Particular Stupidities (The Romney And Marsh Files Book 5)

by Oliver Tidy

‘When was that?’

  Romney had to think. ‘Eighteen-eighties, I think.’

  Marsh was amazed. ‘Eighteen-eighties? How could they have possibly dug a tunnel all the way under the English Channel in those days?’

  ‘Plenty of people believed they could on both sides of the water. It was a joint effort.’

  ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘People in authority over here, stirred up by the press of the day, started getting cold feet about having a permanent link between us and mainland Europe. They felt it would threaten our national security. They might have been right. We have had two world wars since.

  ‘There ended up being coal-producing collieries at Betteshanger, West Hougham, Snowdon, Tilmanstone and a few other places around Kent. There were some dud sites, too.

  ‘Seeing as coal mining was something new for the area and the indigenous population understood as much about it as Dover WI know about pole dancing, miners had to be brought in from all over to work in them. North-East England, Scotland and Wales mostly.

  ‘You can imagine how the residents of the villages in these places would have felt about an invading horde of uncouth, rabble-rousing, hairy-arsed northerners, sweaty socks and taffs descending on them, their women – and livestock in the case of the Welsh – and their communities. Must have been a bit like knowing Hannibal and his elephants were marching in your direction. So someone came up with the bright idea of building a new town to accommodate them all: Aylesham. It was supposed to expand to house about thirty thousand but it never managed a tenth of that. It sort of fizzled out.’

  ‘That’s all very interesting, but what does it matter to the here and now?’

  ‘Know thine enemy, Sergeant Marsh.’

  Marsh didn’t think Superintendent Vine would regard that statement as particularly good public relations. ‘I don’t get you. Enemy?’ A creeping nervousness beyond her apprehension for Romney and Julie Carpenter’s reunion began to filter through her system.

  ‘It’s probably your age. Anyway, stop interrupting me and you soon will. The influx of “foreigners” of the labouring classes brought something with them.’ Romney made it sound plague-related. ‘As widely differing as their geographical and cultural backgrounds were, there was one thing that they all had in common.’

  ‘Coal mining?’

  ‘Apart from that – a deep and abiding loathing of the law.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What do you mean, why? Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘Sorry, no.’

  ‘Because they were miners, the lowest levels of the working classes – a few hundred feet underground in most cases…’ he took a moment to enjoy his little joke. ‘…and the law has always been seen as an instrument of the controlling classes – the mine owners and those who ran things – and because there has always been friction between the lower and ruling classes the police have always found themselves in the middle and therefore historically, culturally and stereo-typically unpopular with those they were forced to oppress when they did the bidding of the oppressors.’

  It all seemed a bit improbable to Marsh, but she hadn’t studied British social history beyond the second grade of comprehensive school.

  ‘And then there was the miners’ strike of the eighties. You remember all that, or were you too wrapped up in The Bay City Rollers or whoever was top of the pops then? Anyway the BBC referred to it as the ‘most bitter industrial dispute in British history’ and the police were once again in the front line against them. It was a brutal time for everyone. Passions ran high. These people have long memories.’

  ‘So what’s that got to do with the present? All that happened decades ago.’

  ‘Haven’t you been listening? The Aylesham community was shaped entirely of miners. The community today has been built on generations of them and their ilk. It is a matter of cultural fact that they’ve all been raised to distrust and disrespect the law. The only warm reception we’ll be getting is if they start throwing Molotov cocktails our way.’

  Marsh was not at all convinced. Knowing something of Romney’s prejudices against certain strands of society and his habits of gross exaggeration and sweeping generalisations, she had learned to be suspicious regarding much of what he held to be true when speaking of groups that he displayed antipathy towards. Marsh thought that if he really did harbour feelings of negativity for the community of Aylesham it was probably because of something in his personal history. Marsh knew that Romney was not above tarring a whole nation with his own brand of disparaging contempt as a result of the most trivial of personal slights. It would only have taken an insult or a punch thrown by one drunken miner on a Saturday night in Dover for Romney to have taken against all miners everywhere. It was part of what made him the man he was.

  She tried to take him off at a tangent. ‘They don’t still mine coal here, do they?’

  ‘No. All the mines still working in this area were shut down in the late eighties.’

  ‘So what happened to all the miners when they shut the mines?’

  ‘That’s another chapter in the rich and varied history between the Kent coal miners and Kent police. When the mines shut down there were thousands of men with families to support suddenly out of work. Angry men with no transferable skills, no money and not much hope of finding work elsewhere. There’s a recipe for brewing trouble if ever you want one.’

  They continued on for a mile or two in quiet contemplation before Romney said, ‘I remember there was a local news item a couple of years ago. There used to be a zoo in the area but it was falling into disrepair. It’s gone now. Lack of investment, again. Concerns were raised over the security fencing surrounding the lion enclosure. They only had one left by then. The woman interviewing the owner of the place asked him if he was concerned about the possibility of the lion escaping into the local mining community. He said, of course he was, but it would just have to defend itself the best it could.’

  They didn’t talk much for the remainder of their journey, but sporadically Romney continued to find his little joke funny, erupting into barely controlled bouts of chuckling. To Marsh it seemed like a release of nervous energy.

  Because of the lack of parking in the street outside the school, they were forced to leave the car in a small parking area next to Aylesham’s little unmanned railway station a couple of minutes’ walk away. Their arrival signalled a change in mood and topic of conversation.

  ‘Joy.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Do me a favour, will you? Stop worrying. Julie and I had a relationship and now we don’t. I’m here on police business, nothing more.’

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t think it was that obvious.’

  Without another word, they got out of the car. Romney lit up immediately and inhaled deeply. So much for his little speech, thought Marsh. He spent a minute looking around them and then over in the direction of the adjacent properties of the school and the field of shipping containers.

  ‘Why would the school rent a scabby storage unit from that unsavoury bunch of pikeys, do you think?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, sir.’

  Romney breathed out a long plume of smoke. ‘Only one way to find out, I suppose. Come on.’ He dropped his cigarette and ground it out with his heel.

  *

  They were almost at the school gates when an explosion of noise and chaos from the direction of the main building filled the air, setting Romney’s nerves jangling. Children’s screams and shrieks, the beating of dozens of little feet in a hurry. Romney quickened his pace, thinking that there must be a fire at least to provoke such a frightening commotion.

  As they rounded the hedge, they saw scores of similarly dressed little people tearing around in all directions, like they were being pursued by things that only they could see. They sprinted and skipped and tumbled and fought and wrestled and bounded, and all the while the persistent cries tore the air and bent the ear drums of all within a fifty metre radius. It crossed Romney’s mind that the playgroun
d full of frenetic children could provide an excellent training exercise for the station’s riot police.

  As they stood taking in the frenzied scene, a plump woman closer to old than middle-aged, wearing sensible shoes and a man’s haircut, approached them with a stern expression and a purposeful stride. Before she got within speaking distance a small girl with long tangled hair had thrown herself, sobbing and wailing, at the woman’s legs.

  ‘Julia. What are you doing? Get off me this instant. You’re all snotty.’ The woman took the urchin firmly by the shoulders and prized her away.

  ‘Anna won’t play with me,’ wailed the little girl.

  ‘I’m not surprised. Look what you’ve done to my skirt.’ The woman had a tissue in her hand and she was wiping at something that glistened on her clothing. ‘Find Henry. He’s never got anyone to play with.’

  ‘Henry’s a retard. I don’t want to play with a retard.’

  ‘What a nasty thing to say. It’s no wonder you have no one to play with if you say such wicked things. Go on, shoo.’ The girl sloped off, still crying.

  They had watched the exchange with rising disquiet. Now the woman’s focus was back on them.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Romney said, ‘We’re here to speak with whoever’s in charge.’

  ‘Have you got an appointment?’

  ‘We don’t need one. We’re the police.’ They held up their identification.

  The woman’s frostiness thawed to be replaced by something a little more respectful. ‘Oh. About that business with the container, I suppose?’

  ‘Can you open the gate, please,’ said Romney.

  The woman hurried over and pressed some buttons on the keypad. The gate clicked.

  ‘Is the electric current off for the whole fence?’ said Romney.

  The woman treated him to her confused face. Marsh groaned inwardly. The woman then frowned. Romney pushed the gate open and they crossed over into the children’s domain. He opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by half-a-dozen banshees hurtling between them screeching at the tops of their excited little lungs. Romney felt a physical pain in his ears and the beginnings of a headache.

  ‘What’s wrong with them?’ he said.

  ‘Wrong with them?’ said the woman. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Is this a special needs school?’ The enquiry was sincere.

  The woman gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Oh no. Welcome to inclusive education. Thank Thatcher for that. She didn’t just snatch their milk. The Tories in their misguided wisdom shut down the local institutions where children who needed specialist care could get it, lumping them all into mainstream schooling and labelling it inclusive education. Clever spin on a stupid idea. Saved them millions. It’s been costing children who needed specialist environments, extra funding and expert help the tailored and supported education they should have been entitled to ever since.’

  Marsh listened to this, thinking that if the woman had been half her age, six sizes smaller and four times prettier maybe Romney would have found his soul-mate. Someone to share his soapbox with and bemoan the state of the nation and everything in it.

  Romney cast his gaze around the teeming mass. ‘So how many of this lot would have qualified for special schools when they existed?’

  The woman thought. ’Three or four.’

  ‘Is that all? So why are they behaving so... demented?’

  The woman treated him to an extended unfriendly look. ‘They’re children,’ she said. ‘What do you expect?’

  ‘I don’t remember my school days looking and sounding like this.’

  ‘The office is that way,’ she said, pointing in the direction of an access ramp.

  Romney opened his mouth to thank her but she had already turned away from them and was berating a big lad who had another smaller boy over his shoulder.

  As they crossed the tarmac, Romney said, ‘What a madhouse. Give me a pub fight or a picket line of angry striking miners any day of the week. At least you could get stuck into them. You can’t lay a finger on kids these days, which is a shame because with most of them that’s what they’re missing in their lives.’

  A strong smell of disinfectant and floor polish greeted them as they pushed through the doors of the dated school. There was a little counter, behind which a hamster-faced woman in glasses sat tapping at a keyboard. She seemed startled to find them standing there.

  ‘One of the teachers on duty let us in,’ said Marsh, understanding the woman’s confusion.

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  They produced their identification again.

  ‘Oh. Right,’ said the woman. ‘We’ve been expecting you. If you just wait there a moment, I’ll get the deputy head. The head teacher is on extended sick leave.’

  ‘So we heard,’ said Romney.

  The woman disappeared through a door in the wall behind her.

  ‘You catch her accent?’ said Romney.

  ‘Accent? I didn’t notice one particularly,’ said Marsh.

  ‘Pay more attention then. She’s born and bred round here. The place is well known for its unique accent. It’s a combination of all those influences that founded the place combined with a bit of Kentish thrown in for good measure. I’d know it blindfolded.’

  As one didn’t need one’s eyes to hear with, Marsh believed him.

  A bit of noise the other side of the partition wall signalled the approach of people. The secretary came back into the little reception space. Behind her came Julie Carpenter.

  ***

  5

  Despite her misgivings regarding the reunion, Marsh couldn’t help being interested in the reaction the ex-lovers had to each other. Apart from the surprised look that his eyebrows now gave him, Romney managed to keep his features unreadably neutral. Julie’s face indicated that his arrival was something she’d been expecting. Probably, she’d have been called by the site manager over the weekend. Romney’s name would have been given as the officer in charge. Julie would have known he was coming.

  Marsh wondered if Julie always came to work dressed up and made up like she was, or whether she’d made the effort for the occasion. If it were the latter it suggested something Marsh didn’t care for. Marsh looked for the engagement ring. It was modest and simple and where it should be. That was something.

  Julie smiled just a little awkwardly and a little colour came into her cheeks. Her big brown eyes lingered on Romney’s face just a little too long before she said, ‘Hello, Tom,’ and then turning to Marsh she said, ‘Hello, Joy. Come through.’

  A button was pressed, a buzzer sounded and they went through a door into a corridor of the main building. The smell of school lavatories or stewed root vegetables or both wafted up to greet them. Julie Carpenter appeared through another door and opened it wide to admit them.

  ‘Please take a seat,’ she said, indicating two the other side of a large cluttered desk. No one had offered to shake hands. The office smelled of a feminine fragrance but it was devoid of the touches and fixtures that are often apparent in a working woman’s space.

  They all sat and Julie said, ‘Would you like tea or coffee?’

  ‘We’re fine, thanks,’ said Romney. ‘How are you, Julie?’

  ‘I’m good, thanks. Busy, of course.’

  ‘We know. We won’t take up any more of your time than we have to. How long have you been here?’

  ‘Three months.’

  ‘Congratulations on the promotion.’

  ‘Thank you. Bit of a poisoned chalice as it turned out. I hadn’t been here five minutes when Foyle went on extended sick leave. He’s the head.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ said Romney.

  ‘Stress. He’d only been in the job here a couple of months. Bloody lightweight. He’s sitting at home in front of the telly all day on full pay while the rest of us are tearing around trying to keep the place going.’

  Romney said, ‘You know why we’re here?’

  Julie nodded. ‘At
least I think I do. A dead body in a container in the storage place next door?’

  ‘That’s right. Mind me asking who told you?’

  ‘Jane. She’s our site manager. It was her you spoke to on Saturday night. I imagine everyone in the village knows about it by now.’

  ‘We were told that the container was rented by the school. Is that true?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ Romney gave his first impression since they’d arrived of having to deviate from a script.

  ‘It’s not rented by the school. It’s rented by the PTA - the Parent-Teacher Association.’

  ‘So the key isn’t kept here then?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how many keys there are floating around. If there is one here I imagine it’ll be with Betty, the secretary. All that’s before my time.’

  ‘Can you let me have the name and number of whoever is in charge of the PTA?’

  ‘Of course. I’ve got that here.’ She handed over the number on a piece of paper. In response to Romney’s raised, trimmed eyebrow, she said, ‘I thought you’d ask me for it.’

  Romney read the man’s name and said, ‘Do you know if anyone from the school has ever been over there?’

  ‘I really don’t know. Sorry.’

  ‘We’ll have to speak to staff members. Is that going to be a problem?’

  ‘Not at all. They’ll be teaching but I can cover them so they can speak to you.’

  ‘Good. I’ll need a list of all staff who work here: teachers, cleaning, administrative, anyone else you can think of.’

  ‘No problem. I’ll get Betty to print you off a list.’

  ‘And we’ll need somewhere to talk to them.’

  ‘You can use this office.’

  ‘Thanks. Right then, we might as well make a start.’

  Julie stood to get them the printout of staff.

  ‘Shall we start with you,’ said Romney.

  Julie looked a little surprised before saying, ‘Oh. Of course.’ She sat back down.

  ‘Have you ever been to the container?’

  She shook her head and was a little wide-eyed when she said, ‘Never. I’ve never been in that field let alone the container.’