Let The Bones Be Charred

by Andy Maslen

  ‘Why can’t detectives wear shorts and T-shirts?’ she asked as they crunched across the gravel towards the front door.

  ‘That would be an issue for Professional Standards and Competence, boss. Remember the bloke you saw without his shirt? That’d be us in weeks. It’s a slippery slope.’

  She grinned. She liked working with Garry. Built like an athlete but with a decent brain inside the brawn, he was an excellent person to bounce ideas off, and he was pretty good with silly questions, too.

  Around the mock-gothic front door, which was held open by a large stone doorstop on the tiled floor of the hall, deep-red roses hung in extravagant swags of blossom. Intertwined with them, an exotic creeper that Stella couldn’t put a name to released an intense, sweet perfume. Overhead, bees hummed, a sound at once industrious and contented.

  She looked up at an ornate, painted shield above the door. Mounted on a moulded wooden plaque, it was at least three feet from top to bottom. Stella didn’t know the significance of the lions, knight’s helmets and stripes, but one detail of the design leaped out at her. She nudged Garry.

  ‘Look up there,’ she said.

  He followed her pointing finger.

  ‘Very,’ he paused, ‘heraldic.’

  ‘Look at the colours, Garry.’

  ‘Bloody hell! Black and gold.’

  They entered the cool of the lobby and turned right as the school secretary had instructed Stella when she’d rung to make the appointment. Down a short corridor lined with wide, whole-school photos stretching back over the years – the children in black blazers trimmed with gold – they found the school office. Stella knocked on the open door and entered.

  Inside, three women were busy at computers. Two appeared to be in their mid-thirties, both blonde, both slim, both wearing glasses. They looked up and smiled at Stella and Garry. The third was cut from altogether different cloth. And wearing it, too.

  Where the other secretaries had adapted their outfits to the heat, wearing cotton blouses and skirts or pale-coloured trousers, Mrs Royal, for this, surely, was the woman who had issued Stella with her instructions earlier, was resplendent in a fitted Chanel-style suit – a close-fitting boxy jacket and knee-length skirt in some sort of light pastel-pink tweed – and a white silk blouse.

  ‘Of an age,’ as Stella’s mum would have said, a family phrase that meant anywhere north of sixty, Mrs Royal had ash-blonde hair cut in a short style, revealing a pair of delicate gold earrings. Her eyebrows had been pencilled and tweezed into an imperious arch that made her already forbidding features seem even haughtier.

  She stood and rounded her desk, hand outstretched.

  ‘You must be the detectives. I am Mrs Royal.’

  Not Sylvia, then, Stella thought. Too grand to be on first name terms with a couple of public servants? Or just too old-school?

  ‘Thank you for helping us out, Mrs Royal. I’m sure you must be a very busy woman,’ Stella said.

  ‘Yes, well,’ she said, clearly mollified. ‘After what happened to poor Miss Burnside, naturally, we are all shocked. I have arranged for you to interview the head at eleven forty-five. He has a very important meeting with the governors at one so please try not to delay him. After that, I thought you might want to interview Mr Duckett. He was the one who discovered that Miss Burnside was missing. And if there’s anything else you need, please ask. There’s a spare office down the corridor, the second door after this one. It’s just a filing room, really. I’ve equipped it with a coffee machine and some pods and there’s water and squash. Dial zero for an outside line if you use the phone.’

  After this speech, Mrs Royal stood, waiting, her hands clasped in front of her, eyeing Stella and then Garry in turn.

  Why do I feel like we’re rabbits being looked at by a hawk? Stella thought.

  ‘That is very kind and efficient of you, Mrs Royal. Thank you,’ Stella said. ‘As we’ve got fifteen minutes before our meeting with the head, we’ll just have a wander round if that’s all right with you. You know, to get a feel of the place.’

  The older woman’s eyes flashed behind her glasses but she didn’t demur. Perhaps she respected another efficient, no-nonsense woman, Stella mused.

  ‘Of course. The head’s office is upstairs. Turn right at the top of the staircase and he occupies the room at the far end of the corridor.’

  Stella led Gary back the way they’d come, out through the front door and back into the sunshine. She could hear shouts from a sports pitch beyond some hard tennis courts to the right of the visitor parking.

  ‘Let’s have a wander,’ she said, heading in the direction of the shouting.

  Pitchside, they watched as two mixed teams played an energetic game of football. The referee was a youngish guy with a heavy black beard, hipster-style. As he ran half the length of the pitch to keep up with a fleet-footed girl dribbling the ball towards her opponents’ goal, he glanced over at Stella and Garry. Stella thought she saw a cloud flit across his face, but then it was gone.

  A boy tackled the onrushing striker, and the ball emerged from the collision sailing high into the air towards the two plainclothes spectators.

  Garry chested it down, backed up a pace then booted it back towards the nearest player, a gangling lad with a striking mop of ginger curls.

  ‘Thanks, sir,’ he called, as he turned and prepared for a throw-in.

  ‘That was impressive,’ Stella said. ‘Still playing five-a-side, are you?’

  Garry grinned ruefully.

  ‘I try to keep it up, but you know what it’s like in this job. Half the time I get down there and it’s five of us in total.’

  ‘So here’s a thing,’ she said, watching as the girl striker finally managed to put one past the opposing goalie. ‘Serial killers are normally pretty conservative in their routines. Everything from MO and signature to victim selection. And that includes geography. I mean, Peter Sutcliffe wasn’t called The Yorkshire and Hertfordshire Ripper, was he?’

  ‘Nope. So are you still wondering why he came all the way out here to murder Amy Burnside?’

  Stella nodded. She looked around, beyond the players racing across the pitch, over their heads to the wooded hills beyond. She thought back to the rural landscape they’d travelled through on the drive down.

  Hundreds of thousands of acres of pastoral land, like the Industrial Revolution had never happened. And then to the streets on which the first two victims had lived. One a long street of detached multi-million-pound houses facing Wimbledon Common, the other a more down-to-earth, though still expensive, Victorian terrace smack-dab in the heart of an urban neighbourhood.

  She scratched her head, made itchy by the heat.

  ‘Why would he move so far from London, Garry? And why here?’

  ‘She was the Head of RE, so she fits the profile. Except, does she really? Do we know if she’d done any radio or telly? Was she a blogger? Without a public profile there’s a big gap in the victimology.’

  ‘That’s where I am. So, if she wasn’t a prominent Christian, then he must have known about her some other way.’

  ‘A parent?’

  Stella wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Maybe. Although I hope to God you’re wrong, because can you imagine having him as your dad? You’d be following in your old man’s footsteps before your pubes had appeared.’

  ‘What if he went here? You know, an Old Boy.’

  ‘Yeah, that could work. Although Amy was only twenty-eight so he’d have to have been here quite recently. We need to ask the headmaster when she joined the staff.’

  Garry checked his watch and nodded towards the main building.

  ‘Come on then. Let’s go and ask him.’

  James Haddingley stood as Stella and Garry entered his office. Dark, widely-spaced eyes peered out from beneath neatly-cut hair of a uniform greyish-silver. A navy suit jacket hung on a hanger behind the door, and Stella noticed dark sweat patches under the arms of his sky-blue shirt. He was clearly still in shock.
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  As they shook hands, and he waved them to two seats facing him across the desk, Stella recognised the signs. A blankness in the gaze, slack muscle tone in the cheeks and jaw. That morning’s shave had clearly been a slapdash affair: he had missed a whole section of his chin, where dark bristles clustered.

  ‘I’m DCI Cole and this is DS Haynes,’ Stella said. ‘We are truly sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, but Amy wasn’t family, Detective Chief Inspector.’

  Stella smiled.

  ‘I know that, but she was a member of your staff. Your website talks about how you view the school as a family. And please, call me Stella,’ she added, turning to smile at her bagman.

  ‘Garry,’ he added, placing a large hand flat against his chest. ‘Short for Garfield.’

  ‘After the cricketer?’ Haddingley asked. ‘I’m a fan, by the way. That’s why I asked.’

  ‘On the button,’ Garry said with a broad smile. ‘My dad and granddad were massive fans of the West Indies. Sir Garfield Sobers was their hero. They were religious men, but I think given a choice between meeting Garry Sobers and God, they would have chosen Garry.’

  ‘No need to die first,’ Haddingley said. Then his face seemed to fold in on itself. A sob broke from his lips like a caged bird bursting from its prison.

  He fished a paper tissue out of a box on the desk and blew his nose. He took another and wiped his eyes, then looked at Stella.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That keeps happening.’

  ‘That’s OK. Are you getting some help?’

  ‘I’ve been too busy making sure the children are all right. Amy was a real favourite with them even though she was relatively new here.’

  ‘How long had she been on the staff?’

  ‘Two years. She joined us just in time for the Autumn term in 2016.’

  ‘So that means two sets of leavers would have gone on from Monksfield during her time here, is that right?’

  Haddingley appeared to be having trouble working back through the dates. He passed a hand across his face.

  ‘Er, yes. I think so. Let me just…’ He looked up at the ceiling for a second or two, then back at Stella who was waiting, patiently, for him to answer. ‘Yes. The 2016/17 Year 13s and then the 2017/18s last June.’

  ‘How many children would that have been? In total, I mean, across both school years?’

  ‘Off the top of my head? I suppose about eighty? Seventy-five, maybe? Sylvia can give you precise numbers.’

  Stella nodded and made a note. I bet you’re the only person here who she allows to use her Christian name, she thought. But that’s a lot of checking we’re going to be doing. Even if we only check the boys, it’s still going to be forty-odd.

  ‘Yes please. And we’d like a list of their names and addresses, please.’

  Haddingley seemed to wake from a half-sleep. He sat bolt upright in his padded chair and leaned across the desk towards them, eyes wide.

  ‘You’re not suggesting that one of the… No!’ he said, raising his voice. ‘That’s impossible. I can’t – this is a Christian school, DCI Cole. Our values are those taught by Jesus Christ.’

  Stella smiled sympathetically.

  ‘It’s a line of enquiry, that’s all. I’d be failing in my duty if I failed to consider every possibility.’

  ‘But surely, you can’t imagine for one moment that a, a child, could do… could …’

  He faltered and looked away, through the window. Stella imagined he was clinging to a vision of a purer, more tranquil England, where RE teachers weren’t skinned alive in their own kitchens and Metropolitan Police detectives didn’t insinuate that one of your charges might be a sadistic killer.

  She forbore from explaining to the reeling man behind the desk that, in her long experience, and that of her colleagues, children were capable of almost every crime imaginable, up to and including the sadistic murder of other children.

  ‘As I said, at this stage it’s just a matter of routine. So, the list?’

  Haddingley shook his head violently.

  ‘I can’t. Hand their details over, I mean. There are privacy considerations. You’ve heard of GDPR, I’m sure.’

  Stella groaned inwardly, remembering Cam’s impassioned rant against the troublesome piece of legislation.

  ‘Of course, and I am not asking you to breach anyone’s privacy, James. But we are trying to track down and arrest a violent killer. A serial killer, in fact, who is preying on women who hold strong Christian views. Like Amy.’

  ‘I’m afraid my hands are tied,’ he said with an air of finality. ‘All the parents have signed an agreement with the school. We are bound not to share their data or that of their children without their express permission.’ He paused and, in an apologetic tone of voice, said, ‘I suppose this is the bit where I tell you I’ll need to see a warrant.’

  Stella tried hard to accept that Haddingley was under stress and was struggling to stay afloat. But it was a complication she could have done without.

  She turned to Garry.

  ‘Make a note, please, Garry.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You can see my position,’ Haddingley said, looking as though he wasn’t far from crying again.

  ‘It’s fine. It just means another delay, that’s all. Let’s move on. There are similarities between the way Amy was killed and the murders of three other women in London that we are investigating as a series. But when I trained as a detective, my inspector had this mantra when we were looking at a murder. “Let’s clear the ground beneath our feet,” he used to say.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means, let’s not ignore the obvious while we going flying off into the wilds of speculation. Did Amy have any enemies, for example? Anyone on the staff, or in her personal life?’

  Haddingley shook his head.

  ‘No, not at all. Everyone loved Amy. She was young, she was open to new ideas, she was full of energy.’

  The answer came too quickly. And Haddingley had smiled as soon as he started speaking about the dead RE teacher.

  ‘But sometimes, especially I imagine, in a traditional school like yours, James, can’t all that youthful enthusiasm rub people up the wrong way?’

  Haddingley frowned and looked away.

  ‘Look, Amy was going places, OK? She was ambitious. She wasn’t content to just do things the way they’d always been done. But that was precisely why I hired her, don’t you see? To shake things up. So yes, perhaps there are one or two of the old guard who saw her as a threat to the established order, but in our world that meant the odd waspish comment in a staff meeting, not killing her!’

  ‘What about her personal life?’ Garry asked.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘She was single, right? Any ex-boyfriends – or girlfriends – who might have held a grudge?’

  ‘Yes, Amy was single. And, as far as I’m aware, she preferred men. But we didn’t really have the sort of relationship where she would have told me about a stalker.’

  ‘No? What sort of relationship did you have, then?’

  Haddingley’s eyes locked onto Garry’s.

  ‘A purely professional one, I assure you. I thought you were here to investigate her murder, but all you seem to be doing is casting aspersions, first at my children, then at my staff, and now at me.’

  83

  MONDAY 10TH SEPTEMBER 11.45 A.M.

  CITY HALL

  Craig Morgan sat at his desk, staring out of the window at the river. He was thinking about power, and what a determined man with ambition could do with that accruing to the Mayor of London. The phone on his desk rang.

  ‘Morgan.’

  ‘Craig, it’s Remi. I wonder, could you spare me a few minutes of your time?’

  ‘Of course. Now?’

  ‘Now would be good.’

  Five minutes later he knocked on Remi’s door and entered her palatial office. When this is mine we’ll be throwing out all these vile soft furnishings for
a start, he thought.

  ‘You called?’ he said with a smile.

  ‘Have a seat.’

  He plucked at the knees of his suit, then sat and crossed his legs.

  ‘What’s up, Remi?’

  He watched her face, spattered with dark-brown freckles that contrasted oddly with her pale-caramel skin. Looking for any tell-tale sign that might indicate her mood.

  ‘What’s up? Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that you know full well you voted the same way as I did on the cuts to the police budget in January. Only now you’re sounding off in the Evening Standard about how I’ve, and I quote, “cut the Met off at the knees”. And don’t think I don’t know what’s going on. You’re looking ahead, aren’t you? To the election. You’re trying to rebrand yourself as some sort of pro-police man of the people. Well, it won’t work. And here’s why. I’m going to—’

  ‘Oh do shut up, Remi,’ he said, enjoying the way her eyes flash-bulbed and her mouth dropped open. ‘You’re not going to do anything. If you attack me in public, it’ll confirm what I’ve been saying about you. A weird position for a Tory to adopt, going after somebody who’s championing our dear little boys and girls in blue.’

  Remi sat back in her chair, eyes blazing.

  You’re actually very attractive, he thought. Shame you play for the opposition. I could imagine us together. I bet you like a bit of rough and tumble. You’ve got the look.

  Finally she spoke.

  ‘I gave you the Policing and Crime portfolio. And I can take it away.’

  He shook his head and grinned at her.

  ‘Yeah, not so sure about that, actually. I’ve got some very, what shall we say, influential friends in the media. You try anything and I swear to God I’ll bring you down. You’ll fall so far and so fast you’ll feel the wind whistling past your ears. Now, unless there was anything else, I have a meeting to discuss the rising tide of knife crime.’