The Moscow Sleepers
Page 9
Each pocket contained several files in buff-coloured folders. They all concerned the Freitang school. One folder contained a set of minutes of governors’ meetings; another seemed to be accounts going back several years. There was a pocket of files containing annual performance reports on teachers and other staff members. Further back in the top drawer were files containing papers about various pupils. They looked like reports of interviews with the children detailing how they had come to be in Germany, their journey from their homeland and what their family circumstances were. They were all orphans, their parents having died before they set off or disappeared somewhere on the journey. To each report was attached the results of an intelligence test and what looked like some sort of technical aptitude test. The only remarkable thing was that the marks were all very high. As Dieter knew that the school specialised in computer studies, he assumed that the tests were part of some sort of selection process. It all looked much as you might expect.
He opened the drawer below it, and to his surprise found it virtually empty. The first few files inside contained articles from education magazines on teaching German to foreigners and others concerning trauma among orphaned children. There were some papers about post-traumatic stress among refugees and others along similar lines. It wasn’t until he came to the last few files that his interest was aroused. In a folder he found a brochure from the University of Vermont and attached to it some correspondence dated the previous April about a group of children from the Freitang school who were to visit for the summer school in computing studies. On a separate paper was a list of names alongside dates of birth and nationalities. They all seemed to be fifteen or sixteen years old, though he noticed one who was older – nineteen.
The file behind this one contained a brochure from a school in England, the Bartholomew Manor College, near Southwold, Suffolk. There was a picture on the front of a grand house in what appeared to be extensive grounds. He took it out and flicked through it. The school was for children from thirteen to eighteen. It called itself an ‘international’ school, and claimed to specialise in preparing children for entry to the top universities of the world with a special focus on modern technology. Though he didn’t have much experience of international schools, the fees seemed very high to Dieter and he wondered why Irma should be interested in their prospectus.
He was puzzling over this, turning the pages of the glossy brochure looking for an explanation, when he heard the front door close loudly. Christ! He had lost all track of time. He stuffed the brochure back into the file and the file back into the metal cabinet, then closed the drawer as quickly and quietly as he could, turned the key still sticking out of the lock and pocketed it, shoving the cabinet back against the wall.
He had just got things back in place when he heard Irma coming up the stairs; he looked around wildly, trying to control his panic. He grabbed a book from the bookshelves and sat down heavily in the room’s only armchair, doing his best to breathe normally.
‘Dieter,’ Irma called out as she came down the corridor and stopped at the bedroom door. Not finding him there, the footsteps restarted, until they reached the doorway of the study, where Irma saw him apparently sitting quietly, engrossed in a chapter of Buddenbrooks, a book he had read at school and not enjoyed.
‘What are you doing?’ Irma demanded as he looked up from his book, trying to stay calm.
‘What does it look like?’ he said with a broad smile, holding the book up.
‘You never read in here,’ she said accusingly.
‘Sometimes I do,’ he said weakly. ‘When you’re out.’
She stared at him for a second, seeming to weigh things up. Then she snorted. ‘Honestly, Dieter, if you want to sit in my study you only have to ask.’ But he could see there was suspicion in her eyes – as if, like him, she had seized on something plausible to say, something at odds with what she was really thinking.
19
Several days later, Liz was sitting with Peggy as rain lashed the windows of her Thames House office. There was a lot to follow up. She had briefed Peggy on her meeting with Mischa and his sudden disappearance; they had heard nothing from him since. In Liz’s absence, a note had come from Geoffrey Fane, relaying a message from Peter Burnside in Brussels about a school in Suffolk named Bartholomew Manor. It seemed that Irma Nimitz may have been in touch with it.
Now Liz was thinking how best to divide the tasks. Peggy said, ‘I’ll be happy to go and look round this school in Suffolk, if you like. We didn’t get much more than its name from the MI6 Station in Brussels, but I’ve done a little research.’
‘Actually, I was thinking you should go to Germany. It would be good for you to get some experience abroad.’
‘Really?’ said Peggy, looking pleased.
‘Yes,’ said Liz firmly. Peggy wouldn’t have any credible reason to visit Bartholomew Manor College, since she was far too young to pose as a prospective parent. Liz reckoned she herself could just about get away with it. ‘I’ll take Suffolk. What have you found out about the place?’
‘Not a lot, frankly. It used to be a private residence, then twenty years ago it was bought by some local people and run as a sixth-form college. It catered mainly to middle-class children who needed A Levels but were struggling in their normal schools.’
‘Like these tutorial colleges in London. Little Jonny mucks up his GCSEs, the independent school wants him out because his A Levels will drag their ratings down, so off he goes for cramming to an expensive sixth-form college.’
‘If you’re saying that the clientele was rich and stupid,’ Peggy said with a smile, ‘you’re probably right. But … ’
‘Yes?’
‘Something’s changed. Either the school was bought or the owners changed tack – either way, they’ve got a new Head and a new admissions policy. They are actively recruiting overseas students to come and specialise in IT. It sounds as if they only want the clever ones now – there’s an entrance exam. There’s a prospectus on their website; the fees look exorbitant to me.’
‘Do we know how many foreign pupils they’ve got? The proportion of British to foreign?’
Peggy shook her head. ‘There’s nothing in the prospectus about that.’
Liz thought for a moment. ‘I know somebody who might be able to give us a lead. You remember the Chief Constable of Manchester – Richard Pearson? He’s moved to Suffolk now. I’m going to ring him.’ She reached for the phone on her desk.
Peggy asked, ‘Do you want me to stick around?’
‘No need,’ said Liz. ‘But come back later, will you? You can help me with my cover story for this college.’
*
Even in busy Manchester he had often answered his own phone, so Liz was not surprised when Chief Constable Pearson picked up at once. ‘Hello. Pearson speaking.’
‘Good morning, Richard. It’s Liz here. Liz Carlyle. I’m sorry to be slow replying to your message. Work has just been frantic recently. How is life in Suffolk?’
‘Hello, Liz,’ he said warmly. ‘How nice to hear your voice. It’s surprisingly busy, actually. It’s not the holiday camp you might imagine. But I’m starting to get used to the odd ways of East Anglia. And I love the countryside, especially the coast.’
‘Where are you based?’ She remembered passing a large, ugly police building somewhere outside Ipswich.
‘For the moment I’m renting a cottage in Bury St Edmunds. I couldn’t find anywhere I wanted to live in Ipswich. What’s the point of coming to a rural area if you’re going to live in a big town? So I’ve set up my office in the police station in Bury. It’s caused a bit of eyebrow-raising but it suits me.’
‘Good,’ said Liz. Pearson was easy-going but always seemed to know his own mind.
He went on, ‘At the moment I’m still finding out about the county so I’m travelling around a lot, visiting the different areas. There’s some lovely coast in this county. How do you fancy coming down some time? I’ve found a first-rate boatyard and I’m t
hinking of commissioning a small boat.’
Liz smiled to herself at his enthusiasm, remembering that he had told her how he would go out at weekends with his brother-in-law, a commercial fisherman. It had been a sort of escape; he’d take his phone with him, knowing that after a short time he’d be too far from shore to receive any calls. Hearing him talk now, Liz remembered how much she enjoyed his company. She realised that she’d actually wanted to ring him after he’d left his message weeks before; she wasn’t quite sure why she hadn’t. But now she was glad to have found a work excuse to get in touch.
Pearson went on: ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of your call? I have to say I was giving up ever hearing from you again.’
‘I’d better warn you it’s business,’ said Liz, and she heard Pearson sigh. ‘Well, only partly,’ she added. ‘Something’s come up in an investigation that seems to connect to a college in your patch. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of it. It’s a sixth-form college about ten miles west of Southwold called Bartholomew Manor.’
There was a pause, then Pearson said, ‘Now, that is really interesting. I don’t think it can be a coincidence. This college has crossed our radar here, and just a few days ago. I’d love to know what your interest in it is – if you can tell me.’
‘I will,’ said Liz, ‘but you go first.’
‘I was talking to one of my senior colleagues the other day and he mentioned it. A friend of his wife had gone to look round. Her husband is being posted to the Middle East for a couple of years and they want to leave their sixteen-year-old son in Britain to take his A Levels. So she went to look round a couple of boarding schools – one in Southwold, and Bartholomew Manor College. She found it so strange that she told my colleague about it. She thought the place was positively sinister, and she got the clear impression that they didn’t want her boy there and couldn’t wait to get rid of her. To tell you the truth, she wondered if it had something to do with child exploitation – she mentioned paedophilia. My colleague thought she was being overdramatic. But it certainly sounded odd. Most of these places are only too keen to welcome parents – and their cash.’
‘That’s interesting,’ said Liz. ‘Have you taken it any further?’
‘A little. Our child protection team did a bit of research on the place. Apparently, it was taken over about nine months ago, with the intention of setting it up as an international school – it’s not clear what that means exactly but they have been bringing in their teachers from abroad. We received a tip that some of them may not have any qualifications or have the proper documents to work here. I gather they’re not all EU citizens.’
‘Are you following that up?’
‘We will be, probably through the Home Office and possibly the Department for Education. But we need something a lot more solid first. Now it’s your turn. What’s your interest in the place?’
‘It’s even vaguer than yours, I’m afraid. It’s just that the name of the school came up in an investigation that seems to link in some way to that Illegals case we were both involved in last year – when you were in Manchester.’
‘Don’t tell me the Russians have penetrated rural Suffolk.’ He laughed. ‘Is it anything to do with our air bases?’
‘I doubt it, though it could be anything – or nothing – at this stage. I’m intending to go to the school myself in a few days. I’ll be a prospective parent and see whether my reception is similarly unwelcoming.’
Liz paused, wondering how to suggest that they might meet up as well. I am terribly out of practice, she thought. I can’t even ask a man for coffee.
‘If you’re coming this way, then let’s meet up,’ he said quickly. ‘We could have lunch or dinner, depending on what’s convenient. I’ll look forward to hearing your impressions of the place – and to seeing you, of course. Deal?’
‘Deal,’ said Liz firmly, pleased that he had taken the initiative. She hadn’t learned much more about Bartholomew Manor, but she was very glad she would be seeing Richard Pearson again.
20
‘This is our brand-new IT centre,’ Miss Girling announced. There was unconcealed pride in her voice. Liz could see why, since every other part of Bartholomew Manor College was thoroughly outdated and in need of a complete overhaul. What had once been a charming manor house, built of mellowed brick with a pair of fine Dutch gables, was now a rundown building that bore little resemblance to the photographs that appeared prominently in the school’s prospectus.
It had been a frustrating drive from London. Liz had left late enough in the morning to miss the rush hour and had made it to the M25 in only half an hour. The A12 had been clear, and she had sailed through Essex and circled Ipswich without any delay. But once she had started to follow her GPS through the smaller roads of rural Suffolk, everything slowed down: a tractor creeping along, a traffic light at roadworks that took forever to turn green, and a fork in the road where the GPS said no such fork existed. Inevitably, Liz chose the wrong branch, and five miles later had had to turn around and retrace her route, only to overshoot the small sign at the top of the lane that led to Bartholomew Manor. She thought she had left herself time to spare when she set out that morning, but by the time she turned into the gravel drive of the college and parked next to a smart new blue Mini she was twenty minutes late. Under the archway of the college’s entrance, the woman who turned out to be Miss Girling stood ostentatiously consulting her watch with an impatient look on her face.
Like the manor house itself, Miss Girling was not in her prime. Her hair was grey and thinning, her spectacles were of a little-old-lady sort, and she was dressed in a worn skirt of grey herringbone tweed and a thick woollen cardigan with large wood buttons. She explained to Liz that she was to show her around before her interview with the headmaster.
‘I understand your son is sixteen,’ she said.
‘Yes, George is sixteen,’ replied Liz. ‘And he’s not my son; he’s my stepson.’ She and Peggy had decided this was more plausible than pretending to be the boy’s mother, and it seemed to satisfy Miss Girling, who nodded. ‘Should we also expect a visit from the boy’s natural mother?’ she asked, with just a trace of cattiness.
Liz shook her head. ‘No,’ she said shortly. When Miss Girling seemed to expect more – perhaps an account of a bitter divorce? – Liz said mildly, ‘She died several years ago.’
To Liz’s satisfaction, Miss Girling looked rather embarrassed. ‘I am sorry,’ she said faintly.
Throughout the brief tour that followed, Miss Girling talked non-stop, as if from a memorised text and as though she had given this tour a hundred times before.
‘Where is everyone?’ asked Liz as they walked through the deserted corridors.
‘Term starts late this year,’ explained Miss Girling. ‘They’re all still at home.’
‘Even the foreign students?’
‘Yes. And the students don’t live here at the manor anyway. For those who board we have an accommodation block at a nearby estate.’
For all her chatter, Miss Girling could not disguise the sad state of the college’s classrooms. They contained rows of old-style wooden desks and mismatched chairs. One room was what Miss Girling referred to as ‘our language lab’, a series of wooden tables supporting large, antiquated tape recorders; another was ‘the science hall’, benches with sinks and old Bunsen burners, where clearly no science had been done for years. Miss Girling diligently showed each room to Liz, talking all the while and seemingly unaware of the impression the place was making on Liz. The occasional glimpse of an elegant cornice or a fireplace still with its ornate surround was the only evidence that this had once been a distinguished private house.
‘Now I’ll show you the IT block,’ said Miss Girling as they emerged from a door at the back of the main house. Behind the manor was a line of brick outbuildings on the far side of a courtyard – what had perhaps once been the stables. As they approached them, Liz could see signs that the old buildings had been recently restored.
‘How long has this been ready?’ she asked. It all looked barely touched, like a showroom with no customers.
‘Just a few weeks.’
‘Will all the students get to use it?’
Miss Girling shifted uneasily. ‘Not at first. I believe it’s only meant for those taking advanced computing.’
‘Are there many of those?’
The older woman hesitated, then said, ‘I’m not sure. That’s something to discuss with the headmaster.’
‘I was wondering, too, how many of the students here are from abroad. The brochure wasn’t very clear.’
‘They used to be all English children, mainly from local Suffolk and Norfolk families,’ said Miss Girling, sounding slightly wistful.
‘And now?’
Miss Girling puffed out her cheeks, then took a deep breath. She seemed unsettled by the question, and Liz waited for whatever she was about to say. But she just looked at her watch and said, ‘I think it’s time I took you to the Head; he’ll be expecting you.’
21
Miss Girling led Liz back into the main house and into a small anteroom. As they came in a young man stood up from behind a half-sized partner’s desk. He was short, slim and athletic-looking, with close cropped black hair. He wore a black jacket, black jeans and a collarless black T-shirt. The outfit seemed more suitable for a trendy part of London than deepest Suffolk. His face was saturnine and expressionless.
‘Cicero,’ said Miss Girling, ‘this is Mrs Forester. She has an appointment with Mr Sarnat about her son, George.’ She turned to Liz. ‘Very nice to meet you,’ she said stiffly, and was gone before Liz could thank her for the tour.