Swansong (The DI Nick Dixon Crime Series Book 4)

by Damien Boyd

  ‘Or a small mirror stuck to your computer.’

  ‘Quite,’ replied Phillips, spinning round on his chair. ‘How’re you getting on?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘I had to nip into town.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Some parts for my car.’

  ‘And you get those from the police station, do you? I drive past there on my way in every morning and saw you.’

  Dixon hesitated.

  ‘Who are you?’

  Dixon shut the door. Then he took his warrant card out of his pocket and handed it to Phillips.

  ‘I knew it,’ said Phillips, smiling and nodding at the same time. ‘All that farting about in the old convent chapel. And there was me thinking the local plod were useless.’ He handed Dixon back his warrant card. ‘No one’ll hear it from me.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘We’re making progress.’

  ‘What have you . . . ?’

  ‘I really can’t say.’

  ‘No, no, of course not. I quite understand. So, what happens now?’

  ‘I need to speak to Mr Griffiths, the supply teacher. D’you know where can I find him?’

  ‘Jack Griffiths? He’s not mixed up in this, is he?’

  Dixon raised his eyebrows.

  ‘No, sorry, of course, you can’t say,’ continued Phillips. ‘He’s here now, actually, teaching . . .’

  ‘Can you get me in there? As a trainee teacher to sit in, perhaps?’

  ‘Yes, we’ll give it a go. He can’t really object, can he? Follow me.’

  Dixon followed Phillips down the steps and along the cloisters. He watched Phillips walking in front of him and wondered whether he really had seen him by chance or whether he had followed him.

  At the far end, on the left just before the doors of the chapel, was a flight of two stone steps that led up to a small classroom.

  ‘One question before we go in,’ said Dixon.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is he a Jehovah’s Witness?’

  ‘No idea. Sorry.’

  Phillips knocked on the door and went in. Dixon counted three rows of four desks, two of them empty, such was the popularity of the classics these days.

  ‘Jack, can Nick here sit in with you? He’s a trainee teacher. I thought he might like to see an old master at work.’

  ‘Literally,’ said Griffiths, rolling his eyes. ‘What do you teach?’

  ‘Law and history, hoping to anyway,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘Yes, well, come in and sit down. Latin will bore the pants off you but so be it.’

  ‘It does us.’

  ‘I heard that, Smallwood.’

  ‘Sorry, Sir.’

  Griffiths was a small man with thinning grey hair and his love of the classics clearly extended to his clothes; suede shoes, corduroys, a tweed jacket and a yellow and black waistcoat that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Rupert Bear. Dixon thought him to be in his late sixties and hoped he had long since retired by the time he reached that age. If he reached that age, as Roger would no doubt remind him.

  Dixon listened to the lesson unfold. He had forgotten about Latin declensions long ago and, judging by his exam results, what little he had learned had been picked up from The Life of Brian. It had been a subject he had dropped at the first opportunity, at much the same time as he had abandoned any pretence of learning physics.

  A loud bell at 3 p.m. signalled the end of the lesson. Griffiths wished the class a happy Christmas and reminded them about the essays to be written over the longer than usual school holidays, before letting them go. Dixon waited behind.

  ‘Did you enjoy that?’ asked Phillips.

  ‘Yes.’ Dixon lied. ‘It was interesting to see how you keep their attention with such a dry subject.’

  ‘I have the advantage that they’ve all opted to take this subject but it doesn’t always work that way.’

  ‘What else do you teach?’

  ‘Ancient history, mainly, but Latin and Greek as and when required.’

  Dixon watched him stacking a large pile of books into a box.

  ‘Can I give you a hand with that?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind carrying it out to the car, that’d be very helpful.’

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Dixon.

  Griffiths was carrying a briefcase in each hand. Dixon walked behind him carrying the box.

  ‘We’ll take a shortcut. My car’s round the back.’

  He went into the chapel and then out of the back doors, which were open. Dixon followed him around the side and along to the car park by the kitchens.

  ‘There are no deliveries in the afternoons, so it’s usually all right to park here, but they can get quite sniffy about it,’ he said, opening the boot of the car.

  Dixon placed the box in the boot and then stood back to allow Griffiths to put his briefcases in. Then Griffiths slammed the boot, shook hands with Dixon and got in the car, before winding down the window.

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘What with?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘Your teaching career.’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  Griffiths drove off. Only then did Dixon get a clear look at the rear window of his car. In the bottom right hand corner was a sticker. It was a stencilled image of Jesus Christ, identifiable by his beard and crown of thorns, against a background of blue sky and white clouds. Underneath it was the message ‘John 3:16’.

  ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son . . .’ said Dixon under his breath.

  He took out his phone and sent Jane a text message.

  The Greyhound 7.30 bring what we’ve got on Griffiths N x

  ‘What happened about the school play?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘Sweeney Todd, the musical,’ replied Phillips, ‘the head cancelled it. No time for it anyway, what with the term ending early.’

  Dixon nodded.

  ‘And Geldard’s house play went the same way. Arsenic and Old Lace. Cancelled.’

  ‘Shame.’

  ‘Not really. I saw the dress rehearsal,’ replied Phillips. ‘They’ll inflict it on us next term instead, I expect.’

  Dixon was looking at the timetable on the wall in the masters’ common room and noticed that the headmaster had a law class starting at 3.15 p.m.

  ‘Where’s room U7?’

  ‘Underwood Building. Ground floor on the right.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Dixon looked over his shoulder as the door closed behind him and saw Phillips examining the timetable, no doubt trying to work out where he was going.

  He arrived outside the classroom just as the lesson was getting under way, knocked and opened the door.

  ‘Come in, Nick. Everyone, this is Mr Dickson, a trainee teacher who’s going to sit in.’

  The whole class watched him as he took a seat at an empty desk at the back of the room, clearly welcoming the interruption. There were far too many of them and they were too young to be studying law A Level so this was going to be another of the head’s general knowledge classes.

  ‘We were talking about crime last time, weren’t we,’ said Hatton. ‘What are the two elements of any crime?’

  A hand went up at the desk in front of Dixon.

  ‘Tom.’

  ‘The actus reus and mens rea, Sir.’

  ‘Good.’

  Dixon watched the headmaster. He appeared distinctly uncomfortable, glancing across at Dixon at regular intervals. Either he was nervous because there was someone in the room who knew far more about the subject than he did, or it was something else altogether.

  ‘What do they mean?’ continued Hatton. ‘Anyone?’ His eyes scanned the room. ‘Yes
, Clare.’

  ‘The act and the mind, Sir.’

  ‘And what do we mean by the mind?’

  ‘Intent, Sir?’ The voice came from the front of the room.

  ‘That’s right. Intent. Someone give me an example.’

  ‘If you hit someone in a car, Sir. You could say it was an accident, then it’s death by dangerous instead of murder.’

  ‘You’ve been watching The Bill again, haven’t you, Craig?’

  Hatton waited for the laughter to subside.

  ‘It’s a good example, though,’ he continued. ‘To prosecute for murder, the Crown would have to prove you intended to kill the victim, drove at him deliberately intending to kill him rather than just injure . . .’

  ‘What about if you slit someone’s throat, Sir?’

  Stunned silence.

  ‘Get out, Welham,’ shouted Hatton.

  Dixon watched the boy get up from his desk and trudge towards the door. His shirt was hanging out and his top button undone. How he got away with that Dixon would never know. He was a scruffy individual, of that there could be no doubt, but maybe he knew something.

  ‘Wait outside and don’t move.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Right, we’ll talk about theft instead, I think,’ said Hatton.

  Dixon waited until the discussion got going again. Then he got up and walked out of the classroom, avoiding eye contact with the headmaster as he went. Welham was sitting on the window ledge opposite, kicking his heels against the wall.

  ‘Welham, is it?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘First name?’

  ‘Richard, Sir.’

  ‘What was that all about, then, Richard?’

  ‘Nothing, Sir.’

  ‘There was a point to your remark. What was it?’

  ‘There wasn’t, Sir.’

  ‘What did you think he was going to do? Give you a gold star?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Dixon took his warrant card out of his pocket.

  ‘Do you know what this is?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Then you are privy to some very important and highly confidential information.’

  Welham nodded.

  ‘Now, you were making a point. What was it?’

  ‘Just rumours, Sir.’

  ‘What rumours?’

  ‘That he was having an affair with a girl at the school.’

  ‘The headmaster?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it was Isobel Swan?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sir. It was just a rumour.’

  ‘When did you hear it?’

  ‘A few days ago.’

  ‘Had you ever heard this rumour before Isobel was murdered?’

  ‘No.’

  Dixon shook his head and sighed. He looked at his watch. It was nearly 4 p.m. and the lesson would be ending within minutes.

  ‘Sounds like schoolboy mischief.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘This little situation you’ve got yourself into is going to end in one of two ways, Richard. Either you go in there and beg for forgiveness or you’re likely to spend your Christmas holidays explaining to your parents why you’ve just been expelled.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘And who do you tell that I’m a police officer?’

  ‘No one, Sir.’

  ‘Good lad.’

  The bell went.

  ‘Right, now get in there and get grovelling.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dixon tore the blue tape off the door frame.

  ‘Should you be do . . . yes, of course you should, sorry,’ said Phillips. ‘Here’s the key. Drop it back down to Mrs Weston in the kitchens when you’ve finished.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Dixon waited until Phillips had gone and then opened the door. Derek Phelps’ room was small and cluttered. There was a single bed, now stripped to the bare mattress, with a bedside table on one side and an armchair on the other. Opposite the end of the bed was a cheap pine wardrobe and then a sink in the corner. Every inch of wall space above the dado rail was covered with Beatles pictures and, in amongst them, Dixon recognised the photo cards and collage poster from the White Album. Originals too, by the looks of it.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and opened the top drawer of the bedside table. There was a pair of Bose headphones, a tube of Bonjela and a new tube of toothpaste that was still in its box, but apart from that nothing except empty sweet wrappers and several packets of paper handkerchiefs. The next drawer down seemed to be the tobacco store. There were several pouches of rolling tobacco, three Zippo lighters and a tin of lighter fluid. Dixon lost count of the packets of red and green Rizlas. Derek Phelps was a man who liked smoking and listening to the Beatles, possibly at the same time; that much was clear.

  The cabinet underneath contained a pair of carpet slippers and, on the shelf, a wooden cigar box. Dixon picked it up and shook it. It was light and felt empty, but he heard a single piece of paper or card rattling around inside it, so he took it out of the cabinet and opened it. Inside he found a single business card. It was a few years old, judging by the state of it, and his logo had changed but there was no mistaking ‘Arnold Davies, Driving Instructor’. Dixon slipped the business card into the top pocket of his jacket before putting the cigar box back in the cabinet.

  He noticed a CD player on the tiled windowsill and pressed the ‘Eject’ button. The lid popped up to reveal Help! so he closed it again, which started the disc spinning. He quickly switched it off at the wall and watched the disc slow back down again, but the song started in his head all the same. Dixon nodded. He needed help, perhaps, but Phelps was way beyond it.

  Dixon was surprised to find that all of Derek’s clothes, apart from one jacket, had been thrown into a large black bin liner, which was sitting in the bottom of the wardrobe. He was tempted to open it but the smell persuaded him that this was not such a good idea. He checked the jacket pockets and found nothing.

  Next, he pulled an obviously empty suitcase off the top of the wardrobe and threw it onto the end of the bed. He unzipped it and checked the elasticated pockets in the base, finding only three old style ten pence pieces, one euro and a pair of tweezers.

  When Dixon reached into the largest pocket in the lid of the suitcase his fingers closed around what he knew to be a single photograph from the feel of the paper. He took it out and stared at it for several seconds before he recognised the man standing in the foreground.

  The photograph had been taken in summer, if the leaves on the trees and the weed in the river were anything to go by, but, more importantly, Clive Cooper was just as Dixon remembered him from St Dunstan’s seventeen years ago, which dated the picture to within a year or two, perhaps. He wondered if Derek Phelps had taken it.

  Cooper was smiling at the camera but Dixon thought it odd he was standing so far away. Maybe photographic composition was not one of Derek’s strong points? He turned it over, hoping for some caption or note on the back, but there was nothing.

  Dixon slid the photograph into his inside jacket pocket, zipped up the suitcase and threw it up onto the top of the wardrobe. Then he locked the door behind him, stuck the blue tape back across the frame and went down to the kitchens to return the key to Mrs Weston.

  The sound of organ music coming from the chapel caught Dixon’s attention as he walked back along the corridor towards the masters’ common room. He stood at the end of the cloisters listening to it for several minutes, wondering whether Derek Phelps had been learning to drive or whether it was something more sinister than that. Why else might he have a business card belonging to Arnold Davies? Jane would need to check. And the photograph. What was the significance of the photograph?

  Dixon heard the sound of keys jangling behind him and looked ro
und to see Robin Phillips locking the door of his chemistry lab. He spotted Dixon straight away.

  ‘Find anything interesting?’

  ‘Nothing much. I dropped the key back to . . .’ Dixon’s voice tailed off when a crowd of boys and girls ran around the corner and down the steps straight towards him. He stepped back just in time as they turned into the cloisters, some of them jumping down the small flight of stone steps in one leap. They drowned out the organ music as they raced along the cloisters towards the chapel.

  ‘What the . . . ?’

  ‘The choir,’ replied Phillips. ‘Evensong’s at 6 p.m.’

  Dixon looked at his watch. It was just after 5.30 p.m.

  ‘You coming?’ asked Phillips.

  ‘I think I will,’ replied Dixon. ‘I’ve not been to a chapel service yet.’

  ‘It’s going to be a Eucharist rather than an evensong, though, with prayers for Derek too.’ Phillips noticed the surprised look on Dixon’s face. ‘Headmaster’s orders. It’ll be the last Communion of the term now that everyone’s going home before Sunday.’

  Dixon nodded. He had not been a regular churchgoer since Fran had disappeared. Births, deaths and marriages only, and there had been precious few of those in the years since her memorial service. He had been warned that his faith would falter and it had. He had not taken Holy Communion since then either.

  ‘I’ll catch you up,’ said Phillips. ‘I’ve just got to nip to the . . . er . . .’

  Dixon walked along the cloisters, sat down at the back of the chapel and switched his phone to silent mode.

  The music teacher, Christopher Nelmes, was still playing the organ, although given that Dixon was the only one listening, he thought it more for practice than anything else. The chancel was a hive of activity with pupils coming and going, filling incense burners and lighting candles. Then the choir appeared from the Lady Chapel all dressed in flowing white robes over red gowns. Dixon could see Father Anthony, wearing white robes and a red stole, reading from notes in the pulpit.

  By the time that Phillips arrived there were fifty or so boys and girls sitting near the front of the chapel. Phillips tapped Dixon on the shoulder.

  ‘Not compulsory, this one, so we tend to sit nearer the front.’