An Advancement of Learning (25 page)

"A year's a long time to wait,' agreed Dalziel.

"But she's not there. Perhaps he sees her making off. He follows her to Fallowfield's cottage. Waits till she comes out and is making her way back - '

' - then jumps on her and kills her. Why?"

"If I knew that we'd have him in here with us,' said Pascoe.

"All right. Talk's over,' said Dalziel leaping up energetically. They're not going to let us stay here for ever, you know. Let's do some work."

The morning went by quickly. Checks on the files and papers locked up in the study revealed no signs of interference. (Why should they be interested in interfering anyway? Pascoe asked himself. Unless - ) But the bottle of Glen Grant in the filing cabinet had a couple of prints which matched those on the plastic cup Dalziel had taken from Cockshut.

The superintendent seemed uninterested now. ' wants Cockshut?' he asked. ' would just make him feel important.' An examination of the room in which Fallowfield had been found was even less productive. The key to the locked lab door was found in his pocket. The heroin had almost certainly been self-administered. Only the absence of a note bothered Dalziel.

"I've a feeling he was the kind of man who would like to have explained himself in the end,' he said.

One of the college gardeners dimly recollected having seen Fallowfield enter the science block about lunch time. This fitted in quite well with the medical report. While the two policemen had been so eagerly enquiring after him, he had been sitting alone in a dingy little storeroom, dying. It was illogical, but somehow the thought made Pascoe feel guilty.

"Perhaps he did do the damage in his cottage himself,' he suggested again. ' Prospero, burning his books."

"What did we do him for?' asked Dalziel, interested.

The memory of those books, recalled another chain of thought which his mind had set aside, incomplete, till they could get hold of Fallowfield.

Now Fallowfield was beyond any contact the police could hope for, whatever he himself may have believed. But the links of information might still be obtained elsewhere. He thought a while, then went in search of Sandra Firth.

She was not in her room. As it was shortly after twelve, he started to make his way towards the bar where it seemed likely she might be found.

But as he came out into the bright and by now very hot sunlight he saw her standing beneath the beech trees which grew in the patch of ground which lay within the broad sweeping U-bend of the drive. She was talking with considerable animation to someone - in fact, they both seemed to be talking at the same time - and Pascoe felt a tremor of excitement as he looked at the other person. It was Miss. Disney, obviously returning from morning service. A prayer-book (he guessed) was clutched in one black-gloved hand while the other held a large crocodile-skin handbag.

But the article of attire which had caught Pascoe's eye was her hat. It was absurd. On another woman it might have been forgiven as frivolous.

But on Disney - I It was light blue and dark orange with an artificial red geranium pinned rakishly on one side. And in outline it had the shape of a man's porkpie.

Pascoe approached.

"Now that evil man is gone,' Disney was saying, ' had hoped that some of you, that you above all, Sandra, might have been at the service this morning. The vicar cannot understand; it's not my fault I have told him; nonetheless in a small village, such things are noticed.

"Please, Miss. Disney,' said Sandra desperately. ' just don't want to talk about it. Not now."

She turned away, but Miss. Disney grabbed her arm at the expense of her handbag.

"For your own good, Sandra ... "

"Oh, for God's sake!" "You've dropped your handbag, Miss. Disney,' said Pascoe, picking it up.

He flicked the catch with his thumb as he did so and the bag fell open revealing a surprisingly feminine complexity of articles. But one was less common there than the rest. A thick stick of yellow chalk.

"The good teacher is never without,' said Pascoe, removing it.

"How dare you!' said Disney, beginning to swell. She looked tremendously fearsome, but taking his courage in both hands Pascoe leaned close to her and gently said three words. Her face froze, like a hen with the gapes. Sandra gasped in amazement at hearing such words uttered in such company.

But Disney had said nothing; there was no outburst, no protest, and Pascoe, much relieved, knew he had been right.

"On Mr. Fallowfield's wall,' he said. ''s what you wrote, wasn't it?

After you tore up the books."

She took a deep breath and steadied herself.

"Not in front of the child,' she said. ' wouldn't understand." "Wait,' said Pascoe to ' child' who while she may not have understood was obviously agog for instruction.

He led Disney gently some yards away.

"Now,' he said. ' truth."

"I am not in the habit of lying,' she said scornfully. ' I tell you may not redound to my credit, not all of it; but it shall be the truth, be certain of that."

He almost admired her then.

Almost.

There was a ramshackle seat round the bole of one of the trees and they seated themselves, not without some trepidation on Pascoe's part.

"It does not become a woman of my beliefs to hate a fellow being,' she began, ' we are exhorted in the Bible to hate evil and the man Fallowfield was evil."

She nodded emphatically as though defying contradiction.

"How was he evil, Miss. Disney?"

"In the worst possible way. He corrupted the young. Since he came here, I have noticed a steady decline of interest in the Christian societies I run, a growing scepticism and cynicism in seminar discussions I have with students."

"But surely that's symptomatic of the age?' said Pascoe.

"If it is, it is people like Fallowfield who are responsible for it.

Girls who would have looked to me as a friend and counsellor have turned away; even among the staff, among my own colleagues, he has mocked me unreproved. And when he debauched that poor girl, Anita Sewell, and finally brought about her death ... "

"We have positive evidence that he never debauched her,' said Pascoe mildly, ' there's no evidence that he had anything to do with her death. Is there?"

"She was there! She was there that night! I saw them! That was his doing. Isn't that evidence?"

"You mean last Wednesday night out in the dunes? You saw them dancing without their clothes?"

Disney covered up her eyes and groaned. Pascoe was not in the least tempted to admire her now and pressed on relentlessly.

"What did you do when you saw them, Miss. Disney? Did you shout, cry out?

Or did you just stand and watch till you were seen?" "I feel faint,' she said suddenly. ' want to go to my room."

"Soon. Tell me what happened."

"They all ran away. At least I did that. I stopped it before ... I couldn't sleep that night. I couldn't get the sight out of my mind."

"You went there deliberately? You knew what was going on?"

"Yes. I suspected. I had overheard some young men talking."

"And yesterday, did you go to Mr. Fallowfield's cottage deliberately?"

"Yes. It had all been too much. Miss. Girling, Anita, the dancing. All that man's fault, all ... so I went to confront him, to challenge him.

He wasn't there, but the door opened when I pushed it. I went in. The place was

in a mess, things all over the floor. At first I went next door to call for help, but there was no one in. Everybody was on the beach. I went back inside and started gathering things up. Then I saw what kind of books he had. Evil ideas. Evil ideas. Worse than the flesh. I began to tear them. I tore and tore and tore. And then I wrote on the walls, just what was up there already. The words, the drawings, applied to him, didn't seem wrong, you understand? It was as if some force had come out of me already and begun the damage. Just like when I heard he was dead last night, I knew that I had helped somehow. And I am glad. It is a good thing, a good thing. There may be some hope for all our salvations now."

Pascoe did not speak but instinctively stood up, disliking their proximity. She looked up at him coldly.

"I fear you too are one of the new generation, young man. If you wish me to make a written statement, I shall be in my room. I have done nothing I am not proud of."

She strode energetically away between the trees, across the grass.

"What was all that about?' asked Sandra, fully recovered from her emotional scene, and very interested.

"Mainly about Mr. Fallowfield. Look, Sandra, he's dead now. He can't be harmed, except by people like Miss. Disney who'll be sniping at his memory for ever. What do you know about him? She, Disney, says he was an evil influence. Was he? Or any kind of influence?" She shook her head thoughtfully.

"I don't know much. This is just my first year, you see. When I first came, I was all dewy-eyed, innocent. A habitual church-goer, you know, the social thing. That's how I got in good with Disney to start with.

Then I started getting involved a bit with Franny and his lot."

She glanced at Pascoe under lowered eyelids.

"This is confidential, is it? I wouldn't like ... "

"Absolutely,' said Pascoe. A policeman's fingers are always crossed, he thought.

"Well, they were - are - fun. Sometimes a bit weird. And sometimes ... well, we did the usual thing, you know. Drank a bit, smoked a bit of pot; there was one night when we got hold of some acid. It seemed fantastic to me. And I had this thing about Franny. Still have, I suppose."

She spoke so lowly, Pascoe had to strain to hear her. But he did not interrupt.

"You asked about Mr. Fallowfield. Well, I got the impression that he had once been pretty close to the group in some way, I don't know. A kind of Socratic figure, I suppose, showing the light. But he wasn't any longer.

And all this business about him and Anita was somehow mixed up with this, I don't know how. That was one of the sacred mysteries of the group, reserved for members of the inner sanctum only."

She laughed as she said this, but with a slight trace of bitterness.

"You never made the inner sanctum?"

The? No. Newly-come, that was me. Good for the preliminary lay, but not yet ready for the full initiation. And Franny'll be gone next year ... hell, this place will be dead without him!"

She looked around desperately. What's the man's secret? asked Pascoe enviously. Disney should think herself lucky he didn't fancy her!

He began sorting out some words of kind reassurance to offer Sandra, but she prevented them by glancing at her watch.

"Hell. Nearly lunch time. They're dead traditional here. Roast and two veg. whatever the weather. Phew!"

She wiped her brow with the back of her hand.

"Remember. Confidential, eh? See you." "See you,' said Pascoe. That's how I lose all my witnesses, he thought.

I start being kind and they just bugger off.

After a working lunch with Dalziel (Sandra had been right - roast beef, carrots and peas) during which he gave the superintendent an account of his talks with Disney and the girl, Pascoe finally managed to track down the senior administrative officer, a long, lugubrious individual called Spinx, whose office contained all the expense records for the college.

Grumbling constantly about the interruption to his day of rest and assuring Pascoe that there wasn't a hope of such a record being kept for such a time, he unlocked a large store cupboard and began to dig around among a mound of dusty files and folders. Pascoe left him to it.

Fifteen minutes later there was a knock at the study door and Spinx, now very dusty, stood there looking very disappointed.

"Sorry,' he said.

"That's all right,' began Pascoe.

"I was wrong. Here you are. Is that what you wanted?" "Yes. Why yes,' said Pascoe taking the dog-eared, stained sheet of paper from his hand and looking at it. ' you very much."

"Pleasure. That all? Right."

Pascoe was reading the sheet before the man had closed the door behind him.

A car allowance had been paid based on the mileage between the college and Chester. He glanced at the copy of Fallowfield's curriculum vitae which along with those of the rest of the staff he had obtained a couple of days before. Fallowfield had been the senior biology master at Coltsfoot College near Chester which Pascoe knew as one of the modern, reputedly progressive, public schools. The route to Chester would pass, or could be made to pass, conveniently close to south Manchester, to the airport. Somehow Alison Girling's car had got there, had left the college that foggy night in December and made its way slowly, crawlingly, across the Pennines, while Miss. Girling herself almost certainly lay in a thin cocoon of earth in the hole in the college garden.

But if Fallowfield were at the wheel, then how did he get his own car to Chester? He couldn't just have left it parked at the college. Even in the holidays there would be a sufficient number of staff, academic, administrative and maintenance, on the premises to notice it. Perhaps someone had. He hadn't asked. But no; it would have been too wild a risk to take anyway.

And above all, why should Fallowfield have wanted to kill this woman he had just met for the first time? As far as they knew.

It's all wrong, thought Pascoe gloomily, I'm like Dalziel. It would be pleasant for once to find everything nice and neat. Two murders, one killer, who commits suicide. Bingo! then we could get back to reality and start catching some thieves.

He took the expense sheet out to show Dalziel who had abandoned the shade of the study and taken a couple of chairs and a small folding table out on to the lawn where he sat with deliberate irony about four feet from the hole, now boarded over, in which Miss. Girling had been found.

"Let the buggers see we're still here,' he had said. ' reckon there's some here as are dying to see the back of us."

Now he looked at the expense sheet, shading his eyes from the sun.

That doesn't help,' he said as if it was Pascoe's own personal fault.

"No, sir."

"He stopped three nights?"