by Oliver Tidy
Romney got very interested. ‘Blimey. I suppose you’ve considered the possibility that that ties in with Lance’s disappearance?’
‘At the very outside. But obviously not something we can ignore. If he’s off with stress are we going to go a bit easy on him?’
Romney gave her a look. ‘Don’t want a suspect keeling over with a heart attack under questioning?’
‘If there’s a way to avoid it, I think we should.’
‘Fine. You lead then.’
‘Pardon.’
‘I said you lead. You ask the questions and I’ll jump in if I have to.’
*
Mr Foyle lived in a neat, sprawling bungalow on a big plot of land in a quiet road in the best part of River. Not that any part of River was considered undesirable as a place to live, according to the estate agents’ advertisements. Marsh had looked recently. Their prices indicated the same. Even with a good deposit River was out of her price range, unless she wanted to be handing over most of her salary for the next twenty-five years.
Although Romney always preferred cold calling people involved in his investigations – guards were down and lies were harder to make convincing when the reptilian brains of the guilty were being relied upon – Romney had forewarned Mr Foyle of their visit as a courtesy in consideration of his condition. He too did not want to flash his warrant badge on the doorstep unannounced only to risk the man suffering a stress-related episode or worse. That would just waste their time.
*
Mr Foyle was dressed adventurously in botanical purples: neatly pressed casual slacks in lavender, a lilac shirt – open at the neck – and a violet cardigan. On his feet were polished leather slippers, which were disappointingly brown. He appeared to have spent some time on his toilet: his hair was tidy, he was clean-shaven and he smelled nice – a fragrance with a suggestion of mauve. He did not appear nervous; he had no telling facial tics; his hands were warm, not clammy and his handshake with both officers was firm. In confident and friendly measured speech, he invited them through to a conservatory at the back of the house and offered them tea, which they politely refused.
As a back garden enthusiast, Romney viewed the carefully manicured expanse of lawn and neatly maintained borders with a touch of envy. He understood that unless Mr Foyle’s garden enjoyed the attentions of a gardener at least once a week, he was spending a lot of his new-found freedom outside exercising his green fingers. After a couple of sociable platitudes regarding the pretty aspect afforded by the wall of glass, the police made themselves comfortable in the matching wicker furniture. Romney sniffed the air and said, ‘Is that Erinmore?
‘Yes, it is,’ said Foyle. ‘Are you a pipe smoker, Detective Inspector?’
‘I’m fairly new to it,’ said Romney. ‘But I enjoy it. I find it very relaxing. Helps me to think.’
On the one occasion Marsh had watched him fumbling and fussing with his pipe to an unsatisfactory conclusion it had looked anything but relaxing and conducive to thought. If she remembered rightly, he’d needed a cigarette to get over it.
As per their conversation in the car, Romney indicated with what was left of his eyebrows that Marsh should take control.
‘Do you know why we’ve asked to see you, Mr Foyle?’ she said.
Foyle seemed a little surprised to be addressed by the officer junior in rank and years. ‘Actually, Sergeant Marsh, I’m afraid I don’t have the first idea.’
‘You don’t keep in touch with school then?’
Foyle shook his head and swallowed. The skin seemed to grow tighter on his face, like his skull had just expanded with a deep breath. ‘No. I don’t. Doctor’s orders.’ Foyle clasped his hands together. He didn’t seem conscious of the movement. His fingers slipped over each other as they fidgeted and his knuckles showed tight against his skin. ‘Is this something to do with school, then?’ He met each of their stares in turn and there was definitely something there that undermined his earlier self-assurance.
Neither officer spoke. It was a technique. Often those being questioned would feel the need to fill the void.
Foyle looked between them and said quietly, ‘Is this about that youth?’
‘Which youth, Mr Foyle?’ said Marsh.
Foyle swallowed again and it seemed it pained him to do so. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly. The police exchanged a glance. ‘The youth that I had a… confrontation with.’ He opened his eyes and something had happened to them. It was like a film had covered them. The keen critical observance had been dulled almost as though he were now looking into his memories instead of out at the world.
Marsh frowned, thinking that would be a strange way to describe murder and concealment of a body. ‘Would you like to tell us your side, Mr Foyle?’ she said.
Romney privately approved of her choice of words. To the unsuspecting, the question would likely sound like an invitation to refute an allegation.
Foyle studied the backs of his hands for a few quiet moments more before meeting Marsh’s stare. ‘I hit one of them.’
Again Marsh gave him only silence and a rigid, unblinking stare in return.
‘They would wait for me to come out of school. They would insult me with their deeply hurtful comments. They damaged my car. They terrorised me. One day I snapped. I hit one of them. He was little more than a boy.’ Foyle closed his eyes again and shook his head at the memory. ‘He was one of my old pupils. He was not a bad lad. Not back then. What happened to him to make him so... hateful?’
‘Why were they targeting you?’ said Marsh.
‘Do they need reasons?’ He tried to muster a smile. ‘You know, in many ways I suppose being a teacher is much like being a police officer. You are abused and insulted almost on a daily basis by the very people you are trying to help, the people you’ve made a life choice to try to improve their lives. And more often than not they hate you for what you’re trying to do for them. As for what I did – dozens of times people say these things and then one day you don’t accept it. Why? It’s not about words. It’s about how you feel at that moment. One day you react, but the words are exactly the same as those you have heard dozens of times. It is impossible to say why you react.
‘I lost my temper. I lashed out. I never should have. I abhor violence. I should have simply turned the other cheek and walked away.’
There were the beginnings of tears in Foyle’s eyes and Marsh felt guilty for encouraging him to remember something that was clearly so difficult for him and nothing to do with why they were there. But they had to know if this was anything they needed to be aware of. The only way to do that was to hear him out.
‘Coming on the top of everything else, my weakness, my violence, was the last straw for me as a teacher. I had shocked myself. No, I appalled myself. I realised I couldn’t trust myself any more. That’s when I had my first proper breakdown. I never went back to school and I don’t think I ever will. I don’t want anything more to do with that life. I can’t afford to.’
Marsh said, ‘Thank you for sharing that, Mr Foyle. I can see that it was not easy for you. I hope you’ll understand when I say that because of our investigations we needed to hear it. But it’s not why we’re here.’
Romney said, ‘Why would you expect our visit to be about that particular incident, Mr Foyle? It’s not exactly recent.’
‘Because I encountered the boy in the town last week. He had words for me. Made some threats. He had friends with him. He said he was going to make trouble for me. I just assumed that he’d followed through. If this isn’t about him, what is it about? Why are you here?’
‘We are investigating a serious crime. It’s possible that what we are investigating has nothing to do with school.’
‘But with me?’ He looked freshly alarmed.
‘That’s what we’re here to find out, sir.’
Romney approved of that, but he had a question of his own. ‘What did you mean coming on top of everything else, Mr Foyle?
‘Perhaps I should exp
lain. I had quite a difficult time of it before I left. More than the abuse. The whole... burden of running a school, of meeting the targets, of dealing with parents and children and the county, the expectations, the bureaucracy, the people and then that bloody building project...’ He stopped and grimaced a little self-consciously. There was a glistening of perspiration on his brow. He took a non-purple handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at it. He took a deep breath. ‘I only have to think of it, to remember how it was. If it were not for the medication I really don’t know where I’d be up here.’ He tapped his head with his index finger.
Marsh said, ‘As we understand it, you’d only been in the head teacher’s job for a short time before you were signed off work.’
Foyle snorted at that. ‘In name only, Sergeant. In name only. I’d been running that school single-handedly as acting deputy, not even fully paid deputy, for over a year while the incumbent head teacher did nothing other than sit in her office all day delegating.’ The rekindling of his feelings for that person brought some colour back into his cheeks.
‘Where is the former head teacher now,’ said Romney. ‘Do you know?’
‘The south of France, I believe. She had a holiday home there. I understand that the day KCC let her go she packed up and took off down there and hasn’t been back.’
Marsh said. ‘As I said, Mr Foyle, perhaps this is nothing to do with school at all. Do you remember the shipping container in Dover and District Self-Storage that the PTA made use of for storage?’
Mr Foyle seemed aware that both officers were staring hard at him now – looking for something in his reaction to the question. He nodded and his brow furrowed with apparent interest rather than apparent guilt. He looked between them and said, ‘The Holloways allowed the PTA to store stuff in there when the school lost its storage facilities.’
‘Last Saturday a body was found in it.’
Either the simple shock of the awful news or the discovery of something that perhaps he had some prior knowledge of caused much of the man’s colour to drain from his face. He was suddenly perspiring quite heavily and it wasn’t hot in the sunroom. Mr Foyle’s breathing changed. He gulped air with a visible effort, in and out slowly several times as he sat rigidly upright, gripping the arms of his chair. His eyes were wide and frightened and somewhere else.
Marsh said, ‘Are you all right, Mr Foyle. Would you like some water or something?’
He nodded vigorously and she went to fetch some. By the time she returned he had recovered a little. His breathing was easier and some of his colour had returned. He took some pills from a packet in his cardigan pocket and swallowed them with the water.
After a few awkward moments, he said, ‘Thank you. I’ll be all right now. What a terrible business.’ And then looking between the two officers he said, ‘That’s why you’re here? Because of this body?’ They didn’t deny it. ‘Please don’t misinterpret my reaction as an indication that I have any knowledge of it. This is the first I’ve heard about it. Perhaps I should explain that in my present condition I don’t take distressing news very well. It’s one of the reasons that I can’t watch the television or read the papers any more. I get upset very easily.’ He shook his head at his lot. ‘It must be hard for you to believe that I was a head teacher. I’ve become so... emotional.’ He looked at them with fresh tears in his eyes.
Marsh said, ‘We need to ask you some further questions, Mr Foyle. Are you up to it? If you prefer we can do it down at the station or you can get someone round to sit with you?’
Romney approved again without saying so.
Mr Foyle smiled weakly and said, ‘Ask your questions, Sergeant, although I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you with your enquiries.’
‘Why’s that, sir?’ said Marsh.
‘Because I never went in or near the shipping container and I have no idea how whoever the poor soul might be got there.’
*
‘Maybe he just isn’t naturally curious,’ said Romney. They were sitting in Romney’s car outside Foyle’s home. He hadn’t started the engine.
‘Perhaps,’ said Marsh. ‘But I would have expected him to at least ask who it was or how they’d died or how long the body had been in there. Some details. Most would in his position.’
‘You heard him: he doesn’t watch the TV or read the papers and he has to avoid distressing news.’
‘I heard that’s what he said.’
‘You don’t believe him?’
Marsh shrugged. ‘He certainly looked to be having a real turn. Not easy to fake convincingly. Are we ruling him out?’
‘Certainly not. It’s possible that he was around at the time Lance was killed, whether he was working or not. I imagine he’s still got keys to the place. I should have asked him. And something triggered his rather excessive reaction. No. Mr Foyle stays on the list with further enquiries pending.’
‘Odd coincidence him going off work so soon after his promotion to head,’ said Marsh.
Romney laughed. It was his cynical noise. ‘I’m not sure about that. Life will be a lot easier for him in his early retirement on a head teacher’s pension than it would have been on an acting deputy’s pension.’
‘Are you suggesting that he was just waiting for his promotion and his pay rise to go off sick?’
‘He wouldn’t be the first and he won’t be the last. It’s a fair bet he had some inkling that all was not well with him up top. You heard what he had to say about his last year. Sounded to me like he felt he owed them one, or rather they owed him for the way they’d ridden him into the ground. If that’s true then I don’t blame him if he played them, fooled them and screwed them. Serves the bean-counters bloody well right. Good luck to him.’
‘I didn’t see a Mrs Foyle or evidence of one, did you?’ said Marsh.
‘No. No sign of a significant other. I’ll ask Julie what she knows about that.’
Marsh made no comment.
‘You didn’t seem overly sympathetic to his condition,’ said Romney.
‘I’m learning from the best, sir,’ said Marsh, without a trace of irony.
The compliment, backhanded or not, seemed to please Romney as he settled in for the drive back to the station.
*
CID briefings were to be held at the beginning and end of each working day and, where logistically possible, attended by all members. This was part of Superintendent Vine’s long-term thinking for making the department more efficient and cohesive. Romney had proved initially resistant to the requirement, claiming that compulsory meetings were a waste of time if they had nothing to meet about and discuss. Boudicca had remarked rather icily that in CID there should always be things to discuss, intelligence to share. So Romney had gone along with it, although the great majority of the gatherings were brief and not always work-related.
On this occasion he updated his whiteboard with names and coloured arrows. He made a note that the DNA sample was with forensics. He shared with his team the details of his interviews with Lance Leavey’s mother, Martin, Sally, and then Mr Foyle.
Surprisingly, Grimes had proved himself to be rather interactive in the meetings. Romney put this down to the fact that the big man got to sit on his backside avoiding real police work for a few minutes, taking it easy and asking questions only to prolong that status quo rather than for any great desire for information related to ongoing investigations.
Looking at Grimes, Romney said, ‘Any developments you’d care to share regarding the metal thefts?’
Grimes sat up a little straighter as they all turned to face him. He made a show of checking his notebook and said, ‘No, guv. I’m waiching for a couple of conchacsh choo get back choo me. On the bwight shide, there haven’t been any more reporched inshidensh.’
‘Maybe that’s because the villains have heard that you’re on the case,’ said Romney, which raised a good-natured titter.
Marsh said, ‘Just out of interest, are there any churches with lead roofs left to plunder in Do
ver?’
‘Yes, Sharge. You want the lishch?’ said Grimes, flicking through the pages.
‘No thanks. Just wondered.’ She was smiling at him.
‘I’ve been in chuch with all the other churchesh in the awea and chold any with shignificant quanchichiesh of lead to be vigilant.’
‘Maybe you should have told them to pray a bit harder. Anything else?’ said Romney, checking his watch.
There wasn’t.
Romney left a few minutes early, which encouraged the others to start packing up and watch the clock.
Marsh phoned the estate agents to confirm her appointment time and said she’d meet the man there.
Grimes, keeping watch out of the front-facing window, passed along the news that ‘Elvish’ had left the building and driven off in the direction of home. That was a signal for terminals to be powered off and jackets to be shrugged on.
***
14
Joy changed into her trainers and speed-walked home. Flushed in the face and a little sweaty, she made her appointment with a couple of minutes to spare. The estate agent was waiting for her at the open front door of the flat, talking on his mobile phone. Spying her approach, he finished his call and gave her his full attention.
He was not the same man who Joy had spoken to at the town office. This man was more her age. He beamed a healthy and engaging smile as they shook hands. He was tall and blond and quite handsome. His clothes looked tailored even though she knew that was quite unlikely. He spoke with a clear, engaging diction using a tone that Joy found quite appealing. He stood aside and gestured with a sweep of his arm that she should enter. It was rather an archaic and gallant gesture for a man his age, and quite endearing.
The place was still furnished. It gave Joy an idea of how much floor space there would be with her own meagre possessions installed: plenty, and plenty of available wall space for a lot of her recently acquired book collection. The estate agent – James Meakin it had said on the embossed card he’d given her – began prattling away about the benefits of living in The Gateway. Joy shut him up by letting him know she already rented there and was quite familiar with what went and what didn’t, the pros and the cons, so he could save it for someone else. She didn’t say it meanly.