Funeral Music (8 page)

Andrew snorted. ‘Fine detective you’d make. How would you do it? You
might
chuck the knife in after you’d used it, but not the keys. Either you’ve got the keys from Matthew Sawyer before you stab him, or you stab him and take the keys off him afterwards. You’ve still got to get out of the building, haven’t you? Suppose you lock the door to Stall Street first, from the inside, then you’d have to go across the Pump Room to the main door into the Roman Baths on Abbey Churchyard, right? Then you set the alarm in the box which is inside a panel just inside the doorway, lock the panel, leave and shut the door and lock it behind you. So you’re
outside
with the keys, aren’t you? So how on earth could you dump them in the bath, Einstein?’

Sara looked at him witheringly. ‘Easy. After you set the alarm and lock the door behind you, you just walk round the corner on to Kingston Parade and climb up on the wall of the terrace. The street level outside is much higher than the bath, so the wall on the outside up onto the terrace is not high at all. And there are even ridges cut into the stone. Once you’re up there, you just have to throw them up and over, so they clear the terrace and the balustrade. You just lob them over and splash, there you are. You’re still flat, by the way.’

Andrew went on playing and gave a clever smile. ‘Haven’t you forgotten something? You’ve just set the alarm, right? All the area round the Great Bath is alarmed. You’d have bells going off all over the place.’

Sara paused. ‘Sure? Is the
water
alarmed? Sure, someone walking anywhere
round
the bath would set the alarm off, but what about something just landing in the water? Seagulls don’t set it off. There’s always a seagull or two around there, standing on the statues’ heads. The alarm doesn’t go off every time a bird comes down to the water, does it? So either they’re not big enough to trigger the alarm, or the water is not alarmed at all. And so I’d have thought a bunch of keys could be flung into the bath without bells going off everywhere.’

Andrew played on to the end of the Élégie without replying, and finished it with eloquent, unhurried musicality. Sara, about to exclaim that he was really getting somewhere with the piece, was interrupted.

Andrew was grinning. ‘Do you mind if we stop there? I think I can dress that up into “sound reason to suspect”. So must dash, I’ve got a Roman bath to drain.’

Halfway down the path he turned back towards Sara. ‘You’re wonderful, you know. I can’t thank you enough. I’ll let you know if we find anything.’

He had turned away, and was anyway too far down the path to notice the movement of her lips as she said, half to herself, ‘Oh, please. Please don’t. Don’t tell me.’

CHAPTER 7

DEREK’S AFTERNOON WAS dragging. He had agreed to take Year 8 for geography so that the head of geography, Mrs Higgens, and her sidekick Philips could get an early start with the Year 9 field trip to the Brecon Beacons. As he saw them off at lunchtime he had felt nothing but envy that they were getting three days away from school, even if it did consist of four nights in a youth hostel with a troupe of hormonally demented teenagers and was beginning with a three-hour drive up the M4 in a packed minibus with testosterone running down the windows.

He was tired. His groin ached with anticipation at the thought of his forthcoming weekend with Cecily and his head ached at the thought of the two and a half days he still had to get through before it could truly be said to have arrived. He resolved to make it a better weekend than last which, all in all, had been a fiasco. He was still reeling from a sense of relief at having got away with it all. The police had come round to interview Cecily on Monday. They’d said they were interviewing everyone who had been in the place that Friday and they’d got her name from the delegates list. Clever old Cec had convinced them she knew nothing. It was niggling him a little that she had had to mention his name, but then, it was no secret that he’d actually been to the Assembly Rooms. After all, he’d given his name to Sawyer (who would have more than a stiff upper lip by this time, ha-ha, and serve him right), and anyway, at least three other people had seen him (be made to) leave. He could even, if it came to it, admit to Pauline that he’d been there. Just
being
there didn’t amount to adultery, after all. Not that it would come to it. Nor did he foresee any great difficulty in keeping everything that had happened later in the evening entirely to himself. He was safe. Nevertheless, there would be no more going out in public with Cecily. Really, he should cut down on the visits. In fact, the whole thing would have to be reviewed, when he had time to think, which was not now.

It was only Wednesday. He had always hated Wednesdays, especially the last lesson, by the end of which he usually felt shipwrecked and adrift on an unending and dangerous week. He had always hated geography. And he hated Year 8, from whose room emanated the unmistakable aroma of mucky kid, a disgusting mixture of wet dog and stale cake. As he opened the door Derek discreetly lifted his sleeve to his face in the hope that a vestige of that morning’s Eau Sauvage might linger there and sustain him.

He called them to order, a thing he did effectively, being several times larger and more intelligent than any of them and also the headmaster. He discouraged the word ‘headteacher’. Thirty-eight specimens of south Bristol’s jeunesse
dorée
looked at him expectantly. Higgens would have set them something to do, not that she, he or they expected that this meant that they were really going to do it.

‘So, what have you been doing with Mrs Higgens?’

Obscene sniggers.

He tried again. ‘What has Mrs Higgens left you to do?’

Silence. Bewilderment. Outrage.

‘
Do
, sir? Aw, sir, ’s nearly four o’clock, sir!’

Derek sighed as the mayhem of protest rose around him. He folded his arms. He really could not be bothered.

‘Sir, sir, we got a sheet, sir,’ came a sole, craven voice. Good. You could always rely on there being at least one crawler. Half the class groaned and the other half hissed hideous threats of reprisal to the informer.

‘Right, thank you. Now, let’s have a look at this sheet. Have you all got it?’ A proportion of the class waved the sheet in lethargic surrender.

‘What is the country on the sheet? It is a continent, in fact,’ he added quickly, preempting any, Ooh, sir! Mrs Higgens says it’s a
continent
, sir! Does Mrs Higgens know
more
than you, sir?

‘Sir! Sir! Sir! It’s Africal, sir!’

Derek sighed again. He should be used to it by now but it could still catch him unawares, the Bristol accent. When he had first come to this school ten years ago, taking up his first, and as things had turned out, his only headship, he had been taken aback when the caretaker had said, ‘Ah, good ideal,’ when Derek had proposed some minor change to the litter-picking rotas. Hardly the province of an ideal, he had thought, before the caretaker had added, ‘I’ll see to it tomorral.’ But he
had
had ideals then, a real vision, and nowadays he could barely see further than the end of the lesson.

The class broke into two opposing camps.

‘Snot! S’Indial!’

‘Course’s snot! S’Africal!’

Derek said nothing. On a good day, he was just pallid with the boredom of it all. On a not so good day, perhaps in assembly when he was about to lead the whole fucking school in some listless prayer, or at his desk, hearing the janitor (my site manager) explain that half a hundredweight of paper towels had blocked the toilets again, he could feel a sort of dry sobbing going on somewhere inside him and he would have to take a deep breath to prevent his whole body from cranking publicly under the weight of his unhappiness. But on a
bad
day he could see quite far enough ahead, thank you. He could see right ahead to the forthcoming OFSTED inspection in November, which might very well consign his whole dog-eared school and all its chewed-up staff and its spat-out youngsters to the bin marked ‘Failing Schools’. What could he do, what
more
could he do between now and then, to give each child a turn with the books he had to share with three others, to stop Miss Cross teaching art history with black-and-white photocopies of the paintings, to get the head of maths off antidepressants and back into his classroom? On a bad day the hot, incoherent soup of rage and shame that simmered inside him rose to a fast rolling boil, making him windy and irritable. People knew to keep away. There had been a time when Cecily, with her adoring availability, had perked him up on bad days, but after a time compliance as even-tempered and unvarying as hers had become irksome to him, as had the hints that she might be expecting something more permanent to develop from their liaison. She had even come close, once or twice, to mentioning that she was short of money. Good God, if he helped her with money, what would that make her? What would it make
him
? Cecily just couldn’t help being a little shabby. The only real balm for his bad days now came from the prospect of getting another job before he was suspended after the OFSTED disaster. He could still, just, conceive of a sweeter life for himself beyond the boundaries of south Bristol, but he hardly dared to. Now that an opportunity in Bath, that parallel universe of prosperous gentility and nice buildings, had beckoned, he was not going to let it go. It would be his. He would make it his. He was seeing to it.

‘It is, in fact, Afric
ah
,’ he said. ‘The continent of Afri
cah
. And what is the name of the country shown over the page? One of the countries of Afri
cah
?’

‘Sir! Sir! Sir,
Kenyal
, sir!’

‘Keny
ah
. All right, what can you tell me about Keny
ah
?’

After this Year 8 dried up, but with determined coaxing, Derek managed to evince from them the fascinating news that like many countries in Africal, Kenyal was a tropical malarial areal.

CHAPTER 8

ON FRIDAY SARA got back wet through from her run to find a message from Andrew asking her to call him back on his mobile. Over the crackle he said there were two things, and he was coming over to discuss them. From the tone of his voice it was obvious that neither of them was Fauré’s Élégie in C.

‘But I’ve just been out running and I’m soaked. You don’t mean this exact minute, do you? I’ve got to shower.’

‘Oh, no, not this exact minute. You’ve got, oh, about fifteen, I should think,’ he said, and hung up. When he arrived he asked if they could go up to the hut. They made their way up the long zigzagging path which crossed the orchard, bordered the wide lawn on the left of the cottage and then, continuing to rise, ran between the banks of lavender bushes above. At several points a number of smaller paths joined the main one: these led from the lawn, from the line of hazelnut trees which formed the boundary on the far side and from the large pond surrounded by corkscrew willow and irises at the other. The air was heavy with the scent of the sun on wet petals and damp stone. Sara fastened back the wide double doors of the hut and they sat in the wicker chairs looking out at the sodden hillside and the six lime trees, heavy and bright with rain. Andrew spoke without looking at her.

‘I find I can think up here, and I wanted to go over a few more things with you. First, though, thanks for the help with the keys and knife. We got them, although it took until this morning. They were in different parts of the bath. So it’s possible – likely even – that they were thrown in from different points, which means your theory might be right. Forensic’s looking at them, but they’re unlikely to tell us much. It’ll be in Monday’s
Chronicle
, but I wanted to let you know first.’

‘You shouldn’t have bothered. It doesn’t concern me, you know, just because I found the body.’ She turned to him. ‘Look, Andrew, I’d rather forget all about it. You should come here to play the cello, not to talk about the case. I can’t help you. I don’t want the case taking over... all this. Here. All this is...private.’ She waved an arm vaguely. ‘This is my place.’

He took her by the wrist and replaced her arm in her lap.

‘I understand that you’d rather forget all about it. But you won’t, you know, any more than I will. You can’t. I’m talking to you now as...just me. Not as a police officer. But I can, and I will, if you’d prefer it that way. But, Sara, please’ – he took her arm again and gave it a gentle shake – ‘please help me? I need your help.’

Sara did not look at him. Andrew paused, his hand still on her arm, seeming to find the next bit difficult.

‘Sara, what was your impression of Detective Sergeant Bridger?’

Sara gave a short laugh and turned to face him. ‘Frankly? I thought he was a sexist prat. He assumed things. He stereotyped me. He was also profoundly ignorant.’

Andrew looked weary. ‘Off the record, I’d have to agree. We’ve still got a few of his type, not many now, thank God.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve been going over the reports of his first interviews. And by the way, if I tell you this, it’s strictly between ourselves. I could be in trouble otherwise. Understood?’

Sara nodded.

Andrew went on. ‘Bridger thought it was pretty suspicious that you own your house – in an extremely desirable location, he said – and are so extremely well dressed when you are single and ‘don’t have a proper full-time job’ and wonders if this unexplained prosperity could somehow have a bearing on the case.
Worth following up, in his view.’

Sara gave an ashamed laugh. ‘It’s my fault. I couldn’t help it. He asked me if I did “this cello-playing stuff” all the time. He didn’t think there’d be that much call for it. And I said, no, because I was taking a break for the time being, and I just played the charity thing to help the festival. Then he said, “I suppose you’d have to be
really
good to make a living at it, so it’s what, more of a hobby then?” And I said, “Yes, I suppose you could say that, although I do get paid
some
times.” ’

Andrew exploded with laughter.

‘I’m ashamed of myself, really. I was piqued because he’d obviously never heard of me, and I had no right to be. I’m a brat. He said he didn’t go for the highbrow stuff himself but he quite liked that fat bloke, that Italian, what was his name, Nessun Dorma.’ She smiled. ‘And I said yeah he was quite good, funny name for a bloke, though.’

She paused and watched as a wood pigeon, startled by Andrew’s laughter, took up and off from the shelter of an apple tree.

‘I suppose now I’ve obstructed the police in the course of their enquiries and I’m going to be handcuffed and shoved in the back of a police van. I’ll be eaten alive in Holloway, I hope you realise.’

‘That’s the least you deserve. I’ll see to it you get a good going over down the nick as well. You
are
a brat.’

‘Look, I really didn’t mean to cause trouble or hold things up. If I have, I’m sorry.’

‘You haven’t, don’t worry. Actually it’s helped, because it was only because I know you that I could see what a hash he’d made of interviewing you. And I really enjoyed being able to tell him that your inexplicable prosperity arose from the fact that one of your concert fees would amount to about a third of his annual salary, and that it would be an unusual month if none of your recordings cropped up on Radio 3.’ He paused, smiling again. ‘I’m not
absolutely
sure he’d heard of Radio 3.’

He grew more serious and it crossed Sara’s mind, as it periodically did, that she could not go on indefinitely living off royalties and repeat fees. She would have to ring Robin.

‘So, I’ve been going back over the people Bridger interviewed, and some of them I’m seeing myself now. It’s possible he’s been missing things. I only found out from Olivia Passmore, for example, that you and she know each other. He spent barely fifteen minutes with her and ticked her off as spinsterish: a workaholic with ageing father. He thinks she’s a strong suspect.’

‘Why on
earth
does he suspect her?’

‘Oh, he’s a tabloid thinker. Unhinged by having to go back to being number two when Sawyer came on the scene. Frustrated, neurotic, bitter, trapped by dependent relative. He’d practically written the headline. You know the sort of thing: SPINSTER’S FRENZIED KNIFE ATTACK.’

‘Oh, typical. Oh, God, Andrew, how can you work with this person?’

‘No, it doesn’t convince me either. I went round to see Olivia Passmore on Sunday afternoon, and unhinged is the last word I’d use to describe her. Bridger had been to see her in the morning. But how true is the workaholic bit, would you say?’

‘Oh, she is very clued up and good at her job, but you shouldn’t reduce Olivia – well, you shouldn’t reduce
anyone
– just to that. There’s much more to her. Her father is Edwin Passmore.’

‘Right. Er, just remind me?’

‘The horn player. Really brilliant. Years and years ago – he’s in his eighties now. But a fabulous player. He’s been ill for years with emphysema, and Olivia looks after him, and there’s a resident nurse now. She’s never been married. I think it all falls to her. She’s got a niece who works at Fortune Park. You know, where I go to swim. Sue’s surname is different: Olivia has a married sister. Sue’s heavily into aerobics and the body beautiful. Olivia’s a music lover: she loves the festival and does things for the MBF. You know, Musicians’ Benevolent Fund. That’s how I met her.’

‘And what about her job? Was she jealous of Sawyer, do you know?’

‘Oh, absolutely not. You know she ran the whole museum service for quite a while. Well over two years. She said to me once she couldn’t wait to be free of all the hassle. She’s a curator, a conservator. She takes care of objects, textiles, mainly. She wasn’t interested in running shops and tea rooms and party bookings and security and all that. She was glad to hand over to Sawyer. Didn’t she tell you all this?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Yes, well. There you are. That kills Bridger’s little theory, doesn’t it?’ She added indignantly,
‘And what the hell is “spinsterish” supposed to mean, anyway? Olivia’s got such style. Don’t you think she looks fantastic? I don’t just mean the clothes. There’s a poise about her – strong, knows what she’s doing. I really admire her, actually.’

‘I can understand that,’ Andrew said, recalling the unembellished elegance of the woman. ‘Inner calm. She is quite beautiful, in an Eleanor Bronnish way. What’s wrong with her?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, when I went round I had to wait for ages before she came to the door. Then when she took me up to the drawing room she was having trouble with the stairs. Same thing coming down. Bad legs or something.’

‘Well, she seemed perfectly all right last Friday, as far as I noticed. Maybe she’s got rheumaticky knees or something, that just flare up. It was wet that weekend, and the damp brings it on, doesn’t it? Or she may just have been up at the top of the house, where her dad is. Or in the loo. It’s up on Bathwick Hill, isn’t it? They’re all big houses.’

‘It is big. Yes, you’re probably right.’

‘Well, then. I hope you’re going to leave her alone now.’

‘And then there’s George. I’m interested in George. He’s what Bridger calls ‘salt of the earth’, of course. He may be. But I don’t go for all that shocking-business-Constable, anything-I-can-do-to-assist-the-police-sir crap. Phoney. I don’t like forelock-tuggers.’

‘Oh, you’re being unfair. All right, George is a bit of a cheery chappie, but I’m sure it’s genuine. He’s just always been like that. And he’s been in that job for
years
. He’s not suddenly going to top his guvner, cor lumme, is he?’

‘S’pose not. I can’t see why he would. But, Sara, I’ll get nowhere if I get hung up on motives. Anyone can hide a motive and we could spend forever looking for one. The fact is that this murder had to be done by someone who could lock up and set the alarm afterwards. That means that Olivia, George and his band of assistants – Andy, Jack and Colin – are the chief suspects. Sticking to facts, you see? Someone’s alibi will break, and then the motive will emerge. I
hope
, because the forensic evidence is unlikely to be sufficient for a conviction.’

He paused.‘Sara, this is a big enquiry. I’ve got twenty officers on it. There are hundreds of people to interview, and almost any one of them, at this stage, could be guilty. You do understand that I have been talking in the strictest confidence? I mean this, and I’m warning you: share this with anyone else and I will have you banged up for the rest of your natural.’

‘Trust me,’ Sara said lightly, laughing.

‘Sara,’ Andrew said, ‘I am serious. I probably shouldn’t have said anything. In fact I would be in big trouble if it came out I had. I could even have put you in danger. Look, you are not to let on to anyone –
anyone
, Sara – that you know anything about the police enquiries. Keep all this to yourself, for my sake but for your own as well.’

THAT EVENING, Olivia rang.

‘This is terribly short notice, Sara, but I just wondered if you’d be able to come to supper on Sunday? I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages and I just thought with this awful thing with Matthew...it must have been so awful for you and I’m sure you’re fine, but, well, I thought of you on your own and maybe it would be good to get together. Sue and Paul are coming.
Would Sunday do? Oh, good. Sorry it’s such short notice. Oh, yes, very informal.’