Crime in the School

by Catherine Moloney

‘Twenty-four hours or it’s over to Bretherton.’ The DI’s mouth was bitter, and he snapped his fingers to reinforce the point.

  Noakes appeared even more down at heel and dishevelled than usual. Kate Burton, by contrast, looked bandbox fresh and appeared to have changed her shirt. And yet, the two appeared closer than the DI had yet seen them, as though a mysterious connection had secretly flowered underground and was pushing up delicate shoots towards the light.

  It might be the only good thing to come out of this damned investigation, he thought savagely.

  ‘Get hold of the press office, Kate. We need a broadcast about JP for the early evening news.’

  As she disappeared, Markham turned to Noakes.

  ‘Mountfield’ll be monitoring the media – trying to stay three steps ahead,’ he said wearily. ‘With luck, the news about Palmer will screw him emotionally.’

  ‘What about Helen Kavanagh?’

  ‘Babysitting job. Once this bulletin’s in the can, we’ll get over there and work on a script.’

  ‘Do you think she can deliver, Guv?’

  ‘Well, she’s guilt-stricken over Audrey and Jim Snell. Desperate to atone.’

  ‘Could be a loose cannon.’

  ‘Undoubtedly, but what else have we got?’

  There was a reckless light in the DI’s eyes. Noakes had seen that look before. It meant Markham had the scent of blood in his nostrils.

  ‘How long do we give Mountfield before Kavanagh asks for a meeting?’ The DS was revolving all the variables in his mind.

  ‘A couple of hours.’ Markham’s speech quickened. ‘Look, he’ll be completely blindsided. JP’s out of it forever. The man this was supposedly all about gone in a flash. Don’t forget, those fantasies about revenge have dominated Mountfield’s whole life. And now, at a stroke, the plan’s in tatters. If ever he needed to unburden himself – free his soul – it’s now.’

  ‘An’ if he thinks Kavanagh’s on to him, he’ll have to fix her one way or another …’

  Noakes screwed up his craggy features in profound cogitation. A pause, then, ‘You can count on me, Guv.’

  Until then, Markham did not realize he had been holding his breath.

  ‘Let’s get a drink and something to eat in the canteen, Noakes. After that, we can plan Kavanagh’s big reveal.’

  An hour later, having polished off fried eggs and beans on toast, all washed down with scalding hot tea, Markham and Noakes were back in Markham’s office preparing a crib sheet for Helen Kavanagh.

  Kate Burton appeared in the doorway.

  ‘PC Doyle’s just radioed in, sir.’ Her voice was strained.

  ‘Isn’t Doyle outside Mountfield’s place with the plainclothes lads we borrowed from Vice?’

  ‘Yes, Sarge. But …’

  Markham heard the note of rising panic. ‘What’s happened, Kate?’

  ‘He was waiting round the back of Ramleh Villas, near the garages.’

  ‘And?’ rumbled Noakes impatiently.

  ‘Well, somehow Mountfield gave him the slip …’

  ‘Didn’t he have the flat in his direct line of sight?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He went around the corner just to stretch his legs. A matter of minutes. When he got back, he noticed the French window was open …’

  ‘Oh God.’ Markham’s voice was choked.

  ‘What is it, sir?’

  The DI’s olive complexion had turned ashy pale.

  ‘Helen Kavanagh.’

  Noakes was on his feet, working it out.

  ‘JP’s gone. She’s next in line.’

  ‘But Kavanagh didn’t have anything to do with his brother’s death,’ Burton faltered, looking from one to the other.

  ‘Mountfield’s beyond making that kind of distinction.’ Markham’s voice was the merest thread. ‘We’ve flipped his switch all right. He wants a substitute for JP.’

  ‘She won’t let him in, will she?’

  ‘I think she will,’ the DI replied hoarsely as though debating with himself. ‘She said she wanted to make amends.’

  Burton reached for her police radio.

  ‘No!’

  The command came fast as the crack of a whip.

  ‘Sir, he’s a madman.’

  ‘If we go in mob-handed, anything could happen.’ Not a fourth victim.

  ‘We do it the guv’nor’s way.’

  Noakes looked Burton directly in the eye. She nodded and their compact was sealed.

  The three officers moved as one towards the door. Ready to confront their nemesis.

  15

  Cornered

  IN THE UNDERGROUND CAR park beneath the station, they found Doyle waiting, his bluff yokel’s face the picture of shame and confusion.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he blurted miserably. ‘Got itchy feet and thought a quick whiz round the corner’d wake me up like. It was just minutes, but when I got back …’

  ‘Numpty,’ was Noakes’s succinct response.

  The young PC was clearly crushed at the thought that he might have blown his chances in CID.

  ‘It’s all right, Doyle,’ said Markham kindly. ‘You’d been hanging about for hours. Understandable that you took your eye off the ball for a moment. Could have happened to any of us.’

  Not to me, Noakes and Burton thought in unison.

  ‘You’re a good officer,’ Markham continued as they piled into the squad car. ‘The main thing is to learn from this and move on.’

  An’ stop mooning over that dippy girlfriend. Noakes’s expression was eloquent in its disapproval, but he said nothing, merely gestured Doyle to the driver’s seat. Markham got in the front next to him, while the other two sat in the back.

  ‘No sirens,’ the DI instructed, ‘but over to Cromptons Lane as fast as you can, Doyle.’

  It was still raining relentlessly, mixed now with hail. Inside the bubble of their car, speeding along in the gathering darkness, Kate Burton felt as though they were the last people alive, marooned in a nightmare, huddled together for protection. Like something out of a sci-fi movie. Only the evil they had to eliminate was no vampire but a flesh and blood human being. Someone whom, until recently, she had seen as one of them.

  Markham’s thoughts ran in an equally sombre groove. Could he prevent further carnage? What could he offer Harry Mountfield beyond the secure wing of a psychiatric hospital, through whose bars he would be poked and prodded for the rest of his days like a freak of nature? The urbane, witty teacher who could never be healed, whose inner void could never be filled. Always insatiable, always hungry, always lost.

  Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

  The journey towards the motorway seemed interminable, even though the rush hour was long over. The hail persisted with its ominous drumming, as though even the elements were rallying for the final assault.

  Finally, they were outside number 87.

  There was a figure at the window, silhouetted against lamplight, looking out into the darkness. Then it withdrew into the shadowy recesses of the front room.

  Mountfield.

  Burton drew in her breath sharply. ‘He’s here.’

  ‘He didn’t run then,’ Doyle said wonderingly.

  ‘Where would he go?’ asked Markham. ‘We’d find him eventually.’

  ‘He could’ve tried to bluff it out,’ observed Noakes meditatively, ‘but he must have known the net was closing at Hope. With JP’s death, we’d have been all over ’im like a rash and the truth was bound to come out.’ The DS pulled a face. ‘’Sides, he’s worked up an appetite now. On a spree, isn’t he?’

  Burton shuddered, but she realized it was true. Mountfield saw his mission as far from over. His blood lust still demanded satisfaction.

  ‘We go in calmly, quietly. No theatrics, understood?’ Markham’s voice was peremptory. ‘The priority is to get them both out of there alive.’

  There would be no chance at all if the place was swarming with tactical support, hostage negotiators, Uncle Tom Cobley and all, h
e thought. But with the small-scale approach, there was just a chance …

  The front door was open.

  ‘In here, Inspector!’

  Mountfield sounded eerily, horribly jovial. As though this was a dinner party and he the welcoming host.

  Warily, they filed into Helen Kavanagh’s front room.

  The deputy head was sitting on the black leather sofa. She looked oddly composed, almost relieved, even with a sharp bread knife held to her throat.

  The man they had been hunting sat next to her.

  As to externals, it was the same shambling charm and breezy dishevelment.

  ‘So, you’ve caught up with me at last, Inspector,’ he said with lazy amiability. Then, watchful as a praying mantis, ‘Don’t come any further.’

  There was no chance of bringing him down. That knife would have severed Kavanagh’s jugular before they got within striking distance.

  Markham lowered himself into the armchair nearest the door. Burton and Noakes stood in the doorway behind him, Doyle in the hall.

  ‘It’s over, Harry,’ the DI said quietly. ‘Or should I say, Howard.’

  The other’s features momentarily contorted, then the debonair mask was back in place.

  ‘I prefer to go by Harry these days, to be honest. I left Howard Medlock behind a long time ago.’

  Markham leaned forward, his voice low and confidential.

  ‘But you didn’t really. You never cut the chains which tied you to the past. However far you travelled, you were still the boy who lost his twin brother and mother far too young. However high you reached, there was still a gaping hole beneath your feet. You never forgot Adrian, did you? Your whole life was a mission to avenge him, everything else a pale reality – including Harry Mountfield.’

  ‘Quite the amateur psychoanalyst, Inspector.’

  The humorous eyes were suddenly flat and empty, the teasing lilt replaced by a harsh rasp.

  ‘I never forgot what happened. It crushed everything else out of existence.’ He flexed the hand that rested on his thighs. ‘You know, of course, that Palmer could have stopped what was happening to Adrian. Instead, he looked the other way, the fucking voyeur.’

  ‘We know that JP was bisexual, Harry, and that he loved Ashley Dean.’

  A pulse began to beat rapidly at Mountfield’s temple.

  ‘Were you in love with Ashley too? Did he lead you on before chucking you aside?’

  The tempo of Mountfield’s breathing increased, but his eyes were unreadable.

  ‘I think you were ashamed and humiliated. You wanted to wipe Ashley off the face of the earth, not just because of what it would do to JP, but because Ashley represented something secret and degrading – the same thing that led your brother to kill himself.’

  Mountfield’s lips drew back in a snarl. For a moment, he looked like a mad dog – as though he wanted to bite Markham, to tear the flesh from his bones.

  The DI recoiled but did not break eye contact.

  ‘Yes, it’s true, Inspector. I wanted to strike at Palmer by destroying what he loved best in the world – like he had done to me.’ He gave a mirthless snicker. ‘I also aimed to have him take the rap for Ashley’s death. Only Dumb and Dumber got in the way.’

  ‘Audrey Burke and Jim Snell.’ Markham spoke with cold deliberation. ‘Two innocent human beings whom you murdered and defiled.’

  ‘They were prepared to look the other way for money, Inspector.’ Mountfield smiled sardonically. ‘Though the Berk had a charity in mind, would you believe? With her, it was all about protecting ole JP. Couldn’t see the man was a crock of shit.’

  ‘What put Audrey onto you?’ Burton shot out.

  Mountfield smiled. A slow, chilling smile.

  ‘The eavesdropping bitch overheard me making an appointment with Ashley for an after-hours rendezvous. He adored anything which smacked of intrigue, so I had no problem persuading him. I’d nicked Snell’s keys and it was all set. Should have been a piece of cake … but the Berk knew all about the meet… She loathed Ashley of course – he practically mimicked her to her face – so I hinted that I had a sob story of my own and came the repentant sinner.’ He smirked. ‘Good performance, if I say so myself.’ An ugly scowl succeeded the smirk. ‘Snell was a different matter. Dug around in my background and opted for blackmail before ending in the slime where he belonged.’ With a scornful laugh, he dismissed the caretaker.

  ‘It’s over, Harry,’ the DI said again. ‘Let Helen go. What does she have to do with any of this?’

  ‘She’s going to be my last, Markham. My final two-fingers to this self-satisfied, smug, sick world of ours. It’s thanks to the likes of her – with her data and her fucking spreadsheets – that no-one really sees the kids anymore … so the ones who need help the most – the ones like Adrian – slip through the cracks.’ He was stuttering now. ‘Jabbering on about empowerment and being there for learners when none of it means a bloody thing.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Harry.’

  It was a croak.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The voice was firmer this time. ‘That’s not really who I am. The inspector knows that now, but I’d like you to know too.’

  It was the authentic Helen Kavanagh, stepping out from behind the mask, thought Markham, and his admiration rose.

  The killer’s world tilted on its axis. His eyes looked unfocused, childlike.

  Markham telegraphed Kavanagh.

  Now!

  She darted forward with a wild cry, taking Mountfield by surprise.

  Arms reached out and whisked her from the room.

  The killer sprang to his feet panting, trapped, his eyes now full of hatred. The fox caught in a circle of hunters. It must have been the face that his victims had seen, and it shocked Markham.

  The DI stood too, as though they were partners in a gruesome pavane, poised to see the dance to its end.

  Never taking his eyes off Markham, Harry Mountfield drew the blade across his own throat.

  Later, Markham would have nightmares about that lopsided, half-decapitated poll whose expression of demonic glee, like that of some awful Petrushka, defied bystanders to show pity and seemed to proclaim that he had enjoyed the last laugh.

  A fortnight after the unforgettable conclusion to what became known locally as ‘the Mountfield Case’, Markham and Olivia stood in the garden of remembrance at Bromgrove North Municipal Cemetery, waiting to enter the little crematorium chapel.

  It was a cold November afternoon, dank mist cloaking the colonnade memorial wall with its rows of niches. Everything bore a melancholy aspect, nothing more so than the sad little bouquets from other funerals lined up in their serried ranks.

  It was the DI’s second funeral that week, Jim Snell having been laid to rest a few days earlier at a sparsely attended twenty-minute Humanist service in Bromgrove Woods. There had been no bouquets for the caretaker, just a small bunch of white freesias from the police team.

  Markham’s gaze rested on the inscription over the stone archway which led from the garden of remembrance to the chapel.

  Man, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

  So much death.

  Very gently, Olivia slipped a hand into his and they walked towards the chapel.

  For all its mock-gothic aspect, the chapel’s clinical interior was uncompromisingly twenty-first century. Hideous mustard-yellow curtains formed a garish proscenium arch around a catafalque covered in similar drapery. Blinding white floral arrangements stood stiffly to attention atop gilt jardinières, while bilious mauve uplighting bathed the scanty congregation in a lurid hue. A plastic Cross – clearly a last-minute touch – swung from a hook beside the pulpit.

  Markham could not remember when he had last seen anything so depressing.

  Sliding inconspicuously into a seat right at the back, he registered some sort of piped music on a loop in the b
ackground. ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone.’ How horribly inappropriate for Harry Mountfield, marooned in his own private hell. The canned anthem provided cover for whispered conversations amongst palpably ill at ease mourners, the men imprisoned in dark suits and women awkwardly adjusting fancy hats as though uncomfortably aware that they did not suit the occasion.

  Who were these people? Mountfield’s – Medlock’s – relatives? Gawpers? Press? He locked eyes with Matthew Sullivan in a pew across the aisle. Good to know that Harry’s friend had not forgotten him. Helen Kavanagh sat next to Sullivan, lost in her own thoughts, looking somehow diminished and old. No doubt Hope Academy was busily expunging all traces of Mountfield from the record. As if he had never existed.

  Suddenly the tinny strains came to a jerky halt and a shuffling behind Markham indicated the arrival of the bearer party. While a hastily substituted soundtrack of Albionini’s Adagio in G Minor echoed in the background, Harry Mountfield’s mortal remains proceeded to their final resting place.

  Markham gave the coffin quick glances, then looked away.

  The image of Mountfield’s remains inside the coffin tried to enter his head. He shut it down immediately.

  For all his revulsion at Mountfield’s crimes, Markham felt a sudden fierce hope that the minister on duty that day would be able to speak of him with compassion. Not least for the sake of Olivia who so desperately needed to hear a message of hope amidst the darkness.

  An apprehensive-looking elderly clergyman slipped into the chapel via a side door and waited patiently for the classical track to come to a halt. Markham thought, poor man! How could he deliver the traditional Christian message of hope over the coffin of currently the most hated man in Bromgrove – a killer responsible for three (very nearly four) murders?

  ‘Dearly beloved,’ came the uncontroversial opening.

  Then there was a dramatic interruption. Markham heard voices, strident and angry, raised in the porch.

  ‘It’s a disgrace letting him anywhere near decent folk!’

  ‘Let the bastard rot!’

  ‘What about the victims?’

  ‘Call yourself a clergyman, do you?’

  Markham was just preparing to intervene when the clamour ceased as abruptly as it had started. The furious tones died away, shut out by the sturdy chapel door, and the service proceeded without further outbursts.