A (Very) Public School Murder Read online

  ‘You’re sounding rather determined, bursar!’ said Tamsin. ‘Determined to say nothing – when all we want is a chat.’

  ‘Yes, but it isn’t a chat, is it?’ he said, rather precisely, as though looking at some faulty figures.

  ‘Then what is it?’

  And now he looked like a lost boy in Asda. ‘It’s about incriminating people, tripping them up,’ he said.

  ‘I think you’d best calm yourself, Mr Standing,’ said Tamsin. She hadn’t expected this display of fear and insecurity. ‘No one is out to get you . . . or trip you up.’

  ‘In fact, we want you “standing” at all times!’ said Peter cheerily. ‘May we call you Terence?’

  ‘I suppose.’ Only the head called him Terence in the school, he’d been quite insistent about that. ‘I’m quite innocent, though.’ And with that, he crossed his arms.

  ‘But unhappy,’ said the abbot, changing gear. Terence gave a dismissive why-do-you-say-that? look but didn’t answer and so Peter continued. ‘Innocent, as you say – but clearly troubled by something.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Terence replied. He tried to stare Peter out, a half-smile across his face. It was a challenge.

  ‘It’s not a crime to be troubled, Terence.’

  ‘Who said I’m troubled? I am the bursar here, a key post.’ He said it as if he was Lord High Admiral. ‘And as far as I’m aware, I do a very exact and satisfactory job.’

  ‘Exact and satisfactory?’ said Tamsin.

  ‘The head always said so. No one gets an unnecessary expense past me.’

  ‘I’m sure they don’t.’

  ‘And we’re in a healthy state financially . . . and when the Japanese finally give the nod . . .’

  ‘The Japanese?’

  ‘A possible link-up. It’s not in the public domain – and neither should it be for now.’

  He didn’t wish to say more and wasn’t pressed, so silence fell.

  ‘And if I keep myself to myself,’ said Terence, to fill the space, ‘that is my own choice and quite unrelated to happiness, I can assure you.’

  Terence’s speech was as precise as his accounts. Peter nodded.

  ‘And I’m like you, Terence, in that regard. I keep myself to myself as well. A crowd does not equal happiness in my world!’

  Terence looked slightly relieved to find an ally in this matter.

  ‘But I suppose the happy do not lie prostrate in the chapel, sobbing,’ added Peter. ‘Unless they’re crying for joy, I suppose.’

  Penny, thought Terence. Who else could have told them? No, Penny was clearly the grass. Well, two can play at that game. He looked down, though, like one deflated; he did not wish to respond. Perspiration appeared beneath the armpits on his fresh white shirt – not a look that endeared anyone to Tamsin, which ruled out most of Lewes CID from her circle of love. But the sweat was interesting. The body never lies and the morning was chill, as summer mornings can be. Tamsin had noticed the abbot was wearing both a T-shirt and rugby shirt beneath his habit.

  ‘It is no crime,’ said Terence primly. ‘Have you never cried about a sad matter?’

  Have you never cried about a sad matter? It was strange how he spoke, childlike and defenceless in a way, but with the veneer of cleverness and control. Peter did not want to push him further for now; he thought he might break and not recover. So instead, they talked a little about Jamie, easier ground for the bursar.

  ‘Was Jamie the sort of man who could fall off a cliff by accident?’ asked Tamsin.

  Terence thought for a moment . . . he thought quickly.

  ‘Highly unlikely,’ he said.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Jamie both walked and ran those cliffs – he knew them well.’

  ‘A runner, was he?’ asked Peter. Perhaps he’d passed him up there, said good morning to the man. Most runners were friendly and offered a greeting – apart from the ones in dark glasses.

  ‘I think so. He had a running machine at home . . . in the scullery. Cressida showed it to me. He did drive himself hard.’

  ‘But you got on well?’

  ‘When we managed to speak.’ Tamsin looked quizzical. ‘Jennifer did not always make access easy.’

  ‘Ah yes – I hear she was a little protective.’

  It had been a remark Ferdinand once made to the abbot . . . and he passed the inference on.

  ‘A little, I suppose,’ he said, as one unconcerned. ‘But I learned to bypass her,’ he added, pleased with himself. It wasn’t as if he was like the others. He was the bursar.

  ‘And how did you do that?’ said Tamsin admiringly.

  ‘Quite simple really. I learned which phone number to use.’ He spoke with a knowing smile. ‘I will say no more.’

  ‘And the sad matter?’ said Tamsin, wishing to throw him again. ‘The sad matter that took you to the altar?’

  ‘What of it?’

  She had thrown him. He was ruffled.

  ‘What made you so sad? It must have been something serious.’ Elvis Presley’s ‘Crying in the Chapel’ suddenly appeared in her consciousness – but this wasn’t the time to hum the tune.

  ‘It’s not something I wish to talk about.’

  ‘But something you’ll have to talk about in a murder investigation – Terence.’ She sensed he disliked them using that name and so she’d use it as much as she could. ‘It’s a rather brutal affair in that regard, the things closest to us yet hidden – they have to be shown.’

  Terence paused.

  ‘It was my mother,’ he said.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s been unwell.’

  ‘Really? Well, to cry in that fashion – and in that place – you must care about her greatly.’

  ‘Of course I care about her – she’s my mother! Doesn’t everyone care about their mother?’

  ‘No.’

  Tamsin didn’t, not in any comparable way, at least. I mean, one was polite to her but anything more was a struggle. Terence, meanwhile, was rigid with offence, believing this was none of their business and quite unfair.

  ‘And so where did you get to on your two hours off?’ asked Peter, changing the angle again. ‘Jamie gave you all a break, didn’t he, on Sunday afternoon?’ It was while they were all out that Jamie fell, so the logistics of the afternoon, the movements of the assembled company, were of interest. ‘He wanted you all to get out, clear your heads and breathe some fresh air.’

  ‘“He probably wants a smoke,” was Penny’s take on the matter,’ said Terence a little bitchily. ‘But then we all know what she wanted!’

  ‘What did she want?’

  ‘Myra is not unambitious, you know.’

  ‘“Myra”?’

  ‘It’s a name people have for her – her hair colour, and the eyes.’

  Tamsin nodded.

  ‘So what did you do with the afternoon, Terence? Did you get out and about?’

  ‘I drove to the Long Man of Wilmington,’ he said, folding his arms triumphantly, like a card player when they’ve just declared a good hand.

  All three shared some knowledge about the Long Man, though Tamsin less than the other two. She knew he was long and a man – but not a great deal more. Terence and Peter could go further, aware that he was a stick man, a naked figure on the South Downs, seventy-five yards long and holding two straight staves. And while there were some who wished his origins to be more ancient – a mystery figure from Saxon times would be nice – he was probably more recent, a chalk creation of the Stuarts, so a survivor from the sixteenth century.

  ‘Any witnesses to your trip?’ asked Tamsin.

  ‘You mean apart from the Long Man?’

  Terence enjoyed his joke and Peter smiled warmly.

  ‘We’ll be speaking to him as well,’ he said.

  ‘It looks like he’s cut from the chalk, of course,’ said Terence. He did like information, when it didn’t concern him.

  ‘Well, he is, isn’t he?’ said Peter, g
enuinely interested.

  ‘Originally, yes, but no more, sadly – the distant eye deceives. He’s white breeze blocks now. Still, we don’t need to tell anyone . . . everyone should be allowed their secrets, without fear of persecution. So are we done?’

  And they nearly were, but not quite.

  ‘There’s just one small matter,’ said Tamsin.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Who’s Benedict?’ she said.

  ‘Benedict?’

  There was slight horror in his eyes.

  ‘Do you know anyone called Benedict?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, that’s odd, Terence.’ The bursar looked quizzical. ‘The police searched your room yesterday. And they turned up a letter you’d written – but not sent. Remember it?’ She had his attention now. ‘Well, it was hardly a letter, more a note really – a note to Benedict, begging to see him.’

  Terence shrugged.

  ‘And just his name on the envelope,’ said the abbot. ‘So it wasn’t going by royal mail. An internal letter perhaps?’

  ‘Perhaps they planted it,’ said Terence.

  ‘And perhaps you wrote it.’

  He looked at them blankly.

  ‘You can see how that might interest us?’ said Tamsin. ‘Why someone called Benedict might interest us. Is this someone we know?’

  Penny arrived distracted,

  and explained her lateness.

  ‘They’ve just found my phone,’ she said, slightly breathless with the drama.

  ‘Who found it?’ asked Peter, aware of the backstory.

  ‘Well – it was Geoff, I think. It was him who told me, anyway. Found it there this morning – complete mystery.’

  ‘Found it where?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Next to the sink in the common room kitchen.’ Peter took this in with interest. ‘God knows how it got there, it’s not a sink I ever use – it’s a health risk!’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d lost it,’ said Tamsin, feeling out of the loop with everyone else. She didn’t like not knowing what was going on.

  ‘It disappeared yesterday,’ said Penny, now looking at Peter with disapproval. He’d not been helpful last night . . . and it wasn’t forgotten. ‘I’m sure I had it when you spoke to us all. So perhaps it was someone in the common room . . .’

  ‘Would you like to sit down?’ said Tamsin. Peroxide Penny was still standing, looking down on them, which gave her too much power. ‘We perhaps have bigger things on our agenda than your phone.’

  Peter, however, was fascinated by the phone, particularly the location of its discovery . . . by the sink in the common room, which struck him as odd. Why there? But in the meantime, he’d calm Tamsin’s anxious psyche by filling her in.

  ‘Penny reported its disappearance last night,’ he said, remembering the unfortunate scene in his bedroom.

  ‘Not that that helped at all.’

  ‘But I’m glad it’s turned up, Penny.’ Peter smiled as best he could. ‘And before you ask, yes, there is an alert out for Jennifer.’

  ‘It doesn’t work,’ said Penny.

  ‘What doesn’t?’

  ‘The phone. Looks like it fell in the sink or something – no life in it.’

  ‘Oh well . . .’ said Tamsin, wanting to get on.

  ‘Rice can sometimes do the trick,’ said the abbot, who’d once used this method, after dropping his phone in the sea.

  ‘Really?’

  It was an angry ‘really’.

  ‘Uncooked obviously,’ said Peter. ‘Stick it in a packet of rice and it may do the trick.’

  ‘I’m more concerned about Jennifer,’ she said, sitting down with a sigh. ‘I don’t think rice will help her. Do you, Abbot?’

  That put Peter in his place.

  ‘We’ll find her,’ said Tamsin. ‘Or she’ll suddenly appear, that’s my guess.’

  ‘Suddenly appear from where?’

  ‘I’ve seen it happen so often. She’s been missing, for what – fourteen hours, which isn’t a lot.’ Though in the circumstances, and this Tamsin wasn’t mentioning, it was a great deal and a matter of concern. Like a swan, Tamsin was serene on the surface, but her mind paddled furiously beneath the water. ‘You’re clearly concerned about Jennifer, Penny. Do you think she had reason to be concerned?’

  ‘Not that I know of. Why would she?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I suppose she was close to the headmaster, perhaps she knew things?’

  ‘Knows things,’ corrected Peter.

  ‘Yes, oh God, I’m sorry, that’s terrible,’ said Penny, blushing a little and flustered. ‘My fears run ahead of me.’

  ‘Fears often do,’ he said, allowing Penny some recovery after the Freudian slip.

  ‘And I didn’t mean to insinuate anything last night, Abbot,’ she said, calming a little. ‘With regard to you and the boy – Crispin, I mean.’

  ‘Have I missed something?’ asked Tamsin.

  ‘You’ve missed nothing,’ said Peter, ‘because that’s what it was: nothing. Crispin had seen a ghost – he was disturbed and needed to talk.’

  ‘And I was just disturbed . . . about Jennifer. I shouldn’t have said what I said.’

  ‘The stressed need a scapegoat, tethered to a post – and there I was.’

  Peter was still angry.

  ‘You’re good friends, are you – you and Jennifer?’ said Tamsin, hurriedly. She wanted away from the scapegoat narrative. Peter had clearly slept on his rage but not exorcized it.

  ‘We’re close, yes. Well, we’ve grown close. I can’t begin to say what her death would mean to me – I mean, how it would affect me.’

  ‘Her death?’ said Tamsin. ‘Let’s not be hasty here.’

  And now for the ammunition casually handed to them in conversation with Terence. What goes round, comes round . . .

  ‘And poor old Terence sobbing in the chapel,’ said the abbot.

  ‘Er?’ Penny was thrown.

  ‘Must have been disturbing. Why were you there with him?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t with him – I was with Jamie.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Peter feigned surprise.

  ‘Yes, I think we both felt we needed some quiet away from the others – and went to the chapel to sit for a while.’

  ‘How very holy.’

  She wasn’t the sort, surely?

  ‘Clearly Geoff wasn’t happy with the head about being – well, moved sideways. Though let’s be honest – it was effectively demotion. Jamie had seen straight through Geoff.’

  ‘I’m sure he wasn’t happy,’ said Tamsin. ‘There’s not much to celebrate in demotion.’

  ‘So we needed to consider how best to handle that.’

  ‘The two of you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you have some ideas?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘How best to handle that?’

  ‘Oh, just pastoral support, really.’

  Not the strong hand of either Penny or Jamie, Peter imagined. And so he didn’t believe the story.

  ‘You and the head were a bit of a team, were you?’ he asked.

  ‘I suppose we were, yes. And it’s a very happy memory, our time there together in the chapel – just Jamie and I, sitting alongside each other, another year over. It’s a significant piece of work a school year, a journey you travel side by side. And we just sat and gazed at those awful stained-glass windows, full of bearded saints with haloes!’

  ‘The saints don’t do it for you?’ said Tamsin.

  ‘Do they do it for you?’

  ‘I don’t sit in churches.’

  ‘No offence, Abbot, but they’re not modelling anything very interesting for my girls. I was saying this to Jamie, actually. Images of strong women would be more helpful. People like you, for instance.’ Tamsin took the compliment.

  ‘Any other women come to mind?’ asked Peter, always interested in the heroes people chose for themselves.

  ‘Lady
Macbeth – again, for her strength of character.’

  ‘Not a familiar figure in church windows.’

  ‘And perhaps that’s a shame,’ said Penny, carelessly. ‘The Reverend Patrick Brontë could tell us a story – he sent his daughters to the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge. Two died of tuberculosis after returning home. Emily survived to write Wuthering Heights and Charlotte, Jane Eyre, her most famous – if not her best – book.’

  ‘Their English department were clearly doing something right – even if the medical team . . .’

  ‘And I’ve ensured the English department performs with similar distinction here at Stormhaven,’ said Penny, with pride. ‘And part of that is promoting female writers and characters as independent voices.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘But in chapel, all we have is the Virgin Mary bowing her head and whimpering, “Let it be done according to thy will.”’

  Tamsin could see her point. That wasn’t a line she was in danger of using.

  ‘I do believe I can change things here,’ said Penny, with Peter noting the saviour complex on display. ‘But I’m sure we’re all tired right now, saying unfortunate things – it’s been a long and demanding term.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Peter. ‘But the work you do is remarkable. I can’t remember when I last did a day’s work.’

  ‘Then you’re clearly not a teacher!’

  ‘I wouldn’t survive five minutes. So you didn’t argue?’

  ‘Argue? With whom?’

  ‘In the chapel.’

  ‘Argue with whom in the chapel?’

  She was suddenly flustered.

  ‘With the head.’ Penny’s face coloured red. Terence must have heard everything. ‘It was just a suggestion from someone . . . they said they heard raised voices – particularly yours.’ Penny dismissed the claim with her eyebrows and a sorry shake of the head. ‘But a mistaken perception,’ continued Peter, ‘from the sounds of it. Perhaps it was someone else arguing . . . near the chapel?’

  Peter did not sound convinced.

  ‘If anything has happened to Jennifer,’ said Penny, ‘I’ll hold you responsible, Abbot.’