A Fall from Grace

by Robert Barnard

  “The Forsythia Avenue one? Well, you’re not letting the grass grow under your feet, are you?”

  Charlie felt nettled.

  “Why should we?”

  “Why indeed? And it’ll make a hefty dent in the monthly mortgage payments, won’t it? I must keep my eye on you and Felicity. If ever I knew a strong motive for murder it’s present-day house prices, and the average mortgage!”

  And he smiled his choppers-of-steel smile again and strolled off. I hate sarky policemen, thought Charlie. Then he remembered that his reputation was of being precisely that himself. He resolved to keep his sarcasm and cynicism to himself a bit more in the future. This was a resolution forgotten long before he arrived into work in Leeds.

  “What gives with your Ben Costello?” he asked Harridance later in the day, on the phone about something else. “Either he doesn’t like me, or aggression is his second name.”

  “He prefers women,” said Harridance. “And there are little ones to prove it. Men bring out the macho in him. Anyway, all you new inspectors have something to prove.”

  Only I’m a sight more relaxed about it than that twitchy thug Costello, thought Charlie. I only hope that’s being noticed by the powers that be.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Lost Leader

  Two days later, on Charlie’s day off, he and Felicity were shopping in the Halifax Sainsbury’s, resisting Carola’s demands for a variety of soft drinks and sweets that would spell rot to her teeth. Somehow it seemed as if sweet things managed to make an appearance everywhere except the meat refrigerator and the household cleansing section. It was when they were about to exhaust the grocery section and enter the “anything you might conceivably fancy” section that Charlie heard a voice from the makeup aisle.

  “It’s only two periods, Mel: geography and French. Anyway, we can bunk off whenever we like. We’re privileged.”

  He nudged Felicity and they looked up the aisle. Two girls in the uniform of Westowram High were peering at the lipsticks.

  “I think—,” Charlie began, but he was interrupted by one of the girls saying, “Come on or the bus will go.” The pair marched out, paying for the lipstick at the checkout till.

  “The tall one,” said Charlie. “Is that her? Should I follow them?”

  “Yes—I’m sure it is. I’ll follow them. You’re too conspicuous, and you’ve talked to the group . . . I may be gone some time.”

  She nearly ran, trying not in her turn to make herself look conspicuous. The girls were a few yards in front of her, going up through the little rock garden beside the RSPCA kennels, from which a great deal of pathetic whining was heard. She slowed down at the top, where the girls waited to cross the road, then she herself crossed at the back of a little knot of people and followed them into the bus station. She joined the queue which they had joined, five or six people between them. It was the bus to Bradford. She heard the bright, clear tones of the girl she had picked out as Rachel Pickles ask for “two concessions, returns, to Bradford,” and asked for a return herself. They were ensconced in the upstairs front seat on the left of the bus, and were already tearing the lipstick from its plastic container. Felicity sat down two rows behind them, and buried her nose in a copy of Metro which had been lying on the seat. She didn’t have long to wait before the talk turned from makeup to other concerns.

  Initially they swapped thoughts about where they were going, and that was at full voice. It was no surprise to Felicity to learn that their destination was the Museum of Film and Television. They obviously knew the place thoroughly, but talk soon turned to the cafeteria, and from there to boys. Like adolescents through the ages they had a favorite place where they went to meet the opposite sex, and with them it was the café of the free museum. Felicity thought Rachel and her friend had chosen well. As the talk began to get more personal they cast a brief look round the top deck of the bus. An old couple were asleep on the double seat on the other side of the aisle, and Felicity was apparently deep in her newspaper. Still, they lowered their voices a little.

  “Oh, I hope Darren Fawcett is there today,” said the girl called Mel. (Short for Melanie? Or a nickname based on her fondness for Mel Gibson?) “He’s a dream.”

  “He’s all right,” said Rachel.

  “And he’s interested. I know he is. You can always tell.”

  “I prefer to play the field, Mel. Why pick on one? I quite like Darren, but I like Pete Morecamb and Jimmy Blackpool too. I don’t have to choose, that’s how I see it. Choose a best friend, but not a boyfriend—not yet.”

  The other girl shrugged.

  “Please yourself . . . I bet we have a more interesting time than your old mate Anne Michaels has these days. I bet she’d be dead jealous if she knew.”

  “Yeah, I bet. ’Specially as her ancient boyfriend is dead . . . She’s getting talked about, you know.”

  “Oh, I know. Everybody’s whispering. She isn’t liked . . . I don’t think his dying was an accident, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. They say the police don’t either.”

  “What do they think it was?”

  “Well, murder, I guess. More interesting than if he threw himself over.” Rachel grimaced. “Can you imagine killing yourself by jumping into a quarry?”

  “No. Anyway, why would he want to kill himself?”

  “Too old to get it up as often as Bitch Annie wanted it? . . . But I prefer murder. I’m sure it’s murder.”

  Mel thought for a bit, then preferred to go back in time.

  “Why do you think Bitch Annie got all those kids together?”

  “Leader. She wanted to be their leader. She’s got a thing about having an obedient following. I was second-in-command, but did she insist it was second! I got pissed off. I wanted out.”

  “She must have done too. Paying you all off like she did.”

  Rachel raised her eyebrows.

  “I saw through her then. Right scungebag she proved. OK, she could impress those little kids by two pounds fifty each, but she didn’t impress me. You can’t get a pint of lager for that in a good bar.”

  “She’d got other fish to fry.”

  “Oh, she had. I should have known that. All those times we kept watch at my window last summer holidays. She always insisted we sit in the window seat in my bedroom. It’s got a marvelous view up Forsythia Avenue and down Luddenden. It was like she was training for MI5!”

  They both giggled. By now their voices had been lowered to something not much above a whisper.

  “Or the CIA. Or al-Qaeda. What was she interested in, anyway?”

  “Everything. Anything that was going on—particularly anything spicy.” Rachel put her head close to Mel’s. “Like one of the empty houses being used for nooky. There was one where the same couple went several times, separately. They must have been at it. Well, you wouldn’t go and view it over and over again, would you? And you’d go together, not first the woman and then the man. They were at it.”

  “Was she just interested, like anyone might be, or do you think she was planning a bit of blackmail?”

  “Oh, blackmail, I’d say. But perhaps she found they couldn’t be touched for much, because she lost interest. Then recently it was all this Rupert Coggenhoe chap, all his comings and goings. I couldn’t see what the interest was. I thought she’d gone a bit touched.”

  “She must have got the idea of being his mistress then.”

  Rachel’s face twisted into a sneer.

  “Doesn’t it make you laugh? A teenage slag becoming the mistress of a famous writer?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, I shouldn’t think. You saw them meet up, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. If you can call it meeting up. We’d developed a rule over the four or five weeks we’d been doing it. If the person we’d been getting at came to the door, we scarpered. Otherwise he could see us and identify us. It was always dark, of course, but there were streetlights. And it made it more mysterious and frightening: all that singing and chantin
g and shouting abuse, and then he or she comes to the door—nothing. Nobody there, and total silence. Like they might think they’d just imagined it. What we all had to do was disappear the moment we saw a shadow behind the glass in the front door, or saw someone getting up in the living room.”

  “And you did?”

  “Yes, we did. All except one. I was in the garden of the house on the other side of the road. I couldn’t believe it. We all ran for our lives and hid, but when we dared peep, there was Anne standing on the doorstep, and the door was opening. Crazy! The last thing she should be doing.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. If I’d known what was going to happen I would have stayed a bit closer, see if I could hear. But all I saw was them talking for a bit, then Bitch Annie going inside.”

  “What did she tell you later?”

  “Hardly a thing. She knew I was pissed off about it, but she clammed up. She’d used us—me as well as the kids—and now she wanted to be on her own. The only thing she told me, holding her sides with laughter, was that he thought we were carol singers.”

  Mel’s mouth fell open.

  “You’re joking.”

  “No, I’m not. He had no ear for music, apparently. Couldn’t distinguish one tune from another. I think Anne had got a spiel all ready. You can guess how it would go: she wasn’t one of the gang, they were all just kids, but she could get them off his back if he gave her a bit of money to share out. That’s what I guess, but when it came to the point, she didn’t need any spiel. He was friendly and invited her in.”

  “Oh yeah. I know that kind of friendly.”

  “Well, maybe. She never told me exactly what was going on. She said she was going to help him with his writing. He was just finishing a book about some duchess or other, but she said his next ought to appeal to younger people, not to a lot of old biddies, and he agreed. He was very enthusiastic about the idea, and said she’d have to help him. Get the dialogue right, and that sort of thing.”

  “She could do that.”

  “Any of us could. Those in the drama stream, anyway.”

  “But you’ve got to admit Anne is bright.”

  “OK, I admit it. Even if she is a skunk.”

  There was silence between them for some time, then Melanie said, “What do you think she was at, Rach?”

  There was silence again.

  “Well, she may have just wanted to sleep with him.”

  “Why would she want that, when she’s got Rich Newcomb and Bill Westerby and Colin Cantor eager to shack up with her every time she clicks her fingers? Not to mention all the rest over the last year. There’s got to be something as well.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Rachel, who, as well as being bossy, seemed to insist on the last word. “Maybe she fancied trying an older man. More experienced.”

  “Like she’d prefer an old banger to a new Jaguar? More mileage? Not Annie.”

  “Well, maybe not, not in itself . . . but if he got her into bed, or even just pressured her, she could bleed him for a hefty sum. I mean thousands, rather than a measly amount like what she got from the Nortons.”

  “That would make sense,” Mel admitted.

  “Annie always has a sharp eye for money. And she also likes having fun with people. I don’t mean in bed, I mean watching them squirm, or having people letching after her and kicking them as they pass . . . she likes hurting people.”

  “She does. Likes having them on a string and then twisting it tight . . . Do you think she could commit murder?”

  This was said in a low whisper that Felicity could barely hear. Rachel took her time to answer.

  “Not herself. Too dangerous. If she was caught it would be too long out of her life. She once told me she intended to be a soap star by eighteen, a film star by twenty-five and a great actress by thirty. She’s got her life all planned out. I just don’t see her committing murder herself.”

  “What then? Do you mean she might get someone to do it, organize things so they would, or had to?”

  “Something like that. Or be the cause of it—men fighting over her and that kind of thing. Or maybe just do something that happened to lead to murder. Annie always has to be the center of interest, always be where the action is. I think she’s dangerous.”

  The bus pulled into Bradford Interchange, and the two girls went clattering down the stairs as if their conversation had been par for the course for two adolescent girls. Felicity thought there was nothing more to be gained from overhearing their conversation with the local Darrens, Petes and Jimmys, or even a Mahmud. She went and bought herself a hot sausage roll, and waited for the next bus home to Halifax.

  * * *

  “Inspector Peace?”

  “Yes,” said Charlie. He still liked the sound of it. The phone had been ringing as he entered the house, and he had pushed Carola off to her bedroom to do something with her PlayStation.

  “My name is Ken Warburton.” Ah, said Charlie silently. “I’m a teacher at Westowram High.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of you.”

  “You’ve heard about the children. Ganging up on me. You talked to Harvey Buckworth, I’m told.”

  “Yes. I was interested in another ganging-up.”

  “Or perhaps the same. In the sense of the same personnel . . . Look, I’ve talked to Ben Costello, so the police who are doing the investigation of your wife’s father’s death have all the info I can offer. But I had the feeling that he’s already decided that this death was an accident—and he may be right, of course. But I thought he rather brushed aside what I told him about the children.”

  “Yes. I can’t say anything about that. And of course I can’t be involved in any way in the investigation.”

  “I do realize that. That’s why I’m ringing rather than coming in person. Costello seemed jumpy about his position. But I hope you don’t mind: I’d like to tell you what I told the inspector.”

  “I don’t mind at all. I was thinking of ringing you.”

  “Ah . . . I should say before I start that all the trouble—the persecution, I think I’d call it—has died down. Now I just have the normal problems that a secondary-school teacher has.”

  “Did it die down about the time that the persecution of the incomers started?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. I don’t live in Westowram or Slepton. But I think it’s quite likely. Getting at a new teacher can be broadened out to include all new faces.”

  “Yes, I do think that’s likely.”

  “I can only go on rumor—rumor at school, rumor going round this area—but from what I hear the same girl was behind both.”

  “Anne Michaels?”

  “Exactly. A girl of enormous talent, I’m told. And I’ve seen her rehearsing The Tempest. Magic.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Very sad. And it makes you think . . . but you don’t want to hear my thoughts. She was behind it: she wanted to get a little group of drama-stream kids to act out all the stuff they’d picked up from Unman, Wittering and Zigo.”

  “Was it kids from the drama stream she organized?”

  “Well, mainly. I don’t teach the older children, because I’m new. She used only the younger children, as I believe she did with the gang which targeted incomers.”

  “That’s right, she did.”

  “She had the glamour of being in the drama stream, you see, and of being a star among stars. All the kids watch television—most of the time, it sometimes seems—and they were fascinated by someone who people said they might see before long in one of the soaps, or in Casualty or The Bill. So when she fantasized about events in the Giles Cooper play they were rehearsing, the kids were fascinated, and when she suggested they had a new teacher they could practice similar threats on, they were all for it.”

  “I bet. You don’t need to blur the lines between fiction and reality for kids at that age—they’re still finding it difficult to separate the two. How do you know all this?”
<
br />   “Recently one or two of the children began to talk. Not to me, but to one of the other teachers.”

  “I see . . . What did you think at the time? You didn’t really think your life was in danger, did you?”

  “No . . . except perhaps in the darker reaches of the night . . . But we have a child. She was a baby then. When I looked at that utterly helpless thing—”

  “I know, I know,” said Charlie.

  “And people never really understand the destructive potential of children, the vicious torments they inflict on each other. People may read a book like Lord of the Flies, but they don’t take it seriously. Children take it seriously. And then you, the teacher, suddenly come across children like Anne Michaels. First she organizes the children in my class. She gets bored with that. Then she gets together a real little gang to parade around shouting insults and threats at newcomers to the area. That was what she did, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Getting the idea from some of the lunatic right political parties. But then maybe she gets bored with that, and goes on to something else. It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “It’s very possible. What sort of thing had you in mind?”

  “Blackmail, maybe. She sets up your father-in-law, then blackmails him to secure her silence.”

  “Yes, I think that’s possible,” said Charlie slowly. “So are other things. What I do think is that she got bored with having an army of younger kids and was moving into the adult world. But all her activities were of a piece.”

  “Sadistic in a subtle way?”

  “Yes. And concerned with power. I suppose all sadistic activities are connected with a lust for power. I think that with her the power is the major thing that appeals to her. Watching people squirming.”

  After a moment’s silence Ken Warburton said, “I hope what I’ve told you has been of some help.”

  “It has, and I’m grateful. What I’m not sure of is how to connect it to the murder—no, let’s say the death—of Rupert Coggenhoe.”

  And when he put the phone down he sat meditating on that connection. He was beginning to think he had a picture, had a grasp on what had been going on in Anne Michaels’s mind, and on what she had been doing to bring about a desirable conclusion to her plans. But there his picture stopped. When she had begun what should probably be called her relationship with Rupert, possibilities must have been going around in her mind: the sexual one, of course, which was in many ways the simplest, and therefore not necessarily the most appealing one to the girl’s sadistic nature. There were other ways in which his father-in-law could easily have been trapped—by his vanity, his unconsciousness of other people’s ideas and prejudices, his total egotism—the usual state of many murderers and quite a few murder victims.