Mortal Taste (16 page)

Only when they had taken in his surroundings did they turn their attention to Martin. It was the sergeant, Hook, who said to him, ‘I think you'd better sit down, Mr Sheene.' Fancy telling him what to do in his own house. He should have challenged such discourtesy. Instead he sat down meekly on an upright chair beside the table, his arm falling clumsily across its surface as he did so.

Hook flicked open a notebook as he sat down in Martin's favourite armchair. ‘We'll just check a few facts first. You are Martin Algernon Sheene?'

That silly second name thrown in his face at the outset: he half-expected them to sneer at it, as boys had done long ago in the playground. ‘Yes. My mum called me Algy, you see, when I was young. I changed to Martin as soon as I got away from home.'

‘You went to university.'

‘Yes, and then I did a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, so that I could teach.'

‘And you're now thirty-two.'

‘Yes. I've been teaching for ten years. Ever since I got my qualification. Geography principally, and a little basic science for the juniors.' He didn't want to volunteer information, but he didn't seem able to stop his tongue running.

‘You're a single man. And you've never been married.'

‘No.' He ran a hand through his lank hair, forced a smile. ‘The right girl hasn't come along, yet!' Might as well assert his heterosexual credentials. They didn't like gays, the police.

‘You've had a variety of posts.'

‘Yes.' He tried again to keep silent, but when they didn't help him out, he said with a nervous giggle, ‘One has a career to build, you know. One has to move around, gather experience.'

‘I see. Your application for the post at Greenwood indicates that you've been in five posts in ten years, including your present one.'

They'd been into the staff files at the school! It set his mind racing, that thought. He made himself ask the question he did not want to voice. ‘Been checking everyone's background, have you?'

Hook looked at his superintendent, who said lightly, ‘Not everyone's, Mr Sheene. There hasn't really been time for that, as yet. We've only called for the ones which seemed of particular interest.'

This Lambert fellow seemed to be leading him towards a particular query, and Martin, as his mother had always claimed when he was in trouble, was easily led. He said, ‘And why would my file be of particular interest to you?'

Lambert ignored the query. ‘Would you say that five posts in ten years is usual, Mr Sheene?'

‘Well, you have to gather experience, as I said.'

‘You're well-qualified, Mr Sheene. You have a good degree from a good university.'

Martin forced a small smile. ‘I like to think so.' They'd really been studying his background, by the sound of it.

‘But you're still on the basic teaching scale at Greenwood. No special allowances. Not a head of department.'

‘Some of us are more concerned with job satisfaction than with advancement in the profession.'

‘I see. That hardly tallies with what you said about moving to advance your career, does it?'

The man's quiet manner belied his words: he was like a dog with a bone. And Martin knew now that he wasn't going to give up the bone. ‘I think that's my business, isn't it?'

For the second time in two minutes, Lambert ignored his question and pressed on. ‘Were you asked to leave any of your previous teaching posts, rather than choosing to move on of your own accord, Mr Sheene?'

It was inexorable. But Martin couldn't think what to do, other than struggle on like a fish floundering helplessly in a net at the water's edge. ‘I want to do all I can to help you, of course I do, but this really is an unwarrantable intrusion into my private life, you know. I don't see why—'

‘Are you refusing to answer?'

‘Well, not exactly, but—'

‘Perhaps it would be useful for you to know that I spoke to two of your former head teachers on the phone last night.'

The fish was on the bank now, flapping its last, helpless movements, fighting hopelessly for life. ‘Nothing was ever proved. I moved on of my own accord.'

‘Whilst you were still able to move, I presume. If anything had been proved against you, you would have gone on official blacklists, been unable to work again with children.'

Martin stared sullenly down at his forearm, still lying awkwardly on the table. ‘Nothing was ever proved. I could sue anyone who says otherwise.'

‘Which is why no one could put down anything against you in writing. Which is what allowed you to get the post at Greenwood Comprehensive.'

Martin dared not look up. His limbs desperately wanted to move, to leap into any form of action, but he held them stiff and rigid, as if rapid movement of his arms or legs would itself be a confession. He said, ‘They were glad to get someone of my qualifications and experience to take a job on the basic scales. And I'm not a bad teacher; the children mostly like me. You ask—'

‘That unfortunately is not the point at issue this morning, is it, Mr Sheene?'

‘Isn't it? Well you'd better tell me what the point is, because frankly I don't see why I should take any—'

‘The point at issue is how Peter Logan died. I think you should know that he made a phone call three days before he was killed, Mr Sheene. To the National Paedophile Unit at New Scotland Yard.'

Lambert waited for him to deny that he was the man concerned. But Martin Sheene was past that point. He said in scarcely more than a whisper, ‘I haven't hurt any of the children at Greenwood Comprehensive. I wouldn't do that.'

‘So you admit that you were the subject of Mr Logan's phone call?'

Dimly and too late, he realized that he had been tricked into an admission. ‘I thought you just said that Logan had phoned this Paedophile Unit about me.'

‘No. All I said was that he had phoned the National Paedophile Unit. He said he was concerned about a member of his teaching staff. He wished to discuss the matter in confidence with someone from the Unit.'

‘So he didn't mention me.'

‘No. Are you now denying that you were the member of staff concerned?'

It was familiar ground to Martin. He had been over it before, in other schools. He had always managed to get out before it got really nasty. They had to have solid evidence against you to take you to court, because the law was as tricky as a snake. Most people were happy to avoid the embarrassment of having employed you, if you moved out of their area, and his legal friends in the group had always advised him when to go.

But this was different. He had never got as far as being questioned by policemen before, let alone this quiet Torquemada of a superintendent. He was suddenly tired of running, weary of the whole pretence of being something he was not. He said exhaustedly, ‘No. There doesn't seem any point in denying anything now, does there? Peter Logan found that I had taken children into the junior science laboratory with me during the lunch hour. He must have been ringing because of that.'

There was a long pause. They made a strange trio, the two experienced CID men sitting in easy chairs and the hopeless figure with the slumped shoulders at the table. Eventually Martin Sheene said, ‘I haven't damaged any children. I – I'm fond of them, that's all. Perhaps too fond.' When there was no reaction to this, he slowly lifted his head to look at them. ‘What happens now?'

Lambert nodded to Hook, who said quietly, ‘Other people will have to take this matter up with you, in due course. I think you will be suspended on full pay, pending further inquiries into your conduct, but that of course will not be our decision. Superintendent Lambert and I are concerned solely with finding out who killed Peter Logan.'

‘But you surely can't think I did that?' He said it limply, when there should have been outrage at the suggestion; he should have been on his feet in anger. But he could raise no energy for that. The time for simulating indignation was past.

Hook said, ‘You must surely see that the situation you have now admitted gives you a strong motive to remove Mr Logan. He suspected he had a paedophile in his school, but he had not named you to anyone. Your whole career was at stake, your whole lifestyle. It's a strong motive for murder, Mr Sheene. Stronger than any other motive we have so far discovered, in fact.'

‘I didn't kill him.' The words had the ring of a hopeless ritual.

Lambert took up the questioning again. ‘Where were you on Monday night, Mr Sheene?'

‘Here. On my own. I watched a little television, if I remember right.' He'd watched some of his videos acquired from the group, not the television; for a horrid moment, he expected them to ask him to give a rundown of the television programmes on Monday night.

Instead, Lambert said, ‘I think we've established that you are a paedophile, Mr Sheene. Other people, more specialist officers in that field, will wish to discuss the details with you. What I have to ask you is whether you are a member of a paedophile ring.'

‘Ring?'

Lambert sighed. He had never raised his voice above normal throughout their exchanges, yet Martin was inordinately afraid of him and what he might say next. ‘Please don't try to be evasive at this stage, Mr Sheene. You must be well aware that people with your sexual preferences tend to get together in groups. I'm asking you whether you are a member of such a group.'

‘No. I wouldn't – I've never wanted to be a member of a group like that.'

He was suddenly scared, and with fear he was reanimated, when a moment earlier he had thought himself too exhausted to resist. They mustn't find out about the ring and the people who were in it. If he split on them, there was no knowing what might happen to him. He said again, as if he could make it true by earnest repetition, ‘There is no group. I'm not a member of any ring.'

Lambert studied him for a long moment, then stood up abruptly. He seemed to Martin even taller than when he had come into the room. ‘Don't move out of the area, Mr Sheene. Not without letting us know at Oldford CID. Someone will be in touch with you over the weekend about the situation at the school.'

Martin watched them go, standing at the front window of his house for minutes after their car had turned the corner and disappeared. Then he went back into his house and began to fling video cassettes into plastic dustbin bags with a furious energy. With garden rubbish hastily crammed into the top sections to disguise the contents, they were consigned to the council dump within half an hour. Amidst the frenetic activity of an autumn Saturday at the site, his modest contribution was scarcely even noticed. The pathetic evidence of his involvement with the group disappeared before his gratified eyes.

In the Saturday quiet of Oldford CID, only the skeleton of the murder team was working. Superintendent John Lambert was arranging for a twenty-four hour surveillance to be kept on the comings and goings of Martin Sheene.

D
aniel Price found that Saturday afternoon was a useful time to conduct the less official side of his business.

There was no one in the offices of Price Computer Supplies at this time. If the proprietor was seen in there on a Saturday, that only made him a more conscientious employer, working diligently to preserve the prosperity of his employees as well as himself. If he was prosperous, as he obviously was, then he obviously worked very hard for it and deserved his affluence. A model employer.

The succession of diverse humanity who visited him on this Saturday might have other views on his conduct as an employer, but they were in no position to voice them. The illegal drugs industry has no trade unions.

Two men, then a woman, each of them in charge of selling in different parts of Price's small but developing empire. They were doing well, these three, expanding their sales, pushing the Class A drugs which provided the greatest danger to the users but the highest profits for the suppliers. Daniel gave them appropriate encouragement, discussed with them their ideas for developing their markets still further. This was very much like his computer business, really, he thought, except that the profits were much bigger and you had to be much more careful.

His fourth and last visitor was another male, the one Mark Lindsay now thought of as ‘the man in black'.

This man tried to anticipate the rebuke he felt was coming from Daniel Price. ‘Business is a bit slack at the moment. It will probably pick up as we move into the winter.'

Daniel gave him his most patronizing smile. He was dispensable, this man. He already had someone else in mind for what he called ‘the school run' if the man in black didn't pull his socks up. ‘On the contrary, the other people I have seen today have talked to me of expanding sales. I'm very pleased with them.'

‘I need to be a bit cautious with my school pushers, though. The police have been swarming around the place in the last few days because of this murder.'

He had a point there. But it wasn't Daniel's policy to allow sales staff to make points, in either of his businesses. He treated any acknowledgement of the difficulties as a sign of weakness; if you didn't admit the difficulties were there, good salesmen usually went ahead and solved the problems for themselves. ‘The people in the school aren't Drugs Squad. They're not investigating our little business.'

‘No. I'm trying to convey that message myself. But the pushers I have around the school and the club are only youngsters. They're bound to be scared, when they see the plods around.'

A more balanced employer than Daniel Price would have accepted the point, would have agreed that inexperienced dealers should lie low for a little while, until they got the feel of the ground and their users came back to them. But Daniel was greedy; he had so far known only success, and success is a demanding mistress.