A (Very) Public School Murder

by Parke, Simon;

  ‘Where’s Geoff going?’

  ‘I mean, being sidelined.’

  Jamie took this in.

  ‘You’re very well informed, Penny. You didn’t get that from the dull poems of T. S. Eliot. Does anyone have a clue what he’s on about?’

  More importantly, how did Penny know about Geoff’s impending demotion? He hadn’t told anyone. He looked at her again. She was an excellent teacher, of course, and a peroxide blonde who could sometimes look a little like Myra Hindley . . . which was unfortunate. He didn’t mention this to her; it wouldn’t have played out well. He did sometimes call her ‘Myra’, but only with Jennifer or Cressida.

  ‘No secrets in this place, Jamie,’ said Penny. ‘I know everything.’

  ‘So it seems,’ he said and felt discomfort as if his life was under scrutiny. He didn’t like the idea of there being no secrets, of Penny possessing a window into his life.

  They strolled in the late afternoon sun, before the final session of the day.

  ‘You won’t be here forever, Jamie,’ said Penny.

  ‘I beg your pardon? I plan to live for a while, you know!’

  ‘I’m talking about the headhunters.’

  ‘What headhunters?’

  ‘Bigger schools, better schools, more prestigious schools – this isn’t Westminster, as you made very plain in January.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ said Jamie, laughing. And one glance across at the crumbling art block reminded him of the fact.

  ‘I know they’ve been knocking on your door already – you know, the heavyweights.’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Penny,’ he said with an enigmatic look. He liked the idea of the heavyweights knocking on his door. Perhaps that would make Cressida think differently about him, for a start.

  ‘I think you do, Jamie. I think you know very well. And when the time comes, the right time for you – I mean, I’m in no hurry.’

  ‘Hurry for what?’

  ‘But whether it’s Marlborough, Winchester, Harrow who take you away – they’re all possible – I want to succeed you here.’

  ‘You want to be head of Stormhaven Towers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jamie didn’t know how to react, though he knew he was instinctively against the idea.

  ‘Does that offend you?’ she asked.

  ‘Not at all.’ It did offend him. He could feel the hackles on the back of his neck rising. ‘I like you and your ambition, Penny, you know that.’

  And he did like Penny and her ambition; no harm in chasing the crown, something to be admired. She’d make a good head somewhere – but perhaps not at Stormhaven Towers. Promotion from within could be tricky in schools, he’d seen it fracture common rooms. And whisper it quietly, but not everyone on the governing body wanted a woman. How would that play abroad, for instance? Would the Russians want a woman? And Dubai? And then again, did he want a woman? If she was a success, that would cloud his own legacy in the school, with ‘female power’ grabbing the headlines, saving the day and so on.

  ‘So, support me,’ said Penny, decisively. ‘Make me your deputy, with the Director of Girls and Boys posts rolled into one. Make me next in line.’

  ‘I can’t anoint you, Penny!’

  ‘You can in a way, Jamie. It’s in your power.’

  They arrived at the chapel door and Jamie felt a sudden desire to go inside.

  ‘Fancy some holy quiet?’ he said. ‘Or at least quiet – we can take or leave the holy!’ That was another line he hadn’t used at interview.

  ‘Why not?’ said Penny.

  Jamie pushed at the large wooden door which swung slowly back. They stepped inside the high-ceilinged Gothic interior . . . acres of still space above them.

  ‘It has its own power,’ said Jamie.

  Carved stalls surrounded them as they stood still for a moment – seats for the great and good, while in the middle, endless rows of wooden chairs for the pupils. Old war flags hanging from the walls, the smell of hymn books and incense . . . and a long way away, up at the altar rail, a familiar figure lying prostrate on the floor.

  ‘Now there’s a surprise,’ said Jamie, genuinely shocked.

  ‘Is that Terence?’ said Penny.

  Terence Standing was the bursar and she’d never seen him like this. He was always so organized in every way, financially and emotionally . . . life an exact equation. But this figure, though some distance away, was clearly sobbing.

  ‘I believe it is,’ said Jamie. ‘Not normally one for the high church stuff. He must be in real trouble with God!’

  Terence was a well-known fundamentalist of the evangelical persuasion. He was not given to incense or talk of the Virgin Mary, whom Ferdinand mentioned quite as much as Jesus . . . if not more. ‘You just need God’s word!’ Terence would say to anyone who asked, which wasn’t many. And not for him the lofty cathedral architecture and grand altar. He’d go to church on Sunday in what was little more than a tin hut in a field, near the quaint village of Barcombe.

  ‘Well, just so long as he’s not embezzling the school’s money,’ said Penny.

  But the sound of weeping in the empty chapel, the guttural sobbing, was unsettling.

  ‘When men cry, they really cry, eh?’ said Jamie awkwardly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Penny, who, though unmarried, knew all about men’s tears.

  There was another pause. Jamie looked at his shoes.

  ‘So?’ said Penny finally. She’d had enough of the drama at the altar. She needed to know about her future here; and Jamie knew this was decision time, knew that he’d have to tell her.

  ‘Penny, I’ll support you as much as I can, of course I will.’

  ‘I sense a “but”.’

  ‘And you’ll make a fine head – a very fine head, I’ve always thought that.’

  Not wishing to disturb Terence’s obvious anguish, they’d stayed near the door, sitting alongside each other, gazing heavenwards at a stained-glass window of some saint or other.

  ‘But?’ said Penny.

  ‘But, well, should it be here, at Stormhaven Towers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s my only question. Does it have to be Stormhaven Towers?’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘Is that what will be best for you?’

  ‘It is, yes. I want it to be here.’ She was quite sure and Jamie recognized that determined look – just not on her face, which was strange.

  ‘What’s so special about this place, Penny? There are plenty of other schools – schools less lumbered with mausoleums like the one we sit in now. Don’t you hate the smell of hymn books?’

  ‘I’ve known worse.’

  She’d known much worse; she’d known the breath of an alcoholic before the violence began . . . the violence of a man who’d lost his way and knew only how to destroy those closest to him. She couldn’t help him now. He still hurt others from the grave, the dead do this – but she couldn’t help him. All she could do was try to put things right, and this Jenny was determined to do. There was a pause, like a break between rounds. They both looked straight ahead.

  ‘I don’t know if I believe in God,’ said Jamie. ‘I can’t say for sure – but the one place I never find him is here.’

  He gesticulated around him, wanting to make his point . . . but Penny felt only anger rising.

  ‘I want to be head of Stormhaven Towers,’ she said, voice raised. ‘That’s all I want to say – and you’re either for me or against me.’ She then rose to her feet and brushed her skirt, as if covered in crumbs. She looked down at the headmaster, who remained seated.

  ‘Then I’m against you,’ he said, his voice raised in return. If she wanted a battle . . .

  ‘Against me?’

  ‘I’m against you!’ He felt discomfort; he liked Penny, had no wish to fall out with her. But she must see her desire was an unworkable plan. ‘What can I say, Penny? I can’t lie – we’re in a church, for God’s sake!’

  ‘I sense my dete
ctive days are done,’

  said the monk – though he wasn’t a monk, not now. These were different days, even if he had kept the habit.

  The woman next to him on the stony beach smiled but said nothing. She was a striking thirty-something – dark haired, olive-skinned, thirty years younger than her companion . . . and a police inspector, for her sins.

  ‘Well – are they done?’ he persisted. ‘My detective days?’

  ‘I can’t promise you anything,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not begging,’ he replied, pulling back now, feeling patronized.

  ‘Sounds like begging to me,’ she said, looking out on the green sea – but without enjoyment. People did go on about the sea . . . about how healing it was to stare out into the watery expanse. But to Tamsin, it was very similar to land – just a bit emptier, which wasn’t a good thing. Empty wasn’t good for Tamsin.

  And he was begging – passive begging, Peter could see this. He was formerly Abbot Peter of the Monastery of St James-the-Less in Middle Egypt, just along from Mount Sinai. But life had brought him by strange chance to retirement in Stormhaven, on England’s south coast. This hadn’t been his idea and whether it was a good one was still open to question. It was a town famous for its white cliffs – the Seven Sisters stretched majestically towards Eastbourne. It was also quite well known for its profound dislike of tourists.

  ‘We’re a town by the sea, not a seaside town,’ as one local put it, soon after his arrival from the desert. There was only one hotel, hidden away, with a few discreet and choosy B&Bs . . . because Stormhaven liked to keep itself to itself. Let Prague – or Blackpool – clear up the sick after the hen parties, the stag dos and ‘I’m divorced!’ weekends . . .

  ‘I was pretty good,’ said Peter. ‘I mean, I was a good detective.’ He was now in his mid-sixties but a keen runner along the South Downs Way and lean in both body and thought.

  ‘I’ve had worse partners,’ said Tamsin nibbling a tasteless cheese roll, provided by the abbot. This would hardly have been her choice of picnic fare. Had the monk not heard of Waitrose? This cheese roll would not have got through their door . . .

  They sat together on the shingle beach of Tide Mills, just along from Stormhaven – and for Tamsin, it took the biscuit for desolate settings.

  ‘Wonderful, isn’t it?’ Peter had said and she hadn’t replied.

  Tide Mills was famous in the area, unaccountably so in Tamsin’s eyes. It was formerly a mill village, using tidal power – but abandoned in 1939 when the workers’ cottages were declared uninhabitable. Only the haunted ruins now remained, offering shelter from the wind but not the rain. And perhaps a metaphor for Peter’s life? The thought had crossed his mind as they carried their picnic to the shingle beach. A haunted ruin of some historical interest – but destined only for slow, remorseless decay.

  And if the truth be known, and occasionally it is, Peter had been a very good partner to Tamsin in the police business. He’d proved himself more than useful in recent investigations, he was quite sure of that. And how had he got the chance? Through the ‘Special Witness’ scheme. It was an idea currently being trialled by the Sussex police force, ‘to promote a more earthed and insightful investigation’, as Tamsin had once told him. She described the matter in a strangely neutral fashion, as if it was nothing to do with her – presumably in case it failed. ‘As part of an experiment, a member of the public who is recognized as a trusted citizen of the affected community can now be brought in to assist the police.’

  ‘A trusted citizen?’

  ‘Their words, not mine.’

  ‘Still, I’ll take the scraps of approval.’

  In some ways, Peter was the father she’d never had and the father she still wished to punish.

  ‘The special witness is involved in all aspects of the case,’ she continued, ‘kept fully informed of developments and works closely with the leading officer in the enquiry.’

  And so it had been. He had worked closely with the leading officer – DI Tamsin Shah – and the abbot had enjoyed the adventures, if not the terror they brought with them. But that was then . . . and the cases now appeared to have dried up like seaweed too long in the sun. They hadn’t worked together for over a year and as Peter had said to a neighbour recently: ‘We don’t always know when we’ve been sacked. The awareness creeps up on us slowly and uncertainly.’ And so it had been with his detective career.

  ‘The fact is, Peter,’ said Tamsin, grasping the nettle, ‘it’s not everyone who wants a monk on the crime scene.’ Peter nodded. ‘Comments get made.’

  Chief Inspector Wonder, her boss, had certainly made them when he first heard of their partnership. He’d asked someone to remind him which century they were in.

  ‘And how is our dear king, Henry III – bearing up, I hope?’

  They’d all laughed at that back at the nick.

  ‘But what about you, Tamsin?’ asked Peter, seeking the more crucial truth. ‘How do you feel about a monk on the crime scene?’

  ‘How do I feel?’

  She could never answer that question. Feeling was not a close friend.

  ‘Do you want a monk on the crime scene?’

  ‘Any old monk – or a monk of my choice? And there’s a phrase I never imagined myself using.’

  ‘Stop avoiding the question.’

  He accepted the predicament she referred to, however; it had the bleak ring of truth. He was being judged for his clothes – for while he’d given up many things since leaving the desert, his monk’s habit wasn’t one of them. It kept life simple, no tedious trying on of outfits in godforsaken clothes shops.

  ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover,’ he said, trying to regroup.

  ‘Is there another way?’

  ‘I was useful, Tamsin, you know I was useful.’ And now he looked out towards Newhaven and the incoming ferry, gliding silently through the sea. It was this very ship, the Seven Sisters, which had brought him to these shores . . . the last leg in his journey from the desert. So a last link with the big sand . . . and a first link with Stormhaven. Was he grateful or sad as he watched it enter the embrace of the harbour walls?

  He’d previously helped Tamsin on three cases: the first was a nasty crucifixion – well, there was never a pleasant one – at St Michael’s. The vicar had been nailed up in the vestry. The second was a vicious murder at Henry House, a local therapy centre and the third, a killing onstage at Stormhaven’s Bell Theatre – with both Tamsin and himself in the audience. The theatre business he’d solved single-handedly, there was no question about that. Tamsin had been in psychological meltdown. And all three cases had involved him in a high degree of personal risk. He didn’t want a medal, that wasn’t the desert way, but some appreciation would be nice . . . so really he did want a medal. DI Shah, however, did not major in appreciation. She offered her staff the motivational sandwich of praise–blame–praise, without the praise.

  And so things had drifted between them, for it was work that brought them together. And that might have been that, between Tamsin and himself. Peter placed solitude above relationship. But a further surprise on leaving the desert was the discovery of a previously unknown relation. The police inspector he now sat with in a brisk south-westerly wind was his niece; and this was why they were sharing a cheese roll. With relatives so thin on the ground, Peter attempted to maintain at least annual contact – even if his detective days were gone.

  And yes, that thought did sadden him . . .

  ‘We each have one wish

  for the school,’ said Jamie King, the headmaster. ‘So what is it? What’s our one wish, our vision, for Stormhaven Towers? A good question, eh?’

  They’d all enjoyed a drink or two from the common room bar. This included the head boy and head girl, Crispin and Holly, for term was over, they were adults now and with the review weekend out of the way, they’d be off into the big wide world. Crispin had enjoyed a beer and Holly, a gin and tonic. For Jamie King, it was strange to see this young
woman standing there, in the common room, with a drink in her hand. It was a coming of age – though she remained in her Stormhaven Towers tracksuit.

  ‘You’ve come a long way,’ said Jamie, moving towards her and placing a fatherly hand on her shoulder. This made Holly flinch slightly and he pulled back.

  ‘It’s Stormhaven Towers that has enabled that,’ said Holly, smiling again. ‘I’ll always remember the place fondly. I’ve learned so much.’

  And she had learned much, though not perhaps from the traditional curriculum; she’d learned how to survive – and how to earn.

  ‘Boarding school teaches the art of survival,’ said Jamie, briskly. ‘You learn to use the rules to your advantage. You discover where others are weak and you use their weakness to make yourself strong.’

  ‘Er, yes,’ said Holly, blushing a little.

  ‘I’m glad you’ll remember us fondly,’ Jamie had said. ‘And the place will always remember you fondly, Holly!’ He would certainly remember her fondly and the apple blossom scent of her hair.

  ‘So our one wish for the school?’ he asked, once they were all seated. ‘Serious or outlandish, they all count!’

  ‘Be careful what you wish for, Headmaster,’ said Geoff.

  ‘And keep it snappy, all right? We don’t want the Ten Commandments or anything!’ said Jamie, making sure he didn’t catch the chaplain’s eye. ‘And if I’m to get the ball rolling – which is what I’m paid to do – I’d just echo the strapline on our school publicity: Excellence by the sea. That’s my wish for Stormhaven Towers: Excellence by the sea! And it’s my role to drive excellence . . . and to give the last rites to anything less than that!’ Short and sweet, he decided to leave it there. He’d dropped the bomb he wished to drop. ‘Holly, how about you?’

  They were sitting in a circle of chairs in the common room, where generations of teachers had gathered to sulk, gossip or seek the safety of a newspaper between lessons. The savagery of teenagers – and the scrutiny of their pushy parents – was not borne easily by all. Students, of course, were never allowed in here, this was not their space – it was almost mythical ground. So Holly had never entered the common room before; but if she felt ill at ease, it didn’t show.