Crime in the School

by Catherine Moloney

  ‘That Gavin Conors from the Gazette!’ he raged. ‘Took me an’ Doyle half an hour to get shut of him. Kept doubling back an’ giving us the slip, cocky little git.’ He scowled darkly. ‘Jim Snell’s a waste of space an’ all. Just left us to it, the idle dipshit—’

  Markham interrupted the angry monologue.

  ‘I’m off now, Sergeant. All done in.’ He looked hard at Noakes. ‘Olivia will be waiting for me.’ He flourished a twenty at the DS. ‘I want the team to have a drink on me. You’ve worked hard today.’

  Noakes’s gaze ping ponged from Markham to the crimson faced Burton.

  He sized up the situation in an instant.

  ‘Right-o, Guv,’ he replied, bestowing on the hapless DC a look in which malicious enjoyment and native guile were strongly blended. ‘C’mon, luv, get your coat. We’re wasting valuable drinking time!’

  Markham dragged his way leadenly up the flight of shallow stone steps at the front of The Sweepstakes, then on through the marble-tiled lobby and across to the lift which would whisk him up to his apartment.

  It felt like an age since he had last set foot in it.

  Opening the front door to number 56, his heart gave a great lurch when he saw light spilling out from the living room.

  Olivia.

  As he entered the room, he saw her rise swiftly from the armchair where she had been sitting. How pale and wretched she looked! Her hands were clasping and unclasping in some kind of nervous apprehension. What would she do? As though in answer to his unspoken question, she came to him, and drew him over to her vacated chair. Then she moved a footstool next to him, and sat there in silence for a moment. When eventually she spoke, it was with quiet fervour.

  ‘Gil, I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you, and for storming out as I did. But you don’t know … When you mentioned that boy, and what I was supposed to have done, I thought I’d lost you.’

  Markham’s heart was too full for speech.

  Olivia seemed to read the history of her lover’s sleepless night and agonized self-questioning in his shattered looks.

  Her voice, tremulous till then, gained some of its old confident firmness as she continued, her hand resting upon his knee.

  ‘There was a sixth-former, Gil, a boy who had a crush on me. I was giving him extra help but stopped the lessons the minute I realized.’ She sighed. ‘Apparently, he “told all” to his parents, even though there was nothing to tell. Anyway, they didn’t take it very well and turned it all round to make it look as though I had come on to him.’

  ‘Darling, there’s no need—’

  Olivia seemed not to hear him.

  ‘Luckily,’ she continued, ‘I’d kept JP informed from the start, so he and the governors had to back me.’ Her hand tightened on Markham’s knee. ‘It was embarrassing, because two of the governors were friends of the parents, and there was some spiteful gossip. Schools can be real snake pits sometimes …’

  Hearing how she gained in confidence as she told him of her ordeal, Markham felt as if some icy pressure had melted and his consciousness had room to expand. Olivia had come back to him.

  ‘I don’t know how to begin to apologize, Liv,’ he faltered. ‘This case …’

  It hath cowed my better part of man.

  Olivia stroked his exhausted face.

  ‘It’s all right, Gil. I don’t blame you for wondering … You see, I know what Cheryl’s like.’ Her voice was scornful. ‘What else did she say?’ It was safe, she knew, to ask that question now.

  ‘Just that you’d seen the lad socially after he left Hope,’ replied Markham, the blood coming and going painfully in his dark face.

  ‘Socially? Hardly! I met him for the last time at the Leavers’ Prom along with half a dozen or so other teachers. I was never alone with him – took bloody good care not to be!’ Olivia’s tone was vehement, and Markham realized that his girlfriend was starting to resent her apparent need to justify herself. However, she suddenly fell quiet, and Markham determined that he would not speak until she had driven out of her soul the lingering traces of resentment.

  It had begun to rain heavily again, great gusts dashing against the window as though some angry demon was launching an attack on their apartment. Inside, however, all was peace.

  It was a while before Olivia spoke again, her voice very low so that Markham had to stoop to hear her.

  ‘Ashley Dean enjoyed taunting me about the whole affair, Gil. That’s how he got his kicks. Breaking people like butterflies on a wheel.’ Markham winced. It was a vivid analogy.

  He gently caressed the heavy coil of hair which seemed almost too heavy for the fragile neck, revelling in the sense of confidence and happy freedom which he thought to have lost forever.

  ‘I’m so sorry about Audrey,’ Olivia continued with mounting agitation, rising abruptly from the footstool. ‘When Matt rang me with the news, I couldn’t take it in. The poor woman didn’t have much of a life outside school. Looked after her mother who had dementia … Oh God, what’ll happen to her mum now?’

  Markham wouldn’t, couldn’t describe what he and Burton had found, but Olivia must have caught the reflection of it in his haunted expression. She put a finger to his lips. ‘I can wait until you’re ready.’

  Her lover wondered if he would ever be ready.

  ‘Whoever it was, we’ll find them,’ he said simply. ‘Audrey almost certainly got hold of some clue to the killer’s identity. Instead of coming to us, she took a terrible gamble … and lost.’

  Olivia came to a decision.

  ‘Right, enough of Hope Academy for one night. Let’s get out for a bit. We could try The Grapes. Should be fairly quiet mid-week.’

  Markham felt a regenerating shudder pass through his frame. Smiling back at her, he said, ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  The Grapes was an unpretentious old-fashioned pub with a few plain deal tables in the front room next to the bar. Behind this was a smaller, more intimate room lined with oak booths, allowing patrons to escape the madding crowd.

  Markham and Olivia paused briefly in the main lounge, its sober antique brasses and warming pans in startling contrast to a carpet patterned in swirling red and black fleur-de-lis. ‘Makes a real style statement,’ the landlady Denise had sighed happily to Markham who privately thought the clashing décor more likely to trigger a migraine.

  The place was quiet for a weekday, with only a few drinkers at the bar. In the stone inglenook to the right of the counter an open fire crackled cheerfully, its flames reflected in a vast array of tankards and flagons suspended on hooks above the gnarled old mantelpiece. A mournful-looking bulldog surveyed the clientele from his position in front of the fire, its muzzle twitching hopefully at savoury odours suggestive of chops.

  With its twisted beams, blocked up chimney pieces and funny little partitions of which no-one seemed to know the purpose, The Grapes was decidedly not one of Bromgrove’s chicest eateries, but Markham and Olivia loved the place for its arthritic charm and imperviousness to gentrification.

  The back room with banquette seating being much more to their taste, by mutual consent they headed to their favourite table at the far end. All was as dark and warm as they could wish for, a smaller log fire casting leaping shadows over the creaking, sloping-floored interior.

  After some deliberation over the menu, Markham went off to the bar to place their order and collect drinks.

  ‘Like Captain Oates, I may be gone some time,’ he told Olivia.

  The landlady’s partiality for Markham was a running joke between them. Convinced that no-one could be half good enough for her ‘favourite policeman’, it had been a while before Denise unbent to Markham’s girlfriend, but Olivia now seemed to have passed some sort of undefined probation as signified by sundry approving nods and winks.

  She snuggled back into the booth, stretching luxuriously. The reconciliation with Markham left her feeling almost light-headed with joy, as though she had narrowly escaped some torture screw.

  Sudde
nly, Olivia heard a familiar voice and stiffened.

  It was Jessica Clark, one of the secretaries from Hope, normally a colourless mouse of a woman but clearly buoyed up on this occasion by a cocktail or three.

  Snatches of speech floated across to her.

  ‘… Matthew Sullivan … yes, that’s the one … teaches English and Drama …’

  Another female voice said something indistinguishable. Jessica shrieked with affected laughter which set Olivia’s teeth on edge.

  ‘You’d be wasting your time, Jules. He’s gay.’

  Again, some muffled response followed by another banshee cackle.

  ‘… If truth be told, our Mr Sullivan had the hots for poor Ashley Dean.’

  Having scooped up the requisite tribute of oohs and ahhs – as though spooning up jelly, thought Olivia viciously – Jessica became salaciously conspiratorial.

  ‘Well, Ashley wasn’t going to waste himself on a teacher. The head was nuts about him, see, so poor Matt got the boot. Marcia in Accounts said him and Ashley had a fearful quarrel. The door was open so she couldn’t help hearing. Matt said something about Ashley being – excuse my French –,’ coy titter, ‘a sick fuck who’d made him think they had something special.’

  Olivia winced with pain, belatedly realizing she was pressing the tines of a fork into her palm.

  ‘Oh yeah, Ash swung both ways … a real flirt … wouldn’t have kicked him out of bed … must’ve been terrible for Matt seeing him every day … Marce said if looks could kill …’

  A clatter of coffee cups intervened, drowning the babble. Olivia peeped around the corner of the booth.

  Thank God. Jessica and her companion, a blowsy looking woman she vaguely recalled having seen in the Council’s Education offices, were shrilly divvying up their bill.

  Go, just go!

  As though in answer to her prayers, Jessica’s strident tones died away.

  Olivia shut her eyes and sank back against the red velvet seating.

  She knew Matt was gay, but had never suspected him of being involved with Ashley.

  It must have happened when she moved from Hope to take the job at St Mary’s. Neither Matt nor Harry had ever breathed a word of it to her. For a moment, she felt hurt but then reproached herself for a fool. Matt had a proud sensitivity which would have made Ashley Dean’s rejection bitter as gall. Highly unlikely he would have broached the painful topic even with Harry …

  ‘Gil to Olivia! Come back to me, sweetheart!’

  Olivia became aware that Markham was looking down at her, his expression quizzical.

  ‘You were far away, Liv.’ Then, noticing her pallor, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  He slid into the seat opposite and set down their drinks before reaching for her hand.

  Haltingly, Olivia recounted what she had overheard, the words choking on her tongue.

  Markham listened attentively.

  ‘Oh Gil,’ she said, vainly trying to subdue the pulse of apprehension beating inside her, ‘this changes everything, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a complication, certainly,’ he replied evenly. ‘But then, Liv, nothing about this case is straightforward.’

  The trustful look in her eyes went straight to his heart.

  ‘Listen, dearest, tonight we are going to forget that damned school. Forget what that harpy said. It’s all hearsay. Keep faith with your friend.’

  Markham spoke with a confidence that he did not feel.

  Things looked black for Sullivan, he reflected.

  Sex was somehow at the heart of this. But whose lust had curdled and turned murderous? JP’s? Sullivan’s? Or was there someone else – a chameleon able to fade into the background at will?

  The thought sent a rush of acrid bile into his stomach.

  Let me get to him before he claims another victim.

  11

  Secrets

  AS HE CROSSED HOPE’S forecourt with Noakes on Thursday morning, Markham was confronted by a gaggle of reporters lying in wait.

  ‘Once we’re inside, get Doyle to deal with them,’ he instructed Noakes crisply. ‘Usual pack drill – ongoing investigations, no comment, another press conference at the appropriate time, yada yada.’

  ‘Must be a slow news day, Guv.’ The DS scowled at a couple of hacks from the Gazette before barreling through the pack like a bellicose silverback.

  ‘Oi, mate,’ shouted one journo in outrage, ‘that’s my foot you just trod on!’

  A sly smirk overspread Noakes’s features. Clearly, his size twelves had scored a bullseye.

  Neither man said anything until they had reached the sanctuary of their temporary HQ where Burton and Doyle were already waiting. Noakes dispatched Doyle on his errand before brewing up, all the while observing Markham out of the corner of his eye. The guv’nor and Olivia must’ve kissed and made up, he concluded, noticing that some of the strain had left the boss’s face. A peek at Burton’s downcast expression confirmed that she had clocked it too. Good. No more come-on glances. The daft bint had finally got the message. Markham and Olivia were made for each other. Yin and yang, soul mates, like it said in those horoscope thingies he sometimes sneaked a look at …

  ‘Mission accomplished, Guv.’ Doyle had made short work of his assignment. ‘The press lot have cleared off. I’ve told reception to close the gates to the car park until going home time. If anyone needs access, there’s the intercom.’

  ‘Excellent.’ It was the old decisive Markham. ‘Right, here are the priorities for today. We’ll get Palmer back in. And Matthew Sullivan needs to be re-interviewed.’

  Succinctly, without mentioning Olivia, the DI disclosed what had emerged regarding Sullivan.

  ‘So, Sullivan could’ve been the third man then, sir.’ Burton’s voice hummed with suppressed excitement. ‘What if he wrote that letter we found in Ashley’s locker – the slushy one that looked like it came from the head? He could’ve planted it to frame JP.’ Two spots of colour appeared on her cheeks. ‘What if he was the one who wanted Ashley dead? What if—’

  ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, Detective,’ Markham gently reproved her, though with an inward smile at her enthusiasm. ‘It could just as easily be someone else trying to frame Palmer … or Sullivan for that matter. Either of them could have enemies we don’t know about.’

  ‘But now we know Sullivan’s gay, he’s our best bet surely, sir?’ Burton strove to keep her tone deferential, but was obviously champing at the bit.

  Doyle looked up from his tea.

  ‘What about the money angle? Maybe all the … er … sex stuff doesn’t have owt to do with it.’

  Burton was visibly irritated that the PC had thrown a spanner in the works. While privately agreeing with her that Sullivan looked good as a suspect, some demon of perversity made Noakes weigh in on Doyle’s side of the debate.

  ‘’Appen you could be right, lad. Didn’t you say the accounts looked a bit dodgy?’

  Doyle looked owlish, squinting as he gathered his thoughts.

  ‘I dunno, to be honest. From what I could see, it looked like there were perks and bungs going out. Corporate branding or some such. An’ some of the teachers were having a whinge about it in the common room. Saying it was dead unfair how money was being wasted left, right and centre when they’d got nothing for books and printing.’ Doyle paused then added, ‘They sounded really angry, but clammed up when they saw me earwigging.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Markham looked at the young constable consideringly, causing him to flush unbecomingly to the roots of his ginger thatch. ‘A pound to a penny, Hope’s managers have been living high on the hog in approved CEO fashion. I wouldn’t put it past them to have given us dummy accounts. Let’s get Fraud to take a look, though I suspect Helen Kavanagh will have an answer for everything.’

  ‘That poor sod Dave Uttley would have been putty in Kavanagh’s hands,’ opined Noakes. ‘Prob’ly signed off on all sorts of stuff without having a clue.’

  Burton was clearly r
eluctant to surrender her theory of a crime passionnel. ‘I suppose it’s possible,’ she said grudgingly. ‘Kavanagh certainly seems to think she’s a cut above the little people.’

  ‘Yeah, her office is something else. Looked like it cost shedloads of cash,’ Noakes concurred.

  The rich man in his castle, The poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly, And ordered their estate.

  ‘Mebbe they were all in on it,’ growled Noakes, ‘then Ashley got greedy and put the squeeze on the others.’

  ‘Could be,’ replied Markham. ‘When thieves fall out, anything’s possible.’ He turned to Burton. ‘Right, Kate, I want you to take Matthew Sullivan. Doyle can sit in and observe.’

  He didn’t dare risk Noakes trampling all over the man’s sensibilities. Burton had sufficient tact and finesse to handle the interview. Besides, knowing her pride was in tatters after the other night, this was one way to signal his faith in her professionalism.

  ‘Find out what was going on between Sullivan and Ashley. Don’t go in all guns blazing, not at this stage. Just give the impression you’re re-checking statements. Sullivan’s alibied for the two murders—’

  ‘Not water-tight, sir,’ interrupted Burton. ‘He was down the pub with his mates the evening of Ashley’s murder. But they were all bladdered and no-one could be positive he was there the whole time.’

  Markham frowned.

  ‘What about when Audrey disappeared?’

  ‘He was doing Intervention with various kids that afternoon.’

  In answer to the DI’s interrogative expression, she hastily expanded. ‘That’s when weaker students go to teachers for one-on-one help.’

  ‘So, no-one to confirm if he was in his room the whole time.’

  ‘That’s right, sir. He could’ve slipped away for a bit and no-one would be any the wiser. The Intervention kids have special needs, so they’re not exactly reliable. Usually there’d have been a teaching assistant around, but for some reason no-one seems to know who was covering the Intervention rota.’ She rubbed her temples. ‘They could have been understaffed …’

  ‘Or Sullivan could have got rid of the TA on some pretext or other,’ Markham quietly concluded. ‘Easy enough to do if there was no fixed timetable and the kids just drifted in when they felt like it.’