by M. J. Trow
The three remaining sat listening to her footsteps receding up the stairs. Hampshire was the first to speak.
‘She doesn’t mean it,’ he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘She won't go. I notice you didn’t check with the wife,’ he said to Hall. ‘See if it’s all right for her to come back with you. You know she won't go.’
Jacquie waited for a moment to see if he would break down, would realise that his life was, to all intents and purposes, over. But no; the man’s hubris seemed to be boundless. ‘We will be taking a formal statement later, Mr Hampshire, if you could call into the station at your earliest convenience, but for now, could you shed any light on Mrs Morley’s other clients?’
‘I wasn’t a client!’ For the first time, he looked uncomfortable. ‘I was just being a good neighbour.’
Hall leaned forward. ‘Colin,’ he said, quietly. ‘Perhaps this isn’t the time to say this, but I’ve never liked you. You’ve never treated Hetty right, not from the start. But it looks as if that is all over now, so now that’s out of the way, I can give you a bit of advice. You’re not the only policeman in this room and by a good margin you’re certainly not the best policeman in this room. So don’t give me any more crap. You were a client of Louise Morley’s. Like all the others, you paid for what she dished out. I can't say I condone it for any of them, but for you, I haven’t enough words to show my contempt. You treated my sister as less than nothing and now we want the truth out of you. And don’t think I will hesitate to give your name to the prosecution when all this comes to trial. Believe me, you’re going to be up front and centre. So now, Colin, would you like to listen to my colleague here and answer what she asks you.’ He turned to Jacquie and nodded politely. ‘I beg your pardon, Detective Inspector Carpenter-Maxwell. I interrupted. Please, go on.’
Jacquie raised her pen and Hampshire shrugged. ‘All right. I did pay Louise for sex. And I wasn’t the only one. I never saw anyone else, though. She didn’t ... there was usually only one or two a day booked in.’
‘Booked in?’ Jacquie was interested. ‘Did she keep a book, then? A physical book?’
‘It sounds a bit of a cliché,’ the ex-copper said, ‘but she had a little book in her bag. She used to tick me off when I paid.’ He spread his hands. ‘I didn’t mean to do it. I went round there one day, after I’d retired, to see if she needed any jobs doing.’
‘So, you help out in the street in general, do you?’ Jacquie asked, with a straight face.
‘What does that mean?’ Hampshire’s aggression was growing.
‘You help other people in the street. Like, the person on the other side of you here, the person across the road?’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I just helped Louise with a few jobs. Well, that husband of hers is rubbish, isn’t he?’
Jacquie and Hall showed no response and their silence forced him to carry on.
‘So, one day, she said that she ought to repay me, for the little jobs I’d done, you know. So ...’
‘I don’t think we need details,’ Hall said. He had heard his sister come back down the stairs and knew she was standing, listening, in the hall. She needed to hear it, but not every last bump and grind. Hampshire was, naturally, unaware that his wife was in earshot and was, as Maxwell could have told them, as eager to share as any teenager after their first time.
Hampshire’s face fell. He had longed to tell someone about it for so long. All that shouting, screaming, compliments; it all counted for nothing if no one else knew. But he knew a brick wall when he met it, and settled for a shortened version. ‘So, a long story short, she thought I was bloody marvellous.’ He would get that in, if nothing else. ‘So, the next day, I went back. I thought she would want some more, you know. She seemed to enjoy it so much ...’ As he relived the humiliating second visit, his face fell and he skimped the detail. ‘There was someone else there. The doors were locked. I could hear ... well, anyway, I went back later, had it out with her and then she told me. If I wanted to ... do it again, it would cost. So,’ he shrugged, ‘that’s what I did.’
‘And the social events?’
‘I paid for those too. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t think how Hetty would feel.’
‘No. Clearly not,’ Jacquie said, closing her notebook. ‘Oh, by the way, Mr Hampshire. Where were you on Monday night?’
‘A farewell do at the golf club.’
‘And yet you didn’t take Mrs Morley.’
He looked shocked. ‘God, no,’ he said. ‘I only took her to formal do’s. No need spending money just for a farewell do.’
‘Thank you. Please come down to the station to give a formal statement as soon as possible,’ Hall said. Then, to the man’s face and with a world of meaning. ‘Goodbye.’
The drive back to the station was not the easiest one that Jacquie had ever endured. The silence in the car was like treacle, Louise Morley and her elderly inamorata the rutting elephants in the room. She was glad to deliver the woman to the ministrations of her sister-in-law and get back to the haven of her office. Her voicemail light was blinking, her mobile had missed calls to further order, but for now, she just needed a quiet think and to check on Henry. The calls could wait.
Chapter Sixteen
T
he staff room was empty now, but it retained the sour atmosphere which had characterised the meeting. Fiona Braymarr had been nettled by the feedback session the day before. Complaints? She’d give them complaints. And that lily-livered idiot MacBride. He seemed to think it was in his power to ditch her when he wanted to; as if it was his choice. She had persuaded herself that the reason she had spent the night alone was because she wanted to – she would have lain down on hot coals rather than admit to anyone how long she had spent at the window, watching. But not just for MacBride. She was also watching for the lurking dread that never quite left her, the dread that she knew was back on her trail. There had been searches, internet searches. There had been calls. He was near. She could almost smell him and if she therefore gave the staff of Leighford High School short shrift, it wasn’t just because they had rediscovered the power of the pack – it was because Fiona Braymarr, almost unbelievably, was scared shitless.
In his office, which had once been Bernard Ryan’s office, whose office now was a desk in the corner of Janet Taylor’s office, James Diamond sat down and reached in his pocket for his Afternoon Pill. His GP had been quite adamant that they would do no good unless he kept to a strict timetable and so he had invested in a little vibrating pill-keeper and he kept it in his breast pocket at all times. The pill was only small, it needed no water or effort to swallow, but it took the edge off and at the moment, James Diamond needed the edge taking off. But this afternoon, he could have done without his little pill. Because, this afternoon, he had seen Fiona Braymarr’s carapace crack. Just a tiny bit. Soon, he thought, as he let his head roll back onto the back of his chair, which had once been Bernard Ryan’s chair, soon, he would have his school back ...
In his office, which had always been his office, since Adam had been in the Militia, Maxwell had stopped pacing. He had moved the phone nearer to his elbow and had been reduced to marking some Year Eight books; it wasn’t improving his temper to read how King John had signed the Magna Carta for the umpteenth time, but it was saving him from going mad. He lifted the receiver on average about every thirty seconds. Sometimes, he even dialled 9 for an outside line – but then, he put the phone down. If he had left a message for his wife and she hadn’t replied to it, it was for a reason. Another call wouldn’t help. He turned to another exercise book and his eyes popped. As if to restore his faith in human nature, this delightful child had written that King John had sealed Magna Carta. Joy! Sadly, on the next page the information imparted was that Diamond was a wanker. Still, you can't have everything, and he gave both sentences a big red tick of approval.
It had been no good. After he had watched the previous afternoon, it had nagged at him. The look of fear and distress on her face had ha
unted him and he hadn’t slept. If it wasn’t the car salesman who was scaring her, who was it? Somebody at that bloody school, that was it, for sure. She took on too much; she put on a front that only he knew was false. She had to go in strong, to weed out the bad seed. That was something he had taught her. He had had to do it sometimes with ... well, the police who had torn her from him had called it something he was uncomfortable with. He called it love. Tough love. And that was what she used when she helped to save these morons. Tough love.
He shrank into the hedge as they walked past, the gaggle of teachers, walking to their cars. It was wet under the lee of the budding hawthorn, but if he had been standing in the middle of the path waving a flag, they would never have noticed him. They were all too wrapped up in their own little worlds. He didn’t listen to their stupid prattle as they walked past. But one name did stand out as they went. Maxwell. Maxwell would sort her out. Maxwell would see the bitch got her just desserts. Maxwell would get her out, just you see.
He pulled his cap down low over his eyes and stared at the school building. Perhaps it was time he had a word with Mr Maxwell.
Fiona Braymarr was not a woman who stayed down for long. In her office, which had once been James Diamond’s office, she sat behind her immaculately clear desk and tapped impatiently on the surface with a perfect fingernail. It was clearly impossible to sack the entire rabble that made up the remaining staff. She had a stack of resignation letters in a file on a shelf behind her and so by the time September arrived, there wouldn’t be many of them left, anyway. She had found in her previous appointments that this happened. When the going got tough, it wasn’t the tough who got going, but the whinging, weak ones who couldn’t take the heat. She would leave – as leave she would, in just a few terms’ time – a school that was stronger and more ready to take on the challenges ahead. If most of the staff were new; if some of them, recruited from the internet, barely spoke the language; if the infrastructure was a tottering shadow of its former self, Fiona Braymarr didn’t care. She had moved on and changed her names so often, she had made it her business not to care; like a snake that sheds its skin, so she could grow a little and move on. And perhaps, one day, she could leave the dread with the sloughed shreds of her life and she could be normal. Until then, though, she had been balked of her prey and was casting around for something to maul. Who could it be today? Her eyes lit up and, in the face of sense and experience, she made up her mind.
Maxwell.
Maxwell looked at the clock and saw to his surprise and slight consternation that it was gone five. This would certainly complicate the issue. With the message he had left in mind, Jacquie wouldn’t be trying to get him at school any more. And with his mobile safely on the mantelpiece at home, it was not a lot of use ringing him on that, as she would know perfectly well. The weather wasn’t getting any more pleasant either, so, one way and another, he might as well get, literally, on his bike. He put his coat on and looked around for his scarf. He knew he had had it that morning, but it seemed to have become separated from the rest of his going-home togs. He knelt on the seat of his chair and bent over the back – it wasn’t unknown for it to get itself down between there and the wall. It wasn’t there; so, scarfless, he straightened up and shoved himself upright, turning as he did so.
He wasn’t quite sure why this should be, but people seemed to be making a bit of a thing about creeping up on him these days. First Thingee One and now Fiona Braymarr, standing in the doorway, looking not unlike Tilda Swinton in Constantine, but not so angelic. He decided to be curt, but civil. At this kind of time on a Friday, he was entitled to be about his own business.
‘Mrs Braymarr,’ he said, with a nod. ‘I can’t stay, I’m afraid. Late already. May we reschedule for Monday?’
She closed the door behind her and he felt the temperature drop. Who says Hell is hot? ‘No, we can't. I noticed you were not at the mandatory meeting today.’
All right. If this was to be the showdown, so be it. Maxwell shifted his metaphorical six-shooters a fraction of an inch, he flexed his trigger finger and adjusted his stance. He really was the man who shot Liberty Valance. And Fiona Braymarr ought to have known that. He was ready. ‘I’m not sure you have noticed that in fact I have attended none of the mandatory meetings this week,’ he said, evenly.
‘I was informed you were needed elsewhere on Tuesday,’ she said. ‘I am not an unreasonable woman, I hope.’
We all hoped that, he thought, and where did that get us?
‘But today’s meeting was ... difficult. I have done this job for quite a while, Mr Maxwell. I do know what I am doing. The staff here seem to think otherwise.’
‘I think we would all feel better if we could find out how well your previous victims ... sorry, that slipped out ... your previous projects were faring now. But as you may be aware, you are not on Google.’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve never looked, actually.’ She smiled, an unexpectedly sweet one. ‘Do you Google yourself, Mr Maxwell?’
‘Touché. I can't say that I do. But you – you’re the Google generation, Mrs Braymarr. I would have thought it was meat and drink to you. How do you get work, apart from anything else? Do you apply?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course not. I am part of a team of ... I hesitate to call us Superheads, that is just a term the press uses, but we are rather special, if I say so myself. We troubleshoot. We fix.’
‘You ruin.’
‘I think that’s taking it rather far. I can't just go into a school and leave it as it is. What would be the point?’
Maxwell frowned at her. She seemed to be an intelligent woman, but why was so little she said sense? This was going to be a long haul and meanwhile, no one knew where he was and he hadn’t helped Mrs B’s sister’s grandson a jot. He shrugged off his coat and walked round the row of chairs to take his seat at one end. It was, after all, only a few short weeks ago since he had semi-crushed a headmaster and with no nursing help on the premises these days, it paid to be cautious. He patted the back of the next seat but one. ‘Let’s sit, Mrs Braymarr, shall we? I have a feeling this may be the last conversation we have except in the presence of my union representative, so we may as well be comfy.’
She stood, irresolute. ‘I don’t want to make this too chummy, Mr Maxwell ...’
‘Believe me, Mrs Braymarr. Chummy is not on the cards. I just think we could have a nicer and more productive exit interview, if this is what this proves to be, without me getting cramp in one leg. Come on. Sit.’ He patted the chair again.
Slowly, like a cobra trying to outwit a mongoose, she circled the chairs, approaching it from the far end. She sat, gingerly, checking the seat cushion briefly before she did so. Perhaps she too expected to find a prone James Diamond lying there. With just under half an hour to go before the sun went down, it wasn’t exactly bright over by the window, and with the lashing rain it changed from moment to moment, but it was better than standing facing each other under the unforgiving glare of a fluorescent tube. He leaned back a little; she clearly liked her space and if he were to be asked, he didn’t want to be too close to her, either.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Who goes first?’
‘It depends what we want to find out, Mr Maxwell, don’t you think?’
He nodded slowly. This woman was not pleasant, but she wasn’t stupid. She was trying to diagnose the sickness of the school by taking his temperature; he could only hope she intended to stick the thermometer in his mouth, not up his bum. ‘I want to find out how much more damage you intend to do, Mrs Braymarr. It’s as simple as that.’
‘It isn’t damage, as I see it, Mr Maxwell.’ Was it a trick of the light or did she look suddenly vulnerable. ‘I look at schools before I go in, you know. I don’t just lay about me at random. There is a bottom line financially and I must meet my targets.’
‘But these are people,’ Maxwell said. ‘Not just numbers. If you came and just waited a term or so; get to know us.’
She leaned forward
and then hutched a seat nearer. ‘Mr Maxwell,’ she said. ‘I’m not made of stone. If I got to know you all, I wouldn’t do my job as well. I would get to like some of you. I would get to dislike some of you. And then I wouldn’t make the proper choices.’
He hutched one seat further away. He couldn’t remember now whether he was on the last seat or the one before last; fortunately for his dignity, it proved to be the one before last. ‘In most people’s opinion, Mrs Braymarr, you made the improper choice when you decided to come to Leighford High School.’
She had expected this interview to be easier than this. Although she had already discovered that Maxwell was like a terrier at a rathole when he was on the case, she had still expected that she could persuade him that she was one of the good guys after all. She needed to ramp it up a notch. ‘I can see your point, Max,’ she said. She slid the nickname in as smooth as silk. ‘I may have perhaps been a little draconian, but this school was not going to be a paying proposition, without pruning staff. And without Leighford High, none of the other schools in the town would have been offered Academy status.’
He shrugged.
‘To their detriment, I feel. So, I had to make this work. For the good of the children.’
At last! She had actually said it and he could let rip. In full Helen Lovejoy mode, he tore his hair and wailed ‘Won't somebody think of the children?’
It made her jump. She hadn’t seen Mad Max in all his glory before and his Helen Lovejoy was something of a tour de force. ‘What?’
‘I assume you don’t watch The Simpsons.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘What?’
‘Thought not. Anyhoo, it matters not that you have no idea what I am talking about. The point is, the children are the last ones you care about. Earlier today, I managed to calm down, with extreme difficulty, the quietest and nicest boy in this school, who was distraught about not only his own but his peers’ chances of getting any exam results worthy of the name.’
