Mortal Taste

by J M Gregson

  DS Bert Hook was for once quite wrong.

  Collating the plethora of information which is gathered during the first days of a murder investigation is a taxing but generally rather dull administrative job. DI Chris Rushton was good at the work. He was not overawed by the welter of information from a large team, and his system of computer cross-referencing often threw up interesting connections which might otherwise have been overlooked.

  And occasionally, but often enough to keep him excited, being back at headquarters in the CID at Oldford whilst his eccentric Superintendent was out and about put him in pole position, made him the first one to receive some unexpected gem of information.

  The voice on the other end of the phone on the morning of Friday, the second of October, asked for Superintendent Lambert, the man in charge of the case. Chris concealed his irritation as he explained that John Lambert was out interviewing suspects in the case and that he was the Inspector collating all information. Once the initial scepticism at the other end of the phone had declined into mere surprise, the woman passed him on to her superior.

  ‘Superintendent Johnston here. National Paedophile Unit, New Scotland Yard. I understand John Lambert isn’t available.’

  ‘Not at present, sir. He’s out on the case. I can give him a message. It’s DI Rushton here. I’m in charge of the collation of information on the Peter Logan murder.’

  ‘Right. Important piece of information for you, then. Peter Logan rang the Paedophile Unit on the Friday before he died. Said he had reason to believe that a member of his staff was indulging in paedophilia.’

  Chris Rushton gulped, like a newspaperman sensing a scoop. ‘Did he give you a name?’

  ‘No. He said he didn’t think there was any immediate urgency because he’d no evidence the man was active with children in the school. It was a man, by the way: you’d be surprised how many women we’ve turned up in the last year. And it was a teacher, not a member of the ancillary staff. But that’s the only help I can give you. Logan was due to speak to me again on Tuesday of this week. I wondered why he hadn’t come back to me. Now I find he’s dead.’

  ‘And you think his death might be connected with this?’

  There was a note of world-weary impatience in Johnston’s voice as he said, ‘Yes, of course I do. Paedophilia is big business now. If this man was part of a ring, they might well have silenced Logan to keep their activities secret.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea which member of the teaching staff this might be? There are over fifty of them.’

  ‘No. And I doubt whether anyone else knows. Logan implied he was keeping his thoughts strictly to himself within the school. That’s understandable: you land yourself in all kinds of trouble if you accuse someone working in a school of paedophilia without being certain of your ground.’

  ‘Right. I’ll let Superintendent Lambert know immediately. I’m sure he’ll liaise with you when he finds out more.’

  When, not if, thought Chris Rushton. He wondered if he had just found the lead to the killer of Peter Logan.

  The sitting room in Jane Logan’s home, which had been littered with used cups and plates when they had been here last, was very tidy now. They were able to look through the window which had been curtained on Wednesday evening, down a long back garden where dahlias still blared their colours defiantly and bright blue Michaelmas daisies were mounds of early autumn colour.

  Jane Logan looked as tidy as her surroundings. When Lambert apologized for disturbing her, she said, ‘There’s no need. You said you’d be back, and I’ve been given time off from my work until Monday.’

  ‘You are a teacher yourself, I understand.’

  ‘A little, yes. Just two evenings a week at the College of Technology. I teach mostly adults who are hoping to go on to higher education. I manage a flower shop during the day.’

  Bert Hook said, ‘The children must have been a great help to you.’

  Jane Logan smiled. ‘They were very supportive. Of each other as well as me. I’ve sent them back to their friends now. Catriona’s back at Greenwood and Matt’s gone back to university. He said he’d stay here, but I could see he was relieved to get away. It’s an exciting time, your first weeks at university.’

  ‘So you’re on your own today.’

  ‘Yes. It’s better that way. To tell you the truth, I shall be quite relieved to get back to work on Monday.’

  Lambert was studying her closely. He said, ‘I’m afraid the body won’t be released for burial for some time yet.’

  She nodded, perfectly composed. ‘That was explained to me by the coroner’s officer. When you find who killed him, the defence has the right to request a second post-mortem. I’ve explained it all to the children. They were a little upset at first, but they saw the logic of it. It’s not a problem.’

  Lambert nodded, his eyes never leaving the face below the dark blonde hair. Then he said, ‘I hope you will forgive us if we probe one or two sensitive areas this morning. I’m afraid it’s our job to probe, in an attempt to get as full and rounded a picture of a murder victim as we can.’

  She took this in, paused for a moment, then said with a smile, ‘That won’t be a problem. I gather from what you say that you haven’t got what I believe is called a prime suspect as yet.’

  Lambert gave her a small answering smile. She was as watchful and observant as he was, an opponent worthy of his steel. She might also be a murderess; he found the irrelevant thought intruding into his old-fashioned mind that the feminine term might no longer be politically acceptable.

  He said, ‘No, we haven’t turned up an obvious suspect yet. You may know that three quarters of murders are committed within the immediate family. Once you move outside that close circle, things are usually more complex.’

  She smiled. ‘Then I trust on this occasion you are finding things more complex.’ She put her hands on the arms of her armchair and leaned back a little, as if to show how much at ease she was in a situation which must be quite new to her. Her fair hair was perfectly groomed, her face lightly but skilfully made up to enhance the blueness of her eyes.

  From her looks alone, she might have been widowed for three years, rather than three days.

  Lambert said, ‘Forgive the observation, but unless you are hiding it very skilfully, you do not seem to be riven with grief by this unexpected tragedy.’

  There was a moment of electric silence, as if both Bert Hook and Jane Logan were checking the import of his quietly spoken words. Then the woman opposite him spoke as quietly as he had. ‘In other circumstances, that would be impertinent. But you have already explained that these are not ordinary circumstances. I am glad my children are not here, and I would hope as little of this as possible reaches them.’ She reached forward to the low table and took up the pot of coffee she had made for their visit, pouring three cups without a tremor, watching the movements of her arms as if their steadiness gave her particular pleasure.

  She handed them the cups before she said, ‘There is a difference between public and private life. The Times obituary is perfectly accurate, as far as it goes. But you must understand that it is possible for a man to be an outstanding head teacher while being much less effective as a husband and a father.’

  ‘You’re telling us that Mr Logan’s home life was less successful than his professional one?’

  ‘I’m trying to obey your opening injunction, to give you as full a picture of the life of a dead man as I can.’ She sipped her coffee, and they sensed that she had keyed herself up for this, that her honesty was in some ways a relief for her, after keeping up the conventions in front of her children and others.

  Lambert nodded. ‘Thank you. How bad was the situation in this house, Mrs Logan?’

  She took her time, organizing her mind to deliver thoughts she had rehearsed before they came. ‘We married young, Peter and I, then grew apart rather than together. We’ve had a series of blazing rows over the years, but not many of them in front of the children.’ She gave a b
itter smile at herself. ‘The conventional middle-class marriage breakdown, in fact. You tell yourselves you’re staying together for the sake of the children, but that might be mere cowardice. And Peter would never have divorced me. His career wouldn’t have allowed it. Over the years, I’ve come to detest that word “career”.’

  But it won’t upset you any longer now, thought Lambert. You’ll be free to do whatever you want, re-marry with anyone you choose. He said, ‘Forgive me, but I need to ask this. Have either of you had other partners in the last few months?’

  She had steeled herself for this, knowing that it must arrive, that it was a natural outcome of her earlier frankness. It was an effort nonetheless to keep her voice steady as she said, ‘Peter had had a series of affairs over the years. He assured me that he always came home, so that was all right.’ The contempt came flaring out on the last phrase.

  ‘But it wasn’t all right with you.’

  ‘I suppose it wasn’t, really. But I didn’t want to scratch his eyes out any more. We existed in what I suppose you could call armed neutrality for most of the time. I’d got to the stage where I knew Peter would never be faithful but I no longer cared who he was currently bedding. We didn’t have separate bedrooms or anything like that in this house. The children again, I suppose. When there was nothing better around, he gave me some attention.’

  ‘This is where I have to probe. We must know the names of the woman or women who were currently enjoying your husband’s attentions.’

  She laughed at that: a single, mirthless peal. ‘Delicately put, Superintendent. I like that: “currently enjoying his attentions”. I suppose they were: he could be very charming, Peter, until you knew him as well as I did. And he had power, you know, these last few years; the great aphrodisiac, they tell me. It’s probably true, and you could take Peter as a case study.’

  ‘This must be very upsetting for you, Mrs Logan. I’m sorry to open old wounds, but I must have names, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I told you, his affairs had become a matter of indifference to me by the time of his death. I’d worked hard to arrive at that indifference.’

  Lambert wondered if she was quite as detached about the matter as she protested herself to be. Perhaps, as she claimed, she knew nothing about Tamsin Phillips or any other woman. But she had just outlined the conditions for a crime of passion, with herself as murderer, if you looked at the situation from another viewpoint. He said, ‘Would any woman involved with Peter be working in the school?’

  She thought carefully for a moment. ‘I should think it extremely likely. He does – did – work very hard in the school, and he hadn’t many contacts outside it. He was a very good headmaster, with a touch of vision alongside huge organizing ability and energy. It was in the school context that his charisma was always most apparent and most potent. And in case you’re thinking of asking, his tastes were strictly heterosexual. Peter was a traditionalist in that respect, at least.’

  Lambert stared into her face for a moment, then reluctantly concluded that she was being honest about her ignorance of any relationships her husband had been conducting at the time of his death. He said, ‘You said last time we were here that you were not expecting your husband home until ten thirty or eleven on Monday night.’

  ‘Yes. That is the time he told me to expect him. I went to the gym in the evening. When he wasn’t in by around eleven, I went to bed. I didn’t realize until next morning that he had never arrived home.’

  ‘We now think your husband was back in Cheltenham by eight thirty at the latest on that evening, though we cannot be precise about exactly when he died. He knew that the Birmingham conference would be over by six. Have you any idea why he told you to expect him back so much later?’

  ‘I think you can deduce that from our conversation over the last ten minutes. My guess would be that he was planning to visit a woman. I’ve no evidence to support it, other than previous experience.’

  ‘You will know by now that he was found in a park in the Leckhampton area. Does that location suggest anyone to you?’

  ‘No. I’ve no interest in where his women lived.’

  ‘There may be no woman involved, of course. Can you think of any other reason why he would have gone to the Leckhampton area?’

  ‘No. The local paper seemed to imply that he might have been taken there against his will.’

  ‘They were speculating, I’m afraid. But that is one possibility. Another is that he had arranged to meet someone in the park: someone who very possibly killed him there. A third possibility is the one I have just suggested: that he was on his way to meet someone in the area but was intercepted by the person who shot him.’

  ‘I see. But I can’t throw any light on the matter, however it happened.’ For the first time, she seemed to give the matter little thought. She seemed anxious to close this area of discussion. Perhaps the detail of her husband’s death was upsetting her more than she admitted.

  ‘You’ve been very patient and understanding, Mrs Logan. I must probe one more sensitive area, I’m afraid. I said we were trying to build up a picture of your husband, who cannot speak for himself, and you have been very frank and helpful in adding detail to that picture. But people do not exist in isolation; we all live our lives in conjunction with those closest to us. I must therefore ask you about your own life. You have told us that your relationship with your husband was cool, even unhappy, for much of the time. In the light of that, have you struck up any serious relationship of your own?’

  She stared for a moment into her now empty cup, trying to make sure that the anger was kept from her voice as she replied. ‘I’m not sure that I would tell you if I had; it’s none of your business. But the answer’s no.’

  Lambert refrained from telling her just why it was very much their business. She would recognize when they had gone, even if she did not do so now, that any lover of hers was a potential killer of Peter Logan’s, a man who would have to be eliminated from the inquiry.

  She saw them off from the door, as calmly as if they had been social callers rather than detectives probing the death of her husband. Her fair hair still framed her strong, attractive face as neatly as when they had arrived; her half-smile persisted as long as they could see her. She was still standing in the front doorway of the mock-Georgian house as they turned the corner and disappeared.

  Hook concentrated upon his driving and did not speak. His Superintendent said eventually, ‘So what did you make of Mrs Jane Logan, Bert?’

  Hook negotiated a set of traffic lights before he said, ‘Frank and helpful. More so than I would ever have expected, three days after her husband’s death.’

  ‘Yes. I can see Peter Logan a lot more clearly, now we’ve talked to her. She was largely unemotional, I thought, and pretty well-organized in what she said.’

  Hook drove on for another half-mile, until Lambert decided he had said all he had to offer. Then Bert said, ‘A little too helpful, too well-organized, perhaps? It made me wonder what she was holding back.’

  Lambert grinned. ‘Suspicious chaps, policemen.’

  Thirteen

  ‘I’m sorry to take you away from your duties again, Mrs

  Dean. Something urgent and serious has just come up.’

  The blonde-haired Deputy Head was as flustered today as she had been calm two days earlier. The strain of running the school without Peter Logan, of taking on his directorial role as well as maintaining her own myriad administrative duties as Deputy Head, was telling on her. ‘That’s all right,’ she said, more politely than she felt. ‘Thank God it’s Friday!’

  ‘I apologize again, but I fear I’m here to add to your troubles.’

  Lambert took her briefly through the phone call DI Rushton had received from the National Paedophile Unit at New Scotland Yard. ‘This information must be treated as highly confidential, of course,’ he concluded. ‘Mr Logan had merely voiced a suspicion; it’s possible there may be nothing in it. But it will h
ave to be investigated.’

  ‘Of course it will. We can’t risk having anyone like that working with children. And if Peter Logan was suspicious of anyone, it wouldn’t be without good reason. I reckon this means we’ve got a paedophile on the staff.’ She sighed; just when she thought things at Greenwood were as chaotic as they could be, here was something to make things worse.

  Lambert said quietly, ‘This man may also be a murderer, or an accessory to murder. The Paedophile Unit thinks he’s part of a ring. Some of these people are high-profile figures with a lot to lose. They wouldn’t stop at hiring a professional killer to remove someone who could lay information against them.’

  Pat Dean stared at him bleakly. ‘You must do whatever you have to do, of course. All I ask is that you disturb the rhythm of the school as little as possible.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘This is the term when most of the really solid work is normally achieved. We could do without these distractions.’

  ‘I appreciate that. I was hoping that Peter Logan would have discussed this with you, but he obviously didn’t. So the problem is that we know only two things about the suspected paedophile: he is a member of your teaching staff, and he’s male.’

  ‘There are thirty-one male teachers at Greenwood.’ She produced the figure without hesitation, then added dully, ‘How do you propose to go about vetting thirty-one teachers?’

  Lambert thought quickly. ‘It’s Friday. Mr Logan thought the man posed no immediate danger to the children in the school. We’ll compile a list, then interview as many of them as we can in their homes over the weekend.’

  She tried not to show the relief she felt on her face. ‘That will certainly help to minimize the disruption to the routine of the school. You won’t get through thirty-one over the weekend, though, will you? Is there any way we can agree a shortlist of leading suspects? For instance, I can’t think that our Senior Master, who is fifty-three and has five children, is going to be a strong candidate for this.’ She smiled at the thought, looking suddenly much more attractive under her tousled blonde hair. Then she wiped away her mirth in the face of the seriousness of the problem.