The Good Teacher

by Rachel Sargeant

  And the upshot is DC Pippa Adams. An overgrown cheerleader, all pink cheeks and ponytail. Detective material? Unlikely. Time will tell.

  As Liz steps off the duckboard, she goes down on her ankle but rights herself despite the pain. With all the dignity she can muster, she heads into the incident tent.

  Chapter 4

  “I didn’t think you’d catch up with me this quickly,” a woman’s voice says through the polished brass letterbox. The door opens a fraction and the voice continues, “Can I ring Stuart – that’s Mr Perkins, my husband – before you take me in? I’m allowed one phone call, aren’t I?”

  A pair of hunted green eyes appear and I wonder what crime I’ve stumbled into. Isn’t that how we caught the Briggham killer – routine enquiries into another case? I glance up the road, but my colleagues are nowhere in sight, each having allocated themselves a different avenue on the Southside estate for the house-to-house. I knocked at the first house in a cul-de-sac that runs off the road behind the Brocks’ house.

  “I suppose you’ll want to come in while I’m on the phone so I don’t abscond,” the woman says. She opens the door wide.

  I step over the threshold. Should I call for backup? After a shaky start on my first day are things about to get even rockier?

  “I must be in a lot of trouble if they’ve sent a CID officer,” the woman says. She leads me into the lounge. What villainy could have taken place in a room where paisley pink curtains match the sofa cushions?

  “What do you think will happen to me? I know it’s not much of an excuse, but I would like to say in my defence that I only saw it was back this morning.”

  “Back this morning?” I ask, trying to disguise my bewilderment. The woman is chatty. I’ll feed her enough rope, get her to confess to whatever it is she’s done and make an arrest. Maybe even redeem myself in DS Matthews’s eyes.

  “It was propped against the front wall. I swear it wasn’t there yesterday. And Stuart walked up and down the avenue before we spoke to your officers on Wednesday. There was no sign of it. I know we shouldn’t have kept it in the front garden. The way other people let their children stay out till all hours. It’s asking for trouble in this day and age.”

  “Is it?” I ask.

  “They’ll take anything if it’s not nailed down, even a tatty old thing like that. Except they didn’t take it because it’s back now. But I swear it wasn’t there yesterday, not since Wednesday.”

  “A tatty old thing?”

  “I’d had it since college.” She waves a hand at the mantelpiece, which displays two graduation photographs. One is of a youth with wispy hair reaching to his oversized collar and big tie. Stuart? The other is of a young woman with sparkling green eyes and a magnificent smile, lavishly framed by lipstick. I study Mrs Perkins’s tired, pale features. She must be in her late thirties but carries herself as if in middle age. She resembles an Afghan hound with messy, permed hair over her ears. Loose grey cords and a baggy cardigan conceal long limbs. Has a guilty conscience tarnished her former radiance?

  “And you spoke to us on Wednesday?” I ask, trying to make a jigsaw out of the pieces the woman is giving me.

  “We both came down to the station to make a statement, give a description. We didn’t mean to waste anybody’s time.”

  “You wasted our time?” I begin to think she’s wasting mine.

  “Are you going to charge me? We thought it had gone. It never occurred to us it would come back.”

  I give up. “What came back?”

  “My bicycle, of course.” Mrs Perkins raises her voice an octave but returns to deferential tones to explain that she and her husband had reported her bicycle stolen from their front garden on Wednesday but that it reappeared this morning. “I was going to phone you. I didn’t want the police force out looking for it any longer than necessary. I know wasting police time is a serious offence. I’ll just phone Stuart, or should I phone a solicitor?”

  My eyes move back and forth between the woman and her graduation photograph. Intelligence manifests itself in so many ways. I reassure Mrs Perkins that the Brigghamshire Constabulary won’t be taking any further action on this occasion. Doubtless my fellow officers will be delighted that Mrs Perkins’s property has been returned safe and sound. Mrs Perkins launches into a torrent of thanks. When she pauses for air, I explain the real reason for my visit and find myself accepting an offer of a cup of tea.

  “Not to worry. Thanks for your help anyway,” DS Mike Matthews says outside number 23. He puts away his notebook. All of them wise monkeys. No one saw or heard anything, and they aren’t saying much either. Not even: would you like to come in out of the heat and have a drink, officer.

  Chance would be a fine thing.

  “Have another piece of chocolate cake,” Mrs Perkins offers. “It’s lovely to see a young woman enjoying her food. I’m afraid with this talk of murder, I’ve rather lost my appetite.”

  I hastily swallow. “Quite. Did you see anyone in the avenue during last night?”

  Mrs Perkins shakes her head. “We’re heavy sleepers. Perhaps if we weren’t, we’d have seen what happened to my bicycle.”

  “Maybe you saw something before you went to bed. A car, perhaps, a Ford Mondeo?” I’m anxious to steer the conversation away from the bicycle.

  “I’ve got an awful feeling we’ve met the victim. I don’t think I’ve seen him round here, but there’s a chap we see up at the allotments now and again that matches the man you’ve described. Big, scruffy. Stuart says he’d lose a bit of weight if he put his back into it. His plot’s a mess. Not like Stuart’s. He’s up there every evening. We grow all our own veg.”

  She smiles at his graduation photo, no doubt proud that a man in a psychedelic tie could evolve into one with green fingers. “Things taste much better when you grow them yourself. All those additives these days send children into orbit. Give them a home-grown diet and they’re good as gold,” Mrs Perkins continues. “We’re doing runner beans this time. It makes a change from courgettes. I’ve still got tubs of puree in the freezer from last year. I’ll give you some to take home. Let me put the kettle on again.”

  Matthews puts a tick against number 27. It always amazes him how many people are at home during the day. Only three doors didn’t answer. He hasn’t found out anything from the others, but at least he can cross them off. Someone must have seen something. Two men forcing another man into his own car and then driving off intent on murder. It’s hardly a routine occurrence, not on Southside. On the Danescott estate, maybe, but not round here.

  He goes back to the car. Perhaps the uniforms or Agatha will have had more luck. Agatha. He screws up his face and clenches his fists. Agatha. He’s only just met her, and yet … He’s worked with junior DCs before, so why does this one wind him up so much?

  “Is that the time,” I say, standing up.

  “I’ll get your courgette puree,” Mrs Perkins says. “Time does fly. The children will be coming out of school soon.”

  Despite the risk of venturing into what must be another pet subject for Mrs Perkins, I can’t resist asking another question. “How old are your children?”

  The hunted look returns to the woman’s eyes. “I don’t have any of my own. I meant the children in general would be coming out of school. Stuart and I haven’t been blessed.” She stops speaking, her eyes watering. I feel bad and sit down again to coax Mrs Perkins back to the happier topic of her vegetables.

  “One, Agatha! Just one!” The blood pulses visibly through the veins in Matthews’s neck, and he grips the steering wheel. “We covered half the estate, while you interviewed one householder. So what did you get, a full confession? A request for several previous capital offences to be taken into consideration?”

  I stare blindly out of the window. All I see is misery. “It’s people like that who spot things,” I offer without conviction. “And the lady seemed unhappy. She needed someone to talk to.”

  “Tell her to phone the Samaritans. If I s
pend much more time with you, I’ll be needing them myself.”

  Chapter 5

  I follow Matthews into the main entrance of Penbury General Hospital. Glad of the wide corridors, I keep my distance. He isn’t about to play the caring supervisor and whisper words of reassurance en route to the mortuary. He wants me to squirm and his wish might well be granted. Thinking about the post-mortem I attended three years ago during police training still brings me out in a sweat. I’ll have to draw on the skills I learnt in my performing arts degree to appear in control.

  When we reach the mortuary anteroom, I drop my bag alongside DS Matthews’s brown briefcase. I put on a gown, fumble with the plastic overshoes and take a deep breath as Matthews pushes open the wide swing doors into the main lab.

  The smell triggers a kaleidoscope of memories. I’m back in Matron’s room at school. I only went there twice, both times to escort a sick friend, but there’s no forgetting the stench of disinfectant designed to terrify any virus into submission. The mortuary shares not only the same fragrance but also, bizarrely, the same cosy warmth. At the training post-mortem, all the police cadets on my intake remarked on the unexpected heat of a morgue.

  I rub my dripping forehead and decide that Penbury’s mortuary needs better air conditioning. The stuffy room isn’t much bigger than Matron’s office, but there’s an ominously empty space in the centre.

  A masked and gowned man sits at a computer screen, making notes on a clipboard. He stands up to greet us. “Ah, Mike Matthews and …?” He looks from Matthews to me.

  “I’m DC Adams,” I explain.

  “Charles Spicer, pathologist. What’s your first name, DC Adams?”

  “She’s called Agatha,” Matthews says.

  “Actually, Pippa,” I say coolly, not about to show him how rattled I am by the nickname. I’m grateful for the distraction of Bagley’s arrival.

  “Good. Everyone’s here,” Bagley says, shuffling through the door in the plastic overshoes. “Can we make a start.” It’s a command, not a request.

  Dr Spicer rolls his eyes but says nothing. He presses the button on the intercom next to his computer. Before I have time to rehearse my reaction, the wide double doors at the far end of the room fly open and two young men dressed in white tunics push in a trolley bed containing the lifeless body of a man. They line the trolley up parallel with the doctor’s desk and leave through the doors.

  My stomach lurches and I’m glad I declined a second slice of Mrs Perkins’s cake. I study the coveralls on my shoes, but like a bystander at a traffic accident, can’t resist a morbid peek at the horror. A crisp green cloth covers most of the corpse, but has been turned down to show his waxen head. A large head, made even larger by the crop of tangled hair and the dense stubble that frames it. He looks like Moses.

  “Have you already stripped him?” Bagley asks and there’s no mistaking the accusation in her voice.

  Dr Spicer peers at her above the silver frames of his spectacles, much as a kindly uncle might view a cheeky child. “If you recall, he was only wearing boxer shorts when we found him. You saw the body for yourself. If a body is clothed when found, we remove the clothes after it has been photographed. After twenty years in the profession, I have not chosen today to deviate from this practice.”

  He makes his point in amiable tones but Bagley’s face takes on a darker tan below her face mask.

  “Glad to hear it,” she says quietly.

  I take little interest in this battle of wills; I’ve got my own struggle. I try to imagine I’m standing outside the scene. If I can escape, I might be able to keep my emotions at bay. I force myself to look at the large feet resting in a wide V at the other end of the sheet. They’re broad and strong, load-bearing. Tufts of dark hair protrude from short, thick toes. The toenails, crusty and yellowing, are long and misshapen. I think of the living man getting by in ill-fitting shoes. At least he’s now free of that irritation. I stifle a sigh.

  “According to the photo driving licence found in the car in the lay-by, this is Carl Edward Brock,” Dr Spicer says, checking his clipboard. “I still require a formal ID.”

  He directs this comment at DS Matthews who jots something down in the notebook that’s poised in his steady hands. I envy his professional neutrality.

  “It is the body of a white male, aged between thirty and forty. The driving licence says thirty-six. He’s six feet tall, of large build, a bit overweight.”

  “Can you give me a time of death?” Bagley asks.

  “It was a warm night. He’d been dead at least two hours when I examined him on Martle Top. I’d say it was between midnight and seven this morning. A detailed PM should give a more precise time. Cause of death would appear to be a single stab wound to the heart.”

  “Is there any sign of a struggle?” It’s Matthews who speaks.

  “None whatsoever. No defensive injuries and no apparent scratches or bruising. Death seems to have occurred swiftly but I’ll need to do the PM to be sure.”

  “Any sign of sexual activity?” Inspector Bagley hammers out her question.

  Dr Spicer gives the inspector another avuncular gaze. “We’ve already established he’s ‘boxer short intactus’ so you’ll have to wait a little longer for that one. There is an older injury to the right knuckles. I’d say it occurred several hours before death. He banged his fist against something sharp. However, cause of death seems to be one thrusting action up through the ribcage.”

  I keep looking at the doctor’s face, not at the descriptive movements he makes with his hands. My nails dig into my sticky palms. And this isn’t even the full PM. I force my eyes onto the ivory face and try to think of him as the corpse, the victim, the case, but he’s still Carl Brock, a human being. The darkly shadowed eyelids will never again open to scan the books on his bookcase. The unshaven jaw won’t need the razor from the tidy bathroom cabinet. The stiffening shoulders, fleshy and wide, will never again share the warmth of the double bed.

  “It’s a boat-shaped wound, suggesting a knife with one sharp edge. And long,” Dr Spicer says.

  “We found a blood-covered kitchen knife close by the body,” Bagley replies. “Could it have been suicide?”

  “Not with that angle of penetration.”

  “Can you tell us anything about the killer?”

  “You won’t find the assailant soaked in the victim’s blood, a few spatters at most. There was little external bleeding. He haemorrhaged internally.”

  I swallow hard and concentrate on the doctor’s face.

  “Man or woman?” Matthews asks.

  “Hard to tell. The blow was strong and quick. It’s a clean incision and it seems to have taken the victim by surprise.”

  “So we are looking for someone big and powerfully built,” Bagley concludes.

  “The height of the killer is difficult to gauge. The attack apparently took place on the side of a ditch. The victim may have been standing on lower ground. With a sharp knife, the attacker would have needed little force. Even a woman could have managed it if that was how they were standing. Once the knife had penetrated the skin, it would’ve been like stabbing a water melon.”

  “When will you do the full PM?”

  “Tomorrow at eleven but we need a formal ID before that. Even when we’ve stitched them up, the deceased never look the same after we’ve had the hacksaw to them. The bereaved don’t like to see that.”

  Queasiness wraps itself around me like a tight woollen blanket.

  “We’ll get the wife to do it when we know what state she’s in,” Bagley says.

  “The police surgeon examined her about an hour ago,” Dr Spicer says.

  “Do you mean Dr Tarnovski?”

  “Of course.”

  There’s a pause as Dr Spicer and DI Bagley exchange a glance.

  Dr Spicer resumes his briefing. “Apparently she’s being treated for shock. Mild concussion, badly beaten up. Black eyes, cracked cheekbone. Fresh bruising to the arms and legs consistent with being
chained and handcuffed.” He looks at Bagley again and adds, “No sign of sexual assault.”

  “Is she fit to interview?”

  “You’ll have to check with Dr Tarnovski. She’s suffered a major trauma. Her own ordeal was bad enough and now she has to cope with her husband’s murder.”

  “Of course, doctor. I realize that. DC Adams and I will be back for the full PM tomorrow.”

  My heart drops like a stone.

  Dr Tarnovski sits at his desk and scrutinizes the lines of text. His eyes linger over every weight and schedule as he crosschecks them against the recesses of his encyclopaedic memory. He’ll find a match, an absolute, however long it takes. He just needs to locate The Evidence. He takes a sip from the plastic cup by his hand, smacking his lips together and rubbing away the taste. With The Evidence, he could make his predictions and test his hypothesis. His elbow nudges a half-eaten curry tray, relic of another late night at the office. His methodology deserves perseverance. It will reap its own rewards – soon.

  What time is it now? He lifts his sleeve in an automatic gesture, forgetting that his wrist is bare. A temporary setback. He reaches across the paper-strewn desk to the old transistor radio. It crackles weakly as he turns the dial. If only he hadn’t been called out to that assault victim, Gaby somebody. At least the examination was straightforward. She’d had a good beating but not life-threatening. It’s up to her if she chooses not to take the sedatives and sleeping tablets he suggested. Another ill-informed hippy isn’t his problem. She can always try her own GP for some alternative therapy.

  He ponders for the nth time why he remains a police surgeon, calculating an exponential rise in his job dissatisfaction. Of course the profession has its value. Its contribution is not without merit. Someone has to treat traumatized victims and assess prisoners keen to feign illness.

  He’s a strategist, a mathematician, a man of reason – and speculation. It’s a case of horses for courses. The creases in his face deepen into a grin. He marvels at his gift for irony. Police duties take him away from his real work, although he has to admit that the income is useful. The allowance and expenses – thank the Lord for travel claims and a DCI who doesn’t probe them.