartness suggested. I nodded, curious of what she was going to suggest it was, but she didn't. I returned my attention to the paper.
Silence.
"Hold up," Alex said, leaning closer to the letter. "What if it's a code on some sort?" Yes, that would work! We all nodded, vigorously. Were we going to work it out?
"What code do you suggest?" Ivy queried, brushing a stray strand of hair from her face and behind her ear. I looked up at Alex, like the others, waiting to know if he had an idea.
"I'm not sure," he eventually sighed. "There are so many." I sighed. We were so close yet so far. If we could crack this code, we'd solve everything.
Silence.
"So who do we think Mr. X could be?" Ivy asked.
"I guarantee it's a student," Hartness said. "They'd have had to get here early, and that means the only entrance would be the main entrance, next to the office. The blue gate's locked shut until eight o' clock and the gate to the back car park is also locked in the mornings. As for the front car park, the canteen gets its food supply deliveries on Thursdays, an hour or so before school. Everyone knows that you're not allowed to go that way and if you do, you get a detention for 'being unsafe'. All the canteen staff would've been around there."
We all agreed: and that meant that Mr. X would've been seen by the office ladies.
"Also, it would have to be a girl, right, I mean the murder took place in the ladies' bathroom after all," Melody added.
"That's not definite, however anyone who saw a guy going into the girl's bathroom would mark it down as suspicious," Ivy confirmed.
"Any strong suspects?" April questioned.
I looked around and Summer looked as if she was going to speak but then the bell went.
"Meet up later?" Summer asked as everyone was picking up their bags.
"Yeah," I replied, dusting the crumbs of my sandwich off my skirt.
"Sorry, guys," Alex said. "But I have Rugby practice at lunch."
"I have Maths club," Hartness chimed in.
"And I'm helping out at the cake sale that charity club's running," May said softly. "We're raising money for injured animals at the-"
"Same time tomorrow, then?" Summer suggested.
We all nodded, and left.