Deadly Virtues (20 page)

It was easy to find his cottage, even for strangers. You followed the signs for the big house, and Alfred Best lived in the gate lodge. He’d turned joiner when he left the army at forty, took a job maintaining the woodwork at Byrfield House. Peregrine, Lord Byrfield was often to be seen holding his ladder steady and peering anxiously up at his beetle-challenged rafters.

Hazel had grown up in the gatehouse. It had been an idyllic childhood, all the freedom of the Byrfield estate without the appalling prospect of inheriting it. When she’d left home, she’d thought it would always be here, always the same. But within twelve months her mother had died. Alfred had shouldered the loss as he shouldered every tribulation he met: manfully, with dignity, keeping his tears for when no one was around. Hazel had never seen him cry, but she knew it would be stupid, insulting even, to think that he didn’t. That his grief had been any less than hers.

Now there were just the two of them. She saw him every six weeks or so. As soon as he heard her car on the gravel he knew there was a problem. He wasn’t expecting her for another fortnight.

He was wearing the big canvas apron with all the pockets, rulers, pencils, and chisels distributed around them apparently at random, when he came out of the side gate. He’d been in the workshop. “Hazel? Is everything all right?”

She cast him a wan smile as she climbed out of the car. “Not exactly, Dad.” Then all her good intentions went by the board, and she flung herself into his strong arms and wept down the front of his apron.

He said nothing more until he’d got her settled in the big armchair in the parlor, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea. Fred Best made possibly the worst tea in the civilized world—spoons didn’t just stand up in it, they went toe-to-toe and fought. Hazel had never enjoyed a cup of bad tea more.

“All right,” he said finally, the words rumbling up from the depths of his chest like lava, “what’s happened?”

So she told him. All of it. All the things she thought she’d done right. All the things she was pretty sure she’d done wrong. All the likely consequences, and how quickly they’d kicked in.

Best listened in silence. It’s something soldiers are good at. But he took it all in—every detail, every inflection of his daughter’s voice, every expression that flickered across her face. By the time she’d finished he knew everything she did, and possibly understood more.

“So then you got in the car and drove a hundred and forty miles, and I’m supposed to make it all better?” His eyes were a clear bright blue, filled with compassion, sparkling with anger, and laced with just a little bit of humor because this was how they had always faced the world—together, and without self-pity.

“Making me
feel
better will do,” said Hazel, smiling at him through the steam off her tea.

“You don’t need me to tell you that what you did was right.”

“No?” It was more than half a question. “I thought it was right when I did it. I think, when I’m looking back in two years’ time, I’ll think it was right again. Today, I just don’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” said Fred Best.

“Yes, I do,” admitted Hazel. “I just … I didn’t expect it to be so
hard.
I thought people would at least
try
to be professional. I know they’ve known Murchison a lot longer than they’ve known me. And maybe, in spite of everything, I’m wrong. But I thought they’d see that I had no choice. I
couldn’t
think what I did and say nothing. Not when someone had died. If I’ve got it wrong, the IPCC will say so. I’m willing to wait for the result of the inquiry—why can’t everyone else?”

“
Because
they’ve known this sergeant a lot longer than they’ve known you. They don’t want to believe he’s capable of letting them down like that. It’s much easier to believe that someone they’ve known for just a couple of months is being stupid, or even malicious.” He refilled the mugs from an enormous dark brown teapot. All his movements were slow and deliberate, and that was the way he thought, too. Slow, deliberate, and to fine tolerances. “What about this man Ash? Do you believe what he told you?”

“That the whole of Meadowvale has gone rogue? Of course I don’t.”

Best regarded her steadily. He wasn’t a big man. But even wearing an old apron and holding a mug bearing the legend
Carpenters have a vice—they do it on the bench,
he had a presence. All her life he’d been the rocky core at the center of Hazel’s existence. “Is that what he said?”

She made herself revisit the conversation, or that part of it before she lost her temper. “Not exactly. He thought there
was
a conspiracy—anything from two or three people up.”

“He thinks two or three people out of the whole Meadowvale staff are up to no good. And you’re pretty sure at least one is. Tell me again why you’re so angry with this new friend of yours.”

“He’s not really…” she began, then the logic of what Fred was saying caught up with her. She sighed. “You’re right, aren’t you? And so’s Ash. If Sergeant Murchison couldn’t have done everything that was done alone, then he had help. Whether he was acting alone, or there were a few of them involved, really isn’t the central point. I don’t know why I flew off the handle when he suggested it.”

“Because you’re feeling vulnerable,” said her father, “with every reason. You’ve found yourself in a position no one in their right mind would want to be in—you’re the new girl in school and you’ve caught the head prefect cheating. That’s bad enough, without thinking half the upper sixth is involved as well!”

Almost against her inclination, the image made her smile. “I expected a bit more support from the headmaster, too.”

“I suppose he has a vested interest in believing you’re mistaken. If there’s something rotten in his police station, what does it say about his leadership? One of two things: either he knew or he should have done.”

Despite everything that had gone before, Hazel was moved to defend him. “That’s a bit harsh! Johnny Fountain has worked wonders in Norbold. It’s not his fault if a couple of bad apples have got into the barrel.”

“No,” agreed Fred. “But it’s part of his job to lift the lid from time to time and have a good sniff.”

As always, talking with her father, coming up against his yeoman blend of insight and pragmatism, put things into perspective for Hazel. He grounded her. When he died, she’d be cut adrift from the greatest source of her strength. Like a sail flapping free: all noise and activity, no power or direction.

If she’d had no choice about the course she’d taken, there was nothing to agonize over. Whether she was proved right or wrong, and wherever the fault was deemed to lie, she’d done what was required of her, as a police officer and as a decent human being. If her colleagues couldn’t cope with that, it was their problem. Maybe they’d come around. Maybe they’d hold a grudge, like children. Hazel had been a teacher; she’d dealt with sulky children before. The main thing, she’d found, was not to buy into their illusion of being mistreated. All children, even sulky ones, respect fairness. Continuing to treat them fairly, and keeping a sense of humor, won over most of them in the end. Probably what worked for sulky children would also work for policemen.

Hazel felt a new sense of purpose, of weight lifting off her shoulders, of blood coursing through her veins. It had been worth the drive. It always was.

“Get cleaned up. I’m taking you out for dinner. And then,” she added reflectively, “I owe Gabriel Ash an apology.”

*   *   *

As soon as he thought Monday-morning assembly would be over, Nye Jackson paid a visit to Norbold Quays High School. The head of the English department was Mrs. Cardy; as she was on compassionate leave, Jackson asked for her deputy. He was directed to the staff room and told Mr. Burtonshaw would be along in ten minutes.

Before Mr. Burtonshaw arrived, though, someone had told the head teacher that a reporter was hanging around, and Miss Lim descended on the staff room like a small, exquisitely groomed typhoon.

All her life Elizabeth Lim had been mistaken for something soft and delicate. It’s true that she was small and had the composed and modest manner of many Asian women. But concealed among the cherry blossoms was a mind like a blade and a steely determination. It’s not easy for anyone to become the head teacher of a sizable English comprehensive school. For a girl from a family of Chinese immigrants it was a major achievement; but most people found their surprise diminishing as they got to know her. In repose she had the stillness of a fine porcelain figurine. But the Chinese didn’t just invent porcelain. They also invented fireworks.

Nye Jackson had been thrown out of more places than he could remember, sometimes verbally, sometimes bodily. He always went back, and he usually got what he’d gone for, and he looked on it as an occupational hazard, like parking tickets—an inconvenience rather than a humiliation. All the same, being thrown out of a school by someone who was smaller than he was
and
wearing a twinset and pearls wouldn’t be quickly forgotten.

“Mr. Jackson,” she began—she spoke perfect English, with not so much an accent as a slightly distinctive rhythm of speech—“I believe that if you have questions to ask in my school, the person to see is me.” On paper it looks a fairly mild opening gambit. But it wasn’t. There were ninja stars in every word.

“Sorry, Miss Lim, I thought the head of English should be my first call.” It wasn’t entirely sincere—he’d hoped to avoid the head teacher precisely because she’d give him the third degree—but it was close enough to the frontier of reasonable to draw some of her venom.

“Mrs. Cardy is on leave,” she replied stiffly. “I thought you’d be aware of that.”

“Yes, of course. But Mr. Burtonshaw produces the school play, doesn’t he?” He was in the photograph along with Jerome and the mayoress.

“Usually,” Miss Lim acknowledged warily. “Mr. Jackson, what is this all about?”

He produced the photocopy he’d made at the library. “I was putting together an obituary on Jerome,” he lied fluently. “I thought I might use this photograph. I hoped Mr. Burtonshaw could tell me who the other people in it are.”

Largely mollified by now, Miss Lim was saved from having to admit that Ernest Burtonshaw was indeed the man Jackson needed to speak to by the timely arrival of the deputy head of English. He was older than either of the women he worked under, bald to the point of having nothing to comb over, and wearing the English teacher’s uniform of a corduroy jacket with leather elbow patches.

He took the photocopy and angled it to the light. “
The Tempest.
That’s—what, three years ago? Jerome as Prospero, Mary Miller as Miranda, the Woods boy with the broken nose as Caliban. He was a shoo-in. And just about the best Ariel I ever saw. Do you remember?” he asked Miss Lim. “Everyone told me it was crazy casting, but I knew it would work. Ariel’s a sprite, for God’s sake—whoever you cast, there’s got to be some suspension of disbelief!”

“I remember,” said Miss Lim with a slow smile. “It was a very fine play.” She looked over his shoulder at the photocopy, at the tall black youth in the center, and gave a whisper of a sigh. “So much promise. Such a loss.”

Some instinct for tact Jackson hadn’t known he had urged him to allow a moment for their memories. Then, pen poised, he said, “And who was it playing Ariel?”

CHAPTER 19

H
ER HEART FORTIFIED
by her father’s words, her mind calmed by a weekend in his company, and her intestines armor-plated by his tea, Hazel drove back to Norbold on Monday morning. She headed first to Meadowvale, parking her car in the most prominent spot she could find. The fact that it bore a small plate with the words S
ENIOR
S
TAFF
O
NLY
caused her no concern, only a grim satisfaction. She wanted it to be seen. She was ready for an argument. She might move the car, because she had no right to the spot, but that was about as far as she was going to compromise.

She was heading for Chief Superintendent Fountain’s office when he met her on the stairs, gripped her arm in one large hand, and had her heading down again before she knew it. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded softly.

“Reporting for duty, sir.” Hazel made no effort to keep her voice low. “I thought I’d just let you know…”

He stopped dead, and again she had no choice but to match him. He looked at her with a glowering mixture of annoyance, incomprehension, and grudging respect. She looked at his hand. After a moment he let go, and she looked him full in the face.

She’d changed. He didn’t know what had happened, but something had. And now it didn’t matter what was best for Meadowvale, or what was best for him, because nothing he or any of them could do would intimidate her. She was calm, polite, and utterly determined. The Maid of Orleans at the head of her army. Except that Hazel Best had no army behind her, only a basket-case neurotic and his mangy dog. And everyone knows what happened to Joan of Arc.

“I thought I’d let you know,” she repeated, clipping the words out like thumbing rounds into a magazine, “I’ll be working my shifts from now on unless I’m told different.”

Fountain found himself blinking. “Is that a good idea, do you think?”

“It’s what I’m paid for,” said Hazel levelly.

“You could take some of your annual leave.”

“Right now, there’s nowhere I need to be as much as I need to be here.”

Fountain sighed. It was hard not to admire her. Even if she had no idea what she was letting herself in for. “Not everyone’s going to be happy working with you.”

“Then perhaps they should take
their
annual leave. Sir,” she said, “let me make this clear. To the best of my knowledge and belief, I have done nothing wrong. I had suspicions, and I reported them. As I am required to do. Maybe the inquiry will prove me wrong. I hope it does. But that won’t alter the fact that what I did was right. This is awkward for all of us—Sergeant Murchison, me, you, everyone who works with us. But we’re all adults, so I suggest we try to behave that way. Put this to one side and do our own jobs until the people whose job it is to investigate have done theirs.