Dead Unlucky (23 page)

‘Follow me if you would Mr Grove, Timothy. I’m afraid that Interview Room Number 2 isn’t exactly cheerful, but maybe it’s just about right given what we have to talk about. It was good of you to come to the station and save me the drive to your house.’

‘That’s a pleasure, Chief Inspector. Anything we can do to help,’ replied Timothy Grove’s father graciously.

That wasn’t quite true.
We really don’t want the neighbours peeking out from behind their net curtains and wondering why the police are coming to my house
, would have been more honest. But the father and son had certainly been more accommodating since the first unhappy meeting between the three of them, and Hart was pleased they had undertaken the journey instead of him. The only thing that irked him as they sat down on either side of a table that marked them as opponents, whatever their newly-established treaty might indicate, was that Redpath had not yet arrived back from his lunch.

‘Timothy, what would you say was the relationship between Sebastian and Ms Rand?’ asked Hart, the scenes on the DVDs playing in his mind.

The bluntness of the question caught the lad off guard and it took him a moment to think. Hart held up his hand to stop the boy’s father from nudging him along; there was no hurry, silence was an important component of every interview.

‘They got on really well,’ came the reply eventually.

‘I need more than that, Timothy. We’re talking about human relationships here. They’re complicated, can’t just be described in a short sentence. Let me help you.’ Hart paused, another exploitation of the power of silence. ‘Were they having an affair?’

The boy waited for a moment and then nodded.

‘Tell me about it. Take your time.’

‘They’d been at it for about a year. They weren’t in love or anything like that, it was just a bit of fun, that was all.’

‘A bit of fun? An affair between a teacher and her student! Just a bit of fun!’ Hart’s exclamation of surprise was a flimsy act, he had certainly encountered far more deviant expressions of human nature than that during his career.

‘They were both like that. Just liked a bit of a lark, that’s what life was about.’

‘And it all ended with Sebastian’s death?’

‘A few months before then.’

‘How many months? About the time of Nicola’s death? Or the bank-holiday camp, perhaps?’

‘That’s about it. They were still mates after that, but things were a bit edgy. They started to row a bit.’

Henry Grove interrupted the flow. ‘Talking about Nicola, Chief Inspector, do we know what happened to her yet? I mean, footage of the church was all over the news yesterday evening.’

‘Mr Grove, I have no more idea than you. It will take some time before those results come through.’

Hart moved on quickly, with the DVDs of the summer camp still playing in his mind. ‘Timothy, I know that Sebastian supplied drugs to Ms Rand. I think he was probably the source for other people too, including you. How did things get to that stage?’

This time the wait was too long, and Hart allowed the father to gee his son up. ‘Timmy, we talked about this last night and we agreed that you would just answer any questions simply and truthfully. So get on with it.’

The boy took a breath and dived in. ‘Seb supplied to the school. Anything you wanted, he could get it. Mostly grass, uppers, coke. And Es, of course. He could do you heroin too, not that many people are keen.’

‘He sold the stuff at school?’ asked Hart.

Timothy shook his head. ‘Never on the school grounds. He was always too careful.’

‘And he supplied to the teachers as well?’

‘Not all of them, of course. I can’t imagine old Mrs Morris puffing on a spliff.’ Hart allowed himself to smile with the boy at the thought. ‘I only know about Sophie, you know, Ms Rand, Simon and Paul. But Paul just smokes weed. I think he’s a bit scared of it all really. You know, the whole scene’s a bit too heavy for him.’

‘How did you all get to meet each other?’

‘Seb and me just saw them at The Temple one night and we got talking. It’s no big deal, they’re not much older than us.’

‘So where did Sebastian get his goods from?’

‘No one knows for sure. He wouldn’t tell anyone, not even me.’

‘But if you had to guess?’

‘You’ll keep this quiet?’

‘As a mouse.’

It was time for another deep breath before he plunged in again. ‘Danny Moses. But if you went to Danny direct and dropped a hint that you needed some coke, or even something dead harmless like just one tab of E, he’d look at you like you were mad. Said he didn’t do dirty stuff like that. They were all careful, see; I don’t think even Seb knew where Danny got the gear from. You could only buy from Seb. And Seb kept his mouth shut so you couldn’t go along the chain, not even as far as Danny.’

‘How did Sebastian get on with Nicola Brown.’

There was no hesitation this time. ‘He hated her. Couldn’t stand her. Always talking about her being a cow or a bitch or something like that.’

‘What did she think of him?’

‘She didn’t. And that’s what really got under his skin. He couldn’t get any reaction from her at all. When she was new at the school, at the beginning of Year 10, Seb put it about that he would screw her. Not because he fancied her or anything, but just because he thought he could pull any girl in the school and it would be a bit of fun proving it. Then he was going to ditch her. It was all just for a laugh, just to use her and throw her away and let everyone know he’d done it. When she brushed him off, like she was looking down on him, he started to get at her. You know, saying she was poor or skinny or ugly or frigid, or doing stupid things like chucking peas at her in the refectory.’

Hart butted in. ‘Did you join in with these stupid things, Timothy?’

‘I admit I did some stuff. But we all did. Everyone who knew Seb.’ He looked at Hart through eyes that had filled with water and smeared a tear across his cheek with the back of his hand. ‘But I didn’t know she would kill herself. I wouldn’t have joined in if I’d known that. There’s no way I could have known.’

‘You were telling me how Nicola reacted to all this bullying.’

‘Well, everything Seb did, she just ignored him, so he had to do more, up the ante. It was like an obsession with him, especially because everybody knew what was going on, how he was baiting her but she didn’t care. If she had hated him that would have been okay. But ignoring him – you just didn’t do that with Seb.’

‘How did he react to Nicola’s death?’

Timothy Grove shuffled in his seat; this was the question he had dreaded most.

His father helped him along. ‘Come on now, Timmy, get it over with. After all, it’s not you who said it.’

‘It’s not like he stood up in assembly or anything and broadcast it to the whole school. He only meant it as a joke.’

‘Come on then, Timothy. Let’s hear Sebastian’s joke,’ prodded Hart.

‘He just said he always knew she was a weirdo. And now she goes and proves it by hanging around in the toilets.’

‘Thank you both for your time,’ said Hart. ‘I’ll call you again if I need you.’

Even though it was packed to accommodate the shift change, the staff canteen at Lockingham Central Police Station was as quiet as a feather tumbling through a cloud. Knives, forks and spoons had been rested softly on their plates or were suspended in the air, taking a break from their return journeys between meal and mouth. Even the dinner ladies had stopped their ladling and their dolloping and the queue had stopped its snaking.

The reason for the hush, the calm, was visible on the television set which hung in the corner over the door. ‘Turn it up,’ someone shouted, as the ten o’clock news panned onto the face of Chief Superintendent Claude Rodgers.

‘I have called this press conference because I am aware that there has been considerable public interest regarding the death of Nicola Brown.’ The more experienced hacks knew there was big news coming – if this was going to be an anticlimax, then a minion would have been despatched to announce the lack of a revelation, not a law enforcement officer of some eminence. ‘Following the exhumation of Nicola’s body, enquiries into her death are to be re-opened.’

The cameras popped a barrage of flashes and a deluge of questions rushed the Chief’s way; it was like the whole world was clamouring to get a word in. Most of the queries he didn’t answer directly, and some he wasn’t going anywhere near, particularly the recurring enquiry about whether the girl’s death was linked to the murder of the schoolboy in the alley.

Hart was sitting at a table alone, loading some beans onto his fork and thinking that the Chief was doing a pretty good job. Whenever the press referred to Nicola’s ‘murder’, Rodgers always reminded them that a ‘suspicious death’ might prove to be nothing of the sort, it could even still be shown to be a suicide. Hart would have done the same, whatever the nature of his thoughts and his conversation with Ron and Daisy Brown about the matter. Not that it made much difference. The journalists would translate on behalf of the public and it would be murder they would all be reading about in the papers tomorrow morning.

The press conference ended with the Chief fielding a comment from the senior crime reporter of one of the nation’s most respected newspapers.

Chief Superintendent Rodgers, you are the man primarily responsible for convincing the coroner to order the exhumation of Nicola Brown’s body, despite the obvious risks to your reputation. If you had been wrong, then the outcry would have been considerable. How do you feel now that your courageous decision has been vindicated?

Rodgers thought for a moment, meditating philosophically within a silence that obediently awaited his reply. Then, at last, he was ready.

‘Sometimes a police officer must follow his gut feeling. Must simply do what he believes to be right. Must embark upon the moral course of action, rather than the merely expedient one.’ And then he broke the rule that is hammered into every amateur before they appear on TV: he jutted his head forward a foot and looked directly into the television camera. His stern countenance and white moustache marched straight into the station canteen. ‘And a worthy man will say, to blazes with the consequences!’

A throbbing commotion erupted as the officers in the canteen cheered and banged their cutlery on the tables. Part of the din was derision, part admiration, and some just a manifestation of the feeling that it was their own man up there on the telly and so they were going to root for him no matter what.

Asha Kanjaria gently sat herself down next to Hart.

‘That must hurt a bit, Sir.’

‘I’d be lying if I said it didn’t, but perhaps it’s just my own vanity taking a knock.’

‘That’s a bit hard on yourself. But what makes him behave like that? Why does he weasel the credit for something that everyone in here should know had nothing to do with him?’

‘Should you be talking about a chief superintendent
weaselling
credit?’

‘Perhaps not, Sir.’

Hart smiled. ‘The top brass aren’t especially bad folks, but most of their moral fibre weaves itself into knots as they climb nearer the summit. They start to make decisions which produce the smallest waves on the great sea of their careers, not necessarily the right ones, and they say things which show them in the best light, even if it means bending the truth a little. The bottom line is, they live their lives terrified of what their own bosses think of them. The really top notch ones are too strong to fret about the opinions of the high and mighty, and it would be good to think you won’t if you ever get near the top of the ladder yourself.’

‘I’ll do my best, Sir,’ she replied, with a young person’s confidence in her destiny.

Hart’s gammon, egg, beans and chips had lost their appeal somehow. But it would have been puerile to have walked out and left them, so he soldiered on and scooped up another forkful of beans.

Hart’s first job the next morning was to ponder Redpath’s news that Simon Chandler wore size eleven shoes, the same size as the footprints found in the alley where Sebastian Emmer had been killed. It seemed his sergeant had at least been doing a bit of work during yesterday’s extended lunch hour and not just loafing around, so Hart forgave him his indiscretion of getting back late.

Hart’s foremost task, however, was to plan his swoop on Highdean School. Everybody in the country who didn’t live in a cave knew about the ‘suspicious death’ the Chief had talked about, and Hart wanted to be at that school before anybody with a nasty secret to hide got there to brush away any tracks in the sand. He would just have to nip upstairs first and let the Chief know he was dragging a fair number of the station’s personnel down south for a few hours.

As he reached the top of the stairs, Rodgers’ office door opened and he emerged with a tall man dressed in a policeman’s uniform, the epaulettes wearing the rank of an assistant chief constable. Hart felt he should have recognised him, after all there were only three ACCs in the force, but he had no time to waste so he just butted in.

‘Sir, just letting you know I’m off to Highdean School and taking a few of the crew with me, so the station may be a bit light for a while.’

‘Just a moment, Chief Inspector. I’d like you to meet our guest.’

Hart wondered whether his boss expected him to add to the formality he had induced into their encounter by saluting and snapping his heels together.

‘This is Commander Sturgess of the Metropolitan Police. You may remember he telephoned me shortly after you began your investigation.’

‘I’ve heard a great deal about you, Chief Inspector.’ Then a joke, which was delivered with the cold humour of a teasing executioner. ‘Some of it good, of course.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Sir,’ lied Hart.

‘Chief Inspector,’ started Rodgers, maintaining the primness of tone appropriate to such an important visitor, ‘Commander Sturgess is not merely paying us a social call; he and I have been discussing the Nicola Brown case.’

‘Have you, Sir. Have you, really.’

‘We agree you’ve done some good work here. Some of it very good work, in fact.’

‘Very kind of you to say so, Sir. Very kind indeed.’

‘Of course, you’ll need to hand over your notes to the Commander and his team. You’ll also need to make yourself available for an interview with the officers investigating the case.’

‘I’m investigating the case, Sir.’ Hart was going to put up a fight before he was tossed onto the scrapheap. ‘In fact, you may recall that I’m actually leading the investigation.’

‘Chief Inspector, the girl’s death occurred within the Commander’s area. His officers will take over the investigation, as per normal procedure.’

‘But I’ve got together all of the facts about the case, interviewed people, put out feelers, done the groundwork. Most of all, I’ve built relationships.’

‘And that’s why you’ll need to speak to the team who are taking over the investigation,’ informed Rodgers with what he felt was admirable patience. ‘To ensure they can pick up where you leave off.’

Hart looked up at Sturgess and felt like a fish thrashing around on the end of his line. The thin, barely discernible, smile on the fisherman’s lips deliberately let him know he was cherishing every moment of the creature’s distress, but was anticipating the impending death throes with even greater relish.

‘But what if there’s a connection between the two murders? Doesn’t it make sense to have the same team investigate them both?’

The fisherman supplied the necessary words of wisdom. ‘Not if the liaison between yourself and my officers is as professional as it should be. I hope we can be assured of your cooperation and competence in that respect.’

‘It must have hurt you so much to have us out-of-towners turn up a murder when you lot passed it off as suicide. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Salvaging a bit of pride. And how does the playground bully do that after he’s been made to look a dipstick? He finds the smallest kid in the yard and punches him on the nose, just to show the rest of the world he can.’

‘Chief Inspector! I will not have a very senior police officer spoken to like that in my station. I hope that is clearly understood. Now you had better get yourself off to your office and carry out the orders you have been given. Then you will report back to me. It appears we have certain matters to discuss regarding your conduct.’

The spectacle of the death throes looked even sweeter than the Commander could have hoped.

Hart stood for a moment, wondering whether he might as well resign. Blow the lot of them. If he wasn’t going to be allowed to finish investigating murder cases he had started and then got results on against all the odds, there was no point in being in the force, no satisfaction in being a copper. He might as well go and visit his kids on the other side of the world. He could afford it. Just. The only thing that saved him was the slimy look on Sturgess’s face telling him his triumph would be absolute if Hart chucked in his job. That, and an even bigger rumpus which was erupting downstairs.

‘I don’t care where he is. And I don’t care who he’s got with him,’ gusted a familiar voice up the staircase. ‘I pay my taxes, I do. I pay my taxes and if I want to see the top man in the police then I will damn well see him. Pardon my language.’

‘Who the hell’s that?’ demanded Rodgers to nobody in particular. He sighed at the prospect of even more embarrassing tidings travelling down the A1 when his guest returned to London.

‘No idea,’ said Hart. Lying to his boss was becoming a habit.

Another blast from downstairs. ‘No I won’t wait until he’s finished. I know who he’s seeing and I don’t mind giving that idiot an earful either. I’ll find his office myself. There can’t be many doors up there labelled Chief Superintendent Rodgers.’

Footsteps could be heard bounding up the stairs, taking two at a time. The man had squeezed in through the security door in the station lobby, knocking the manila folders out of the arms of a surprised constable as he was passing the other way. Four or five officers bounced up the stairs in futile pursuit. Their prey stood puffing at the end of the corridor, somehow surprised to encounter the policeman he had been seeking.

‘Hello, Ron,’ said Hart as he walked towards him, then wrapped his arm around his shoulder and led him towards his senior colleagues. ‘I believe I heard that you were looking for Chief Superintendent Rodgers. And this is Commander Sturgess. Gentlemen, meet Nicola’s father.’

‘I’ve met this one already,’ said Ron Brown as he nodded at Sturgess, firing a look of disdain from black boots up to embroidered cap, the sort of glare that the policeman was used to dispensing, not receiving. ‘He’s just been round my house asking loads of questions. Questions I answered months ago and again to Chief Inspector Hart here, though I’m not complaining about that.’

Hart dismissed the pursuing constables, although one of them only retreated as far as the end of the corridor, brooding like a guard dog itching to receive its master’s order to attack.

Ron Brown stood smaller than the three policemen, with his jaw tight, his fists clenched by his sides, and his smooth head moist with sweat. His chest heaved, breathless and angry.

‘So he comes round my house he does,’ continued the irate husband and broken-hearted father, ‘telling me and my wife he’s taken over the investigation from the Chief Inspector. Telling us in so many words Chief Inspector Hart’s been shoved off the case. For normal procedural reasons he says. You’re the gaffer here,’ he persisted unrelentingly, now jabbing his finger at Rodgers, ‘you tell him he’s got the procedure wrong. You tell him Chief Inspector Hart is in charge of looking into my daughter’s murder.’

Rodgers shuffled from one foot to the other. ‘Your daughter’s death may have been caused by something other than murder, Mr Brown. That’s far from proven at this stage,’ he countered weakly.

‘Then tell this conceited nincompoop he’s not looking into my daughter’s death which may have been caused by something other than murder,’ replied Ron Brown.

‘I really am sorry but I cannot do that.’ Rodgers was truly beginning to look sorry. ‘Your daughter died in an area under Commander Sturgess’s jurisdiction. There is nothing I can do about the matter.’

‘The papers might like to know that. They would love to have a chat with me, they would, they’ve been trying all morning. I think they’d be really interested to know that the request of me and my wife to have Chief Inspector Hart carry on looking into our Nikki’s murder has been refused. And don’t think I don’t know why. It’s just so the people who told us it was suicide can have another crack at getting it right.’

‘Ron, would you mind nipping downstairs for ten minutes, and I’ll be with you?’ said Hart. ‘I’d like to have a word with the Chief Superintendent.’

For a second Ron Brown’s eyes bore into Hart’s.

‘Ron, if I say I’ll be down, then I’ll be down.’

‘Sorry, Chief Inspector Hart. I didn’t mean that.’

‘It’s all right Ron, I know you didn’t.’

Hart called down the corridor to the guard dog. ‘Constable, take Mr Brown downstairs and find him somewhere comfy to sit. And get him a cup of tea. A proper one in a proper mug. And made by a proper person, not a machine.’

‘We’d better go into my office and out of the corridor,’ said a ruffled Rodgers. ‘Harry, you warned me about Ron Brown’s strength of character but I don’t think any of us could have been prepared for that. Barging into the station and giving us all a dressing down, and right outside my own office to boot. I’m sorry I doubted you, Harry.’

‘You wouldn’t think it by looking at him would you, Sir. You can see the trouble I had when I went round to his house. Still, no harm done. Not if we play our cards right anyway.’

After they were seated in the Chief’s office, Hart suggested which of the cards in their hand had the best chance of winning the trick. He wasn’t interested in diplomacy or compromise.

‘I wouldn’t want the parents of a murdered schoolgirl going on the telly and rubbishing the force I work for, Commander Sturgess, I really wouldn’t.’ A tactical pause which he used to penetrate deep into the fisherman’s eyes. ‘Especially if I was very high up in that force. And particularly when the massive blunder it made is on record and no amount of damage limitation can erase it.’

‘What would you suggest?’ asked Sturgess, having no choice but to knock back his pride.

‘How about the Met taking charge of the investigation?’

‘But that’s just what we proposed all along. That’s the correct procedure. How will that keep this man away from the press?’ asked Sturgess.

‘And you keep the Lockingham force on to conduct the actual enquiry, with me remaining as the real senior investigating officer, whatever the bits of paper might say. I’ll report to Chief Superintendent Rodgers as always, and he can keep you informed as to progress. So effectively there’s no change at all, but your force is seen to be in charge of the show and we are just your unworthy little helpers. Think of it as an offering to placate the unyielding God of Procedure.’

‘And you can guarantee that this man will not go running off to the papers or television?’

‘I believe I can persuade him not to do that.’ And then Hart looked through the eyes of the Commander into his calculating mind. ‘But we are making a gentleman’s agreement with the father of a murdered girl. My conscience wouldn’t permit me to renege on such a contract.’ Another tactical pause. ‘As I’m sure yours wouldn’t either.’

‘No. No, of course not.’ Miraculously, the fish had swum away.

‘Well, I had better be off,’ announced Hart brightly as he stood up. ‘I’ll have a word with Ron Brown on the way out and then I’m going down to Highdean School. As I was saying earlier, I’ll be taking a few of the crew with me, so the station may be a bit light for a while.’