by David Field
‘I always thought she was, but never got close enough to hearing even a whisper of who it might be. Then when she resigned her job, we were so far in the shit financially that I stopped thinking about it. Pity I didn’t end the relationship with Kathy as well, then I would’ve been home when whoever it was came calling.’
‘The press report said something about a “tempestuous relationship” between you and your wife in the months leading up to her death. Any truth in that?’ Mike persisted in his best diplomatic tone. Tasker snorted.
‘I smacked her across the face – once. That was when she called me a “useless limp-dicked wanker”, in front of her sister and her worm of a husband. That’s because I refused to sell the business and move south so that she could get another teaching job. But that farm was started by my great-grandfather, back in the last century. Rather, the century before that now, of course. Time passes so quickly when you’re enjoying yourself in here.’
‘Who owns the farm now?’
‘North West Dairies.’
‘And the school your wife worked at in Lancaster?’
‘Scotforth Comprehensive. Just off the M6.’
‘OK, that’s just about it, thanks Mr Tasker, unless there’s anything you want to add?’
‘No, not really. I’m not even going to ask you to get me out of here, because God help me I don’t know how I’d cope, back out there after all these years.’
‘If it’s any consolation, I believe your story. It’s a pity we can’t question Kathy Clements all over again.’
‘Did you really believe him, sir?’ Geoff asked as the big gates slid closed behind them, and they both heaved the usual sigh of relief.
‘Yes, I did,’ Mike replied. ‘Something about it struck a chord, and he wasn’t screaming for his release. He seems to be resigned to where he is.’
‘Poor bastard.’
‘Just remember that, the next time you crow over getting a conviction in the Crown Court. Now, where’s this B & B you found on the Internet? I hope it’s got a bar, or at least a pub close by. And you can carry me home when I fall off the stool after my tenth.’
Halfway down the southbound M6, following a hearty English breakfast, both of them sucking urgently on water bottles to kill the dehydration from the night before, Geoff broke the silence.
‘Something just occurred to me. Tasker never asked us why we were really there. Do you reckon he already knew?’
‘I doubt it, although the thought had occurred to me. I hope the school can shed more light on things.’
Scotforth Comprehensive looked anachronistically out of place, set back in its own grounds from a line of old terraced cottages. The building was starkly modern, and its students behaved like film extras in a re-make of ‘Teachers’ as they lounged around on benches, chased each other up and down corridors, swore loudly and fluently, and frowned disapprovingly at the two men in suits and ties who were being shown into the Principal’s office.
‘You really need to speak to Angela,’ Mrs Prescott advised them. ‘I only took over last year, after Mr. Brock retired, but Angela’s been here ever since the school was opened in 1995. I can look out Mrs. Tasker’s service file, of course. Such a tragedy.’
‘Yes indeed,” Mike agreed. “May we see this Angela ... ?’
‘Angela Crighton. Miss Angela Crichton. She’s my P.A, and the school’s Head of Administration. If you’d like to take a seat in the interview room next door, I’ll have her sent in.’
‘This reminds me of my old school,’ Geoff said as soon as the door closed behind her. ‘Particularly the language.’
‘Personally, I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers,’ Mike confided, ‘but the education was first class, and it got me into uni.’
‘What are you expecting to find out here?’ Geoff asked.
‘No idea. Open mind, rather than open mouth. Let’s see if something comes out to tickle our fancy.’
The door opened, and a cliché on legs smiled round it, dressed in a ridiculously long tweed skirt, with a fawn cardigan and, over a blue blouse, the traditional choker of beads that collided with the glasses on the end of the string as she walked in.
‘I’m Angela Crighton,’ she announced. ‘Mrs Prescott said you wanted to speak to me about poor Carolyn Tasker. A lovely lady, and such a tragic fate. But that particular case is over, isn’t it?’
‘That particular case, yes,’ Mike confirmed, ‘but we’re conducting other enquiries that may be linked to it. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Saxby, and this is Detective Constable Keating.’
‘Senior rank,’ Angela mused almost under her breath. ‘It must be something really important. Forgive me,’ she added as she remembered herself, ‘I’m afraid I watch more “Midsomer Murders” than is good for me. But that Tom Barnaby’s such a sweetie, isn’t he?’
‘Never actually met him,’ Mike advised her. ‘We were hoping you could tell us something about Mrs Tasker’s time here.’
Angela sat down on the other side of the desk and opened the file she had brought into the room with her. She perched her glasses on her nose and read.
‘Carolyn was appointed as Head of Biology when the school first opened in 1995. She lodged in the village during the school week, then went back up north at weekends. Somewhere around Carlisle, I believe.’
‘Any particularly close friends here on the staff?’
‘There was Brenda Hindmarsh, who she lodged with. Brenda taught music, but she died last year, I’m afraid. Carolyn obviously worked closely with Ben Tilton, her junior Biology colleague.’
‘How closely, exactly?’ Geoff couldn’t help asking. Angela treated him to an old-fashioned look over her spectacles, before replying.
‘Nothing like that, if that’s what you’re hinting at. Carolyn was happily married, or at least so we all thought until that dreadful afternoon. She’d resigned from Scotforth by then, of course. It was a weekday when it happened, as I recall, and if she’d still been here, then of course ... ’
‘Why exactly did she resign?’ Mike interrupted. ‘From what we could gather, the loss of income was a serious factor in the breakdown of the marriage.’
‘Kids, of course. Forgive me, and I know I should be more loyal to the school, but it’s the same wherever you go these days, young people with no respect who think they can do what they like, when they like, and no appreciation of the wonderful education that’s being offered to them.’
‘The pupils forced her to resign?’ Mike asked disbelievingly.
‘Students,’ Angela corrected him ‘They’re called “students” these days, more’s the pity. No respect, like I said. They made her life a misery after she broke up that club of theirs. Dead rats in her lunch box, old fish tails tied to her exhaust pipe, death threats ... ’
‘Death threats?’ Mike and Geoff chimed in unison.
‘Oh nothing serious, I’m sure. You, as police officers, must know all about modern kids – all bluster and bravado but no guts when it comes to it. But yes, she did get a couple of nasty notes left in her pigeonhole, and although nobody was caught, we were pretty sure at the time that it was the same lot whose club she’d broken up.’
‘What club was this, exactly?’ Mike persisted.
‘Not sure, exactly, but it was one of those silly teenage things, with blood bonds, secret passwords, codes of silence, all that sort of nonsense for which Enid Blyton has a lot to answer.’
‘The Famous Five and the Secret Seven? That sort of thing?’
‘Yes, that sort of thing. Except the idea must have travelled to India and places like that over the years, because the names that Carolyn passed on were of students from immigrant families, mainly. I’m sure you don’t want to hear my views on Britain’s immigration policy, but that particular lot are a constant source of trouble, and not only in this school either. My friend Jean Ridgeway works in a school like this in Blackpool, and it’s just as bad over there. Anyway, that’s why Carolyn gave up a really good
career post here – driven out by a bunch of incomers who belong back with their tribes.’
‘You don’t by any chance have a list of the names of these students, do you?’
Angela searched hastily through the file, then handed up a dog-eared typewritten list of names.
‘Here they are. They’ve all left by now, of course, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that most of them are in prison, for all the use they made of their education here.’
It was slowly getting dark as they glided down the last few miles of the M1 before the Brampton turnoff came in sight. Geoff put down the photocopied list, adjusted his sun visor against the last of the glare from their west, and sighed.
‘These racists never get it quite right, do they? Very few of these names are Indian, as far as I can make out. A few Paki names I recognise, but the rest of them sound Arab or something.’
‘No ‘el Zarwi’, I suppose?’
‘No sir – who’s he, exactly?’
‘It’ll keep. Where do you want me to drop you off once we get back into town?’
Chapter Thirteen
‘At least you managed to put in an appearance on the birthday itself,’ Alison observed with heavy sarcasm as Mike slid his briefcase under the hall stand.
‘I already wished him a happy birthday when we went into town and got him the golf clubs,’ Mike pointed out. ‘How did he go with Dave?’
‘Ask him yourself, when he’s finished communicating with the entire world from the living room settee,’ Alison replied. ‘And in honour of his final night with us, it’s lamb slouvaki. He obviously likes Greek, so don’t scoff it all.’
‘Would I?’ Mike asked her unnecessarily as he pushed open the living room door and addressed the back of Steven’s head, bowed over a ridiculously small-looking screen.
‘Is that what they call an “I-pad” or something?’ Mike enquired. ‘I see half the youth of Brampton walking with their heads down over those things, sometimes only narrowly missing being knocked flat when they step off the pavement without even looking.’
‘It keeps you in touch with the current world,’ Steven muttered back, his mind obviously glued to the screen. ‘For example, there’s been another police brutality in Florida.’
‘Talking of constabulary embarrassments, how did you go with Dave Petrie?’
‘He’s a really great golfer,’ Steven conceded, ‘but it’s like he had a charisma bi-pass operation in his youth. We had a few drinks in the club afterwards, and all he could talk about was his impending wedding. She must be a very special lady.’
‘She is – to him,’ Mike replied. ‘And talking of special ladies, do you think your golf will be up to it when you come face to face with the great Wes Hamilton?’
‘My putting’s a bit above average, according to Dave. But my swing’s all over the place.’
‘So is his special lady’s, according to what he told me. That’s how they met, apparently.’
‘As he went to great lengths to tell me,’ Steven grunted back. ‘Does he ever talk about anything else?’
‘Dinner’s about to go on the table,’ Alison announced through the dividing door to the dining room.
‘Let’s be conventional for once, and have it on plates,’ Mike joked.
Steven looked up disapprovingly.
‘God knows how’s she’s put up with you all these years.’
‘Shit, I must be later than I thought,’ Mike observed sarcastically as he opened his inner office door and found Dave Petrie installed behind his computer with a stupid grin on his face. The outer office was still empty, and it was barely 8 am.
‘Just dropped by to leave you a message,’ Dave breezed as he clicked something on the keyboard, then looked up. ‘Two messages actually. The first is to keep 9th November free. It’s a Saturday, and the day on which Joy and I will be committing matrimony. Two pm at Central Registry, then Newhaven Manor for a 4pm reception. Newhaven’s in Bonnybrook, on the south side, and the lawns back onto the river. The registrar’s booked, and all I need is a best man prepared to take a Saturday off work.’
‘You’re beginning to sound henpecked already,’ Mike replied with a smile. ‘Consider it done – now what’s the second message?’
‘Prepare for your first view of the potential next generation of Saxbys,’ Dave grinned as he spun the computer screen round with a flourish, to reveal a full screen image of a handsome Afro-American who looked as if he’d been made up to impersonate Barack Obama.
‘Wes Hamilton,’ Dave announced. ‘I guess his daughter might be a shade paler, but unless Steven cools off – and from what he was telling me on Sunday, that seems unlikely – your grandchildren could be cappuccino-coloured.’
Mike chuckled.
‘No wonder he didn’t want to say too much to his mother. But I hope he realises that we’re much more broad-minded than that.’
‘My father would have strangled me with his bare hands if I’d come home with one of those,’ Dave chuckled back.
‘I can see now where you got your easy racial tolerance from,’ Mike retorted, as the door swung further open behind him, and Van Morton appeared in his doorway. She froze momentarily as she spotted Petrie in Mike’s chair.
‘Have there been some role reversals while I was away?’ she enquired coolly.
‘In a sense there has,’ Mike smiled. ‘Dave here’s getting married again.’
The look on Van’s face suggested that the bride-to-be must have recently been discharged from a psychiatric institution, but she managed a cold smile and a word of congratulation before she looked back at Mike.
‘We need to come up to speed. I’ve been back since Monday, and the Internet twitter being monitored by the spooks suggests that we need to put more urgency into Delilah.’
‘Where are you at?’
‘Precisely where I was when I went on leave, and that’s not meant as any criticism of Jill Bradbury. There’s clearly something being planned for the EU Summit in October, here on our very doorstep, but there’s been no sign of any unusual activity in the brothels.’
‘All pretty much up and down, you mean?’ Dave joked. Van shot him a venomous look, then looked back at Mike.
‘Can you come up to my office sometime this morning? The atmosphere’s a whole lot purer in there,’ she spat. With a final glare at Dave, she swept out, calling out a friendly greeting as she passed Geoff Keating, who was in the process of installing himself behind his desk in the outer office.
‘Talking of getting up to speed,’ Dave said as he rose from Mike’s chair and indicated that it was now available, ‘where are we with all these names on this whiteboard?’
‘Tasker was interesting, but not very helpful, as it turns out,’ Mike advised him. He placed his briefcase on the empty desk, opened it, and extracted a sheet of paper.
‘Take a few copies of this, and circulate them before letting me have the original back,’ he instructed Dave, who looked at the list with a puzzled frown.
‘Ali Baba and the forty thieves?’ he enquired.
‘They’re all names of school students in Lancaster ten years ago. They forced a very good teacher to resign her post after she caught them organising some sort of club at the school. There may be nothing in it, but I want to know where they are now, what they’re doing, if they’ve acquired any form since then, etc. Call it tying up loose ends, if you like. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to speak to Brandon, who I see has just arrived. I installed him while you were on leave, but presumably you remember him from my dinner party, and, also presumably, you’ve been very nice to him in my absence.’
‘Naturally. He and Maggie are coming to the wedding, by the way.’
‘I’ll follow you out,’ Mike offered, by way of cutting the conversation short. Dave headed out towards the corridor with the briefest of acknowledgements to Tait and Keating at their desks, almost colliding with Cathy Norman in the doorway.
‘Sorry I’m late, sir,’ Cathy smiled at Mike as sh
e dropped her shoulder bag on the floor. ‘A cyclist went under a removal lorry at Repton Corner, and all the traffic was backed up for half a mile.’
‘Stay behind after school, and write out fifty times “I must not force Paddington to eat yoghurt”,’ Mike smiled gently back at her, before looking intently at the whiteboard on the wall, then down at Brandon Tait.
‘Looks like you’ve been doing a bit of writing of your own, Brandon.’
The in-house genealogist frowned into his open computer screen.
‘Not as much as I’d have liked,’ he replied. ‘The Pockridge and Baynton families were easy, since, as we suspected, descent was exclusively through the male line. But I hit a brick wall with the two Winthrop women. It’s as if they never existed, and the only evidence that they did came from that old legal document you dug out. I’m still working on the possibility that they had illegitimate offspring, but in a rural community in the Seventeenth Century, they would have been well-guarded secrets, believe me.’
‘And the others?’ Mike asked despondently.
‘Well, as you can see, the Culworthys were a bit more co-operative, given their somewhat unusual names, even for those days. Also very fertile in other ways, unfortunately – you’ll find Culworthy descendants everywhere from Taunton to Tees-side, the latest being a vicar in Amersham, in Buckinghamshire.’
‘We have suspicious deaths on Exmoor and in Newcastle,’ Mike reminded him, ‘so keep going there. What about Goodfellow and Manton?’
‘Do you have any idea how many people in that hyper-religious age adopted the name “Goodfellow”, whether they merited it or not?’ Brandon demanded. ‘I could fill a whole book just with that name, and if there’s a community anywhere in the British Isles without a “Goodfellow”, then it must be very remote, and probably out to sea somewhere. It’s almost as bad with “Manton”, which is what we call a “community name”. By that I mean that the owner of it took the name from where he lived, and there’s a village called “Manton” inside what was once Sherwood Forest.’
