If Tom was rattled, he didn’t show it. ‘Could anyone access the yard at the back?’
‘They would have to scale the wall and unfasten the gate from the inside,’ said Greenwood. ‘They still couldn’t get through the back door, though. It’s deadlocked, like the front.’
‘Sir,’ I said, and it took Tom a second to realise I meant him. ‘You told me to remind you to ask about the dimensions of the casket.’ I glanced at Larry. ‘The casket we exhumed early this morning, the polished cedar one with the silver trim – beautiful piece, by the way – looked jolly big to me.’
Larry’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me. ‘Caskets are deliberately made substantial,’ he said. ‘They’re the choice of prestige.’
‘So plenty of room for a friend,’ said Tom.
Greenwood sucked in his cheeks so hard I saw the outline of his jaw.
‘We have put more than one body in a casket,’ Larry said. ‘Although it’s not usual. Husband and wife die together. Mother dies in childbirth and the baby’s stillborn. It happens.’
‘Very unusual,’ Greenwood added.
‘But I remember you telling me, Mr Glassbrook, when you showed me how caskets are made,’ I said, ‘that there’s a sort of lift inside, to raise the dead person up.’
‘A simple, hand-operated mechanism,’ Larry agreed. ‘Depending on how large a person he or she is, we can adjust the height.’
‘So someone could have lowered the body to the base of the casket, leaving room on top,’ I said. ‘Patsy could have been laid on top of the deceased but beneath the satin covering.’ I glanced at Tom. ‘Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I got a bit carried away.’
‘No problem, love,’ he told me. ‘All contributions accepted. Any more tea in that pot?’
‘Well, it’s possible in theory,’ Larry began, ‘but—’
‘It’s absurd,’ Greenwood repeated. ‘No one interferes with our caskets. And besides, the extra weight would be apparent when the pall bearers begin their procession.’
I topped up their cups, forgetting to use the strainer when I poured Tom’s.
‘One of my colleagues would like to come and see you later today,’ Tom said, lifting his cup. ‘He needs details of other burials you’ve carried out this year.’
‘Those details are confidential,’ Greenwood protested, as Tom pulled a face and looked suspiciously down into his cup.
‘No, they’re not,’ I said. ‘Death is a matter of public record.’
Both men looked surprised at my dropping the ‘dumb secretary’ routine. I lowered my eyes and bit my tongue.
Tom cleared his throat. ‘Before we wrap up, can I ask you to confirm that neither of you opened the coffin anytime on Monday morning?’ he said.
‘Casket,’ Larry corrected him.
Tom waited.
‘Neither of us did,’ Greenwood said. ‘I opened up the parlour that morning, and I didn’t leave it until the casket was transferred to the hearse. I promise you she was not in it then.’
26
A plate crashed to the floor as I entered the dining room of Sabden Secondary Modern and the children roared applause. A male teacher yelled that they should ‘Shut it!’ and the clumsy child was sent running for a broom and mop. A calm-faced woman in blue overalls – of West Indian origin, I thought – pushed a trolley towards the mess. She seemed separate, somehow, from her surroundings and no one seemed to notice her.
They noticed me, though.
Silence fell. All heads turned. The children stared; the adults frowned and whispered to each other. At the staff table, a tall, thin man with long hair and a straggly beard got to his feet. ‘You’re early,’ he said. I wasn’t, but I said nothing.
He didn’t offer to shake hands. ‘I’m on yard duty,’ he said. ‘We can talk outside.’
‘Rozzers,’ a child hissed, and a giggle raced round the room like a wild creature that had been set free.
As I followed him out, I saw the dinner lady move gracefully to the staff table and clear his place. The dropped plate and its detritus had already vanished. The black woman had a gentle smile on her face, and two things struck me. The first that it was her habitual expression, and the second that it probably didn’t reflect her thoughts.
I followed Mr Milner, geography and woodwork teacher, and head of the fourth form, out into the yard behind the school building. It was irregularly shaped, Tarmacked and surrounded by high walls, more like a prison exercise yard than the vast playing fields, lined with swaying lime trees, that I remembered from my own school. A football game was taking place, with satchels serving as goalposts. The girls hung around the edges, wary of being kicked by a misjudged ball.
‘Shoot,’ said Milner.
At the far side of the yard, I saw John Donnelly in the midst of a group of boys. He was easy to spot because he towered above the others.
‘Can I confirm that you’re the form head for Patsy Wood, Stephen Shorrock and Susan Duxbury?’
Donnelly had spotted me too.
‘Guilty.’ Milner gave me a sideways glance. ‘They’re saying she was buried alive. Care to comment?’
How did he know that? I sensed kids drawing closer, trying to eavesdrop, and wondered if I could insist we go indoors and talk privately.
‘I haven’t been given any details, I’m afraid,’ I said. ‘Would you say the three children knew each other quite well?’
The group surrounding Donnelly broke up. He ran forward and joined the game of football. He seemed to be going through the motions, though – looking round every few seconds, staying on the outskirts.
Milner took a deep breath. ‘Smith! Put him down – you don’t know where he’s been. Now, Smith, or I’ll have you in detention.’
‘Sir, were the three children friends?’
Donnelly left the game and wandered over to a group of girls, in the midst of which I spotted Luna’s bright red hair. His head bent down towards hers, and although neither looked round, I knew they were talking about me.
Milner sighed. ‘Listen, love.’ His eyes washed over me again. ‘What did you say your name was?’
‘WPC Lovelady, sir. Were they in the same class?’
‘If you’ll give me chance to open my mouth, constable, you might find listening skills are as valuable as asking questions. They were in the same year, but so are over a hundred other kids. They’re grouped into four forms, roughly twenty-five in each. Patsy was in 4C, Stephen in 4M, and Susan … I think Susan was in 4M too.’
‘Were they in any of the same clubs that you know of?’
‘What do you mean? Youth club? Girl Guides? I really wouldn’t know.’
‘Is there any member of staff here who would know the three children better than you do? School nurse, maybe? School counsellor?’
‘They only go to the nurse when they’re ill. And a school what?’ He strode away from me suddenly, producing a whistle from his pocket and letting out a loud screeching sound. When I caught up with him again, he was halfway across the yard and we were in imminent danger of being struck by a fast-moving football.
I sighed. ‘Sir, can you please find someone else to take over your yard duty? You and I need to sit down while I ask you questions about the three children.’
He opened his mouth to object.
‘I want to know which subjects they studied, who they sat next to in each class, what sports they played, who they were friends with, which teachers they got on with and which found them difficult, who they walked home with and who they’d fallen out with in the last few months. And then I want to talk about their home lives. How supportive their parents were, whether any of them had part-time jobs, whether any of them was particularly unhappy at home.’
He looked at his watch. ‘I haven’t got time. Lunch finishes in fifteen minutes.’
‘Sir, this is a murder enquiry.’
He took a step away. ‘Talk to the headmaster’s secretary. She puts plasters on the kids’ scrapes when they fall over
. She knows them as well as anyone.’
27
The headmaster’s secretary wasn’t any friendlier than Milner, but I got what I came for: a lot of information on fourth-form dynamics and the lives of the three who’d gone missing. One thing that interested me was that two of the missing children had fathers who were active in the local trade-union movement. Jim Shorrock, Stephen’s father, was shop steward of Pilkinton’s Mill in the town centre, while Stan Wood was the secretary of the local branch of the TUC.
‘Is there much union activity in town?’ I asked her.
‘Not so much this year. Last year it was quite bad. A few strikes; some went on for a while. Kids were coming to school hungry.’
‘What about Susan’s father?’
She pulled a face. ‘That waste of space? Not out of prison long enough. And no one will employ him any more. Been caught thieving from work more times than I’ve had perms.’ She smiled a little at her own wit.
I’d also got a piece of information that had made the hot day feel a whole lot cooler. The secretary confirmed that children needed permission to leave school for medical appointments and that Patsy’s last visit to the dentist had been two months earlier. The extraction the pathologist had spotted was more recent than that.
I was heading for the main door when I had to step to one side to let a group of chattering youngsters rush past.
The children were carrying greenery – twigs, leaves, grasses – and were being followed by the same quiet woman I’d seen in the dining hall. She’d changed her blue overalls for a plastic apron that was stained brown. Most of the children were wearing similar aprons. Potter’s aprons.
Acting on instinct, I followed them along the corridor, keeping my distance. At the end, they began climbing stairs, the woman in the apron bringing up the rear. At the first floor, they continued climbing. The woman didn’t look back, but I had a feeling she was aware of my coming up steadily behind. She was on the slim side. Her hair was a mass of black corkscrew curls, but she’d swept them up away from her face and allowed them to spread out around the back of her head like a halo. She was maybe thirty, possibly a little older. As we climbed higher, I saw that she had long, thick fingernails painted scarlet red.
We carried on up to the second floor and then up again. As the children poured into a circular, glass-walled room on the third floor, the woman paused at the door, letting me go in first. As she did so, I caught sight of a name badge she wore: Mrs Labaddee.
Through the huge windows that formed an almost complete circle, I could see the moors, the nearby villages, the trees of the municipal park, the numerous factory chimneys. Light came flooding in, and so did the heat. Most of the windows were open to let in the breeze, but the room felt almost unbearably hot to me in my woollen uniform. It was the art room. A worktop ran round its perimeter, cluttered with paint, brushes, pencils and two potter’s wheels.
The teacher was a young woman with spectacles and light brown hair. Her apron was canvas, even more stained than those of the children. Her hands were stained brown too.
‘Come on, get on with it,’ she told the class, once I’d explained who I was and begged a moment of her time. ‘I want all your plates finished this period. Marlene, I think Shelley needs some help with her acorns.’
As the black woman – Marlene Labaddee – moved to one of the girls, the art teacher and I stepped towards the door.
‘This might seem a bit odd, but I want to ask you about potter’s clay,’ I said. ‘What do you use, and where do you get it from?’
‘We mainly use a brown stoneware clay from a school supplier’s in Bury,’ she told me.
The children were spread around the room now, using the foliage they’d collected to make patterns in the wet clay plates on the worktop.
‘What colour is that clay when it’s dried?’ I asked.
The teacher pointed to a shelf that held several fired but un-painted shapes. All were a dark brownish grey.
‘I’ve recently come across a figure that was much redder in colour,’ I said. ‘Are there different sorts of clay that you can buy?’
‘Loads,’ the teacher said. ‘Although, the school supplier is quite limited. We have some basic earthenware for when the children are learning. And some white stoneware for the more advanced students. There are lots of sub-categories, though. Depends what you want to achieve.’
We watched Marlene glide over and take a plate from one of the boys who’d been struggling. She pressed it into a ball and began to reshape it, pouring water from a jug until it glistened in her hands. Her fingernails darted in and out of the muddy substance like dancing bugs.
‘There’s clay available locally,’ the teacher said. ‘The town museum has quite a lot of pieces. I wouldn’t recommend working with it now, though. It takes for ever to set, and it’s full of impurities.’
‘You sound as though you know what you’re talking about.’
‘I’ve never worked with it, but Mr Milner, the geography teacher, wanted to know about local clay for one of his classes,’ she said. ‘He was teaching local geology, I think. I gave him a brief lesson in how to use it. I’m not sure how much success he had.’
‘No, you cannot mix Japanese maple and blackthorn.’ The West Indian woman spoke for the first time in my hearing. Her voice was pitched low, both warm and rich. ‘One is an imported specimen tree, the other a native English. The two leaves will fight with each other and will look wrong.’
‘Mrs Labaddee seems competent,’ I said. ‘Did I see her in the dining hall a few minutes ago, or does she have a twin?’
‘No, only one, more’s the pity,’ said the art teacher. ‘We sometimes wonder what we’d do without Marlene. She’s a florist too. The Flower Pot on the main road is her shop.’
‘I know it,’ I said, thinking of a small, green-fronted shop. ‘Busy lady.’
‘Was there anything else?’ the art teacher asked me. ‘Because I really have to get this class wound up before the bell goes.’
Sharples was waiting for me when I got back to CID. ‘Lovelady, have you been wandering around the school without permission, going uninvited into classrooms?’
Everyone looked up. Conversations ceased. A woman from the canteen who’d been collecting cups stopped what she was doing.
At his desk in the centre of the room, Tom picked up the phone. ‘Afternoon Brenda.’ His voice was loud, even by Tom’s standards. ‘I’m struggling to get a number in Manchester. Can you have a go? Thanks, love, appreciate it.’ He reeled off the number.
‘Just one classroom, sir,’ I told Sharples. ‘A pottery class. It seemed too good an opportunity to miss. The school already knew I was on the premises. I’d made an appointment, and I checked in with the office when I arrived.’
‘Yeah, well, now we’ve had a complaint that we’re upsetting the kids,’ Sharples said.
‘Hang on, Doreen – I hadn’t finished that.’ Tom got to his feet, leaving his phone dangling and knocking over his chair. He strode across the room and looked at the top shelf of the trolley. ‘Oh, my mistake, I had. Let me get the door for you, love. ‘’Scuse me, Florence.’
Tom stepped round me, opened the door and beckoned to the canteen lady. Scowling, she rattled the trolley towards him.
‘The kids should be upset,’ I said to Sharples. ‘Three of their number have gone missing, and one of them died a horrible death.’ I moved out of the doorway. I wasn’t entirely sure what Tom and the canteen lady were doing, but it sounded like they were fighting for control of the trolley.
‘Owt nice for tea later?’ I heard him say.
‘Tom, fucking shut it!’ Sharples snapped. ‘Lovelady, I don’t care if the boss has taken a shine to you – if you step out of line one more time, I will have you on report.’
I think, behind me, I heard Tom start to say my name.
‘With the greatest of respect, sir, we should be warning these children. I’m fed up of hearing Stephen and Susan might have run away fr
om home. We should be telling them not to go out alone, to let their parents know where they are, to be home well before dark. Patsy wasn’t the first child to come to harm, and she won’t be the last unless we start facing facts.’
As Sharples stepped towards me, the door to Rushton’s office opened.
‘Flossie, have a run up to St Wilfred’s, will you?’ he said. ‘I’ve had Father Edward giving me earache, wanting to know what’s going on. Soothe his ruffled feathers, will you, lass? You don’t need Flossie for anything, do you, Jack?’
Sharples didn’t take his eyes off me. ‘Nothing at all, boss,’ he said.
28
The nave of St Wilfred’s was wonderfully cool after my cycle ride up to the north side of town. It was coming up for two o’clock by this time and the day was showing no sign of cooling down.
I found the priest in the vestry. Father Edward was small and plump, with a shock of thick white hair. He’d make an excellent Father Christmas, if it wouldn’t be beneath his dignity.
‘You?’ He didn’t get up. ‘I was expecting Superintendent Rushton.’
I opened my mouth to remind him that we were dealing with a murder inquiry and that my colleagues at the station were a little busy when the strangest thing happened. It was as though I saw Tom, in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the window ledge, his eyebrows as high as they would go. And I remembered that Father Edward had been roused from his bed in the early hours to be informed about an unofficial exhumation at his church. And that he was actually quite an elderly man.
‘Mr Rushton asked me to thank you,’ I said. ‘For your discretion and your patience. We appreciate this is a terrible time for St Wilfred’s.’
Father Edward puffed air out through his nose with a sound akin to a bike tyre being let down and indicated a chair. Over at the window, phantom Tom inclined his head in approval. I positioned the chair so I couldn’t see him.
‘I’ve been with the family most of the morning.’ Father Edward raised his hands in a surprisingly feminine gesture. ‘What do you say? They don’t want to hear that their child’s in a better place. Who would?’
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