Maxwell’s Match (27 page)

‘God,’ she growled again, looking directly at him this time. She took a deep breath. ‘There was one occasion. And I never got to the bottom of it. Tubbsy had an accident and I let it go. Perhaps I shouldn’t have.’

‘What happened?’

‘Let me see – this was early last term, late September, I think.’ She closed to him lest Senior Common Room walls had ears. ‘There’d been a few whisperings around the House. I suppose it’s the same for you. You get the vibes.’

‘I have a school nurse who keeps me posted,’ Maxwell nodded, picturing Sylvia Matthews’ face as he said it and feeling her toe crunching against his shin.

‘Well, the rumour ran to the effect that boys were meeting up with some of my girls after lights out, nipping off to the boat-house for a bit of how’s your father. I ignored it for a while, then thought I ought to investigate. Well,’ Maggie sighed apologetically, ‘I’m no Miss Marple, I’m afraid. It was a Wednesday, I remember and I waited until well and truly after dark, then went out to the boat- house myself. It was a beastly night, pouring with rain and the visibility was awful. There are no locks on the boat-house so anyone can get in. I looked through the window …’

There was a pause.

‘Come on, Maggie,’ Maxwell urged. ‘I’m on edge of my seat, here.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ she said. ‘Well, there was a couple making love, on some mats in the corner.’

‘Who?’

‘Now there you have me. I just couldn’t get a clear view.’

Maxwell sympathized. He’d had exactly same problem the week before.

‘But that wasn’t all.’

‘Oh?’

‘There was someone watching them, apart from me, I mean.’

‘Who?’

Maggie scratched her head. ‘Well, as I said, was dark. And it was raining.’

‘Maggie …’ Maxwell growled.

‘It was the grunting I heard first.’

‘From inside the boat-house?’

‘No, from the bushes to one side. There’s a better view from there, I imagine, on the land side. I trod on a twig or something – I told you I was no Jane Marple – and the grunting stopped. Somebody dashed away from the bushes and was last seen legging it up the hill towards the wall,’

‘Who was it, Maggie?’

‘Well,’ the Head of Austen was getting seriously flustered. ‘Obviously a voyeur of some sort, and behaving in a perfectly revolting manner.’

‘Who was it, Maggie?’ Maxwell persisted.

‘It looked like – and, mind you, I don’t say it was – it looked like Jeremy Tubbs.’

‘Bingo!’ Maxwell nodded.

‘And he wasn’t alone.’

‘What?’

‘No, I couldn’t swear to it in a court of law, but I got the distinct impression there was somebody else, watching.’

‘With Tubbs?’

‘No, no, there’s a sort of annexe to the boat-house, a wing off to one side.’

Maxwell remembered it.

‘While I was watching … Tubbs … running to the wall, I heard somebody else moving away in the opposite direction.’

‘Around the lake?’

‘Yes. It’s about a mile all the way round.’

‘Did you see this person?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘No. No one. I just heard the rustle of grass and the pounding of feet.’

‘And you didn’t tackle Tubbs about it?’

She shrugged. ‘Cowardice, I suppose. I had no actual proof. What if he said to me he was at home in bed at the time of the alleged incident? What was I supposed to do? Call the man a liar? A pervert? He’d be bound to deny the whole thing. Anyway, fate stepped in.’

‘In what way?’ Maxwell asked.

‘The next day, Tubbs fell down stairs in Tennyson House, sprained his ankle, quite badly, apparently. He was off for a fortnight. I read the riot act in Austen, obliquely, of course, about curfews and sensible behaviour and so on. I had a word with the other Heads of House, omitting the boat-house incident of course and they had similar words with their lads.’

‘This was September?’ Maxwell checked.

‘Yes, the last week, I think. Why?’

‘So Tim Robinson wasn’t on the staff then?’

‘No.’ Maggie shook her head. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Tim Robinson wasn’t Tim Robinson at all,’ Jacquie’s voice was a hoarse whisper on the other end of the mobile. ‘He was Andy Love. And he wasn’t a teacher. He was an undercover copper. And if you breathe one word about this, Pete Maxwell, my career is over and I will personally cut your bum off. What will I do?’

‘Cut my bum off, Police Woman Carpenter,’ and he waved to George Sheffield, flying across the quad in gown and mortar board.

The grapevine had swung both ways.

The sun was over the yard arm as Peter Maxwell climbed the open plan stairs to Maggie Shaunessy’s Northanger. She’d invited him after their post-prandial chat and he was supposed to be talking about the alternative education available to the girls’ sisters in the state sector.

Somehow nobody had the stomach for that least of all Maxwell, and he talked instead about murder. For all Dr Sheffield had exploded with rage at the suggestion, here he was, with the serried ranks of girls in front of him, discussing the most delicate subject in the world. His defence would be, when news filtered through as it inevitably would, to the Headmaster’s study, that he was not actually asking them questions, merely inviting open discussion.

He knew of course that it wouldn’t work. Even among the confidence-oozing sirens of Austen, it was a brave soul who would confess anything at all in front of her peers and sure enough, there was silence. Maxwell talked about the tragedy of Bill Pardoe’s death, what a loss as a man and a teacher. He talked about Tim Robinson, whom nobody had known at all. He asked them what kind of funerals should be held; should a company of the cadet force, for instance, carry a flag-draped coffin for a burial at night, perhaps somewhere out beyond the lake and the boat-house which, Maxwell couldn’t help thinking, seemed to lie at the heart of what was going on at Grimond’s.

When it was over, a slightly stunned Maggie Shaunessy led a desultory applause. The girls were used to missionaries and Oxfam representatives, chats on careers and makeovers. They were not asked to confront reality on their own doorstep.

‘Why did you do that?’ Maggie asked him as she saw him down the rowing-trophied stairwell out of Northanger.

‘Do what?’ he asked her in turn.

‘Frighten them.’ She was curt, frosty, like the first time they’d met when Maxwell was not showing what she considered due respect for Bill Pardoe.

‘Did I?’ he asked.

‘I was watching a couple at the back,’ she told him. ‘They were crying. We’re losing enough students as it is, Max. You’ll drive even more away now.’

‘Not me,’ Maxwell shook his head. ‘The murderer.’

‘And that’s another thing,’ she turned to face him at the bottom of the stairs. ‘You’re dishonest aren’t you?’

‘Am I?’ He looked into her blazing eyes.

‘You know more about all this than you said tonight.’

He nodded. ‘That’s true. But then, so does somebody up there,’ he pointed back to the auditorium, to the raked theatre seats where the girls still huddled in groups, whispering.

‘Are you implying that one or more of my girls is involved in this appalling situation?’ she snapped, jabbing him in the chest with a forefinger.

‘They’re Grimond’s girls,’ he shrugged. ‘They’re all involved. What’s to be gained by pussyfooting around?’

‘That’s not what I mean and you know it,’ she thundered. There was a movement overhead and a bevy of girls had collected on the landing, like those ominous crows on the playground climbing frame in Hitchcock’s
The Birds
. They were all looking down at the teachers below.

Maxwell closed to the Housemistress. ‘Watch their reactions tonight,’ he said. ‘I may know more than I’m saying, but someone in Austen knows a great deal more. That someone may call on you, in full confessional mode, or just tearful and confused. In that case …’

‘In that case,’ she growled at him, ‘I will send for the chaplain or I’ll handle it myself. You, Mr Maxwell, will leave Northanger now. And you are never coming back.’

16

‘Well, Denise,’ Henry Hall was already making the coffee and already, in her eyes, a different species from Mark West. ‘I’d normally get to know my detective sergeants, have a few preliminary chats. But then I usually appoint my own. No quite the same here, is it?’

‘Sorry, sir.’ Denise McGovern was older than Jacquie Carpenter, with straw-like hair and hard, angular face. She looked as though she could handle herself in a crisis; she looked as though she took no prisoners. But Henry Hall knew two things about her; she was efficient and she was utterly loyal to Mark West.

‘No, no,’ he said, handing her a steaming cup. ‘It’s just one of those things. You’re the local officer; tell me about Grimond’s.’ He sat back behind the desk.

‘You’ve been here for the best part of two weeks, sir,’ she said. ‘Nothing I can say’s going to add to what you already know.’

‘Don’t be so sure. Where are you based?’

‘Petersfield.’

‘Grimond’s kids get there much?’

‘They’re allowed passes at weekends – exeats, I think they call them.’

‘And the sixth form on Wednesday afternoons, too,’ Hall nodded. ‘Well, don’t be shy, Denise. Sit down.’

She arranged herself in front of his desk.

‘What’s their reputation?’

‘Tea leaves,’ she said, straight-faced.

‘Are you serious?’ Hall asked her.

‘Ask any of the retailers. Churchers is the other private school, the one in the town. Bedales nearby. And they’re straight as dies. No, there’s something about Grimond’s. There’s been the odd run in with uniform.’

‘Dealing?’ Hall clung to the story he’d invented.

‘I thought that was why you were here, sir.’

‘It is. But to be honest, it’s more the links with the outside I need a handle on. That’s why you’re here.’

‘What can I tell you?’

‘Who’s your Dirty Squad Chief?’

‘Locally, Sandy Berman, sir – DI Berman. Why do you ask?’

‘Who’s your drugs czar?’

‘Joe Nelson. He’s the one you should be dealing with, if you’ll excuse the pun.’

‘You know why I can’t,’ Hall became conspiratorial.

‘Sir,’ Denise put her coffee cup on the desk and let what little cleavage she had droop. ‘I appreciate you can’t say too much, but the Chief Super?’ She was shaking her head. ‘I just don’t buy it.’

Hall leaned back. ‘That’s what he’s relying on,’ he said, sipping his coffee. ‘David Mason is like Caesar’s wife and he thinks we aren’t going to snoop.’

‘What’ve you got on him?’

‘Ah,’ Hall nodded solemnly. ‘For the moment, that’s on a strictly need to know basis. And for the moment, that doesn’t include you. Sorry, Denise.

She shrugged, knowing how far down the pecking order detective sergeants came. ‘That’s okay.’ She changed tack. ‘What’s the schedule today?’

‘More of the same,’ Hall told her. ‘By lunch time we should have finished the sixth form girls. Tomorrow it’s Dickens House, then Kipling. Sunday, we’ll have interviewed all the staff and all the sixth form.’

‘What about the younger kids?’

Hall threw his hands in the air. ‘You know the drill there,’ he said. ‘Social services, parents present, video screen set-ups, the whole walking-on-eggs bit. I’m dreading it. It can slow an enquiry down by weeks.’

‘Useful, though,’ Denise said. ‘In my experience, kids are good observers.’

‘And better readers of moods than most adults,’ Hall agreed, just for a fleeting moment wishing had Peter Maxwell on board as consulting expert.

‘This bloke Tubbs,’ Denise changed the subject. ‘The one who’s gone walkabout.’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s got form.’

‘What?’ Hall was sitting up.

‘Just a caution, in fact. I came across it other day, in records.’

‘It wasn’t in the file,’ Hall waved it at her.

‘The DCI didn’t think it was important. No drug connection.’ She could have bitten her lip?

‘You told him, didn’t you?’ Hall looked level at her.

‘Sir?’

‘Why I’m here. You told him.’

For a moment, Denise McGovern toyed with trying to lie her way out. Then she thought better of it. ‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry.’

‘It had to come out one day,’ Hall said, secretly loving it when a plan comes together. ‘I’m too short-staffed to manage alone. Tell me about Tubbs.’

‘It wasn’t long after he’d started at Grimond’s, maybe six years ago. He had a pad in Petersfield then, a rented place and he was in the habit of inviting local girls round, some from the local comp, others from St Hilda’s.’

‘That’s the school that merged with Grimond’s?’

Denise nodded. ‘There was a complaint from a neighbour and uniform were called in. It all looked a bit sweaty, bottles of vodka and a few raunchy vids. All the girls were over sixteen though and no parents complained, so Tubbs just got a caution. He had backing from the school, apparently.’

‘Sheffield?’ Hall frowned.

‘No. That wasn’t the name. I can’t remember, but somebody swore his life away for the sleazy bastard. Still, no hint of drugs, though.’

‘Put yourself in his position, Denise.’ Hall leaned back. ‘Jeremy Tubbs. You’re a third-rate teacher fast approaching middle-age in an obscure private school. You fancy young girls, but they probably don’t fancy you. What do you do?’

‘I don’t think I’d kill a couple of colleagues,’ Denise said. ‘What would be the point? To increase my street cred? I saw the school mug- shot; Ronnie Kray Tubbsy’s not.’

‘Agreed,’ Hall nodded. ‘But he ran anyway. For reasons we don’t yet know. Where does he go?’

‘Home to Mummy and Daddy?’ Denise pondered the possibles. ‘No, we’ve checked. Mum thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread. Daddy thinks he’s a weirdo with a history of pet abuse. No doubt the shrink counsellors you got under your feet here would have a field with all that.’

‘No doubt,’ Hall said. ‘So where else does he go?’

‘No brothers,’ Denise told him. ‘No sisters. We understand there’s an aunt in Potter’s Bar, but she hasn’t seen him since he was ten and, I believe I’m quoting from her statement, “if never see the little toe-rag again it’ll be too soon”. The Herts force seemed to think she was telling it like it is.’