The Red Herring (4 page)

‘It's what I'd put my money on,' Paniatowski replied.

‘Then it shouldn't be too hard to trace her, should it?'

A young constable who'd been searching one of the outbuildings made his way uncertainly towards them. He came to a halt when he drew level, and looked from Rutter's face to Woodend's – then back again – as if he were uncertain which of them he should speak to.

‘What is it, Dobson?' Rutter asked.

‘One of the lads was sayin' that you've found the victim's driving licence, sir.'

‘That's right.'

‘So you know who she is?'

‘Why the interest?'

‘It's just possible I might know her.'

‘Assuming that the licence belong to her,' Rutter said, giving Paniatowski a quick glance, ‘then we believe her name was Verity Beale.'

The colour drained from the constable's face. ‘Oh, my God, it's true,' he moaned.

‘So you do know her?'

The constable nodded. ‘When I saw she had the same hair as Miss Beale, I thought there might be a chance, but I never really believed . . .'

‘Tell us about her,' Woodend said gently. ‘Did you know her well?'

‘More know
of
her,' the constable said. ‘I've got a nephew at King Edward's Grammar, you see – my sister Linda's lad. I've been up to the school a few Saturday mornin's to watch him play football, an' she was usually there. She's . . . she
was
one of the teachers, an' I rather . . . an' I rather . . .'

‘An' you rather fancied her?' Woodend suggested.

The constable nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I know it sounds a bit sick now, but I'd no idea she was goin' to end up . . .'

‘Tell me about her left knee,' Woodend said.

‘I . . . I beg your pardon, sir.'

‘Her left knee, lad. I noticed somethin' distinctive about it, an' if you fancied her, you'll have noticed it too.'

‘She . . . she had a scar on it,' the constable said, reddening. ‘It was quite attractive, actually . . . I mean . . .'

‘What kind of scar?'

‘It was a bit like a crescent moon.'

Woodend turned to Monika Paniatowski. ‘That's a positive enough identification for me,' he said.

‘Me, too,' Paniatowski agreed.

T
he King Edward VI Grammar School stood, appropriately enough given its position in the educational hierarchy, near the top of a steep hill. It was flanked on one side by large, detached houses, and on the other by Whitebridge Corporation Park. Though it could trace its origins back to the sixteenth century, the oldest buildings on the school site dated back only to the nineteenth. These edifices – for there was no other way to describe them – had all the ornate pretentiousness of Victorian civic architecture. The newer extensions, on the other hand – added as the school expanded and science became almost as important as Latin – had about them a blandness which was positively post-war utilitarian. The complex would, therefore, never have won any architectural prizes, but for the aspiring burgers of Whitebridge, the opportunity to have their children educated at ‘Eddie's' was a prize in itself.

Woodend had known the school when he was growing up, though only as a result of walking past it on the way to his elementary school, an institution where you were taught the basics, then kicked out to fend for yourself when you turned fourteen. Now, for the first time in his life, he found himself standing in the entrance hall of the hallowed institution, surrounded by shelves of sporting trophies and long strip photographs of generations of privileged schoolboys.

He leant closer to one of the photographs, examined the grinning, confident faces of the pupils, and found himself wondering whatever had happened to all those boys. Had they conquered the world, as they had once so clearly believed they would? Or were they now assistant bank managers and head wages clerks, administering their small empires from musty offices far from the centre of things? And did it really matter one way or the other? Because if the American president and Russian premier both refused to back down, then not only their careers, but their world, could go up in smoke.

A large oak door swung open, and a grey-haired woman in a grey knitted twin-set appeared.

‘The Headmaster will see you now,' she said, as if she were conferring a great honour on him.

Woodend turned to Paniatowski. ‘I hope you haven't been caught smokin' behind the bike sheds again, Monika,' he said
almost
in a whisper, before striding into the headmaster's office with his sergeant at his heel.

The headmaster was about his own age, Woodend guessed. He had silver hair and a stiff military bearing. He was probably the kind of ex-soldier who, if you asked him, would say he'd had ‘a good war'.

As if there was any such thing, thought Woodend, who had served six years in the poor bloody infantry.

The headmaster extended his hand to both the chief inspector and his assistant, then gestured them to sit in a pair of straight chairs which faced his impressive teak desk.

‘My secretary informs me that whilst you wished to see me, you were not prepared to inform her of the nature of your visit,' he said in a deep, plummy voice, which Woodend could well imagine ringing impressively round the school assembly hall. ‘Could I enquire as to the reason for your reticence?'

‘She wouldn't have liked what I told her, an' I didn't see any need for her to get her knickers in a twist until she absolutely had to,' Woodend replied.

The headmaster arched his left eyebrow in a most significant manner. ‘I beg your pardon?' he said.

‘When I want the rest of the people in this buildin' to learn why I'm here, I'd like to be the one who tells them,' Woodend replied, as if he were really giving the headmaster the answer he'd sought. ‘I believe you employ a teacher called Verity Beale.'

‘She is a member of my staff, yes.'

‘An' you don't happen to know if she's at work today, do you?'

The headmaster waved his hand in an airy gesture of dismissal. ‘I'm afraid you'll have to ask my deputy about that. He's the one who deals with the day-to-day matters of school business.'

‘How long has Miss Beale worked for you?'

‘Since September.' The headmaster paused. ‘Before we go any further, would you mind telling me why you're asking these questions?'

‘All in good time, sir,' Woodend said. ‘Miss Beale's not from round these parts, is she?'

‘No, she's from London. What's the problem? Is she in some kind of difficulty?'

‘Do you usually employ teachers who come from so far away?' Woodend asked.

‘This school has an enviable reputation to maintain. In order to ensure it does, I employ good teachers
wherever
they come from. And Miss Beale
is
a graduate of Cambridge University.'

‘Do you employ many women?'

‘I think you've already met my secretary. In addition, most of the kitchen staff––'

‘I mean women
teachers
.'

‘I have, from time to time.'

‘How many of your teachers are women at the moment?' Woodend asked, almost expecting the headmaster to reply that he would have to ask the deputy about mundane details like that.

‘She is the only one at the moment,' the headmaster said.

‘Doesn't she find it difficult, working in an all-male school?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Don't you find it difficult working in an almost entirely male police force?' the headmaster countered.

‘Difficult enough,' Paniatowski agreed.

It didn't seem to be the answer the headmaster had been expecting, and for a moment it threw him off his stroke. ‘Miss Beale is a highly competent teacher,' he continued, after another moment's pause, ‘though I will not deny her path is made smoother by the fact that we expect certain standards of behaviour from the boys in this school. From the girls, too, for that matter.'

‘Girls?' Woodend repeated. ‘Did you say
girls
?'

‘Indeed, I did.'

‘Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs,' Woodend said.

‘I'm afraid I don't quite follow you.'

‘I never thought I'd live to see the day when Eddie's would allow
girls
through the door. When did this revolution happen? Why haven't I read about it in the papers?'

The headmaster grimaced. ‘We admit a limited number of girls as a courtesy to the Air Force,' he said. ‘Several of the officers at RAF Blackhill have their families with them, and since they naturally want to make sure their daughters attend a
good
school, we are asked to accommodate them.'

‘But only officers' daughters?' Woodend asked. ‘Not the kids of the enlisted men?'

‘Naturally not,' the headmaster agreed. ‘We have to draw the line somewhere. And now, Chief Inspector Woodend, I think I really am going to have insist that before you ask me any more questions, you tell me
why
you're asking them.'

‘There's been a murder,' Woodend said bluntly.

‘Miss Beale!'

‘It's possible it's somebody else – but we don't really think so, do we, Sergeant?'

‘No,' Paniatowski said. ‘We don't really think so.'

The headmaster seemed shocked, Woodend thought, but not in the way most people did when they were told of a murder.

He tried to pin down what was wrong with the other man's reaction. The average feller-in-the-street's initial emotion was usually disbelief, he decided. There had to be some mistake, the feller's expression would say. Of course people got murdered – he understood that – but not people he knew personally. There was simply no way that could have happened.

The headmaster, on the other hand, looked like a man who had put his life savings on a sure winner at Doncaster, only to see the bloody horse fall at the first fence.

‘This . . . this is terrible news,' the headmaster said.

‘Aye, it is,' Woodend agreed. ‘Now I don't want to disturb the runnin' of the school any more than I have to, but I will need to talk to your staff as a group – an' probably individually as well – sometime durin' the course of the mornin'.'

‘Of course,' the headmaster said abstractedly.

‘So if you could make the suitable arrangements . . .'

‘Ask Mrs Green to take you to see my deputy,' the headmaster said. ‘He will do whatever's necessary.'

Woodend looked at Paniatowski, then stood up. ‘Well, thank you for your co-operation, sir, and we'll try not to––' he began.

‘Yes, yes,' the headmaster said impatiently. ‘Now if you'll excuse me, I have a great many matters to attend to.'

And all of them apparently more important than the murder of one of his staff, Woodend thought.

When he reached the door, the chief inspector turned around again. The headmaster was just reaching for the phone – but when he saw Woodend looking at him, he let his hand fall back on the desk.

E
lm Avenue was located on the edge of Whitebridge, far away from the old mills and just high enough above the town centre to make it unlikely that any but the strongest wind would carry the smell of hops from the town's three breweries into the residents' lounges. The houses were all solid Edwardian semi-detacheds, with bow windows and stained-glass designs over the front doors. The front gardens of many of them had been paved over, but the one which belonged to Number Twenty-Seven not only had a handkerchief-sized lawn but also boasted a model windmill and several garden gnomes angling, futilely, in a small, fish-less pond.

Rutter walked up the path and rang the bell. The door was answered by a blue-rinsed woman in her early sixties who was wearing a floral pinafore and an expression of self-righteous satisfaction.

‘My husband told me never to buy anything from the door, and I never have,' she said.

Rutter gave her what he'd heard described around the police station as his ‘boyish grin', and produced his warrant card.

‘I'm not selling anything, Mrs Hoddleston,' he said. ‘You
are
Mrs Hoddleston, aren't you?'

‘Yes, I am.' The woman squinted at the card. ‘What's this all about, Inspector . . . Inspector Rutter?'

‘I believe you take in lodgers and––'

‘Not lodgers as such,' Mrs Hoddleston said hastily, but firmly.

‘I thought––'

‘I do occasionally have paying guests, just to be accommodating, but I always declare it on my income tax statement.'

‘And you currently have a Miss Beale staying with you?'

‘Oh, is that what it's about? Her!' Mrs Hoddleston glanced quickly up and down the street, as if suspecting that some of her neighbours might be spying on her. ‘Well, if it's Miss Beale you want to talk about, then I suppose you'd better come inside.'

Mrs Hoddleston's lounge was not small, but the abundance of furniture – overstuffed armchairs, sideboards and highly polished display cabinets – made it seem as though it were.

Rutter sat in one of the armchairs, his knees jammed up against the coffee table and a cup of tea balanced in the palm of his left hand. ‘I get the distinct impression from your tone earlier that you were almost expecting a visit from the police,' he said.

Mrs Hoddleston sniffed. ‘I wouldn't say I'd be expecting it, but after the way she's been carrying on, I'm not exactly surprised.'

‘Carrying on?'

‘I've been taking paying guests into my home since just after my husband died,' Mrs Hoddleston said. ‘Never more than one at time, you understand, and even then, only young ladies from refined backgrounds. You won't find any commercial travellers staying here. I'm not in business.'