Crime in the School

by Catherine Moloney

  Noakes was becoming uncomfortable with the psychoanalysis.

  ‘Mountfield’s an evil bastard, end of. Next thing you’ll be saying he didn’t get enough cuddles when he was little or some other bullshit excuse.’

  It was authentic Noakes. Clearly the DS was staging a recovery.

  ‘I’m just saying nothing’s straightforward here.’ Burton was emollient. ‘I think Mountfield’s sick. Maybe he even wants to be caught. Like he knows that the Harry Mountfield who took over Howard Medlock has to be done away with.’

  The other grunted.

  For an instant Markham felt envious of Noakes’s blissfully uncomplicated world view. The narrative of the human spirit was to him a script easily perused rather than a mysterious palimpsest.

  ‘What do you want us to do, Guv?’

  Noakes was back where Markham needed him. Four square behind his guv’nor.

  ‘The man we know as Harry Mountfield – in reality Howard Medlock – has no idea we’re onto him. I want discreet surveillance on him right away. Palmer too.’

  ‘D’you think JP knows the score, sir?’

  ‘Oh yes, Kate. I think that’s what he meant when Noakes and I overheard him raving to Kavanagh that it was a nightmare and there was no way out. He knows who the killer is all right. Must be crucified by guilt that Ashley died because of what happened all those years ago in another life.’

  ‘What about Kavanagh?’

  ‘I’m not sure how much she knows, Noakes. She said to JP, “He played you”, remember? She could have meant Ashley Dean or Mountfield.’

  ‘Maybe Kavanagh made it clear to Palmer that she didn’t want to hear the specifics – so she’d have deniability.’ Burton’s mind was racing. ‘Maybe she thinks it’s something to do with Matthew Sullivan or some sort of homosexual love triangle.’

  ‘Anything’s possible.’ Markham realized he was gripping the sides of his chair so hard that his hands hurt. Consciously, he willed himself to relax.

  ‘The priority is to bring Mountfield in safely. You see, I think he may be decompensating.’

  ‘You mean he’s starting to enjoy killing, sir?’

  ‘Exactly that.’ Markham’s voice was insistent. ‘He hadn’t even bothered to do a proper trawl of Snell’s office, otherwise he’d have disposed of that press cutting.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we bring him in right away, sir?’ Burton was taut as a bowstring.

  ‘We need a confession, Kate. Something incontrovertible. No room for doubt.’

  The words DCI Sidney hung unspoken in the air.

  The DI rose to his feet and the others followed suit.

  ‘Burton and Doyle, get the surveillance sorted.’

  ‘On it, sir.’

  Markham turned to the DS.

  ‘We need to track down Helen Kavanagh. She may know or suspect Mountfield’s the killer. Either way, she can give us some sort of inside track to his thinking.’

  ‘I’ll bring the car round, Guv.’

  Markham remained alone in the little office and bowed his head.

  Help me resolve this, he prayed desperately.

  The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly rose.

  As though Harry Mountfield’s victims were in the room, their arms outstretched, begging for justice.

  ‘Not long now,’ he promised.

  Then he was striding to the door.

  14

  Nemesis

  MARKHAM AND NOAKES SAT in their unmarked squad car outside Helen Kavanagh’s address. Cromptons Lane was an undistinguished street of Victorian terraced houses off the motorway leading out of Bromgrove. Tall sycamores lined both sides of the road, their spindly branches splayed in a tangled canopy against the louring sky.

  Kate Burton had radioed that all was quiet at Palmer’s address, JP having waved his soon-to-be-ex-wife Cheryl off from Calderstones Drive before vanishing indoors. Since then, nothing. Meanwhile, PC Doyle and two other officers in plain clothes were stationed at a discreet distance from Ramleh Villas where the man known as Harry Mountfield had a ground floor apartment. Mountfield had emerged once, but only to buy a newspaper and cigarettes at the corner shop.

  Markham should have felt secure, but a hard knot of fear would not let him relax, the very trees seeming to plot against him like conspiring ghosts.

  A thin drizzle began to fall, and the October day turned even murkier.

  ‘What’s our approach with Cruella, then?’ asked Noakes.

  Markham winced. That was Mountfield’s nickname for Kavanagh, and it had stuck.

  ‘We ask for Kavanagh’s help,’ he said baldly. ‘Tell her what we’ve got and throw ourselves on her mercy. We need a confession. Maybe she’s the one to help us get it.’

  Noakes thrust out his underlip as far as it would go, a sure sign of profound scepticism.

  Markham grimaced.

  ‘Well, we’ve got no forensics, have we? Mountfield was very careful to leave no trace of himself anywhere – not even on that letter in Ashley’s locker.’ He thumped the dashboard sharply in frustration. ‘And even if we can make the case for Mountfield’s true identity, so what? It doesn’t prove he killed any of the three victims. It’s a plausible hypothesis, Noakes, but a QC would shred it in court. And the top brass would throw us to the wolves.’

  ‘You think Kavanagh can get us more evidence, Guv?’

  ‘It’s possible. Or she may know which buttons to press – how to trigger Mountfield’s tipping point. There could be something in what Kate said before about him almost wanting to be caught … Perhaps Howard Medlock, that bright young sixth former with the world before him, knows that the Harry Mountfield who took over has to be destroyed.’

  ‘Sounds like summat out of Alien,’ scoffed Noakes, but Markham could see that he was thinking hard. ‘So Mountfield could be one of them split personality types, then?’

  ‘I’m no psychiatrist, Noakes, but I don’t see how he could have survived otherwise.’ The DI continued tentatively. ‘It must have taken incredible effort all these years – living like a shadow man, fighting to hold himself together, knowing that one misstep and it could all come apart.’

  ‘Jekyll and Hyde then.’

  Noakes never ceased to surprise him.

  ‘Exactly like that.’

  The DS jiggled in his seat, having no other outlet for his gratification.

  ‘It’s difficult to believe that the façade of good humour and caring that we saw was only that, a thin veneer,’ said Markham sadly. ‘There could have been – should have been – so much more.’

  For a moment, he sat lost in a brown study, thinking of the man whom he had found so engaging from their earliest meeting.

  Olivia’s friend.

  Then he recollected himself.

  ‘Let’s go, Noakes.’

  Hope’s deputy head lived at number 87, a narrow three-storey house in yellow brick – ‘lavatory brick’, as Markham thought of it.

  Casually dressed in jeans, chunky striped slipper socks and oversized jumper, Helen Kavanagh answered the bell so quickly, that Markham thought she must have been watching from behind the thick net curtains.

  She ushered them swiftly into a front room that was as dreary as a dentist’s waiting area: black leather three-piece suite; deep pile tobacco-colour carpet; potted ferns; a couple of David Hockney prints; small electric fire with an ugly brick cladding surround. A blizzard of files and paperwork overflowed the long coffee table onto the floor.

  Out of her corporate armour, Kavanagh presented a less daunting picture. The pudding bowl fringe swung limply above red eyelids, and blotchy cheeks which showed evidence of recent crying. Scrubbed clean of makeup, with the neglected traces of silent tears, she looked far removed from the home counties harridan who queened it at Hope.

  Flicking the switch on the fire to take the chill off the room, she motioned them to sit down, twisting and untwisting her hands as though being inwardly grappled.

  ‘I know why you’re here.’


  It was a subdued monotone, no trace of the town crier’s boom which had previously offended their ears.

  ‘We’d like to hear it from you first, if that’s all right.’ Markham spoke soothingly, as though pouring ointment over a wound.

  Something seemed to click in Kavanagh’s throat, like a clock about to strike, but she held their gaze.

  ‘People died at Hope because of JP’s fucking midlife crisis.’

  The expletive sounded shocking from her lips.

  ‘I saw what Ashley Dean was about and warned JP to be careful, but he took no notice.’ She traced a circle on the carpet with her foot. ‘Though I suppose if you’ve been living a lie most of your life, you end up unable to distinguish gold from dross.’

  A pause. Again, that curious clicking of the throat.

  ‘Ashley was a scheming opportunist. At first, I figured he must’ve been murdered by someone on the staff – someone he’d goaded beyond endurance.’

  She swallowed hard.

  ‘I know Ashley died because of something in JP’s past. JP told me the killer had a hold on him because of something that happened long ago. He didn’t give me a name. And I didn’t want to know.’

  Kavanagh looked at the two men with a fierce challenge in her eyes.

  ‘I didn’t want to know who it was,’ she repeated passionately. ‘I just wanted to keep my school safe!’ Her voice was a defiant whisper now. ‘There isn’t anything else.’

  Beyond the words stretched acres of loneliness.

  Markham waited patiently.

  ‘Then Audrey and Jim Snell died.’ Her fringe was damp with sweat. ‘And even then, all I could think about was Hope’s reputation. I was desperate, desperate for you to look elsewhere.’ Something in their faces must have struck home, because she added, ‘I’m ashamed. Believe me, if I could turn the clock back …’

  Markham spoke simply. ‘You left Ashley Dean’s murderer free to kill again.’

  ‘Yes, God forgive me, I did.’

  She was gulping for air now. Great angry gulps. ‘The poor stupid fools. They must have worked it out …’

  ‘Did you work it out, Helen?’ Markham asked calmly. A swift nod. ‘It was down to a throwaway comment in the common room. I doubt anyone else even noticed …’

  Nervously, she rubbed her swollen eyes.

  ‘JP was holding forth after his usual fashion. I was only half listening, but then he said “When I was at Cothill”. He was looking straight at Harry Mountfield as he said it, then suddenly went bright red and stopped in mid-sentence … I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it was odd and later I remembered. Other things came back to me too. Things which made me wonder if there was some connection between JP and Harry … before they came to Hope …’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Oh, just something in the air whenever they were together … something intense about the way Harry looked at JP … and how JP seemed somehow submissive around Harry, rarely looked him in the eyes – not at all like the way he behaved with the rest of us.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I guess that’s why that moment in the common room stuck in my mind.’

  ‘Did you ask Palmer about Mountfield?’

  ‘No. It would have been all up with us if I’d done that.’ She gave a tremulous laugh. ‘It was like we had a secret understanding. Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.’

  ‘What were you planning on doing?’ Noakes’s voice was harsh with incredulity. ‘Were you ever going to put us straight? Or were you hoping to pin it on some fruitcake from the Newman?’

  Helen Kavanagh flushed painfully.

  They had their answer.

  Noakes wouldn’t let it go.

  ‘What about the kids? What about your colleagues? You thought it was OK to have a maniac teaching RE? What about “thou shalt not kill”, luv?’ He was almost shouting now, his face puce with indignation. ‘Ring any fucking bells?’

  ‘I’d have found a way of getting Harry away from Hope somehow.’

  ‘Huh! He’d likely have gone for you next.’

  The woman turned so pale, that Markham thought she was going to faint. He shot Noakes a warning look.

  ‘We need to bring Harry Mountfield in, Helen. And we need evidence against him. Before anyone else gets hurt.’

  ‘I’d like to help, but …’

  ‘Any chance you could lure Mountfield into school on some pretext or other and confront him with your suspicions? We’d have you wired up with officers on standby.’

  ‘Won’t he smell a rat?’

  ‘It’s a risk we’ll have to take. Certainly, Palmer’s in no fit state for anything of the kind.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  Helen Kavanagh looked earnestly at Markham.

  ‘I’ve messed up very badly, Inspector. I want to make amends.’

  ‘Good. That takes guts.’ The DI spoke sincerely, and a faint pleasure stole over her face.

  Suddenly, Noakes’s radio crackled into life.

  ‘Something amiss at Calderstones Drive, Guv,’ the DS said guardedly.

  ‘Tell Kate we’re on our way. We’ll be in touch, Helen.’

  In a matter of minutes, they were on the road, siren blaring as they raced to respond.

  By the time they arrived at number 4 Calderstones Drive, it was raining hard, a driving vertical downpour which drenched the two men as they ran up the front steps where Kate Burton was waiting.

  ‘What is it, Kate?’

  ‘Mrs Lynch from number 6 came out a minute ago.’ Burton gestured to the handsome semi-detached property on the other side of the low fence which divided the two houses. ‘She kept ringing Palmer’s bell but there was no answer. When I asked what was wrong, she said she’d heard a heavy thud which seemed to come from the loft next door … seemed spooked by it, sir.’

  Markham gazed up at number 4. Nothing stirred within its bow-windowed interior.

  ‘There’s a spare set of keys, sir. JP left them with Mrs Lynch in case he ever lost his or got locked out.’

  ‘No need to force entry then,’ said Markham. ‘Right, Kate, you wait here please while Noakes and I check it out.’

  All was still and silent, save for the soft hiss of rain and the steady ticking of a grandfather clock from somewhere in the house. Markham led the way up three flights of richly carpeted stairs, arriving finally at a black steel spiral staircase leading to the loft conversion.

  ‘Mr Palmer,’ he called softly.

  No reply.

  At the top of the stairs, the DI saw what, in his heart, he had known would be waiting for them.

  JP’s grotesquely elongated body oscillating gently beneath a skylight on the far side of the sloping roof, one dangling foot seeming to stretch desperately towards the floor where a chest of drawers lay overturned.

  Moving closer, Markham saw the glazed eyes which seemed fixed on the distant sky beyond the skylight. The jaw hung agape and a small stream of froth bubbled from discoloured, purple lips.

  ‘God in Heaven.’

  Noakes had his pen knife out and was hacking desperately at the garden rope secured round the screwjack opener.

  ‘Come on,’ he muttered frantically. ‘Come on.’

  Markham watched as the DS cut down the body and laid it on the ground.

  ‘He’s light as a feather,’ Noakes whispered. ‘Poor bugger.’

  Poignantly, JP’s spectacles were carefully folded into the top pocket of his sweatshirt. As though he did not wish to see too clearly while the shadows lengthened and the world outside was hushed.

  For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face.

  Ashley Dean was the god of JP’s idolatry, Ashley’s the face he looked for at the end.

  There was a commotion on the stairs and ragged panting. Cheryl Palmer burst into the loft, closely followed by Kate Burton.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she gasped. ‘I couldn’t stop her.’

  ‘It’s all right, Kate.’

  Markham
caught JP’s estranged wife in his arms and spun her around, away from the crumpled form on the ground. But not before she had seen the ghastly flaccid face and the thick cord cinched so tightly around her husband’s neck that it looked half its normal size.

  Struggling fiercely, Cheryl let out an unearthly wail. Then her legs buckled and she fell.

  Noakes and Burton rushed to the shrieking woman, between them pulling her to her feet and manoeuvring her down the staircase.

  Markham stood rooted to the spot, listening as her anguished screams grew fainter and fainter.

  Then he looked down at the pitiful corpse.

  At least, he reflected, JP had chosen the manner of his own passing, had been absolute for death and baulked his tormentor of the longed-for vengeance.

  Nothing could touch him further.

  Light as a feather, Noakes had said.

  The DI breathed a silent prayer that in whatever mysterious bourne he now resided, James Palmer was at last free as air.

  The rest of the day seemed to pass in a blur.

  DCI Sidney, aghast at a suicide connected to Bromgrove’s flagship academy, wanted a media blackout. It took all Markham’s powers of persuasion to convince him otherwise.

  ‘We now have a firm suspect, sir,’ he insisted, ‘with every likelihood that the news of Mr Palmer’s suicide will bring him into the open.’

  The DCI eyed him like a rattlesnake.

  ‘Hope’s deputy head has agreed to a covert operation, sir,’ Markham continued. ‘We’re dealing with an individual traumatized by a past family tragedy, and she is a psychologist by training.’

  It was a stretch, but the medical eyewash was his best hope. Sidney wanted to keep his cosy relationship with Bromgrove LEA unsullied by any scandalous revelations, so the vaguer the better.

  ‘You’ve got twenty-four hours,’ came the stony response. ‘After that, Markham, you’re off the case, capeesh?’

  ‘Hearing you loud and clear, sir. And thank you.’

  Back in CID, two anxious faces turned to greet him.