Malice Aforethought

by J M Gregson

  Lambert hastily reassured him. ‘That is very thoughtful, Dr Saunders. It will also be most useful. We haven’t yet identified our victim, you see. Until we do, it’s difficult to begin a proper attempt to establish the facts of his death.’

  ‘I see.’ Saunders sounded encouraged. ‘Well, I can confirm what you already knew fairly certainly. Your man was murdered. People do cut their own throats still, and it’s not unknown for suicides to choose churchyards for the act, but this man didn’t. His throat wasn’t cut, in fact. He was garrotted, probably taken from behind with a thin wire.’

  Lambert, scribbling furiously upon the pad in front of him, gave an involuntary sigh. ‘Any great strength involved?’

  ‘No. With the implement used, this could easily have been done by a woman — even a child, if the victim was taken by surprise.’ Saunders’ voice carried a curious satisfaction, as though the notion cheered him up. Then, as if to dispel any such impression, he moved hastily into routine facts. ‘Your man was five feet eleven inches tall and weighed sixty-seven kilograms — twelve stones and three pounds if you prefer it. I would compute his age as late thirties. He had fair hair, recently cut and styled, and the body was in good condition.’

  ‘Any evidence of a struggle?’

  ‘At first glance, no. There is no sign of skin or fibres under the fingernails, but that is as far as I can go. I haven’t examined the body skin in any detail yet.’

  They knew what he meant. It was routine now to check the inner thighs and buttocks of men as well as women for any signs of sexual assault, any traces of semen.

  Lambert said, ‘Thank you for taking the trouble to ring me, Dr Saunders. We look forward to your full report in due course.’

  In truth, the pathologist’s early call hadn’t taken them much further forward. But there were a few more details to ink in on the picture of their mystery man. He was well nourished, and had thought enough of his appearance to have his hair expensively cut and shaped. Not a vagrant, then: no need at present to trawl the meths drinkers and other dropouts who lived precariously in the twilight world of the homeless.

  ***

  Lambert hated this quiet period, with a murder team and its machinery in place, routine enquiries begun, and yet no clear focus for the work. It was like a phoney war, where everyone waited for the real battles to commence in a state of uneasy mental excitement. For John Lambert admitted that he was excited: he was too old a hand now to feel any guilt about the zest for the hunt which was a part of any CID man’s temperament.

  Because there was nothing more to be done yet, he went home for lunch. Christine made him a sandwich with her usual speed and dexterity, but she looked grey with fatigue. She had to force the smile she gave him when she caught him studying her over the sports section of the paper. ‘I’ve been hoeing the front garden — last time before the winter, I expect,’ she said.

  She had volunteered the explanation for her tiredness before he had voiced the question. It wasn’t like her even to admit to physical weakness. It meant that she must feel as exhausted as she looked, he reflected. He watched her knuckles whiten with the effort of raising herself from the armchair as she levered her frame into action. She taught part-time now in the local primary school a mile from their door, having volunteered to give up her full-time post when falling rolls in the schools determined that some teachers must go.

  As he watched her reverse her small car carefully between the gateposts, he was glad again that she had agreed to cut down the work she had always loved to a part-time commitment. It was clearly enough for her now. Well, neither of them was getting any younger; he tried to console himself with the meaningless cliché he remembered his own parents voicing a generation ago. But even as he smiled sourly at that recollection, he knew that there was more to it than that.

  He examined the heavy clay soil of the front garden as he went back to his car. The area of soil newly disturbed by hoeing was pitifully small.

  ***

  PC Bryn Jones made a routine check on the school at two thirty, driving slowly past in his patrol car. A visible presence, they called it. As far as he was concerned, it was as important to be noticed by the old busybody who had reported the suspicious presence as by the man himself. There wasn’t much kudos to be gained by bringing in paedophiles, anyway. But of this one, real or imagined, there was no sign.

  PC Jones stopped for a moment to watch the girls playing hockey, checking that the pavements for three hundred yards to either side of him were deserted. Mind you, perverts were as likely to be watching the boys playing football these days, he reflected, from the wisdom and experience of his twenty-two years. No accounting for tastes, there wasn’t. Now that full-chested girl who had just burst through and scored a goal, she’d be a right cracker in two or three years, mind…

  PC Jones thought suddenly of his mother and the Bethesda Chapel Sunday School, and drove hastily away.

  He returned just before the bell ended afternoon school at four o’clock. There were many cars now in the street that had been deserted; he parked the police car as unobtrusively as he could at the end of the line, then strolled down to the ragged crowd of mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers who stood outside the school gates on that pleasantly warm autumn afternoon. It was impossible not to be noticed in uniform, of course. Bryn Jones, who had dreams of a transfer to CID in due course, imagined himself blending discreetly with this polyglot assembly of humanity, picking up vital information about serious crime as he passed among them.

  Instead, his uniform brought him curious glances, nervous nods of acknowledgement, even a series of giggles from some of the women in conversation on the periphery of the mass. He was sure he was the centre of their hilarity, though he could not imagine why. He felt the blush he always feared would undermine his authority creeping from his collar up into his cheeks.

  He was relieved when the children poured in a raucous tide of blue uniforms from the school and distracted attention from him. He resumed his task of looking for any odd man who was submerging himself among the crowd of parents and grandparents, hoping to pass unnoticed and wait here to prey upon unaccompanied children as they walked away from the school into the November dusk. He found nothing suspicious; either the call had been a false alarm from an overheated imagination, or the mysterious man had been warned off by the police presence. Or it might be that this was an elderly man who simply liked children, in a perfectly innocent way; that was much more common than an uncharitable society which fed upon sensationalism cared to admit.

  The children shrilled their goodbyes to each other as they went their separate ways. Jones gathered bits of school news, most of it unintelligible to him. But one piece of information he heard three times. Old Gilesy was off — they’d had mayhem for one lesson because no one had realised at first that he was missing. Apparently Old Murray had been livid about it. Bryn Jones was near enough to his own school days to remember that every teacher was ‘old’ to his young charges. And he knew that ‘Old Murray’ was the man in charge of this establishment, for a board not five yards to his right proclaimed in gold lettering that T. H. Murray, MA, was the Head Teacher of Oldford County Secondary School.

  Bryn Jones had no idea who Old Gilesy was, but the fact that he was missing caught his attention. And the fact that no one seemed to know why made him very interested indeed. For PC Bryn Jones had heard at the station that the MISPA files had been trawled unsuccessfully in search of the identity of the body discovered after the Remembrance Day service in Broughton’s Ash churchyard. It was a long shot, but you never knew…

  There is much to be said for youthful enthusiasm. PC Jones marched with determination into the school, ignoring the derisive remarks from the older boys behind him. He was told by the Head’s secretary that Mr Murray was conducting a short meeting with three of his senior staff and must not be disturbed, but PC Jones announced loftily that this was urgent police business and must take precedence. He was through the outer office and rapping
on the Head Teacher’s door before the outraged dragon who guarded it could prevent him. He surprised himself sometimes, did Bryn.

  Thomas Murray, MA, seemed more disturbed to see a policeman than a headmaster should, and Bryn had his questions ready. ‘I understand that you have a Mr Giles on your staff.’

  ‘Yes. Edward Giles. He teaches Chemistry. When he’s here.’

  ‘I see. But he has not been here today?’

  ‘No. It was very inconvenient, in fact. The laboratories, you see. They’re not like ordinary classrooms. You can’t just let children—’

  ‘Do you know where Mr Giles is, Mr Murray?’ Bryn tried to keep the rising excitement out of his voice.

  ‘No. That’s what was so inconsiderate. Normally people ring in if they’re ill, or at least—’

  ‘You haven’t heard from him all day?’ PC Jones tried to keep it impersonal, but he knew he had spoken abruptly. The answer to this could mean a real feather in his cap. The mysterious, exciting world of CID beckoned beguilingly.

  ‘No. It’s a real nuisance, I don’t mind telling you. I’ve just spoken to my Deputy Head, and we don’t know whether to cover his classes for tomorrow or not. If only—’

  ‘I think I must ask you to come to the station with me, Mr Murray. Immediately, please.’

  This time PC Jones made no attempt to disguise his satisfaction.

  ***

  It was two hours later that Bert Hook took a shaken and embarrassed Thomas Murray to the Murder Room which had been hastily set up in Oldford police station. The headmaster had not enjoyed his meeting with his old adversary Superintendent John Lambert. This grave inquisitor with the long face and the steel-grey hair knew things about Murray that neither his staff nor his governors knew. Although on this occasion Tom Murray had nothing to hide, he felt that his answers were being weighed and found wanting, as though he was an unreliable witness. It was a relief to be led away from Lambert’s office by the bluff and solid Sergeant Hook.

  ‘We shall need a formal identification of the corpse by a near relative in due course,’ explained Hook. ‘It isn’t even available for inspection at the moment, but we do have a photograph of the dead man’s face, taken by our Scene of Crime photographer. It would be helpful if you could either confirm it as Mr Giles, or eliminate him from our enquiries.’

  Tom Murray, who was anxious only to have the matter done with and be away from there, could nevertheless not prevent a start of horror as he stared at the shut eyes and sallow features of the face he had seen so often in animated life. His breath came in uneven gasps as he said, ‘That’s him all right. That’s Ted Giles.’

  The murder investigation had a focus.

  Three

  Mick Yates tried to keep a low profile in the school. He wasn’t used to being summoned to the Head’s office. When he was asked to go there immediately after school assembly on the morning of Tuesday, 13th November, he wondered what on earth he could have done wrong. After five minutes of wracking his pessimistic brain in the outer office, he found that the explanation was more outlandish than anything he had imagined.

  Tom Murray came out of his office with two large men at his heels. His face filled with relief when he saw Mick. He said to the men, ‘This is Michael Yates. Superintendent Lambert and Sergeant Hook, Michael. They need to ask a few questions about one of our colleagues and I said you were the man best equipped to help them. You can use my office — I’ll go and see to your class.’

  Murray bustled away, scarcely troubling to disguise his relief, and Mick, after hesitating for a moment, led the men back into the holy of holies that was the Head Teacher’s office. He had been in there only once before. He could not bring himself to take the head’s seat, the big swivel chair behind the green leather top of the desk. Instead, he pulled a stand chair from the wall and sat upon it awkwardly, like a pupil who had been brought in here for a lecture. In the end, no one took the head’s seat. The two detectives pulled armchairs round to face him, Mick realised now that he had left himself facing the light, whilst his interrogators had their backs to it; perhaps he had read too many thrillers.

  Lambert gave him a small, encouraging smile. ‘Do you know why we’re here, Mr Yates?’

  ‘No. I’ve no idea.’ He couldn’t think of anything he’d done. Nothing to bring out top brass like Superintendents, anyway. They didn’t send people like that to chase up overdue MOTs: he knew that much about the police.

  ‘You know that a colleague of yours, Edward Giles, has been missing?’

  Mick had never heard him called anything but Ted before, just as no one in the school had called him Michael until the head had introduced him to these two. This formality seemed somehow ominous. ‘I know Ted wasn’t in yesterday. I covered one of his classes for him. I’m a biologist and he’s a biochemist, really, but we both teach Life Sciences as well as our own specialisms.’ He felt himself talking too much, as if trying to postpone the real issues. Their next words confirmed the thought.

  It was the muscular, slightly overweight one, the Sergeant, who said quietly, ‘When did you last see Mr Giles, Michael?’

  Mick thought furiously. The Sergeant seemed friendly, had used his first name. But wasn’t there some kind of system they used, when working in pairs — hard cop, friendly cop, or something like that? You mustn’t let them trick you into a mistake. And perhaps Ted was in some kind of trouble. ‘Friday, it would be, after school.’

  ‘Did he give you any idea of how he proposed to spend the weekend?’

  ‘No. I don’t think we even spoke. I was anxious to get away quickly that night: the ninth is my wife’s birthday.’ He found himself bursting into a nervous smile, revelling in the display of a perfectly innocent fact to the Superintendent, whose grey eyes had never left his face since he sat down.

  It was Lambert who now gave him the information which stunned him, coldly, evenly, studying him for the effect it might have. ‘I have to tell you that your colleague was found dead in Broughton’s Ash churchyard on Sunday morning, Mr Yates. The circumstances of his death were suspicious. That’s why we’re here this morning. We need to piece together a picture of Ted Giles’s last hours. We’re told that you are the person in the school who knew him best.’

  As Mick’s mind reeled, his first impulse was to distance himself from this. Murder, they meant. The very word pushed him so far out of his depth that he was floundering. ‘Oh, no! Well, I suppose it might be true — that I knew him best of the staff in the school, I mean. But you see, no one knew him very well. He kept himself pretty much to himself.’

  Lambert wondered why this open-faced young man was so defensive. Could this young innocent possibly have anything to hide? But his reaction, while irrational if he was guiltless, was not so uncommon. People still shied away from the oldest and gravest crime of all. He said, ‘How long had you known Ted Giles, Mr Yates?’

  Already the past tense, Mick noted. He gathered his resources. He had nothing to fear, surely; he must help these earnest professionals to find out who had done this to Ted. ‘Since I came to the school, three years ago in September. He showed me the ropes, told me how to handle — well, how to behave with senior staff. There was some overlap in our teaching, as I’ve said, and he helped me with the exam syllabuses.’

  ‘And what about your lives outside the school? Did you meet much socially?’

  ‘Not really. Ted was separated from his wife. We used to go for a drink together sometimes — usually after a parent-teacher evening or a staff meeting, things like that. We didn’t have a regular night.’

  Hook took up the questioning again. He had a notebook in front of him now. ‘We need to know as much as we can about the victim when there’s a murder. I’m sure you understand that, Michael.’

  ‘It’s Mick. Everyone calls me Mick.’ It suddenly seemed important, as though it would have been dishonest to let them go on calling him Michael when Ted Giles never had.

  ‘Mick, then. We know practically nothing yet about Ted
Giles, so anything you can tell us will be valuable at this stage. He was a little older than you, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. I’m thirty-two now. Ted was nearly forty, I think. He was a good teacher, firm with the kids, but easy with it. He was quite popular with them.’ He said it wistfully, so that Hook wondered irrelevantly whether he found discipline as easy and unforced as the dead man had. ‘He was a good-looking man, I suppose.’ He said it as though it had struck him for the first time. He was accustomed, particularly in school, to assess people first and foremost in terms of teaching ability.

  ‘And what were his sexual preferences?’

  For an instant, Mick did not know what Hook meant. Then he said with a smile, ‘Women! Definitely. He might have lived on his own, but Ted certainly wasn’t gay.’ He looked for a moment as if he was about to enlarge on that theme, with examples, but then thought better of it.

  ‘Bit of a lady’s man, was he?’ asked Lambert gloomily. He didn’t want to hear that the dead man had been a Lothario, with a long string of conquests, some of them jealous of their successors. The recluse with few contacts made the ideal murder victim, from the biased viewpoint of the CID.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that exactly. But he was a free agent; he’d been separated for a long time. I never met his wife.’ He added the last sentence as an afterthought, as if it had only just struck him that his friend had had a life before him.

  Hook said heavily, ‘You’d better give us a list of the ladies involved.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that. I don’t know them, you see. There are girls on the staff here who would have gone out with him, I’m sure, but Ted preferred to keep his working life separate from his social life. Business and pleasure didn’t mix, he always said.’ Actually he’d usually put it in the form of advice to his less experienced colleague. ‘Don’t shit on your own doorstep!’ he’d often told a wistful Mick when the conversation in the pub turned to sex. But Mick didn’t want to put it in those terms when a police officer was taking notes; that would have seemed unfair to his dead friend, somehow. A breach of his confidence, perhaps.