by M. J. Trow
‘Now there, Tony,’ Maxwell nodded, ‘you have my full agreement. Come on, we’ve got a Captain of House to find.’
She watched him crossing the park in the early morning, a grey light failing to break the clouds to the west. His Tesco bag was slung nonchalantly over his shoulder. He was wearing trainers and it was her guess that the bag contained his school shoes. That would figure; he was rebel enough not to fit in with Grimond’s rigidity, but old habits die hard. He’d taken his shoes just in case, in case the rebel lost his nerve. He looked younger in his black school sweat shirt and he wasn’t wearing the baseball cap. She waited until he’d reached the gates and then she dashed from the bushes and stuck her warrant card under his nose.
He gasped in surprise. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Carpenter,’ she told him, ‘and I have absolutely no intention of chasing you all over Petersfield again. We need to have a little chat, Brian, you and I.’
‘I’ll be late for school,’ he whined.
‘I don’t somehow think that’s going to break the habit of a lifetime,’ she said. She took him by the arm and yanked him down alongside her on a park bench. It was out of sight of the main drag and anyway, most of Brian’s classmates had gone now, hurtling with the pure exhilaration of learning, the joy of the comprehensive chalk face. Sometimes, in fact, she wondered how Peter Maxwell stood it.
Until well after closing time, Jacquie Carpenter had sat with Martin Skinner in the Dawlish Arms, one of the many places the hack called his local. She promised him exclusives left, right and centre and was feeling pretty guilty about that until he started slobbering over her and making a grab for her breasts. Instead, she’d grabbed his car keys and driven his car back to Barcourt Lodge to get a well-earned zizz, leaving the reporter swaying confusedly in the Dawlish doorway. For all of four minutes, she felt guilty about that too, but she had told him where he could pick up his vehicle and since she’d protected him from losing his licence by being in charge of a vehicle while under the influence, reckoned they were more than quits.
‘How long have you been on the game, Brian?’ Jacquie asked, sliding the warrant card away.
‘What?’ The lad looked confused. ‘How do you mean?’
‘How old are you, Brian?’ The question was softer, more mumsy.
‘Sixteen,’ he told her.
‘Year Eleven, right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Okay, so there’s no law against homosexual acts involving sixteen year olds.’
‘I’m not a poof!’ he shouted, then quieter, glancing around him, ‘I ain’t.’
‘You can drop the street talk, Brian,’ she told him. ‘I know you used to go to Grimond’s. I can’t imagine Dr Sheffield tolerating “I ain’t”.’
‘All right then,’ Brian was prepared to concede. ‘I’m not.’
‘That’s a bit like saying you’re not a murderer while you’re tightening your hands around someone’s neck, isn’t it, Brian?’
‘You said there was no law against it,’ he reminded her.
‘Not exactly, Brian,’ she patronized. ‘The law covers consensual sex, in private and must not be for gain.’
‘You what?’
‘It’s my guess you charge for your services. What? Ten quid for a wank? Twenty for a blow job? And the stalls of a gents’ loo aren’t exactly private, are they, Brian? Hence the correct term for them, public conveniences.’
‘Are you going to arrest me?’ The lad was shaking from the lips down.
Jacquie looked at him. Brian was an unlovely child, pasty with hair the same colour as his skin. ‘You see, son,’ she leaned towards him. ‘You’re on the slippery slope. First it was Grimond’s. Now Dotheboys Hall. Next it’ll be the dole queue and you’re already hanging around loos and bus shelters for dirty old men. I’m the only brake in all this you’ve got.’
‘So are you going to arrest me?’
‘Been arrested before?’ She saw his eyes fill with tears as he shook his head. ‘Tell me about Grimond’s,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘And tell me the truth, Brian or you and I will take a little stroll to the police station. The judge might go easy with you, first time and all, but your mum and dad will have a pretty whacking fine to pay and your name, depending on when you’re seventeen, will be in the papers. And even if it’s not, you know how these things have a habit of getting out, don’t they? There again, if you’re unlucky, we’re talking about a custodial sentence and you don’t want to know what’ll happen to a young thing like you inside.’
‘What do you want to know?’ Brian asked quickly.
‘Why did you leave Grimond’s?’
‘Thieving,’ he said. ‘I stole a wallet.’
‘Whose?’
‘Graham’s. Mr Graham. He was a bastard.’
‘No doubt,’ Jacquie nodded. ‘Which House were you in?’
‘Tennyson,’ Brian said.
‘Mr Pardoe’s House?’
Brian nodded. ‘That’s right.’
‘Tell me about Mr Pardoe. Did you like him?’
‘Yeah, I did. He was a good bloke. Not like Graham and that bastard Sheffield.’
‘How long have you been on the game, Brian?’
The boy’s gaze faltered. ‘About two years,’ he said.
‘You were still at Grimond’s at the time?’
Brian nodded again.
‘How many “clients” would you say you’ve had in that time?’ she asked.
The lad shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘But enough,’ Jacquie suggested, ‘to know the type.’
‘There’s no special type,’ Brian corrected her.
‘Maybe not, but you know, don’t you? The bloke driving slowly in his car, you know whether he’s a punter or just somebody looking for directions?’
‘Oh, sure,’ Brian said.
‘Mr Pardoe, then,’ Jacquie pursued it. ‘Was he that type?’
Brian looked at her. ‘Pardoe?’ he frowned. ‘No, never in a million years. He was about the only decent teacher they had at Grimond’s. I couldn’t believe it when they said on the news he’d killed himself.’
‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear on the news, Brian,’ she said.
‘So?’ He looked at her, still shaking, still unsure. ‘You going to arrest me, then? ’Cos if you do, I’m taking a few of them with me.’
Jacquie knew this game. How easy it would be for Brian to name names. Anybody he didn’t like, anybody who’d ever looked at him funny. It sounded as if Tony Graham might be top of the list.
‘I thought you might,’ she said. ‘Anybody in particular?’
Brian thought for a moment. ‘There is one bloke,’ he said. ‘Not a regular exactly, but I’ve met him two or three times now.’
Jacquie wasn’t really interested in this, but she’d need to talk to the boy again and needed to keep whatever trust he had in her. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, he keeps a record, like, about me, about other lads, I expect.’
Jacquie frowned. Suddenly she was interested. ‘How do you mean, Brian, “keeps a record”?’
‘Uses a cassette. You know, a tape recorder. I’ve seen it in his car, seen him use it when we’ve finished.’
‘This man,’ Jacquie said. ‘Does he have a name?’
‘Dave,’ Brian said. ‘He calls himself Dave.’
‘Can you describe him?’
Brian shrugged. ‘It’s been pretty dark when we’ve … you know. He’s a big bloke, solid like, spiky grey hair. Drives a big, dark car. Sorry, don’t know the make.’
Jacquie was already on her feet. ‘Brian,’ she said. ‘I want you to do something for me. Will you do it?’
‘What’s that?’ he stood up with her.
‘Have you arranged to meet this man again?’
‘No,’ Brian said. ‘He don’t work like that. I may see him, I may not.’
She fished in her handbag. ‘Here’s my mobile number,’ she said, aware of
the risk she was taking. ‘If you see this man again, anywhere, anytime – I don’t care if it’s three in the morning, you ring me. Got it?’
‘I don’t know …’ Brian said.
Jacquie closed to him. ‘I know the school you go to, Brian,’ she said, levelly. ‘And I know where you live. Remember that slippery slope we talked about? And that brake? You think about that, Brian. Now,’ she glanced up at the Petersfield day going on around them. ‘Hurry up or you’ll be late for school. And Brian … this man …’ She looked deep into his eyes. ‘Do yourself a favour. Don’t get into the car with him. All right?’
20
They didn’t find John Selwyn. Ape and Splinter met Graham back in his study at the appointed hour and had drawn a blank. They’d got into Northanger unobserved by everybody except Janet Boyce who had attempted to wither them with her glance. Selwyn wasn’t there.
‘What about Cassandra?’ Graham asked the obvious.
‘She was there,’ Ape remembered.
‘We met her coming back from supper,’ Splinter added. ‘No John.’
Graham and Maxwell had produced nothing either. There was no one by the lake or the boat-house, no one at the CCF hut that Ape and Splinter had already checked. The chapel was locked and dark in its nightly neglect with a solitary red flame burning somewhere in its nave. On the way back through Tennyson the pair had checked all the obvious places – the little theatre that doubled as the film studio where rows of videos lined the walls; Prefects’ Study where the lockers were lined with photos of Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue and, in one case, Will Young. Of Selwyn there was no sign.
Neither of them wanted to risk a journalistic incident by enquiring of the two furtive geezers, the rump of the moved-on paparazzi who were slowly crawling back, on the off chance that something broke. A missing prefect would be grist to their mill and it was not something either Graham or Maxwell wanted to hand them on a plate.
At shortly after two o’clock, they’d called it a night and Tony Graham had run Peter Maxwell out of Grimond’s, courtesy of the Housemaster’s key, through the silent country lanes to Barcourt Lodge.
‘Thanks Tony,’ Maxwell waved to the man. ‘And don’t worry. When you get back, it’s my guess John will be there, large as life and twice as sassy.’
‘I’ve never lost a lad yet, Max,’ the Housemaster said, crunching into gear. ‘I don’t intend to start now.’
‘Good for you.’
The man on the desk was the very antithesis of Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates; in fact, he was rather more Oliver Hardy’s Oliver Hardy. With that old skill he’d picked up in the classroom years ago of reading inappropriate notes upside down, Maxwell found Jacquie Carpenter’s name and room number. Had he been of a different disposition, or a funnier time of life, he might have sought DCI Henry Hall’s company. As it was, he made for Room 26, knocked and waited. Even with a head that still thudded for England, he had noticed her yellow Ka was not in the car park. After Tubbsy’s MG it was probably the second-most-noticeable vehicle in the world. And it wasn’t there. No one answered his knock. He checked his watch. It was very late. And Peter Maxwell turned in.
‘A search, Chief Inspector?’ George Sheffield was due to teach his one lesson of the week that Tuesday morning. It had been two weeks since he’d stood in that ghastly white tent they’d erected over the dead body of Bill Pardoe, but the grey face of the man and the colour of his congealed blood had never left him. He couldn’t forget Tim Robinson either, purple-blue and waterlogged, lying inert under the frantically working body of that policewoman.
But it was another policewoman who stood in front of him now, across the desk that had become his last refuge in the past fortnight. This was Denise McGovern, all bark and no less bite, a frosty-faced bitch who meant business. Hall was more benign, Sheffield knew and he was in charge, so perhaps sanity would prevail. ‘What are you looking for?’
Denise opened her mouth to tell him, but Hall was faster. ‘Anything,’ he said. ‘It’s standard procedure.’
‘Standard procedure?’ Sheffield pulled off his glasses and began to fuss around, cleaning them with a cloth. ‘You’ll forgive me,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what that is.’
‘It’s routine,’ Denise explained with as much patience as she could muster, ‘to search a murder scene. You’ll agree that your school is that twice over.’
‘But,’ Sheffield persisted, ‘isn’t that an infringement of human rights? Privacy and so on?’
‘Denise,’ Hall said and the woman pulled a piece of printed paper out of her handbag.
Sheffield took it, putting his glasses back on.
‘That’s a search warrant, sir,’ she said. ‘Mr Hall and I thought we’d get one in case you adopted the difficult approach you, in fact, have.’
‘Difficult?’ Sheffield frowned, still checking the fine print. ‘Oh, no, I assure you, I want all this cleared up as much as you do. More. Er … where would you like to start?’
‘Here would do nicely,’ Hall said.
‘Um … of course. The planning room next door you know all too well by now I should think. There’s this room, and through that door a staircase leads to my private apartments – three bedrooms, a sitting room, dining room, usual offices.’
‘Must be quite pushed for space,’ Denise scowled.
‘Look, Chief Inspector,’ Sheffield closed to the larger man. ‘Would you mind if my secretary stayed with you? There are private records, student files and staff information here. You’ve read those on Bill, Tim and Jeremy Tubbs already, I know. I’d just like her to put things back, otherwise it’s hours of paperwork.’
‘Where will you be, sir?’ Hall asked.
‘Well,’ Sheffield said. ‘I wonder if I might crave your indulgence here? I understand the compulsion of your search warrant, but this won’t go well with some of my staff. May I tell them in person, the House staff at the very least?’
‘Be my guest,’ Hall nodded.
‘Thank you.’ Sheffield flicked the intercom on his desk. ‘Millie, come in here a moment, will you?’
In the adjoining office, the Head explained the situation to an appalled-looking Millie Taylor.
‘What did I tell you?’ Denise hissed to Hall out of the corner of her mouth. ‘It’s ruffling feathers already.’
‘Not half as many as were ruffled on the magistrate whose door bell I leaned on at half past one this morning,’ Hall hissed back. ‘Next time that’s your job.’
While the DCI and his loaned DS began the mind-numbing process of ransacking Sheffield’s study and private rooms, the great man himself hauled on his gown and strode across the quad. It had all the makings of a marvellous spring day, the cloud clearing and the sun sparkling on the day boys’ bikes in their shed. The light was flooding in through the golden stained-glass of the chapel, and Sheffield found himself wondering whether God was really in His Heaven when all was clearly not all right with the world.
‘Michael, could I have a word?’
‘Headmaster?’ Michael Helmesley was about to leave his study for the next lesson. They nearly collided in the doorway.
‘DCI Hall,’ Sheffield said, grim-faced, ‘and that unspeakable siren he’s got in tow are searching the premises.’
‘Good Lord!’ the Head of Classics was suitably horrified. He hadn’t known anyone behave like this since Nero and even that man’s excesses had been greatly exaggerated by legend.
‘I know,’ Sheffield nodded, his fingers drumming on the jamb of Helmesley’s open door, ‘but unfortunately they have a search warrant. They’re … what’s the colloquialism … turning over my place as we speak.’
‘Outrageous!’ Helmesley snorted. ‘Well, thank you for the warning, Headmaster. Better lock up my Scotch, d’you think?’
‘Not a bad idea,’ Sheffield said. ‘Oh, Michael, need your coat?’ He handed it down from the peg behind the door.
‘No thanks, Headmaster. Quite mild, I fancy, for a stroll over to Tennyson.�
� And George Sheffield hung it back up.
As Henry Hall expected, there was nothing in Sheffield’s suite at all. And at that point, as agreed, the detectives went their separate ways. Hall took Tennyson; Denise, Kipling.
‘Is this strictly in order?’ Tony Graham felt obliged to ask. ‘I’ve got a sick Captain of House this morning. Don’t really want great plates of meat – no offence, Chief Inspector – traipsing all over the place.’
‘None taken, Mr Graham,’ Hall said. ‘If you tell me which room the lad is in, I’ll traipse in the opposite direction. It’s not a problem.’
‘Up the stairs,’ Graham told him. ‘Along the corridor and then up again.’
‘Your Captain of House – that would be … John Selwyn?’
‘That’s right.’ Graham was impressed. ‘How clever of you to remember the name.’
‘Goes with the territory,’ Hall nodded. ‘And,’ he was standing in the corridor on the first floor trying to get his bearings, ‘that would be above Bill Pardoe’s rooms, wouldn’t it? Your study as is?’
‘That’s right too.’ Graham grinned. ‘Do you want to start there, by the way? My study?’
‘No, I think I’ll take the dormitories first. Do you have a master key to the lockers?’
‘Sure,’ and the Housemaster handed it over. ‘Look, would you like someone to show you around? One of my Prefects …’
‘No, thanks,’ Hall said. ‘I’m fine,’ and he made for the stairs.
One thing that Peter Maxwell always said about Henry Hall. Tell him what not to do and he’d do it; tell him where not to go and he’s there. And so it was that the DCI ignored the Tennyson dorms and made for the tight spiral of the stairs above Bill Pardoe’s rooms, to the little room under the eaves that had housed Peter Maxwell briefly and now housed an ailing John Selwyn. He rapped on the door. No response. He tried again. Nothing. He briefly toyed with using his credit card on the lock, but this was a Victorian door and that would be a waste of time. So he put his shoulder to it and the thing burst open with a crash.
A figure crouched half in, half out of the window opposite him, caught like a mongoose facing a cobra. And if it was John Selwyn, whatever he’d got had aged him fifteen years and changed his hair colour.