Death of a Teacher (12 page)

That afternoon, Tuesday, day three of the investigation into the Marsh Murder, there was a strange atmosphere in Pelliter. Business was quieter than ever and the streets were silent.

Liz Rudder’s brother Kevin let himself into her big detached house. He had a key, because he liked to help out whenever he could. In his job as an independent financial adviser he had the occasional free moment when he could pop over and see poor old John.

Actually, free moments were not so occasional these days. But really, it was a bit of good luck that he didn’t have so many clients currently. It meant he could do so much more for his brother-in-law. Kevin was grateful to John. John had left their business very well set up and Kevin managed to toddle along happily. He was just as good with figures as his brother-in-law, but he didn’t consider himself to be a ‘people person’. He had never built up much 
of a client base. Still, John had had enough personality and charm for two and, under his guidance, they had done very well. And just enough money was still coming in despite John’s illness. Thank goodness John had had the
foresight
to take out self-employed health insurance years earlier. Stroke or no stroke, Kevin really liked and admired his brother-in-law. He felt it was his personal mission to keep John alive and well for poor old Liz.

But he was dreading today’s visit. Liz had had no idea what a loss Brenda would be to the Rudder family. Kevin and Brenda had been working together on a surprise for his sister. It was tragic, really. Brenda had originally just been Kevin’s sidekick in the ‘Great Surprise Plan’, as they called it, but she had developed into a mainstay.

He had hatched the ‘GSP’ for Liz as a secret, and Brenda had been all for it. Each week, when Liz was at her Spanish class, they sneaked in and put John through extra physiotherapy exercises. Once they had even taken him out in Kevin’s car. The aim was to try and get John back on his feet. If Liz had known she would have been dead against it. She was already so demoralized. But unknown to her, they had made great progress – and without Brenda’s help Kevin wouldn’t have got nearly so far. It had been a brainwave of Kevin’s to ask Brenda to help. He had seen her one Saturday morning on her own outside the coffee shop at the superstore. She’d looked rather forlorn.

‘Hello, Brenda,’ he had said cheerily. He wasn’t a ladies’ man like John had been, but Kevin was attractive in a puppyish sort of way. He was built like his sister, with a small but solid, strong body, good features, and delicate hands and feet which gave him the impression of being a light mover. Kevin knew that, when he wanted, he had a winning manner.

‘Kevin!’ Brenda’s face had softened. She had always had a soft spot for Liz’s little brother, ever since they had been kids. Kevin had noted her squat but muscular figure, strong arms, and the fact she seemed at a loose end. All useful indications.

‘Can I join you for a minute?’ Kevin had said. ‘The old tootsies are killing me.’

‘Of course. My friends have just gone and I’m having a little rest.’

Kevin had chatted to her, testing the water a little bit, and had soon gauged that Brenda could keep a secret too. She was strong, she had time, and her loyalty to Liz was wavering a little, so it didn’t preclude her being part of the GSP. Perfect! They had soon hatched a little plot. Kevin would call for her each Wednesday, and they would go over to High Pelliter together. Brenda volunteered to get all the physiotherapy exercise plans, plus a Zimmer frame, and keep them at her house because obviously Kevin didn’t want Liz or his wife to stumble on them. The Great Surprise Plan had been going great guns with John making real progress. 

But now Brenda was dead it would be much more work. Still, Kevin would persevere.

‘Hello, old chap,’ Kevin said to John, as soon as he entered the house. John’s voice, distorted to the point of being unrecognizable, boomed back incoherently.

‘You know about poor Brenda, don’t you, John?’

John made a gurgling noise.

‘Poor, poor Brenda. Everyone’s saying that some crazy person walking through the Marshes attacked her. And she’s dead. But I know she’d want us to go on with the Plan. We’re going to keep trying, John. I still want this to be a fantastic surprise for Liz. I can try lifting you by myself.’

He went up to John’s wheelchair and hooked his arms under John’s
shoulders
.

‘We must stick to the schedule, John old son. Come on, let’s try again. We want you to be walking by the summer! And think how thrilled Liz will be!’

T
he next day, Liz Rudder decided that it might be fruitful to be absent from school after the horrors earlier in the week. She deserved it. She had lost her best friend in a hideous way. Everyone knew she had been heroic, going to work on Monday and Tuesday. To her annoyance Ray Findley seemed to be coping, shepherding politicians, clergymen and reporters around the school. Of course, he’d had the full network of social and educational services looking after him. Today was the first day he wouldn’t have full-on support. So she would stay at home and see how he managed without her!

She called the office. ‘I’ve got a terrible migraine,’ she murmured down the phone. ‘It must be the stress. I’ll try and get in tomorrow.’

Then she snuggled down under the bedclothes. John’s carers had let
themselves
in early to get him dressed and breakfasted, so she didn’t have to deal with her husband.

Liz tried to think about Brenda and to squeeze out a few tears. But, when she revisited the past, the person she felt most sorry for was herself, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Brenda’s mother had been a terrible snob. Liz thought of the Hodgsons’ house, where Father Peter now lived, with its garden full of dark shrubs and a paved path to the stained-glass front door. It had smelt of carbolic and polish; Brenda’s mother was frantically house-proud and had treated Liz like a bad smell. No wonder Brenda had been obsessed with domestic cleanliness. It had been no surprise when her attempt to leave home for university had ended in tears.

‘It was horrible,’ Brenda had wailed. ‘The other students were nasty and common and it was dirty and cold.’ Brenda’s head had been full of Oxford, where Peter had studied. She had gone to Manchester, then a Northern city in decay. No wonder she had been disappointed. 

In contrast, Liz had gone to a nice, organized, local teacher training college. But then, Liz had always wanted to have a secure job and a boyfriend, and to get married to someone well off.

Liz remembered an incident when they had been teenagers. She and Brenda had found one of those old-fashioned post-war manuals about sex and marriage, disguised as a medical textbook, in a glass-fronted bookcase in the Hodgsons’ chilly dining-room. The detail was rather clinical, with strange black-and-white diagrams. It made them giggle, but it was also mildly arousing. It was the only information on sex which they had ever seen, apart from problem pages in
Woman’s Own
. They had had their heads bent over it when Peter Hodgson came in. He was dumpy and pale-complexioned, but he was a boy. And Liz was interested in boys.

‘Look at this!’ she had said to her friend’s brother. ‘It’s about marital
relations
.’

She had pushed the book towards him, while Brenda went ‘Oooh’ and put her hand over her mouth. Liz had looked up at Peter Hodgson slyly from under her eyelashes. It was the first time she had tried flirtation. He sent the book spinning back across the polished table top. ‘That’s disgusting!’ he had snapped. ‘If you ever look at that again I’ll tell Mother.’

‘Peter, I’m sorry, really …’ Brenda had held her hand out to him.

‘You should be. If you promise not to look at this sort of filth again, it can be our secret. Do you understand?’

‘Oh yes, Peter, I do.’ Silently, Brenda had picked up the book, replaced it in the case, shut the glass doors and turned the key.

Liz wondered if the police knew about Peter Hodgson’s attitude to women. Was the church so full of priests that they could spare a good one? Liz thought not. There had to be something odd about his early retirement. She had heard that in murder cases it was usually someone close to the victim who was the perpetrator. Surely the police should want to know more about Brenda’s brother. She parked that thought for future reference and snuggled down deeper into bed.

Jake Spencer, too, was absent from school. He was supposed to be revising for his summer exams. His mum was working, and his sister was at St Mungo’s. Robert was at Norbridge College. Jake had a whole wonderful day to himself. There would be nothing wrong in watching a film. He had hours left to study the effect of the Repeal of the Corn Laws. He went into the sitting-room where the big family TV was mounted on the wall. He had a clutch of DVDs in a little pile on his own rack.

The one he was looking for was
Screaming Zombies Three
. He liked horror movies. He wasn’t allowed to watch anything much when Molly was around, 
and using his laptop in his bedroom was a long way from the full home cinema experience. So access to his chosen genre was pretty limited. Jake was an easy-going lad who was fond of his sister. He saw his mother’s point about restricting his viewing in the family zone.

But today he could have the big screen to himself. Except that his DVDs weren’t there on his rack. Who had moved them? Edgily, Jake started to look around. If Molly had hidden them for a laugh, she would have milked it by telling him. But the films were definitely gone. All he could do was mooch round the room in the hope they would turn up. Jake looked under the chairs and in the drawers, in case the thin discs had slipped below the furniture, or been put away. On a whim, expecting nothing, he pushed the sofa forward.

The DVDs were there, scattered down the back. Weird or what?

Jake collected them up, but instead of deciding which one to play, he put them back where they belonged on the DVD rack and started to think.

The Le Creuset pan. The DVDs. What else had gone missing? His mother had been ranting only the day before about losing the potato peeler. The bread knife had disappeared. His old-fashioned bicycle clips which hung on a nail in the shed had been gone since Becky and Molly had been out with his bike. In fact, all these things had gone missing since Becky Dixon had started to visit. They were such trivial things, but they had started to mount up.

Jake wondered if there was a sort of Childline equivalent he could ring, to do with weird crimes. But was it a crime? Should he tell his mum? But that would jeopardize his sister’s only friendship.

There were five years between Jake and Molly. The age gap meant that they didn’t really
talk
, but he was fond of her. In the past she had been a sort of nuisance, full of herself, and showy-offy. He had found her a pain in the bum and frequently told her so; but now he felt sorry that she had become such a miserable lonely lump. At least, until Becky came along….

Jake pulled his laptop out of his schoolbag. He logged on, and sat there feeling a bit silly. He really didn’t know what to do next, but he thought he should do something. Feeling a little bit treacherous, which was unlike him, he went into Google and started tapping in – ‘pol …’ The site he wanted came up straight away.

He paused. Was this the right thing to do? He had a horrible feeling he was grassing on his sister’s best friend. But he pressed ‘enter’.

By Thursday, day five of the investigation into the Marsh Murder, Ro Watson had slipped back into the normal timetable of day shifts at Norbridge Police Station.

She had a routine with Ben. After school, he let himself in. He had to get changed, feed and brush the cat, lay the table for supper, complete at least one 
homework task and turn on the cooker. When Ro got back they would have a chat together, and more often than not she poured herself a drink. Then they would eat supper, plan the evening’s shared TV or DVD viewing and relax. There was no doubt community support was tiring work. On Thursday evening she felt particularly down after the drama of the murder.

‘Supper will be ready at seven,’ she called to Ben.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll come down to the kitchen when I’ve finished doing this.’

His speech was really great, which was a bonus. But his eyesight was
worsening
. Trauma cataracts, the specialists called it. The cataract operation could cure him. It was like a miracle, people said. Ro was going along with it. There were always risks. The hospital hadn’t yet confirmed that they would do the operation during Ben’s summer holidays, and the year before they had been all geared up for it but it hadn’t gone ahead. She knew it was the one thing Ben was worried about. He had always been sensitive about his eyes. Perhaps this year it would be cancelled again. Part of Ro’s approach to everything with Ben was to live one week at a time. The call would come from the hospital at some point, but until it did she wasn’t thinking about it.

She chopped up the vegetables, letting her mind wander. Her talk at St Mungo’s seemed very distant now. Since Tuesday, she and the other female PCSO had visited a youth centre, patrolled a couple of after-school groups and walked the beat. It had been a normal working experience. She had seen Jed Jackson once in the canteen and he had seemed about to come towards her, but she had turned away from him. The warmth she had felt for him seemed ridiculous, and the memory of how she had craved his attention was just humiliating.

Ro walked upstairs from the kitchen. For once, Ben wasn’t on the computer. He had a system which gave really large print on the screen and meant he could use the internet as well as anyone else. But today he was lying on the sitting room floor, reading with the help of a big magnifying glass. Ro hoped that by the autumn he would be able just to use ordinary glasses like loads of other kids. His walking was improving all the time because he was growing stronger. Puberty seemed to be an advantage because as he grew bigger he became more agile and more confident. He was in that ‘in-between’ stage now, where he hadn’t put on the final growth spurt – though his voice had started to drop and there were tell-tale spots on his chin.

Ro knew she was biased, but she thought her son was actually quite
handsome
. She had dreaded his adolescence, but instead of finding a sex-obsessed alien in her home she discovered that Ben had actually become even more likeable. They still seemed able to discuss things. Perhaps because Ben had always been so physically dependent on her, it was actually easy to talk about bodily functions. For the past few months, since she had started as a PCSO, 
they seemed to have reached some sort of calm. Their lives were limited, but contented. As always these days, she felt that settling for just settling was the best option.

She sat in front of the computer. There were a few new messages. The most recent was from Suzy Spencer.

Ro’s instinct was to decline, but Ben had struggled up and was looking over her shoulder.

‘What does that say?’

‘We’ve been invited to someone’s house.’

‘Us? Wow. What does it say?’

Reluctantly she read it out to him.

‘Hey, Mum, a barbecue! Sweet!’ For someone with vision problems he always managed to identify issues she wanted to hide. What excuse could she give Ben this time for saying no?

Thanks. That would be very nice. We’ll be there if we can
, she wrote for Ben’s benefit. We’ll see, she thought. We don’t have to go if we can’t cope. So we probably won’t. Then she looked along the list to a second unexpected email. It was from Alison MacDonald.

Ro read it, and thought about it for a minute. She looked at the Victorian clock mounted on the sitting room wall. It was 6.30. Probably just the right time to catch the teacher after school. She took a sip of her wine, and then grabbed the phone and dialled Alison’s mobile.