He moved away from the car and towards the front door. He lifted the brass knocker. He waited. There was no response. McLoughlin looked around. The garden was well tended, weeded, pretty. A brick path led behind the house, towards a high beech hedge with a wooden gate. He lifted the latch and walked through. A man was squatting between two rows of courgettes. He stood up as McLoughlin approached. He was wearing a pair of baggy shorts and an old vest. Thick, tufts of grey hair sprouted from the top of his chest. It matched in colour and texture the hair on his head. His body was lean and lanky. Thick twisted veins coiled around his arms, and his thighs and calves were well muscled. His skin had the sheen of autumn conkers. And his eyes, under bushy white brows, were a bright, light blue. Anthony Watson PhD (Oxon), McLoughlin guessed. ‘I’m looking for Anthony Watson,’ he called. ‘Would that be you?’
The man looked him up and down. ‘Yes, that’s me.’ He began to walk towards McLoughlin, stepping carefully through the vegetables. ‘And you are?’ His voice was melodic. His accent was very English.
McLoughlin began to explain. Dr Watson listened, a polite expression on his thin, lined face. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You want to know about Ben Roxby, what kind of chap he was. Is that it?’
‘Among other things. Look . . .’ McLoughlin felt awkward. It was very hot behind the high hedge. He took off his jacket, conscious of the sweat patches under his arms. ‘Sorry to barge in like this. I was passing so I thought I’d see if you were here.’
‘Passing?’ Dr Watson’s eyes thickened to the view of rolling countryside and wooded hills. ‘I see. And you say you’re a policeman? Do you have any identification?’
McLoughlin fished in his wallet for his warrant card. It looked official enough. As long as Dr Watson didn’t notice the expiry date. He handed it over. The other man held it at arm’s length. His eyebrows met in a furry grey line as he tried to focus. Then he smiled and handed it back. ‘That’s fine. Just had to check. We’ve been plagued with journalists since one of our former pupils died a few weeks ago. Bloody parasites.’
‘Yes,’ McLoughlin agreed. ‘That would be Marina Spencer, wouldn’t it?’
‘Marina Spencer,’ Dr Watson repeated thoughtfully. ‘That’s right.’ He seemed distracted. ‘Fancy a drink?’ he said. ‘Hang on a tick.’ He took a step towards the house. ‘Isobel!’ he shouted. ‘Isobel! Drinks needed – out here if you wouldn’t mind. We’ve got a visitor.’
They sat on low wooden seats in the shade of an apple tree. Dr Watson had offered, in rapid succession, lemonade, Pimm’s No. 1 or gin and tonic. Mindful of his drive back along the motorway, McLoughlin settled for lemonade. Isobel Watson carried the heavy tray out to the garden. She was as tall and thin as her husband, greying hair cut short with no concession made to style. Dr Watson introduced her and dismissed her with a kiss on the cheek and a wave.
‘Now, Inspector McLoughlin, what can I do for you? You’re lucky you caught us. We’ve going away tomorrow until the middle of August. Tuscany, don’t you know. Friends with a villa. Wonderful.’ He leaned back in his seat and stretched his legs. He sipped his tall glass of Pimm’s with relish.
McLoughlin tried to sound confident as he explained that he’d been asked by the commissioner to re-examine a number of what had been considered accidents. There had been much media speculation recently over a couple of deaths that had appeared to be accidental but had subsequently turned out to be suspicious.
‘The commissioner, well, he’s new to the job and he’s very conscious of PR, if you know what I mean.’
Dr Watson raised his eyes to heaven. ‘PR,’ he tut-tutted. ‘What is the world coming to? Same sort of thing goes on in the army now I notice. My grandfather and two of his brothers were all in the regular army – the British army, I mean, of course. They wouldn’t have stood for any of this PR nonsense, but the chappies in charge these days . . . Well, what can I say?’ He smiled.
The smile of the conqueror, McLoughlin thought. ‘So, looking back over the last year I noticed that Benjamin Roxby had died from a fall. And there was . . . well . . . speculation at the time as to whether it was accidental or—’
‘Or what, Inspector McLoughlin?’ Dr Watson’s face had coloured. ‘Ridiculous gossip! Nothing but ridiculous gossip. Ben Roxby was honourable and upright. Came from a very good family. Did wonderful things for us at the school. Gave us a grant to develop our website. Not that I can see much point in it but, then, old fogeys like me can’t get to grips with that sort of thing. But everyone else says it’s marvellous and it was all because of Roxby’s generosity. But the gossip, honestly . . .’ Dr Watson crossed his long bony legs and drank some Pimm’s.
‘And what kind of things were being said, Dr Watson?’ His lemonade, he found, was delicious. ‘Mm, this is lovely. Is it homemade?’
‘Of course. Isobel wouldn’t dream of having the other stuff in the house. Full of artificial colouring, preservatives. Carcinogens, the lot of them.’ He seemed suddenly confused. McLoughlin waited. Dr Watson shifted awkwardly. ‘What were we talking about?’
‘Gossip,’ McLoughlin prompted, ‘about Ben Roxby’s death.’
‘Oh, yes, that.’ Dr Watson straightened up. ‘Absolute nonsense. Some silly talk about another woman. I knew him well. His marriage was first class. Annabel’s a wonderful girl. From a very good family. And he has two smashing sons. Young Josh starts here next term and Sam will follow the year after.’
‘So if Roxby was planning on sending his sons here he wasn’t put off by his own experiences as a pupil?’
Dr Watson raised his eyebrows. ‘Not sure what you mean by that.’
‘Well, the bullying business. Mark Porter. It ended badly, didn’t it?’ McLoughlin drank some lemonade.
Dr Watson slapped his leg violently. ‘Bloody horse-flies. Eat one alive out here in the summer.’ His gaze drifted over McLoughlin’s head. ‘You were saying?’
‘Mark Porter, the bullying. Ben Roxby was involved, wasn’t he?’
Dr Watson rubbed one leg against the other. McLoughlin was reminded of a rangy old gelding scratching himself against a fence post.
‘Not sure what you’re getting at, Inspector McLoughlin. Not sure what that has to do with Ben’s death.’
It was very quiet in the garden. Very still. The scent from a climbing rose hung in the warm air.
‘Well, Roxby’s death on its own, perhaps nothing. But there have been two more deaths of your former pupils. And, from what I can gather, they were friends.’ McLoughlin waited for Dr Watson to respond, but he said nothing. ‘Marina Spencer died a few weeks ago. Suspected suicide. And Rosie Webb, the day before yesterday. All former pupils of this school. And all involved in that same set of incidents. Am I right?’
A pigeon cooed softly. McLoughlin spotted the bird high in the branches of a huge beech tree. Still Dr Watson said nothing.
‘Now,’ McLoughlin leaned forward, ‘it was quite a scandal, wasn’t it? Not what you’d expect in a school like this. The bullying was so bad that Mark tried to hang himself. Or, at least, that’s what I heard. Fortunately he survived. And his tormentors, well, they were punished. Marina Spencer was expelled. The others, including Roxby, were disciplined. What was it? Detention on Saturdays? Privileges suspended for a while? Was that it? Not allowed to visit the tuck shop? Gated for the rest of the term?’
The pigeon had been joined by another. They were calling from tree to tree. McLoughlin waited.
Dr Watson’s hands plucked at the faded linen of his shorts. ‘It was all so unfortunate.’ His voice had a whining quality, like that of a tired toddler. ‘So unfortunate. But sometimes in a school, in a community of individuals, you’ll get a bad apple. The person who infects the others with a sense of maliciousness, nastiness, bad manners. And then, well, all hell breaks loose. It doesn’t happen often. And, of course, since then we’ve been much more careful about the type of child we enrol.’
‘And you are referring to whom?’ McLoughlin was anxious to get the pronoun
right.
‘Well, I’m reluctant to speak ill of the dead, but Marina Spencer was a very disruptive and destructive influence in the school. She really had to go.’ Dr Watson got up. He swayed gently as he moved towards the table. He refilled his glass from the jug, then waved it in McLoughlin’s direction. ‘Sure I can’t tempt you to a dhrop of the hard shtuff?’ His attempt at a Dublin accent was grating and foolish.
McLoughlin shook his head. ‘Just to get things clear, Dr Watson. Just to clarify the issue. The whole thing happened, as I understand it, after James de Paor died. Am I right?’
Dr Watson sat down again. He nodded and drank.
‘That must have been dreadful for the children. Dominic in particular.’
Dr Watson nodded again.
‘To die like that, a silly accident. To leave such devastation behind you.’ McLoughlin’s voice was calm, neutral.
‘Yes, poor James. But it was typical of him in a way. He was always reckless.’ Dr Watson scratched his leg vigorously again.
‘You knew him, did you?’
‘Yes, for many years. Long before he had children. I knew him when his name was Power. Before he decided to embrace all things Gaelic. I went to school with his older brothers.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Lovely family. That marvellous house in the mountains. They didn’t take it seriously when James started learning Irish. Then he changed his name. And when he became a barrister he began to defend those IRA men in the Special Criminal Court. Fortunately his father died before that happened.’
‘And did you – do you know his first wife?’
‘Helena,’ Dr Watson said, with the emphasis on the first syllable. ‘Ah, there now, there’s a puzzle.’ His brow furrowed. ‘A beautiful woman. A brilliant woman. A barrister like James. But something happened when she had her children. I believe they call it puerperal psychosis. It’s an extreme form of post-natal depression, so my wife tells me. She was pretty bad when she had Dominic, and there was a second child, a little girl. She died. A cot death, they say. After that things went from bad to worse.’ Dr Watson gulped his drink.
‘So the atmosphere in the school that term. Those bereaved children. It must have been difficult.’
Dr Watson stared hard at McLoughlin. ‘Inspector, the people who send their children to this school come from tough stock. They are the descendants of empire builders. They are not easily brought down. They know how to suffer in silence, to move on, to prevail.’ His voice was getting louder. ‘That was one of the things that was very irksome about Marina Spencer. There was an hysterical quality to her makeup. You know, she reminded me of Diana Spencer. A coincidence that they had the same name, no doubt, but Diana was like Marina. All that pointless emotion, that ridiculous self-examination. Marina didn’t know how lucky she was. Through her tenuous relationship with James Power she had been privileged to come here.’ He drained his glass. ‘No, she had to go. She would have gone anyway. Once Helena had successfully contested the legality of the so-called marriage between James and Marina’s mother, the money was going to run out.’
‘But to expel her? And only her. Why not the others?’
Dr Watson got up and filled his glass again. He wobbled on his feet, and the hand holding the jug was shaking.
‘Isobel!’ he shouted. ‘A refill – we need a refill. Chop, chop.’ His face was now a deep red.
McLoughlin stood too. He picked up his jacket.
Watson faced him. ‘I’ll tell you why I got rid of Marina. The girl had no hinterland. She was on her own. The others had the institution of the family to protect them. They had wealth and position. Even Mark, with his physical deformities. His family owns half of Georgian Dublin. They came to Ireland with Cromwell. Marina had none of that.’
His wife opened the back door. She hurried across the lawn. ‘Tony, that’s enough.’ She turned to McLoughlin. ‘I think you’d better go.’ Her voice was sharp. She took Dr Watson’s arm and helped him towards the house. ‘It’s all right, darling. It’s the heat. You know you should be wearing your hat.’
Dr Watson tried to push her away, but her grip was firm. His legs were trembling. He looked old and shaky.
‘The girl was a thief. Remember, Isobel, the money that went missing? And we found it under her mattress. She was a slut too!’ He was shouting now. ‘You know that, Isobel. You caught her in the cellar with Roxby. Disgusting behaviour. Disgusting.’
‘Ssh, Tony, inside now. It’s time for your nap. We’ve nothing further to say.’ She propelled her husband inside. The door closed. Wasps were circling the jug of Pimm’s. One had fallen in and was lying on its back, legs in the air. The buzzing stopped. A happy death, he thought.
He walked out of the garden and towards the school. And saw a window open on the ground floor. He glanced around, then pulled himself up and over the sill. No doubt about it, he needed to lose that bit of weight, he thought, as he landed awkwardly, almost collapsing in a heap on the floor. He stood up. He was in the new building. A long corridor with classrooms opening off it. He began to walk towards the old house. The transition was abrupt. Behind him there were walls painted magnolia, scuffed lino tiles and fluorescent lighting. Ahead was a large square entrance hall, panelled with mahogany, floored with marble diamonds of black and white, lit from a glass dome high above. The staircase curved elegantly away from him, the limestone steps seeming unsupported from below. He climbed them slowly. First floor, formal drawing room and library. Second floor, bedrooms with dark red embossed wallpaper and nineteenth-century furniture. Third floor, and the rooms were smaller with lower ceilings. He looked inside one. It was crammed with narrow beds. Next door was a bathroom, tiled in white with an old-fashioned free-standing bath, a row of washbasins and series of cubicles, each with a toilet, cistern high on the wall and a long chain. There was a smell of Jeyes Fluid.
He stepped back on to the landing and leaned on the banister. The drop to the floor was dramatic. He bent and checked the wooden rods, running his hand down them. One was slightly different from the others. The wood was newer, not original. It had been stained to match the rest, but the job was poor. He slipped his hand around it. Mark Porter had tied the rope to the railing, then put the noose over his head. He had climbed on to the banister. McLoughlin stood up. Above him was the vaulted glass dome. Below, the black and white diamonds shimmered. Mark Porter had balanced on the banister, then launched himself head first, down, down, down. The noose had tightened and jerked him upwards. He was lucky his neck had not been broken. The wood had given way. He fell. He was lucky he hadn’t landed on his head and smashed his skull. He hadn’t landed on his torso either and suffered internal injuries. He had landed with his legs beneath him. He was winded, he was shocked, he had a broken bone. But he was alive.
McLoughlin walked slowly down the stairs and into the hall. The heavy front door was bolted on the inside. He seized the metal handle and gave it a tug, then clicked open the new Yale lock and went out into the afternoon sunshine. He walked across the dusty gravel to his car, and heard a voice calling his name. Isobel Watson was hurrying from the cottage.
‘Mr McLoughlin, a word, please.’ Her face was twisted with anxiety. She stopped, chest heaving. She held out her left hand.
‘My husband, don’t pay too much attention to him. He’s not well. He has Parkinson’s disease. He doesn’t have many of the symptoms yet, but he’s been diagnosed. He’s going to retire soon and he can’t bear it. The school has been his life.’ There was a supplicating tone in her voice that made McLoughlin feel like cringing.
He smiled in what he hoped was a sympathetic manner. ‘Sure, of course. I can imagine something like that must be very frightening.’
‘It is. He’s inclined to drink more than is good for a man of his age. He never used to so it has a powerful effect on him. And he says things that maybe he shouldn’t.’
McLoughlin nodded. ‘Of course. I understand.’
She smiled, a tight mechanical grima
ce. ‘You asked him about Marina and the bullying. I know he sounded cruel. He didn’t mean it like that.’
‘No?’ McLoughlin couldn’t keep the scepticism from his voice. ‘What was it he said about Marina and Ben Roxby? Disgusting? Was that the term he used?’
Isobel Watson flushed. ‘I found them in the cellar. Marina was – well, I won’t go into details but it wasn’t what we could consider suitable behaviour. We have to be very careful in a school like this. We didn’t always take both boys and girls. I was never sure it was a good idea, but Tony . . . Well, the Protestant population of Ireland is very small. He felt it would be a good way to encourage relationships. So many of our boys had married, well . . .’
‘Catholics.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so. I know that sounds bigoted, but the Ne Temere decree has had a terrible effect on us. Too many Protestants are diffident about their faith, happy to let their Roman Catholic partner take charge. And once the child is baptized, the rest follows. First communion, confirmation, marriage. That’s it, really. Tony thought we should do what we could. So we opened the school to girls. But we have to be careful. Things can get out of hand. Marina was very pretty, very well developed for her age. It had to be stopped.’
‘I take it you didn’t think she was suitable for a boy like Ben. Am I right?’
She shrugged. ‘Personally I didn’t care. But Tony takes his role in loco parentis very seriously. Look,’ she shifted uneasily, ‘if you want to know more about what happened I would go and see Dominic Power. Have you met him?’
He shook his head. ‘Power? You mean Dominic de Paor, don’t you?’
‘We called him Power. That’s what was on his birth certificate.’ Her expression was stern. ‘I don’t know why I’m saying this, but I always thought there was something going on between Dominic and Marina. I couldn’t put my finger on it. But when they came back to school after James had died Marina was different. Her behaviour was different.’ She took a small handkerchief from the sleeve of her blouse and touched it to her lips.
I Saw You Page 14