The Art Teacher

by Paul Read

  Patrick found himself walking. Despite the umbrella, the slanting rain had turned his hair into a sticky melange of wax. ‘Go on…’

  ‘I guess I just got a bit nostalgic, y’know. Realised I was too old to die young. And then seeing you on the telly. Jesus… I never really found a calling after the band, I’ll be honest. I’ve been in bands me whole life and I got older by accident. I mean… I moved on and all, but… Our band, it’s still the big thing people talk about to me. You know what I mean?’

  Was Adam under the impression The Forsaken had been massive in their time? Even Sarah, who’d claimed to have been a fan, could only name their sole top five hit upon prompting. If Adam was hoping Patrick’s recent press would bolster interest in the band, he was well adrift of the truth.

  The conversation entered its winding down stage. Adam revealed he was off the methadone. Patrick lied and said he was still writing music.

  ‘You mentioned coming down to London…’ Patrick said.

  ‘That’s a great idea. Are you free any evenings soon?’

  He was standing outside the pub on the corner and, even though it was locked-up for the morning, Patrick imagined he could smell its wet woods and sodden carpet, a ghostly infusion of pre-ban fags. He looked to the sign above the pub door. ‘The Old Ale Emporium?’ he suggested. ‘Tomorrow? About seven?’

  A familiar figure awaited him outside The Heights. A mixed-race man with plasters across his nose.

  ‘Did you once hit Denis Roberts, Mr Owen?’

  Patrick heard his own voice, from outside his body. ‘What are you talking about?’

  The well-built journalist swallowed, raised himself an inch. He was dressed in a brown, knee-length coat and green scarf. ‘The paper’s going to run with the piece but needs the teacher’s side for balance. It will be in this evening’s edition.’

  Even through his stupor of confusion, Patrick knew this was unjust: he’d kept a low profile since being threatened by Matthew, had done what was asked of him.

  ‘Do you have anything to say about these claims?’

  ‘Are you so keen to get back at me for your broken nose that you’re willing to risk publishing lies?’

  The smile was well controlled. ‘It’s not editorial policy.’

  Patrick barged past him and trembled his door key in the direction of the keyhole.

  ‘Mr Owen, did you hit Denis? Yes or no?’

  He succeeded in getting in, slammed the door in the journalist’s face.

  ‘Can I have a quote please?’ the journalist shouted through the door.

  Patrick pressed his middle finger against the glass. ‘Quote this.’

  Five minutes later, he dared draw back his curtain the width of a castle’s arrow-slit to see if Jack the Hack still lurked outside. Instead, he saw four men smoking cigarettes, their cameras flashing while grey clouds swam above.

  Stubble snagged fabric as Patrick lurched through restless sleep. He woke to the hallucinatory moaning of what sounded like the school bell and rose unsteadily from the sofa to locate the source of the noise, eventually identifying it as the telephone. Patrick knew, upon hearing the officious panic in Mr Hutchinson’s voice, the story had hit.

  ‘You’re staying at home indefinitely,’ he confirmed. ‘There’s some unfortunate scaremongering in one of the afternoon papers.’ From the acoustics, he assumed the call originated from the boardroom. He was aware of voices in the background, one of which undoubtedly belonged to the gung-ho PC Thomas.

  ‘This is bullshit.’

  ‘You’re telling me. Ofsted rang this morning – they’re on their way.’

  ‘Don’t they have any compassion? A boy died last week.’

  ‘Child safety, Patrick. There’d be uproar if they weren’t investigating.’ He dropped his voice to a sinister level, betraying his past life as a drama teacher, then added, ‘I don’t believe what’s being said about you, by the way, but… You’re in our thoughts.’

  Patrick headed straight out to discover the extent of the damage, prising his way through the phalanx of thermos-supping photographers. ‘Turn this way, gov,’ one of them cried. ‘Look sadder, Patrick,’ hollered another. There was no ‘sir’ for the commodity he’d become.

  A couple of photographers gave chase on foot. Another pair dived into their cars. The rest, assuming by Patrick’s bare feet he’d return sooner rather than later, remained coolly stationary.

  Out of breath, Patrick smashed through the door of the newsagent’s and staggered towards a paper featuring a front page photograph of him next to Denis’s mother in the school hall.

  The headline screamed, ‘Anti-Violence Teacher Claim: I Didn’t Hit Dead Boy’.

  Union City teemed with the blue jumpers of Highfields’ children as they filed home, school-run fumes clogged the alleyways and an oily tang of fried food filled the air. The slamming of car doors. Scratching pebbles lodged in children’s scooters.

  He waited in the same Bateman block recess in which he’d hidden from the cycling youths on Monday night. The police cordon was still in place on the other side.

  Jenna appeared at twenty-past-four, her face over-made-up but looking no more troubled than any other teenager’s. He snapped her name as loudly as he dared and she instantly twisted to the direction of the voice. She was on edge after all.

  Jenna looked about her, hesitated, then crossed to join him in the alcove.

  ‘This is dangerous, Patrick.’ It was a voice that had called him Mr Owen for most of the time they’d known each other, that had wavered in strength and pitch in the last few months, through phases of apathy, distrust, avoidance and conspiracy. Impeccably pronounced when she was at home, lazy and slanged when she mixed with her peers. Her eyes met his. ‘Patrick, where are your shoes?’

  ‘You still haven’t told me what happened. Over there.’ He nodded towards the white tent.

  Confusion puckered her forehead. ‘I told you everything.’

  ‘I beg to differ. It was less of an accident than you made out, wasn’t it? Denis had assaulted you previously and… you’d had enough…’

  The inconsistencies in her character were solved. As he’d lain in wait for her, scrutinising the messed-up events of the last few days, everything had seemed to fall into place; she hadn’t been attracted to Denis at all, she’d been reeling him in, awaiting an opportunity to see her abuser off. ‘I think I have a right to know whether I’m an accomplice to manslaughter or cold-blooded murder. Well, Jenna? I’ve been well and truly framed, haven’t I? You and Matthew and the others can sit pretty while the evidence mounts against me.’

  She tried to make a run for it. He grabbed her at the elbow.

  ‘Tell me, Jenna.’

  ‘Why are you being like this? I told you what happened.’

  ‘What’s to stop me going to the police and explaining everything? How you killed him. How I hid the gun for you. You can still go down for this, you and the rest of the “Souljas”.’

  ‘Please, Patrick. You promised.’

  ‘You’ve played me just as you played Denis. How did you do it?’

  ‘I pulled the trigger. That’s how guns kill, Patrick.’

  She tried again to force her way past him. He tightened his grip on her elbow.

  ‘Was it even you who killed him? Or are you just a small part of the general plot against me?’

  She shook herself loose but stood her ground. ‘I killed him,’ she hissed. ‘Every minute of every day I think about it, even when I sleep. Which I can’t.’

  ‘Your remorse doesn’t make it any less premeditated. Did you lure him there?’

  ‘What are you saying? That I… That I offered myself? I didn’t mean to kill him… I hated him but I didn’t want that to happen…’

  ‘So why, if you hated him so much, were you always by his side? I saw you hanging out with Denis all the time. In the estate, in the playground. You looked very cosy.’

  She finally succeeded in wrenching her eyes towards his. ‘He ter
rified me, Patrick. He terrified me. I didn’t know how to escape him. I didn’t know what to do. Maybe, when I found myself with the opportunity to kill him, something… unconscious… took over but I certainly never led him there, never planned how to cover it over… It just happened.’

  Patrick slumped against the wall. Crying women normally inspired apologies from him, but not this time. He didn’t believe her.

  ‘I hated him,’ she confessed. ‘But he was so… convincing.’ It seemed the wrong choice of word. Perhaps she meant controlling, or persuasive, or exciting. Her tousled, aggrieved expression, as though she struggled to recollect something of great importance, told him even she didn’t know whether she’d intended to kill him or not. ‘He chased me. He was the one with the bad intentions. I was just protecting myself. I told you.’

  ‘How widespread was the knowledge that I once hit Denis?’

  She looked about her, wiped her eyes. ‘It’s not the sort of thing Denis would’ve talked about. It wouldn’t have made him look very good, would it? I certainly didn’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Well Matthew knows, and he’s made my life very difficult.’

  Jenna waited for a group of kids to amble past. ‘To be honest, I think he’s trying to get at me.’ Her voice was becoming harder, unrepentant. ‘It’s complicated. There’s history, sort of, between me, Denis and Matthew. We’ve known each other a little while, you know. We’re all Union City kids… He wants everything Denis wanted, let’s just put it like that. He’s immature. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.’

  ‘His “immaturity” is going to put me in jail.’ Patrick wanted it spelt out: his actions had been riskier than hers. ‘You lied to me, to get me to help you. You weren’t the only person Denis told about me hitting him, were you?’

  For the first time, she looked truly contrite. ‘I don’t know.’ And then, as though to justify her dishonesty, ‘He said there were others there at the time, but that they wouldn’t talk. They weren’t from Highfields. They didn’t know you. I certainly don’t believe Matthew would’ve known about it. Denis couldn’t stand him.’

  ‘Weren’t Matthew and Denis in the same gang?’

  Jenna shivered. ‘There are things you don’t understand about gang life. Gangs are supposed to remain solid, like families, but in reality… people leave. Again, like families.’ Her eyes betrayed inner hurt. ‘Denis was a natural leader but Matthew was just the younger brother of some local dealer. I guess now Denis is dead, Matthew’s carrying on their rivalry by trying to claim his position. Trust me, there’s no love lost there. That fire at Matthew’s brother’s house? Denis did it. He thought there was a quid or two to be made in selling and was trying to take out the opposition. He’d begun to play dangerous games with people. I honestly think if I hadn’t killed Denis, someone else would’ve sooner or later…’

  ‘And I bet that makes you feel a lot better.’

  She ignored him. ‘Union Souljas was getting too big. That war in the estate was basically two sides within the same gang fighting each other. Denis was trying to separate himself from the old gang.’

  ‘And which gang are you in?’

  ‘Neither. I’m not stupid, Patrick.’

  Only now did Patrick unpick her previous mention of “history” between her, Denis and Matthew. ‘Were you and Matthew…?’

  ‘No. God, no. I mean, there was that time when we were drunk… But that was nothing. Everybody does, don’t they?’

  ‘So who the hell’s been telling people I hit Denis if not Matthew?’

  ‘I swear I haven’t told anybody.’

  ‘But Matthew knew. He threatened me yesterday. He told me…’ Patrick struggled to recall exactly what had been said, screwed his eyes tight to engage his brain through the uncertainty, the fear. ‘He told me I had “reasons for popping D-Man”. He told me that he, you and I shared knowledge of some kind.’

  Patrick slapped a sudden, hard hand against his forehead.

  ‘You’re scaring me,’ she said.

  ‘He’s been spying on your flat. He startled Sarah last night, looking through the window, and he’s obviously seen me going in and out at odd hours. That’s what his campaign of hatred against me’s been about; the paedophile accusations only started once I began seeing your mother. He thinks, in his confused, jealous, teenage way, that I’ve been meeting you. And it explains the rivalry with Denis, doesn’t it? He’s besotted with you.’

  ‘Yuk.’ Jenna chewed her bottom lip. ‘I didn’t even enjoy it…’

  ‘You claimed to have thrown paint on my desk that time, but you were covering for Denis. I knew that. And now Matthew’s copying his tactics. I know he was impressed by Denis’s vandalism because he’d been revelling in some online examples on his phone. My Wikipedia entry, for starters. He may have been Denis’s rival, but he held him in high regard as a petty criminal. And he insulted Denis in the lesson that time, remember? That was just after Denis touched you inappropriately. Matthew’s jealousy got him his arm broken…’

  Jenna winced. ‘…I see.’

  ‘So if Matthew wasn’t threatening me over hitting Denis, who is? How did the press get wind of—’

  He was cut off as Jenna gasped and pressed against him. Brittle, avian fingers wormed at his jacket.

  ‘It’s Mum.’

  Patrick peered over her and saw Sarah. She was scudding away from them, dressed as though bound for the office, unsteady on high heels and a mid-length grey skirt.

  ‘Did she spot us?’ he asked, pushing her off his right foot.

  ‘We should get out of here.’

  There came a wail of sirens, as though confirming her appeal.

  In his terrified panic, thin wisps of an idea coalesced in Patrick’s mind. ‘Jenna, I can’t admit to hitting Denis. It makes me a huge suspect. Maybe if…’ The terrible drama of the press conference jackhammered in his mind, the gasps and poison chatter of the crowd as Matthew’s slander was unfurled. ‘Maybe if we stick this on Matthew somehow… Perhaps we can make out he’s been saying these lies about me to… to deflect the blame from himself. The fact that he and Denis hated each other might just help our cause… Quickly, I need to know what you said at the police station. Our stories must tie up.’

  ‘I told them nothing. Remember? Deny everything.’ She held onto the words as though they were still appropriate. ‘You want to frame Matthew? Is that really what you’re saying?’

  ‘I’m going to go down for this, Jenna. This is serious.’

  ‘You’ll find a way out. I did you a favour killing Denis, you know I did. He told me he was just biding his time…’

  He stared at her. She may have had a point. ‘I hardly think your act of charity compares with mine.’

  The sirens grew louder, their dissonant droning drawing residents to their windows, hoping to catch sight of the culprit. Jenna, her eyes wide, fearful, still stared after her mother; she looked ready to run.

  ‘Wait,’ he protested. Patrick didn’t know if he could truly trust her, but there was no one else. No time. ‘I fucked up. I couldn’t just vanish the gun away. It’s in my classroom. Go in and take your clay head. You can say you need to work on it at home. The gun’s inside. Clean it up and stick it on Matthew somehow. Do for me what I couldn’t quite do for you. Hide the evidence properly. It’s our only chance.’

  His conspirator nodded, horrified, and melted away into the concrete as sirens converged.

  Patrick hurried back the way he came. Every hooded face carried a sneer, as though the whole of Union City knew who he was, what he’d done, and a young mother grabbed the hand of her daughter, pulling her closer as he swept past barefoot.

  A door slammed and a voice called Patrick’s name.

  The woman turned towards the swooping police and he heard her sigh, ‘This area goes from bad to worse. Wonder who they’re after this time?’

  Patrick was already running.

  He didn’t get far. Another silver and orange BMW sliced off his route with a squ
ealing handbrake slide and Inspector Meadows stepped from the passenger side wearing a far less affable face than usual. He strode up to Patrick and pinched his skin with a pair of shiny cuffs.

  ‘You have the right to remain silent, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention when questioned something you later come to rely on in court…’

  PART FOUR

  ONE

  ‘So what happened that day?’ Meadows asked.

  Patrick sat in a grey room no larger than a single garage, at a small wooden table and on a straight-backed padded chair. To his right was a window made up of thick misted blocks like the kind found in budget bathroom showrooms, behind which uniformed shadows ghosted past. The traditional one-way mirror hovered to Patrick’s left, showing him bruised and dejected. A dehumidifier sat in the corner.

  ‘What day?’

  ‘The day you hit him.’

  ‘I categorically deny ever hitting Denis Roberts.’

  Meadows scratched his shoulder blade, allowed himself a thin smile. ‘You met him on the way home before Christmas. There were six of them. He was about to remove something from a pocket. You punched him and he stayed down. You fled. Sound familiar?’

  The truth beat in Patrick’s temples, his rage rose. Under the unblinking eye of the Inspector, he cursed.

  ‘You still deny it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So it’s a lie that the pacifist Art teacher, who was seen striking Sarah Ellis’s ex-husband in the school playground yesterday, hit one of his pupils?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Meadows rifled through the printout in front of him, clicked the tip of his pen. ‘Why would someone make this story up?’

  ‘You’d have to ask them that. Which trustworthy member of society is this “someone”?’

  Time passed slowly. He heard the ticking of a clock from far away and thought in colours and sounds as though under psychotropic influence, never far from breaching the surface of a dream. When he looked up Meadows was still there, impassive against the ashtray grey walls, adopting the same pathetic look of sympathy as the solicitor who’d dropped the news about The Forsaken’s break-up.