Chapter 41
Aware that I needed to proceed with caution, yet desperate to know the worst, I had a stab at tackling Nick about his extramarital relations that evening over supper.
‘You must miss Sue dreadfully,’ I said softly.
He grunted and swallowed a mouthful of pasta. ‘No one’s indispensable.’ He reached for his wine glass. ‘Oh,’ he added, seeing my expression, ‘apart from you, of course.’
‘But you must miss her.’
‘Yes, of course I miss her. We worked together every day. And in the sense that she was efficient, and pleasant to work with, she’s going to be extremely difficult to replace. But I’m hopeful this new woman, Maggie, is going to shape up well. She’s coming back for a second interview next week, to meet David, and Julie, but she seems just the ticket. I think it would be a good idea if you met her too,’ he added with sudden hearty enthusiasm, pretending this was more than an afterthought. ‘The good thing is, she’s been a school secretary before. She worked for the head at Wolsey College for five years before she took a career break to have her family, so she knows the territory. We’ll have to train her on the system, but that’s going to be the case whoever we appoint. Someone who’s worked in a school before could be ideal.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Mid-forties. She’s been off work for a few years but she’s had plenty of relevant experience, and being a mother won’t do any harm when she’s dealing with parents. Not that Sue wasn’t excellent in that aspect of the job,’ he added quickly.
He threw a glance at me that was almost furtive, as though checking he hadn’t upset me by his tactless comment.
‘Will she be focused on the job if she’s got children?’
‘That’s a very misogynistic question,’ he reprimanded me, with a grin. ‘Your sister would be horrified if she heard you say that. Anyway, Sue didn’t have children and I don’t suppose she was entirely focused on the job all the time.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, suddenly very interested in the turn the conversation was taking.
‘Don’t you think Sue had other interests to occupy her mind?’ he replied.
‘Like a romantic entanglement with a man, you mean?’
‘That wasn’t what I meant, but yes, I suppose that would qualify as an outside interest.’
I decided to take a direct approach. ‘Was she seeing anyone?’
He frowned lightly. ‘Haven’t I already told you I’ve no idea? We never discussed her personal life, difficult though it seems to be for you to believe that. At the risk of sounding misogynistic myself, I believe that’s the kind of conversation she might have had with you, not me.’
‘There must have been someone. She was an attractive woman.’
‘Yes, I suppose she was, in a pretty-pretty kind of way.’
‘What does “pretty-pretty” mean?’
‘Pretty. Like chocolate-box pretty, conventionally pretty. You know what I mean. So yes, I dare say there was someone, a man, or maybe a woman?’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘So to come back to your question, yes, of course I miss her, and not only because it’s so time consuming looking for her replacement. But I’m determined to get this right. A lot hangs on it. I don’t want to have to go through this process again in a hurry. Yes, I think we may have struck lucky with Maggie.’
The police had not yet come to drag Nick away, and he seemed more interested in finding a new secretary than in mourning the one he had lost. I was beginning to think I had been wrong in suspecting him of being unfaithful, with not just one but two women.
I went to bed that night feeling confused, but far less disturbed.
The next morning I went back to the office to help Julie again.
‘One more day and the database should be up to date,’ I said.
‘Apart from the new pupils who need to be entered.’
‘Typical. Just when you think you’re finished, along comes a load more work.’
‘It’s only until September,’ she said quickly. ‘Once Nick has a new secretary, she’ll be responsible for maintaining the database.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ I replied, afraid that I had given the impression I was helping reluctantly. ‘It’s actually very satisfying getting through it.’
She smiled. ‘But you wouldn’t want to spend the rest of your life on it.’
‘No, probably not. Although it’s not a bad job.’
‘We would have given the task to the temp, but some of the information is sensitive. We’re not really supposed to share it with outsiders.’
I nodded, gratified to be regarded as one of the inner circle.
We worked quietly for the rest of the morning then went to have lunch in the staff dining room, as usual, where no one paid any particular attention to me. My fear that people were talking about me behind my back had gradually faded. I sat next to David’s secretary, Mandy, who was looking after the temp. Over lunch I heard them talking about her boss, the deputy head.
‘David’s a really nice guy, but you have to be prepared for extra duties,’ Mandy said.
‘Extra duties?’ the temp repeated archly.
She was a smiling girl of about twenty with curly fair hair, a few years younger than Mandy who was thirty, dark-haired and plump.
Mandy laughed. ‘Not like that! Nothing like that. What I mean is, there’s always more to do. Every time you think you’ve finished, he hits you with something else. He never stops.’
‘He sounds like a workaholic.’
‘That’s putting it mildly.’
‘But you seem to like working for him,’ said the temp.
‘Oh yes,’ Mandy replied. ‘He’s nice, and the pupils adore him. I’ve got no complaints. And he’s really generous as well. You’ll never guess what he gave me last Christmas.’
They carried on chatting, but I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation because they stood up to leave.
‘So, what are you up to this afternoon?’ Julie asked me.
I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure.’ I hesitated. ‘I could do some more data entry for you, if you like.’
She smiled at me. ‘As long as you don’t mind.’
‘Of course not. I’m only too pleased to help.’
Chapter 42
Maggie smiled politely at me. ‘It’s very nice to meet you too, Mrs Kelly. Thank you for the tea.’
‘Please, call me Louise. Nick tells me you spent seven years at Wolsey College.’
‘It was just under six years, actually.’
Dark-haired and slim, she was dressed in a neat navy suit, everything about her traditional and conventional apart from funky red-rimmed glasses which added an element of fun to a studied image of practical efficiency. I liked the look of her straight away.
‘Nick told me you worked for the head there?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Do you know him?’
‘No, but Nick’s spoken to him. I think they’ve met several times. And you have a family?’
‘Yes.’ Maggie smiled. ‘A daughter. She’s nearly six, and she’s settled in well at her school, so I thought it was high time I returned to work. If I leave it much longer I don’t think I’ll ever do it. But I didn’t want to take on just anything and end up changing jobs, so when I saw this post advertised I jumped at it. This is the kind of place I could see myself staying. I loved it at Wolsey and I wouldn’t have left if it weren’t for my family commitments.’
Her words could have been deliberately chosen to support her job application but she seemed genuine, and I believed she was sincere as she chatted pleasantly about her previous school and her daughter.
‘What did you think of Maggie?’ Nick asked me after she had gone.
‘I liked her. She seemed perfectly suited to the role.’
‘Yes, I think she’ll fit in really well.’
‘When can she start?’
Maggie was joining us two weeks before term began, which would give her time to finalise her childca
re arrangements.
‘How are you going to manage in the meantime?’ I asked him.
‘It gives us a window.’
‘A window?’
Grinning, he pulled an envelope out of his pocket and flourished it above his head.
‘We’re spending a few days in Venice.’
‘But how come–’
‘It’s all booked. We’ve had such a rough time of it lately, I thought we deserved a little treat.’
Our time in Venice was brief, but from the water bus that bore us along the canals to our hotel until our flight home, everything was magical. Our hotel was located by a narrow waterway off the main Grand Canal. After checking in, we sat at one of the tables outside and had a leisurely lunch and by the time we finished, our stressful year at school seemed to have faded into the distant past.
We visited St Mark’s Square, which was uncomfortably packed with tourists, and took a trip on a gondola. Gliding along narrow side stretches of canal in utter silence, we could have been transported back in time to an era before mechanisation, the peace disturbed only by our gondolier’s tuneless singing.
Later on, before dinner, we stood on a bridge to watch the sun set gloriously over the lagoon in a blaze of spectacular pink and gold.
‘I can’t believe how lucky we are,’ Nick said. Leaning down, he kissed the tip of my nose and pulled back to gaze at me. ‘Or is it luck?’
A green barge with a large metal construction on board went by.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘A dredging boat,’ Nick said.
I wondered what they would be dredging the canal for.
‘Probably collecting silt, or they could be shoring up the poles, or transporting rubble.’
Gazing out over the dark flowing water, I wondered how many people had slipped – or been shoved – into the freezing water, and whether the dredging equipment ever brought up long-dead bodies. It would be an easy place to commit suicide.
‘Well?’ Nick repeated. ‘Is it really just down to luck?’
‘I’d say we’re lucky. It doesn’t get any better than this.’
‘I’m not for one moment suggesting this isn’t all beautiful, or that we don’t have a wonderful life. What I meant to say was, perhaps we make our own luck.’
‘To some extent, maybe. But there must be plenty of people who would love to have your start in life, and your job, only they never get the chance. Seriously, how many people are given the opportunities and advantages we’ve had?’
‘Granted we started out ahead of the game. You didn’t choose to be born both beautiful and clever, but there are a lot of beautiful clever women who don’t achieve half as much as you. That’s what I meant about making your own luck.’
His flattery made me smile. ‘All I’ve achieved in my life so far is to marry you.’
He grinned. ‘And what an achievement that was! I rest my case.’
Chapter 43
The morning after our return from Venice, I followed the gravel path to school as it had rained overnight and the grass was wet. By the time I made my way home in the afternoon, the ground had dried out, so I took the short cut across the cricket pitch, making a detour to look inside the disused pavilion. It was a ramshackle building, little more than a brick hut with an inner door leading to changing rooms, and Nick was planning a major refurbishment. He had asked me to get some quotes for the work, and I had already approached some local traders for estimates.
Meanwhile the school surveyor had declared the building unsafe in its present state of disrepair, so the windows had been boarded up and a strong padlock fitted to the door, to keep inquisitive youngsters out. It looked stable enough from the outside at a first glance, but inadequate foundations and the proximity of several tall mature trees had apparently disturbed the structure and a closer scrutiny revealed cracks running all the way up the walls. Opinions varied over whether the damage was irreparable, but Nick had decided, quite rightly, to err on the side of caution. In any event, he told me, the roof needed replacing, which meant that in its current state the pavilion was unusable.
‘If just one surveyor says the building can’t be safely restored, we’ll knock the whole thing down and start again.’
‘That won’t be popular. It’s a historic building.’
‘A historic building on school premises,’ he had replied with a quick grin. ‘Preservation of life trumps preservation of bricks and mortar, especially when the lives of minors for whom we’re responsible are involved. Thanks to Health and Safety we’ll end up with a smart new cricket pavilion.’
Nick’s words rang in my ears as I undid the strong padlock. I had never been inside the pavilion before. The interior looked far worse than the exterior. The paintwork was peeling, the flooring had lifted along one edge, probably due to damp, and the lockers were rusty and scratched. Graffiti scrawled on the walls added to the general atmosphere of neglect. Mustard-yellow curtains hung at the grimy windows, and the varnish on wooden benches along the walls was worn away from years of careless use.
More serious than the general state of dilapidation was the crumbling plasterwork and fractured ceiling. Only a couple of floor-to-ceiling iron struts prevented the whole edifice from tumbling down, and they hardly looked secure. A cracked cricket bat leaned against the wall by the door, that and a stray shin pad left abandoned beneath the bench the only indications that this had once been in use as a cricket pavilion. A few tufts of dry grass flitted across the floor, caught in a gust of air that came in through the open door.
Unaware that anyone had followed me in, I started on hearing footsteps behind me. A figure was standing in the doorway. With the sun at his back, his face was masked in shadow.
‘Hello?’ I called out. ‘Who’s there? You know it’s not safe to be in here.’
He took a step forward and a shaft of light from the window fell across his square face, illuminating his hazel eyes.
‘Louise,’ he said, taking a step towards me. ‘I wondered why the door was open. What are you doing in here?’
‘Oh, hello, David. I was just taking a look around. Nick’s planning to do it up in here. Long overdue, don’t you think? It can’t create a very good impression on visiting teams having to use the sports hall changing rooms, while the pavilion is out of bounds.’
He looked around. ‘It could certainly do with a coat of paint.’
‘Never mind the decor, it smells of damp and mould, and the whole place is falling down.’
‘I hope not. This pavilion has been here for years.’
‘It looks like it.’
He looked around. ‘Let’s hope we can find a builder who can do a sensitive job of renovating it.’
‘It’s going to take more than renovation to make it safe. It’s going to need a complete rebuild.’
‘Rebuild? What do you mean?’
‘We probably need to knock it down and start again. The whole place is falling apart.’
‘What? You are joking.’
‘Oh, come on. Just look around. The ceiling’s about to cave in for a start, and the walls are disintegrating. There’s more dust than brick. Shoddy foundations, that’s the problem, and all the trees.’
‘I rather think you’re missing the point,’ David said coldly. ‘There’s a history to this pavilion. It has an atmosphere that’s evolved over many decades.’
‘An atmosphere of damp and mildew. Yes, I think it’s time for a complete overhaul.’
He took a step towards me. ‘And I think you should leave it exactly as it is. We don’t need any more changes.’
I was beginning to find his tone offensive, even menacing. He might not think much of me personally, but I was the headmaster’s wife and my position, at least, deserved respect. While I hesitated, wondering whether to tell him what I was thinking, or whether I should wait and speak to Nick about this altercation, David took another step towards me and paused, looking at me speculatively.
‘You care about Nick,
don’t you?’ he asked.
‘Of course I do. I love him. He’s my husband.’
There was a long pause before he said, ‘You know this isn’t the right place for him. For either of you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
David gazed up at the unstable brickwork overhead, muttering about neglect, while I waited to hear what he would say.
He swung his head round to face me and began to speak very fast. ‘I’m telling you what’s best for you and your husband. If you want your marriage to survive, you need to leave here. You’re the person best placed to convince him it’s time to move on. Tell him he has to resign, go away and never come back. You can’t want to stay here, knowing it’s not the right place for your husband. He doesn’t fit in here.’
‘And I suppose you do? Do you really expect Nick to leave so you can step into the vacuum as acting head, and worm your way to being appointed headmaster?’ I snapped. ‘That’s what this insane suggestion is all about, isn’t it? Your selfish ambition.’
‘No,’ he cried out as though the words were torn from him. ‘You couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s not about me. This is about what’s best for Edleybury.’
‘Oh please!’
‘You have to listen to me. This place isn’t right for you. Nick has to leave here, and you can help make it happen. You can persuade him. This has got nothing to do with me. I’m not an ambitious man. But I’d do anything to save Edleybury from the influence of a man like your husband, with his crude ideas and his lack of morals.’
Listening to David’s wild words, I remembered Nick telling me that David had arranged our interview with Rosie. He took a step closer, moving across the shaft of light from the window and for the first time I noticed how large his feet were. The detective sergeant had told me that the man who had visited Rosie on the night she died had particularly large feet. David had known Rosie all along. And of course he had known Sue as well.
Suspicion Page 21