An Unfamiliar Murder (9 page)

Her mother re-appeared with three mugs of tea, carefully balanced on a
tray which she set down on the coffee table in front of them. Anna watched as
she retrieved coasters from a draw in the dresser and set them out on the
table. She couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes.
That’s it, carry on as normal.
Let’s
pretend that nothing’s going on here.

She waited until her mother sat down before she spoke again. “How could
you
not
have told me that I was
adopted?” she asked.

Edward lifted his hand and scratched his ear uncomfortably. “We did what
we thought was best, Anna.”

“For who, you or me?” she asked, blinking as a sharp pain seared into her
head.

“For all of us,” he replied.

Anna looked at her mother, who had lifted her tea to her lips. She looked
as though she wasn’t part of the conversation.

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

“What good would it do?” His face slackened and his voice grew quieter,
as if someone had turned the volume down.

“How can you say that?” she said drily. “Especially when everyone else
seems to know. Surely I was bound to find out sooner or later?”

“First, everyone didn’t know. Only family and our oldest friends, those
who have known us since you joined our family. Second, we always felt that we
were a strong, loving family and you would never need anything else.”

Anna stared at him, her eyes wide. He had no idea how she was feeling.

“I remember the first time I set eyes on you.” Kathleen finally spoke,
staring into space. “You were three years old.” She smiled to herself, as the
memory warmed her heart.

“This isn’t about you!” Anna cried, the tone in her voice rising. “What
about me?”

Kathleen’s face fell as she looked at her daughter. “We gave you a good
home, opportunity. You’d never have had any of that where you came from!” she
shouted back at her daughter, turning her nose up disapprovingly.

“How would I know?” Anna retorted, competing with the decibels in her
voice.

“I’m not sitting here listening to this.” Her mother stood, glared at her
daughter and marched out of the room.

“I don’t believe it,” Anna said, shaking her head. “Typical. No answers
to any questions and now
she
feels
aggrieved. Why does it always have to be about her?”

“Don’t be too hard on your mother.”

This was just too much for Anna. She stood up and raised her hands to her
head which now felt as if it were splitting in half. “I’m going to stay with
Ross.”

“Anna please!”

She couldn’t miss the desperation in his voice as he stood. “I need some
time to think,” she replied, turning to face the door as she closed her eyes in
an effort to control her erratic breathing. “I need a few days.”

She left him
standing there. As soon as she reached the hallway she flew up the stairs
hastily, keen to reach her bedroom before the tears came tumbling down.

Chapter Eight

Helen put out
the cigarette and walked back in from the car park, stopping beside the water
cooler and filling a plastic cup. As she drank she enjoyed the feeling of the
cold water flowing through her body. She watched the hive of activity around
her in the incident room, detectives going about the business, trying their
best to find a cold blooded murderer. That was the thing with murderers - some
were racked with remorse, afraid of incarceration, but almost relieved when
they were caught, as if justice would take some of the guilt away. Others
played a game of cat and mouse, relishing the notoriety the chase provided in
the media. But calculating, cold blooded murderers were the worst type. They
were engaged in a completely different game: one in which they were at length
to prevent you discovering their identity at all costs.

She made her way across to her office and reached into her bag, rummaging
around for the
paracetamol
. By the time she had
placed two in her mouth and swallowed them back there was a knock at the door.
She looked up in time to see DS Pemberton’s face appear.

“Yes, Sergeant?”

“How did the meeting go?”

She sighed. Having spent the last hour with the press office, discussing
their media strategy, they concluded that, after the short statement released
to the press on Saturday, they should release another appealing for witnesses.
There wasn’t enough fresh information to warrant a press conference at this
stage. But they couldn’t hold them off forever. “Poor. We’ve released another
statement, appealing for witnesses, but we need something to feed the beast and
fast, before they start printing what they want to. The train crash just
outside Worthington
put us on the back burner for the weekend, but now they’re looking for something
new.”

He nodded. Many a previous investigation had been thwarted by the press
carrying out their own, partisan, enquiry. “You have several messages.”

“Oh?” He walked into the office and closed the door behind him, his face
grave.

“What’s up?” she asked, suspicious.

“Sergeant Samson called from custody. He has your mother and your son,
Matthew, downstairs. You need to give him a call.”

“What’s happened?” She looked at him, wide eyed. “Sean?”

“I didn’t ask all the details. I believe it has something to do with
smoking cannabis.” She didn’t miss the smile that tickled the edge of his lips.
“Give Dave Samson a call, he’ll fill you in.”

“Right.” Helen drew a deep breath in through her nose and let it out
slowly.

“A Mr.
Devereaux
from St Edmunds School also
called. He wants to speak to you urgently.”

She nodded, speechless, hard eyes staring into space. She hadn’t imagined
her day getting any worse. Until now. “Anything else?”

“Forensics results are back.”

She looked at him eagerly. “And?” He untucked a pink cardboard file from
underneath his arm and passed it over but his face was flat.

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head as he spoke. “No prints, no DNA that doesn’t
appear to match Anna or her boyfriend. It looks pretty clean.”

“Do you have any good news for me, Sergeant?” He shook his head and
shrugged.

“What about the son?”

“We’re working on it.”

“See if you can speed things up there, please. I have a strong feeling
that he might hold some answers.”

She waited for him to shrug a single shoulder and close the office door
behind her before she dialed the custody suite.

“Cross Keys Custody, Sergeant Samson speaking.” The line crackled as he
spoke.

“Dave, it’s Helen
Lavery
.”

“Oh. Hi, Helen. You got my message?”

“Yeah. What happened?”

“Matthew was caught smoking cannabis behind the gym at school with a
couple of other lads. The school called us so we brought them in. Since we
couldn’t locate you, your mother came down to be his accompanying adult for the
interview.”

She raised her free hand and massaged her forehead.
That’s all I need.
“Where is he now?”

“He’s just been given a caution. I believe he’s still in the interview
room with his grandmother. Want me to send him up?”

 
She thought for a moment. “No. Put
him in a cell for a bit, will you? Maybe it’ll knock some sense into him. I’ll
be down in a bit.”

“Sure thing.” She heard him muffle a chuckle.

“And Dave?”

“Yes?”

“Give my mum a cup of tea would you?”

“No worries.”

“Thanks.”

She replaced the receiver and put her head in her hands. How could she
have two sons that were so completely different? Robert struggled academically,
particularly in
maths
and science, but he was a
sociable lad with a pleasant disposition, plenty of friends, always being
invited to go bowling, swimming, on sleepovers. His school reports always read
the same: ‘He tries hard’, ‘Very obliging’, ‘Always willing to have a go.’

Matthew was a whole different ball game. He was blessed with the brains.
Like his father, he had a practical as well as an academic mind, excelling at
maths
, science, design technology. He wanted to build
aircraft, but despite having a clear career path since primary school, he
constantly needed pushing. And now more than ever. Over the last couple of
months she’d needed to nag him to do his homework, caught him feigning illness
to miss school. And now drugs.

Helen raked her hair away from her face as she telephoned the school and
spoke to the headmaster’s secretary who made an appointment for 3.45pm.

By the time she joined her mother and retrieved Matt from the cell he
looked diffident, and the party of three drove back to St Edmunds in silence.
She glanced at him in the rear view mirror a couple of times but decided words
would be futile at this stage, afraid that her own anger may provoke her to say
something she would later regret. No, it was better to let him sweat it out for
the moment at least. At this stage she needed to concentrate her efforts on
limiting the damage.

 
St Edmunds High School was
situated only a couple of miles from the station. Luckily, Hampton’s rush hour traffic hadn’t yet kicked
in and they arrived in less than ten minutes. The school was a modern build,
less than 15 years old and completely lacking in character.

They made their way directly to the headmaster’s office and knocked on
the door. Mr.
Devereaux
had managed St Edmunds
comprehensive for the last seven years, during which time he had turned the
school’s results around, so much so that it was now one of the leading
comprehensives in the county, a fact which had increased his popularity with
the governors. However, parents in general were skeptical about his success. He
was known to be a deep disciplinarian and had the highest expulsion rate in
Hamptonshire
, a fact which only fuelled parents’ arguments
that he simply got rid of underperforming kids in order to improve the school’s
ratings.

Devereaux
answered the door almost immediately.
“Good afternoon, Mrs.
Lavery
,” he shook her hand, his
fingers feeling like sweaty sausages against her own, and nodded to Jane
Lavery
before turning to Matthew. “You can wait outside,”
he said firmly.

The two women followed the headmaster into a small office, dominated by a
large desk, upon which papers, books, photographs were all arranged in an
orderly manner. Helen glanced across at her mother who raised her eyebrows.
Helen couldn’t help but think what a contrast this desk was to hers at work.
She winced at the musty smell which filled the air.

As they seated themselves opposite him, the desk between them, Helen
stared at the man who poured his body into the seat beneath him. They’d met on
a couple of occasions in the past at open evenings and both times she witnessed
his boldness, his tendency to boast about the school’s achievements. She was
also harshly aware of his reputation for bullying parents into submission, as
if they were an extension of his pupils.

“I assume you know why I have called you here?” She caught a slight lisp
in his voice as he spoke.

“I have heard the police officer’s account,” Helen nodded. “Perhaps you
would like to give me yours.”

Devereaux
looked at her suspiciously. This
clearly wasn’t what he was expecting. He looked across at her mother, but Jane
Lavery’s
face gave nothing away. He shuffled in his seat,
folded his hands together on the desk in front of him.

“Well,” he cleared his throat. “Matthew was caught smoking marijuana
behind the gym during break this afternoon.”

She smiled inside at his use of the term ‘marijuana’. He sounded as
though he had just stepped off the set of
The
Wire
. “I understand there were other children involved?”

“Yes, three in total.”

“And how many joints did they have between them?”

He tilted his head back, surprised by her bluntness. “Just the one, as
far as I am aware.” She nodded, a gesture intended to encourage him to
continue. “However,” he continued hastily, “that doesn’t make the offence any
less serious.” She stared at the headmaster, expressionless. “School policy is
to call the police which, as you are aware, we did.” She nodded and they sat
quietly again. It always interested Helen how uncomfortable people were with silence.
Eventually he spoke again. “The lockers were searched but no other drugs were
found.”

“So this was a group of teenagers, curiously meddling with drugs?” she
asked finally.

“I’m sure that I do not have to remind you, Mrs.
Lavery
,
of all people, that marijuana is a class B drug.” His lisp dragged out the s in
class. She wondered how much fun the school kids had with that lisp. Kids could
be so cruel when they wanted to be.

“Not at all, Mr.
Devereaux
,” she replied. “But
let’s not get carried away here. Matt’s results are good, as I’m sure you are
aware, and this is the first time the school has ever found the need to formally
discipline him.” Helen knew she was walking a fine line here. Matt’s last test
results had still been reasonably high but, in view of his rebellious behavior
over the last few months, his lax attitude towards homework, it would only be a
matter of time before they started to deteriorate. Intelligence alone could
only bolster him in the short term.

“It’s still an offence and against school rules!”
Devereaux
declared, clearly exasperated by her calmness. “And I have no choice but to
suspend him for a week.”

Helen frowned. “That seems rather harsh under the circumstances. He has
already been cautioned by the police and you can be assured that he will be
punished at home. It’s not as if he were supplying the drug to others, or if he
had his own personal supply in his locker.” She was tempted to ask about the
other boys, about where the drugs had come from, but thought better of it. That
line of questioning could rebound and hit her in the face, especially if Matt
had obtained the joint himself.

“Rules are rules. I can assure you that if we had found any further
evidence, then your son would have been expelled immediately, irrespective of
his grades. The school governors are absolute on the issue of drugs.”

Helen decided to quit whilst she was ahead. In her experience, one week’s
suspension was not unreasonable for possession of an illegal substance on
school premises. “What about work in the meantime?”

Her acceptance threw him off balance momentarily. He stared at her. “Ah,
yes well . . . I can get his tutors to email him work so that he doesn’t fall
behind with the curriculum. If that is what you wish?”

“Of course. I’m sure the school wouldn’t want his grades to be affected.”
She stood indicating the end of the conversation. “Thank you for seeing us.”

He nodded, flabbergasted, as she walked out of the office followed by her
mother.

The car was quiet again on the drive home, the silence only broken
briefly when they stopped to collect Robert from his friend’s house, his mood
instantly subdued by the serious atmosphere which hung in the car.

Helen considered the effects of the punishment on Matt’s life.
What would John would have made of all of
this?
Would he have handled it
differently? Been harder on the boys?
At times like this she longed for
him, for his support.

When they reached home Matthew bolted for his room.
You’re not getting away with it that easily
, thought Helen.

“Mum, do you know where my Rugby shirt is?” piped up Robert as they
removed their coats and hung them up in the hallway. “I need it for tomorrow.”

“Ask your Gran to find it for you,” Helen said, pressing her lips
together. “I have a special purpose to attend to,” she muttered under her
breath, reaching the top of the stairs before she had even finished the
sentence.

Matt was lying on his back on the bed when she walked into him room
without knocking. He quickly sat up, lifting his head backwards, a look of
horror on his face.

“Is this where I get the lecture?” he asked, warily.

She stared at him for a moment. He looked more like his father every day.
“Was this the first time?” she asked at last, ignoring his question.

“Yes,” he replied, confused.

“And the last?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me where I got it from?”

“The school and the police have already done that,” she said curtly. She
looked him up and down. He was so young, so
unspoilt
.
Or was he?
The haircut, the drinking, the
drugs.
When she spoke again her tone was softer. “I would like to know
why,
though?”