Dead Unlucky

by Andrew Derham

  ‘Did Nicola resent her lack of popularity?’

  ‘Didn’t give a hoot. She knew why she was studying at Highdean, and she didn’t allow the lesser beings to get under her skin and distract her from her goal, although she would never have put it like that herself, she didn’t possess such conceit.’

  ‘Did she have any special friends?’

  ‘Hiba Massaoud. She was her roommate and the person whose company she really enjoyed. They were the greatest of friends, and such a lovely pair of girls. It was Hiba who found Nicola that morning.’ The maths teacher gazed down at her lap for a moment and when her eyes returned to Hart’s he could see they were brimming over with anguish. ‘Can you imagine being seventeen years old, walking into the bathroom, and seeing your best friend hanging like that? Hiba is still so enormously upset.’

  Hart nodded his understanding. ‘And how did other people react to Nicola’s death?’

  ‘As you may imagine, many were terribly distressed, as I certainly was myself.’ Mrs Morris paused to collect her thoughts before continuing. ‘But it’s strange, and somewhat shameful I believe, that the school as an institution just carried on as normal. There was no memorial service for Nicola, not even an assembly like the one we had this morning. It just wasn’t the done thing to talk about her, or even to mention her.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ asked Hart.

  ‘In my view, it was thought that Nicola had let the side down. Suicide is not the way to get yourself out of a fix. You face up to life, like the school teaches you to do, you don’t just give up like a weakling. We have the children of overseas diplomats and the local rich and mighty attending Highdean, and such behaviour would never do. And a working-class girl like Nicola embarrassing the school in that fashion! I thought it unkind the way we reacted, and I said so, but Mrs Hargreaves was adamant. The issue was unsettling for the school and we should move on as quickly as possible, that was her view. It will be different for Sebastian, of course. Plenty of weeping and gnashing of teeth for him, no doubt.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Morris. You’ve been very helpful.’

  ‘Have I, Chief Inspector? I don’t think so. I’ve told you what little I know, but it’s nothing that will help you find out who murdered Sebastian Emmer. And let me tell you one more thing before I return to my classroom and continue trying to fool young people into believing that they will never be able to take their rightful places in society without possessing a rigorous understanding of the intricacies of geometric progressions.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Nicola Brown and Sebastian Emmer loathed each other. There was no interaction between them whatsoever, unless it was belligerence on Sebastian’s part, and I cannot for one moment imagine a connection between their deaths. I am not an English teacher, Chief Inspector, and so I shall have to content myself with a cliche, but the two words that spring to my mind are chalk and cheese.’

  9

  ‘You were right, Irene,’ remarked Sophie Rand with a sigh as she sat down next to Mrs Morris in the staffroom. ‘As usual. That assembly couldn’t have been about anything worse. But what did Sophie do? Miss Blabbermouth spouted off and made fun of it to everyone who was in earshot.’

  ‘Don’t feel bad about it, my dear, you couldn’t have guessed what the assembly was going to be about. You were right, too; no announcement was made when poor Nicola died, so you couldn’t have foreseen that the news today would be so tragic.’ She gave a slight smile, not to patronize her colleague, but to try and lighten the atmosphere. ‘A lecture about the sins inherent in the chewing of gum was a far more likely topic for the assembly.’

  ‘Thanks, Irene.’ Sophie knew that Mrs Morris had seen it coming, but she was older. And certainly wiser. And definitely kind, handing Sophie an excuse for her blundering tactlessness. ‘Do you think they’ll look into all that business with Nikki again?’

  ‘I don’t see why they would. It seems to be a different group of police officers looking into Sebastian’s death, so I suppose they’ll want a summary of what happened, and I gave them that this morning. But I can’t see why they would dwell on it.’

  ‘She was a nice girl.’

  ‘Lovely,’ agreed Mrs Morris simply. But her face was pained again, and she desperately wished for a change of subject.

  ‘She wasn’t much cop at sport, to be truthful, but she always tried hard. I respected her for that.’

  ‘Did you know Sebastian well?’

  Sophie shrugged her shoulders. ‘Not very. There was no reason to, really; I don’t have a lot of contact with the boys. Occasionally the kids do mixed sport, of course, but he was more interested in the boys’ games. And he didn’t sleep in the girls’ dorms,’ she noted, forcing a smile.

  Mrs Morris wouldn’t have been surprised if Sophie’s weak joke wasn’t incorrect on occasions, but she didn’t relish the notion. ‘I’d best be off. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t pause in its spinning just to allow us time to grieve,’ she finished, patting Sophie’s shoulder as she stood up.

  Sophie Rand looked around at her chattering colleagues, their eager and animated faces asking how such a terrible thing could have happened, and immediately volunteering their own baseless answers. Within a few seconds, Simon Chandler had sat down beside her.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable,’ he confirmed, shaking his beige hair. ‘Not just his death, but murder as well.’

  ‘Awful,’ agreed Sophie, beginning to feel exhausted.

  Chandler sought out the hand resting on her lap. ‘I know he was special to you. I mean, I know he had been more than a friend at one time. What I’m trying to say is –’

  ‘Simon, that was over.’

  ‘I just wanted you to know that I’m here for you,’ he said, looking into eyes that were elsewhere.

  ‘Thanks.’ Sophie unhooked their hands and stood up. ‘I’d best get cracking. Things to do.’

  *****

  ‘Well, she’s nobody’s fool,’ volunteered Redpath after Mrs Morris had returned to her classroom following her interview. ‘I wish my maths teacher had been that bright.’

  ‘And then you might have been able to add up,’ said Hart, not wishing his needless joke to be unkind, but sounding mean just the same.

  Redpath carried on regardless. ‘Sir, we’re investigating the murder of the lad, right?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So why did you grill the woman about the girl’s suicide? I know it was worth a mention, but you seemed more interested in the girl than the dead boy.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I grilled her, Darren; I reckon she can look after herself. But I think we should try and pick up a little background about the school, don’t you? Knowing a bit about how it ticks just might throw up something unexpected. But, perhaps you’re right,’ he continued. ‘We’ll lay off the subject of the suicide in future. And if anyone else brings it up, steer them right away from it, I don’t want it distracting us. The topic’s closed.’

  ‘So, it’s lunch now is it, Sir?’ came a hopeful enquiry. Redpath’s vacant stomach was telling him that the memory of its early breakfast was fading fast.

  Before the boss could reply, the classroom door opened without a knock and in walked a pinstriped streak of a man, shiny black shoes on his feet and sapphire-blue silk tie knotted over a starched white shirt. He was accompanied by a pimply youth, almost as tall, who strove to impart the sense of bearing of his father but only succeeded in appearing like an obedient puppy.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Hart, feeling that he didn’t owe this pair the sort of manners reserved for polite folk.

  ‘I’m Henry Grove. And this is my son, Timothy.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And Timothy was Sebastian’s best friend. He didn’t want to come to school today but I heard the police were here and so I said he should get any interview over with. I’ll be with him while you speak to him as he’s only seventeen years old. I’m a barrister by profession and also a
member of the school’s governing body.’ So there.

  Hart would have loved to have slung the pair of them out on their ears, gone for lunch and made them wait until he got back. But if they had gone home, he would have had to chase them around, and they could be living anywhere. The proverb about cutting off noses to spite faces flitted into his head.

  There was no need to invite them to sit down, it was too late.

  ‘I’m Chief Inspector Hart and this is Sergeant Redpath.’

  ‘Can I see your card?’ asked the pimples.

  This was a request that Hart was not able to refuse. It was quite reasonable for a member of the public to wish to be certain that the person to whom they are spilling out their secrets is indeed a police officer and not just some nutcase who has walked in off the street. And this young man was surely being most prudent, wiser than his years suggested, by ensuring that these two were not a pair of rogues who had insinuated themselves into the school for some nefarious purpose. However, it was with a foreboding distaste that Hart produced his identification.

  ‘Harold. That’s a nice name.’

  That’s my boy, the pinstripes seemed to say without actually making a sound, impressively tall and lean in their straight-backed chair. Hart had watched versions of this domestic double-act countless times before: the kid had been told to stand up for himself, not allow himself to be pushed around, and his young brain had translated the advice as a mandate to be bloody rude.

  ‘So, Timothy, how long had you known Sebastian?’

  ‘Ages.’

  ‘I’m sorry that he died. This must be very hard for you.’

  There was a slight shrug of the shoulders, nothing more. Nothing’s too hard for me, because I’m hard, was its message.

  ‘So how long exactly?’

  ‘We came here together in Year 7.’ His slouch displayed disinterest and disdain as he looked down at his fingernails resting in his lap.

  ‘So that would be six years? A tad more?’

  There was a faint smile of condescension from the pimples and a touch of feigned surprise. Clever little policeman. It can do sums. I bet it could even learn to wipe its own nose if it tried hard. ‘Well, yeah, Harold. I’m in Year 13 and if you take off seven from thirteen you get six.’

  ‘And you were his best friend?’

  ‘I’ve already told you that, Mr Hart,’ volunteered the pinstripes, being unpleasant through habit rather than the necessity of aiding an apprentice who was already managing to achieve an identical tenor with great skill by himself.

  ‘Yes, but it’s not you that’s being interviewed, Mr Grove. It’s your son. Were you?’

  ‘Yeah, we hung around together. Seb and I were mates. I was his best friend, sure.’ The pimples were clearly proud of that state of affairs.

  ‘So you knew him for several years and you hung around together, did things together, went out together?’

  ‘Get on with it, Mr Hart. Timmy’s been through all that. I don’t have all day.’

  ‘You’re welcome to leave at any time, Mr Grove.’ Hart nailed the man’s eyes with his own. ‘Answer the questions, Timothy.’

  ‘Yeah. No problem. Seb was a great bloke.’

  ‘Would you say you went pretty much everywhere together? Liked the same things, visited the same pubs?’ And, forestalling the interjection of the father, ‘I’m not worried about you having the odd beer at seventeen. This is a murder enquiry, not some campaign to turn every teenager in town into a stuck-up little goody-goody.’

  ‘I’ve told you more than once, me and Seb were like this,’ and the pimples crooked their little fingers and locked them together. ‘With respect,’ which, of course, meant something rather different, ‘you’re being a little slow on the uptake here, Harold.’

  Hart leaned his forearms on the desk which separated him from his unheralded visitors and arched his back as he bent forward. ‘Then you, his mucker, his best mate, his confidant, the lad with whom he spent his spare time, you would be in the best position of anybody in the whole world to help me with a little matter that I find troublesome.’

  ‘I might.’ If I want to help, said the indifferent confidence of the pimples.

  Hart was taking a bit of a risk, like crawling around in a black cellar full of mousetraps to feel for a torch. He glanced at the pinstripes; the snap would be loud and painful if the move turned out to be wrong. ‘Tell me where Sebastian Emmer got his cocaine from.’

  The pimples sat bolt upright, like an iron rod had just been shoved up their backside, and Hart was bathed by a wave of relief.

  The pinstripes spat out their indignation. ‘How dare you insinuate that –’

  ‘Shut up, Mr Grove,’ said Hart, nailing his eyes again. ‘Well, Timothy?’

  The boy recovered a little, but the swagger had disappeared for good. ‘I didn’t know he took anything like that,’ he said, his eyes looking anywhere but into Hart’s.

  ‘Well, I think you did, Timothy. After all, you and your father agree that you knew him better than anybody; you were his best friend. That’s something you’ve both been very keen to make clear. And taking a Class A drug is an extremely serious offence, even when the courts take the young age of the offender into account.’

  The pinstripes tried to help out, but their arrogance had accompanied their son’s into the ether. ‘Mr Hart, even if Sebastian had taken such a substance, that would not reflect upon my son.’

  ‘No. No, it wouldn’t. Unless, like his best friend, his paramount pal, he took it himself, of course. That’s the sort of thing a person could end up in serious bother for, even if he was only seventeen,’ concluded Hart, in case his point hadn’t jabbed home far enough.

  ‘No way.’ And the boy’s face turned red.

  ‘You see, Mr Grove, Timothy,’ instructed Hart, as his eyes visited their own in turn. ‘These scientists nowadays are very clever. They can detect cocaine in human hair for three months after it’s been imbibed. Three months! So, I could snip off one of your curly locks from anywhere on your body, up top or down below, it makes no difference, and it would tell us all whether or not you’re a cokehead. No, Timmy, I’m not worried about you having a lager in your local, but if I thought you snorted cocaine, then I could take an interest. I won’t yet, but I could.’ Hart paused to give time for his threat to soak in. ‘So tell me what you know about Sebastian’s fondness for cocaine.’

  10

  ‘Harry, I can’t believe it!’ Even about you, Chief Superintendent Rodgers may as well have continued as they sat in the Chief’s office after Hart had returned from Highdean School. ‘You’ve been on this case less than twenty-four hours and I’ve had three complaints already. Three! Three, mark you!’

  ‘How many was that again, Sir?’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody sarcastic, Harry. I am not a happy man and you shouldn’t be either. If you don’t get people on your side in a situation like this, it can generate the sort of bad publicity which will undermine the whole case.’

  Bad publicity, pondered Hart, prudently deciding not to express his thoughts aloud. Yes, that would be a tragedy all right. A real shocker.

  ‘This is a schoolboy that’s been killed for goodness’ sake, and the public expect sensitivity and compassion from the force, not some sheriff riding into town and shooting them all to pieces.’

  ‘So whose noses have I got up then, Sir?’

  ‘To start with, there’s Clive Emmer. He suggested that you were tactless and you didn’t seem to know anything about how his son had died.’

  ‘Clive Emmer didn’t like me and he didn’t like the other officer who went round to his house, and she’s as offensive as Father Christmas. He wouldn’t have had the time of day for Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa or even Jesus Christ himself if they had gone to his place to break the news. I’m sorry for him, his lad’s just been killed and so I’ll cut him plenty of slack. But on the first charge, I’m not guilty.’

  Rodgers ignored Hart’s sarky tone this time. He wa
s saving himself, building up to the big one.

  ‘And then there’s Mrs Hargreaves. She described you as a rude man.’

  Hart interrupted. ‘With respect, Sir, no she didn’t.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She didn’t, Sir. I’d be pretty sure she described me as a rude little man. That’s how I’m often labelled by the many people who I’ve given the hump to that are taller than me. They never leave out that all-important adjective.’

  Rodgers ignored Hart again, principally because he was right. ‘You barged in to her office, accused her of withholding information, information which was absolutely irrelevant to the case you were investigating, mark you, and you were simply discourteous to the poor woman. She wants another officer to lead the enquiry on her school premises, preferably somebody more senior.’

  ‘Well, I’m safe there then because officers more senior than me don’t do cases. They do paper. She was smug and unhelpful to the point of being obstructive, and I don’t have time for the stuck-up self-importance of her sort when I’m trying to catch a murderer. On this one, I still wouldn’t be found guilty, but I accept that may only be because the jury couldn’t agree on a verdict.’

  And now to Harry’s most serious crime. ‘And I received a lunch-time phone call from a Commander Sturgess of the Metropolitan Police Force. He was pretty damned annoyed I can tell you, and it seems to me he had every right to be.’ The Chief’s white moustache twitched as he poked at the inside of his top lip with his tongue, a sign of his utmost displeasure.

  Hart could guess the nature of this third offence. ‘All I did was pop up to the dead girl’s room, wasn’t in there a minute. Don’t you think the Met’s being a little over-sensitive here, Sir?’

  ‘No I bloody well don’t, Chief Inspector.’ The blood vessels in Rodgers’ cheeks were swelling into a livid purple colour and his finger began shaking as it pointed towards its target. ‘I’ve had a long chat with the Commander to get the details of the girl’s suicide. If you had bothered to do something similar yourself before you blundered into the Met’s domain, then my force wouldn’t have looked like an amateur outfit, and my lunch wouldn’t have been ruined.’