A (Very) Public School Murder

by Parke, Simon;

  There had been plenty of that of late. He knew the worship of weariness when he saw it – and he was having none of it. ‘You’re not here to moan or to slack, counting off the days. You’re here to give the students a bloody good send-off – ’scuse my French!’ The final comment about his French did not go down well with either the language department or the chaplain . . . but he’d made his point. They weren’t tired, and if they felt tired, they still weren’t tired. In fact, anyone who was tired was a wimp.

  But term was now over, with the review team only a weekend away from their own holidays. And to be honest, it was quite fun in a way – ‘like going away to camp,’ someone said. They each slept in recently vacated students’ rooms, ‘to earth the discussion’. Jamie loved his little student room. It reminded him of university and a girl called Lola . . . good memories but different days and not his concern now. ‘Let’s leave the comfort zone of our homes,’ he’d say, ‘and understand what it’s like to be a student here!’

  It was also designed to humble the participants, just in case anyone thought they were superior. They each had to make their own beds – including the head – with the fresh sheets provided, courtesy of the large cupboard on Matron’s Landing. ‘No special measures for me!’ he’d say. He was glad to have a room of his own for a couple of nights . . . making his own bed was a small price to pay.

  *

  The list of those invited to attend had appeared on the common room noticeboard two weeks previously. (And it wasn’t an invitation you refused if you wished for a pay rise . . . and everyone did.) Those chosen were quietly pleased; those not chosen, quietly distressed . . . though the distress did not stay quiet for long, it tended to speak its pain somewhere, in dark mutterings away from Jamie’s ears late at night in the common room bar.

  And this is what the list revealed:

  Those invited to be part of the School Review Team are as follows:

  The Head – Jamie King

  Head’s PA – Jennifer Stiles

  Chaplain – Father Ferdinand Heep

  Director of Wellbeing – Bart Betters

  Director of Girls – Penny Rylands

  Director of Boys – Geoff Ogilvie

  Bursar – Terence Standing

  Head boy – Crispin Caudwell

  Head girl – Holly Hope-Walker

  We will undertake our review of the year on the weekend of 1–3 July. All submissions by those not on the team gratefully received. Honest opinions welcome! Submit to the Head’s PA, Jennifer Stiles, by the final Wednesday of term.

  ‘I’ve been submitting to Jennifer for the last seven years,’ said one depressed teacher who found her to be an impossibly high wall between himself and the head. Her nickname in the common room was ‘Access Denied’ – reduced to an ironic ‘Access’.

  It had been an awkward morning.

  The review weekend was under way but struggling. There had been some get-to-know-you games, which no one had enjoyed. ‘Quite cringe-making’ was the bursar’s assessment, for he wished to know no one here. Why would you want to know anyone at work? And then came the ubiquitous ‘buzz’ groups with the hope of some blue sky thinking. But the sky remained grey for the future of Stormhaven Towers.

  And now it was lunch time on the Saturday and headmaster Jamie King found himself sitting with Geoff Ogilvie, Director of Boys, teacher of chemistry – and a long-standing member of the school leadership team. At fifty-one, he was in his teaching prime; this was what he felt. So why was he uneasy? He’d gone to Exeter University and while he’d been happy enough there, the best of times in many ways, yet thirty years on he hadn’t quite recovered from his failure to get into Oxford . . . where several of his more stupid contemporaries went, people from the right schools, and called ‘Sebastian’ or ‘Torquil’. Geoff hated them, in a way.

  And now Jamie leaned forward with some difficult news for him: Geoff was for the chop – or a sideways move at least, which was the same. When you’re fifty-one, a sideways move is the end of the promotion ladder. From here on, you’re just seeing out your time.

  ‘Geoff, I’m thinking about another role for you,’ he said. These were not words you ever wanted to hear from Jamie. ‘I’m thinking of giving you a break from the firing line for a while. You’ve been taking the bullets for too long. Let someone else feel the sting!’

  ‘I don’t mind the bullets, Headmaster.’

  ‘Someone younger, perhaps.’

  ‘I like being in the firing line.’

  He wanted to make this quite clear.

  ‘Fresh ideas, Geoff.’

  ‘I’m only fifty-one.’

  ‘Exactly. You can’t buy that sort of experience – and I want us to use you in a more wide-ranging portfolio.’

  ‘A more wide-ranging portfolio?’ thought Geoff. In other words, a nothing job with a meaningless title.

  Geoff had sensed danger in the air for some time, like manure caught on the wind; yet when it came, it came from nowhere and without warning . . . and he was stunned to receive the news. Jamie just kept on talking – it was all sorted in his mind apparently. Geoff would be given a swanky new title, the head was good at those; but it didn’t mask the truth that this would be a downwards move – his trajectory from here on, surely?

  ‘I’m fifty-one and it’s all downhill from here, is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Get a grip, Geoff!’ said Jamie, feeling a brief sense of payback for Geoff’s comments about Stormhaven Towers not being Westminster on the Development Day in January.

  But in the end, this wasn’t personal. The head merely wanted a younger man, more energy and equally important – certainly for the bursar – cheaper. Geoff was at the top of his scale and therefore an expensive, as well as a failing figure in Jamie’s eyes. They sat looking out across the well-kept college lawns. Geoff saw the empty years ahead of him and had to express his fears; he’d appeal to the head’s good nature.

  ‘It’s not easy finding a headship in your fifties, Jamie.’

  He’d felt for some time that he should be looking to advance himself, to leave Stormhaven Towers. But he never had, because he was happy doing what he was doing. He’d felt respected and valued. Maurice Stone had listened to him, set great store by his opinions. They’d drunk whisky together, a member of the unofficial inner circle, which every leader gathers. But that meant nothing now . . . was perhaps even part of his downfall. Was he seen as too close to the old guard?

  ‘No, Geoff – but I can’t help that.’

  ‘Or a deputy headship.’

  ‘You won’t get it, no.’ Jamie shook his head sadly. ‘Not a chance in hell. No one wants a head or a deputy in their fifties, not these days.’ Jamie was forty-one – thirty-nine when he was appointed. ‘And you’re not married, of course, Geoff – or not any more.’ He didn’t like to mention it. ‘And single teachers these days . . .’

  There was no need to continue. Geoff remained silent.

  ‘The thing is, Geoff, you sat around for too long drinking Scotch with the old time-server, Maurice – that’s the fact of the matter.’

  ‘I’ve hardly sat around, Jamie!’ The nerve of the man! ‘I’ve worked hard for this school, every hour God sends. I thought we were a team, you and I.’

  ‘And we are a team, Geoff, but every team needs new signings. And this is what football clubs call “the transfer window”.’

  ‘I’m being replaced?’

  ‘The school can’t be a care home for the faint-hearted.’

  Geoff was stunned.

  ‘The faint-hearted? Is that what I am?’

  ‘You never chose to progress, Geoff.’ He turned towards him now, face to face, man to man. ‘Look, no hard feelings – and I don’t want to be the one saying this, but someone has to! You didn’t take that risk. That was a choice you made.’

  It needed to be said. Jamie didn’t feel good saying it, but he had to speak his mind.

  ‘I was just doing a job I liked . . . and did well, as yo
u always said.’

  ‘But you never progressed, Geoff. And if you don’t make the change, then the change makes you.’

  ‘Ah, the deity of change! Not a shrine I worship at, Headmaster.’

  ‘And Holly thought we needed someone younger.’

  It wasn’t the most sensitive of remarks.

  ‘Holly? What the hell does Holly know about it?’

  He very nearly said something stronger. Holly was the retiring head girl and part of the School Review Team . . . and they’d hardly ever met. What right did she have to comment on his leadership qualities?!

  ‘She’s allowed a view, Geoff. Everyone’s allowed a view.’

  ‘I mean, at least ask Crispin – he’s a boy, after all. And I’m Director of Boys.’

  ‘Crispin is stupid, Geoff – affable, sporty and stupid. He’ll probably end up in the City.’

  Geoff was in turmoil, unsure what exactly had happened in the last five minutes.

  ‘It’s as though I suddenly don’t know you, Jamie.’

  ‘You’ve just got to wake up and smell the coffee, Geoff.’

  Geoff hated that phrase. What coffee should he be smelling? And who said he was asleep?

  The head did not rate

  Bart Betters either. He was the useless Director of Wellbeing – but how to remove him? It wouldn’t be easy.

  ‘What in God’s name is a Director of Wellbeing?’ had been his first reaction on taking the job. What was the school doing wasting its money on a post like that? Since then, his opinion of Bart had slipped further down the slope of regard. Bart believed everything could be solved by a walk in the forest or building a tree hut – a re-engagement with some version of ancient England that had only ever existed in his imagination. Had he forgotten how murderous everyone was in the fourteenth century? It wasn’t all woodcraft, flower circles and mindful breathing in the merry month of May. But Jamie had to be careful. The Chair of Governors, Sir Digby Cork, had been key in Bart’s appointment, believing it put them ahead of local rivals.

  ‘A Director of Wellbeing, Jamie!’ Digby had said at one governors’ meeting, when they both held a large gin in their hands. ‘It has a certain cachet, don’t you think?’

  ‘If by that you mean a wild waste of money, then I agree entirely, Sir Digby.’

  He had said it with a hearty grin, a loud laugh – and a body swamped with frustration at this absurd waste of a salary. A Director of Wellbeing? Why didn’t his staff just grow a chin? And did the students really benefit from a nanny figure running breathing courses? Breathing courses, for God’s sake! Weren’t they breathing already?

  And now, with the term over, here was Father Ferdinand, the school chaplain, complaining about Bart. Jamie looked at him as he spoke: balding, meticulous and trapped inside his dog collar.

  ‘I’m concerned about our Director of Wellbeing,’ said Father Ferdinand Heep, in a voice of mannered concern.

  ‘You mean you’re furious?’ said Jamie. If the Church said it was concerned, it usually meant it was furious – but didn’t like to say. Jamie would pacify him: ‘Look, Father – it’s just a job for a teacher who can’t teach, we all know that.’

  ‘You show insight, Headmaster, but will that lead to action?’

  ‘I think Maurice employed him as a favour to a friend – and in some misguided bid to be modern, knowing full well he wouldn’t have to live with the consequences. Devious old soldier.’

  They were standing by the coffee machine between afternoon sessions, and the chaplain was pressing the head about his own position in the school. He wanted it clearly established that the chaplain was more senior than ‘the Wellbeing fellow’. Ferdinand felt it was high time for action with regard to the whole wellbeing thing. The head needed to declare his hand on this one, with no more dithering. Stormhaven Towers was a Christian foundation, after all – not some Buddhist outpost on the south coast, worshipping the questionable god of mindfulness. Oh, and why couldn’t he be a Director of something as well? Everyone else was a Director of something! This was another matter Father Heep wished to raise. Did ‘chaplain’ adequately reflect his status in the school? He thought not . . . and felt now was the time to make a stand. His confirmation classes – surely the ultimate barometer of the health of the school? – were getting smaller and he felt Bart Betters was to blame.

  ‘This is a Christian foundation, Headmaster.’

  ‘I know, Ferdinand, I know . . . but the truth is, there are other interests in the matter.’

  ‘Interests other than God’s?’

  Give it to him straight, thought Ferdinand – but the head eased past the lunge and offered another in return.

  ‘Well – not everyone’s as keen on the chapel as you are, Father. Changing times and all that.’

  ‘Changing times?’

  ‘It may have started out as a school for the children of impoverished clergy – but it sure as hell isn’t that now!’

  Unfortunate phrasing, but he’d made his point.

  ‘Perhaps it’s the thirty thousand pounds a year fees that put them off,’ said Ferdinand drily.

  ‘We have to pay for your large house somehow, Chaplain.’

  Touché.

  ‘Your tone was a little different in the interview, Headmaster,’ said the chaplain, slyly.

  And it was true, he hadn’t said these things in the lengthy interview process. Spread over four days, it had been something of an endurance event. He’d met pupils, staff and governors in various settings; taken lessons, given a PowerPoint presentation on his vision for the school. They’d wanted to meet Cressida who, to be honest, had been pretty magnificent. And he had endured a one-to-one interview with the chaplain, Ferdinand, when he’d spoken all kinds of nonsense to get the priest on board.

  But nonsense and editing are a key part of any interview. You say whatever they want to hear – and edit out what they don’t. You do everything you need to do to get your hands on the wheel of power. And only when your hands are there do you reach down into the weapons box and wield the axe. Ferdinand Heep had had his moment of power over Jamie. He wouldn’t get another.

  But removing the chaff hadn’t proved such a simple task for Jamie. During his first eighteen months in post, the axe remained in storage, unbloodied and unused; both Ferdinand and Bart remained in senior management positions, imagining themselves important – each clamouring for authority over the other.

  And then, as the afternoon session approached, Jamie perhaps went too far and declared too much of his hand to the chaplain. For when Ferdinand continued to press him about Bart – more mannered concern – his frustration spilled out. He’d put this stupid priest in his place.

  ‘If it was up to me, Ferdinand,’ he said, leaning closer to him, smelling the common room coffee on his incense breath, ‘I’d get rid of you both.’

  At that moment, head girl Holly Hope-Walker walked past them, looking demure, her blonde hair carelessly falling over her shoulders. She wore a Stormhaven Towers tracksuit, blue and gold – and looked stunning.

  ‘Hello, Father Heep!’ she said, in a manner too suggestive for her years.

  ‘Hello, Holly.’

  Heep seemed nervous. Why was he nervous?

  ‘Taking the headmaster’s confession, are you?’ she asked. ‘That would be interesting!’

  Jamie laughed heartily and said: ‘Eternity’s too short!’

  ‘Though not as interesting as your confession, Father!’ she added. ‘We’d all love to hear a priest’s confession. Where would you begin?’

  ‘We are as everyone else, Holly,’ said Heep with careful humility. ‘Sinners all.’

  ‘Well, I know that, Father – I was just wondering if everyone else did!’

  She laughed teasingly and moved on.

  ‘Confident girl,’ said Jamie. ‘I wish I’d had a little more of that at her age.’

  ‘It’s not always a virtue, Headmaster,’ said the chaplain, primly. He had his own views on Holly.

 
; ‘And of course dangerously attractive, eh?’ She was eighteen and leaving the school – so Jamie could admit these things now. ‘But then I don’t suppose priests can allow themselves such thoughts.’

  Ferdinand made no reply.

  ‘You’re not gay, are you, Ferdy?’ asked the head, in something of a whisper . . . and the chaplain’s face filled with shock . . . or fear? ‘Well, don’t look so surprised! I mean, I wouldn’t mind. And a lot of you are, aren’t you?’ It seemed every other clergyman was gay in this part of the world. ‘Or is there a secret woman somewhere, someone you keep hidden away from public view?’

  On these review weekends, the head went casual. Term time found him in a suit, tie and shiny shoes. But he could dress down and did so now: sailing jumper and beige chinos, soft sole suede shoes; and with casual dress came more casual conversation, the chaplain had noticed. This was not a chat he would have had with the head a week ago, when the 570 pupils were still around, scurrying through the dark corridors of Stormhaven Towers – while earning the school such vast sums every year. Where do people find thirty thousand pounds to spend on a year’s education? he often wondered. He’d never earned that sum in a year – let alone have it to spend on a child.

  ‘Married to the Church,’ said Ferdinand, attempting to close the conversation down.

  ‘Yes, I’ve always wondered what that means,’ said Jamie, ‘what with all those court cases – you know the ones I mean . . .’

  Penny Rylands was Director of Girls

  and had been for five successful years, this was the feeling. She was also head of the English department, or ‘Head of Poetry’ as Geoff called it. So she’d come a long way but she wanted more. In the long term, she wanted the headship; but in the short term, Geoff’s job would do.

  ‘If Geoff’s going, then it makes sense,’ she said to Jamie as they walked in the front quadrangle, known as ‘The Uppers’.