A Fairly Dangerous Thing
Reginald Hill
For Gee and Barbara
A little learning is a dangerous thing
Alexander Pope
PART I
I never knowed a successful man
who could quote poetry
Frank McKinney Hubbard
CHAPTER I
Joe stood, dramatically outlined against the sky, on a rocky eminence above the Bosporus, and laughed mockingly as Cyril Solstice and Miss Onions were bound back to back (no; make that front to front, nothing was too bad for them) thrust into a sack and hurled into the swirling waters. Beside him Maisie Uppadine (or was it Maggie Cohen?) waited eagerly to reward the triumphant hero. In a sack? Why not? And front to front.
Joe sighed deeply and almost destroyed an ancient bicyclist. It was time to shake himself free from his comforting visions, especially as he was now on the main Sheffield Road and the car ahead, an ancient two-tone Consul, was moving along most erratically. This was caused in part at least, Joe surmised, by the driver’s left arm being hooked over his passenger’s neck. Now and then his hand seemed to make plunging motions down her front out of Joe’s view, and then she would bob and twist and the car would change its speed and waver gently over the road.
Joe blew his horn as one manoeuvre brought the Consul dangerously close, but this had no effect so he dropped back to a safer distance.
The glow of satisfaction his mental bout with the Pair had brought him now began to fade, and gloomily he reviewed the actuality of the situation.
He was afraid of them, that was it, plain and simple. He, Joseph Askern, thirty-one years of age, six foot tall, darkly handsome (in a rugged kind of way) with just enough hair loss to give mature distinction to a noble head, a good honours graduate, second-in-command and heir apparent of the English department, with a large responsibility allowance and little responsibility, was afraid of Cyril Solstice, Headmaster and Virginia Onions, Senior Mistress. It didn’t bear thinking of.
Onions, middle-aged, huge, with a lower lip like a mantelpiece, was the more obvious danger with her one-woman war against modern degeneracy. Beside this, Cyril’s obsession with the transport problems of his pupils seemed nothing. But it was his absurd insistence that all coach-bookings should be personally verified which was causing Joe to spend his lunch-hour driving into town instead of downing his usual draught of oblivion in the Bell.
Savagely he began composing another scene in which he tore the Pair to pieces.
Behind him a horn blew loudly. He came back to the surface to realize that he had halted behind the two-tone Consul at some traffic lights which had just changed to green. The cars at the front of the line had moved on, but the Consul remained still. The reason was quickly apparent. The driver had brought his other hand to bear on the situation. It was impossible for Joe to see what it was doing, but from the man’s general position athwart his passenger, he surmised it was occupied on or about her upper leg.
The van behind Joe sounded again, then pulled out and overtook. Joe would have done the same, but he was too close to the Consul. He put his hand on his horn button and gave a gentle almost apologetic ‘peep’.
Surprisingly this had some effect. The man’s head rose from the woman’s neck which he appeared to have been savaging with his teeth, and he stared out of the rear window into Joe’s car. Joe did not much like the look of him. It was a face which unpleasant experience seemed to have sculpted with a blunt chisel, rectangular, a single line of ginger eyebrows over long narrow eyes, a close crop of ginger-coloured hair, and a deal of pale scar-tissue round the cheekbones.
Joe smiled placatingly. The man said something to the woman who also twisted round and looked. Normally Joe would have been interested to study a face capable of generating such a fine public passion, but now he had other things to think of.
The man got out of the Consul and slowly, deliberately, made his way towards Joe’s car. When he reached it, he stooped and tapped gently on the driving-seat window. He had a large gold ring inset with a bright black stone on his middle finger. It clicked once against the glass. Joe had a feeling that the man’s fist would come through the window next, so he wound it down.
The face came close to his and the man spoke. His accent was local, his articulation good, his intonation quite devoid of emotion. Yet it was possibly the most menacing voice Joe had ever heard.
‘Now look,’ said the man. ‘If watching pleases you, you’re welcome to bloody watch; or if you don’t want to watch, you’re welcome to piss off. But don’t blow your horn at me, lad. Get it?’
‘Yes,’ said Joe, unwilling to trust his voice further.
‘That’s all right then.’
As slowly as he’d come, the man returned to his own car. The lights had changed again. Hastily Joe went into reverse and backed up to give himself room to overtake. But before he could, the Consul set off and crossed the lights at red and amber.
Joe let them draw a hundred yards ahead before moving forward himself, and kept this distance. Even so he felt a sense of relief when the Consul turned right and pulled into the car-park of a large pub on the other side of the road.
The coach firm dealt quickly with Joe’s query. Yes, they had the booking in hand; yes, a confirmation had been sent off the previous day, second-class mail of course, so it would probably arrive by the afternoon post. Also they were pleased to say that the detailed route mapped out by Mr Solstice coincided almost exactly with their own preferred route to Averingerett. But it was a kind thought nonetheless.
There was just half an hour of his lunch-break left when Joe got back into his car. He turned into the car-park of the first pub he came to, dug his plastic sandwich-box out of the glove compartment and began to chew the thin edge of a ham sandwich of varying thickness. As usual he had been in a tremendous hurry that morning. His mouth couldn’t quite negotiate the thick end of the wedge. Perhaps if he concentrated on the meat alone, he’d have time for a swift half. Or perhaps he should spend a couple of minutes jotting down a few notes for his lesson with the science sixth that afternoon. Cultural English! They were mad for it!
Gloomily he put down the ravaged square of bread and pulled out an old exercise-book from under the dashboard. Taking out a ball-point pen, he began to make a few notes.
The park was quite full and he would probably never have noticed the two-tone Consul if it hadn’t begun to move. Not move in the normal sense that a car moves, but rather to shake. As the body shifted rhythmically on its springs, the windscreen facing Joe from the other side of the car-park caught an edge of the sun and it was this flashing effect which attracted his attention.
He watched the phenomenon with mild interest for a moment. Enviously his mind conjured up a picture of what was probably going on in the car. It was only when the shaking reached a wild climax and then suddenly went still that Joe recalled his previous meeting with the Consul’s driver and decided it might be discreet to move.
He put his pen and paper down on the dashboard and turned the starter key. The starter motor let out a virile roar, the engine almost caught, then the noise died away in a plaintive whine.
He tried again with the same result.
Next time he pulled the choke full out, knowing as he did that the only result would be to flood the carburettor, but unable to stop himself as his anger at this insolent piece of machinery grew in proportion to his fear at another encounter with Squareface.
The rear doors of the Consul opened, the man got out of one side, the woman out of the other. They were both, in the words of the immortal euphemism, adjusting their dress. Despite his other emotions, Joe had time to admire their aplomb. The man indicated the pub with a movement of
his head. Post coitum torridum est. They would probably have gone in without even looking across the park if Joe had not tried the engine once more and held the key over till the starter motor almost shook itself free of its retaining bracket.
The woman glanced over, paused, touched the man on his arm, and pointed.
The man halted, looked, said something to the woman, and began to move across the car-park. He was walking much more rapidly this time, with greater purpose.
Joe picked up his book and pen again and lowered his head, pretending to be writing. There didn’t seem to be much else to do.
There was no polite tapping on the window this time. The door was wrenched violently open and a large fist with scarred knuckles gathered up Joe’s shirt round his throat.
‘What’s your game?’ grunted the man. Then his eyes fell on the book and pen in Joe’s nerveless hands and his face lit up with understanding.
‘So that’s it!’ he said. ‘On the snoop, eh? Couldn’t they afford someone a bit better?’
‘No,’ said Joe, half-choked, as best he could. ‘A mistake.’
‘You bet it’s a bloody mistake! Listen, lad, it’ll be a bigger one if you don’t start talking. You’ll know who I am, likely, and you’ll know I don’t make light promises. Right?’
‘Right!’ gasped Joe. It seemed the only thing to say in the circumstances.
‘Good. Now we understand each other, let’s have a look at what you’ve been putting down.’
He picked up the book and began to read the jottings while Joe massaged his throat. He’ll realize in a minute, thought Joe, realize his mistake. He thinks I’m a private detective! He’ll apologize. ‘Sorry!’ I’ll say. ‘You’re sorry! Why don’t you tuck your balls away and give your brains a chance?’ No, that’s not so good. I’ll think of something better later.
‘What the hell’s all this?’ said the man in a markedly non-apologetic tone. ‘Some bloody code or something? Two cultures? Snow? Mathematical man and the death of art? What’s it all about?’
His fist bunched menacingly once more. Joe could not take his eyes off the black-stone ring.
‘They’re notes for a lesson,’ he said, trying to keep a tremor out of his voice. ‘I’m a schoolmaster. I was just making some lesson notes.’
The man rippled violently through the rest of the book, glanced piercingly into the car, at the half-eaten sandwich in the plastic box, at a pile of essays on the rear window sill, at Joe’s old leather-patched sports jacket and corduroy trousers.
Suddenly he laughed. It was an unattractive noise. ‘Aye!’ he said broadly. ‘I believe you. You look like a bloody school-teacher. You poor bastard. So all you wanted to do was to watch after all, eh? You should have said!’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Joe, not quite sure what he was sorry for but feeling an inner compulsion to preface anything he said to this man with some appeasing formula. ‘It was a coincidence, that’s all. I just stopped for a bite of lunch.’
‘So did I,’ said the man, now full of grisly joviality, ‘so did I. Bloody coincidence. You should have said, lad! If I’d known it was that bad!’
He roared with laughter. Joe smiled wanly and turned the key. This time the engine burst into life at once. The man made no effort to stop him but stood back and slammed the door. He was still laughing as Joe pulled out into the traffic, though by then Joe had already thought up three good ways of putting him down and another half-dozen had suggested themselves by the time he got back to school.
CHAPTER II
Joe looked with growing amazement at Mr and Mrs Uppadine. Could they really be Maisie’s parents? They could have passed for ninety without difficulty. No, that was an exaggeration. But the fringes of seventy certainly. They looked like each other in disguise, both small, thin, hollow-cheeked and somehow rather dusty, and they didn’t seem to mind both talking at once. Joe didn’t mind either. He had long since switched on the sympathetic-attentive look he reserved for parent-teacher meetings, and switched off the directional-hearing device which nature has fitted to human ears. All he got now was a general background babble as all over the school hall anxious, aggrieved and aggressive parents required advice, explanation and satisfaction of his colleagues.
The Uppadines seemed to have stopped talking. They were looking at him questioningly.
‘Yes; true, true,’ said Joe. ‘How nice it is when parents take a real interest. Maisie now, she’s doing fine. Fine. It’s a pleasure to teach her.’
He really meant it. Maisie was a splendidly developed fifteen-year-old. In one of Joe’s recurring day-dreams he officiated at a black mass, using her naked bosom as a lectern. He nodded reassuringly to shake the image from his too impressive mind.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Uppadine. ‘But do you watch her, that’s the thing?’
Oh God! thought Joe. She’s been complaining about me staring at her breasts.
He glanced around in panic. Cyril was at the far side of the. hall, but Onions was quite close, using her lower lip as a springboard to launch broadsides of damp advice at a terrified father. She seemed fully occupied, but he knew of old her capacity for taking in three conversations at once.
‘It’s a real worry to us,’ said Mrs Uppadine. ‘Her being so attractive and all. We tried all we could, Mr Askern. We kept her out of bras for a long time, but that just seemed to make things worse.’
Oh yes, it would, it would, thought Joe.
‘So that’s why we hope you’ll keep an eye on her, special like,’ went on Mr Uppadine. ‘She’s going off on some trip or other with you at weekend?’
‘That’s right. To Averingerett. It’s a country house, eighteenth-century …’
‘I know what it bloody well is, lad. I’m not thick.’
Joe looked with new respect at this slight-figure before him. Perhaps it was not quite so incredible after all that the conjunction of these two had produced the carnal symphony which was Maisie.
‘And I know what lads are. So just keep your eyes skinned when you’re going around the grounds. It’s a big place that. Easy to get lost in.’
He nodded warningly and touched his wife on the elbow. Obediently she smiled thinly at Joe and turned away. Mr Uppadine paused before following her. ‘I’ve had a bit of fun there meself of a time,’ he whispered confidentially. ‘You can’t blame lads. So take care, eh?’
No, you can’t blame them at all, thought Joe, wondering if he dared remove the name-badge in his lapel yet and drift anonymously out of the hall. He noticed that Vernon Metcalfe, the dapper little Welshman in charge of physics and his usual lunch-time drinking partner, had shed his badge and was clearly planning a break.
Vernon caught his eye at that moment and jerked his head meaningfully towards the door.
‘Mr Askern,’ said a woman’s voice in his ear. Joe turned and his heart sank. It wasn’t that he disliked the woman who stood beside him; indeed he had a great deal of sympathy with her. But her special problem was one he felt himself particularly inadequate to deal with.
‘Hello, Mrs Carter,’ he said with a smile. ‘How are you?’
Unhappy, he guessed. And with cause.
Mrs Carter’s son, Mickey, had a long history as a trouble-maker.
His only saving grace was that as he grew older he tended to stay away from school to make his trouble. The mere sight of him was enough to fill Joe with a mixture of fury and despair.
‘How’s Michael doing?’ She always used his full name, the only person who did.
‘Much the same, Mrs Carter. When he’s here, that is.’
She looked at him gloomily.
‘I know. I had the attendance man round again last week.’
Joe was moved by her expression.
‘Don’t worry too much, Mrs Carter,’ he said with the kind of jovial-vicar optimism he hated. ‘He’ll be all right, you’ll see. He’s got some ability, you know.’
‘He doesn’t do any work,’ she said flatly.
‘Not homework, no. I’d ha
ve to agree with you there. But in class now, where he’s got to work, then he can reach quite a high standard.’
He gave his reassuring nod, feeling a little glow of self-esteem in his belly. It was damped down immediately.
‘You mean he sometimes writes things for you in class?’ said Mrs Carter, a gleam of interest on her face. ‘He never brings his books home. I’d like to have a look if I might, Mr Askern. It’d be nice to see something the lad had done not too badly.’
Joe pinched himself viciously through his trouser pocket. It had been a stupidly dishonest thing to say. The only piece of writing he had got out of Mickey Carter all term was at present tucked into his jacket pocket. He transferred his hand there from his trousers as though afraid that the ragged half-sheet of exercise-book paper would jump out. The class had been writing poems that afternoon. Attracted by much amusement in the vicinity of Carter’s desk, he had made a sudden swoop. Mickey’s muse had in the course of half an hour produced only the one immortal couplet.
The biggest tits I’ve ever seen
Belong to Maisie Uppadine.
His reward had been a sharp cuff above the ear.
Actually it wasn’t bad, thought Joe. But not the kind of thing that would reassure Mrs Carter.
‘It’s not so much writing I’m thinking of,’ he said, ‘as oral contribution. He asks some very penetrating questions.’
Such as, ‘Please, sir, what’s masturbation?’
Mrs Carter’s face resumed its doleful mask. She recognizes the evasions and euphemisms as well as I do, thought Joe. It’s always the same for the poor woman.
Her next remark surprised him, however.
Half-turning away she said, ‘I’d like you to meet my husband, Mr Askern.’
Though Mrs Carter was a regular attender of such meetings, Mr Carter had never before been seen on the school premises. According to Joe’s information, his excuse for absence was good. He had spent a great deal of his time in gaol. Whether he had some speciality in the field of crime or whether he just turned his hand to anything, Joe did not know.
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