A (Very) Public School Murder

by Parke, Simon;

  And then he walked on, in a careless, carefree manner, as if aware he was being watched, playing to the audience a little until he reached Matron’s Landing, where suddenly, and quite inexplicably, he disappeared. Peter pulled up in surprise. Where had the ghost gone? He stood still for a moment, waiting for his reappearance. Was this some game or trick? But there was nothing, just the gentle wind in the trees outside, a dog barking across the fields . . . and Peter’s beating heart. He walked on, up three steps and onto the landing – Matron’s Landing, from where he had collected his fresh sheets. Peter looked around. Only two doors led off the landing and both had been in vision when the ghost had evaporated from view. So where had he gone? There was the large wooden wardrobe, quite unlike any other wardrobe he’d ever seen. It was almost a room in its storage capacity: two large doors and then a separate door to the side – a side cupboard, presumably. And then beside the wardrobe, a curtain. Was this where the ghost had escaped? Peter approached quietly, paused for a moment, then – heart pumping – took hold of the curtain and firmly pulled it back.

  It was a cleaning cupboard for brooms, dust pans, furniture polish and bleach. The abbot breathed a sigh of relief and disappointment, closed the curtains and looked around. Again the question: how could he disappear like that? Ghosts walked through walls but this was no ghost, this was human – one requiring a more conventional exit. Peter looked up at the timber-beamed ceiling and then again at the wardrobe. He stepped forward and opened its two large doors but found only what he expected to find – sheets, pillow cases, towels. And, above a shelf to the left, a little sign in red felt tip saying ‘emergency pyjamas’. Matron was ready for anything . . .

  So where was the ghost? Peter sat down on a fine wooden seat, almost a throne, as one might have found in a Tudor manor – placed at the end of the table, where his Lordship sat to eat, drink and watch the after-dinner fools juggle and jest. Only tonight, Peter was the fool, missing something which was staring him in the face – but what . . . and where?

  He thought of Okahito. He counted down from ten to one, visualizing the numbers. The number one, when he reached it, appeared hollowed out, as a narrow gate. A narrow gate . . . Peter looked again at the wardrobe – but he’d checked the wardrobe, the main doors at least. Not the side door, which was a narrow gate – but presumably another cupboard. He would check it – and he felt a fool, for it was quite clearly a wardrobe. But he would check it anyway and wait for ‘emergency duvets’ or the like to fall on his head. But nothing fell on his head as he opened the side door in the wardrobe. Inside were no shelves but a small windowless porch. Beyond the porch was a curtain, where there should have been the back of the wardrobe. Peter stepped through the door, reached forward, took hold of the curtain and eased it back. He looked into the gloom, seeing nothing. He closed the wardrobe door behind him to allow his eyes to adapt to a world without light. He stood now in an enclosed space, three feet square, a cave of his own choosing. He listened to his breathing, stepped forward and out of the gloom there appeared a staircase . . . a small wooden staircase.

  I think I would have preferred Narnia, he thought. But he shuffled quietly forward – he could hardly go back – and placed a foot on the bottom step. Was it solid? It seemed solid enough and so began the climb, one creaking step after another, slowly upwards until ahead of him, he could see a door . . . a door, perhaps seven or eight steps away. Where was he now? Matron’s Landing and the smell of fresh linen seemed a long way back, another country, as he reached the top. Would he knock at this strange portal – or push it open and enter? He knocked, three firm strikes and the response was almost immediate.

  ‘Come!’ said the voice . . . and so Peter stepped inside.

  ‘What kept you?’

  asked the ghost, with slight puzzlement. He sat in a room of satin and silk; a room of greys, whites and the occasional pink in a picture, flower or vase. ‘My name is Benedict,’ he said standing up to shake Peter’s hand. ‘Benedict Bleake. Can you see the likeness?’

  ‘Peter,’ said the abbot, because he couldn’t think of what else to say. The light was suddenly bright and the surroundings ornate, with the smell of patchouli.

  ‘Please, have a seat,’ said Benedict – the ghost’s white make-up still in evidence . . . like a clown who hasn’t had time to wash. ‘You will share a whisky with me?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Peter, aware that his arrival was no surprise.

  ‘Ice?’

  It felt like a test of his manhood.

  ‘No ice,’ he said.

  ‘I do not approve of making things easy,’ said Benedict, handing Peter a glass of Scotch. ‘We must never make things easy for the young. Struggle is good. But you passed the little test . . . eventually! Had I known how long you’d be, though, I’d have washed off the make-up. Just a little fun, of course . . . the rumour of a ghost suits me, deflects attention.’

  ‘I had heard of you,’ said Peter, settling a little and enjoying the inner warmth of the whisky.

  ‘You’d heard of the ghost, no doubt.’

  ‘No, the flesh-and-blood version.’

  ‘Oh? Well, there can be only one blabbermouth responsible – the terrible Terence!’ Peter didn’t respond. ‘I saw you by the clock, by the way. The grandfather clock – you were hiding there when I was chatting with the boss.’

  Peter acknowledged the news with a silent look of ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘You stood out like a sore thumb, my dear.’

  This was humiliating news, despite Benedict’s bonhomie – or perhaps because of it. There was a growing sense he was this man’s evening entertainment, an upgrade on the soap operas available.

  ‘The monk behind the clock!’ said Benedict, with delight. ‘Sounds like the name of a children’s book, doesn’t it?’ Peter nodded. ‘The monk behind the clock! How strange, I thought. And how delicious!’

  ‘Well, I didn’t come here to be delicious, Benedict.’

  He was struggling for control of the situation, like a man trying to pull down a vast balloon blowing wildly in the wind.

  ‘I know, I know! And that’s what makes it all the more delicious! You came as “Abbot Earnest”, intent on finding the murderer.’

  ‘Or murderers.’

  ‘Quite, quite, nothing can be ruled out – not by you at least.’

  ‘And by you?’

  Benedict smiled and his white face cracked a little.

  ‘The monk behind the clock,’ he said, still amused. ‘There’s a line I never thought I’d say!’ The bonhomie was beginning to fade, however, the energy of welcome dissipating. ‘You do know that you’re the first to climb those stairs – apart from myself – for the last ten years?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, that’s not quite true – we have had one visitor recently.’

  ‘Terence?’

  ‘This is not a kiss-and-tell, Peter! Civilized folk discuss ideas – not people.’

  ‘Ideas don’t commit murder.’

  ‘Well, you say that, Abbot – but of course that’s precisely what ideas do. Ideas are always committing murder! They place the thoughts in people’s heads which become murder. It’s the ideas that really wield the knife. Or, in this case, make that push’ – he enacted a push – ‘or rub the poison into the wound.’

  ‘You’re very well-informed,’ said Peter.

  ‘Thank you!’

  ‘Almost revealingly so.’

  ‘Thank you again!’

  They both took a further sip of the whisky.

  ‘So what do you do here, Benedict? In the school, I mean – and this is a magnificent room, by the way.’

  ‘It’s called taste, I suppose,’ he said, getting up from his seat and striking a pose by the mantelpiece. ‘And what do I do here? Well, I live here, it’s my home – my birthright, so to speak.’

  ‘You mean, because of your relationship with the founder?’

  Was he understanding this correctly?

  ‘Since my
great-great-great-great-whatever grandfather founded the school, there has always been a place for a member of the family . . . however much the school may dislike the idea.’

  ‘They don’t want you here?’

  ‘They hate it! Positively hate it! I’m as popular as a slug at the Chelsea Flower Show! They probably want my lovely rooms for some awful IT unit – or staff accommodation.’

  ‘But they can’t have it . . . because it’s your birthright.’

  ‘I was fortunate enough to make a tidy sum of money early in life, working for a rather large company. Complete luck, of course. Making money is all about luck. And I was able to leave rather royally – an indecent pay-off really – and run my own little business from home. Medical supplies, certain drugs sold under licence, Eastern Europe mainly. And when poor Uncle Colin died – most unfortunate, and still something of a mystery – this delightful accommodation became available. All very suitable . . . I heard my forefathers calling me in the night.’ Peter smiled. ‘So welcome to the virtual offices of “BenBleake Cures”!’

  The abbot pondered the authenticity of Benedict’s delight – and found his mind read rather easily.

  ‘Of course, I hate this place,’ he said. ‘But I love it as well. I love its past – and hate its present. Is that ambivalent enough for you? Like a man who loves his wife as she was – but not as she is. A little like Jamie, really.’

  Was that true?

  ‘And could the hate make you kill?’ asked Peter.

  Benedict looked at him surprised, bemused . . . as though Peter was an idiot.

  ‘Can we keep the conversation sensible, Abbot? I don’t have energy for the ridiculous.’

  Peter smiled, he couldn’t help it, almost a laugh really – and changed tack.

  ‘Do you know any of the school staff?’ he asked.

  ‘The staff? Why would I wish to know any of them? They don’t even know I’m here. It’s not public knowledge, you know – indeed, it’s blessedly secret, as you discovered in trying to find me. The side door – my door – is usually locked. It was only left open for you. And of course there’s a back stairs, the servants stairs, out of the building – so I can move quite freely. And if anyone asks who I am, I say I’m a schools inspector – I have a little identity card, great fun it is. They’re always most polite after that.’

  ‘It’s a slightly leaky secret.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Terence knows you’re here.’

  ‘He’s the bursar – so of course he would.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘He was a bit of a busybody on my arrival, as people sometimes are . . . makes them feel worthwhile for a moment, making their mark. And Terence, bless him, wasn’t keen on my rent-free status, which is apparently still recorded each year in the books – like some niggling slight the school must live with. So yes, we met – but it was all sorted quite amicably.’

  ‘He backed down.’

  ‘I simply showed him the deeds, Abbot; it wasn’t a discussion after that. Another little pen-wielding bastard overestimating his cleverness.’

  ‘Do you meet many of those?’

  ‘I have done in my time . . . only doing his job, of course, so no hard feelings.’

  ‘I can see,’ said Peter, attempting sarcasm. But it was a wasted attempt. Benedict was too smooth and sure for anything like that to stick. ‘So who would want to kill Jamie?’

  ‘Who would want to? Or who did? The first list might be a little longer.’

  ‘Do you know who killed Jamie?’

  ‘Of course I know!’ He had Peter’s attention. ‘Do you really think I don’t know everything that happens in this place?’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘I listen to the walls, Abbot, listen with my hands, speak with the corridors after dark – a building cannot lie any more than the human body can lie. And I pass it all on.’

  ‘To who?’

  ‘To Nathaniel, of course, as I believe you heard tonight; a man who had the grace to found this place – though he heartily regrets it now, no doubt.’

  ‘He’s told you.’

  ‘Look in his sad face and tell me it isn’t so. Stand on those stairs and look in his face! He becomes more traumatized by the year, watching his child in the hands of such cultural pirates. They live under such terrible pressure, of course.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The staff – such pressure to perform! I really do feel sorry for the dears. No, really! I mean, they’re all quite spineless, so they deserve whatever they get. But staff – well, staff in a school should be encouraged to be, not perform.’

  ‘How very mystical.’

  ‘It’s not mystical, my dear, it’s common sense. Otherwise what sort of model do they offer? The school baptizes the rat race with these Johnny-come-lately parents muscling in on privilege – all very distasteful, flashing their cash and their large 4x4s. They really are the most repulsive of souls . . .’

  ‘Privilege should be kept for the privileged?’

  ‘Private education, Abbot, is for those who wish their children taken off their hands. That’s the truth of the matter. One can hardly expect such parents to be especially interested in their offspring – apart from as some extension of their entitlement-encrusted egos.’

  Peter was taken aback by the force of the rage. He spoke with a passion which suggested more than mere love of debate.

  ‘And are you such a child – or such a father?’

  ‘Do you know something, Abbot?’ Peter’s eyebrows rose in expectation. ‘The staff here must reply to parents within six hours of receiving a complaint or a query. Six hours! Or to put it another way, they must bow and grovel within six hours of receiving a complaint . . . or face the consequences! There are a lot of casualties, you know.’

  ‘And HR?’

  Benedict laughed in derision.

  ‘The purpose of HR in Stormhaven Towers is to sack the right people at the right time, with minimum disruption and come-back.’

  ‘You do not have a high opinion of HR here.’

  ‘Thirty grand per annum buys you a very servile management, my friend – one whose only question to the parents is this: “At what temperature would you like your staff roasted?”’

  Benedict looked smug, satisfied with his performance . . . as if all had been said and there was nothing to add. But there was much to add from where Peter sat.

  ‘So you do know the killer?’

  ‘Do I know the killer?’

  And now he looked sad.

  ‘Unfortunately, they’re having an affair with an undesirable,’ he said.

  ‘An undesirable?’

  ‘Well, desirable perhaps, attractive in a manner – but unwise, shall we say. And it’s made things rather messy. So sad . . .’

  ‘So who is the killer?’ asked Peter.

  ‘I think that’s enough for tonight, Abbot. But so good to meet you at last!’

  ACT TWO

  They sat, each with a strong coffee

  in hand. The early morning light danced through the window; it was six o’clock. They’d agreed to rise with the lark to review the case . . . though conversation was struggling to flow.

  ‘Stupid o’clock,’ said Tamsin, who’d not had time to put her face on. She felt undressed . . . but it was only the abbot. She didn’t dress for the abbot; she dressed for a more hostile world. And there’d be time for make-up before meeting the suspects at eight thirty in the common room. ‘And you smell like a brewery.’

  ‘Like a distillery – if we’re to be accurate. There was no beer involved.’

  ‘Are you losing focus, Abbot?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You’re getting paid for this, remember.’

  ‘Not as much as you.’

  ‘That’s because I’m doing all the work.’ Peter’s eyebrows arched in surprise. ‘While you develop a habit for drinking alone – a slippery slope, that one.’

  ‘I drank
with the ghost,’ he said quietly.

  ‘The ghost?’

  ‘Benedict.’

  ‘Benedict?’ Tamsin’s reaction was worth the wait. She was awake now. ‘So who the hell is this Benedict?’

  ‘Benedict lives here,’ said Peter calmly and proceeded, with a certain pleasure, to fill her in on the results of his ghost hunt, the place of Benedict Bleake at Stormhaven Towers and the mixed feelings he had for the place. ‘Oh, and another thing: he knows the killer.’

  ‘He knows the killer? You mean he knows who the killer is?’

  ‘He thinks he does.’

  ‘And you believe him?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Sounds like Benedict Bleake’s got you deep in his pocket.’

  ‘Better to be in the pocket of a giant than in the mind of a fool.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  Abbot Peter didn’t know exactly, he’d just made it up – but there was something there, some truth beyond routine self-protection from the irritable aggression of Tamsin. She was never at her best when catching up, when not in the position of ‘informational lead’. Peter was informational lead this morning, while Tamsin was catching up and finding it difficult. She liked to be in control.

  ‘He’s agreed to meet us this afternoon,’ said Peter.

  ‘Well, we are honoured!’ said Tamsin, layering on the sarcasm. ‘And it’s his call, of course. After all, it’s only a murder inquiry – so who are we to demand a meeting with some no-mark member of the public.’

  ‘He was supposed to be out of the country today, on a business trip. He was flying to Budapest.’

  ‘You can tell him he stays here until I say he can go.’

  ‘He speaks of an affair taking place, Tamsin.’

  ‘An affair?’

  ‘Here, before our eyes. Have you seen an affair? Women are meant to see these things.’