‘A snack, Sir? At that time of day?’
‘No, you’re right, Darren. Let’s have lunch instead. The pubs’ll be open by then.’
*****
Simon Chandler was first on the list of teachers to be called in for a chat with Hart. He had been Sebastian Emmer’s form teacher and he had also taught the boy geography. Everything about the man appeared average and unremarkable: his height, weight, face, intellect, self-confidence and charm. Chandler constituted a fitting introduction to two hours of the most bland tedium that Hart could remember. Sebastian was a nice lad. Sebastian was no trouble in class. Sebastian had no problems that I know of. Sebastian had a good group of friends. I am so shocked. Yes, I can tell you where I was yesterday between three PM and five-thirty and, yes, the alibi I am relating is boringly plausible.
Paul Outbridge, the biology teacher, arrived after Chandler. Standing about five feet six, he possessed delicate hands that some may have thought pretty, and small feet to match. He did at least think that Sebastian was ‘a bit of a big-head sometimes,’ but that was as close as Hart got to hearing anything other than praise, platitudes and a reluctance to speak ill of the dead. He seemed a normal schoolkid, they all said. No one had any idea why anybody should want to harm him, let alone kill him.
Next door, Darren Redpath had enjoyed greater excitement in the delightful form of Sophie Rand. Although she said much the same as everybody else she did at least possess the unique attraction of lovely long hair the colour of plain chocolate. She also owned a pair of those female PE teacher’s superb muscular thighs which he so admired and which, Redpath told Hart later, could crack a walnut. She looked great in her little burgundy sports skirt and Redpath couldn’t help but wonder what colour they were. He didn’t find that out, nor anything of much use to the investigation for that matter. She was sorry she couldn’t help, but she hadn’t known Sebastian that well, her being a girls’ boarding mistress and PE teacher and him being a boy. However, Redpath did at least enjoy his police work for twenty minutes, a little longer than was strictly necessary to collect the details he needed.
At ten minutes to twelve, Hart ushered his last scheduled visitor of the morning out of the classroom door. He slumped back into his chair and rubbed his cheeks vigorously up and down with the palms of his hands. Thank goodness it was time for that early lunch he had promised himself. No dinner last night and no breakfast this morning had left his stomach empty, like a squashed football. He was awakened from his daydreams of steak and chips, shepherd’s pie, and liver and onions topped with peppery gravy by Redpath barging through the door.
‘Looks like you’re as keen for your lunch as I am. Let’s go,’ enthused Hart.
‘No, Sir. I mean, I think I’ve got something you might be interested in. There’s a girl next door, I think you should go and have a word with her.’
‘This had better be good, Darren. My belly’s telling me I haven’t eaten for a week,’ scowled Hart as he swiftly made for the door.
‘Don’t you want to know what it’s about?’
‘She’ll tell me soon enough. What’s her name?’
‘Petra. Petra Noble. Form 13M.’
‘Come on then, lead the way and introduce me to Petra. And then it’s definitely lunch, even if she admits to doing the job herself. She can wait until I’ve eaten my horse before we cart her off to the nick.’
Petra Noble was sitting up straight, next to her mother, their long auburn hair painting a picture of twins rather than parent and child. Hart faced them across the school desk while Redpath stood to one side. The classroom walls were covered with maps showing the routes European explorers had forged centuries before to prise open their opportunities for trade and plunder.
‘Hello, Mrs Noble, Petra. My name’s Chief Inspector Hart. Petra, would you just tell me again what you told Sergeant Redpath?’
She was polite, although not overawed, but a little disappointed that she didn’t actually know anything that would turn her into a star; she was destined to deliver an anticlimax.
‘There’s nothing to tell, really. I was just saying that I didn’t know Sebastian very well, so I couldn’t help much. He seemed okay, but a bit big for his boots sometimes, although I know I shouldn’t speak badly about him now that he’s dead.’
And I’m starving to death just so I can hear the disc I’ve been listening to all morning sing out from yet another jukebox, thought Hart, feeling sorry for himself.
‘That’s not quite all, is it Dear?’ prodded mother. She was a bit more savvy because of her age and sensed that her daughter possessed a titbit that the policemen wanted passed their way, although she had no idea what it was. Petra knew no more than anybody else, and probably much less than most. But the boss had been summoned so it must be important, and her mother was rather enjoying the attention. ‘You had told the other policeman something else, Dear.’
‘Well, I just said that Sebastian being killed is all so very sad.’ The girl’s brown eyes moistened as they looked across the desk. ‘Especially after what happened at the beginning of term. That just broke my heart.’
‘Gosh, of course.’ Hart slapped his forehead. ‘I wasn’t thinking about that. There’s no doubt about it, it’s all very sad indeed,’ he acknowledged, closing his eyes and slowly shaking his head. ‘And it must be particularly upsetting for you, having to endure two awful traumas like this in such a short time.’
‘It’s unbelievable, coming so soon after what happened to Nicola.’
‘Yes, it certainly is,’ said Hart. ‘I’ve heard what other people think, of course, they’ve hardly stopped talking about it this morning, but what’s your own opinion about the beginning of term? I agree with you that what happened to Nicola was absolutely dreadful, that’s obvious. But I’d still be interested in your own account of what took place.’
The man’s a master, conceded Redpath. I’m in the presence of a true genius. Never let them know when they’ve surprised you, Hart had always taught him; that would give them the feeling they have a hold over you, that they possess some greater power. Of course, Redpath had dashed next door to Hart like an excited schoolboy immediately the nugget had been tossed in his direction.
‘I only know what everybody else knows, nothing more. A few months ago, Nikki was found hanging in her room. She killed herself.’ Petra’s eyes suddenly overflowed with tears; it was amazing how so much water could just arrive from nowhere. ‘That’s it, really. That’s all I know.’
Hart yanked a handful of tissues out of one of the boxes he had arranged to be in the interview rooms. ‘Thank you, Petra, you’ve been a great help. I’m sorry to have brought all that back to you again,’ he said, as he passed them to the sobbing girl.
*****
‘Where’s that wretched woman?’ Hart spat through gritted teeth after Petra and her mother had left. ‘Boiling her alive would be too good for her.’ And with that curse resonating in Redpath’s ears, he stormed into the corridor.
Bouncing down the stairs and out of the building, striding across the playground, stomping into the Old House and throwing open Mrs Hargreaves’ door so that the handle clanked against the wall and the wood and the glass rattled.
‘Why didn’t you tell me? How could you not tell me something like that?’
‘Tell you something like what, Chief Inspector?’ she replied, tipping petrol onto his burning anger.
It hurt him to have to spell it out, but the person sitting before him was not going to budge from her position of contrived ignorance.
‘You had a student commit suicide here a few months back. Don’t you think you should have bothered to mention that fact?’
‘Yes, that was very sad of course, but I do not see why I needed to tell you something that is already known to the police,’ began Mrs Hargreaves. ‘Indeed, it has been investigated by them, and the matter has long been closed to their satisfaction. I also do not see what the suicide of a girl more than three months ago can possibly have to do
with Sebastian Emmer’s murder yesterday. And I do not know why you are so angry,’ she concluded triumphantly.
‘It’s for me to decide on any connection between the two incidents, not you, and I’ll also decide when I want to be furious. And that decision wasn’t hard to make. I want to see the room where the girl died.’
‘Yes, that’s reasonable, of course,’ Mrs Hargreaves stated with irritating calm. ‘I’ll arrange for it to be unlocked. But you’re going to be disappointed. There’s nothing up there now. The bed, furniture and everything else have all been removed. Nobody wants to sleep in there, not once they know a girl hanged herself in that room. It may be several years before it’s occupied again, Chief Inspector.’
She was right. Even the carpets had been ripped up, and Hart stood inside a bare shell which recalled no memories of the young life that had thrived there, or of the death that had snuffed it out.
Hart returned to Redpath, making an imperfect effort to cool his temper down as he went.
‘Who’s next on our list?’ he asked brusquely.
‘Lunch, Sir, I thought was right at the very top of the agenda,’ replied Redpath, but knowing as he spoke that the next meal had now been relegated to who knows where.
‘We’ve no time.’ Hart was like a dog that wouldn’t let go of a rag.
‘Then it’s Mrs Morris the maths mistress. But she’s teaching at the moment.’
‘I’ve got no patience for Cluedo, and I don’t care if she’s sitting on the bog or golfing on the Moon. Get her in here.’
8
After Hart had left the Headteacher’s office, displaying even less grace than when he had entered it, Annalee Hargreaves waited half an hour before climbing the curved staircase of the Old House herself. She walked the short distance to the door she knew so well, and stood outside the room in which Nicola Brown had died. A turn of the key, a twist of the brass doorknob, and she was inside.
She needed time to think, to get away for a few minutes, escape from the brewing storm. And, now that one of the teachers or kids had blabbed and the storm would be whipped into a hurricane, she somehow felt the need to come up to the room one more time.
Whatever the frenzy going on outside, it was certainly quiet in here. She didn’t believe in ghosts or any of that nonsense, didn’t kid herself that Nicola Brown was somehow watching her as her own eyes shifted around the bare room, but the place still gave her the shivers. She walked into the bathroom and looked up at the rail which had held the shower curtain; not a flimsy stick of plastic you could buy from Homebase, but a chunky rod of metal screwed into the wall years ago. And Nicola Brown had dangled herself from it to end her life for reasons that only she had known, and that knowledge was now lying with her in the churchyard. Yes, you didn’t need to be superstitious or a weakling for that thought to make your flesh creep.
But, whatever the girl’s motives, Annalee Hargreaves knew that she had been damned selfish. That kid had everything going for her. Okay, she was poor. In fact, her parents looked like a walking jumble sale and the girl always turned up for social gatherings in clothes which were embarrassingly cheap. But her mother and father had certainly demonstrated consummate good sense and judgement when they saved up their pennies to send their daughter to Highdean School. And, of course, Highdean had done the rest. She was being transformed from a naive girl into a clever woman and her exam results were going to be terrific. What’s more, making a success of a kid from a so-called disadvantaged background was just the sort of thing the press and politicians were clamouring for. And then she goes and kills herself. Despite everything that had been done for her.
This room was certainly different now than on that Sunday morning when Annalee Hargreaves had been called from her breakfast to supervise the disaster. Then it was a frantic pandemonium packed with police officers, medics, people yelling and crying, and the stench of excrement. Today, it was empty of everything. Everything except that illogical eerie feeling that comes from knowing someone died there.
As she let herself back into the corridor, Hargreaves knew that people would be poking their noses into the suicide again, now that Sebastian Emmer had been murdered. She had managed to sweep Nicola Brown under a great big carpet a few months ago, but it would be harder this time around. Her task would have been a lot simpler if that repugnant little policeman hadn’t been on the case.
*****
Mrs Morris arrived for her interview with a little black handbag dangling from the sleeve of a pale blue cardigan. Her grey hair was cut around her ears and she wore a wedding ring which sported a diamond of impressive size. Hart sat opposite her next to Redpath. He was still livid but something about Mrs Morris’s bearing began to calm him down; although a small woman, she exuded a wise authority.
‘I shall be forthright with you, gentlemen,’ she began. ‘Sebastian was not somebody I greatly cared for. And I shan’t make any unhelpful asinine comments about speaking ill of the dead, I expect you’ve heard enough of those already this morning.’
At last, the singer of a different tune, thought Hart as he sat up straighter.
‘As a student, he was tolerable. Neither bright nor industrious, but passable and no trouble. Well, none of the students here are, really. It was as a person I was not too keen on him. He was forever gathering attention to himself; that seemed to be his only passion, his one joy in life. And, I think, what really irked me about him was that he was so blessedly successful at it. Perhaps I’m a little jealous, and I accept that does me no credit, but I disliked the way that some people fawned over him. They thought the Sun shone out of his proverbial bottom, and that was what he thought about himself, too.’
‘Did everybody think this, Mrs Morris?’ asked Redpath.
‘No, there were some who agreed with me. If you knew him well, you fell into one of two camps – you worshipped him, or you regarded him as a self-satisfied little twerp.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Now, let me tell you something which is not an opinion I would volunteer to anybody but yourselves.’
‘Please do go on,’ suggested Redpath, handing her a reassurance the woman didn’t need.
‘There are some staff, male staff, who comment about how pretty certain of their older female students are. I think they are very foolish to do that, it leaves them wide open to being misunderstood.’ Or, worse still, understood, the glint in her eye said. ‘But certain female teachers are prone to indulge similar sentiments about their male pupils, although perhaps they do so less obviously. I do not myself grade pupils according to the attractiveness of their faces or their bodies, but I will tell you, and I will only relate this estimation because it may be pertinent to your enquiries, that Sebastian was a very handsome young man. His face was adorable and he was tall and lean. It is sad but true that some members of my gender will pander to such a person, even if he is shallow or something of a bully. It is the looks combined with the brash confidence that they love, even if there is nothing substantial behind it all, only banality. I suppose it’s just infatuation, really. Sebastian could charm the pants off some women, and I have no doubt that he frequently did.’
‘What do you know about the death of a girl called Nicola, Mrs Morris?’ Hart noted that the delivery of his deliberate surprise left her unfazed, although acute pain rode across her face for an instant.
‘I was coming to Nicola, even though Mrs Hargreaves emphasised to all the staff only this morning that the subject of her death was closed. I suspected you would have asked me anyway if I hadn’t brought the matter up.’ Mrs Morris searched her memories and raised her eyebrows as she gave a wan smile. Her expression asked how such a dreadful thing could have happened. ‘There was certainly nothing shallow or banal about that girl. A top notch student in every way. I have taught my subject for over thirty years, and Nicola Brown was one of the finest mathematicians I have ever encountered. Sharp isn’t the word for it. Like a razor blade through water. She had applied for admission to Cambridge to study medicine next year. And she
would have got in, too. Walked in with ease, and the university would have been fortunate to have had somebody of her calibre go up there.’
‘And her death, Mrs Morris?’
‘Yes, I’m sorry, you asked me about her death, didn’t you.’ The frown of sorrow appearing again on the teacher’s face had climbed up from her heart. ‘She was found hanging in her room. Her roommate walked in, and there she was. It was suicide, of course, but nobody can really explain why she did it. I suppose that when people are very bright, exceptionally clever like Nicola, then you can never be certain that you truly understand them. They seem to possess their own mental places where only they can go.’
‘What was Nicola like? And, please, do be as forthright as you were about Sebastian.’
‘She could be a little distant because she was so single-minded. It was medicine at Cambridge with Nicola; that was her calling and her driving ambition. But she really was a treasure, an absolute poppet. I knew her well because she was in my form, you see. She did more charity work than she strictly needed to do to qualify for her leaving certificate, but the elderly folk loved her and she was so good with them. She had that capacity to truly give of herself; when she performed a kindness it never came across as a duty but as a simple, natural act. She didn’t have that many friends, but she was very close to those she did have. To be honest, she wasn’t really of the right social background for many of the people here and they consequently resented her academic success. She couldn’t gain points from them either for being exceptionally pretty or good at sport, the sorts of things that always guarantee popularity for youngsters. Nicola was less athletic than even an old thing like me, and very slight of build. Also a trifle plain, to tell the truth. Beauty was not one of her greatest gifts, although she certainly wasn’t what an unkind person would call ugly.’
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