by Jo Bannister
Hyde was still blanking her expression. ‘You mean, you've heard these allegations before?’
‘Inspector, everyone's heard these allegations before. Well,’ Walsh amended that, ‘everyone from round here. You're new in Dimmock, aren't you? Maybe you should have run this past Jack Deacon before you put too much faith in Susan's delusions. He caught wind of what she was saying a few years ago and, old mate or not, he felt he had to look into it. But he's got a lot of experience in these matters. He quickly realised that Susan's story wasn't credible. It was just a rather lonely woman trying to impress people.’
Voss felt the searchlight of Hyde's gaze turn slowly his way. But he hadn't known either. Of course, Deacon had had a lot of sergeants before Charlie Voss drew the short straw a couple of years ago. He had a reputation for eating them.
Until this moment Voss had never felt in danger from him. Certainly he'd felt the rough edge of Deacon's tongue – when he deserved it, when he half-deserved it and when he didn't deserve it at all, so often he'd come to the conclusion there wasn't a smooth edge – but this was different. They'd talked just last night. All Deacon had to do was warn Voss where this line of inquiry was leading. And he'd said nothing. He'd hung him out to dry. Voss felt betrayed.
Hyde said carefully, ‘Just for the record, then, perhaps you'll disprove it again. For the benefit of us out-of-towners.’
Caroline Walsh nodded pleasantly. ‘Of course. You know I'm a partner at The Dragon Luck? I inherited my shares from my father fifteen years ago, and naturally I keep an eye on my investment. Terry and I spend an evening there maybe once a month. But it's me conducting business there, not my husband. He whiles away an hour or so at the tables while I disappear into the back room with the Manager and the other partners.’
She smiled. ‘He's a charming man, my husband – you may have noticed this. He caused quite a flutter among the female staff. I'm afraid poor Susan mistook a bit of good-natured flirting for something more and started telling people she was Terry's bit on the side.
‘The Manager asked if I wanted her dismissed. But it was more funny than it was offensive. No one who knows Terry, who's seen him with his family, was ever going to believe her, and I didn't think it mattered what people who don't know him thought.’
‘But she was dismissed,’ said Hyde. She wasn't sure what she was hearing – the truth, a lie, or the kind of half-truth that's harder to unravel. She needed to ask more questions. But police officers don't like asking questions until they have a good idea what the answers ought to be. ‘Six months ago.’
‘Yes, she was,’ agreed Caroline. ‘She was boasting more and more, in front of people she hardly knew. We weren't concerned about the police: they knew her story for what it was. But sooner or later someone was going to believe her and it was going to matter. Being called a philanderer wasn't going to do Terry much harm but being accused of criminal activity could. He's a businessman, his integrity is important.
‘I was on the point of doing something about it myself but the Manager beat me to it. He has a licence to protect, he couldn't have people talking about The Dragon Luck as if it was a den of vice. Susan lost her job for lying, Inspector, not because she was having an affair with my husband.’
‘I see.’ Alix Hyde spoke carefully, as if through a mouthful of broken glass.
‘Yes?’ said Caroline Walsh coolly. ‘I hope so. I really hope we don't have to go through all this again. Of course you have your job to do. But it's just plain silly to keep covering the same ground.’
Walsh saw them to their car. Until they got there Voss entertained the faint hope that Alix Hyde might yet produce a rabbit from the hat and dissipate the aura of smugness that surrounded him like cigar-smoke. But she'd been wrong-footed too, and had enough experience to know that now – undermined and uncertain – wasn't the time to take him on. She held her peace until Walsh insisted on helping her into her own car.
Then she smiled tautly at him. ‘I feel absolutely sure, Terry, that this is au revoir rather than goodbye.’
Walsh leant closer to her. His voice was so low even Voss strained to hear. ‘I'm counting on it, Inspector. But next time you come to my house to accuse me of everything from drug-running to marital infidelity, remember your manners. Call me Mr Walsh.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
For once, the raised voice crashing down the stairs from the CID offices on the top floor of Battle Alley was not that of Jack Deacon. However, the general feeling was that it was only a matter of time, so everyone who wasn't pressingly engaged elsewhere – and right now an axe-murderer would have been asked to come back later – kept busy within earshot. There's plenty of free entertainment to be had in a police station at any time, but senior officers publicly tearing strips off one another is a rare joy. Sometimes protecting and serving the community just has to wait.
‘You assured me of your full cooperation,’ snarled Detective Inspector Hyde. ‘I counted on it. You said you'd lend me your best officer. I counted on that too. What I didn't count on was having your old mucker Terry Walsh laugh in my face as I worked my case on the basis of evidence that you knew was flawed! That you personally had investigated and dismissed as unsafe and unsatisfactory! Why didn't you tell me?
Deacon was still sufficiently amused to be holding onto his temper. ‘It's your case, Inspector. You didn't tell me who your new witness was or what evidence they were offering. If either you or Sergeant Voss had had the wit to pull the back-files before you went to see Terry, you might have heard the gentle trill of alarm bells ringing.’
‘You talked to Charlie in the pub last night! Would it have cost you blood to warn him off? To say you'd already looked at Susan's claims and they didn't stand up?‘
‘Two things,’ rumbled Deacon. ‘Charlie Voss is my best officer – you're lucky to have him. But he's a sergeant, and the reason for that is he still has things to learn. I lent him to you because I hoped there might be things you could teach him. I'm regretting that already.
‘And the other thing is, he's not my spy. He doesn't come running to me to report everything you've said and done. Yes, I bought him a beer’ – this was an outright lie and Deacon knew it – ‘and he said you'd been to Dover. He said you had a new witness, someone involved in the drugs trade. He didn't give me the name and I'd no reason to associate Susan Weekes with drug-smuggling. Despite what you might have heard, Inspector Hyde, I'm not psychic. But everything she told me when I interviewed her was in the file. If you'd looked you'd have known it was the same story from the same woman. And you'd have seen that it fell apart when I leant on it.
‘Anyone can make a mistake, Inspector. But try not to make stupid ones.’
Brodie always did the Saturday morning trawl of the Brighton antiques scene with Paddy. It was an outing they both enjoyed, and there weren't many weeks when their efforts went unrewarded. But since they had different ideas of what constituted a find, the crates in the back of the car were frequently packed with an egalitarian mix of Georgian lead crystal, broken china horses patched with Araldite, Victorian linens, toy tractors, almost complete Worcester dinner services and plastic frogs that made a rude noise when squeezed. Paddy Farrell, now nearly seven, had inherited her father's kindness and her mother's determination but neither of them admitted responsibility for her sense of humour.
With the boss and her car on the road, Daniel was left to his own devices. Brodie had made it clear that, barring emergencies, she didn't expect him to work weekends, but actually he had nothing better to do. He walked up Fisher Hill to pay a visit to Edith Timoney. He didn't yet know enough about antiques to risk buying much on his own, even with Brodie's list of watch-out-fors to guide him. But he could scrutinise the stock and report on it when he saw Brodie this evening. If there was anything promising he thought Miss Timoney would put it under the counter for him. Miss Timoney liked Daniel.
Daniel liked Miss Timoney too. He liked her honesty. In these days when every plaster duck was a Faberge swan, Dimm
ock had antique shops, antique fayres and even an antiques emporium, but Miss Timoney's at the top of Fisher Hill was the only honest-to-God junk-shop left. The fact that, in an uncharacteristic moment of trying to move upmarket, she'd had the words Ye Olde Junk Shoppe written in a curly cod-medieval script over the top of the cobwebbed windows only endeared her to him more.
The dirty windows might have been a clever business ploy – it was impossible to see through them, if you wanted to know what she had for sale you had to go inside, at which point she considered you fair game. But they also made it impossible to see who else was in the shop, so opening the door was a little like opening Pandora's Box.
Today what came out as Daniel was going in was Noah Selkirk.
The thing about a black eye is, it's impossible for people to look at anything else. They try not to stare, then they worry that by ignoring the patently obvious they're actually drawing attention to it, then they avoid the issue entirely by being somewhere else. Usually; normal people.
Daniel's eyes widened behind his thick glasses. ‘Good grief, Noah, where did you get the shiner?’
The boy reddened and wouldn't look at him. He mumbled something about a swing.
‘Somebody took a swing at you?’ said Daniel, astonished.
Unseen behind the dirty glass, a woman was following the boy onto the pavement. Not Miss Timoney; not by any means Miss Timoney. A woman in her late thirties with a mane of curly ash-blonde hair just about tamed in a rough chignon – which, as Daniel would have known had he known more about women, took much longer to achieve than a perfect one because the escaping tendrils didn't fall into that charming portrait of mild abandon without a lot of artistic encouragement. A small woman – not just smaller than Daniel but small for a woman – and neither thin nor plump but with just the right sort of curves in just the right places, just about visible through a straight, beautifully tailored, long wolf-grey coat buttoned up to a high stand collar under her chin. She had sea-green eyes, and when she smiled she showed small perfect teeth.
‘He said, he was hit by a swing. In the playground.’
Daniel had seen a lot of playground accidents. He'd seen children floored by the recoil of a swing going for the Olympic record, and the catalogue of possible injuries certainly included black eyes, as well as broken noses and broken cheekbones. There was nothing about the marks on Noah Selkirk's face that called his mother a liar. And yet…
Childhood is a steep learning curve. You learn not to run down stairs, not to touch the pretty flames and not to headbutt the patio doors mostly by doing it once and not liking the consequences. And yes, you learn not to stand behind a swing to see how high you've managed to push it this time. Most childhood injuries are accidental. Even kids who seem to spend every Saturday afternoon in A8cE, whose parents know all the hidden parking spots and which vending machines make a decent cup of tea, who've already run the gamut of emotions from fear to embarrassment to grim resignation, are mostly just excitable and clumsy and brilliant at thinking up new stunts on a trampoline.
But hidden among those, sometimes quite well hidden, are a few whose injuries are ambiguous. Who might have walked into a doorknob, who might have trapped their fingers in a drawer, who might have picked up a lit cigarette, but who might not. Hospital staff develop an instinct for which they might be. So do teachers.
It was one of those crossroads moments. He could choose to believe a plausible explanation. He could express sympathy, advise caution in future, exchange a friendly nod with Noah's mother and go about his business; in which case he would probably never know the truth. Not about the grazed wrist; not about the black eye; and not whether it ended there. Noah Selkirk would never be taken into care because his drunken father laid into him in Woolworths one day. Nice prosperous middle-class families like the Selkirks don't wash their dirty linen in public. They may be no better at managing their anger but they can always control themselves until they're safely behind their large solid oak front doors. Children like Noah may be as likely to suffer violence as their friends from the sink estates, but the abuse is much less likely to be recognised. People can't quite believe it happens at the nice end of town.
If Daniel did nothing, probably no one else would either.
He put on his most ingenuous smile and didn't look at Noah again. ‘You must be Mrs Selkirk. I'm Daniel Hood. I'm a maths teacher. I taught your son – rather briefly, events took an unexpected turn – at Dimmock High.’
So far, so truthful. He spared a moment to congratulate himself before continuing.
‘I'm glad I've seen you, actually, I've been wanting a word. Not just with you – there were a number of children in that class that I felt showed real promise with mathematics. Can I walk you to your car? I'd like to make you aware of some of the options for children with a feel for the subject.’
It was a gamble. In truth, Daniel didn't remember anything about Noah except his face. He might have been a mathematical genius in the making; he might still have been counting on his fingers. If Marianne Selkirk had said, ‘But Noah's terrible at maths!’ he might have been hard pressed to continue the conversation. Fortunately, two truths are almost universal. Most people's abilities, at any age, fall somewhere in the middle; and most people's parents want to hear that their children are smart. However scant the evidence, if you tell them their offspring have talent they want to believe you.
As soon as Mrs Selkirk smiled, Daniel knew he was in business. ‘Actually, we were going for a coffee now. Would you like to join us?’
They ended up back in The Singing Kettle. It wasn't the only café in Dimmock, but perhaps it was the most genteel.
Gentility wasn't something that mattered much to Daniel. Usually he used it because it was across the road from his house. Today he'd have picnicked in an abattoir if that was what it took to make the acquaintance of the Selkirk family.
Perhaps what he was doing was dishonest. He was ingratiating himself with the woman in order to gain her confidence. Only his purpose went some way towards justifying his actions. If he was right about what was happening to Noah, and if he could find a way of helping this family before the situation deteriorated beyond the aid of a well-meaning busy-body, it would have been worth it. If not, he'd be left feeling like a pimp.
But Daniel would always take risks himself that he wouldn't countenance in others. And once he had an idea in his head it was almost impossible to shift it. Certainly neither the fear of embarrassment, nor fear itself, would do the trick.
As much as he could he avoided looking at Noah. He knew the boy had been terrified, from the moment they met in Edith Timoney's doorway, that he was going to blurt out an account of their last meeting. He wasn't, and by the time they reached The Singing Kettle Noah seemed to understand that he wasn't, but the boy still needed leaving alone to steady his nerve. So Daniel did what he never did, and talked over his head as if the child wasn't there.
‘I was pleased at how well that whole class were able to grapple with mathematical concepts. You may be aware, there's real concern in education circles that too many children of perfectly adequate intelligence are leaving school without a grasp of the fundamental skills. So I wasn't expecting to find myself talking astro-physics with a bunch of twelve-year-olds.’
Marianne Selkirk smiled. ‘Noah told me about that class, Mr Hood. He said it was the first time he realised maths could be interesting.’
Daniel demurred with a modest little shrug. ‘To be honest, Mrs Selkirk, I'm a maths bore. I bang on about how fascinating it is and never notice people's eyes turning glassy. But kids at that age, they're open to the wonder of it. They want to hear about how stars form, and how the cosmos formed, and how we know. They're the perfect audience.’
‘That doesn't seem to be the universal experience of maths teachers,’ observed Mrs Selkirk dryly. ‘I suspect you're rather good at it. So what was it,’ she asked then, putting him on the spot, ‘that you wanted to talk about? You're not telling me Noah's the ne
xt Steven Hawking?’
Daniel laughed dutifully, using the time to think. ‘Who knows? I don't expect they thought Steven Hawking was, when he was twelve. But actually, it's not geniuses – genii? – that I worry about. If you have that kind of remarkable mind, you're always going to make use of it. If a rather moderate education leading to an appointment as a patent clerk wasn't enough to stultify Einstein's mind there's no reason to suppose other geni—…clever people spend their lives sweeping floors because their talents go unrecognised.
‘No, what worries me is when ordinarily bright kids decide they can't do maths because it's obscure and difficult and unrewarding. Because a GCSE in History of Art might be easier to get but it won't open the same doors. This is an increasingly technological world, and it's not going to get any simpler. We're already at the point where people who understand the technology have the world at their fingertips. Yet fewer kids, not more, are studying maths and the sciences. We're going to end up with a real skills shortage. And people like Noah, and the other kids in that class, could fill that gap and end up running the world because of it.’
Every word of it was true, and it was a cause that Daniel believed in passionately. But today he didn't care about Noah Selkirk's future. He could be an art historian if he wanted; he could publish religious pamphlets or play piano in a bordello. Right now all Daniel cared about was what the boy was going home to tonight.
It's a tricky business, interfering with a family dynamic. There are more ways of making things worse than making them better. Probably the only reason even a determined dogooder should get involved is to protect someone who can't protect himself and who can't leave.
And he knew that if he asked Noah outright whether his father was hitting him, the answer would be no. Because the heartbreaking fact is that there is almost nothing a parent can do that will stop a child wanting his love and approval. Another blow, another kick – that's something he's familiar with. Breaking up the family is the unknown, and that really scares him. He would genuinely rather suffer in silence than face the unknown.