Ed looked at the polished bannister rail curving up the twisting staircase towards the stained glass window on the half-landing, the runner rugs on the hall floor so thick they seemed ankle deep.
‘Family money before you ask,’ Granny said. ‘I’ll show you out.’
The slamming door caught Ed’s trailing heel as he stepped outside.
He pressed the fob to unlock the car and didn’t speak until he was in the driver’s seat.
‘What an obnoxious old twat.’
Sam didn’t hear him, her mind processing what she had seen and heard in the house…Julius’ mother hating Linda, Linda playing happy families with a thousand photographs to make sure everyone got the message.
‘There’s something wrong in that house,’ Sam said. ‘Let’s get his computer tomorrow and see what we find. Meantime, we may as well bob round and see Hans’ boss.’
Ed looked at his watch, hoping Sam would pick up the subliminal message.
‘You think we should call it a day?’ she got it loud and clear.
Ed started the car. ‘We’ve got an early kick off tomorrow. Hans’ boss can wait. I agree there’s something wrong in there and right now I want my mind to stay focused on that.’
Sam squashed her disappointment and said okay, that sounded sensible.
She said: ‘Do you want picking up in the morning, save you driving in to HQ?’
Ed told her thanks but there was no need, it would be the opposite direction to where they were going. He would see her at HQ.
Jesus Sam. If Sue looked out the window and saw you picking me up at 5am…
Ed blinked and wiped his brow. What was it about Linda?
He rifled through the filing cabinets in his brain, pulling open drawers, ramming them shut. Nothing until…
‘Looking for Linda’. 1988. Hue and Cry.
As the song says, he might have to wait until she finds him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sunday 14th December
Pixie Carlton, curled and shivering, stared at the faded orange canvas and the droplets of rain water ready to fall. His right hand throbbed, his back felt like the field of The Grand National had galloped over it, and he was convinced he was in the early stages of hypothermia. Pixie had never been built for rough. Now his teeth were rattling so much he swore his fillings were coming loose.
Buying a cheap sleeping bag had been his first mistake; a blue summer number, sheet thin, zero protection. His opinion yesterday was that the salesman’s patter about sleeping bags and season ratings was all bluff, bluster and bullshit. He was in the selling business himself. He knew how it worked. Hadn’t he described every pokey little flat on his portfolio as ‘cosy.’
Agreeing to borrow Declan Doherty’s tent was his second moment of rank poor judgement. Doherty’s grandfather must have bought the mouldy relic at some tinker fair off Baden-Powell himself.
Rain pounded the ancient canvas, the droplets inside gathering like an invading army preparing to attack.
Even as Pixie wrestled to get comfortable enough to sleep he knew that was never going to happen, even though the cold and the constant noise on the site had kept him awake most of the night.
Did these people never sleep? Crying kids, screaming mothers, banging doors. He would have been better off pitching his useless tent on the hard shoulder of the A1 in rush hour.
He glanced at his watch. 4.45am. He needed to pee and struggled out of the sleeping bag, numb fingers clumsy with the ancient ties on the tent flap.
It was definitely warmer and only marginally wetter outside.
Stood in mid-flow, he looked around. Two or three more caravans had arrived overnight bringing more dogs, more kids and enough Transits to start a rental company.
He watched a couple of big dogs, breed unknown, sleeping under one of the caravans and a pair of small, scruffy terriers running about yapping.
‘You want a cup of tea?’
He jumped so much he peed down his pants.
One of Doherty’s granddaughters, smothering a laugh with her hand.
‘You’re up early?’ he said, his flies no easier to handle than the tent ties.
How old is she? Seventeen? Eighteen?
Pixie could see the outline of her body through the white kimono-style dressing gown tied low and loose, her tousled blonde bed hair falling past one bare shoulder. He tried not to stare.
‘I heard you getting out of the tent,’ the girl told him. ‘Thought I’d see if you wanted a cuppa?’
Pixie looked nervously around.
‘Should you even be talking to me without anybody being here?’
She laughed again, told him she was a big girl.
‘My sister’s getting married at the weekend,’ she said. ‘It’ll be my turn next.’
Pixie realised he was staring where he shouldn’t and snapped his eyes back to her face.
‘How old are you?’
‘I’ll be sixteen in two weeks.’
‘Fifteen! You’re fifteen!’
Pixie’s mouth dropped in shock and a blast of shame. His next emotion was pure fear.
Caught with a half-dressed 15-year-old on a travellers’ site in the middle of the night? No one would be buying an innocent explanation, Pixie knew, and it would be something more precious than his fingers for the chop. He was just crawling back into the tent - suddenly a welcome sanctuary - when he heard ‘morning Pixie’ behind him.
For the second time that miserable morning his heart took a nosedive.
Declan Doherty was dressed, cheerful and very much awake.
‘You’re up early,’ Pixie said.
‘Early bird and all that,’ he seemed immune to the rain and the biting cold. ‘Come inside. I want to talk about Billy Skinner and his drugs.’
Pixie began to follow Doherty to his caravan, relieved the granddaughter hadn’t been mentioned and his tackle was still intact.
‘I don’t know much really,’ Pixie told him. ‘And I wouldn’t want you starting a battle with Billy Skinner because of me.’
Declan Doherty stopped a pace ahead of him and spun round, his eyes black ice.
‘Not because of you son,’ Doherty growled.
‘Years ago that bastard stole my daughter.’
Ed had seen better mornings.
It wasn’t even 5am, a long drive lay ahead for what might prove to be nothing more than a headmaster covering his backside, and Sue Whelan was on the warpath.
She was following him from room to room as he got ready, the questions coming at him like automatic rounds from a drive-by shooting.
‘Why do you have to go?’ she demanded again, Ed realising he had heard the same question five times before he stopped counting. ‘You were out all day yesterday.’
He pulled on his suit trousers. ‘It’s my job.’
An honest answer, Ed reasoned, but as effective as a chocolate fire-guard in the face of Sue’s onslaught.
‘What? Sit in the car all day, listening to her fawning all over you?’ the verbal bullets flying. ‘She’s pathetic and you’re just as bad encouraging her.’
Ed stumbled as he missed the left trouser leg. ‘Look I’ve got a long day ahead.’
‘Oh poor you,’ the sarcasm biting. ‘Got a long day have you?’
‘Yes I bloody well have,’ Ed snapped. He yanked up his zip and scanned the bedroom for his work shoes.
Sue stood quiet for a moment, rubbing her dark Asian eyes.
When she spoke again Ed was struck by the snarling hatred in her voice.
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Sue said. ‘I’m sick of her and sick of you. Deny it as much as you want but I know you’re having an affair.’
Ed whipped his head to face her, shouted ‘You know shit!’
He stood still, shoeless in front of the glass-fronted wardrobe and fastened his tie. Her face didn’t look any happier when it was staring at his back.
‘How many more times have I got to tell you,’ he said to Sue’s frozen r
eflection. ‘I’m not having an affair with Sam Parker or anyone else for that matter.’
‘Well you’re getting it somewhere because you’re not getting it from me and your whore of a boss is my favourite,’ Sue raged. ‘I warned her off when you were in hospital.’
Ed marched downstairs, Sue following two steps behind, the stairs giving her the height advantage, a bird of prey waiting to swoop on a field mouse.
Time for the mouse to roar, Ed thought.
He spun around at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Is there any wonder I don’t go near you? Listen to yourself? It’s just a battle. Who wants sex after that?’
Ed stormed into the kitchen, spotted his black brogues and put them on.
Sue wasn’t finished.
‘You’ll be getting it somewhere,’ the anger still raw. ‘And if I find out it’s with that slut I’ll be straight on the phone to the Chief Constable.’
Ed put on his jacket and slammed the front door.
I can’t put up with this much longer.
Maybe he should get involved with Sam. The shit couldn’t get any deeper.
By contrast Sam’s house was quiet. It was always quiet. That was the problem.
‘I’d rather hoped you would be here sooner.’
Ian Stirling, the bean-pole headmaster, greeted them in the school foyer wearing a grey suit as dull as his smile and towered over Ed. His yellow dickie-bow hinted at a personality, but more likely it was a distraction from a face wrecked by hard liquor. Stirling might as well have had ‘alcoholic’ tattooed on his forehead, the ghostly white skin with patches of red from the mass of broken veins telling a story no one could fail to follow.
His nose, a bulbous luminous glow, meant he’d be in with a chance of a one-night gig if anything happened to a certain reindeer in the next few days.
‘I’ll be late for church.’
Ed stepped forward, the gap between him and the headmaster narrower than was polite. The veins in Ed’s neck were bulging so much they were forming an escape committee. He was in no mood for niceties, the early morning row with his wife fresher than Stirling’s booze-rancid breath.
‘We left the north-east at 5am,’ Ed growled. ‘I have sat in a car for over six hours because you wanted to speak to us. Maybe you can go to church later, maybe not, I don’t really care, but I’m sure the victims of your former colleague will be grateful that after all these years somebody on the staff has finally done something for them, even if it’s only missing church.’
The headmaster puffed out his ingrowing chest and glared at Sam.
Sam smiled. Stirling’s aggression and intimidation might work with children but he was in her playground now.
‘You should see him on a bad day,’ Sam said pleasantly. ‘Now if we can get on? We do have another six hour drive ahead of us.’
Stirling turned on his heels without a word.
Ed nudged Sam and mouthed ‘wanker’ as they began to follow.
Sam smiled, nodded in agreement.
Stirling led them into a mahogany-panelled office, bookcases covering every inch of wall space, all filled to capacity. A fountain pen sat on the green leather inlay of the desktop, the only item on the desk apart from a Tiffany lamp.
Sam and Ed sat on the maroon leather high back Milton armchairs; the type found in a cigar-smoke filled Gentleman’s Club.
‘You had some information for us,’ Sam said, glancing at the Christmas cards on the windowsill: Victorian carol singers, churches, Dickens’ London. Not a cartoon Santa in sight.
The headmaster shuffled in his seat. ‘Jeremy Scott was, as you know, on the staff. I was young, probably the newest member of staff, certainly the youngest. You hear rumours…hear accusations… from the boys…’
He shook his head.
‘But you did nothing?’ Sam said.
‘I thought they were making it up.’ Stirling’s eyes darted around, anxious to sound sincere. ‘Jeremy was an old fashioned disciplinarian and I thought the boys were just getting their own back. He was an excellent teacher and, of course, he was acquitted.’
Ed uncrossed his legs and leaned forward in the chair, oozing as much aggression as he could without grabbing Stirling by his bird-thin neck.
‘Someone felt he had to die an agonizing death.’
The headmaster blinked once and eased back in his chair.
‘Can I get you some coffee?’ his tone more cordial. ‘As you were at such pains to point out, you have had a long journey and you’re only half way through.’
Ed said no, not bothering to hide the urgency or irritation in his voice.
‘So why are we here?’ Sam demanded.’ You haven’t dragged us all the way down to tell us Scott was a misunderstood disciplinarian.’
Stirling shook his head and briefly closed his eyes.
‘I am caught between a rock and a hard place,’ the eyes open again. ‘Whilst I want to avoid any adverse publicity for the school…’
He scratched the back of his left hand, before continuing.
‘There were a couple of others who didn’t go to court,’ Stirling said quietly, as if someone might overhear. ‘I actually thought at the time they would have been better witnesses. I had no doubt Scott was assaulting boys physically but sexually…I didn’t know.’
Stirling paused, the eyes briefly closed again.
‘Or perhaps deep down I did and just didn’t want to acknowledge it.’
‘And you did nothing?’ Ed interrupted.
‘Suspicion, gut feeling, as you know sergeant they aren’t enough,’ Stirling was on the hunt for sincere again. ‘The two boys I’m thinking of didn’t attend the school but Scott gave them private piano lessons at the weekends. They came onto the school site. I knew their parents. That’s how I know they didn’t report anything to the police. Their parents only told me after the trial.’
Sam understood where Stirling was heading, why he had invited them to the school.
‘And you think the boys would talk to us now?’ Sam said.
‘I don’t know but I thought you might want to speak to them,’ Stirling said. ‘One is now a high ranking military officer.’
Sam asked which service.
‘They both joined the Army,’ Stirling told them. ‘The other is a Trooper.’
‘As in SAS?’ Ed said.
Stirling snapped instinctively back to the unbearable pomposity that had become part of his DNA.
‘I think sergeant,’ Stirling gave a superior smile, ‘the correct terminology is the Special Air Service.’
Ed returned the smile with top spin, spotting his chance.
‘You related to the David Stirling then?’ Ed asked.
‘Sorry?’ Stirling’s brow concertinaed.
‘Founder of the SAS,’ Ed said. ‘David Stirling.’
The headmaster’s spectral face was suddenly crimson.
‘Of course not,’ Stirling barked.
‘Thought so,’ Ed said, still smiling.
Ed was convinced Stirling would happily have caned him there and then.
Instead, the headmaster turned his eyes back to Sam, told her he would have been uncomfortable talking on the phone, that he didn’t think it right to speak to anyone else.
‘I understand,’ Sam said. ‘You obviously have their names?’
‘Yes, but I’m not sure whether to give them to you now,’ Stirling playing games, Sam thought.
She paused. ‘I understand why you might wrestle with confidentiality and it might be we never need to go to see these two men. But we need their names just in case.’
‘Just in case they’ve done it you mean?’ Stirling shifted in his seat. ‘Murdered Jeremy.’
‘Every possibility has to be investigated,’ Sam dead-batted with the stock reply.
‘There will be some I suppose who will say he deserved it,’ Stirling steepled his hands, the movement deliberate, almost religious. ‘An eye for an eye.’
‘And you?’ Ed said. ‘Do you t
hink he deserved it?’
Stirling put both hands back on the desk, his face neutral.
‘I am a Christian,’ the smile thin, patronising. ‘I cannot countenance violence of any sort.’
‘Religion has sparked more violence than…’
Sam stepped in. A rant from Ed would be counter-productive and he was on the edge of one already.
‘If we could have the names we will be on our way and you can make it to church,’ she said.
Stirling opened a drawer, took out a plain piece of paper bearing two handwritten names, and thrust it towards Sam.
They followed him along echoing corridors towards the front entrance. The walls were covered with light oak boards, columns of names and a corresponding year written in gold leaf…the school’s great and good, head boys down the ages, prize winners, those who had fought and died in the Great War and the conflicts that followed. Amongst the boards were framed class photographs, many in black and white.
Sam spotted the board titled ‘Gregson Prize for Music’ and she thought of Scott and potential victims.
She stopped and began reading the names, not expecting an Elton John on the list but maybe someone had become a name she recognised.
As she scanned the board the name of one winner caught her eye.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘This prize.’
Ed and Stirling stopped, turned, and walked back.
‘What’s it for?’ Sam asked, eyes still on the name.
Stirling glanced at the title. ‘Best music student.’
‘And this boy,’ Sam touched the board. ‘The winner in 1983?’
Ed looked, blinked twice and refocused. The name didn’t change.
Stirling’s face suddenly beamed, his shoulders lost their stiffness, and even the dickie-bow looked in place.
‘Everyone remembers him,’ he gushed. ‘A quite brilliant pianist, taught by Jeremy but gifted by God. The best we’ve ever produced and only thirteen when he won that.’
Ed’s eyes ran further down the list. ‘If he was that good why didn’t he win it in the following years?’
‘He left the school,’ Stirling stared at the name. ‘I never did find out why…’
The smile had vanished. Now the shoulders tensed and his head moved slowly from side to side.
Angels and Apostles Page 17