Crime in the School

by Catherine Moloney

  The room fell silent. Outside, a solitary thrush chirruped as though to mock their gloomy thoughts.

  Markham smiled bracingly at his team, though he felt far from confident. The case seemed increasingly like an impenetrable maze. He had to grasp every thread in the desperate hope that it would lead to the malignity buried at the heart of Hope Academy.

  He turned to the DS. ‘On your feet, Noakes. We’re going to rouse Palmer from his sickbed. First stop, Helen Kavanagh’s office. She can call Cheryl Palmer for us and find out how JP’s doing.’ He grimaced. ‘No point doing anything on the QT. Kavanagh’ll be on the blower to DCI Sidney screaming police oppression unless we square her beforehand.’

  ‘How’re you going to do that, Guv?’ Noakes looked dubious.

  ‘By downplaying any notion that JP or anyone else at Hope is in the frame.’ Markham’s distaste was evident in the curl of his lip. ‘By suggesting we’re looking at the wider community – checking out anyone with an axe to grind, local bad boys, disturbed individuals, stalkers, that kind of thing. We imply that we’re just tapping into JP’s local knowledge.’ He sighed in disgust. ‘There’s no chance of getting near him otherwise. If he thinks he’s off the hook, there’s a chance he’ll relax and say something incriminating … or blow the lid off whatever’s going on here.’

  ‘What if he gets lawyered up an’ stays shtum?’

  ‘Then we’re stuffed.’ Markham sounded resigned. ‘But it’s worth a shot. Come on, look sharpish. The bell for the end of period two will be going soon.’

  In the event, these elaborate precautions were redundant.

  As the two men approached Helen Kavanagh’s office, Markham saw that the door was open.

  JP’s voice drifted out into the corridor, ragged with emotion.

  Swiftly, the DI put out a detaining arm to hold Noakes back.

  Standing stock still, they listened intently.

  ‘It’s a fucking nightmare, Helen, whichever way you look at it.’

  ‘Well, obviously, you’ve been a bloody fool, but Wonder Boy’s crew are chasing their tails. So long as you keep your mouth shut, they’ve got nothing.’ Helen Kavanagh’s voice was like a steel trap, all treacliness gone.

  ‘I couldn’t help it. I loved him. And then there was no way out.’

  ‘He played you.’ The words were freezing water droplets.

  There was a groan like that of a wounded animal caught in a trap.

  ‘You’re a heartless bitch, you know.’

  ‘I’m not going to let you bring me down with your mid-life faggot shenanigans. I’ve worked too hard for this.’ The deputy head was implacable.

  ‘He had us all by the short hairs, y’know. You, me and … well, I won’t name names.’ It was a thin whine.

  ‘And he got his comeuppance, the poisonous little shit. When I heard the news, I wondered, is it too early to open a bottle?’

  The raw hatred in her voice was shocking.

  ‘It’s too late to develop a conscience about this, JP. Get that tame quack of yours to buy us some time. I can’t stall Markham forever. The man’s no fool.’ Kavanagh’s voice took on an edge of bitter humour. ‘Unlike his boss.’

  Suddenly, the school bell shrilled.

  Markham signaled peremptorily to Noakes.

  Stealthily, they backed up, hardly daring to breathe until they had rounded the corner.

  The corridor adjacent to Helen Kavanagh’s office was heaving with students careering in a mad stampede to the canteen for their break-time bacon butties. Noakes sniffed the air hopefully, but one look at the DI’s set expression told him there was no chance of making a detour to collect some emergency supplies.

  Back in their own cubby-hole, the DI strode across to the window before whirling round upon Noakes.

  ‘What the hell did we hear back there?’ he enquired vehemently. ‘A confession?’

  ‘Sounded pretty much like it, Guv.’ The DS thudded into a chair and regarded Markham meditatively, fitting his spatulate fingertips together with a degree of precision as though by this method he could somehow solve the conundrum. Then he shook his head thoughtfully, his shaggy brows going up and down like a doleful mastiff’s. ‘Though, come to think of it, Guv, JP didn’t actually admit to killing Ashley … only implied they’d, er, been in a relationship.’

  Markham’s intent expression showed that his mind was tumultuously busy.

  ‘JP was involved in a homosexual affair, presumably with Ashley Dean. It also sounded like Ashley was holding something over him and Kavanagh—’

  Noakes held up an admonitory finger. ‘An’ someone else too. Remember, JP said summat about not naming names.’

  ‘Yes … it could have been to do with money, if Ashley knew about people dipping into the kitty … or sex, if he was threatening to expose gay colleagues.’ Markham’s manner was animated. Perhaps at last they were getting somewhere.

  The DS too was alert with interest, his head cocked on one side as he pondered different scenarios.

  ‘Mebbe JP had a fight with Ashley an’ ended up killing him by accident – p’raps Ashley fell an’ knocked his head … Then someone else came by later – someone who hated Ashley’s guts – and worked the body over, cut it up an’ that …’ His voice tailed away as he saw the sceptical look on Markham’s face. ‘It’s a long shot, I know, Guv,’ he said humbly.

  ‘No, you’re right to think outside the box,’ the DI said kindly. ‘And it’s quite true that JP didn’t say anything which could tie him directly to the killing.’

  Noakes brightened at the praise.

  ‘What did JP mean by saying there was no way out, Guv?’

  ‘That’s the million dollar question, Noakesy. Whatever it was, Helen Kavanagh knew all about it. She’d hit the career jackpot, knowing all JP’s sordid little secrets.’

  ‘You mean …’

  ‘Yes, I think Palmer got out of the clutches of one sadist only to end up at the mercy of another. Kavanagh doesn’t care whether JP murdered Ashley or not. All she cares about is parlaying what she knows into a headship.’

  The DS looked as if new vistas were opening before his eyes. Peering into the abyss, he voiced the appalling possibility.

  ‘What if Kavanagh was the killer, Guv?’

  ‘A woman could have done it. Kavanagh’s certainly ruthless enough. But she’s not the type to get her hands dirty … which isn’t to say she couldn’t have been involved …’

  ‘Where does Sullivan fit into all this?’ Noakes knuckled his forehead as though to subdue a host of suspects thronging his brain.

  ‘I don’t know, I just don’t know.’

  Markham was pensive. At first, he’d liked Matthew Sullivan for Olivia’s sake. Later, as he had seen more of the lanky drama teacher, he had liked him for his own. Please God let him have nothing to do with this.

  ‘There’s Audrey’s murder to consider as well,’ he said sombrely. ‘Maybe that’s what JP meant when he said there was no way out.’

  Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

  At that moment, Burton and Doyle joined them.

  ‘Matt Sullivan’s out today doing a drama workshop with students at the Bromgrove Playhouse, sir,’ Burton said. ‘Do you want us to nip down there and bring him back?’

  ‘No, Kate, we’ll let Sullivan alone for the moment. We know where he is. You can do the interview as soon as he returns to school.’

  Doyle appeared disappointed. No doubt hankering for some action with the blues and twos, Markham thought, with an inward smile. A thought occurred to him.

  ‘What news of Jim Snell?’

  Burton gave a snort of derision. ‘Always doing a disappearing act. Along with his pals Jack Daniels and Johnnie Walker.’

  ‘Hmm. Even so, I want to see him. Sozzled or not, he’s the caretaker. They’re the gatekeepers – nothing gets past them. Plus, Snell’s a man with a grudge. I want to hear everything he can tell us about Ashley Dean.’

  ‘Doyle and I had a
peek in Snell’s hidey-hole yesterday,’ Noakes offered. ‘The place was a total tip. You’d think the school caretaker would take a bit more pride. Glamour pics and porno mags all over the place.’

  Doyle chipped in. ‘Yeah, sir, it was really grungy. He must be keeping KFC and Bargain Booze in business singlehanded, there were that many takeaway cartons and cans. And it had a dead peculiar smell. Like he’d been keeping an animal in there.’

  ‘No self-respect, lad. Sign of the times.’ Noakes sniffed virtuously. ‘All those manky newspapers too. When there’s a perfectly good recycling point round the back.’

  ‘When you’ve quite finished comparing notes on the caretaker’s environmental credentials, I’d like him located, Sergeant.’ Markham’s voice was tart. ‘Take Burton and Doyle with you. If Snell’s sloped off somewhere, speak to Tracey Roach. With that sharp nose of hers, she’ll soon winkle him out.’

  Left alone, Markham’s thoughts skittered uneasily, like scavengers’ claws across a cellar floor.

  Snell. The ferrety, rancid little man with beady eyes set too close together. How long had he been at Hope? Since forever, according to Olivia. As he sat there, her pungent pen-picture came back to him.

  ‘Jim Snell really hates women, especially “uppity types”. He had two wives who took him to the cleaners. Then there was some weird business with a mail-order Thai bride who vanished from the scene around six months ago. Ashley Dean flirted with her like crazy the one and only time Snell brought her to a staff shindig, which might have been one reason the course of true love never did run smooth. Sucks up to the senior leadership big time but doesn’t give the rest of us the time of day. Functioning alcoholic and all round creep. Hoards snippets of gossip in that dingy little den like Hope’s version of Gollum.’

  Hoarder of gossip.

  Keeper of secrets.

  Snell was like a spider spinning webs from his lair deep within the school. But what if he had miscalculated? What if the spider encountered a predator the likes of which he could never have envisaged?

  Markham’s stomach lurched.

  He had taken his eye off the ball with Audrey Burke. And now here was Jim Snell gone to ground.

  The DI fought to bring his hammering heart under control.

  Snell’s duties would take him all over the school campus.

  With mounting unease, he recalled Tracey Roach’s words when they first arrived at the school. He had asked which areas were out of bounds to students. ‘Hope’s full of nooks and crannies,’ she had told him airily. ‘It’s a real labyrinth in the basement. Jim Snell’s the only one who knows his way around down there.’

  Markham’s thoughts were rudely interrupted as the door to the office rocked on its hinges.

  ‘Guv!’ There was an urgency about Noakes which made Markham’s stomach swill and his mouth go dry. ‘Guv, we need you to take a look at Snell’s office.’

  For once Noakes had not exaggerated. The smell was an appalling amalgam of dried-up food, mould, Strongbow, Rothmans, festering laundry, soiled kebab wrappers and other odours that Markham preferred not to identify. A small gas ring overflowed with a gelatinous tar-like slick on which a greasy saucepan balanced forlornly like some culinary Wreck of the Hesperus.

  By dint of taking shallow breaths through his mouth, Markham managed to avoid gagging. Burton, standing next to the rickety desk where she and Doyle had been sifting through a tidal wave of newspapers and yellowing bits of papers, grimaced in sympathy.

  ‘Snell must have been camping out in here, Guv. The poor sod seems to have hit rock bottom.’

  Markham glanced round the frowsy cubicle. Bare-breasted nymphets simpered from the Nuts 2011 Glamour Girls Official UK Wall Calendar as though to mock the incineration of Snell’s romantic dreams, while a stack of top-shelf magazines spoke eloquently of his unholy lifestyle. The DI felt a stab of pity along with the revulsion. ‘“There but for the grace of God go all of us.”’

  ‘What a slob!’ Noakes quipped wanly. ‘Makes Benefits Street look like Buckingham Palace.’

  Burton gestured to what looked like a pile of ash.

  ‘Looks like Snell was burning something in here, sir.’

  Whipping a pair of tweezers out of her pocket, she gently extracted a thin strip of charred paper and scrutinized it closely.

  ‘I can’t read the text, sir, but this looks like a microfilm press cutting. I’ve seen them in Bromgrove Library. You can get printouts of newspaper articles, digital news and stuff like that.’

  The DI’s spine stiffened and his chin came up in a semaphore long familiar to his subordinates.

  ‘What was Snell doing with press cuttings?’

  ‘It has to be relevant, sir.’ Burton was keen to crack the forensic sudoku. ‘He must have been digging dirt on something.’

  ‘Or someone,’ breathed Markham.

  The stale air of Jim Snell’s office suddenly felt full of sinister life. As though an exhalation from the caretaker’s dismal nocturnal rituals had intertwined itself, vapourlike, with the floating malice of Hope’s murderous stalker to produce an evil miasma. For a moment, Markham felt as if he must choke.

  Where in God’s name was Snell? The keeper of the keys with his hellish secrets. The guardian of the basement, Hope’s underworld.

  Hell. The underworld. Hades. Unbidden, an image from his schooldays rose to the surface of Markham’s mind. Charon the ferryman, the foul haggard old man tasked with carrying the souls of the dead across the river Styx, his oar brandished over the depths ready to bludgeon any stragglers.

  Water.

  Markham was later unable to explain the lightning flashes which had shot across his mental landscape leading him to the cistern in the school’s huge cobwebby boiler room.

  ‘A tank. Somewhere in the basement.’

  Frantically, with shaking hands, he rifled through the innumerable keys on the caretaker’s chaotic desk.

  ‘Let me, sir.’ Quietly, competently, Burton took over.

  After what seemed like an eternity, she detached an item from the jumble.

  ‘This one says Utility Room.’

  ‘Right, let’s go!’ Markham smashed his fist into his palm. ‘If Snell had only come to me first, I could have saved the stupid bastard.’

  They located the utility room with surprising ease.

  There, in the far right corner was a vast, rusting cistern. About the size of a human body.

  A long pole with a hook at its end was propped against the tank. The predator’s claw. Markham knew then what they were going to find.

  The vat had no lid. A hummock of floating slurry showed, long and narrow like the swelling of a grave mound. The stench of decomposition was unmistakable.

  Markham grasped the pole, shoving and prodding at the filthy broth. Sweat streamed down his face as he thrust again and again. Snatching up some abandoned copper pulls, Noakes and Doyle rushed to help, grunting and panting with their exertions.

  Burton gasped in horror as the dead caretaker’s face appeared, followed slowly by the rest of his body. Snell’s pathetic corpse, its face horribly distorted, the mouth agape in an O of terror, floated on a sea of scum. Like a victim of the rack, his limbs were wrenched out of position. Later, behind closed eyelids, the sight haunted the DC’s sleep: Snell endlessly rupturing his frogspawn sheath like an avenging spectre.

  Markham was close to collapse. Dropping the pole, he fell to his knees. In lieu of a prayer, from somewhere deep within, he dredged up the words of a Psalm: ‘ “My strength is gone, like water poured out onto the ground, and my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax; it has melted inside me.” ’ Mentally reciting this fragment from a long-forgotten Good Friday service, he felt ineffable sadness as he contemplated all that was left of Jim Snell.

  In the aftermath of the discovery, the DI felt mysteriously detached from his surroundings, as though insulated from reality by an invisible wall of plexiglass.

  While in this dreamlike state, a kaleidoscope of images fl
ashed across his retina like flickering scenes from a zoetrope.

  Snell’s body being winched from the cistern with a sickening glutinous whoosh, slithering onto the waiting stretcher in its ghastly amniotic sac.

  The soapy yellow-green waxiness of the caretaker’s hideously contorted features. The glaucous eyes staring at some invisible horror. The disjointed limbs hanging uselessly like broken hinges.

  Markham recalled Matthew Sullivan’s epitaph to Audrey Burke. ‘She had a life, maybe not a great one, but it was taken away from her.’

  Jim Snell might have been the embittered husk of a man, scrabbling in the embers of a half-lived existence, but to die like this…! Racked with shudders, Markham was only dimly aware of a blanket being wrapped around his shoulders.

  A concerned face swam into focus. Burton.

  ‘Sir, let’s get out of this horrible place. You need tea and lots of sugar, for the shock.’

  Noakes and Doyle joined her, having supervised the removal of Snell’s remains in their viscous paste (Markham had no recollection of summoning the emergency services). Both looked badly shaken.

  Time to lead. Knowing that he had to offer a stable focal point, Markham shrugged off the blanket and made a herculean effort.

  ‘Back to the office. We can regroup there.’

  With one last fearful glance around what for him was now a chamber of horrors, Markham led his team out of the boiler room.

  12

  The Net Tightens

  THE MORNING AFTER THE discovery of Jim Snell’s body saw Hope Academy closed to students and staff alike. A notice on the school website proclaimed the commencement of half term a day early due to ‘a tragic development connected with the police investigation’, while two uniforms were posted at the car park gates to deter rubberneckers and the press.

  DCI Sidney’s reaction had, predictably, been little short of apoplectic, though Markham managed to buy the team some time by dangling the bait of ‘a promising line of inquiry connected with the wider community’. Privately, he was convinced that the latest trail would lead inexorably back to Hope, but in the meantime had no scruples about engaging in smoke and mirrors. If implying a connection with local whackjobs got the DCI off his back, then so be it. With Sidney happy to authorize overtime for an expansion of the investigation to include the Newman Hospital and various psychiatric outpatient facilities – this being heavily trailed on local news programmes – Markham got his hastily assembled task force underway taking statements and collecting evidence. Aware that each PC secretly hoped the case might be a stepping stone to promotion and a career in CID, he felt guilty at marching his eager young recruits down a blind alley. But with Sidney to pacify, there was no option but to give a convincing impression that he was bowing to the DCI’s superior wisdom.