by M. J. Trow
‘I don’t care,’ Janet said defiantly. ‘I don’t care who sees us.’
‘Yes,’ Cassandra snatched up her top and pulled it and the hood over her head. ‘Well, I do, dear. We’re all out of here in June and some of us are off to Cambridge. Oh, I’m sorry, you’re Reading-bound, aren’t you? Never mind.’ And she bent down, steeling herself as she felt the heavier girl’s hand roving over her breasts, then stroking her cheek.
‘You do love me, Cassie?’ Janet whispered.
‘Of course I do,’ the taller girl sighed. ‘But please, Janet, don’t call me that. Now, I really have to go. Oh … got any stuff?’
He sat alone behind the steering wheel, face darkened under the street lamp. His headlights were out and he wasn’t moving, just watching the house across the road with an intensity he’d acquired over the years.
‘Ten-thirty-four,’ he whispered into a handheld cassette recorder. ‘He’s reaching his front door now. Age about fifteen, possibly younger. Blond. Nice looking lad.’ He watched as the boy fumbled with the lock. ‘He seems pissed. This is quite promising. I’ll keep you posted on this one … I think he’s a natural.’
And he clicked off the machine, watching and waiting in the darkness.
9
This time they’d do the job for real. Jacquie parked the Ka around the corner in the average-looking estate on the edge of Petersfield. They linked arms and marched off purposefully, an average-looking couple out for a stroll. Except that it was well past midnight and the pair’s eyes were everywhere except on each other.
There were lights on in the right hand house that provided the other half of Tim Robinson’s last known address. Squealing from somewhere down the road told them that the Petersfield youth were on their way home, lurching from bus-shelter lager-fest to quick gang-grope in the shrubbery. Ah, the youth of today.
Jacquie clicked the key in the lock and they were in, drawing curtains before switching on lights.
‘What are we looking for?’ Maxwell asked. Like Jacquie he’d done this before, combed through the debris of a dead man’s life. But he was an amateur, what crime writers call an amateur’s amateur. Jacquie was the professional. He was happy to defer.
‘Something.’ She was getting her bearings in the lounge. ‘Anything. I’m going to start upstairs. Check the answerphone, Max.’
She hadn’t had time to do it last time, before the DCI had unceremoniously whisked her away.
Nothing. Just Tim Robinson’s voice. ‘Hi, you’ve reached Tim Robinson. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you.’
‘No, you won’t, Tim,’ Maxwell said softly and began to rummage in the sideboard. The furniture was extraordinarily standard, MFI flat pack and it looked as if it had been delivered all together, as a job lot. There was a pile of exercise books on the table; GCSE PE. Maxwell riffled through them. Clearly, Tim Robinson was of the new school – ignore spelling and grammar problems.
‘That’s odd.’ He was still talking to himself.
‘What is?’ Jacquie was back on the ground floor, making for the kitchen.
‘What’s a synapse?’
‘You what?’
‘Synapse. According to this, it’s where two nerves meet and it resembles an arboretum.’
‘Max, what are you talking about?’
He checked the front cover of the book. ‘The gospel according to Jamie Atkins, Upper Four Bee. He thinks a synapse is like an arboretum.’
‘Which tells us what?’
‘Probably nothing,’ Maxwell shrugged. ‘Except that Tim Robinson wasn’t a very careful marker. The kid means dendrite – the branch-like description of nerves; not a bush collection.’
‘Does this have any significance?’ Jacquie was combing the magazine rack.
‘No,’ Maxwell told her. ‘It’s the Leighford High school of marking too. Skim read and slap a level on every fourth page, with a merit sticker on every fifth just to keep morale up. Sure beats intellectual rigour.’
‘No PC,’ Jacquie said, checking cupboards and alcoves.
‘Not all bad, then, Tim Robinson,’ the velociraptor of Leighford High commented.
‘He was thirty-two, Max,’ Jacquie countered. ‘Most thirtysomethings surf the Net.’
‘Do you?’ Maxwell put the book back into the pile. ‘Ah, but it was my generation that put a man on the moon.’
‘I can’t help thinking that’s who we’re looking for,’ Jacquie sighed. ‘Looks like Hall was right. There’s nothing here.’
‘The Man Who Fell to Earth,’ Maxwell said. ‘Like David Bowie in the film of the same name, as if he didn’t exist outside of Grimond’s School.’
‘Isn’t that how you feel most of the time?’ she smiled, putting an arm round his shoulder. ‘That the world doesn’t exist beyond Leighford?’
He was still laughing at that when the loud click made them both turn. Peter Maxwell had never stared down the twin muzzle of a twelve-bore before. That wasn’t as unnerving, however, as the deranged eyes along the sight, blinking at them both.
‘Don’t move.’ The gunman was the wrong side of sixty, wild grey hair dangling over his right ear, the mother of all comb-overs. He was wearing a plaid dressing gown and matching slippers.
‘Now, look …’ Maxwell’s hand was in the air in a gesture of conciliation, but the barrels came up level.
‘Don’t you talk to him like that.’ A second face popped up near the first, a fierce-looking woman without teeth, curlers clamped into the dyed russet of her hair.
‘What are you doing here?’ the gunman snapped. ‘Glenda, call the police.’
Jacquie eased her hand into her bag. ‘I am the police,’ she said quietly. It was the cliché to end clichés and the gunman wasn’t buying it.
‘Bollocks!’ he snorted. ‘You keep your hands where I can see ‘em.’
Jacquie lifted her warrant card out and held it up like a crucifix before the undead, which is rather what the gunman resembled.
‘Oh.’
The barrels wavered and Jacquie seized the initiative. ‘Mr … um?’
‘Blundell,’ the old man said. ‘This is my wife.’
The curlered, toothless woman scowled at them.
‘I’m DS Carpenter,’ Jacquie said. ‘Could you uncock that, Mr Blundell?’
‘Oh, yeah. Right,’ and he lowered the shotgun.
‘Ask ’em what they’re doing here, Harold,’ Glenda blurted out.
‘I have,’ Harold reminded her.
‘We’re conducting enquiries into the death of Timothy Robinson,’ Jacquie said. ‘He used to live here.’
‘Who’s she looking for, Harold?’ Glenda still hadn’t moved from her position behind her husband’s gun-arm.
‘Robinson,’ the old man said. ‘Lives here. Well, he used to.’
‘Do you have a licence for that, Mr Blundell?’ Jacquie was establishing the moral high ground.
‘Oh, yes,’ he assured her.
‘But it’s not a licence to point it at people, is it?’ Unlike Maxwell, Jacquie Carpenter had faced down shotguns before. It was always hairy. And you always came off, if you came off at all, slightly wiser. ‘Well,’ she was softer now, ‘perhaps you could tell us what you know about Mr Robinson.’
The old man looked at his wife. ‘Nothing, really. He kept himself to himself.’
‘Tell her about the blokes, Harold,’ Glenda nudged him.
‘What blokes?’ Jacquie wanted to know.
‘Oh, that wasn’t anything,’ Harold muttered.
‘You don’t know what it was,’ Glenda asserted. ‘You tell her.’
‘Perhaps if you tell me, Mrs Blundell,’ Jacquie tried to ease Harold aside.
‘Tell her, Harold,’ the old girl shuffled further behind him. ‘Tell her I don’t talk to the police.’
‘My wife had an unfortunate experience with a Special towards the end of the war, officer,’ Harold felt obliged to explain. ‘It’s lef
t her scarred.’
Maxwell and Jacquie could see that.
‘There were some blokes come round,’ Harold went on. ‘Three of ’em.’
‘When was this?’
‘Ooh, they’ve been around a couple of times.’
‘Tell her when, Harold,’ Glenda muttered. ‘It was last Monday and again the previous Thursday.’
‘Would either of you know these men again?’ Jacquie asked.
‘It was dark,’ Harold remembered. ‘They come in the evening both times.’
‘How many cars?’ Maxwell asked.
‘Just the one,’ Harold told him.
‘You don’t remember the make, I suppose?’ Jacquie was clutching at straws.
Harold didn’t. Glenda however did. ‘Tell her she’ll find it was a silver Audi Gti, licence number had a T and 48.’
Jacquie looked at Maxwell.
‘My wife used to be a secretary in a garage,’ Harold explained. ‘Got a thing about cars.’
Glenda tugged on his dressing gown sleeve, looking up into the man’s rheumy eyes. ‘It’s got special alloy wheels, racing trim. The first bloke was thick-set, about thirty, with a crew cut. The second was taller, sort of skinny, in a bomber jacket with a logo on the back – a pair of wings. The third had a moey, like Mr Robinson and dark glasses. I remember thinking why’s he wearing dark glasses at night? That’s all I remember.’
‘Don’t tell us,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘Your wife also used to work in the e-fit section of a police incident room.’
‘Ask him if he’s taking the piss, Harold,’ Glenda urged, not taking to Peter Maxwell at all.
‘You’ve been very helpful, Mr and Mrs Blundell,’ Jacquie assured the couple. ‘I may need to call on you again. Would you be prepared to make a statement?’
Glenda visibly jumped.
‘It could be done here,’ Jacquie said quickly. ‘And I promise there’ll be no uniforms.’
Harold took the DS aside. ‘I’ll have to work on her,’ he mumbled. ‘She’s not as sharp as she used to be,’ and he nodded at Maxwell and led his wife out into the Petersfield night.
They waited until the front door clicked behind them. ‘Ever felt as though you’ve just wandered into a parallel universe, darling heart?’ Maxwell asked.
‘Whoever these guys are, they’re the only link we have between our Mr Robinson and the outside world.’
‘You know what they say about teachers,’ Maxwell sucked his teeth. ‘They don’t have homes or lives outside their classroom cupboards. When that damn bell sans merci sounds, they just climb into their dark coffins and wait for dawn.’
Jacquie threw herself down on Robinson’s settee. ‘Why didn’t Hall talk to those two?’ she was asking herself again. ‘We’ve lost half a day.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t fancy getting his head blown off. It would have been particularly unfortunate for me had Harold opened fire – my heart was in my mouth at the time. What happens now?’
Jacquie checked her watch. ‘Business as usual tomorrow at Grimond’s, nine o’clock. That’s the beauty of a boarding school – life just goes on at the weekend.’
‘So,’ Maxwell said grimly, ‘does death.’ He turned to face Jacquie, sitting next to her on the settee. ‘How are you feeling now, about Robinson, I mean?’
She nodded and smiled at him. ‘I’m fine,’ she sighed. ‘Busy, busy, busy. That’s the way to be.’ She stood up, anxious to be on the move. ‘Coming back to the hotel?’
‘Not tonight,’ he shook his head. ‘Most of what happens at Grimond’s happens after dark. It’s what we in the business call the hidden curriculum.’ He got up and kissed her. ‘Drive me away from all this, Woman Policeman.’
‘You know why I’ve sent for you, of course?’ Sir Arthur Wilkins already had a substantial Scotch in his hand though the sun was nowhere near the yard-arm. He hadn’t bothered to offer the DCI one on the grounds that he assumed the man would decline by virtue of being on duty etcetera. He stood with his back to the door in Sheffield’s study, silhouetted against the window.
‘Perhaps you could be specific.’ Hall was on the carpet.
The Chair of Governors turned with a back that was ramrod straight, his silver moustache bristling. ‘Very well. Specifically, what the fuck are you doing?’
‘My job.’ Hall could be infuriatingly inscrutable when the mood took him.
‘Your job,’ Wilkins growled. ‘Why are you, a West Sussex CID officer, heading an enquiry on Hampshire territory?’
‘You’ll have to ask the Chief Superintendent,’ Hall told him.
‘I have.’
‘And?’
‘David Mason and I go back a long way. He passed me upstairs to the Chief Constable.’
‘Who told you?’
‘Precisely nothing!’ Wilkins slammed down his glass. ‘Andrew Mulliner and I go back a long way too. I’m not used to being cold-shouldered by friends.’
‘Sir …’
‘This school is falling apart, Chief Inspector.’ Wilkins came round from his side of Sheffield’s desk. ‘I’ve got a Headmaster who’s just about as effective as a wet shit, a staff who are dying in droves … and you. By the way, who’s this Maxwell fella?’
‘Peter Maxwell? He’s a teacher, on secondment of some kind. Surely, Dr Sheffield has explained …’
‘Of course he has,’ Wilkins stood nose to nose with the DCI. ‘But it’s rather like the airy-fairy explanations I’ve been getting from the Chief Superintendent and the Chief Constable. Nothing is quite as it seems. All I know is that this Maxwell shows up, like some damn plague bacillus and my staff start dying.’ He lowered his voice. ‘There’s a rumour going round that you know him.’
‘That’s right,’ Hall nodded. ‘I do. He’s the Head of Sixth Form at Leighford High School – that’s on my patch.’
‘So the two of you end up on mine, by the merest coincidence?’
Hall nodded again. ‘That’s about the size of it.’
Wilkins turned away, collecting himself for a moment, then he drained his glass. ‘Well, I don’t buy coincidences, Chief Inspector.’
For a moment the two men looked at each other. Then Hall broke the silence. ‘Of course, we could co-operate,’ he said.
Wilkins lowered his eyes and his lip curled. ‘This is me co-operating,’ he growled. ‘I’ve told Mason I’ll try and keep Grimond’s open for another forty-eight hours – assuming we still have any parents who haven’t pulled their children out. After that,’ he slammed the glass down, ‘I can’t guarantee a damn thing.’
The papers that Saturday had a field day. The Mail’s circulation was up again and they were offering another dream cottage somewhere in the stockbroker belt. In less encouraging news, there was a double page spread on the strange affair a Grimond’s, as though it were something Miss Marple should look into. The Daily Sport was les euphemistic – ‘Bent Sir Goes Off Roof’ had been replaced by ‘Double Whammy At Posh School’. All local news bulletins showed sundry footage taken at the school gates and the odd car going in and out. The salient fact was that none of the comers and goers was talking to the media and shots of anonymous car drivers who could have been anything from cleaners to publishers’ rep were not terribly dramatic or helpful.
At Grimond’s everybody tried to carry on a usual. There was no chapel service that day, but then, that was often the case on Saturdays. There was a big rugger fixture that afternoon against Lancing and Richard Ames, the Head of Games was determined that that should go on. He stood on the touch line now, jumping up and down occasionally, in his Grimond track suit, roaring encouragement to the First Fifteen pack.
Maxwell joined him. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Oh, fine.’ Ames had once played for England himself and sported a Jonny Wilkinson haircut as a mark of solidarity. ‘You’re Maxwell, aren’t you?
‘Max.’ He shook the man’s hand.
‘I wanted to thank you for what you did for Tim yesterday. Groves, you girl! Tackle him!�
�� The whistle blasted for an infringement and Ames trotted off to the pack forming up for a scrum. Amid the steam and sobbing grunts, Ames had a quiet word and trotted back.
‘It wasn’t enough, I’m afraid,’ Maxwell said.
‘Well, there we are,’ Ames said, clapping his hands at the ref’s decision on what happened next. ‘Do that this afternoon, Johnson, and you’ll be sin-binned. That,’ he turned to Maxwell, ‘would have taken a miracle. Which is precisely what this little lot will need against Lancing later.’
‘Do they usually play a match before a fixture?’ Maxwell asked, remembering how knackered he used to feel after eighty minutes pounding the hard yards.
‘Oh, this is only a twenty-minute short. There’s no substitute for the real thing in my experience. For God’s sake, Selwyn, what sort of pass was that?’ He cantered down the touch line, Maxwell ambling after him. ‘Do you play?’
‘I used to,’ Maxwell said, flattered that Ames thought he still could. ‘Second Row.’
‘Ah,’ Ames grinned. ‘So you’ll know all about what goes on in there, then?’ He pointed to another sweating scrum forming back on the ref’s mark, several stone of English private schoolboy getting down and dirty.
‘Earnest, if brief, discussions on Impressionist Art?’ Maxwell smiled. ‘Oh, yes.’
‘Go on,’ Ames laughed. ‘I bet you learned your choicest language in there.’
‘Made me the man I am today,’ Maxwell conceded. ‘Tell me about Tim Robinson.’
‘Tim?’ Ames continued to watch the practice, the quality of the passing, the momentum of second phase ball. ‘This sounds a little uncaring, but I barely knew him.’
‘You appointed him,’ Maxwell observed.
Ames looked at him. ‘In a manner of speaking,’ he said. ‘Technically of course, it’s the Headmaster who appoints.’
‘On your recommendation.’
‘Well, yes … Come on, keep up. You’re walking Thorpe! Yes, but there wasn’t much choice, as it happened.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, we short-listed in the usual way. Got down to three. But come the day only Tim showed up.’
‘Really?’
‘It happens, doesn’t it?’ Ames clapped his hands again to rally the troops. ‘Get him low, Grimond’s! You’re in the business. You must know it.’
