Maxwell’s Match (9 page)

‘Why you’re still here.’

‘It seems Dr Sheffield has need of me.’

‘Oh yes. I was there, remember. From his point of view you’re a hero on a white horse and the Seventh Cavalry all rolled into one. But what do you get out of it? You didn’t know Bill Pardoe.’

‘No,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘That’s true. But a little boy called Jenkins did.’

Graham blinked. ‘Jenkins asked you to stay?’

‘Not in so many words,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘Now. Let’s see if we can’t brainstorm a little, late as it is. What can you tell me about Bill Pardoe?’

She felt goosebumps crawl over her shoulders and arms. All the same, she’d come this far. She’d go through with it now. She let her long hair cascade over her naked back, peeling the lacy bra down so that her large breasts jutted out pert under the fitful moon, sneaking furtive glances at her behind its cloud cover.

She held the velvet heart in both hands, kneeling on the cold, soft earth. She whispered her name over and over, the name of love. Then she stood up, shaking now with the cold of night and the emotion of the moment. She slid the tracksuit bottom and her panties down her solid thighs and kicked them off. Now she was skyclad, kneeling again with the little trowel flashing in her hand. She muttered the words she’d learned, the words of love, the forbidden words, driving the steel again and again into the dank moss, making the sacred hole.

She took the heart again, the one she’d made secretly in needlework with their initials embroidered with silver beads. And she buried it there, her hair enveloping the hole as she whispered into it, like King Midas of old. A few deft strokes and the soil was back and the hole gone and the heart covered.

She closed to the spot, her lips moving imperceptibly above the moss. ‘Cassandra. Cassandra.’

6

The school was still at chapel when DCI Hall arrived in his polished Volvo. There was a woman with him, DS Carpenter. They left the car under the limes, Hall carrying a briefcase, Jacquie a tape recorder.

Sheffield was waiting for them in his study. ‘I’ve put you in here.’ He led them into a side office. ‘You shouldn’t be disturbed and as you see, there’s a door of your own, as it were. Tell me, Chief Inspector, do you intend to do anything about the gentlemen of the Press? They’re besieging my gate.’

‘I know,’ Hall nodded. ‘I just drove through them. Unfortunately, they’re not breaking the law by being there.’

‘I won’t have them pestering my people.’

‘There’s no clear law against that, either.’

‘Privacy, surely?’ Sheffield insisted.

‘It’ll be a cold day in Hell when you can make that one stick. I’ll get someone from the local force to talk to them; at least they might get somewhere with your local rag.’

‘Er … I’m sorry, you mean you’re not Hampshire CID?’ Sheffield was confused.

‘No, sir.’ Hall set up his briefcase on the desk in front of him. ‘Neither is DS Carpenter. Jacquie, this is Dr Sheffield, Headmaster.’

She held out a hand. He took it absentmindedly.

‘Sir Arthur is on his way over. He’ll want to talk to you.’

‘Sir Arthur?’ Hall supervised as Jacquie set up the tape recorder, leads and wires, coiling the microphone flex on the side table.

‘Sir Arthur Wilkins, our Chair of Governors, got in touch with him in Bermuda. He’s flown back.’

‘Essential, is he?’ Hall asked. ‘Your Chair of Governors?’

‘Vital,’ Sheffield assured him. ‘Especially now Grimond’s seems to be open house to half Fleet Street or wherever they keep these people nowadays.’

‘I’d like to talk to your teaching staff first, if that’s all right.’

‘Well, they all have full timetables, Chie Inspector,’ Sheffield said.

‘Not as full as mine, sir.’ A more human police man would have smiled at that point. Jacqui noticed that not a flicker crossed Hall’s lips.

‘I’ll send Mervyn Larson, my Deputy,’ Sheffield reached for his gown. ‘I’ve set up a rota of prefects to act as runners. Will that do?’

‘I’m sure it will,’ Hall nodded.

‘And coffee. You’d like some refreshments?’

‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll get Parker, our steward, to set up a machine for you. I expect interviewing is thirsty work.’ The Headmaster hauled on the gown, looked at the officers for a moment, then went about his business.

‘That’s a worried man,’ Jacquie observed.

‘Of course,’ Hall nodded. ‘He’s got something to hide.’

‘What?’ Jacquie was testing the equipment.

‘That,’ Hall was arranging his papers, ‘remains to be seen.’

‘Morning, Max. I may call you Max?’ David Gallow was emerging from chapel before day and battle broke.

‘Please,’ Maxwell said. He’d been impressed by the kids this morning. After the solemn words of yesterday, there was a briskness about the chapel service, the chaplain more muscular in his Christianity. John Selwyn, the Captain of Tennyson, read the lesson in his impeccable Home Counties, an anonymous Music A-level type (you could tell them the wide world o’er) played a bit of Bach beautifully and everyone was reminded, via the hymn, that Christ was their cornerstone.

‘We’ve got a debate next lesson,’ Gallow said. ‘The Lower Sixth arguing the toss over Charles I’s responsibility for the Civil War. Care to sit in on that?’

‘Very much. On the way over, though, you can tell me about the CCF.’

‘The Corps?’ Gallow shrugged. ‘Nothing much to tell.’

‘You’re a T.A captain, I understand?’

‘Slow down, Wentworth!’ the Head of History barked at a hapless child hurtling down the chapel steps. ‘P.E.,’ he tutted. ‘He doesn’t dash to his History with the same relish, I’ve noticed. Who told you about my rank?’

‘Er … Maggie Shaunessy, I think. Does it matter?’

‘No,’ Gallow said. ‘Not at all.’

He led Maxwell up a flight of shallow steps into a low-ceilinged room with maps of Europe all over the walls, and posters extolling students to read History at Stirling, Aberystwyth and Belfast. Ethnomania and the Celtic Fringe had even reached Grimond’s, Maxwell noted.

‘They’ll be a few minutes yet. House assemblies on Wednesdays.’

‘You’re not attached to a House?’

‘Dickens, nominally, but the Corps duties get me out of most of that. What did you want t know about them?’

‘Do they ever carry out night exercises?’

Gallow frowned, pausing as he stacked exercise books on his desk. ‘We have,’ he said slowly ‘There was a big joint operation with Churcher and Bedales last year. I’m not sure it’s worth all the organizational trauma, though. Why do you ask?’

‘Well,’ Maxwell chuckled. ‘It’s funny, really, I may, in fact, have been dreaming, but I could have sworn I saw a group of them night before last.’

‘Where?’ Gallow wanted to know.

‘In the quad,’ Maxwell was looking at it now, staring out of the History Department’s window ‘And the odd thing was, they were carrying a coffin.’

Gallow was suddenly at his side. ‘A coffin Max, are you serious?’

Maxwell turned to him. ‘You mean, did I seriously dream it or seriously see it?’ He smiled ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Where would they get a coffin, for God’s sake?’ Gallow asked him. ‘It’s not exactly an everyday object at a school, is it?’

‘I thought, perhaps, the woodwork shop?’

The door opened and a jumble of assorted sixth formers, male and female, tumbled in, mumbling inconsequentially about this and that.

‘Shut up!’ Gallow screamed at them, slamming a textbook on his desk. ‘For God’s sake!’

To Maxwell, it seemed a little overkill. Nobody, after all, was jumping off a table or gobbing out of a window.

‘Psst!’ Maxwell spun to the sound. He couldn’t believe it. Tucked in behind the lowest branches of a large cedar tree was a face he knew. He checked that the coast was clear.

‘Jacquie!’ and they kissed, while he selected which cliché to choose. ‘What are you doing here?’ It had to be, really.

‘Working with Hall.’

‘You’re seconded too?’ he joined her the lake side of the ancient, gnarled trunk, away from the buildings.

‘Got the call late yesterday.’

‘Why?’

There’d been a time when Jacquie Carpenter had told Peter Maxwell nothing about a case she was working on. That was when she didn’t know him. Ever since then, he’d wheedled things out of her. He’d flutter his long eyelashes and do his little-boy-lost look and she was his, butter in his mouth, putty in his hands, whatever metaphor came to mind. She’d hated herself, of course, because she’d been unprofessional in a job she loved and because she knew he’d use the information on whatever amateur game he was playing. If only Peter Maxwell had joined the police all those years ago after Cambridge – the combination of his brain and her computerized street cred would have been irresistible. As it was, he’d gone into teaching, casting his pearls before swine and he’d become Mad Max.

‘I don’t know.’ She knew the look. The arched eyebrow. Followed by the big, doe eyes and the downturned corners of the mouth. ‘No,’ she all but stamped her foot. ‘I really don’t know.’

Maxwell leaned back against the bark. ‘Don’t think he’s after your body, do you?’

She ignored him. ‘He’s after somebody’s.’

‘He’s interviewing?’

Jacquie nodded. ‘Working his way through the staff. He’s got through Larson so far – Deputy Head?’

‘I know him,’ Maxwell said. ‘Strong silent type?’

‘Now, Max …’ her hand was already in the air.

‘I know,’ Maxwell interrupted her; they’d played this game before. ‘You can’t divulge etcetera, etcetera. What did he tell you?’

A distant clanging of a bell saved Jacquie professionalism.

‘Lesson Two,’ Maxwell said, turning to where extraordinarily, uniformed children were on their way with amazing rapidity to classrooms. Ho utterly unlike life in his own dear school. ‘They still call them periods here; quaint, isn’t it? Who’s he seeing next?’

‘Graham.’

‘On the grounds that Pardoe was his boss?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What’s he up to, Jacquie?’ Maxwell was frowning, puzzling it out.

‘What?’ There were times when she couldn’t keep up with this man.

‘Who’s interviewing?’

‘I told you,’ she said. ‘Me and Hall.’

‘Hall and I,’ he couldn’t help correcting her – it went with the territory. ‘Nobody from the local force?’

‘No.’

‘And the tone in that “no” means … ?’

‘All right,’ she conceded. ‘It is a little unusual. I’ll fish.’

‘Good girl.’ He reached across and kissed her forehead. ‘You’ll make someone a good wife, Woman Policeman Carpenter.’

‘Thank you, kind sir,’ and she curtseyed. Maxwell didn’t know she knew how to do that. As he turned away from the tree, she caught his arm. ‘What are you doing?’

He dug a piece of crumpled paper out of his jacket pocket; his timetable for the week. ‘French. Lower Fifths. Pure joy.’

‘No,’ she said, hands on hips. ‘What are you really doing?’

‘Talking to the new bloke, Robinson of PE, about the death of Bill Pardoe. Where are you staying?’

‘Same hotel as the DCI. Barcourt Lodge, out on the A-Something.’

‘Ring me tonight,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll watch for thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar way.’ And she watched as he lost himself in surging sway making for the Languages Block.

‘What’s going on, George?’ Sir Arthur Wilkins had just fought his way through an army paparazzi at his own front gates. And even with a crystal of the Headmaster’s best claret in his fist he was not a happy bunny. Wilkins was the epitome of the country squire, eternally pissed off that Oxbridge had let the oiks in, his own family had been crippled by death duties and everything was New Labour and television presenters were called Ali G.

‘Arthur,’ Sheffield was at a loss. ‘You know much as I.’

‘If you’ll permit me, George, bollocks. You’re the bloody Head, for Christ’s sake. It’s your job to know.’ He closed to the shorter man, his silver moustache bristling. ‘It’s what we pay you for.’

Sheffield ran an exasperated hand through his sandy hair. His large, comfortable study was suddenly appallingly small. ‘The bottom line is, Arthur, there were … rumours … about Bill Pardoe.’

‘Rumours?’ Wilkins had been a navy man all h life. He knew about rumours. It could seep into men’s souls, sap the will, sink a ship. ‘Bout what?’

‘That he was …’

‘Queer as a coot?’

Sheffield blinked, sighing. It was better now that it was out in the open. Someone had said at last. Now he could make a stand. ‘There is absolutely no evidence,’ he said defiantly.

‘No evidence?’ Wilkins growled. ‘Good God, man. We’re trying to run a school here. Can you imagine what those bastards camped at the gates will do with a thing like this? They’re the Press, for Christ’s sake; they don’t need evidence. The last newspaperman with any integrity was William Russell in the Crimea. Who’s taking over as Housemaster?’

‘Tony Graham. He’s young, but he’s the obvious choice as Pardoe’s junior.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Wilkins remembered. ‘Pushy little tick, but he’ll do. Well, get him onto it.’

‘What?’

‘The evidence,’ Wilkins snarled, quaffing half the glass. ‘Get him talking to the boys. I want to know if Pardoe had touched any of them up.’

‘Now, Arthur …’

‘For fuck’s sake, George, face reality, will you? The private sector, like the Catholic church, is crawling with perverts. Too many schools are so desperate to recruit, staff and boys, that they don’t ask any questions. It’s a pederasts’ paradise out there. Well, it’s not going to happen at Grimond’s. Is that understood?’

‘Of course, Arthur, but Bill …’

‘There are no buts here, George,’ Wilkins shouted his man down. ‘None at all. If there’s been any dinky finger in the dorm, I want to know about it. And get on to Howard.’

‘Howard?’

‘Gritchley, George, Gritchley. You know, Treasurer to the Governors. Balances the books and pays your wages.’ He turned to the window, glowering at the grounds below and the smoking, skulking mob at the gates. ‘If any boys are involved, we may need to get our chequebooks out.’

‘Arthur …’ Sheffield couldn’t believe his ears.

‘Realism, George,’ Wilkins turned to him, barking sharply. ‘“Every man has his price” after all. It’s quite astonishing how reasonable parents can be when the offer of waived fees is on the table.’ He turned back to the window. ‘Who that?’