Murder In School (2 page)

‘Alright, Guv?  Got one over on DI Smart,
I hear.’

‘Leyton, your whining Cockney accent’s
annoying me already.’

‘That’s great, that is.  I come back
from Majorca singing your praises and I don’t even get a ‘How’s your holiday?’
or ‘How’s the Missus?’ – never mind a ‘Morning Sergeant.’’

‘Yeah – okay, okay.  I’ve had
an early start.  On top of a late night.’

‘I shan’t ask.  If you tell, I shall
keep shtoom.’

Skelgill pulls open the door of DS
Leyton’s unmarked car and slides into the passenger seat.  ‘Stick to the
school business, eh?’

‘Your call, Guv.  But first things
first.  I passed a new burger van in the layby just after the Crossthwaite
roundabout.  I reckon there’s time for a bacon roll if we get our skates
on.  What do you say?’

‘Leyton – I’d forgotten you had
your uses.’

*

DS Leyton, having been delegated to queue
in what has become light drizzle, delivers his purchases to Skelgill through
the open window and scuttles as fast as his bulk will allow around to the
driver’s side.  The small car lurches mildly as he settles behind the
wheel.

‘Blimey, Guv – they tell me I’ve
missed a heatwave.  But actually it’s decent British grub I miss.’ 
He takes a gulp from the plastic cup handed to him by Skelgill, then recoils.
‘Ah!  And good old scalding Rosy Lea.’

Skelgill checks his watch and takes back
the cup.  ‘Leyton, you’d better drive, else we’re going to be late.  Remember,
Big Brother’s watching us.  I’ll have your bacon roll if necessary.’

DS Leyton shakes his head ruefully, as if
to say, ‘Same old Guvnor’.  Nevertheless he turns the ignition key and
checks his mirrors.

‘Anyway,’ Skelgill continues, more
brightly, ‘You can’t eat and talk.  I need to know the story, top-line.’

DS Leyton spins the car into a tight U-turn
and guns its modest engine, to limited avail.  Fumbling for his seat belt,
he peers determinedly into a cloud of spray as he sets about tailgating the
juggernaut ahead, despite the fact that in fewer than two hundred yards he will
exit the main A66 trunk road to head through the lanes for Oakthwaite
School.  It is a constant source of disagreement between the colleagues:
Skelgill insists that DS Leyton is a typical ‘London driver’ (more haste, less
speed), while the latter’s counter argument goes that when they need to battle
through traffic, he’s their man.

‘All I know, Guv, is limited to what I’ve
gleaned from reading the statements.  It was DI Smart who filed the reports. 
They’ve moved him onto some big drugs case and left this one to us mugginses.’

Skelgill is glowering, and now DS Leyton
swings off at a roundabout, just as he attempts to take a mouthful of tea.

‘Oi!  Where’s the fire?’

‘Guv – I thought we were in a hurry.’

‘Okay – well, from now on take it
steady.  We’re not the North Lakes Sweeney.’

‘Despite what they call us at the
station?’

Skelgill shoots a questioning glance at
DS Leyton, as if this is new information.  After a moment he says,
‘Leyton, the suicide?’

‘Sure, Guv.  The autopsy report says
it’s categorically death by drowning.  No signs of injury or struggle, no
trace of drugs or even medication, nothing untoward in the stomach.  No
indication of illness or disease.  He just drowned.’

‘In Bass Lake?’

‘Yeah.  They’ve got a little wooden rowing
boat.  He went overboard.  It was found anchored about thirty feet
out.’

Skelgill frowns.  Just a few hours
earlier he had inspected the rickety landing stage and small, dilapidated
row-in boathouse.  The craft itself was in equally poor repair, possibly
shipping water.  Held fast by a rusty chain and padlock, it didn’t look
like it was a facility of which the school made much use.

‘How come we’re so sure it was
suicide?  He could have fallen in.’

‘Velcro weights, Guv.’

‘Come again?’

‘You go to the health club don’t you,
Guv?’

‘Leyton, I wouldn’t know the inside of a health
club from the inside of your sweaty underpants.  Why would I spend a
packet to run about indoors when for free I’m surrounded by four hundred fells
and the finest countryside in England?’

‘Oh – thought you did, Guv. 
I’m with you though – for the same cash you get far better value from a
satellite subscription.’

Skelgill grins.  For different
reasons, DS Leyton, too, is almost certainly unfamiliar with the inside of a
health club.  ‘Velcro weights, then?’

‘Yeah, Guv.  Apparently you strap
‘em on your wrists and ankles to make training more difficult.’

‘Or sinking more easy.’

‘You got it, Guv.’

‘Where did the weights come from?’

‘The school gym.  They’re big on
sports, by all accounts.’

Skelgill nods.  ‘What do we know
about the victim?’

‘Name of Querrell, Edmund Donald.  Sixty-eight. 
Fit and healthy.  Longest-serving member of staff.  Mainly spent his
time running their outward-bound trips, and that Duke of Edinburgh
malarkey.  Sports coach for one of the year-groups, but not an official PE
master.  No disciplinary issues, no criminal record.’

‘I take it there was no suicide note?’

‘Not a sausage, Guv.  He lived in
the converted gatehouse – it was all totally shipshape.’

‘Was he married?’

‘Bachelor.  Apparently no next of
kin.’

‘Will?’

Leyton shakes his head.  ‘Don’t
suppose he’d need one, Guv.  Admin are still working on it.’

‘When did the death occur?’

‘Pathologist reckons he went into the
water between ten p.m. and two a.m. last Wednesday/Thursday.  He’d not
turned up for assembly, and mid-morning the Head sent the groundsman to scout
for him.  He spotted the boat.  Querrell kept the keys – so
they suspected an accident and called 999.’

If Skelgill hadn’t returned so
sleep-deprived from his trip to London, he might well have been out on the lake
at the very time.  One of his piking strategies was dead baiting in the small
hours.  It’s a couple of moments before he asks, ‘Did they find the keys?’

‘On a nail in the boathouse.  Usual
place if the boat was taken out, apparently.’

‘What was this guy Querrell wearing?’

‘Regular attire: tracksuit, trainers,
underwear.’

‘Socks?’

‘No – but apparently he didn’t generally
wear socks.  Usually trainers or open-toed sandals.’

‘So he went out normally dressed?’

‘Looks like it, Guv.’

‘State of mind?’

‘Nothing in the reports, Guv.  I’m
sure we asked the question, though.’

‘Yeah.’  Skelgill sounds like he
wouldn’t be surprised if ‘we’ didn’t.

‘Thing is, Guv, seeing as it’s cut and
dried – why are we doing this?

‘Leyton, that’s what I’d like to know.’

‘So what are we going to say, Guv?’

‘Search me, mate.’

In all his thirty-seven years as a Cumbrian
resident, Skelgill has never had cause to set foot inside the territory of Oakthwaite
School.  As he discussed with DS Jones, private and state schools exist in
orbits that rarely intersect, and their product tends to settle in mutually
exclusive echelons of the great British socio-economic firmament.  Indeed,
in common with most of the indigenous North Lakes youth Skelgill was blissfully
unaware of the school’s presence until advanced teenage, when he detected competition
for the favours of desirable local lasses in the form of sports car driving
incomers, flashing banknotes with denominations the likes of which he had never
seen.  Not surprisingly, there were occasional rumpuses of a town-and-gown
nature, though these days it seems that Penrith and surrounding villages are
off limits to Oakthwaite pupils.

After a couple of wrong turns, for which
Skelgill unfairly blames DS Leyton, and thus a formidable demonstration of both
officers’ proficiency in Anglo-Saxon terminology, Skelgill determines that the high
wall bordering the lane to their left marks the perimeter of the school. 
While he finishes DS Leyton’s bacon roll, Leyton eventually navigates their way
to the entrance, which is marked by a stone archway bearing the school
crest.  There is little else to give away its presence; to all intents and
purposes unsignposted, such casual anonymity exudes a quiet confidence: those
who need to know will find us.

This isolated setting is typical of many
of northern Britain’s great public schools.  Whether by coincidence or
design, such unanimity of location certainly must have secured for the
privileged classes an education– both academic and social –
conducted in an environment unpolluted by the undesirable mores of the great
unwashed.  (These schools’ founding fathers unable to foresee the advent
of social networking.)  Either way, the legacy is a cohort of highly
regarded institutions that attract applicants from all corners of the globe.

Oakthwaite is no exception to this
rule.  Founded in 1866 by an enterprising locally born industrialist who
made his fortune in the Satanic textile mills of Lancashire, the school was
named after the tiny eponymous hamlet that was flattened to make way for it,
and from where he hailed.

As they enter the property, Skelgill
would like to pry about the gatehouse, but they are already ten minutes late and
obliged to press on.  The main building is a further quarter-mile, within
an estate of some six hundred and fifty acres.  Constructed in neoclassical
style from imported buff-coloured sandstone, its first impression is of the
Cotswolds, making it doubly incongruous in a region famed for its vernacular
application of the ubiquitous locally hewn slate.

As DS Leyton slews their car to an undisciplined
halt, spitting gravel and carving tracks in the neatly manicured turning crescent
before the grand frontage, they inhale in silent unison: the place looks more
like an imposing stately home, a far cry from their own educational
experiences.  After a short pause, Skelgill, not overly tall at
five-eleven, but lanky enough, spills out of the small vehicle as if he has
been cramped in for a much longer journey.  He brushes flakes of crust
from his person and straightens his jacket.  Ignoring DS Leyton, who comes
shambling after him, he pulls back his shoulders and trots up the five steps to
haul on the large iron ring that serves as a bell-pull.

‘Sorry to keep you, sir – we had to
deal with a minor incident en route.’

Mr Goodman, a small neat man in his late
fifties, with thinning oiled hair and thick round-lensed spectacles (a
combination that, among successive generations of schoolboys, has consistently earned
him the nickname
Himmler
), rises from behind an expansive oak desk as
the detectives are ushered into his airy study.  It’s a large room, and he
does not come forward to greet them, instead choosing to stand his ground and check
his wristwatch.  He indicates somewhat unsmilingly that they should be
seated before him.

Mr Goodman’s office shows signs that
status is important to him.  There are trophies and prizes, and his
qualifications are prominently displayed.  One wall is almost entirely
given over to a collection of professionally produced photographs that can only
be classified as self-aggrandisement: in which the Headmaster is seen meeting
minor royalty, accepting awards, and giving speeches.  He wears an
expensive-looking tailored suit, and highly polished brogues.

DS Leyton straightens his tie – an
act perhaps borne out of habitually being hauled before the Head in his own
schooldays – while a twitch from Skelgill reveals he almost succumbs to
the same reflex.  However, Skelgill – as predicted by DS Jones
– sports no tie.  Earlier he had searched about, and located two
– but they were already pressed into use in suspending a clutch of
fishing rods from a beam in his garage, and he was not about to disturb the
equilibrium of this important practical arrangement.

‘How may I help you, gentlemen?’

In phonological terms, the Head’s accent falls
somewhere between BBC Bush House and Buckingham Palace.

As Skelgill might have anticipated, he’s
calling their bluff.  It’s a natural question, but surely ingenuous? 
And unfortunate for Skelgill, since the Chief’s instructions state that he is on
no account to mention that this appointment came about at her behest –
indeed her name is entirely off limits.  That the Head and she are likely
to be on hobnobbing terms would be a handy calling card.  Instead,
Skelgill is left to come up with something of his own invention.  He gives
a little cough.

‘DI Skelgill, sir.  And this is DS
Leyton.  Naturally, sir, it’s in connection with the death of your
schoolmaster.’

Barely perceptibly Mr Goodman cocks his
head, as if he’s expecting Skelgill to elaborate.  There’s a small battle
of wills, during which the perspiring DS Leyton squirms uncomfortably in his leather
seat, making a sound close to that of breaking wind.  After what seems
like an age, the Head ‘blinks’ first.

‘Officer, I understood your investigation
is complete.  I trust there’s not some frivolous reason for extending matters
beyond their natural conclusion?’

While the Head’s tone is not offensive,
his choice of words could be interpreted as somewhat patronising.  In
which case Skelgill exhibits considerable self-restraint in replying,
‘Certainly not, sir – we entirely understand the sensitivity of this issue.’

‘Do you, Inspector?  What did you
have in mind?’  Behind the spectacles, the pale blue eyes seem to narrow.

‘Your school’s reputation, sir – as
a beacon of excellence and an important contributor to the local economy
– we don’t want an unfortunate event like this to get blown out of
proportion.’

The tension evident in the Head’s angular
shoulders might now fractionally diminish.  Perhaps Skelgill is talking
his language.  However, there’s scant indication in his inscrutable features
to indicate any corresponding softening of his attitude towards the detectives.

‘You’re quite right, Inspector.  But
why should that be?’  We might be a ‘live-in’ institution, so to speak,
but we can’t be held responsible for the private act of an individual. 
Therefore I don’t see any reason for this matter to become ‘blown out of
proportion’, as you put it.’

Skelgill nods sympathetically.  Then
he turns to stare encouragingly at Leyton, who starts in surprise and then
begins to look panicky, eyes widening.  Is Skelgill expecting him to come
up with the ‘bogus’ reason for their visit?  He shuffles again in his
seat, with accompanying sound effects.

‘Well, Inspector... is there something I
ought to know?’  It’s the Head that speaks.  His tone is one of
impatience.

To Leyton’s evident relief, Skelgill
turns back to face Mr Goodman.

‘Sir – you’ll appreciate I’m not at
liberty to divulge precise details, but I realise we can fully rely upon your
confidence.’

His inflexion suggests a question, to
which Mr Goodman responds with the merest inclination of his head.

‘If I were to put it hypothetically, sir
– let’s say somebody dies – and then a second person comes forward
claiming to be an heir...’

‘Querrell has no heir.  He lived
here as a bachelor throughout his entire adulthood.  The school was his
life.’

‘So we understand, sir.  In which
case the scenario I’m describing would be a criminal offence and we would be
obliged to investigate the imposter.’

Slowly, and with evident reluctance, the Head
nods his affirmation.

‘On the other hand, sir, if by some small
quirk of fate they turned out to be genuine, and we were – how can I put
it? –
heavy handed
– they could kick up quite a stink
– at the inquest, for example.  The school might come in for some
collateral damage.  You know what the press can be like, these days, sir.’

The Head twists his lips like someone who
has bitten into a lime.  After a moment’s silence he intones, ‘So,
Inspector – I return to my original question: how may I help you?’

‘Well, sir – you said it
yourself.  The school was Mr Querrell’s life.  If we’re to nip this
in the bud as quickly and quietly as possible, we have to start here.  Of
course we have your own statement.  Perhaps if we could speak with those
other members of your staff that were closest to him?’

‘And no requirement to interrogate any of
the boys?  You appreciate we’re right in the midst of exams?’

‘We’d be discretion personified, Mr
Goodman.’

The Head rises and steps out from behind
his desk.  He crosses to the large sash window that gives on to the front
of the school and looks out, rocking from his heels to the balls of his
feet.  Then he turns, revealing the remnants of a disapproving
scowl.  He says, ‘You could begin, Inspector, by parking less
conspicuously.  There’s a tradesman’s area at the rear.’

Skelgill bows in a deferential manner,
then points a reprimanding finger at Leyton, as if passing the blame in clumsy
schoolboy fashion.  The Head returns to his desk and leans over an
intercom.  His call is immediately answered by a well-spoken female voice.

‘Yes, Headmaster?’

‘Miss Brown, please spend a few moments
assisting these officers with the arrangement of some interview times.  I
would suggest it might be most tactful to begin at first sports period this
afternoon, when certain masters are free.’

‘Of course, Headmaster.’