‘And today?’ Markham prompted.
‘He was a wreck. Absolutely in bits. Couldn’t have been more upset if it was his nearest and dearest. Had tears running down his face when he was talking to me. Godzilla was glowering, but he didn’t seem to notice. Kept saying “Why Ashley?” and “It doesn’t make any sense.” To be honest, I thought he was going to keel over.’ The DS gave a sudden grin. ‘Then there was this dotty old chap wandering around. Only one of ’em wearing a batman gown like teachers used to wear back in the day. Doctor Aber … something or other.’ Noakes consulted his bit of paper. ‘Oh yes, that was it. Doctor Abernathy.’ He chuckled. ‘The old fella kept offering everyone cups of tea. Or something stronger “for medicinal purposes”. It was priceless. I thought Godzilla was going to nut him!’
Markham’s careworn expression momentarily vanished. ‘Sounds like we can rule out Doctor Abernathy.’ He laughed.
‘Not necessarily,’ Noakes said ruminatively. ‘From what I heard, the knives were out for him. Management trying to show he was past his sell by date an’ putting him down the whole time. Must’ve been humiliating. Ashley did most of the bullying from the sound of it. So, you see, Guv, mebbe the worm turned and Abernathy finally snapped. You never know with those quiet types … may look as if a puff of wind would blow him over, but …’
‘True. Appearances can be deceptive.’
It occurred to Markham that disaffected former teachers might also have a motive for murder if they had been culled because of Ashley Dean’s machinations. Something for Burton to get her teeth into.
Noakes looked cagey. Clearly there was something else.
‘Come on, spit it out.’
‘Palmer’s reaction was a bit OTT, guv. Abernathy looked dead shifty when I commented on it … Could he and Dean … well, you know … could they have been, like, at it?’ The DS blurted out the enquiry with his trademark lack of finesse.
‘I had the impression from what Olivia said that JP and Dean may have been,’ Markham chose his words carefully, ‘particularly close.’
‘Like I said, at it!’ Noakes was hugely delighted with his own perspicacity.
‘We don’t know anything for sure, Noakes.’ Markham’s tone was stern. ‘So, for God’s sake don’t charge in there shouting the odds.’
‘’Course not, boss,’ came the obedient reply. ‘But,’ Markham steeled himself for something outrageous only to be confounded by the reasonable enquiry, ‘if they were in a … relationship an’ it went wrong … couldn’t that give us motive?’
‘Yes, it could,’ the DI replied bluntly. ‘But it’s early days.’ He exhaled slowly. ‘What about other staff? Did you get a chance to speak to any of them?’
‘Difficult with Kavanagh watching them like a warder. The HR manager …’ Noakes looked at his notes. ‘Tracey Roach started blubbing, but it didn’t look like the real thing from where I was standing. Audrey Burke – she’s the head’s PA – was rabbiting on about Palmer needing a doctor. I had the feeling,’ Noakes observed shrewdly, ‘she was worried about him shooting his mouth off to us.’
‘Hmmm.’ Markham steepled his fingers and contemplated the DS thoughtfully. ‘I think we’ll get you to interview those two, Noakes.’
The other nodded sagaciously. ‘They’re sure to know where the bodies are buried.’
Markham winced, but Noakes was cheerfully oblivious.
‘Who’ll you take, Guv?’
‘Kate and I will do the teachers.’
‘Figures,’ Noakes said glumly. ‘What with her having a university ed-u-ca-tion.’
Only Noakes, thought his boss, could make the DC’s graduate pedigree sound like a disadvantage!
‘Oh an’ there was a caretaker hanging around as well. Jim Snell.’ Noakes screwed up his nose in distaste. ‘He looked like all his Christmases had come at once. Must have hated Dean, who was something special in the looks department apparently.’ Noakes continued his tale with dramatic relish. ‘It was all a bit weird, Guv. Dean started out at Hope as a groundsman, under the caretaker. Basically, Snell’s skivvy. Next thing, he was assistant head bossing all the support staff about. Ended up as Palmer’s right-hand man, busy poking his nose into everything.’
That tallied with Olivia’s account, thought Markham.
‘Bit of a step up, wasn’t it, Guv?’ Noakes was like a dog with a bone. ‘Bog cleaner to big cheese. Him and Palmer must’ve had something going.’
Markham frowned. ‘For God’s sake, don’t let anyone hear you talking like that. We don’t want the rubber-soled lot on top of us.’
‘Mum’s the word, Guv. Right, I’ll get back down there.’ The DS assumed an expression of Confucian inscrutability comically at odds with the enormous postprandial belch with which he signed off their conversation. Markham watched ruefully as his subordinate headed for his afternoon’s tasks by way of the station canteen. No doubt he would raise hackles left, right and centre before the day was done. But that was what the case needed: someone to go in, mix it up and hopefully catch Ashley Dean’s colleagues on the raw.
There had been something viscerally intense about this murder, reflected Markham uneasily, rifling through the scene of crime photographs: the victim’s face pounded to the consistency of chopped liver … the ghastly mutilation. As though the killer had been in the grip of some terrible blood lust which nothing could satiate.
Suddenly the office felt unbearably hot. He strode across to the window and wrenched it open, welcoming the cold breeze gusting in from outside.
After a few minutes, he returned to his desk, his thoughts turning to Olivia. The blood rushed to his face as he recalled DCI’s Sidney’s conversation the previous night.
‘Of course, technically your girlfriend is a suspect, Markham.’ Only Sidney could lace the word ‘girlfriend’ with such salacious innuendo, the DI thought savagely, his hands balling into fists. What followed was even worse. ‘Misfortune seems to, well…’ falsely bonhomie laugh, ‘follow her. Almost as though she’s jinxed, poor soul. I mean, after that … ahem … awful affair at St Mary’s, it’s such an appalling stroke of bad luck that she should be the one to find the body.’ Markham felt as though poisoned weapons were being hurled at him. Saint Sebastian shot with arrows. He absorbed Slimy Sid’s vindictiveness in mute rage, trusting that the DCI would eventually tire of his little game. And so it proved, Sidney exclaiming peevishly, ‘You can investigate this one, Markham. But as my second in command. Is that clearly understood?’
The DI had not trusted himself to speak but Sidney barely noticed, satisfied that he had put the rising star of Bromgrove CID firmly in his place.
As for Olivia, at the hospital that morning, she had mourned Ashley Dean with heartfelt and transparently genuine sadness.
‘I didn’t really like him, Gil, but nothing could ever justify that.’ She shivered like a whippet then whispered, ‘He was so very beautiful, with a kind of aura about him … as though he was untouchable, invincible … Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney sweepers come to dust.’ The nurse had regarded her patient warily before agreeing that Olivia could be discharged that afternoon once the duty registrar had given the all-clear.
Markham glanced at his watch. Time to get going. He would collect Olivia, see her comfortably settled at The Sweepstakes and then check in with the team at Hope.
He wondered if the murderer was there too, watching the police at work. Watching and waiting.
‘Bloody hell, sir, I bet Clintons are quids in today!’
Markham and a police constable stood and stared at the carpet of cards, balloons, soft toys and flowers which blanketed Hope Academy’s front courtyard in an eerie facsimile of Bromgrove South Municipal Cemetery on the other side of the school drive.
‘Just like when Princess Di snuffed it,’ breathed the young officer reverentially.
Markham was emphatically not a fan of emotional incontinence. Yet there was something poignant about the display. All the messages, with their ribbons,
butterflies, cuddly animals and other embellishments, showed that many grieved sincerely for Ashley Dean.
Watched respectfully by his youthful subordinate, the DI bent down and picked up a particularly lurid condolence card, which bizarrely featured Winnie the Pooh, Piglet and Eyore as chief mourners. We miss you, sir, but will remember you forever. Hardly deathless prose but, despite himself, Markham was moved. Whatever the man’s flaws, he had touched some young lives for the better.
Although Hope was closed to students for the day, Markham spotted a gaggle of older girls clustered around a sapling in one of the flowerbeds which bordered the courtyard. On closer inspection, they appeared to have constructed some sort of impromptu shrine to the assistant head whose megawatt smile and sultry smoulder, captured in a large photograph pinned to the tree, offered eloquent testimony to his sobriquet of ‘Dreamboat’.
There was something comically awkward about the bighaired bejeaned teenagers posing for selfies next to the ‘memorial’, tears streaking their Polyfilla-thick make up and oompa loompa fake tans. Spotting Markham and his sidekick, the sobbing coven retreated towards the car park at the end of the drive.
‘Keep tabs on them, will you, Constable,’ Markham instructed, ‘and if any press turn up, just refer them to the press office. Thank God it’s the weekend, so at least security won’t be too much an issue for now.’
As his colleague headed towards the car park, Markham remained where he was, contemplating the school’s ugly frontage.
Not enough light, he thought, looking at the rows of meanly proportioned windows in Hope’s soulless sixties prefab. He wasn’t all that keen on the current craze for clinical modular design and glass atriums – too antiseptic by half – but at least the newer schools didn’t resemble battery farms.
He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts, that it was some minutes before he noticed that he had company.
Recognizing Harry Mountfield, Olivia’s friend and head of religious studies, Markham shook hands cordially. The big untidy man, with his prop forward’s build, always struck him as bursting with vitality.
‘Horrible, isn’t it?’ He laughed, jerking a thumb at the building. ‘Like a cross between a women’s prison and a branch of B&Q.’
‘Pretty grim,’ Markham concurred. ‘I can see why you might get cabin fever working in a place like this. Maybe you’ll strike lucky in the next round of government spending and get something dazzlingly futuristic.’
Mountfield pulled a face. ‘Like a spaceship, you mean. Beam me up, Scotty!’
Markham smiled. He could see why Olivia relaxed around her colleague. There was something endearingly subversive about him.
They fell silent.
‘How’s Liv?’ asked Mountfield simply.
‘Badly shaken up, as you can imagine.’ Markham’s tone was sombre. ‘She won’t be in school for a few days.’
‘I should hope not … Did she … see anything?’ Mountfield caught himself up short. ‘Sorry, you’re probably not allowed to say.’
‘No, that’s OK, Harry. She doesn’t remember a thing that happened before she woke up in hospital. Must have been so traumatic, that she blanked it all out.’
‘Probably for the best. Poor Liv,’ the other murmured, gnawing his lower lip.
There was another, longer silence. Following the direction of Mountfield’s gaze, Markham noticed he was staring at the schoolgirls’ shrine to Ashley Dean, the murdered man’s charisma overwhelming even in death.
At that moment, a small knot of people emerged from the front foyer. One man detached himself from the rest, descended the steps and walked over to the improvised tribute. Head bowed, he stood motionless, apparently lost in contemplation.
Mountfield made a disgusted noise in his throat, quickly repressed.
Markham looked at him interrogatively.
‘That’s James Palmer, the headmaster. Marvellous thespian instincts.’ The tone was bitter.
‘You don’t like him,’ Markham observed bluntly.
‘Oh, don’t mind me. I’m a dinosaur, Inspector. JP’s one of the new breed of “executive heads”.’ Mountfield’s air quotes hung in the air like a challenge.
‘What’s one of them, then?’ the DI enquired mildly.
‘More interested in budgets and spreadsheets than anything else. Able to spout politically correct bullshit by the bucketful and great at buttering up local authority VIPs, but no clue how to relate to the kids. Twat of the first order.’
Markham whistled. ‘That’s quite a rap sheet! Any redeeming qualities?’
‘Not so’s you’d notice.’ He gestured towards the group watching Palmer from the top of the steps. ‘He’s made some bloody awful appointments too. Well, you’ll meet Cruella de Vil in a minute.’ Markham noticed a beefy female with a corrugated blonde haircut eyeing them suspiciously. ‘Yep,’ sighed Mountfield resignedly, ‘here she comes.’
This must be the deputy head Helen Kavanagh, Markham thought as the woman clip-clopped towards him on spindly maroon suede stilettos. The one Olivia called ‘Killer’ Kavanagh. Her high colour clashed unbecomingly with a violent fuchsia suit, while the fixity of her stare made the DI feel as though he was about to be swallowed whole.
Mountfield melted away, moving remarkably swiftly for such a big man. Clearly, he had no wish for a heart-to-heart. Kavanagh’s eyes narrowed as she followed his retreating figure, leaving Markham in no doubt that the antipathy was mutual.
Gravely, Markham held out his identification for the deputy head’s perusal.
‘Of course, Inspector!’ she trilled in an affected falsetto. ‘I know you by reputation, though I don’t believe we have ever met.’
I’d have remembered you, he thought dourly.
Sensing that she was about to launch into a pre-prepared speech, Markham forestalled her.
‘I don’t want to intrude on your grief today, Ms Kavanagh.’ Killer immediately assumed an appropriately doleful expression. ‘But I’d like to get all the staff into school for tomorrow if possible. I realize that’s a tall order with it being Sunday, but it means we can do interviews with minimal disruption to the running of the school. Obviously, we’ll need an office from Monday …’
The deputy head waved a regal hand. ‘Your people are already installed.’ Markham mentally apologized to whichever hapless member of staff had been turfed out to accommodate them. ‘As for calls to the workforce, I’ll put that in hand immediately.’
The DI decided some shameless flattery was called for.
‘I knew I could count on your efficiency, Ms Kavanagh.’
The doughy features creased in a smile of gratification.
‘Happy to be of service, Inspector. Whatever it takes to ensure this … this maniac is taken off the streets.’
It was nicely judged. Kavanagh was obviously determined to steer them away from Hope Academy – preferably in the direction of the Newman, the local high-security facility situated behind Bromgrove General Hospital.
‘Oh, I don’t think we want to jump to any conclusions, Ms Kavanagh,’ he said firmly. ‘Important to keep an open mind at this stage.’
To the DI’s immense relief, a figure appeared at Kavanagh’s elbow.
‘JP!’
Markham regarded the head with interest. The man appeared ill, his eyes bloodshot behind the heavy black-rimmed spectacles.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he said gently. ‘I’m very sorry to be here on such business.’
Palmer looked as though he was seeing Markham from a long way off, his eyes unfocused.
‘I can’t feel Ashley anymore,’ he whispered tremulously. ‘He’s gone. Gone!’
With a combination of shoulder and arm, Helen Kavanagh moved and manipulated her distraught colleague away from the DI towards the steps which led to the foyer. ‘I think we need to get you home, JP.’ To Markham she mouthed the word Doctor!
Markham let them go and once again looked thoughtfully up at Hope’s façade.
A façade is w
hat it is, he decided. Like a stage-set.
Time to bring the actors down towards the footlights.
5. Mourning Rites
THE REMAINDER OF SATURDAY passed uneventfully, Markham leaving Noakes and Burton, along with PC Doyle, to secure the school and ensure their temporary office had everything needed.
Back at The Sweepstakes, he told Olivia, ‘I’m pulling up the drawbridge, dearest. DCI Sidney and the rest can go whistle. You’re my priority tonight.’
Over a roast chicken supper, he regaled her with a mockhumorous description of the students’ mourning rites, and was pleased to see a flare of amusement in the tired eyes. Her features tightened, however, when he described the encounter with Helen Kavanagh.
‘Killer didn’t care for Ashley one bit,’ she told Markham. ‘Thought he was a jumped up little oik with ideas above his station.’
‘You make Hope sound like Downton Abbey,’ Markham commented dryly, bringing a smile like pale wintry sunshine to the careworn face.
‘Well, it’s true schools are very hot on hierarchy. It’s all about the pecking order and sucking up.’
‘Not a million miles from CID,’ he murmured. So far, his plan to distract Olivia from her sad thoughts was proving effective.
‘Dean seems to have been spectacularly good at sucking up,’ he continued. ‘From what staff told Noakes and Burton, he played Palmer like a fiddle.’ Observing the fleeting look of revulsion on her face, he said, ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead. I know. But Ashley Dean aroused strong passions, dearest. Clearly some people detested him.’
‘There was a lot of jealousy because he came from nowhere.’
Markham looked at her expectantly.
‘And he did a lot of the head’s dirty work. JP’s obsessed with paring budgets to the bone – mad keen to cull anyone past their sell-by date.’
‘Like Doctor Abernathy.’ Markham smiled, recalling Noakes’s description of Abernathy’s eccentric behaviour.
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 26