Particular Stupidities (The Romney And Marsh Files Book 5)

by Oliver Tidy

  He offered her a glass but Julie, it seemed, had not spruced herself up and driven across Dover just to sit around and talk. Romney was led meekly by several parts of his anatomy – physically by the hand, figuratively by his nose and mentally by his manhood – to the bedroom. Despite the reservations that had crept into his thoughts in the garden, he did not prove to be a stubborn beast. His analysis of suddenly unimportant things, unlike his erection, would keep.

  *

  They were lying sated and satisfied in a post-coital fug. Julie had her head on his chest and was running her fingers playfully through the hair on his stomach. Romney was staring at the ceiling and a familiar sense of wrong-doing was creeping through the labyrinth of his conscience, turning on the lights as it went – large, powerful floodlights. Doors in there that only minutes before had been stuck fast against the hammering of his good reason now swung easily open to admit the harsh illumination of his guilt.

  The sex had once again been exciting and rewarding for him but the fear of consequences grew with every encounter. Why he couldn’t feel these things before the act was one of life’s greatest mysteries to him.

  ‘How’s the hunt for the murderer in Aylesham going?’ said Julie.

  Romney was glad of the distraction from his feelings of gloom and doom. He sighed heavily. ‘We know what the dead man was doing there now. How he came to be there.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘He was part of a gang that was stripping lead from church roofs and selling it as scrap to the Holloways. They drove it down to Aylesham at night.’

  ‘So you think one of them killed him?’

  Romney sighed again. ‘It’s our best connection, our only connection, but we’ve interviewed all of them thoroughly and not only has no one put their hands up for it but none of them is acting guilty. I can usually smell guilt and there’s not a whiff of it for Lance Leavey’s death or any evidence to support how it looks. It’s very odd.’

  After a long pause, she said, ‘So what will you do?’

  ‘Widen the net. Look deeper into their alibis, reassess the evidence and, just in case, look further afield for someone else. That’s probably going to bring us back to St Bartholomew’s. Could be there is something there that we’ve missed. We have one lead.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I should tell you as technically you’re part of my investigation.’

  Julie turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘I think we’re both a little beyond that, Detective Inspector Romney, don’t you?’ She squeezed his testicles to emphasise her point. The jolt of playful pain that only a man can understand made him flinch. ‘Well?’

  ‘OK. OK. One of the boys Lance visited Aylesham with said something about Lance either receiving or making a video while he was there. It was something that excited him, apparently.’

  ‘A video? What of?’

  ‘That’s hurting now.’

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ She bent and kissed it better.

  A little groan of pleasure escaped him.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Romney, eager for her to continue her ministering. ‘We’re looking into it. It’s one theory that he saw something he shouldn’t have and it occurred to him that he might be able to make something out of it. If that’s the case then phone records are likely to turn up something. And if they do my money is on the Holloways. Although I can’t understand why they would kill someone and then not only store the body on their property but notify the police of it. That makes no sense at all.’

  They lay quiet for a minute, the only sounds were birdsong coming in the open window and in the far distance a tractor was going somewhere.

  Julie said, ‘There are rumours that Foyle brought his boyfriend to school sometimes out of hours.’

  Romney sat up. ‘Really?’

  ‘Just rumours, Tom. I don’t even remember where I heard it.’ She turned to look at him, her eyes wide. ‘What if he took his lover to school for… I don’t know… to live out some sort of perverted sexual fantasy in a classroom and that’s what this young man saw, what he filmed?’

  Romney said, ‘Tell me exactly what you heard about him.’

  ‘Honestly, Tom, just rumour. People joking about it. I thought it was just malicious gossip spun by narrow-minded homophobic people. You must know what they’re like in Aylesham.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Romney was smiling now. ‘Remind me – when did Foyle go off sick with stress?’

  ‘Three months ago. How does that fit in with things?’

  Romney thought. ‘Well enough to make it a line of enquiry.’ He pulled her to him and kissed her.

  ‘You won’t mention my name, will you?’ She looked worried. ‘His boyfriend has a reputation for knocking women around.’

  ‘Does he now?’ Romney shook his head. ‘Don’t worry. I always protect my sources. He would have had access to the container with a key being kept at school. It’s still missing, I suppose?’

  ‘Betty hasn’t said that it’s turned up. Oh look, maybe I’m being dramatic, as bad as the other gossips. I’m sure Foyle wouldn’t do something so… stupid.’

  ‘If Lance saw Foyle and his boyfriend living out some schoolroom fantasy and made some film of it and then tried to blackmail him that could prove a powerful motive for murder. Think of everything that Foyle would stand to lose. And he would have access to the container Lance was found in. But why would he leave the body in there?’

  ‘Perhaps he just couldn’t face recovering it. You know he’s had breakdowns. Do you really think it could be him?’

  ‘Right now it makes about the most sense of things.’ He noticed her check her watch and his jubilation was temporarily snuffed out as he realised she must soon be leaving. ‘Can I get you anything?’ he said. ‘Wine? Water? Something to eat?’

  She stretched brazenly, her full breasts swinging into view. She caught him looking at them and smirked. ‘I should be going,’ she said. ‘But before I do…’

  Romney’s ethics, morals, and thoughts for his investigation were quickly forgotten as he felt the wet warmth of her tongue moving down his belly.

  *

  Romney waved Julie off and then went back inside to help himself to a drink. He felt better than he had in months. Hot sex, a cold beer, a warm evening to himself and his pipe. A thought occurred to him as he was refilling the pipe’s bowl. He found his phone, then the number for the Holloways’ scrap business. He took a long refreshing draft of beer, letting his eyes roam over the far field as he listened to the phone ring. It was answered by Elvis.

  ‘Don’t you ever go home, Elvis?’ said Romney.

  ‘Business is busy, Mr Romney. If we don’t do it someone else will. What can I do for you now?’

  ‘I want to ask about Tiddles.’

  ‘The dog?’

  ‘Yes. How long has he been in the self-storage field?’

  Elvis made a thinking noise. ‘Only a few of months, I suppose. Why?’

  ‘What made you put a guard dog out there?’

  ‘Uncle Len thought he heard someone poking about in the field one night. Tiddles used to be in the scrapyard. He makes a good deterrent, as I understand you found out.’ Elvis had a little laugh.

  Romney thanked him and rang off. He had another date that tied in with Lance’s disappearance.

  ***

  22

  Even with his coffee and pastry pit stop, Romney beat them all in on Monday. He was already in the building before he realised he hadn’t been wound up by the flashy motors cluttering up the station’s little parking area. It was something else to lift his mood.

  His knee had improved over the weekend, leading him to believe that no serious damage had been done. There was still a niggle, but he’d had similar before. He decided to rest it for a few days, not run until the big day if he felt that was the best course of action. And if he still had a twinge on Sunday then he could always dose himself up with painkillers and suffer the
extended rehabilitation afterwards. It was only five k, he kept reminding himself. Maybe, he thought, he should buy himself one of those sports knee supports he’d seen other runners wearing, just to be on the safe side – belt and braces.

  After dumping his jacket and bag in his office he went straight to the meeting room with a new marker pen and his breakfast and began updating the whiteboard.

  The meeting room is where his team found him when they drifted in. He was swilling the dregs of his drink around the cardboard cup and looking pleased with himself. He chivvied them up. Taking their places, they noticed the revisions to the board. Romney’s positively charged aura encouraged them to exchange curiosity-tinged looks and a range of eyebrow wiggling.

  Romney clapped his hands together and gave them a good rub, like he was standing in front of a blazing brazier on a frosty winter’s morning. ‘Busy day ahead,’ he said. ‘And another late night to come for some of us.’

  He outlined the weekend’s developments and then elaborated in greater detail his interpretation of new information. When he’d finished, he invited comment. His little captive audience sat in stunned and confused rather than awed reverential silence.

  ‘Come on,’ said Romney. ‘Don’t tell me no one has anything to say.’

  ‘Can I just check I’ve got this straight, guv?’ said Grimes.

  Romney made a noise of impatience.

  Grimes scrunched up his face and licked his new teeth. ‘Your assertion is that the ex-head, Foyle, took his gay lover into school at night to live out a bit of same-sex teacher/student fantasy role play in one of the classrooms and neither of them thought to drop the blinds before they dropped their trousers?’

  ‘The classrooms that face out towards the self-storage field cannot be seen from the road. In fact they butt right up to the fence. No one is going to be in the field at night. Maybe they just got carried away. People do, you know. In the heat of the moment.’

  Marsh was frowning when she said, ‘It doesn’t sound very likely to me. I mean, he’s been a teacher at the school for how long? Why now?’

  ‘Why not now? And who says he hasn’t been abusing the trust of the Kent County Council and the good people of Aylesham for years?’

  Marsh thought about the good people of Aylesham?

  Romney said, ‘Think of the dates.’ He moved to the board and used his pen to indicate the timeline he’d added to. ‘Foyle is made head teacher at about the same time that Lance went missing. Maybe he and his boyfriend were celebrating...’

  ‘With a quick knee-trembler over a school desk, like you do,’ said Grimes.

  ‘…and it just happens to be the night the Chathamites are dropping off a shipment of stolen lead.’

  ‘Chatamites and sodomites. It’s all sounding a bit biblical,’ said Grimes.

  ‘Do you mind,’ said Romney. ‘Lance Leavey takes a walk round the back of a container for a slash and can’t help seeing the unusual activity between grown men in what looks like a school classroom. He does the first thing everyone does these days when confronted with something appalling: grabs his smartphone and starts filming. And then, having a nasty mind, he soon thinks that there might be some money in it. So he keeps it to himself and follows things up later. When he follows it up he finds out who they are and that Foyle is the head teacher. Lance starts applying some pressure of the blackmailing variety. Foyle folds in on himself mentally and either he or his boyfriend ends up in a face-to-face confrontation with Lance. Tempers are lost and Lance winds up dead. If it happened at school, where can they hide him?’

  Marsh said, ‘Why does this automatically have to be about sex? Just because they’re a pair of gay men? That doesn’t make them perverts. If I found myself in an empty school classroom at night with my other half I wouldn’t automatically think about having sex over the teacher’s desk, would you?’ She looked at each of her male colleagues in turn and they all managed to look like that’s just what they would do. ‘I give up,’ she said.

  Romney cleared his throat. ‘Hold on. I haven’t finished. I checked with Elvis. That dog they’ve got chained up over the fence only got put in the yard after Uncle Len on night duty thought he heard someone in the field a few months back. That could have been Foyle and his boyfriend hiding the body. Tiddles’ arrival as a deterrent put the mockers on them retrieving the body for a more permanent disposal. The dates work.’

  Grimes said, ‘But why would they just leave the body in there? It was always going to be discovered.’

  ‘For a start, the key went missing,’ Romney etched inverted commas in the air with his fingers, ‘so no one from school would have been able to go in there. From what I understand, the PTA only needs to go in there Christmas and summer for the school fairs. That would leave the Holloways, but because the body was locked in a freezer that belonged to the school side of the container-sharing arrangement and the body was sealed in plastic, there wouldn’t be much likelihood that anyone else would stumble across it. As to why they hadn’t removed it by now, as I just said, maybe it was because the dog was in the field and they couldn’t risk entry for getting mauled or for the fuss the dog would likely make and the attention it would attract after dark. And they could hardly smuggle the corpse out in daylight, in full view of anyone who was hanging around, could they? Maybe they were hanging on in the hope that Tiddles would be moved back to the scrapyard. Well, there’s one way to find that out for sure.’

  ‘You’re going to visit Foyle and confront him?’ said Marsh.

  ‘No. We’re going to bring him and his partner in and grill them. This is the only scenario that now makes sense. I think we’ve got our men.’

  Marsh drew in a sharp breath as much at the notion that this made any ‘sense’ to a senior investigating officer as for what was being proposed. ‘Who is your source for the information on Foyle, sir?’ she said, as if she didn’t know.

  ‘A good copper doesn’t reveal his sources. You should know that. Joy, you and I will bring Foyle in. We’ll find out who his partner is and you two can go and get him,’ he said to Grimes and Spicer.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be wiser to speak to them at their homes?’ said Marsh.

  Romney shook his head. ‘My copper’s instinct says we bring them in and sweat them. With any luck we can have this tied up today so that CID can bask in a bit of glory tonight.’

  ‘That’s the second time you’ve mentioned tonight, guv. What’s happening?’ said Grimes.

  Romney rubbed his hands together again, moved his chair closer and sat down.

  *

  Romney and Marsh arrived at Gavin Foyle’s home a little after ten o’clock. Marsh was not happy about the role she was being forced to play in a detaining-for-questioning that she didn’t believe in. Romney sensed this and before they got out of the car he said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘This doesn’t feel right to me.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I’m just finding it a little hard to accept the… proposed scenario.’

  ‘It’s a theory. An avenue of investigation. We’ve got nothing else at the moment that’s holding water. All we’re doing is exploring this particular line of enquiry. We’re going to question him, that’s all, not rack him.’

  ‘I know that,’ she said a little testily. ‘But...’

  ‘Remember how he was on our previous visit? Mention of the death and the possible school connection certainly unnerved him. He was all over the place for a minute.’

  ‘He’s off work with stress. Of course he’s going to display signs of anxiety when confronted with such terrible news so close in time and location to the cause of his illness.’

  The curtains twitched as they made their way up the path. Gavin Foyle opened the door to them with a frown. He was once again well-dressed, and colour coordinated, this time in olive green, lending him a military air.

  ‘Inspector Romney, Sergeant Marsh. What can I do for you?’ He was still frowning, and seemed a little tense, as though he expected bad ne
ws.

  ‘We’d like to ask you a few more questions, Mr Foyle,’ said Romney.

  Foyle opened the door to admit them.

  ‘Down at the station this time,’ said Romney.

  Foyle raised his eyebrows and blinked rapidly. He looked between them for a clue as to their seriousness. ‘Are you arresting me for something?’

  ‘No, sir. At this time it would be better for all, for you, if you came voluntarily to the station, to help us with our enquiries, like a good citizen with a clear conscience.’

  ‘What’s it about? That business of the dead man at the school?’

  ‘No one suggested that he was killed at the school, Mr Foyle,’ said Romney.

  ‘You know what I mean, Inspector. What if I refuse to come?’

  ‘Then you will leave me with no choice but to arrest you, sir, and then that would be a matter of police record.’

  ‘On what charge?’

  ‘The murder of Lance Leavey.’

  Foyle’s eyes widened. ‘You cannot be serious?’

  ‘Deadly,’ said Romney.

  A little colour flushed Foyle’s wan, hollowed cheeks. Marsh thought he looked more gaunt than the last time they’d called. He had dark circles rimming his eyes. The skin of his face seemed looser.

  ‘In that case, let me get my jacket and lock up. I have to tell you, Detective Inspector Romney, you are making a very big mistake. This is ludicrous, I tell you.’

  ‘With respect, Mr Foyle, if I had a pound for every time I’d heard that, I’d be lying on a beach somewhere instead of chasing murderers around Dover and district.’

  *

  Marsh kept a close eye on Mr Foyle on the way to the station. Not because she feared him, but because she feared for him. She did remember his display of anxiety and fretfulness when they had questioned him at his home a few days before and she could only imagine that a more formal and intimidating setting would have a greater impact on the man’s nervous system. He already appeared confused and distressed, extremely apprehensive. Romney seemed oblivious to the man’s disposition or he simply didn’t care enough. And his driving wasn’t helping; his front tyre clipped a traffic island when he overtook a cyclist where he shouldn’t have.