Death of a Teacher (5 page)

‘I used to go to St Mungo’s Church of England School,’ Jed said, as he drove overconfidently towards Pelliter.

‘So you’re a Pelliter boy?’

‘Absolutely. Though I must say,’ Jed said, frowning, ‘there was never any vandalism in my day.’

Ro laughed out loud. ‘For goodness’ sake! Your day! Jed, how old are you? Twenty-six at most? You sound like a middle-aged man!’

‘Well, maybe there’s nothing wrong with that,’ Jed said cheerfully. It had been a risk, joshing with him. Ro got the impression that if Jed Jackson took something the wrong way, he could be pretty awkward to deal with. But for some reason he had taken an unexpected liking to her. She leant back in her seat and tried not to panic at his driving as he put his foot down, left the 
roundabouts of Norbridge behind and sped down the dual carriageway towards the coast.

Vandalism. Ray Findley, the head teacher, put the phone down and sat at his kitchen table. Opposite him his wife stared into space, her fingers curled round a cooling mug of coffee.

‘I’m going to have to go up to the school,’ he said. ‘Someone’s broken a window.’

Sheila Findley shrugged. He got up and left his crumb-filled plate in front of her. She didn’t react. He climbed the stairs and went into the spare room, where he now slept. They had grabbed a long weekend the week before, with Ray taking a day’s compassionate leave. But that was a technicality. He hadn’t really been into St Mungo’s in spirit for a few weeks now.

The weekend away had been promising at first. Not relaxed; he wouldn’t have expected that. But Sheila had smiled once or twice, and they had walked around the island of Lindisfarne, visited the monastery, and been to a talk on Celtic Christianity.

‘Do you remember going to see the St Trallen
Book
?’ he had asked her afterwards.

‘Yes, I do.’ She had smiled softly.

He had tried to get her to talk, reminding her of the time, a few years ago, when they had started seeing each other discreetly. They had visited the abbey at Norbridge together. Sheila had told him that she was hopeless at art, but that in the classroom she could be Botticelli or Damien Hirst, given a swag of upholstery fabric or a few old kitchen-roll tubes. Ray recalled the conversation with affection, because they had found themselves confiding their weaknesses rather than their strengths, the beginning of their affair. He had been a forty-five-year-old head teacher whose longstanding relationship had ended a few years earlier. From the moment Sheila had come to work at St Mungo’s, he had admired her. Working together, they had gone from being friends, to lovers, and very quickly to being a popular married couple. How everything had changed.

‘Why don’t we leave St Mungo’s? Get out of Pelliter? I suppose you still see that stupid woman?’ Sheila had asked Ray in a flat voice over dinner at their hotel.

‘I can’t do otherwise, can I?’ he had answered, equally flatly. ‘I can’t just walk away.’

‘You have already. You’re not there now.’

‘But this is a special holiday. I have to go back.’

‘Why?’

He had shut up, then, and pushed his dessert to one side. They had walked 
back to the car and driven back in silence. Now this wretched vandalism
incident
, a week after arriving home, meant he would have to go to St Mungo’s on a Saturday morning. Sheila will see it as another sign of disloyalty, he thought. He couldn’t face her cold, silent accusations. He took his mobile out of his jacket pocket and, hating himself, he dialled Liz Rudder’s number.

‘I know this is an imposition,’ he said, ‘but could you go over to school? I’m afraid there’s been rather a silly incident.’

He tried not to hear the restrained satisfaction in his deputy’s voice as she stepped up to the plate yet again.

A
lison and Suzy sat in the staff room, waiting for the police. Alison had walked over the broken glass and unpinned the mural. Now it was
Blu-Tacked
to the staff-room wall.

‘Get the paints, girls, and we’ll go on working.’

The kettle bubbled, hissed and subsided. Alison poured the boiling water on to the little clusters of coffee from the sticky half-used jar on the
staff-room
table.

‘Will black coffee do?’

‘Thanks.’ Suzy smiled. ‘It will probably be more bracing. I need it. When the window smashed you called out a name—’

‘She said Jonty McFadden,’ Becky said in her deep voice. ‘Mrs McFadden’s son.’

Suzy raised her eyebrows and sipped her coffee. She remembered having a bit of a run-in with Callie McFadden a year earlier when she had gone back into school after Molly had forgotten her lunchbox. There had been a faint smell of cigarette smoke, and the teaching assistant had been bad-tempered and unhelpful. Not a likeable woman, Suzy thought.

There was the sound of a car drawing up. ‘Oh,’ said Alison, surprised, and Suzy followed her eyes. ‘It’s not Mr Findley; it’s Mrs Rudder.’

Oh dear, Suzy thought. The deputy head wasn’t exactly a sympathetic type either. It hadn’t mattered while Mr and Mrs Findley were in control. But now …

She watched the deputy head open the school door and heard her trotting down the corridor. Then there was the crunching of glass as Mrs Rudder went into the damaged classroom to have a look. She called out, ‘Are you all right, girls?’

‘It was Jonty McFadden who did it,’ Becky shouted.

‘Good heavens! Jonty McFadden? Why on earth would he do this?’ Mrs Rudder had wheeled into the staff-room. 

‘I have no idea,’ Alison said. ‘But he’s been hostile since we started this project.’

‘Really? That sounds rather extreme.’ The deputy head tutted and fussed about, pouring coffee for herself. She seemed to be thinking. Then she looked at Alison speculatively. ‘Alison, I need to speak to you in the corridor.’ The senior teacher pulled at Ali’s sleeve and guided her out of the staff-room. ‘Look, dear, I think you really should be careful about what you say. Do you really want to make these sorts of allegations? Especially if you’re not sure?’

‘But it was Jonty’s anorak. And I saw his face.’

‘But you could easily have been mistaken. A lot of boys wear that style of jacket.’

‘It was Jonty McFadden, Mrs Rudder. I saw him.’

‘But what are you doing here anyway? Who gave you the authority to come into school this morning? I certainly didn’t. The person in charge of
non-teaching
activity out of hours is Callie McFadden. Did you ask her permission?’

‘No. She’s only a teaching assistant.’

‘But you should have OK’d it with her. Especially with Mr Findley being away and so very distracted. You really need to be careful before you drag the McFaddens into this. It might look as if you’re trying to offload the blame for your own irresponsibility.’

‘That’s crazy!’

‘Listen to me. You’re relatively inexperienced and I just want to help you. You were here without permission and that puts you in a weak position. The most likely explanation is that this was just a silly prank – stupid vandalism, probably by boys at Norbridge Secondary School. Don’t make an
unnecessary
fuss.’

Then there was the sound of another car, and doors slamming. ‘That’s the police arriving. There really was no need to call them. But I’ll deal with them.’ Liz Rudder went back into the staff-room and added in a louder, more authoritative voice, ‘Mrs Spencer, I suggest you take the children home right now. They’ve been disturbed enough. There’s no need to upset them by speaking to the officers.’

She trotted away. Alison heard her open the main door and say briskly, ‘Of course, PC Jackson. I remember you from when you were in my Year Five. I’m dealing with this. I’m sure it won’t take long. I rather think my younger colleague might have overreacted. You’d better come into the head teacher’s office.’

At the same time, a meeting was going on at St Trallen’s Place, Phil Dixon’s house. So far Phil had sat quietly, listening and saying nothing. His visitor was Peter Hodgson, a retired priest who had come back to the area where he had 
been brought up, rather like Phil himself. Peter’s sister was Brenda Hodgson, the teacher at St Mungo’s.

‘So, as my sister Brenda reported, we certainly do have an issue about this,’ Father Hodgson was saying prissily. He had a pale-pink puffy face and the old-fashioned look of a man who had chosen his own clothes for forty years. Phil sighed. He was a churchgoer himself, but he had never really understood why an Anglican priest would want to make such a point of celibacy. It was a private issue, surely? But Peter Hodgson seemed to feel it had sacerdotal significance, along with his general air of being superior to the rest of the human race.

‘I suggest that we speak to the bishop at once,’ Father Peter went on. He was leaning forward in the most comfortable armchair, dangerously nudging the plate balanced on the arm. It had held four of Judith’s homemade
chocolate
biscuits until a few minutes earlier.

‘Why should we do that?’ Phil Dixon asked.

‘The bishop needs to act,’ Father Peter snorted. ‘With all due respect, Mr Dixon, we cannot have your family using St Trallen’s as your own private chapel, especially now there has been this horrible death. The subject of reconsecration must arise.’ Fussily, he produced a tissue and rubbed at his mouth until all traces of the biscuits had gone. There was something slightly compulsive about the way he scrubbed at his chin.

‘But it
is
our own private chapel,’ Phil added in a conciliatory way, ‘If it’s a chapel at all, really. It could have been a folly, or just an old byre. The family who owned the land in the nineteenth century did the place up, just to house the fragment of the
Book of St Trallen
.’

‘And the
Book of St Trallen
is a fascinating, late medieval piece of art with unique Cumbrian connections!’ Peter Hodgson snapped.

‘Not necessarily. It’s not local for a start,’ Phil said gently. ‘The Victorian landowner was very devout and tremendously lucky to find a piece of the
Book
. It was probably something he picked up somewhere in Europe on the Grand Tour.’

Father Hodgson said tetchily, ‘Excuse me, but I was born and brought up here. I’m completely familiar with the history of the
Book
. In my view St Trallen’s Chapel is a vital local religious shrine and it should be treated as such. But now my sister tells me that people are crawling all over the place. Apparently children from the school have been hanging round there
reenacting
a violent crime. It must be stopped!’

‘Well, maybe I can put a barrier of some sort around the place, for now,’ said Phil helpfully. ‘I agree that sightseers are a nuisance, even though the police have finished there.’

Father Peter was sweating. ‘But we must go further. The chapel should be 
officially consecrated. What’s more, we should campaign to have the
Book
brought back to its real home!’

Oh dear, Phil thought. This was going way too far. He murmured
something
noncommittal, collected up the plates and coffee cups, and nudged the retired priest to the door.

‘I will speak to the bishop as soon as possible,’ Father Peter trilled.

‘But the chapel is private property and it would take something dramatic, I think, for the Church to step in officially.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ the retired priest almost shouted.

Phil Dixon sighed. If Peter Hodgson got his way and the medieval
Book of St Trallen
was brought back to the chapel, there would be more hikers tramping over Dixon land. His and Becky’s private place would be ruined. He might have to make a car-park and employ staff to watch over the place. He would have all the expense and none of the value.

Phil Dixon tried not to react as Peter Hodgson went ranting on, but he did look when the retired priest suddenly brought out of his pocket an old, slightly curled picture postcard of the fragment of
St Trallen’s Book
. It struck him how simple it was, though beautiful in its own way. Not really like other medieval artworks at all. Perhaps it had only ever been a draft, though he had no idea how medieval artists worked, and it hardly seemed likely they would waste vellum on a trial run. Was it vellum? He hardly knew anything about the actual artefact. But one thing he did know was that the
Book of St Trallen
was no longer a major Norbridge tourist attraction. The postcard was very dated. Maybe the powers-that-be at the abbey might be tempted to relinquish it and send it back to Pelliter. Especially if there was a noisy local campaign led by a troublesome priest and his sister, a well known local teacher. Phil shook his head. What could stop them?

He was able to get rid of Father Hodgson and see him off down the path, when the farmhouse phone started ringing. Whoever was at the other end wasn’t going to let up. When Phil finally managed to hurry in and answer it was Robert Clark on the other end.

‘Hello, Phil. Suzy’s just been on the mobile to me,’ Robert said. ‘There’s been an incident at the school. A smashed window. Local vandals. Becky’s OK, but Suzy thinks you or Judith ought to get over there.’

Phil didn’t ask for any more details.

‘I’ll get there straight away. Thanks.’

Judith was shopping at the Pelliter superstore. Phil didn’t wait. He slammed the door behind him, leapt into his car and gunned the engine. As he rounded the corner, where the farm track met the main road, he was dimly aware that Father Peter Hodgson had to leap smartly out of the way and was staring at the departing car with a look of fury and disgust. 

PCSO Ro Watson was on her own now, outside St Mungo’s School waiting for Jed to come back with the school caretaker. She wondered fleetingly if dealing with Liz Rudder, his old teacher, intimidated him. He seemed to have gone quiet, and to have left Ro to pick up the pieces, literally. In the unlikely event of a member of the public turning up, it would be Ro’s job to keep them away from the icicles of glass still hanging from the window frame, and the crumbly bits littering the playground. Ro thought that the deputy head had been a little too keen to dismiss the matter and get away. The vandalism looked nasty to her. There was still glass everywhere.

A car squealed to a halt in the playground.

‘Hello,’ Phil Dixon was saying, as he slammed the driver’s door. ‘I think my granddaughter was here.’ He was aware that he had driven a little too fast towards St Mungo’s.

‘I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about,’ Ro said, hearing the anxiety in his voice and coming forward quickly. ‘No one was hurt and the children had gone before we arrived. The deputy head teacher insisted that they leave. She was here almost immediately.’

‘Well, that’s a relief. I’m Philip Dixon.’ The man nodded at her. ‘You must be a Police Community Support Officer.’

‘Well, that’s what it says on the tin,’ Ro said, pointing to her badge.

Phil grinned, suddenly relaxed now he knew Becky was fine and on her way back to Tarnfield. He would call over there and check whether or not she wanted to come home. Ro smiled back at him and he felt reassured. He had looked at the PCSO with misgivings when he had drawn up in the car. She had been hunkering down, staring at the window, and when she had
straightened
up and peered at him in the sunlight, his impression had been of a grim-faced woman in her late forties. But when she smiled, she changed. Her face had a mixture of confidence and warmth, and the strange scar under her left eye made her look both tough and vulnerable.

‘Any idea what did the damage?’ Phil asked. ‘Have they found a brick or anything?’

Ro shrugged. ‘We’ll have a look when the community constable gets back with the caretaker. We’ve seen the damage. I suppose there’s not much more we can do.’

‘And will you be all right here on your own?’ As soon as he said it, Phil realized how silly the words sounded. Ro Watson laughed, but it was warm rather than dismissive.

‘I should think so. If the vandals come back I’ll throw my hat at them. It’s got the dynamics of a Frisbee and is about as fetching.’ 

Why did I suddenly feel protective towards her? Phil thought. She was a tallish, slim-looking woman with an air of being fit enough to look after herself. Maybe it was the scar, he thought. Or the fact that she didn’t talk like a professional. His own dealings with the police after his daughter’s death had left him feeling like an hysterical idiot most of the time.

They said their goodbyes and Phil felt Ro’s warm, confident handshake. She was a funny mixture, it seemed to him. But likeable. Very different from the police officers he had met when Samantha died. The thought
concentrated
his mind on Becky as he got into his car and turned sharply towards Tarnfield.

Back home at The Briars, after being so briskly dismissed from the school by Mrs Rudder, Suzy served Molly and Becky with fish fingers and chips for lunch. Comfort food. It had been a tough morning and she didn’t feel like serving up salad. But the girls were animated as much as upset, and seemed to feel that breaking the window was just another Jonty McFadden outrage.

‘Jonty’s a real bully,’ Molly said. ‘He’s got it in for us.’

‘What do you mean?’ Suzy asked her.

‘He doesn’t like me,’ Becky Dixon said. ‘He hated it when I joined St Mungo’s. Miss MacDonald said I was best at computers. Jonty said that was boys’ work. And he’s always talking about sex.’

‘He says he’s done it,’ Molly stated in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘Yuk, imagine doing it with Jonty!’

‘Really?’ Suzy was alarmed. She was shocked to hear Molly talking about ‘doing it’ with anyone. She and her daughter had had all the usual chats about biology, loving relationships and having babies, but so far she had thought it was all theoretical. This was a bit of a shocker.