Dead Unlucky

by Andrew Derham

  ‘And still touch the pages on either side? Not likely. I reckon I’ve got enough to nail this person already, because it’s her prints I’ll find on those first and third pages. But the real clincher will be when I find those two pens. Because I’ll toss them to the forensic chemists and they’ll tear them apart like lions on a lamb. Even if they don’t find prints, they’ll manage to hit upon a skin cell or two and that’ll contain enough DNA to set their clever little machines a-twitching.’ Hart fixed his stare in her inscrutable eyes. ‘And do you know where I’m going to start?’

  ‘I’m sure you are about to tell me.’

  ‘I’m going to start by getting your dabs taken. And when I find they match those on the first and third pages in the file, we’ll move on to your handbag. If we’ve still had no luck, a fleet of cars will be round here and every one of your drawers, cupboards and tiny little hidey-holes will be prodded and poked until those pens are found. Of course, were the forger to confess, then that indignity wouldn’t be necessary.’ He locked eyes again. ‘In hackneyed police parlance, we’re not looking for any other suspects.’

  ‘Excuse me, I have to visit the bathroom,’ Mrs Hargreaves pronounced as she stood up.

  ‘Constable, please accompany Mrs Hargreaves. Ensure she doesn’t go anywhere else, or take anything in, and search that lavatory, under the carpet, in the cistern and round the rim, before she puts a foot inside.’

  ‘There’s no time for that, I fear the stress of your innuendo has rather taken its toll.’

  ‘Then you’re just going to have to suffer a little accident,’ replied Hart, confirming her opinion of a coarse little man, ‘because you are not leaving the sight of both me and the Constable.’

  Mrs Hargreaves sat back down and, because her voice remained impassive and devoid of emotion, Hart at first missed the significance of her words.

  ‘I did it for the school.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I did it for the school. When that girl died I thought it was suicide, just like everybody else. What was the point in prolonging the police investigation by stirring things up and telling them she had wanted to see me? The term had just started and it was all so unsettling already. The police would have just asked more and more people more and more questions and the whole situation would have dragged on endlessly, all just to confirm what we already knew.’

  Hart was furious, but the manifestation of his anger was coldness rather than an increase in volume. ‘If you had bothered to muddy the waters, if you had helped the police to ask their tiresome questions, they might have found that Nicola had not committed suicide.’

  ‘And then what? Would that have brought her back? I managed to ensure that word of her death was not broadcast to the public and many people associated with Highdean were manifestly grateful for that. I did it for the school.’

  ‘You did it for yourself. Because you’re the Head and so any dirt that gets flung at the school rubs off on you. Suicide on the premises is dirty enough, but murder, that’s positively filthy. You can kid the image that looks back at you from the mirror, but you’re not kidding anyone else. You did it for yourself.’

  ‘What happens next?’

  ‘I’m going to take you to the police station.’

  ‘For what purpose? We can talk here.’

  ‘Mrs Hargreaves, I don’t think you quite realise the scalding temperature of the hot water you’ve landed yourself in. You are going to the police station so you can be fingerprinted, have a DNA swab taken, and charged.’

  For the first time since he had met her, Hart saw every drop of vanity leave her demeanour, every drop of blood drain from her skin, as she turned the sickly white of an old dishcloth. Her egotism had blinded her to her sins. Then, just as rapidly, she returned to her old self.

  ‘But I’ll be needed at school to start the new term. What will they do without me?’

  ‘That’s the school’s business, but if it was up to me I wouldn’t let you back through the door to collect your coffee mug.’

  ‘But the forgery didn’t do any harm. You already knew about the girl’s murder before you found out about that.’

  ‘Mrs Hargreaves, I already know the answer to this question, but let me see what you think. Why did you erase Nicola’s appointment from the records?’

  She gave a condescending sigh of resignation. ‘Because it would look bad when people found out that I hadn’t mentioned it earlier, straight after she died.’

  ‘And it looks bad because it is bad. In fact, coming from a person in your position, it’s just about evil. And the worst thing about it is, if the police had known months ago that Nicola had possibly been murdered, I reckon there’s a fair chance you would still have Sebastian Emmer sitting in your senior class and not lying in St Anselm’s churchyard. And don’t you think that Mr and Mrs Brown might have been just a tad curious to know the truth about their daughter’s death?’

  ‘So you are still determined that I receive a criminal record, a blot on my character for such a minor infraction?’ One last look down her slender nose. ‘Even though I had no thought for myself, purely the greater good of the school.’

  Now it was Hart’s turn to sigh. ‘I will charge you over the forgery, yes, because you’ll need a higher power than me to forgive you that. But there is one thing you can do to make some amends before the three of us get in the car.’

  The Headteacher looked sullen. She would rather die than help him.

  ‘It’s more for Nicola than me. Tell me what you think Nicola wanted to see you about.’

  She took a moment to spin some thoughts around her head. ‘Mr Hart, my career, my life are in ruins. Perhaps one day I will come to accept that this situation is partly a consequence of my own actions. But I would help my pupil if I could, even though I am not certain how anything I say will assist her now that she is dead. But I speak the unqualified truth when I state that I have no idea why that girl wished to see me. Absolutely no idea.’

  *****

  While Annalee Hargreaves was having the tips of her fingers prodded onto the plate of a Live Scan machine, Asha Kanjaria took her leave of Hart and wished him good luck. There was an important evening coming up for Harry and she hoped it would go well. Hart was not altogether delighted that his impending rendezvous with Patricia Luft was known to Kanjaria and, presumably, the rest of the factory. What’s more, it was more than a touch demeaning that they were keeping their fingers crossed for him, as though they were aunts and uncles condescendingly chuckling as their teenage nephew clumsily embarked on his first date.

  It was Hart’s fault, of course. He had mentioned his assignation to Redpath, who had taken it upon himself to become his advisor on sartorial matters. Hart had listened politely, and then promptly canned the advice, preferring not to attempt to reincarnate himself as a youthful Casanova. However, he was given sufficient courage by the counsel he received to choose to wear the red tie the Kanjarias had given him for Christmas. A bold move indeed.

  The truth was, he was excited. As excited as a child, and it showed. Folks were pleased for him. Perhaps good ol’ Harry was going to get himself sorted with a woman at last. And a wealthy, classy, pretty one at that.

  *****

  It wasn’t just Harry Hart who was looking forward to a big night out on New Year’s Eve. Sophie Rand had received a last-minute invitation to a posh party from someone she hardly knew, and she would be taking her new boyfriend along.

  For Marco Bracken at The Temple, this was always an evening which put a smile on his bank manager’s face, and this year it would help to see him through the lean times, until Danny Moses was back at work, supplementing his income.

  Sadly, there were others who would turn in long before midnight, who would pass over the opportunity to wail a cats’ chorus of Auld Lang Syne, hand in hand with a tottering horde of drunken mates. For Rebecca Emmer and her parents, this was a repeat performance of Christmas the week before: miserable, soulless, empty.

  Ro
n and Daisy Brown were glad to see the back of the old year, but there was nothing to celebrate about the advent of the new. It would be a year of anniversaries: birth, first tooth, first steps, first day at school, first day at Highdean. Death. Every future year would be the same, they silently supposed as they sat together in their little living room.

  Hiba Massaoud had decided to go to bed early. She wasn’t one for pubs and clubs anyway, but she would have usually seen in the New Year with her family and, maybe, guests of her father. Tonight she just wanted to be alone so she could have a good cry.

  Paul Outbridge had gone back to Bath for a day or two to see his mum and dad. He wouldn’t tell them anything about how silly he had been, anything about how he had spent three hours at the police station. Perhaps his parents would never find out, perhaps they wouldn’t follow the story too closely. Wouldn’t follow the story! Their son worked at the school where there had been two murders! This was the worst thing about the whole sorry business – his mum and dad finding out he had bought those handcuffs.

  Annalee Hargreaves would continue with this evening’s soiree, there was no point in being so weak as to cancel such a long-standing social engagement. Tomorrow she would tell her husband of her difficulty, and the day after that she would go into school and collect her belongings without embarrassment, before her misfortune became gossip. Then she would never have to set foot inside the place again.

  Simon Chandler would just go to the pub with a few friends. He had set his heart on taking Sophie out, but she had a “prior engagement” she refused to tell him about. He knew by now that he was wasting his time, but he would still keep trying to win her over. He had no choice. He was besotted with her, and there was no defence against that.

  Danny Moses would have loved to have spent New Year at The Temple earning some cash, but to turn up there when Marco had told him to keep away would not be a clever move. Bad for business, could even end up being detrimental to his health. Perhaps he could sniff out a new territory, find a fresh outlet to flog his wares. On the other hand, it might be a good idea to keep a low profile until he had shifted his gear from that warehouse tomorrow morning. After all, he had already paid for it. He wasn’t going to let that old duffer flush it down the bog.

  40

  Hart managed to reach his car while the rain was still just spitting, but the moment he slammed the door shut it seemed like the Victoria Falls had shifted themselves over the streets of Lockingham. He gently laid the bouquet of pink carnations and box of Belgian chocolates on the passenger seat and rubbed his hands together. That was a bit of luck, he thought. Just made it. Looks like this evening’s got my name on it.

  He pulled up right outside Patricia Luft’s home and waited for the rain to die down. The house was huge, far bigger than the Emmers’ place; it must have contained half a dozen bedrooms and sported a garden the size of Hyde Park. Only the downstairs lights were on, which meant that she had already got herself sorted, unless her bedroom was situated at the back. It was bang on six o’clock, a bit early for a New Year’s Eve do thought Hart, but he was just grateful to be invited, he wasn’t going to negotiate with Patricia about the time.

  As the rain drummed against the metal roof, Hart reflected that he had only ever felt these soppy feelings once in his life before, and that was the best part of thirty years ago, when he first courted Maggie. Not that she needed much courting – everybody said how keen she was on him. But, of course, she still wanted to feel she had been wooed and won and Hart was an eager player of the game, not taking anything for granted. He had first brought her flowers and chocolate, much the same as tonight. Except that the flowers were from his parents’ garden. His mum had said that, if she’s a nice girl, she’ll appreciate the thought that he had got them together for her, she wouldn’t worry that he couldn’t afford a fancy bunch. And the chocolate had been a bar of Toblerone. Maggie loved it. And she loved him.

  It looked like the rain was going to pound away for ever and so Hart switched off the ignition, opened the door, eased his legs into the wet air and braced himself for the rest of his body to follow them. Just as he locked the doors with the remote and shoved the garden gate aside, he realised he had forgotten his gifts. By the time he had retrieved them and stood outside the locked porch with his finger on the bell push, his clothes were saturated with enough water to hide a nuclear submarine. One minute may not be long in geological time, but standing in the freezing rain with the wrapping on your chocolate box turning to mush and a bunch of flowers getting pulped is an age in human terms. Come on, Patricia. Get a shift on.

  Finally the front door opened and a goddess appeared. Patricia Luft stood in the doorway wearing a black dress that had been ironed on to the curves of her lovely body, the occasional sequin glinting by the light of the hall that framed her figure. The ebony satin contrasted exquisitely with the sun of her blonde-grey hair. Two circles of pearls bordered the tops of her breasts and the sapphires falling from her ears had captured the waters and skies of the Caribbean. The dream unlocked the porch door and pulled it open a few inches as a dripping Harry Hart stood before her, his lips sporting a sheepish grin and his eyes a fascinated awe.

  ‘You’ll have to let me have a few spins in the tumble drier, Patricia. And the flowers won’t need watering.’

  ‘The gifts are very quaint and I hope you enjoy them. I’ve been feeling a little off-colour today and I won’t be able to keep our appointment. Perhaps I should have rung, but I had forgotten about it.’

  The porch door closed, the key turned in the lock, and the light from the hall was eclipsed as the heavy front door was slowly pushed to.

  Hart rang the bell a couple more times, but there was no reply. He stumbled back to the car, flung the sodden chocolates and battered flowers on to the front seat and sat and forced himself to think, while a sympathetic fog formed on the windows to hide his shame from the world.

  He knew why Patricia Luft had done this to him, that was obvious. Why she had conspired to leave him bereft of both company and dignity on New Year’s Eve, with the worst part of the ordeal still to come – his embarrassed replies tomorrow to the legion of concerned enquiries about how his big evening had gone. The factory would know in an instant. She’d kippered him good and proper, and at that moment must have been rolling around on her Persian carpet, bellowing with laughter that the heavens had connived with her to unleash a torrent to add to his misery.

  After Hart had got her husband sent away last year, he should have known that all her conciliatory gestures weren’t really overtures of affection. But he wasn’t going to blame himself for being stitched up like this, no matter how much it hurt. He had been taken for a sucker because he was vulnerable, and in his job he had seen too many victims reproach themselves for sins that were actually perpetrated against them by their tormentors to travel down that same desolate road himself.

  And then the realisation hit him. How could he have been so dim? Love blinds they say, and it had certainly stripped away Hart’s ability to see further than his nose. But now that his sight had been restored, he drove home with Patricia Luft’s wheelie bin sticking out the boot of his car.

  Hart poured himself a Scotch before he set about his work, shoving the kitchen table to one side and spreading the detritus of the now former object of his desire over his chessboard-tiled kitchen floor. The dustman hadn’t been round since before Christmas and so he treated his nostrils to a purifying whiff of his Auchentoshan Three Wood before taking a sip. He knelt down and sifted through some balls of rolled up paper. There was no time to unfurl them now, they could wait until later if necessary. He hastily rummaged through a motley collection of old tin cans, torn up letters, little cut-offs of jolly Christmas wrapping paper, nut shells and orange peels, but not the items he was looking for. Perhaps the hunch was wrong, or perhaps she had just been too careful. The only remaining hope was the white supermarket plastic bag, the lining of choice for the pedal bins of millions of households throughou
t the land. Hart unravelled the granny knot which held the two bag handles together and was delighted to detect the aroma of his favourite condiment struggling to announce itself through the general stink. Gobs of horseradish sauce and a soggy supermarket receipt consummated his joy. However lucky you think you’ve been this evening, Patricia, the gods have saved their broadest smile to beam down on me.

  After Hart had given the supermarket a ring to see if it was still open, the manager at Sainsbury’s wasn’t overly pleased when he arrived at his store half an hour before closing time on New Year’s Eve. However, because the dates and times of purchase were printed on both the soggy receipt and Hart’s tab for his own sauce, their conversation didn’t need to last too long. Although he couldn’t prove the precise moment when the switch was made between his own relish and the toxic cocktail concocted by his prospective killer, the appearances on the supermarket security cameras of both the stars of the show at just the right times meant that he didn’t need to. He didn’t blame himself for falling for her new-shoes scam. But he was well miffed that he had paid for her milk.

  After arriving back home from the supermarket, Hart poured himself another small one and debated with himself how he was going to spend the final two hours of the year. He treasured his delectable collection of fine Scotch and he could even enjoy a plate of haggis, tatties and bashed neeps, but the annual Hogmanay ritual on TV had never been his favourite manifestation of Scottish culture. He hadn’t thought it possible, but for the past few years the fare beamed out had become even less appealing. Now every channel saw fit to let loose on an undeserving nation a veritable host of grinning twerps whose propensity to irritate appeared to be the single characteristic which had propelled them to stardom.

  Perhaps he could go to an anonymous pub, but the crowd would make him lonely. Of course, there was always the option of turning in to bed before midnight and reading a book. But that action so blatantly admits to oneself that not only have you condemned yourself to solitude, but also amplifies the misery with the confession that you have nothing to do on New Year’s Eve, while the happy and popular people of the world are out at play. Watching the twerps having fun was preferable to surrendering to that sorrowful destiny.