Funeral Music

by Morag Joss

  With his first sentence he observed to himself that you hardly ever see kids’ eyes anymore, or even their eyebrows. What you see is fringe, and that is what makes it more difficult than it used to be to know if you are getting through (as if you cared) even when, as now, most of your audience is actually facing you and not obviously engaged in any activity other than listening, apart from gum chewing, shoving one another a bit, scratching their rank polyester armpits and squinting amiably through their hair. He thought fondly of the half-dozen or so farewell cards on his desk, with their sincere and laboriously expressed gratitude to A Brilliant Headmaster, and the sweaty, sentimentally addressed offerings of Quality Street and Milk Tray which had been trickling in all week, delivered by this year’s bashful and lumpen leavers. Kids. Snotty, shuffling, unobservant, inarticulate kids who could still, despite how he resisted, inspire these sudden stabs of love. Derek felt himself about to address a flock of mainly good-natured ruminants.

  ‘Well, how nice to see the whole school together on this very special occasion.’

  One side of the hall was composed entirely of windows, and looking out over the children’s heads he was aware of a car drawing up and parking in one of the staff spaces across the playground. A police car. Great timing.

  ‘Thank you, face the front please. We are all, at this point in the school calendar, looking forward to the holidays. Aren’t we?’

  Smiling at the surging ‘Yes!’ that growled from everyone in the hall, notably the staff lining the back wall, he wondered which and how many of the Year 10 boys had just been rounded up and what routine delinquency they were guilty of this time.

  ‘Six weeks of freedom to look forward to!’

  His eyes tracked the progress of the skinny plainclothes officer and his colleague from the car to the open double doors at the back of the hall, where they were being intercepted by Alan, his bright deputy. Good lad, Alan.

  ‘But just before we are all set free for what seems this long, long time, let’s just think a little bit more about that for a minute.’

  Some firm arm-folding going on down there. Alan’s looking a bit fazed. What’s going on?

  ‘Now, most of you will be coming back to school in September (groans). Back to a new year, new subjects perhaps, new teachers, new demands, new challenges.’

  Alan and this plainclothes guy keep turning and looking towards me. Alan’s shaking his head, got a hand on the guy’s arm. Quite right. If it’s me he wants, he’s going to have to bloody well wait.

  ‘And for those of you leaving us this year, the real challenges are just beginning.’

  What the fuck is going on now? Alan is actually having to restrain the guy. And how am I supposed to get on with this, with all the kids craning round to see what the fuss is about?

  ‘Yes, fine now, just turn round, turn round, would you. Thank you, thank you. Yes. Now, yes, thank you. Now. What does the future hold for us? That can sometimes be a frightening thought, can’t it?’

  This guy’s unbelievable. Actually walking up the hall now. Come on, Alan, keep up, keep up. Does he think he’s coming on the platform? Alan’s waving at me. What?

  ‘Because we can never know for certain exactly what is going to happen next, can we?’

  He’s asked for it.

  ‘For example, I have no idea who this gentleman is or why he’s here, but I’m sure he’d like to come up and explain why he’s had to interrupt our celebration this afternoon?’

  God, he’s skinny, half my height. A rodent. The kids are enjoying this. Fuck, so am I!

  ‘Do, please, step right up. Be my guest. And what can we do for you, Mr...er?’

  Make a monkey out of him.

  SITTING IN the police car later as it pulled away, Derek reflected that perhaps this had been a mistake. He was numbly wondering what the hell he had done to deserve this, as well as how to react. What is the appropriate response when a plainclothes police officer barges into the most public event in the school year and from the platform asks you if you’d mind answering a few questions in connection with their enquiries? In retrospect, the decision not to switch off the microphone had not been a good one.

  ‘Well, goodness me, it seems I am a wanted man,’ he had said, but the laughter, especially from behind him on the platform, had been nervous. Just as he was beginning to realise that he was actually going to have to leave the platform, indeed the building, accompanied by the police, Alan had appeared at his side and taken over. Ambitious bastard. From the tone of his voice Derek could tell that he was rubbing his hands as he said, ‘We apologise for that slight interruption, ladies and gentlemen. I’m sure Mr Payne won’t be er . . . detained, if that’s the word, very long. Well, boys and girls, I’m sure after Mr Payne’s unexpected departure, we can all come up with some really fresh and new thoughts about the future . . .’

  ANDREW RANG Sara.

  ‘Sara?’ He sounded like a boy. ‘Very busy. I’m expecting a call on the other line. Bridger may be on to something. He’s spoken to Annabel Sawyer again. Apparently she came across some letter that Sawyer got the day he was killed. He’d been shortlisted for a job. She didn’t think it was important but Bridger got on to the council and thinks he’s found something to go on. He’s got a match with one of the other candidates and a name we’ve already got – someone at the Assembly Rooms. I’m letting him have his head. I probably can’t make the lesson today, but can you manage Tuesday next week? Shall we fix the time later? No, don’t bother, I’ll call you. Good to hear you. ’Bye.’

  She had barely managed hello.

  CHAPTER 23

  LET’S JUST GO over it again, shall we? If you’d just tell me again what you told me at the school, starting with why you were at the Assembly Rooms in Bath on the night of Friday the thirteenth of June,’ Bridger said, in control and oily. ‘That’s exactly five weeks ago today.’

  Derek sank back in his chair and sighed, trying to swallow the sort of rage that he had long been in the habit of giving full vent to. After nearly an hour’s interrogation in his office at school, against the ecumenical cacophony from the hall below of seven hundred voices with steel band accompaniment raised in Celebration of Their Achievements, they had driven him here. They were sitting in Derek’s blond living room, meticulously done in Pauline’s favourite shades of biscuit, with cushions, picture frames and book spines (Pauline’s ‘little points of interest’) in dark green. It was already after five. The police car was parked outside in the drive and his neighbours would soon be rolling past on their way home from work. They would assume that poor Pauline and Derek, such a nice, professional couple, had been burgled, and a spate of solidly middle-class anxious enquiries would be sure to follow, so for them, but mainly for Pauline, Derek would have to concoct a convincing story. Some invention concerning a delinquent kid at school would be easy enough, but he would have to work at it to furnish a reason why the police wanted to talk to him at home rather than at school. Then he would have to remember whatever he said. He reflected that adultery was indeed a wearing business, probably more trouble than it was worth. He was in a very awkward position, he had to remember that, but if he was careful not to antagonise PC Plod here, he would get away with it and Pauline need never know. The thought of Pauline brought a surge of anxiety and another burning wave of indigestion, but he reminded himself that for the moment she was safely out of the way, up at the last session of her weekend course, doing their assessments. Thank God for that, at least. He would be through with this lot soon and then there would be nothing to stop him getting over to Cecily’s as planned. She was expecting him within the hour. He swallowed another chest-prickling, silent belch and sighed again.

  ‘I went to have a look round the costume museum, in connection with the professional matter I have already mentioned.’

  ‘And that would be?’

  ‘That I had been shortlisted for a job which included overall responsibility for the running of the museums,’ Derek rattled off. ‘I wanted
to refresh my memory, get an impression of things for the interview. When I got there I was told that the museum was closed to members of the general public and I was annoyed, because the place was literally full of people, and they could easily have let me in.’

  ‘So you complained, I gather?’

  ‘I objected, yes. And Matthew Sawyer appeared from the back somewhere and I talked it over with him.’

  Derek pushed out of his mind the memory of his embarrassment. ‘I only spoke to him for a minute in a corner of the entrance hall. Yes, I was alone when I spoke to him and no, we weren’t overheard so far as I know. No, as I have already said, I was not alone when I arrived at the Assembly Rooms, but my companion was very taken by the Natural Healing convention and was halfway down the hall looking at leaflets.’

  Bridger looked across at Detective Constable Heaton on the other side of the room with raised eyebrows, which conveyed that Derek’s story had so far failed to impress. DC Heaton stared flatly back from the oyster Dralon armchair, embarrassed not by Mr Payne (his was an old, old story) but by the tone Bridger was taking. There was an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘I’ve already said this, but I suppose you want it again,’ Derek went on, his lips dry. ‘My companion was my secretary. We are...very close, out of school, that is. My wife often works at weekends, so Mrs Smith and I had gone to the Assembly Rooms together.’

  ‘No need to underline it, sir. We have Mrs Smith’s statement that she gave to the police officer who interviewed her at home on the evening of’ – Bridger leafed slowly back through his notes – ‘Monday the sixteenth of June. She told the officer that you made a brief enquiry about opening hours and left the building. Didn’t quite tell the whole story, did she?’

  ‘I’m sure she considered the question of my forthcoming interview as a matter confidential to myself,’ Derek said. ‘She is a very discreet woman. She was protecting me.’

  ‘Protecting you, sir? Protecting you from what, exactly? From being identified as a suspect?’

  Derek sighed in exasperation. ‘No, of course not. Look, I’ve explained. We were...close. She and I were spending the evening together. Yes, all right then, the night. Look, is this relevant? I’ve already told you how I did spend the evening.’

  Again he struggled to control his temper. It wasn’t good for him, all this rage. Again a noxious bulge of heartburn surged in his chest and he stirred unhappily in his chair.

  Bridger said, without moving, ‘Let’s just have it again, sir, if we may.’

  There was going to be no short way out of this. Derek knew he must not hiss as he spoke, but the recollection of this part of the evening still made the bile rise in his throat.

  ‘Mrs Smith decided that she would like to stay for the convention evening. I myself did not wish to do so. So we agreed that I would return to her house – yes, as I have already told you, 5 Bladud Vale, Larkhall – and return to pick her up at ten thirty. It was not a row, but I was, well, disappointed. I did not wait to discuss her decision at length. But it was not what you would call a row. It was only a little... acrimonious.’

  He gulped dyspeptically, rubbing the flat of his hand slowly up and down his breastbone. He must concentrate. It was essential to convince them of the next part.

  ‘I got back to the house round about quarter to seven. I brought my briefcase and shopping in but forgot to pick up the carrier bag with the rest of my stuff from the backseat. I parked quite a way up from the house so I didn’t go back for it straightaway. I meant to do it later. I just sat down for a minute first with a glass of wine. Then I was going to go and get it so that I could change. I wasn’t planning to get started on dinner before about eight, so I had a bit of time to unwind. Well, I actually had a few glasses of wine, it had been a very tiring week, and then I fell asleep. I suppose I was just very tired. I hadn’t eaten since lunchtime and I suppose I did drink rather a lot on an empty stomach. When I woke up it was after half past ten.’

  ‘And you had promised to pick up your “lady friend” at half past, had you?’

  Derek nodded, wondering fleetingly if Cecily could accurately be described as either.

  ‘So when I woke up and realised the time I just picked up the car keys and ran. It was late enough already, and we hadn’t eaten or anything. Anyway, I was about halfway along Camden Crescent when it dawned on me that I really shouldn’t be driving. I mean, I felt quite sober but I probably had too much alcohol in my bloodstream. In my job you can’t afford to take risks like that, not that I would want to anyway.’

  He did not add that he had also realised at once that the loss of his licence after a drunk-driving charge in Bath late on a Friday night would take some explaining to Pauline.

  ‘So I had to park the car on Camden Crescent and leave it. I walked the rest of the way to the Assembly Rooms.’

  Bridger yawned. ‘In the rain, would that be, sir?’

  ‘Yes. I got there about quarter past eleven. There was a bloke locking up and he said a woman had just left to walk down to the rank at the abbey to get a taxi. It sounded exactly like Cecily. So I walked on down to see if I could find her, but she must have got a cab straightaway, there was no sign of her. And then I remembered about my bag which was still on the backseat of the car. There were things I needed in it. I decided to walk back to the car and get it.’

  He did not mention that by that time he had felt apoplectic with anger towards Cecily and that after following her halfway round town he was damned if he was spending the money on another taxi just so that he could screech up seconds behind her when her taxi drew up outside number 5. He was wet through anyway and couldn’t have got any wetter. He would walk and it would be her fault. Let her worry. Let her drop dead.

  ‘When I got back to the car the bag on the backseat had gone. It was missing.’ He sighed. It did sound implausible.

  ‘And yet the car had not been broken into, sir?’ Bridger asked, disingenuously. ‘Amazingly enough.’

  Derek coughed. ‘I’ve told you. I had left it unlocked. By mistake, in the hurry, and in the wet. I just forgot to lock it.’

  Patiently, he again went through the list of items missing from the green Marks and Spencer’s bag and again Bridger stopped him when they came to the knife.

  ‘And you didn’t think to report any of this to the police then, sir, the “theft” of valuable items, not even the “theft” of a dangerous, eleven-inch, steel kitchen knife?’

  Derek sighed. Of course he had not reported it, and Bridger knew why.

  ‘You just went out the next day, I think you said, and replaced it from Kitchens in Quiet Street. Using cash. And we’ve noted that you also used cash that morning to buy a pair of corduroy trousers, a checked shirt, a cotton sweater, toothbrush and razor. So that Mrs P would be none the wiser? Very thorough of you, sir.’

  Bridger grinned at Heaton. ‘And going back to the previous night, you got back to 5 Bladud Vale at, what time was it?’

  ‘I’ve told you. Some time around one.’

  ‘And Mrs Smith is unable to confirm this, I believe you said?’

  ‘Mrs Smith, as I have told you, was taking a bath. She was playing music very loudly in the bathroom when I got back. She does that when she is feeling at all...tense. She had left a blanket on the stairs, which I took to be an indication that she did not wish to be disturbed. So I slept on the sofa.’

  He did not add the little detail, the tiny satisfaction that had rounded off his unplanned and rather untoward evening. When he had got back, bursting for a pee, to find that Cecily had barricaded herself in the bathroom with Marvin Gaye on full blast, he had marched back out into the front garden and urinated savagely into her urn.

  ‘So all in all, you didn’t get quite the evening you were hoping for then, it would seem,’ Bridger said. DC Heaton gave a little smirk, of which he was instantly ashamed.‘Anything to add at this stage, sir?’

  Derek dumbly shook his head, which was beginning to ache. ‘My wife...’ he began, tu
rning towards Bridger in an appeal from one man of the world to another and in this instance futile.

  ‘I heard later from Mrs Smith about the murder. I was quite upset. But I didn’t know Sawyer. I only spoke to him for a minute, about the museum opening times.’

  ‘So you are confirming, are you, sir, that you didn’t know that Mr Sawyer had been shortlisted himself for the job you were going for?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know,’ Derek almost barked. He rubbed his hands roughly over his face as if to wash away the lie. ‘Look, even if I had, does anyone ever want a job badly enough to kill off the opposition? In your experience?’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Now, that knife you bought. In the kitchen is it, sir? If you’ll just show DC Heaton where to find it, he’ll bring it along, and then we’ll just pop over to the station and see if we can flesh out a few of the details.’

  Derek’s despair was too deep for further speech. As he left the room, DC Heaton seized his chance.

  ‘Sir, don’t you want to arrest him? None of this’ll be admissible evidence if you don’t arrest him. It’s not like you’re letting him stay here, is it? He could claim unlawful detention. You need to arrest him.’

  ‘Let me handle this, Constable. There’s nothing wrong with the odd short cut, when you know where to make it. Go and get the knife.’

  When Derek and DC Heaton reappeared a moment later, Bridger said breezily, ‘Right, sir. Just a few more questions down at the station, if you don’t mind. In the hope that we can eliminate you from our enquiries, sir.’