Suspicion

by Leigh Russell

  Chapter 44

  I took a step away from David.

  ‘I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to protect Edleybury,’ he was saying, his voice cracking with suppressed emotion.

  ‘You knew Rosie, didn’t you?’

  He scowled at me.

  ‘You were the one having an affair with her. It was you, wasn’t it? Admit it!’

  ‘So? I’m not married. Not like your husband. I can have a consensual relationship with a woman if I want to. We’re not living in Victorian times. What I choose to do in my own time, away from the school, is entirely my own business. It’s not as if I paraded my promiscuity in school.’

  ‘You gave those photos to Rosie,’ I pressed on, ignoring his provocative comments.

  ‘What photos?’

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it,’ I cried out. ‘You were with Rosie on the night she was killed.’

  The expression that flickered across his face was familiar, a slightly indignant scowl coupled with a voice that rose, just a fraction, in tone and volume. I had seen that same expression of exaggerated innocence many times on the faces of guilty pupils denying their transgression while insisting, ‘It wasn’t me, Miss.’ His expression darkened.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he muttered.

  But despite his protestations, I could see in his eyes that he knew I had grasped the truth. I should have kept quiet, but the realisation that David, and not Nick, had been with Rosie that night, gave me courage.

  ‘You orchestrated this whole thing, didn’t you? You gave Rosie those photos and told her to show them to me. You set the whole thing up. Why did you do it?’

  ‘Nick was never the right man,’ David replied, his eyes blazing. ‘He had to be stopped.’

  ‘What do you mean? Stopped from what?’

  ‘He had to be stopped before he destroyed Edleybury. He was never right for us.’

  ‘What are you talking about? He’s the headmaster.’

  ‘He has no understanding of decent values. He lacks any moral compass. How can we entrust the life of the school to a man like that?’

  ‘What do you mean, “a man like that”? Like what? He’s the headmaster– ’

  David interrupted me. ‘He’s lax, morally lax. And all the changes he’s pushing forward, they’re wrong. Edleybury isn’t a school for girls. It’s unthinkable. No one who had any understanding of the school and its long traditions would dream of proposing such an idea. It can’t happen, not in my school.’

  ‘But it’s not your school.’

  ‘You don’t understand. How could you? As soon as he stepped foot in the place, he was talking about turning it into a completely different kind of school. What can he possibly know about the spirit and ethos of Edleybury? A man who flits around from school to school, pursuing his own small-minded ambition. What does he know about loyalty and honour and centuries of tradition, traditions that have made Edleybury what it is? I’ve been here for nearly a quarter of a century, and yet my objections to his plans are being swept aside without any consideration.’

  ‘That’s not true. You must know how much Nick respects you. He thinks really highly of you. We all do. And he knows you play an indispensable role in the life of the school.’

  ‘You think he respects my opinions?’ David repeated, with a harsh laugh. ‘What does he understand about what matters here?’

  ‘I’m sure we all agree that what matters is instilling decency and integrity into the pupils.’

  ‘Decency and integrity? You and your husband have no idea about decency and integrity. You have no morals.’

  ‘Don’t lecture me about what’s right and wrong. Don’t you dare.’ I glared at him. ‘I know, you know. I know what you did.’

  He shook his head. ‘What are you talking about? You know, you know? What do you know?’

  ‘You killed Rosie.’

  ‘What– what are you talking about?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about,’ I replied, as calmly as I could.

  While we were speaking, I had been edging towards the wall, inching my way past one of the iron struts, ready to make a dash for the door. The fabric of the building was falling apart, a large section of the ceiling at that end only held in place by one metal pole with a small platform at the top. No attempt had been made to attach it to the rafters, presumably because any drilling or hammering of nails would have caused the rotten wood to crumble. It wouldn’t take much force to dislodge the metal strut, and the whole edifice would come crashing down. Placing the palm of my hand against it and curling my fingers around it, I felt the pole wobble in my grasp. Suspecting my intention, David lunged at me, but he was too late.

  ‘Decency and integrity,’ he repeated, spitting the words at me as I wrenched the pole from its position and made a dash for the door.

  David’s eyes glared at me in mute terror and his mouth gaped in a silent cry as, with a tearing roar, a section of the roof fell in behind me. A chunk of masonry landed on my shoulder with a sickening thud, missing my skull by inches, knocking me to the floor. I heard screaming and realised it was my own voice, sounding shrilly above the din of falling bricks and plaster. Numb with shock, I forced myself to crawl in the direction of the door while shards of brickwork clattered and ricocheted around me in a maelstrom of falling debris. Blinded by dust and screaming in pain, somehow I managed to drag myself over the threshold, not daring to rest until I felt grass between my fingers. Fragments of brickwork showered around me as the old pavilion collapsed with a thundering roar.

  Daylight faded into ringing silence until a tumult of voices filled my head. They seemed to come from a long way off, muffled by a booming in my ears.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The pavilion’s gone!’

  ‘It’s collapsed!’

  Near me, someone coughed.

  ‘Oh my God, there’s someone there!’

  ‘Call an ambulance and get the school nurse here now!’

  A burning sensation throbbed in my shoulder. Drifting in and out of consciousness, I heard the wail of a siren which was followed, a long time later, by Nick’s voice calling to me.

  Through a fog I saw him, tiny wet runnels glistening in the dust on his face. I tried to tell him that everything was all right and we were safe now, but I couldn’t speak. Pain was raging through me like a fever, reaching me in waves that blotted out everything else.

  Chapter 45

  I must have regained consciousness in the ambulance because I have a vague recollection of vomiting on a red blanket, and Nick’s voice telling me where we were as I strained to raise my head, while an engine droned faintly in the background and some kind of medical equipment beeped and flashed above me. Other than that, I have only confused fragmented memories of what happened after the pavilion collapsed until I woke up properly to find myself in a hospital bed with my shoulder bound in a thick bandage.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Nick asked me. Turning, he called out, ‘My wife’s awake! She’s awake!’

  I tried to tell him that I felt sick, but a sharp pain in my neck prevented me from moving my jaw. Tears slid from my eyes but I couldn’t move my face to cry. The doctors pumped me full of painkillers. Even though I was groggy with drugs, it was excruciating being manoeuvred into a wheelchair to be taken for x-rays and scans and blood tests. I endured the pain as quietly as I could, only yelling out when an unexpected twist or jolt stabbed me, like daggers slicing through my bones.

  At last I was returned to bed and given another shot.

  ‘Does she really need morphine?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied through gritted teeth, ‘she really does.’

  It was true. The pain was unendurable.

  The following day, a doctor came to report the results of the tests I had undergone. I was feeling considerably more comfortable although my shoulder still ached terribly.

  ‘Good news,’ the doctor said. ‘Your injuries are not as severe as we feared.’


  Beside him, I saw Nick had tears in his eyes.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I whispered. ‘We’re safe now.’

  My shoulder tormented me for weeks, agonising whenever I moved it, and painful when I didn’t, but the doctors assured me I was recovering and the discomfort would pass. They gave me an exercise routine which was excruciating, and advised me to move as much as possible to prevent my shoulder from seizing up.

  ‘Shoulders are not designed to stay still,’ one of the doctors told me. ‘You need to move it gently as much as you can, in spite of any discomfort the movement causes.’

  If I could have laughed without causing myself intense pain, I would have been amused by the language the medical staff used.

  ‘They talk about “discomfort” as though it hardly hurts at all,’ I complained to Nick. ‘I’d like to see them go through what I’m suffering here. Bloody liars. They’re worse than politicians.’

  Nick gazed wretchedly at me, hating to see me suffer, and powerless to help, but I was too overwhelmed by physical pain to offer him any respite from his misery. Pain was my constant companion. It possessed me like an evil spirit. Crouching on my chest, it drained my life force, an invisible vampire that usurped my mind and ousted my humanity, making me cruel to the man who loved me.

  Slowly the doctors reduced my drugs, and I regained control of my thoughts and stopped insulting the medical staff at every opportunity. It wasn’t their fault I was in pain. Even with Nick’s insistence on paying for additional sessions, and the ferocity of my physiotherapist, my progress was slow. Lying in bed at night was the worst. It was almost impossible to get comfortable. Whatever position I lay in the pain kept me awake, along with a blistering regret for everything that had happened.

  Still, apart from my battered shoulder I was, miraculously, physically unharmed, although it took me weeks to recover from the psychological trauma of my experience. For months my sleep was disturbed by recurring nightmares of collapsing buildings. Sometimes in my dreams I watched a fox vanish beneath an avalanche of bricks, while I wept bitterly for its pointless death.

  One morning Nick asked me about my nightmare. ‘You were mumbling something about a fox.’

  I nodded, too tired and dispirited to explain.

  Everyone told me I was lucky to have escaped with my life, and it was true. David had not been so fortunate.

  Nick was even more horrified than I was. He blamed himself for failing to ensure the pavilion was safe. ‘I should have knocked it down straight away. What was I thinking of, letting such an important decision be influenced a load of old men?’

  I knew he was referring to the members of staff who fought against any change to the customs or fabric of the school. David had been their ringleader, but neither of us remarked on the irony of his fate, after David himself had argued so strongly against the pavilion being pulled down.

  ‘What were you doing there?’ Nick asked. ‘You knew it was unsafe.’

  I told him I had been taking a close look at the interior, preparatory to showing some builders around.

  ‘And what about David? What was he doing in there?’

  ‘He told me he saw someone go inside. That was me. But he couldn’t see who it was, and wanted to check everything was okay.’

  ‘He wanted to check everything was okay,’ Nick repeated flatly.

  ‘Yes, well, anyway, he came in, and we started arguing about whether the place ought to be knocked down. You know how he felt about it, resisting any changes, when suddenly– you know what happened.’

  Nick sat by the bed in silence for a moment.

  ‘What a horrible way to go,’ he said at last. ‘I wonder if he knew what was about to hit him.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I lied.

  When I closed my eyes, I could picture David, his face plastered in brick dust, staring at me in mute horror, before the roof caved in and he disappeared beneath a torrent of falling masonry. I couldn’t have saved him, even if I had wanted to. His crushed body was recovered from the ruins of the pavilion, his face shattered almost beyond recognition. If I had lingered, even for a second, I would have suffered the same fate.

  ‘So just when I sorted out a replacement secretary, now I’ve got to appoint a new deputy,’ Nick grumbled. ‘And that’s not going to be any easier than replacing Sue.’

  Forcing my way out of dark memories, I smiled at him. ‘You’ll manage. You always do.’

  Chapter 46

  Unlike his face, David’s DNA remained intact, and on the afternoon of my return home from hospital, Nick and I received a visit from the police.

  ‘I wanted to tell you in person,’ Inspector Jarvis said, after making polite enquiries about my injuries. ‘You have recently been affected by a most unfortunate series of events, but we have at last established the facts. We have a match for the DNA found on Rosie White’s body, which has given us the identity of her killer.’ He paused for a second. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that the man who killed Rosie White was your deputy head, David Lancaster.’

  ‘David?’ Nick blurted out in disbelief. ‘That can’t be true. No, it can’t have been David. I’m sorry, Inspector, but that’s a preposterous suggestion. The man’s dead and can’t defend himself, but I can vouch for his character one hundred per cent. I assure you, Inspector, David was a good, decent man.’

  The inspector shook his head, looking almost apologetic. ‘That doesn’t alter the facts, sir.’

  I put my hand over my mouth to hide my smile. The niggling doubt that Nick might have been with Rosie on the night she died had now been eliminated. With proof that David had been in Rosie’s bed that night, the police were satisfied he was responsible for her death. Having uncovered evidence that pointed to him having an affair with Sue as well, they concluded that he had also killed her. According to the detective inspector, David had been a sexual predator subject to fits of jealous rage who had pursued both women with vicious determination, reacting violently when provoked. Nick listened to the detective with a stunned expression.

  ‘I don’t know what to say to you,’ he stammered at last, ‘except that I don’t believe it. I can’t.’

  ‘Your loyalty does you credit, sir, but I’m afraid it’s true.’

  The police seemed pleased to close the case, but none of this was good news for Edleybury, and Nick was not alone in wanting to suppress the story of David’s killing spree. Having a deputy head who was a serial killer was hardly the kind of publicity the school was seeking. The governors must have had a connection with someone higher up in the police force than Detective Inspector Jarvis, because the story never appeared in the media. In addition to that, something Nick said left me with the impression that the school had passed money to the families of the murdered women to compensate them for their loss, and also, no doubt, to persuade them not to talk to anyone about what had happened.

  Gradually the pain in my shoulder faded, as did the memory of David, glaring at me in terror, realising he was about to be buried alive. But my shoulder still ached when I moved it too strenuously, and my sleep continued to be plagued by nightmares. Any sport was out of the question for me for a while, so Angela and I met in the staff dining room instead of on the tennis courts.

  ‘We must start playing again as soon as I can move this dratted arm properly,’ I told her.

  She nodded. ‘Of course. That would be great. I’ve missed our games. How long do you think it’ll be until you’re fit again?’

  ‘Oh, not until Christmas, at least.’

  ‘That’s a shame. But still, you’re lucky to be alive. It must have been terrifying.’

  ‘I know, it’s just awful.’

  ‘What actually happened?’

  I hesitated.

  ‘If you’d rather not talk about it, I quite understand.’ She gave me a sympathetic smile. ‘It must have been terrible. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. It was insensitive of me.’

  ‘No, no, it’s not that I don’t want to talk abou
t it,’ I hastened to reassure her. ‘It’s just that I don’t really remember very much about what happened. They think one of us must have knocked into a metal support which slipped from its place and caused the ceiling to cave in, but I have no recollection of that happening. I was in the pavilion with David, discussing what we ought to do about the place, and whether it would be better to restore the building or knock it down and start again, and the next thing I knew, I was in an ambulance feeling as though I had been battered all over my body. I was in so much pain, I didn’t even wonder what had happened to David. I suppose I assumed he had got out. I couldn’t believe it when Nick told me later that David had been killed.’

  I shook my head and winced as the movement prompted a twinge of pain in my shoulder.

  ‘You were lucky to get out of there alive,’ Angela said once again.

  I nodded. It was a refrain I was to hear many times over the next few months.

  The older members of staff were devastated at the loss of the deputy head, who had been their champion for so long. A bevy of them decided to retire that year, claiming the school was never the same after David’s death. Nick expressed public regret at losing them but privately he was delighted.

  ‘Another one going. It means we can recruit a newly qualified teacher,’ he told me. ‘They’re younger, half the price, have double the energy, and are less set in their ways. It’s a win in every respect!’

  As deputy head in his previous school, he had frequently expressed irritation about the number of newly qualified teachers joining the staff, complaining that they lacked the experience to control and teach classes. As a headmaster with budgets to juggle, and no longer involved with minor disciplinary matters in the school, his priorities had changed.