Bridge of Sighs

by Priscilla Masters

  Simon nodded. ‘And Sam?’

  This was so much easier. ‘He’s great. Really great. Happy with his football and happy with his studies. He’s planning to play for Stoke City hopefully for a few more years and then believe it or not he wants to be a teacher.’

  ‘Wow.’

  It was only polite for her to return the compliment. ‘And Armenia and …?’ She got no further.

  Simon rolled his eyes. ‘Awful as ever,’ he said. ‘They were rude to Hannah the other week. I mean, Hannah is about the best housekeeper in the world. She runs that place like clockwork. I almost lost my temper with Jocasta. She just waltzes in and waltzes out again, leaving a trail of misery behind her. She’s an absolute pain. Where they get it from, Martha, I don’t know. Evie was never like that.’

  Martha bit her lip to stop herself from smiling. She’d always disliked the girls but had never heard Simon speak this forcefully against them. But that wasn’t all. He hadn’t finished.

  ‘After Christabel, poor girl … I couldn’t possibly submit another woman to that.’ His expression was suddenly appraising, his eyes thoughtful. ‘At least no woman except you,’ he said slowly. ‘For some reason the pair of them absolutely adore you.’

  She had to stop herself from shuddering. She didn’t know where he was going with this confidence. All she did know was that she felt extremely uncomfortable. The truth was she’d rather hug a pair of Rottweilers on anabolic steroids.

  But she could hardly share this with Simon so she simply shrugged and stood up. Time to go back to the office. ‘I’d better be going,’ she said. ‘I’m meeting Patrick’s teacher later. I think it’ll be tricky. But I hope it’ll give me some answers.’

  ‘Me too.’ He stood up. ‘I’d better get back to my empire.’ And now he was mocking himself. He kissed her gently on the cheek. It felt like true brotherly affection. She took a few seconds to step back and look hard into his eyes. Simon? That most certain, arrogant person, being self-effacing? Someone who never questioned his judgement even when he got it horribly wrong? He returned her gaze with something like surprise boring back into her soul and then he smiled. The moment was gone. ‘Dear Martha,’ he murmured and escorted her to her car where his mood did an about-turn. He grinned mischievously, touched her shoulder. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘As my mum used to say, “Worse things happen at sea”.’

  Now that was a surprise. Simon had come from humble beginnings, his father abandoning the family when he was small. His mother had been a cleaner. Simon rarely mentioned his roots. She wasn’t even certain whether his mother was still alive. She had certainly never met her.

  ‘Worse things happen at sea,’ she mused. ‘My mum used to say that too,’ she said. ‘Right up until Martin got cancer. I don’t think she’s ever said it since.’

  Simon bowed his head. ‘Ah,’ he said, turned his back on her and headed back into the pub, presumably to pay the bill.

  Martha drove back to her office. She had given up musing over Simon Pendlebury a long time ago. It was a path that led nowhere. Like a maze without a centre or a way out.

  On her return Jericho told her that DS Paul Talith had asked to speak to her so, with trepidation, she picked up the phone and connected.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  DS Talith was awkward, fumbling with his words. She sensed his embarrassment even over the phone line. ‘I know this isn’t your case, Mrs Gunn.’ He was hesitant. ‘I’m hoping DI Randall won’t be on gardening leave for too long.Just until we’ve sorted all this out to everyone’s satisfaction,’ he added quickly. ‘I expect he’ll have a lot to do anyway, organizing the funeral and such.’

  Her ears pricked up. A funeral? That must mean that David Steadman would soon release the body for burial. Or cremation. So he had made up his mind. She needed to speak to him.

  She couldn’t resist prompting the DS. ‘Doctor Sullivan intimated he had unearthed something at Mrs Randall’s post-mortem?’

  Talith’s response was typically stolid. ‘We haven’t heard back from him. Not yet. At least not the full report. We’re still waiting but we’re not really investigating DI Randall. There’s no hint he’s done anything wrong.’ And now she felt a traitor. Talith sounded a hundred per cent certain. There was no doubt in his mind, only in hers.

  Which was almost a relief, but she was still picking up some doubt.

  She couldn’t resist pumping him. ‘It looks like an accident?’

  ‘Well, no. Not as I understand it. Not exactly anyway. I don’t think that’s what Doctor Sullivan was saying.’

  So what then?

  ‘So …?’ She waited for him to fill in the detail.

  But he didn’t. ‘I can’t really say,’ Talith continued even more awkwardly. She sensed he was being selective, deciding what she would want to know and what to hold back – for now. And he was confused, uncertain what to say – and what to leave out.

  With the result that his next words came out in a rush. ‘I’ll let you know when we get the full report if you’d like.’

  ‘Well, thanks for that,’ she said drily. At least, she added silently, Alex is free. Back home, not incarcerated.

  But Talith had another reason for ringing. He pinned her down to her proper role. ‘And the two suicides, Mrs Gunn? Are you any nearer completing your investigation?’

  ‘I’m still gathering evidence,’ she said curtly, and made the decision to keep mum for the moment – or at least until she had spoken to a few more people, one of them Sullivan. But she was getting there. She knew it, inching nearer, and with every move she coloured in a little more of the picture. ‘I think I’m beginning to understand a little more about Patrick Elson. He was victimized.’ For now she left out the photographs, the fact that the boy’s mother had hidden them from the police only to reveal them to her. ‘I have yet to know by whom, Sergeant Talith. But the answer to Gina Marconi’s death is, I sense, a little more involved.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, and seemed to wait for the silence to be filled. It wasn’t.

  It was she who brought the awkward telephone conversation to an end, keeping it formal. ‘Thank you, Sergeant Talith. I appreciate your ringing.’ She decided to take one small step forward. Step out into the open. ‘And thank you for letting me know about DI Randall. I consider him both a colleague and a friend.’

  There was something like relief in Talith’s response. She heard the release of the breath he’d been holding. ‘Yes, of course, Mrs Gunn.’ Followed by, ‘I’ll keep you informed.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Martha sat quietly. She had Alex’s home phone number as well as his mobile and her fingers itched to press the keys. She even picked up her handset at one point and studied it for a while. She had never used his landline, fearing that it would be his unbalanced, unstable wife who would pick up. She had also avoided calling his mobile when she thought he might be at home. She put her own mobile back in her bag with an empty feeling. She was swamped with unexpected sympathy for Erica Randall.

  Friday, 14 April, 2.30 p.m.

  She prepared to face the afternoon, cleared her desk ready for the teacher’s arrival and read through her notes trying to search for clues in Patrick Elson’s case as to who had been victimizing him. Almost certainly someone from school. Hopefully the teacher would have names. Neither Patrick’s mother nor his aunt had come up with anyone.

  Freddie Trimble arrived at four thirty, looking flustered and a touch knackered, a rumpled figure in his early forties, wearing a corduroy jacket and grey trousers, scruffy, scuffed shoes, bags under his eyes, messy brown hair and a harassed expression. Very different from her lunch date, she reflected as she greeted him. Neither was he exactly the Dickensian character she had been imagining – much more contemporary. His expression was far too gentle and tired to ever wield a schoolmaster’s cane. He managed half a grin. ‘It’s been a hell of a day,’ he said frankly. ‘Bloody twelve-year-olds, think they know everything. Such smart-arses.’ Then his grin broadened. ‘Sorry,’ he said,
‘don’t mind me but teaching geography to year eight – they think they understand the world because they’ve been skiing in France and flopped on the beach in the Philippines, all inclusive. They think it’s all them and us, Muslims and the rest. See everything through holiday eyes. Swaggering around with dollars and euros in their pockets. It’s hard, you know, Mrs Gunn, getting them to recognize the world, its cultures and religions or lack of them, let alone respect it and put it all into perspective. Particularly when their parents read the Daily Mail.’ He grinned to rob the words of any real antipathy but there was an underlying frustration.

  She was amused at his semi-rant but it felt authentic and heartfelt. So often when faced with a coroner people acted abnormally. Put on an act of fake sympathy, empathy or understanding. This, she felt, was the true Freddie Trimble – no holds barred. And she liked him. To the right children he would be a good teacher. But sometimes the measure of a really good teacher is to reach those children who were not initially the ‘right’ kind, the children who disengaged themselves from teachers, authority, education. Maybe with these children his knowledge, likeability and charm would transform them.

  The teacher’s grey eyes twinkled as though he had read her judgement. ‘It must seem awful my having a moan when I’m here to talk about poor Patrick.’ His face clouded and he looked straight at Martha. ‘He was a nice kid. Bright too. Very bright.’ He was frowning. ‘I’ve had nightmares about it, you know. Seeing him fall, his friends peering over the bridge, watching him jump, seeing him land. Hearing him land.’

  ‘Which friends?’ she asked quickly. ‘The witnesses claimed that he was alone when he jumped. No one was there to peer over the bridge.’

  Trimble looked confused. ‘You know dreams,’ he said noncommittally. ‘They fill in bits.’

  Martha leaned in. It was exactly these ‘bits’ that she wanted. Not what had actually happened. She knew that only too well from the numerous witness statements. She wanted to know what Trimble, with his classroom knowledge, could colour in.

  She repeated her question. ‘Which friends?’

  Trimble met her eyes. ‘What exactly are you …?’ The words faded. His eyes had a shine in them and he half closed them as though to see the dream again. ‘Paul Jamieson, Saul Matthews. Nice kids,’ he said stiffly. ‘His mates. And a couple who definitely weren’t his friends, Warren and Sean.’

  Martha picked up on it immediately. ‘Warren and Sean?’

  ‘Pair of junior thugs.’

  Martha mentally tucked them away. She would return to the junior thugs later. For now she wanted to explore other dimensions. ‘But they weren’t really there, were they?’ Martha prompted gently. ‘The boys were all reported as being at school that day. Except Patrick.’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’ Trimble looked embarrassed. ‘Just a dream, Mrs Gunn. You know?’ There was something boyish, hopeful in his face, to which she responded with an encouraging smile.

  He continued. ‘We’ve had counsellors in the school but I can’t say they’ve achieved much. His classmates have been quite affected.’ His face twisted.

  ‘Ah,’ Martha responded, picking up on it. ‘His classmates. He was a popular lad?’

  Freddie Trimble frowned. ‘I wouldn’t say popular,’ he said tentatively. ‘He had his mates, a tight little circle, but he wasn’t one of those lads whom I’d describe as generally popular. He was too quiet for that. Contained.’ He lifted his eyebrows. ‘You know?’

  She did.

  ‘And too intelligent,’ he added.

  ‘Tell me more about him, Mr Trimble,’ she prompted. What she really wanted to say was this: Make me see him through your eyes.

  Freddie Trimble leaned back in his chair, patently more relaxed now. Martha offered him tea or coffee and he accepted decaffeinated tea. When Jericho had obliged, he took a sip, half closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose before fixing her with a very direct stare. ‘I don’t know how much you know about school life these days,’ he said.

  ‘My twins are almost twenty,’ she filled in. ‘Year eight was a long time ago for them – and for me. Start from scratch, Mr Trimble.’

  He took a larger slurp of tea and set his cup down on the small table between them. ‘Kids these days,’ he said. ‘Well, kids have always been cruel to anyone who doesn’t quite fit in.’ He was thoughtful for a moment. ‘In that way I don’t suppose things are any different from what they’ve always been.’ She nodded and he continued. ‘It’s just their tools that are different.’

  ‘Ah.’

  He met her eyes. ‘Facebook, the internet, mobile phones, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat.’ He smiled. ‘In days gone by it might have been a sling, throwing stones, openly mocking someone. These days it’s so much more subtle and far reaching. More difficult to prove – less physical, more mental. If you’re an outsider it can be cruel and public. Patrick was quiet and self-contained, sensitive and intelligent. There’s a couple of kids in the school who probably belong in a young offenders’ centre.’

  Ah, she thought, I knew we would return to them. Warren and Sean.

  He gave a rueful snort. ‘But if they ended up there, their very vocal parents would accuse people of discrimination, of prejudice, of picking on them. That’s the way things are these days.’ He paused, still thoughtful. Martha guessed he was wondering how much to tell her. How much she needed to know. Whether he could trust her.

  He made his decision, dived back in. ‘He was small for his age. I mean, at year eight some of the kids – well, they’re big and quite meaty if you know what I mean. Pat – he was skinny. He could run fast.’

  Not fast enough.

  ‘He loved space and the planets and adored Professor Brian Cox. He’d bring his name or something about space into the conversation whenever he could. Cox and Tim Peake were his heroes. He was going to be an astro-physicist or a spaceman. But that meant …’ His speech slowed to a dawdle.

  ‘Ridicule?’

  ‘Other kids – I mean, some other kids; not all, to be fair – they took the piss out of him, called him a geek. It was the class bullies, Warren and Sean. They’re brothers – only ten months between them. They’re in the same school year. It makes them close. A bit united and very aggressive. It doesn’t help that their dad’s in prison. It makes them even more defensive. Labelled as trouble.’

  Martha sat up. ‘Their surname?’

  ‘Silver,’ the teacher said, unaware that he had just dropped a brick. Martha breathed out slowly, as though in a yoga class. So there was the connection. Just a thin thread at the moment. Trouble was if Silver was in prison, on remand, he couldn’t have got at Gina. But … She forced herself back to the teacher’s words.

  ‘About three weeks ago they chucked his shoes over a telegraph wire.’ He looked almost apologetic. ‘It’s nothing really. That sort of thing happens all the time. You’ll never stamp it out but Patrick’s were Nike. They were expensive and probably cost his mum money she could ill afford. Amanda’s a nice woman. I really respect her. She’d done a good job bringing him up alone. Patrick was well behaved and polite but she couldn’t be everything to him. It doesn’t work like that.’

  She inched closer. ‘After the shoe-throwing incident?’

  ‘He became very quiet. He’d never been pushy or noisy but he became almost withdrawn. Something happened round about then. Not the shoes. That was just the start of things. Something else. He became quieter, stopped talking about his ambition. Damn.’ He punched his left palm with his right fist. ‘I should have picked up on it.’

  ‘His mother didn’t,’ Martha put in gently.

  Trimble seemed not to have heard her. ‘He was almost ashamed.’ Freddie was frowning now. He drank his tea abstractedly, looking into the distance. ‘Pat buried things very deep, you know. If he could have got to the right university to study the right subjects with the right friends to back him up and encourage him, he would have shone. He had a head full of knowledge and the sense to sift through it.
He might well have realized his ambition, been an astro-physicist or a cosmologist or something. But …’

  ‘That last day,’ she prompted.

  ‘Well, he didn’t come to school.’ It was the first sign of anger. Of irritation – with her. Trimble could be sparky, she realized.

  ‘Was that the only day he didn’t attend school?’

  The teacher shook his head. ‘No. He was away for two days in the previous week. I checked. I think his mum sent a note in saying he had a cold or something.’

  Amanda Elson hadn’t mentioned this.

  ‘Tell me something. When you heard …’

  The dark eyes flew up to her face. ‘I wasn’t surprised,’ he said. ‘It’s as though I knew something was brewing. But not that. Not that, or I would have stopped it.’

  ‘You think you could have stopped it?’

  ‘I’d tried to speak to him on the previous Thursday but he didn’t want to know, not really. But …’ His eyes met hers fearlessly. ‘I could never have anticipated anything like that. Not suicide. If I had I would have done absolutely anything to have stopped it.’ He paused. ‘With most suicides, surely it’s just a phase you have to get through and come out the other side.’

  She nodded. That was one way of looking at it.

  ‘He was a nice boy. It shouldn’t have happened.’ He looked at her, pain clouding his eyes. ‘You know the worst thing about a suicide?’

  She already knew what he was going to say. Because she’d heard it all before – the guilt, the feeling that you could, should, have prevented it.