Dying Fall

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Give me two minutes to change and you can run me in to college if you like.’

  ‘Want to see what’ll be pulling you?’

  Another man, another relationship, I might have suspected him of an awful pun. But the bonnet was already up. The engine was very clean. I peered at the front wheels.

  ‘They’ll have those off in two minutes. They used to collect mine.’

  ‘Ah, but yours were only wheel trims. These are integral. Alloy wheels,’ he said clearly, as if to a child.

  ‘You’re sure you won’t wake up one day to find the whole thing sitting on little piles of bricks?’

  ‘I should hear them at it. A very efficient theft alarm – shall I –’

  I shook my head. Almost as an afterthought, he went back and opened the boot. I thought for an unworthy moment that he merely wanted to show off a bit more, but no: as he straightened I saw in his right hand an instrument case.

  ‘Tony, that’s George’s.’

  ‘Of course it is.’ He pressed a finger to the side of his nose. ‘Look, I shouldn’t be doing this, and I really don’t know why I am. But it seemed to me – well, he’d have wanted you to have it.’ Seeing I couldn’t speak, he looked away. ‘He’s left it to you anyway. I witnessed his will. Go on. No one’ll know. I’ll tell the executors when they get round to asking.’

  ‘Bless you, you’re crazy. You know you’re taking a big risk.’

  But I took it from him anyway and carried it gently into the house.

  Which is how, six hours after we’d made it quite clear that we despised each other, I came to invite Chris Groom into my bedroom.

  But not, of course, until after my GCSE class. And Aftab was there, back in his usual place, looking tired and subdued, but ready to hand in work none of the others had even got round to starting. He lingered when the others had surged out. At first we talked about a short story he’d produced for his folder. But I knew there was something else he wanted to say.

  At last I asked mildly, ‘You had to miss the funeral?’

  He nodded miserably.

  ‘You want to talk about it, Aftab?’

  He shook his head. ‘There’s others involved, see, miss. But I’ve been thinking. About Wajid. All that money.’

  ‘Money? I thought he was as hard up as the rest of you.’

  ‘All that time I was with the police, I was trying to think who might have wanted to hurt him. He was a bit flash, miss, but he didn’t have any enemies. He didn’t make a great fuss about his religion, but he was a really good Muslim. No problems about him trying to date a Hindu or a Sikh.’

  ‘So what do you think?’ I prompted.

  ‘Miss, it’s got to be his money. Did you ever see that watch of his? That Rolex?’

  ‘Surely –’ I echoed the police line –‘that was just a junk copy?’

  ‘That’s what his mother would have thought, if she ever noticed it. And his jeans.’

  ‘Is there a student in the college who doesn’t wear jeans?’

  ‘Not designer jeans, they don’t. And I reckon his were real, not some copy from down the rag market. I know he applied for a grant and everything when his dad snuffed it, but that was because Shahida said he should. He couldn’t tell her he was flush, could he?’

  ‘How flush?’

  He shrugged expressively. ‘I shall miss my bus, miss, and I promised our dad I’d give him a hand stocktaking. He’s opening a new branch down Smethwick, really big, and we shall have a film-processing and a photocopying franchise. Tell you what, I’ll do copies of all your handouts when your college photocopy card runs out.’

  ‘I’ll take you up on that,’ I said, wondering how much of this he intended me to pass on to the police.

  After supper I phoned Chris and told him curtly that there was something he ought to see, and that Aftab had let drop an interesting idea. He was hammering at my door within five minutes. I made him wait until I’d put the kettle on and drawn a few curtains before I said anything useful. Then I told him about Aftab. He sighed rather extravagantly as he took my last biscuit. ‘For goodness’ sake, Sophie, you shouldn’t do that sort of thing. It’s police work. Work for professionals. If you start talking to dangerous people you could be exposing yourself to great danger. Or you could be clogging up the works for us.’ He started on the biscuit. ‘What did you get out of him, anyway?’ He had the grace to look sheepish.

  At last he closed his notebook very delicately, as if he did not want to interrupt his own thoughts. I waited.

  ‘I’ll check out the watch,’ he said. ‘I should have done earlier. And the jeans, of course. But there was no sign of money in his home. We did search, very discreetly, before you ask. Nowhere much to hide anything, of course. Jesus, imagine fitting eight kids in there!’

  ‘I gather the father didn’t make much before he died?’

  ‘Apparently back home he was in the force. A sergeant. And when he came here he had to take a job in a foundry. A labourer. Poor bastard. I wonder what he’d have thought about his son being knifed. I gather you took some flowers to the mother? Nice woman, I thought.’

  We smiled at each other. Any moment he could become Chris again.

  ‘So where did Wajid keep all his money, then,’ I prompted him, ‘if not in a sock under the bed?’

  ‘He had a TSB account –’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘– with twenty-five pounds forty-seven pence in it.’

  ‘My God, don’t tell me he had an offshore account!’

  ‘That may not be a joke, Sophie.’

  So he did indeed progress from Groom to Chris, but it wasn’t this increased intimacy that led me to invite him into my bedroom. I wanted to show him George’s bassoon case, and the bassoon case was on the bed. Unfortunately this was one room where Kenji had insisted on particularly low levels of lighting, and I hadn’t yet got round to reinstating hundred-watt bulbs.

  ‘I wore rubber gloves,’ I said, perhaps a little defensively. ‘Best yellow. The sort I wash up in. But I daresay they did, too. If not yellow.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Whoever did this to it.’ I opened the case.

  ‘Did what?’

  I pointed. ‘Tore out all the padding. See, this plush-covered stuff should be glued to the wood, to make a nice secure nest for the instrument.’ I went to remove the sections of bassoon, but he put out a quick hand.

  ‘Better not. Just in case.’ His voice became quite brisk again. ‘Why bring it up here anyway?’

  ‘The bedspread, Chris.’

  ‘The bedspread?’

  ‘Exactly. My last partner didn’t like duvets any more than he liked adequate lighting, so I’m probably the last person in Harborne to own such an outmoded item. And I put the case on it.’

  At last he smiled, and scooped all the corners to the middle, so the case was completely wrapped. ‘And I’ll bet you even have a bin liner handy so I can take it off to Forensic.’

  I’d soon scotch that note of patronage. ‘“Forensic” means “of the forum” – or in this case “of the court”. It’s bad enough when the BBC talk about forensic experts. Forensic experts are –’

  ‘OK, OK. I will take it to the Forensic Science Laboratory. But tell me, Sophie, what are you expecting them to find? Drugs?’

  The thought of George being involved with anything like that!

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Mud.’

  Chapter Eight

  There are some days you know it would be much simpler to leave teaching altogether and become a Trappist monk. Or nun. Thursday was one such.

  The trouble is that teachers are used to taking responsibility – like doctors and police officers, I suppose. And when you see a situation that obviously warrants some interference, the instinct is to get in there and interfere.

  At first, when I saw a bunch of students milling round a flash car in what is supposed to be the staff car park, I assumed that someone had had a wonderful eighteenth birthday present and was showing it off.
Shades of Tony. But I hadn’t screamed when Tony had invited me in, and someone was now screaming. From the corner of my eye I could see Winston drifting out of the foyer – something he’s not supposed to do – and nibbling the aerial on his radio. I’m not required to stay put anywhere, so I moved nearer. The screams had subsided but there was a great deal of pushing and shoving. It would be sensible to see who was at the centre of it all.

  I caught Winston’s eye and waved to him. He waved back. This time he seemed to be speaking into his radio. OK, I would move in. Not security, not a police officer. Just an unaccompanied woman. No one should feel threatened by that. Except perhaps the lone woman herself, surrounded by big, strapping lads. These were Sikhs, not Muslims. Many of the girls wore more gold than I possessed. Perhaps I’d been wrong – it was just a very expensive present, a brand-new Toyota to be precise, and a daytime party was proposed for later. Most of our kids aren’t allowed to evening do’s so they hold dayers. Their term. But if they were all getting into party mood, why should Manjit be in tears, and why should there be a big, handshaped red patch across the side of her face? And why should a young man have her in what seemed to be a painful grip and be forcing her down into the passenger seat? She started to scream again. I pushed my way through to her. Someone shouted. The young man let her go with a final thrust. He ran round to the driver’s side and tried to start the engine. Another youth tried to shut the passenger door. But I got there first.

  I suppose I expected Manjit to reach out to me with relief. Instead her eyes and mouth became O’s of horror.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Family business,’ said the youth by the door.

  ‘Yes? Nice family.’ I pointed to Manjit’s face. ‘Who did this?’

  ‘Told you. Family business. So why don’t you piss off out of it?’

  By now, Winston was by the driver’s door. I could see why the young man hadn’t tried to gun the engine again. Winston’s right hand, blessedly huge and impregnable, held the ignition keys.

  ‘You tell the lady, nice and polite now, what she wants to know,’ he said.

  ‘Manjit?’ I prompted.

  She looked at me with despair, and with a loathing that hurt me like a blow in the face. ‘Just do as he says, can’t you? Just piss off. Just fucking well piss off.’

  I straightened, but still kept the door open. ‘I will go away, if that is what you want me to do,’ I said, very formal in my anger. ‘But before you come to any more classes, you will report to me and make a proper apology. And you –’ I bent back into the car to speak to the driver –‘you will ensure that Manjit isn’t hit again. My colleague over there has your registration number. The police can easily trace you. And if Manjit doesn’t come into college tomorrow, I shall assume it’s because someone has further assaulted her and I shall put the matter in the hands of the authorities. Do you both understand?’

  ‘Just fuck off out of it,’ said the driver. ‘And give me my sodding keys.’

  I glared quickly at Winston, who clearly had no intention of returning them but wanted to protect me again.

  ‘Mr Rhodes will return your keys when you and Manjit show me that you understand what I’ve said. You’ll be in my office at nine tomorrow, Manjit, and if you have any further injuries I shall call the police. And if you’re not there I shall call the police.’

  ‘That’s blackmail,’ said the youth at my side.

  ‘Quite. So you’d rather Mr Rhodes called the police now?’

  ‘OK, miss, OK. Now just fuck off, will you?’

  There seemed nothing more I could do without losing my dignity or escalating it further. I looked at Winston. He nodded minutely, and tossed the keys back into the driver’s lap. Painfully, I hoped.

  We stood side by side to watch them drive away. The others seemed in no hurry to disperse.

  ‘OK. Fun over. Time you were all in class,’ I said.

  One girl turned back to me as they drifted towards the entrance. ‘You shouldn’t have done that, miss. Not interfere with the family.’

  ‘Nor you shouldn’t,’ said Winston, as we followed them. ‘Took a bit of a risk there, man.’

  ‘And you.’

  He grinned. ‘All the same, some of that lot are in the Posse. Not very nice people, Sophie. Are you going to tell the police?’

  ‘I’ll talk to Manjit first. I did sort of promise.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t. Next time I see young Rob Williams, I’ll have a word.’

  ‘Williams?’

  ‘Community cop. He pops in for a bit of a natter when he passes. Keeps his ear to the ground. OK guy, considering he’s Old Bill.’

  ‘What about the rest of them? Groom and Dale?’

  ‘No more grief from them, man. I s’all set my mum on them if they start hassling me again. Ol’ Philomena, she tell ’em what for.’

  ‘You treat your mother right, Winston.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dare do anything else, man.’

  We grinned at each other, and then – he’d never done it before, always remembering that I had been his English teacher and he my student – then he put up his hand to give me a comradely five.

  ‘I was watching from my window, of course,’ said Richard, more drawn than ever after his flu. ‘But I reckoned you could handle most things and Winston could have done some damage.’

  ‘And unless you’d put your underpants on over your trousers you could scarcely have flown down to my rescue,’ I agreed, earning a tired chuckle.

  Richard is my boss: line manager, I suppose I ought to call him. King of A Level and GCSE Studies. (‘Why the “Studies”?’ I’d once asked him. ‘Because the Chief says so,’ was his reply. And we all obeyed the Chief. Even me. Up to a point.) He’s a decent man, who sought promotion because he was the obvious man for the job and then, when it was too late, found he’d always liked teaching. He’s banking on premature retirement and the end of the recession so he can retire to a country town and open a bookshop.

  ‘I’m sorry I was away for all the panics last week. Are you coping all right? The body, the kidnap? And now this?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You’re OK coming into college? Don’t need to take any time off?’

  ‘And how would you cover my classes?’

  I knew the answer to that. He’d teach them himself if he had to. He flapped a hand, acknowledging the hit.

  ‘But the death of your friend – how did the inquest go yesterday, by the way?’

  ‘It looks as if it may have to be reopened,’ I said.

  ‘You’d be better if you had a good cry, you know. I know there’s no privacy up there. Just come and turf me out of here if ever you want to. Need to.’

  I smiled at him. Even bosses could sometimes surprise me. ‘Thanks. Now, about these changes to my timetable …’

  I staggered back up from Richard’s eighth-floor office to find two notes on my desk: one announced that my lunch break had been appropriated by the head of English who wanted a meeting to discuss standardisation procedures for marking GCSE coursework; the other, in a sealed white envelope, a request from Chris Groom to call him – he wanted me to help the police with their inquiries. Since the term was in inverted commas and was followed by an exclamation mark, I assumed he was referring to my complaints about the misuse of the word ‘forensic’. When I phoned, he was out, but he’d left a message asking me to meet him at the Music Centre at seven that evening. How he’d managed to whistle up tickets, I’d no idea. All concerts were sold out for the next six months. The Royal Concert was to be an invitation only affair: it was a good job I’d get in as one of the choir.

  ‘Is this what you call undercover work?’ I asked when we met by the box office. My glance appreciated another well-cut suit, with more blue in the fabric, this time.

  He glared.

  It was not because I was wearing jeans. I too can dress up, even if not quite to the standard of the other concert-goers who’d decided to celebrate the removal of the MSO t
o its permanent new home with a fashion parade of shoulder pads and glitz that made me feel dowdy. Nor was it because I was late. He’d been at fault there, hurtling in just as a disembodied voice was making a final call. I’d passed the time getting outside an extravagant ice cream purchased at disproportionate expense from a man with a cute little machine, more fitted, with its wheels and parasol, to the front at Brighton than to the central plaza of a major concert hall.

  He waited till we were moving towards the auditorium before he put his ear surprisingly close to mine, and muttered, ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. Undercover work.’ He grinned, irresponsibly. ‘I just wanted to get the feel of the place, as it were.’

  Oh, God, perhaps he had misinterpreted the bedroom business last night. And I’d been chatty with relief that I had at last found something to challenge the verdict on George’s death: perhaps he’d thought I was flirting. I’d have to watch out.

  Mayou had taken over Peter Rollinson’s programmes with hardly any changes. But tonight we’d started with a brisk performance of the overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla, which he’d chosen in preference to Webern’s Five Pieces for orchestra. Purists had tutted – but I thought it fitted better with the piano concerto, which happened to be Rachmaninov’s Second. It was an extremely lush account.

  ‘My God,’ said Chris, as soon as the applause had died down and we were fighting our way to the bar, ‘what was Mayou doing to his body? I thought he was going to have an orgasm right there on stage.’

  I laughed, of course; but I felt vaguely uneasy.

  No one seemed to be lingering over their drinks, not just because there were no seats in the bar but because there was so much to see and explore. In the summer there would be even more. The Centre had been built alongside a canal basin which was in the process of being tarted up, and there were rumours that there would be waterside terraces and even floating restaurants. Meanwhile, a great deal of tidying-up had been done since Monday, even, and the corridors along which we drifted had been laid with immensely thick carpets.