Deadly Reunion

by Geraldine Evans

  ‘Oh, I will. You can be sure of it. Any other confidences you should tell us about?’

  She stared at him for a moment, as if undecided, but then shook her head.

  ‘Now, Miss Douglas,’ Rafferty began, twenty minutes later after Sophie Diaz had been ushered out and Llewellyn had found Alice Douglas and brought her into the office. ‘I think you’ve got something to tell us. Something you failed to mention when we spoke to you before.’

  She faced him down. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Inspector.’

  ‘Really? A little matter of an unwanted pregnancy at the end of your last summer at the school. It’s not the sort of thing you’re likely to forget. Why didn’t you mention it?’

  For a moment, he suspected she was going to deny it, but she obviously thought better of this. ‘I see Sophie’s been sharing.’ She paused, settled her long, slim fingers back in her lap, where they lay loosely entwined. ‘I didn’t see what relevance it had to your investigation.’

  ‘Didn’t you? Relevance or otherwise is for me to decide,’ he told her. ‘So, did you go through with the abortion that Sophie advised?’

  She was slow to answer and Rafferty guessed that shame made her reluctant to admit it. But she finally said ‘yes’.

  ‘It can’t have been easy, what with you brought up as a Catholic.’

  ‘No. Look, do we have to talk about this, Inspector? It was all a very long time ago.’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Is it true that the father didn’t want to know?’

  ‘You seem to know all about it, Inspector. What do you think?’

  ‘I’d rather have you tell me.’

  ‘Very well. No, he didn’t want to know. Does that answer your question?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. His refusal to share the burden must have been upsetting.’

  ‘Yes. It was. Of course it was.’

  ‘You never thought of going to the head?’

  ‘Old Barmpot?’ She smoothed back her glossy dark hair, which she wore in a practical pageboy. ‘What on earth for? What could he have done?’

  ‘Nothing, perhaps, except, maybe, get the father to acknowledge paternity and support you through the abortion. Who was the father, by the way? I understood you were a studious girl and didn’t go in much for dating.’

  ‘I’m afraid the identity of the father is my business, Inspector. It really has nothing to do with your current investigation.’

  ‘I’ll remind you again, Miss Douglas, that the relevance or otherwise is my province.’ He had a sudden brainwave and asked, ‘Was Adam Ainsley the baby’s father?’

  Alice flushed hotly, though whether from shame that he’d hit the nail on the head or anger that he should think the muscle-bound Ainsley the father, Rafferty couldn’t guess.

  ‘No. Whatever gave you that idea? He never looked at me at school. He was always surrounded by pretty nymphets.’

  ‘He mightn’t have looked at you, but I understood from things one or two of the others said that you had eyes for him. In fact, I understand you had quite a crush on him.’

  She attempted to laugh it off. ‘That was silly schoolgirl stuff. Most of the girls had a crush on Adam at one time or another. He was the school hunk.’

  ‘So if Adam wasn’t your baby’s father, who was?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  A mulish look had set in and he could see that she wouldn’t tell him the identity of the father. Never mind. He could wait. She’d tell him eventually. Or else someone else would. He changed tack. ‘What do you do for a living, Miss Douglas?’

  ‘I’m a librarian at the British Library’

  ‘Really? You did well for yourself after school, then?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sat back and, seeming to have gained rather than lost confidence during the interview, she asked, quietly, ‘You never thought Adam might have killed himself?’

  ‘The possibility has been considered, yes. But so far, no one has mentioned a strong enough reason for him to do such a thing.’

  ‘Perhaps you should consider it a bit more. He missed his fame very much. He had hoped to get a television job of some sort, but more clever retired sportsmen beat him to it. I believe the BBC gave him a trial, but he froze behind the microphone, hence the job as a lowly sports master. It really can’t have suited his temperament. He always enjoyed being the star too much to play second fiddle to a bunch of adolescents.’

  ‘How do you know that? Did you keep in contact with him?’

  ‘No. I had no reason to. But Giles Harmsworth has a friend who works at the BBC, and he told him all about it. Giles didn’t waste any time in spreading news of Adam’s failure to gain a broadcasting career around at the reunion.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Payback time, I believe it’s called, Inspector.’

  ‘And what reason did Giles Harmsworth have for wanting payback?’

  The shutters went down and she replied pertly, ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘Oh I will.’ Rafferty finished his now tepid tea. He noticed that Llewellyn hadn’t touched his. Probably sulking because of his sharp rebuke before, he thought, irritably.

  ‘May I go now?’

  Rafferty nodded. He sat back when Alice Douglas had gone, swivelled his chair round so he didn’t have to look at Llewellyn and stared out over the extensive grounds of Griffin School. Paxton had told them the grounds spread to forty-five acres. Thinking of Griffin’s grounds and playing fields gave him an idea and he swivelled his chair back again. Llewellyn still had a face to freeze Hell over, but he ignored it and said brusquely, ‘Let’s go and have a word with Tom Harrison, the groundsman. Like Mrs Benton, he’s been here for years. He must have seen a fair few examples of bullying around the school. We might as well find out who Ainsley bullied, apart from Simon Fairweather who the cook mentioned.’

  It was a fine, warm day and it was pleasant to walk through the grounds, which looked very lush. Llewellyn’s face thawed in the sunshine and Rafferty grinned to himself.

  Tom Harrison might be a surly man, but he knew his job. The lawns surrounding the school were verdant green with not a weed in sight and the playing fields looked as smooth as silk and would be the envy of the Wembley that had had a few problems with its own turf.

  Rafferty saw a bunch of the reunees lounging on the grass and felt envious of their leisure. But then, Harrison hove into sight round the corner of a shed, on a ride-on mower and he wondered if he had deliberately decided to cut the grass where they were sitting, which already looked pretty well-shorn to Rafferty.

  The reunees got hurriedly to their feet as the lawnmower headed straight for them with no sign of stopping. Rafferty saw Sebastian Kennedy give Harrison the finger. In retaliation, he left his ever-present empty lager cans behind to get caught up in the blades. But it seemed Harrison was wise to this trick and he pulled up and removed them, giving Kennedy a nasty look as he did so.

  ‘Happy days,’ said Rafferty. In order to avoid standing in front of the murderous mower to gain Harrison’s attention, Rafferty hurried across before the groundsman swung himself back on board.

  ‘Mr Harrison. I wanted a word.’

  Harrison said nothing, but merely waited for him to go on, Sebastian Kennedy’s discarded lager cans clutched in his hands.

  ‘You must see a few things, working all round the school as you do.’

  Harrison stuffed the cans under one arm, pulled off his cap and scratched his head before he answered. ‘This and that.’

  ‘And does the this and that extend to seeing bullying?’

  For a moment, Harrison looked bemused at the question and then he answered bluntly, ‘Well, of course it does. It’s a school, isn’t it?’

  ‘Can you cast your mind back to when these reunees were here as students? You can’t have been much older than them at the time.’

  ‘Twenty-five, I was, when I started here.’

  ‘You must have been a target for the girls.’

  Harrison’s ruggedly hands
ome face flushed an ugly red. ‘Used to torment me something rotten. I went to Mr Barmforth about it but he just told me I was big enough and ugly enough to keep a few teenage girls in line. After that I just ignored them. They soon got tired of the silent treatment.’

  ‘What about the boys?’

  Harrison blushed even more hotly. ‘What about them?’

  ‘How did you get on with them?’

  ‘I was glad to see the back of them. Worst of the bunch, they were, that year.’

  ‘Oh really? Why? What did they do?’

  ‘Little bastards used to like to sabotage my machinery. Caught that Kennedy boy pouring sugar into my petrol mower once. I gave him a clip round the ear and dragged him off to the headmaster.’

  ‘Get any satisfaction?’

  ‘Oh yes. He knew how to discipline boys, did Mr Barmforth. Took no notice of featherbedding government edicts, didn’t Mr B. Not like this new one. Don’t like the look of him at all, with his namby-pamby cravats and waistcoats. He’s young, too, and will doubtless have been fed all that no smacking horse manure.’

  ‘What about the dead man, Adam Ainsley? Did you see him bullying anyone in particular?’

  For some reason, Harrison flushed up again. Then, before Rafferty could say anything, he said, ‘Why do you want to know about what happened years ago?’

  Why indeed? It would probably turn out to be a waste of time. Was it really likely that the normal bullying that went on in every school could have led to murder over a decade and a half later? But he had little enough to go on and people harboured grudges. Besides, this murder must surely have originated during their schooldays together. It was too much of a coincidence that Adam Ainsley was only murdered when he attended his first ever reunion. ‘From little acorns, etc,’ he told Harrison. ‘Who knows what might have triggered Ainsley’s murder? Given this was the first time he’d appeared at a reunion and he winds up dead, it seems likely that the reason for his death is buried in the past.’

  Harrison looked unconvinced and laid a hand on his lawnmower as if he couldn’t wait to get on with his work. With a frown, he turned back to Rafferty. ‘I don’t suppose there was a child that was smaller or younger than him that he didn’t pick on. Does that answer your question?’

  ‘Not altogether. Who among the reunees did he pick on?’

  Harrison sighed heavily as if he was tired of the subject, then he reeled several names off at a rate of knots, climbed back on to his mower and rode away, narrowly missing Rafferty as he did so.

  Rafferty felt tempted to emulate Sebastian Kennedy’s rude gesture, but it was beneath his dignity. Anyway, Harrison had his back to him and wouldn’t see it. Instead, he brushed his jacket free from invisible engine taint and said to Llewellyn, ‘I hope you got all those names.’

  ‘Yes. I noticed that Sebastian Kennedy featured in the list. And Simon Fairweather got a second mention.’

  ‘Mmm. No wonder Fairweather fought shy of telling us who it was that Ainsley bullied. The wonder is he mentioned it at all.’

  ‘Probably knew that someone would and thought he’d better mention it first so as to lessen any look of guilt. Not a mandarin for nothing, as you might say.’

  Rafferty merely went ‘Mmm’ again. Then he said, ‘This is not likely to please Bradley. Wait till I tell him that our tame mandarin is not only a suspect, but also has a pretty good motive if Ainsley made his schooldays particularly vile. It’s his worst nightmare, someone from the Home Office being under suspicion of murder. He’ll think I’m putting Fairweather forward as a possible murderer deliberately, just to vex him.’

  ‘And aren’t you?’

  Rafferty grinned. ‘Oh yes. Partly, anyway. You know aggravating Bradley’s what I live for. Right, I suppose we’d better question Messrs Fairweather and Kennedy. See what went on in the bogs and behind the bike sheds. They certainly looked as thick as thieves when we saw them in the pub. Maybe they colluded to get rid of Ainsley?’

  ‘Surely, Mr Fairweather at least, given his job, would be too sensible a man to attempt to gain retribution after so long?’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. Some of these so-called civil servants hold grudges for decades. If they can do one another down, you’d best get out of their way. I heard one story of a Foreign Office bloke who wanted to get his own back for some slight remembered from university days, who slipped a sheet of internet kiddie porn between the pages of the man’s CV when he was going for a job promotion.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The bloke got the job. No. Sick joke. He didn’t get the job or any further ones that he applied for. He was lucky not to get the police on his tail, but as I told you, civil servants look after their own.’

  ‘Didn’t he suspect who had done this to him?’

  ‘Oh yes. He knew. Got his own back, too. Ran the bloke over and said it was an accident. Crippled him. Got away with it, too. You won’t believe it, but they still work together. Still hate one another’s guts. Probably still playing evil tricks on one another, too. Depressing thing, human nature. Let’s see if Fairweather and Kennedy protest their innocence too strongly.’

  Kennedy after being chased off the lawn by Tom Harrison and his lawnmower, had retreated, with his cans of lager, to the Senior Common Room where he was once again stretched out on one of the settees at his ease. Fairweather was nowhere to be seen. And, apart from Kennedy, the room was empty.

  ‘Mr Kennedy.’

  ‘I thought we’d agreed that it’s Sebastian, Inspector. Want a can?’

  ‘No thanks. I’m a bitter man. Can’t stand lager.’

  ‘Sergeant? What about you?’

  ‘I don’t drink, sir. Besides, I’m on duty.’

  ‘You’re no fun, you two.’ He stretched luxuriously. ‘What did you want, anyway?’

  ‘Just something we heard. You remember, in the pub, Simon Fairweather mentioned that Ainsley was a bully?’

  ‘Yeah. So what?’

  ‘I’ve discovered who he bullied. I gather you were one of his victims, sir.’

  Kennedy scrunched up his can and dropped it on the floor. ‘Who says so?’

  ‘That’s not important, but it was from more than one source.’ That wasn’t the strict truth, but a little white lie was no lie at all, in Rafferty’s book.

  ‘So what are you saying? That I slipped hemlock into his soup because he used to beat me up?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it, sir, yes.’

  ‘So where’s your evidence? You have got some, I take it, or is this just a fishing expedition?’

  ‘Just call it checking out the possibilities, Mr Kennedy. But it certainly gives you reason to have a down on him.’

  ‘What? For something that happened half a lifetime ago?’

  It was a valid defence. That was the trouble. Especially given that Kennedy was neither a warring civil servant nor a Sicilian with a vengeful gene that continued through the generations.

  ‘I’d say you were clutching at straws but our old English master used to abhor clichés. Who are you going after next? Sophie Diaz, because he dumped her? Or Gary Sadiq, our Anglo-Indian because he used to taunt him about having a touch of the tar brush? Or Alice Douglas because she was a charity case and Ainsley never let her forget it?’

  It seemed Sebastian Kennedy was keen on spreading their suspicions as wide as possible. Softly, Rafferty said, ‘A charity case? What do you mean?’

  ‘She was here on a bursary. Her parents certainly couldn’t have afforded to send her here otherwise. So you see, Inspector, you’ve got quite a good mix of motives to choose from. May I wish you joy of them.’ So saying, Sebastian Kennedy lay back and reached for another can.

  It was a dismissal. Rafferty couldn’t see how he could dismiss the dismissal with any dignity, so he merely said, ‘No doubt I’ll speak to you again,’ to Kennedy and made for the door.

  ‘Let’s find Simon Fairweather,’ he said to Llewellyn once they were outside with the door closed. ‘We’ll try t
he library.’

  But the only people in the library were Victoria ‘Brains’ Watson and Alice Douglas. Rafferty asked if they’d seen Fairweather and they both said no.

  ‘Perhaps he’s in the pub again. Let’s walk down to the village. It would be good to stretch our legs and it’s a shame to waste the nice weather, cooped up inside.’

  It was a pleasant walk, past ripening fields of corn and rape seed, the latter still seeming to Rafferty to be an improbably deep colour for the English countryside, which used to sport more mellow hues. A gentle breeze kept the day cool and ruffled his auburn hair into more than usual disorder. He felt like he was playing hookey and wished he were. But he had still to re-interview Simon Fairweather in light of this new evidence. And depending on whether he protested his innocence too much, he might yet well have a purple-faced Long-Pockets on his hands. But perhaps, if the Home Office man exuded guilt on being confronted with his victim status at Ainsley’s hands, he could depute Llewellyn to break that particular piece of bad news to the superintendent? What else were sergeants for but the rough stuff? And he was so much more diplomatic. Just showed what an expensive education could do for a man.

  Simon Fairweather wasn’t in the pub, nor anywhere around the village, either, so they took a slow stroll back to the school. But although they wandered right round the school, its classrooms, playing fields and swimming pool, and asked everyone they met if they’d seen him, Fairweather wasn’t anywhere to be found.

  FIVE

  ‘Perhaps he’s done a bunk?’ Rafferty suggested. Of course, Llewellyn immediately punched a hole in the idea.

  ‘Hardly likely, I would have thought. Any case against him is extremely thin. He’s an intelligent man; he must have worked that out for himself. And as you yourself pointed out, civil servants are a hardy breed. Not easily intimidated.’

  ‘Must have changed then, from when he was a boy, seeing as he was a victim of Ainsley’s bullying. Could be he’s the exception that proves the rule. Oh well. I’m not going to go chasing him all round the countryside. No doubt you’re right, as usual, and he’ll turn up. He’ll wait. But my throat won’t. All this walking’s given me a thirst. Let’s go back to the pub while we consider what we’ve learned.’