Death in Dulwich

by Alice Castle

  It was an ugly secret, festering at the heart of this beautiful school. She thought of the smoothness of the billiard-table green lawn in front of the Grand Hall, carefully criss-crossed with stripes by the groundsmen. It seemed to symbolise Wyatt’s, so carefully tended, so free of weeds, so much a mirror of the tenderly nurtured shoots that were the pupils. They were growing in poisoned soil. The greatest and most evil of imperfections lay underneath the smooth green façade. Everything at this school sprang from tainted money.

  Beth sat for a while with her head in her hands. The ledger was open before her, the tally of slaves marching quietly on over page after page. Their voices were silenced, then as now, but she felt their presence somehow in the terse descriptions: ‘Boy, 12, wasted leg.’ ‘Girl, 6, and boy, 5.’ The only salient features mentioned were physical problems. She supposed that these affected the slaves’ monetary value. Ages were often approximate; names were of no interest at all.

  Perhaps Wyatt had not been different from others of his time, in coercing this army to rake in money for him. But that did not change the facts. Wyatt’s School was founded on the proceeds of slavery.

  Beth wondered how many other people here knew of this. In some ways, now that she had the proof in front of her, she was surprised that it was not more widely known, or suspected. Wyatt had lived in an age of slavery, he had spent time in a place where slavery was established practice, and he had made piles of money there which he had brought back home with him in triumph. Now that she thought about this story, knowing what she knew, it seemed self-evident that slavery was behind his wealth. But she had lived in Dulwich all her life and had never heard even the merest sniff of a whiff of an inkling of a rumour about it.

  Was that because, in the not too distant past, there had been much more tolerance of racism in the general public? Landlords had famously posted signs in lodgings, stating ‘no dogs, no blacks, no Irish’ as recently as the 1960s and 70s, while black actors even today were more likely to get run over than nominated for an Oscar. She didn’t know.

  It could be a factor; it could have allowed acceptance. From that point of view, she was a little surprised that Wyatt’s hadn’t just been more open about the basis of its wealth. If everyone had always known the place was founded on slavery, then people – even those who disapproved – would have got used to the idea. After all, it had happened several hundred years ago and there was no changing the past. It would have taken the sting out of the facts, and no-one now would consider it a dirty and shameful secret.

  But that was exactly what it was.

  Had it been wilfully and deliberately hushed up, or had the school just decided that it was simply convenient to skip lightly over aspects of their founder’s past? The fact that the ledgers had not been destroyed seemed to point either to this expediency theory, or to something even easier to achieve – a convenient case of amnesia. Skirting around unpleasantness, Beth realised, was something that was always highly tempting for any red-blooded Englishman. And the past, being past, is very easy to forget.

  Almost as a way of distracting herself from the unpleasantness of her discovery, Beth let her mind wander over recent events. The ledgers. The thefts. And then, ultimately, the murder. There had to be a connection.

  Had Dr Jenkins stumbled across the ledgers, before her? Had he discovered Wyatt’s murky past, and been extorting money from someone in exchange for silence? If that was the case, then one other person already knew what was hidden in the archives room. Were the ledgers what the burglar had been seeking, or was he after the bank statements that proved the blackmail? Or Dr Jenkins’ notebooks? Or all of these?

  Beth had a lot to think about. And she wasn’t sure the archives office was the place to do it. As she slid the ledger back into its innocuous place on the shelf, collected her belongings and locked the door carefully, all she was sure of was that she didn’t want to be alone with this secret any more. It didn’t feel safe. She had to tell as many people as possible, and quickly.

  The first person she went to see was the porter. By this stage, under the sunny influence of Beth’s twice-daily smiles on her journeys to and from her office, they were firm friends.

  ‘Do you have a proper lock you could fit to the archives office door?’ she asked. ‘I know we’ve put a padlock on, but I’d be happier if there was something more permanent fitted,’ said Beth, reflecting that she seemed to be keeping Dulwich’s lockmakers in business at the moment.

  ‘Got just what you need right here,’ he said, holding up a chunky plastic package containing a fearsomely sturdy-looking Chubb. ‘It’s a five-lever mortice, this is. Was going to fit it this morning. It’s next on my list, soon as I can get someone to relieve me here.’

  Beth was puzzled. ‘Great. But, erm, if you don’t mind me asking, who ordered that?’

  ‘Bursar, of course,’ said the porter.

  Beth continued on her way, a small frown etched between her brows. If she’d had to put money on who had a motive to lift the incriminating ledgers and keep the slavery secret quiet, it would have gone on the Bursar. Yet here he was, apparently trying to protect the whole archive, ledgers included.

  She was still looking a bit puzzled by the time she got to Reception. Janice held court, as usual, behind the pristine, chest-high counter top which screened her laptop, landline, and notepad. She was looking as lovely as ever today in a wisteria purple cashmere cardigan buttoned over a pretty floral tea dress, which Beth had spotted in one of the Village boutique windows last week at a price which had made her eyes water.

  Today, there were some prospective parents sitting on one comfortable sofa, with their little boy opposite. He was kicking his heels into the underside of his sofa in a way which, Beth could tell, was driving his mother insane. The slight wince crossing her beautifully made-up face showed she was torn between the ills of giving the boy a public dressing-down just before expecting him to perform brilliantly in an interview for a much-coveted mid-term place, or letting the annoying behaviour slip and thus risking being judged as a lax mother by Janice, and now by Beth as well. Her husband, meanwhile, exuded total indifference from behind a copy of the Economist. Beth smiled sympathetically and turned back to Janice.

  ‘Just wondered if I could get a moment to see the Bursar?’

  Janice smiled professionally at Beth. ‘For today?’ her rising inflection gently suggesting that such an expectation was utter madness.

  ‘As soon as possible. It’s urgent,’ said Beth.

  Janice’s smile was bland and reassuring as she tapped a few keys at her laptop and effortlessly brought up Tom Seasons’ schedule. Beth knew she was being chided, in a barely perceptible way, for suggesting anything at Wyatt’s could ever judder out of well-oiled pathways to become ‘urgent’. The feet might be paddling madly, but all that would ever be seen was the crisp white perfection of the swan.

  She smiled even more as she scrawled on a post-it note and passed it to Beth. ‘He’s free now,’ it said simply. Janice would never have admitted this out loud. To prospective parents, anyone as important as the Bursar must remain an endlessly double-booked Stakhanovite worker, bent double by the pressure of their appointments. To Beth, who knew that Seasons was digging into the mystery for reasons of his own, it was fine to admit that he was desperate to pounce on any scrap of information that she could offer.

  ‘So, I’ll be sure to let you know,’ said Janice blithely, keeping up the fiction, and Beth thanked her, and then smiled generally at the family group. The mother favoured her with a great beaming grin, in case she was someone important. The husband was still resolutely behind his Economist tent. The boy ceased drumming for a moment, and fixed her with a surprisingly intelligent stare. He’d probably get in, she thought.

  Outside Reception, she took a deep breath. In truth, she hadn’t been expecting to see Seasons so quickly. She hadn’t quite got her story straight yet, so to speak. She needed to collect herself a bit and decide how to present this news. But then s
he shook her head infinitesimally. Telling people was what counted, not how they were told. She didn’t want the burden of this secret upon her a second longer. The more people that knew, the safer she was. And the safer she was, the safer Ben was. Squaring her shoulders, she knocked on the door.

  ‘Enter,’ came Seasons voice, and Beth wondered for a moment why he couldn’t just say ‘come in’ like a normal person. But that slight pomposity seemed essential to his role as Bursar. She opened the door and felt as though she was wading across his thick carpet, before coming to a standstill in front of the imposing desk. Seasons was tapping lightly at his computer, in his usual rather stagey way, and continued to do so for a few moments while she hovered.

  Just as she was about to take the plunge and sit herself down without invitation, he broke off from his ‘work’ and boomed, ‘Beth, Beth, do take a seat,’ in his warmest tones, as though she were his long-lost friend breezing in for a much anticipated catch-up.

  She was pretty sure his jovial mood would not last long.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was an uncomfortable half-hour later that Beth left the Bursar’s office. She had often heard the phrase, ‘don’t shoot the messenger’, but never yet felt so close to having to defend herself as the bearer of bad tidings. Seasons seemed to blame her entirely for bringing up the slavery issue, for having found the ledger, and also for suspecting that Dr Jenkins himself might well have stumbled across the matter in the months leading up to his death. If he could have blamed her for the slavery itself, she was beginning to think he would.

  The upshot of the interview was that they both, along with Dr Grover who had been hastily phoned, had arranged to meet back at the archives office in an hour, to look over the evidence and decide what should be done with it.

  Though it had not been a pleasant encounter, Beth felt relieved. She was glad that the matter was now out of her hands, that the knowledge had started to spread. Knowing the rumour mills in both Wyatt’s and Dulwich as a whole, it would soon glide by that uncanny osmosis well beyond the school gates. At last, the whole issue would get a thorough, and centuries-overdue, airing. She was also somewhat relieved about one other thing.

  She was almost sure that, excellent though the Bursar was at maintaining a front of unshakeable superiority, she had seen a flash of genuine shock and consternation when she had told him everything. He had not known about the slavery. Which meant, she thought, that he had not been the victim of Dr Jenkins’ little blackmail racket.

  Who could it have been then? She ran through the list of suspects again in her head. There were the remaining teachers, Janice, Mrs Jenkins herself (though surely he couldn’t have been blackmailing his own wife?), and the Headmaster. None seemed likely. Was there anyone she was forgetting? Any other connections that Jenkins had? Anyone close to him who might have strong feelings?

  As she walked back to her office, Beth suddenly stopped dead. Much as she didn’t want to complicate matters, or add to her tally of potential killers, there was one obvious link to Jenkins staring her right in the face. There, at the other end of the playground, was Wyatt’s Junior and Prep School. And hadn’t Judith Seasons told her that both she and Ruth Jenkins had had daughters, whose girls were now at the school in their turn? That meant Jenkins’ little grand-daughter was being educated right here, just a few hundred yards from the scene of the crime.

  She wasn’t imagining for a moment that the grand-daughter herself, whoever she was and whatever her age, had pottered across the playground, knife-in-hand, on that fateful morning. But if Beth had the victim’s wife down as one of her potential killers, shouldn’t she also add his grown-up daughter? All right, she knew nothing about her yet, but if she were anything like her mum, she’d be quite odd, and if she were anything like her dad, she’d be really, really odd.

  And there was also a potential son-in-law angle. In the rigidly conventional world of Dulwich, it was probably at least 85 per cent certain that all pick-ups and drop-offs were carried out by the mother. But fathers were becoming less unusual at the school gates. Possibly he had a ‘bohemian’, but still incredibly well-paid, job which allowed him the leisure to be involved in his daughter’s school career? Or maybe he just wanted to be a hands-on dad? Either could put him at the right place at the right time – or the wrong time and place, if you were Dr Jenkins. Beth mentally kicked herself. It was no good at all speculating. She’d have to do some digging. She looked at her watch. Was there time, before her meeting with the Bursar and the Head? Just about, if she got on with it.

  It was quite a stroll to the Prep building, which was lucky as she had not a single clue what she was going to say when she got there; she’d just have to work it out somehow as she walked. She set off at a brisk and purposeful pace, her face scrunched in concentration. She had to think of a ruse that would elicit the right sort of information, without raising too many hackles and without, of course, compromising any of the school’s rigid ideas about parent confidentiality.

  She passed through the Reception entrance, thanking her stars that her swipe card worked in this part of the school, too, and found herself at a countertop very similar to Janice’s. The girl behind the counter was much younger, though, looking barely out of her teens, but as beautifully smiley. Absolutely perfect for her job and, Beth hoped, not wise enough yet in the ways of the world to withstand her wiles.

  ‘Hi, I’m Beth Haldane from the archives office, just popping in about the project I’m going to be doing with the Prep,’ she said airily, mentally crossing her fingers. That still got you out of telling lies, right?

  ‘Louise, call me Lou,’ said the girl, holding out a hand to shake. Each of her nails was painted a different colour. That must take forever, thought Beth, marvelling that anyone had that much free time. Or energy. Or interest in nails. ‘Love your manicure,’ she said, hoping she was getting away with the fake sincerity.

  Lou smiled complacently at her nails, like a parent whose favourite child is justly praised, then wrinkled her dainty nose. ‘Um, what’s this project?’ she asked, a little nervously. Beth immediately seized on this evidence of slight insecurity, hating herself but convinced that the end result was important enough to warrant the manipulation.

  ‘You mean they haven’t told you? I can’t believe that!’ she said, all mock outrage.

  ‘No-one’s said a single word,’ confirmed Lou. ‘Is it really important?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Beth, leaning close to whisper to the girl. ‘It’s a really big thing. For the anniversary, you know?’

  ‘Anniversary? Right?’ said Lou, her smooth brow beginning to pleat with the effort of concentration. Had someone said something to her which she had forgotten? She looked worried now. So many pieces of paper to keep track of. Such a big school. Everything always so important. She started sifting uselessly through the pile of papers on the desk in front of her. Lou was clearly no Janice.

  ‘Look, don’t worry too much about the detail,’ said Beth, thinking that, thank God, she wouldn’t have to be too elaborate in her web of lies. ‘The thing is, it’s Dr Jenkins’ grand-daughter that’s involved, you know who that is, right?’

  Lou’s relief was palpable. Her pretty face cleared of strain. After the massive fuss last week, even the Prep school hamster knew all about Dr Jenkins’ grand-daughter, who’d been taken home in floods of tears and had a couple of days off for good measure. ‘You mean Ellen Fitch?’

  ‘Yes, yes, Ellen. What year is she in, again?’

  ‘She’s in Year Two now, bless her. Very upset she was.’

  ‘The thing is, she was supposed to be helping with, you know, the project that very day.’

  ‘Which day?’ said Lou. The nose was beginning to wrinkle again. Beth gave Lou a slightly exasperated look, wondering whether she was going to have to spell it out.

  ‘Ohhhhh, that day, riiiight,’ said Lou, pleased with herself for making the connection. Beth nodded briskly.

  ‘So, on that day, do you remem
ber who brought, erm, Ellen into school? It’s quite important because it’s… all about the project,’ Beth finished. To her own ears, the story she was concocting was the lamest one she’d ever told. Luckily, Lou wasn’t joining all the dots. She was just trying to get her own tiny portions of the whole right.

  ‘So, you want to know who dropped her off that day?’ Lou was frowning in earnest now. ‘I don’t know… I can tell you who it usually is, it’s her nanny. But the thing is, the nanny changes a lot. That happens with quite a lot of families, you know. I used to be a nanny, so I’ve been there, totes. Not that I was ever let go. I worked for my families for ages, it was only when they suddenly had to move abroad or whatever…’

  Beth, worried now that she might be in for Lou’s entire employment history, and feeling a glancing sympathy with any family that had to contemplate upping sticks to shake off the lovely but clearly hare-brained girl, sneaked a glance at her watch. She still had ten minutes, but she’d be cutting it fine unless Lou’s memory took a sudden upturn.

  ‘Are you in a hurry?’ Lou asked, more observant than Beth had given her credit for. ‘Listen, give me your number, I’ll give it a good think and I’ll text you later.’ Lou smiled her beaming smile, and Beth joined in. She might despair of ever getting useful information out of her, but you couldn’t help but like the girl.

  Though she still had a couple of minutes in hand, by the time she got back to the office both the Bursar and the Head were already there. There was something about the two grown men in suits, who were both utterly sure of their own tremendous importance, which made the corridors contract around her. The fact that they stopped talking as soon as they saw her meant, of course, that she was sure they’d been discussing her. Probably both wondering what on earth she was doing here and how soon they could terminate her employment, she thought pessimistically.