Dead Unlucky (24 page)

Hart and Redpath stood in the bathroom where Nicola Brown had been murdered. Hart fiddled with the tap at the sink, the cold tap from which Hiba Massaoud had untied the rope so that her friend could be laid into the bath. The rail that had held the shower curtain had not been removed and Redpath climbed on the toilet seat and gave it a tug. It would have struggled to support him, but would have had no trouble holding the weight of a wafer of humanity like Nicola. Together they went through the procedure the killer might have used to raise her into position on the rim of the bath. If she were unconscious or drowsy she could have been carried from the bedroom and then simply held in the noose until she woke up and could stand without support. With her arms immobile behind her back, the only effect of struggling would have been to topple herself off her books before her time was due.

Apart from the outside facade, there wasn’t much remaining that was antiquated about the Old House. The upper floors of the building, on which the girls of Highdean School slept, now resembled a modern hotel, sporting their neat rows of rooms, their sprinklers and smoke detectors on the high ceilings, and polyester carpets on the floors. A wide staircase at one corner of the rectangular building connected each of the floors to adjoining landings and on each storey a turquoise push-bar-to-open door gave access to the fire escape which ran to the ground outside on the point of the rectangle opposite the staircase.

On the first floor, waiting patiently behind her desk, sat Rhiannon Jenkins.

‘Ms Jenkins,’ began Hart, ‘you were on duty on the night of Nicola’s death, is that right?’

‘Yes, Chief Inspector. I was here all night.’

Ms Jenkins was an unmarried woman of about thirty-five whose prematurely greying hair formed a layer that was lifted from her head as though she were the recipient of an unending electric shock. Her face wore a countenance of perpetual worry, reinforcing the impression she exuded that the myriad of potential disasters life held in store needed to be constantly fretted over.

‘What were your duties on that night?’

‘The same as always. I have to look after the girls.’

‘Which involved what?’ Hart could already see that this was to be one of those interviews akin to coaxing a cat out from under the bed.

‘I ensure that the girls adhere to the lights-out rule and check on who leaves and who comes in.’

‘How do you do that?’

‘The older girls can sign in this book,’ she said, passing a dark green notebook over to Hart. ‘They can come and go as they please, before eight o’clock at night of course, but must sign in and out.’

‘Is there any way that a person could get in without you noticing?’

‘Everybody must come past this desk.’

‘But could they?’

‘If I’m not sitting here.’ And then, hurriedly, ‘But we do have good security, of course. There are patrols in the grounds day and night and all boarders carry a card-key to the outside door. Everyone needs one of those to get inside the building.’

‘Suppose a girl wished to have a guest visit her room?’

‘Absolutely not allowed, except for other girls who are pupils at the school, who may visit before nine o’clock. No, not allowed at all!’ Ms Jenkins shook her head vigorously as she hissed air through puffed cheeks. ‘That would be a very severe breach of the rules. It could even lead to expulsion!’

‘But just suppose she wanted to smuggle in a guest,’ Hart persisted. ‘Just suppose. She could leave the fire door ajar and her friend could come up the fire escape?’

‘Well, it’s possible I imagine. Possible, but you’re surely not suggesting that one of our girls would do such a thing. That’s a dreadful thought!’

‘Goodness gracious, no! I am just trying to get a picture of how the system works here, that’s all.’ The poor woman looked like the world already held more sins than she could bear, without having to come to terms with the realisation it is such an evil place that one or other of her girls might not be above having a lad sneak up the fire escape for a bit of hanky-panky.

‘Who has a key to the girls’ rooms?’

‘That’s easy.’ Rhiannon was relieved to be set free from her skirmish with debauched notions and afforded a simpler and purer mental task. ‘The housemistress of the night has a master key, which she keeps on her own person at all times. And there is another master key locked away. All of the boarding-staff can get access to that key.’

‘And who are they?’

‘There are six of us. We take it in turns to be the duty housemistress and there is an assistant who must be at school all night in case of an emergency. We have a room each to board in.’

‘We’ll get a list downstairs,’ noted Hart to Redpath. ‘Who was your assistant that night?’

‘Mrs McArthur. But she’s still away on her Christmas holiday.’

‘And did you notice anything suspicious? Anything at all that could help us?’

‘I’ve thought about nothing else since I saw on the television last night that Nicola was murdered. Nothing else. And I can’t recall anything. It was all quiet when I went to bed just after eleven o’clock.’

‘And who did you see before then?’

‘Some of the girls were about just prior to ten o’clock, coming back from the common room. They’re very naughty, you know,’ she said with some pride that her girls were such spirited scamps. ‘They leave it until the very last minute before they go up to bed! Before the last rush it’s always very quiet, especially on a Saturday. And then it’s completely silent again after the ten o’clock curfew.’

‘Anybody else?’

‘I knocked on Mrs McArthur’s door, just to let her know I was off to bed.’

‘Did you get a reply?’

‘Yes. She’s very diligent is Mrs McArthur. Very trustworthy.’

‘Thank you Ms Jenkins, you’ve been most helpful.’

Just as the two men set foot on the top of the stairs, she called behind them.

‘I didn’t look after her very well, did I? Nicola I mean. She died when I was supposed to be looking after her.’

‘Ms Jenkins,’ replied Hart, ‘I don’t think you could have done any more. Sometimes evil people can be very determined and there’s not much we can do about it.’ It was the best he could manage for her.

‘She’s a funny old thing,’ whispered Redpath when they were out of earshot. ‘Looks like she could do with a good night on the town.’

‘Not with you I hope. A single hour of cavorting about in your company would give the poor woman even more to worry her, enough for a dozen of her lifetimes.’ As they descended, Hart peered down at the figure walking past the bottom of the staircase. ‘Talking of women with plenty to worry about, there’s Mrs H, bang on cue.’

It wasn’t easy to know how to greet the Headteacher.
I’m sorry one of your students probably turns out to have been murdered after all
didn’t seem entirely appropriate, so Hart and Redpath contented themselves with a bland ‘good morning’.

‘I had rather hoped that I would be meeting some different faces today,’ she started.

‘So my chief superintendent mentioned after we first met,’ replied Hart. ‘Sorry you’re not too pleased to see me. I’m vain enough to think the killer might be a bit upset that I’m still on the case as well.’ Hart was careful to look Mrs Hargreaves hard in both eyes.

‘I cannot believe you had the impudence to make an insinuation like that. That really is unconscionable of you.’

‘If you’re suggesting you’re not a suspect for the murders of both Nicola Brown and Sebastian Emmer, then you need to bring your brain along to the planet the rest of us are inhabiting. Everybody who works and studies at your school is sailing along in the same boat that you are the captain of, and there are a few more passengers on board besides you lot.’

‘You really are an appallingly rude man.’

‘Get used to it. Even a phone call to my boss won’t get a sympathetic ear this time so you’re stuck with me. You may also like to reflect that you’re not exactly easy to have around yourself. You’ve not been the most forthcoming of folks considering that two of your students have recently suffered violent deaths.’

Mrs Hargreaves didn’t want to go there, so she changed the subject by finding something else to moan about. ‘Your officers have rifled through all the files in the offices and taken half of them away. I trust they’ll be returned before the beginning of term.’

‘I expect my people to cart a lorry load of stuff out of this place before the day’s out, and I’ll be suggesting they find alternative employment if they don’t. And you’ll get them back when I see fit to release them.’

‘Have you finished? I’m busy.’

‘Not quite. Will you be here all morning?’

‘I expect so. Why do you ask?’

‘Please make yourself available to be interviewed regarding your whereabouts at the times Nicola and Sebastian died. It would help if you could supply contact details of people who can vouch for you. I’ll send a constable to your office shortly.’

Being a copper certainly had its enjoyable moments.

*****

The remainder of Hart’s day turned out to be very peculiar, very peculiar indeed, and for two reasons which couldn’t have been more different.

Getting back to his office in the afternoon, he filled his mug with tea and settled down to attack the contents of his in-tray. There were the usual bits and pieces to keep him busy: reports from more-junior officers, an expenses claim form returned because he had forgotten to sign it, and, of course, half a dozen or so foolscap manila envelopes bearing tidings good, bad and unintelligible. There was also a small card inside a pink envelope, on which the handwriting was petite, neat, and pretty.

Dear Harry,

I could not help seeing on the news the report about that poor girl’s body being exhumed from the churchyard. I know a little of how these police procedures work and you have my admiration! Perhaps you would come over for drinks and a bite to eat sometime. Very informal, just the two of us. Please give me a ring. Regards, Patricia Luft.

If the invitation had come from Lady Gaga, he wouldn’t have been more surprised. Patricia Luft! Rich, attractive, divorced, Patricia Luft. Inviting Harry over to her place. And admiration! When Redpath had said she may like him, he knew what he was talking about. Of all the things that Redpath didn’t know about, women couldn’t fairly be put on the list. But did she actually like him?
Come on, Harry,
he thought.
Don’t put yourself down. You don’t invite someone over if you don’t like them.
Just the two of them! It’s funny how things work out. If Hart hadn’t got her husband put away for corporate fraud, she wouldn’t have been able to invite him over, wouldn’t have even met him.

The second remarkable episode of the day occurred after he had got home in the evening. Feeling understandably chipper, Harry decided to treat himself to a slice of steak for his meal. A good cut of sirloin, not fillet, because a steak needs a bit of fat on it to be a true culinary delight, it wasn’t put on this Earth to be the centrepiece of a health fad. That’s what he had always said to his wife, who then teased him that he ruined it anyway by smearing a pound of horseradish sauce over it, so it might as well have been old bread for all the flavour he could taste. Dear Maggie. He thought of her often every day.

The spread before him looked great. The focus was his plate, of course, with its generous steak cut only the day before by George the butcher, sitting beside plain boiled spuds, and with a tin of peas supplying a vitamin or two. The table also supported a tub of butter for the potatoes, a jar of his favourite condiment, and a glass for his Hungarian red. Hart usually didn’t have wine with his meal unless he was out with friends, but today he felt he deserved a celebratory slurp.

It had been a good day. Although it had started with him being shoved aside by the Chief and that sly slimeball from the Smoke, it ended with him being back in charge of the investigation. And the invitation from Patricia Luft wasn’t just the icing on the proverbial cake, but the marzipan as well. As he reached for his horseradish sauce, he pondered that he didn’t really know what she was like, but it was nice to be asked anyway, and he would soon find out. It was a cracking way to embark on his new-found resolve to get a bigger kick out of life, to enjoy it more.

It was a shame that such a splendid day ended up with an ambulance blaring through the streets and carting him off to hospital. But it was a close-run thing – he could have been going somewhere worse. Somewhere much, much worse.

*****

There were still a few hours to go before The Temple opened for the evening. A pair of mates were enjoying the quiet behind locked doors, sharing the good times and the pleasure of victory, washing the satisfaction down with a couple of cold ones.

‘You should have seen the look on the filth’s face when he left this place, Danny. It was a prettier picture than anything I’ve seen in those mags you always seem to come away with when you go round the corner for a packet of fags.’

‘You should’ve been a pig yourself, Marco. You’re just like him, seems you’re getting me mixed up with someone else.’