Swansong (2 page)

‘Nick, are you all right?’

‘Fine, really.’

‘Well, we’d better get down to the conference room. And make sure you only speak when you’re spoken to. OK?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

The meeting began at 2 p.m. sharp. Sitting at the head of the conference table was Assistant Chief Constable David
Charlesworth
. Dixon thought him unusually young to have such a thick head of grey hair. He wore dark horn rimmed spectacles and was in
uniform
.

‘I think it’s fair to say that this is a crisis meeting,’ he began. ‘We’re nine days into a high profile murder investigation. We’ve made no progress whatsoever and the commissioner’s going up the pole. The victim was a brilliant student, by all accounts, from a poor background at a posh school on some sort of scholarship, so you’ll understand the media interest. It’s a recipe for disaster. Now, how can I put this politely?’ Charlesworth threw his pen onto the table for dramatic effect. ‘What the bloody hell’s going on?’

‘Well, Sir . . .’

‘Identify yourself for those around the table, will you, Simon?’

‘Simon Chard, Detective Chief Inspector, Taunton. My team are running the investigation.’ He turned to his left. ‘This is
Detective
Inspector Margaret Baldwin, leading the team, and to her left is DS Tom Bryan.’

‘You know DCI Lewis?’ asked Charlesworth.

‘Yes, Sir. I don’t know the officer to his left, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s DI Dixon,’ replied Charlesworth.

‘What’s he . . . ?’

‘He’s here at my request. We’ll come onto why in a minute. You all know Vicky Thomas, Public Relations, don’t you?’ continued Charlesworth, gesturing at the remaining figure seated at the table.

Chard nodded.

‘That’s everyone, then. Now, what’s going on, Simon?’

‘We’ve got no CCTV, no DNA and no witnesses . . .’

‘Perhaps you’d better start by telling us what you have got, then,’ said Charlesworth.

‘A seventeen year old female student in the lower sixth, that’s the first year of two A Level years. Her ring finger’s been cut off and her throat cut. No evidence of a struggle. Roger Poland found a large quantity of ketamine and red wine in her body so she’d been drugged. Probably didn’t feel a thing, if that’s any consolation.’

‘It isn’t,’ said Charlesworth. ‘Where was she found?’

‘In a ditch at the bottom of the playing fields. There was a large quantity of blood on a small footbridge over the ditch so it looks like her throat was cut on the bridge before she was pushed in.’

‘What else?’

‘Several witnesses report seeing a car in the car park behind the Bishop Sutton Hall they’d not seen before or since. It had been there a few days and then disappeared.’

‘Make, model?’

‘They couldn’t say. Only that it was blue and small with a boot. Definitely not a hatchback. The obvious inference is that it was for moving her and the killer was disturbed.’

‘Why is that obvious?’

‘There’s CCTV covering the main car park at the front of the school, but none on this car park. It’s also adjacent to the playing fields. I’m guessing now, but it’s possible he was carrying her across to the car when he was disturbed and had to drop down onto the playing fields. There’s a line of leylandii he could have hidden behind and it leads out to where she was found.’

‘Who uses it?’ asked Dixon. Lewis glared at him.

‘What?’ asked Chard.

‘The car park,’ replied Dixon.

Chard looked at his notes. ‘Parents visiting Bishop Knox, Markham and Tuckerman houses. Staff as well. And anyone
visiting
the sports hall.’

‘Any CCTV of the car?’ asked Charlesworth.

‘None, Sir. We’ve checked the town cameras but if you come out of the school and turn left you’re straight out into the country.’

‘What about her friends? What do they say?’

‘We’ve talked to her two best friends, Emily Setter and
Susannah
Bower. They say it was just an ordinary Saturday
afternoon
, really. They’d watched the 1st XV rugby match. Th
ey bea
t
Millfield 22–10
 . . .’

‘I’m not interested in the bloody score, Simon.’

‘Sorry, Sir. Then they went into town after Isobel’s driving
lesson
.’

‘Into town?’

‘Sixth formers are allowed into town, Sir.’

‘Last sighting?’

‘Just before ten at the main entrance. Emily and Susannah went back to Tuckerman and Isobel headed for Gardenhurst House. Different directions.’

‘Is there a boyfriend?’

‘She was friendly with a lad called . . .’ Chard began thumbing through a notebook, ‘. . . Ben Masterson, but there’s no evidence they were boyfriend and girlfriend.’

‘What about the driving instructor?’ asked Dixon.

‘He checks out. He picked her up at 5.30 p.m. for a half hour lesson and then dropped her back.’

‘Dropped her back where?’

Chard looked at DI Baldwin.

‘The car park behind the Bishop Sutton Hall,’ said Baldwin.

‘So, apart from some guesswork about an otherwise unidentified car, we’ve got no leads at all. Is that right?’ asked Charlesworth.

‘We’re going to be doing a public appeal, Sir. I’ve already
spoken
to Vicky about it,’ replied Chard.

‘Appeal for what?’

‘Information about the car. Sightings, anyone who can report it missing.’

‘I’ve set up a press conference for Monday morning,’ said Vicky Thomas.

‘Well, go ahead with that, by all means; you never know what might turn up. In the meantime, we’ve another plan, thankfully.’ Charlesworth turned to Lewis. ‘I’m assuming you’ve told Dixon why he’s here?’

‘Not specifically, Sir, no. I briefed him about the investigation, not his part in it.’

Dixon sat up. He had spent much of the last ten minutes brushing the dust off a box of memories and wondering whether the time had come to open it. And whether he could face it. He had drifted in and out of the conversation, blurting out the odd question when it had occurred to him, if only to make it look as if he had been paying attention. The mention of his name brought him back to the present with a jolt.

‘Dixon.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Fancy trying your hand at a bit of teaching?’

‘Teaching?’

‘Yes. Get in there and find out what the bloody hell’s been going on in that place.’

‘Undercover?’

‘You’ll be a student teacher doing a Postgraduate Certificate in Education at Bristol University. Two weeks’ work experience before the end of term. It’s all been set up with the headmaster.’

‘But . . .’

‘You won’t have to do any real teaching. Just sit in on a few lessons, that’s all. The head teaches law A Level. You can sit in with him to make it look genuine.’

‘Why me?’

‘Two reasons. Firstly, you went to one of these places.’

‘I went to St Dunstan’s, Sir. On the other side of town.’

‘They’re all the same, and you know how they work. None of us have got a bloody clue.’

Dixon noticed the sneer on Chard’s face.

‘And, secondly,’ continued Charlesworth, ‘DCI Lewis tells me you’re the best we’ve got.’

‘Remind me to thank him later, Sir,’ said Dixon, glaring at Lewis.

‘I asked for a copy of the investigation file to be made available.’

‘It’s here, Sir,’ said Chard, offering a green document wallet to Charlesworth in his outstretched hand.

‘I don’t want it. Give it to Dixon.’

Chard slid the folder across the table. Dixon opened it and flicked through the contents. There was a bundle of witness statements, from which he did not expect to learn much, Roger Poland’s post mortem report and then, at the back, a bundle of photographs. He started with the post mortem report.

‘Take it away and read it, but for God’s sake don’t take it into the school with you,’ said Charlesworth.

‘Yes, Sir,’ replied Dixon, without looking up.

‘The headmaster’s expecting you this evening. One of the masters is away on a sabbatical in the Far East so you’ll be using his rooms in the main school.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘What about liaison?’ asked Charlesworth.

‘I thought we might assign Jane Winter to Simon’s team for the duration of the investigation, Sir,’ replied Lewis. ‘She could act as Nick’s contact. After all, what could be more plausible than his real girlfriend?’

‘A relationship with a fellow officer, Dixon?’ asked Charlesworth.

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Well, it makes sense, I suppose.’

Dixon began flicking through the bundle of photographs. It started with shots of Isobel Swan lying face down and naked in a shallow stream, her hair waving in the current. Her left arm was resting on the bank with her right arm underneath her. Dixon could see that the ring finger was missing from her left hand. The photographs had been taken from above, the photographer standing on the bank and also on the small footbridge that crossed the stream and led through a gap in the hedge into the adjacent field, where the all weather hockey pitches were.

Dixon recognised the spot. Memories came flooding back. Of away hockey matches and the walk down to the all weather pitch; there had been only one back then. Of times he had chosen not to think about since.

The last photograph in the album showed Isobel Swan lying on the slab in the mortuary. Dixon stared at it. There was no going back now. The box was open and the memories were
running
wild. People, places, sounds, smells, laughter, tears. He was reliving his school days in a split second as the images flashed across his mind.

He could hear voices but was no longer listening to the
conversation
going on around him. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him.

‘Dixon.’

He closed the photograph album and looked up. All eyes in the room were on him. Watching and waiting. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through his nose. Then he looked at
Charlesworth
.

‘It is a consolation, Sir.’

‘What is?’

‘To know that she didn’t suffer.’

The day began much like any other Sunday during term time. He had remembered to adjust the time for the lost hour in bed now that the clocks had gone forward and his alarm had gone off just after 7 a.m., as usual. Then it was a quick shower, a shave and over to breakfast in the main school. After breakfast came chapel, hence the Sunday suit; regulation dark grey with a white shirt and navy blue tie.

The shave was not strictly necessary but he had bought the cheap plastic razors and a can of foam the day before, so he thought he’d give it a try.

They always had breakfast together at 8 a.m. Always. Without fail. But then they did everything together and had done since they had first met. They were inseparable, or so it seemed to the rest of the school. She watched him play rugby and hockey and he watched her play netball and tennis. They never missed a match. They even studied together in the school library.

They had got used to the constant jibes and whistles from the other pupils. Romeo and Juliet, Bonnie and Clyde, even Pinky and Perky, they had heard it all. But he didn’t care. She was beautiful and he knew they were just jealous.

It had been love at first sight for her and a little longer for him, perhaps an hour. They used to joke about it. She always said he was a bit slower.

They had got it all mapped out. They were engaged to be married, they just hadn’t told anyone yet. Next came the same university to study the same subject. It didn’t matter what. Then they would get married. Earlier if they summoned up the courage to defy their parents. They had talked about Gretna Green many times but they knew they had the rest of their lives ahead of them. Time was on their side and all that mattered was that they would never be apart again.

But today she wasn’t there.

8 a.m. came and went. He waited. It had never happened before and he knew straight away that something was wrong.

The night before they had gone to the wine bar in the High Street. The one that never asked your age. She had passed her driving test and they were celebrating.

Then they crept over the wall at the bottom of the playing fields and across the new AstroTurf hockey pitch to the car park. They had said goodnight on the steps of the girls’ house, as usual, and their kiss had attracted several wolf whistles and shouts of ‘get a room’ from the students piling out of the 287 Club. Full of watered down beer, the lot of them.

That was the last time he saw her.

He looked around the dining room, which was starting to empty now. 8.15 a.m. came and went and breakfast was over. She had never missed it before. He was starting to panic. Then he noticed that none of the girls were there.

He ran out of the dining room and along the corridor towards the girls’ house. He took the flight of steps halfway along in two bounds and then stopped abruptly when he saw his housemaster and the headmaster’s wife walking towards him.