by M. J. Trow
‘So … I suppose you’re after the goss.’
‘If you have the time.’
‘Not for all of it,’ she said. ‘But I suppose you’ve heard the main points, anyway.’
‘Not really. You know me and emails. Paul and Hector just got on with it and obviously you had no problems, so I haven’t really been in touch with anyone.’
‘Well, Legs hasn’t done anything too heinous, you might be glad to hear. Charlotte …’
‘Who?’
‘Thingee Two,’ Helen Maitland translated. ‘Afternoon Thingee. You know, the one with blonde hair.’
‘Of course,’ Maxwell said, clicking his fingers. ‘Pregnant?’
‘Naturally. She was an accident waiting to happen.’
‘Andrew Baines, PE.’
‘Good Lord, Max!’ She was astounded. ‘How on earth did you know that? I’ve only just found out.’
‘Ah ha,’ Maxwell tapped the side of his nose, despite the fact that there was no one to see, ‘We have our ways. Body language, heart, body language. I won’t embarrass you by mentioning the thinness of track suit bottoms – let my nuance be enough.’
‘I’ll know where to look, next time,’ she muttered. ‘Where was I?’
‘Lascivious PE teachers.’
‘Hmm. Let me think. You saw the thing about Bernard Ryan in the paper, I expect?’
Maxwell blinked. ‘What thing?’
‘You missed it? I thought Sylv was sending you the Leighford Advertiser out.’
‘She did, but for some reason, our neighbour took rather a shine to it, so it often disappeared from the letterbox.’
‘Oh, well, if you missed it … it’s a bit complicated, Max. It will take longer than a phone call to fill you in. Look, why don’t …?’
A shrill peal rang through the house. ‘There’s someone at the door, Helen,’ Maxwell said. ‘I’ll get that and give you a call later. Bernard Ryan, you say?’
‘I do,’ she said. ‘Answer the door, Max, and I’ll wait to hear from you. I’ll see if I can find some backnumbers so that I can get everything in the right order.’
The bell shrilled again, accompanied by Jacquie’s call, asking him to answer it. ‘Must go,’ he said, putting the phone down. Trust him to have used the only non-cordless in the place. Then he made for the stairs, muttering ‘Bernard Ryan?’ to himself, trying to make it sound like sense.
Maxwell reached the bottom of the stairs just as the bell pealed for the fourth time. He threw open the door to remonstrate with whatever lowlife was outside but instead of a neighbourhood urchin, his doorstep was decorated with Sylvia Matthews and two bulging Asda bags. They stood there for a moment, grinning at each other before Maxwell dived forward and grabbed the shopping, which he dumped in the hall before grabbing Sylvia in a hug which was once all she longed for. He planted a kiss on each cheek and pulled her inside.
‘Where’s Guy?’ he asked, sticking his head out and looking ostentatiously left and right.
‘In Brighton,’ she said. ‘He has a new job, Head of Department, no less, and he has gone in to suss out his office. Bless him, he’s taken in a little bit of carpet for under his desk. He’s learned a lot from you, over the years.’
Maxwell’s square of carpet was famous throughout Leighford High School. School hierarchy dictated that only the most upper of the upper echelons had carpet in their office, so Maxwell had provided his own. It was a physical symbol of the Revolt of the Middle Managers. Along with a kettle that boiled in less than thirty minutes and a tin to keep the biscuits dry. Of such things are legends made.
‘Well, it’s lovely to see you,’ Maxwell said. And it was; they didn’t make school nurses like Sylvia Matthews any more. He ushered her up the stairs. ‘I’ll leave the bags down here, shall I?’
‘No, no,’ she said, turning. ‘It’s stuff for you. I know Hector was going to fill the fridge but he is so …’
‘… American,’ Maxwell completed her thought. ‘Yes, he is a tad, oops, a little. However, Nolan was delighted to find a fridge full of Gatorade and a cupboard full of Oreos and granola but personally if I never drink another crocodile pee I shall be a happy man.’
‘Crocodile pee?’
‘I always assumed that that was the main ingredient in Gatorade, but I may be wrong.’ He peered into the bag and saw with delight rashers of unsmoked bacon, thick cut and gave her another hug. Home at last. ‘I must take issue with you, though, Sylv,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you let me know about Bernard?’
‘I did. I sent you the Advertiser. It knows more or less what I know.’
‘We didn’t get that issue. The chap next door took rather a shine to the rag and pinched it half the time.’
‘Strange neighbours you must have had. I wonder what he liked about it?’
‘I think he thought it was deeply satirical. Remember our favourite headline?’
‘Spaniel Uninjured,’ they chorused.
‘So, you missed the story,’ she said.
‘Yes. Fill me in.’
‘I don’t know all the ins and outs,’ she said, ‘but it all started back in June, or at least that’s when we heard of it. I understand that the actual beginning of it all was before that.’
‘Tell me as if you were writing it down,’ Maxwell advised, pointing at a chair for her to sit on. ‘Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop, as the King of Hearts would say.’
‘All right, then. I’ll do my best. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.’
‘Twenty twenty,’ Maxwell agreed and settled back, looking expectant.
Sylvia looked at him. ‘Do you know anything about this, Max?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said, frowning. ‘Why?’
‘Because this isn’t some juicy goss about him running away with one of the dinner ladies or similar. It’s serious.’
The Head of Sixth Form sat up straighter and looked her in the eye. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘I really am listening.’
‘Well,’ she began, ‘it turned out that Bernard had been doing some home tutoring. Not for the money, one would assume, on his salary, but for the satisfaction, company, whatever it might be. He didn’t advertise, just took on kids whose parents knew him or friends of theirs knew him – word of mouth, you know, the usual thing.’
‘He lives alone, doesn’t he?’ Maxwell checked.
‘Yes. I think in the early days he used to have a lodger, a flatmate, call it what you will. But since he became first deputy, he hasn’t needed the money and I think like most of us he didn’t really like virtual strangers in the house.’
‘No girlfriend?’
‘Again, possibly at one time, but not at the moment. Where was I?’
‘Bernard tutoring.’
‘Right. Yes. So, he did a bit of tutoring and he was coming up to the exams so he wasn’t doing so much. One evening, or so the story goes, he was getting ready to go out when one of his tutees – is that a word?’
‘Possibly,’ Maxwell said, doubtfully.
‘One of the kids he tutored came round in a state. She was crying, a bit hysterical, in fact, and begged him to let her stay. He was doubtful but he has been a teacher now for …’
‘Allegedly,’ Maxwell put in.
‘Indeed, but even he knows the score re kids and homes, I should hope. Anyway, he was doubtful, but he mopped her up and heard her out. Apparently, some family member, he wasn’t sure who, was … well, behaving inappropriately towards her. This person had always been touchy feely, but had recently upped the game.’
‘Nasty,’ Maxwell agreed. ‘One of ours?’
‘No. She went to St Olave’s, along the coast.’
‘That’s a boarding school, surely?’
‘Well, yes,’ she agreed. ‘But they do have about 20 percent day girls. She was one of those. So, as you know, Bernard has nothing to do with pastoral, especially the girls, so he was at somewhat of a loss. She was adamant that she didn’t want the police involved, in fact she
said if he called the police, she would deny it and accuse him if any medical examination should show that she had had sex.’
Maxwell looked serious. ‘Don’t tell me he called the police and she … how old is she, by the way?’
‘She was fourteen.’
‘Was?’
‘I’m jumping ahead in my story. He calmed her down and said she could stay the night as long as she told her parents where she was. She wouldn’t do that, but she did agree that she would let them know she was safe, but not tell them where. He settled for that, because he could see that otherwise she would just run and he preferred that she was somewhere safe, not wandering the streets.’
‘How do you know so much?’
‘Again, Max, story, in order, telling of.’
‘Sorry.’
‘He had to go out, a long-standing arrangement, or so it seems, that he couldn’t break. When he got back, in the wee small hours, she was gone.’
‘Note?’
‘Nothing. He assumed she had gone home, had second thoughts, whatever happens in the heads of fourteen year old girls. He had worried that … well, perhaps she had designs on him. You know what they can be like.’
‘Bernard?’ Maxwell’s eyebrow disappeared under his hair.
‘You don’t use the same eyes as a teenager, Max. Bernard is not unattractive in a … well, he is attractive to some, I’m sure.’ She raised her hands and let them fall. ‘I’ve lost my thread again.’
‘She had gone.’
‘Yes. Right. The next morning, he came to see me about it. To ask me what he should do. I advised that he should ring the parents, find out if she was all right, and do it now. He rang from my office.’
‘And?’
‘And Henry Hall answered the phone. The girl, whose name was Josie Blakemore, by the way, had been found dead on the beach that morning, by the rather clichéd man walking his dog. Bernard tried to bluff it out, but of course, DCI Hall couldn’t help but wonder why he was ringing and so it all came out. At least, I assume it did, because I haven’t seen Bernard since the police came to pick him up from school.’
‘My God!’ Maxwell was aghast. It all sounded like an episode of Law & Order. ‘Is he in custody?’
‘No. They questioned him under caution, or so I understand. But they couldn’t arrest him; there was no forensic evidence to connect him with the murder, although of course his DNA was on her clothes and hers was at his house. He’s on gardening leave until … well, I don’t know for how long. I can hardly think that they seriously suspect him, but it was a rather strange story that he had to tell …’
And a voice from behind her added, ‘And worse than that, he has no alibi.’
CHAPTER THREE
High tide on the beach at Willow Bay lapped the roots of the trees which the previous winter’s storms had brought tumbling down the cliffs to make a giant’s log-pile on the sand. Too new to be driftwood, too sodden to be firewood, the branches and roots tangled together just a little more with each incoming wave and made a Gordian knot of huge proportions. Sometimes completely submerged, at Spring tides and in storm conditions, the trunks had not become home to the usual beach-dwelling creatures such as rats and foxes, searching for new habitats as houses took over their normal ones. But something was moving in there, swaying in the water as it ebbed and flowed. It looked at first sight like an exotic flower, an orchid perhaps, as it waved, languid and pale, among the roots. It seemed to be beckoning, then dismissing the crabs that scuttled along the roots and burrowed under the trunks driven deep into the sand by the trees’ fall from the sunshine on the cliff above. One crab, braver perhaps than the rest, approached the white thing and, scenting food, began to carefully pick delicate morsels from it, feeding itself with deft movements of its claws. If no one found it soon, the hand, then the arm, then the whole body of the dead girl would be bone.
‘No alibi?’ Maxwell asked, raising an eyebrow. He turned to Sylvia. ‘Didn’t you say he went out on a long-standing appointment?’
‘Yes,’ Sylvia said. ‘But that’s only what he told me, what I’ve heard since.’ She looked across at Jacquie who had thrown herself down in the chair opposite. ‘You look fresh as a daisy,’ she said. ‘No jetlag?’
‘Yes,’ Jacquie smiled. ‘But I am trying very hard to rise above. How are you Sylv? Thanks for all the little reminders of home while we were away. Did Max tell you how much our neighbour loved the Leighford Advertiser?’
‘There certainly is no accounting for taste,’ the school nurse laughed.
‘He must have taken the one about Bernard. I can’t believe it went into detail, even so. Even the Advertiser has some scruples, surely.’
‘Not so much scruples as absolutely rubbish reporting,’ Sylvia said. ‘You may have missed it in any case, because they called him Ronald Ryan, but they did say he was a Deputy at Leighford High and so I’m sure, like everyone else, you would have put two and two together. They didn’t say it was in connection with the murder, either. Just said he had been suspended pending investigations into something that they were not allowed to report in detail.’
‘And since that could only be fingers in the till or fingers in the knickers,’ Maxwell continued, with an apologetic shrug at his two favourite women, ‘everyone made their own decisions as to what it might be.’
‘Well, it was a little worse than that,’ Sylvia said. ‘They put it on the same page as the body being found and said that a forty one year old man was helping police with their enquiries. They said she had been to visit her Business Studies tutor before she disappeared. Then in Bernard’s piece, they said he was a forty one year old Business Studies teacher and the damage was done.’
Maxwell looked steadily at his wife. ‘And, dear heart, if I may say so, you seem to have a few extra details yourself. I thought you weren’t going back to work for another three weeks.’
She met his gaze. This may be a case of who blinked first. ‘I’m glad Sylv’s here,’ she said, ‘because she can be my witness when I say that I am not going to tell you anything about this case and I don’t want you involved. Right, Sylv?’
Sylvia Matthews nodded but knew she wouldn’t be called upon to ever stand up in even an unofficial Maxwell family court to swear to it. Max would get involved, of course. Jacquie would end up telling him everything and it might even end up that Bernard Ryan would yet be all right. Sylvia Matthews liked most people, but she didn’t like the deputy head who was often unfair and vengeful. There was no such thing in his book as water under the bridge and he could hold a grudge for England. But even so, she had seen the look on his face when the police came for him and her maternal instinct had made her want to run to him and hold him close. The little boy he once had been – that even he had once been – looked out from behind his geeky glasses and she could have cried for him. In fact, later, at home and safely in Guy’s arms, she had. But to Jacquie, she just said, ‘Right.’
‘Does this have anything at all to do with the three week thing?’ Maxwell asked mildly.
‘Not precisely, no,’ Jacquie said, shifting a little in her chair. Sylvia sighed. The DI had blinked first and the rest, very appropriately, would be history.
‘So you’ve spoken to Henry, then?’
‘You’ve spoken to Helen. Sylvia,’ Jacquie made a dramatic gesture with her arm and nearly knocked his mug out of his hand, ‘is actually here.’
‘So, what did Henry have to say?’
‘He’s well.’
‘And?’
‘And the family, of course.’
‘And?’
‘And … well, he did mention that there are a lot of people off sick – summer colds, apparently – and …’
‘So you will be going in on …?’ Maxwell waited politely, his blandest expression firmly pinned on his face.
Jacquie took a deep swig of coffee, muttering something into her mug.
‘Hmm?’ Maxwell leaned forward. ‘I didn’t quite catch that. Sounded like “Chocolat
e, elephant, pencil” if I may quote Jeremy Hardy at this juncture.’
Jacquie cleared her throat and straightened her back. ‘Monday,’ she enunciated. ‘I said I might pop in.’
‘Monday!’ Maxwell said. ‘Jacquie I really thought we had agreed …’
‘I don’t need a holiday,’ she said. ‘The exchange was a holiday, to all intents and purposes. I learned a lot, of course I did, but they wrapped me in cotton wool.’ She turned to Sylvia to explain. ‘I couldn’t carry a weapon, or, as you still call them over here, a gun, so there were limited options for what I could do. I worked mainly with the special unit assigned to the DA’s office, so we were mainly interviewing. Very different from our methods here.’
‘And sadly, very unlike any Law & Order episode I have ever seen,’ Maxwell cut in. ‘They do use those things for smashing down doors, though. I would love to have one of those.’
‘Perhaps for Christmas,’ Jacquie said, patting his knee.
Sylvia looked perplexed. ‘Why would you want one?’ she asked.
‘Why would you not?’ Maxwell asked, making vague swinging motions in the air.
‘He’s a funny age,’ Jacquie said. ‘As it was, I had to stop him talking to my temporary colleagues about the – and I quote – “balls up” they made over the Bobby Kennedy shooting.’
‘When was that again?’ Sylvia asked.
‘Before your time,’ Maxwell assured her.
‘So, as I was saying,’ Jacquie brought them back to the here and now,‘I don’t need a holiday, I haven’t been working hard at all. And Henry is pretty desperate, with staff on maternity leave, off with bugs, stress, you name it. So,’ and she raised a pre-emptive finger at Maxwell before he could speak, ‘I am going back on Monday, ad hoc hours, no night calls and the leave will re-accrue. So that’s it. No arguing.’
‘I know better than to even try,’ Maxwell said. ‘I’m surprised you made it Monday. I was expecting you to go back this afternoon.’
‘Don’t be silly. It’s Saturday.’
‘And what does that have to do with the price of fish? However, this does rather open the door for me going in to get the results.’
