Maxwell’s Match (35 page)

But it was another policewoman who stood in front of him now, across the desk that had become his last refuge in the past fortnight. This was Denise McGovern, all bark and no less bite, a frosty-faced bitch who meant business. Hall was more benign, Sheffield knew and he
was
in charge, so perhaps sanity would prevail. ‘What are you looking for?’

Denise opened her mouth to tell him, but Hall was faster. ‘Anything,’ he said. ‘It’s standard procedure.’

‘Standard procedure?’ Sheffield pulled off his glasses and began to fuss around, cleaning them with a cloth. ‘You’ll forgive me,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what that is.’

‘It’s routine,’ Denise explained with as much patience as she could muster, ‘to search a murder scene. You’ll agree that your school is that twice over.’

‘But,’ Sheffield persisted, ‘isn’t that an infringement of human rights? Privacy and so on?’

‘Denise,’ Hall said and the woman pulled a piece of printed paper out of her handbag.

Sheffield took it, putting his glasses back on.

‘That’s a search warrant, sir,’ she said. ‘Mr Hall and I thought we’d get one in case you adopted the difficult approach you, in fact, have.’

‘Difficult?’ Sheffield frowned, still checking the fine print. ‘Oh, no, I assure you, I want all this cleared up as much as you do. More. Er … where would you like to start?’

‘Here would do nicely,’ Hall said.

‘Um … of course. The planning room next door you know all too well by now I should think. There’s this room, and through that door a staircase leads to my private apartments – three bedrooms, a sitting room, dining room, usual offices.’

‘Must be quite pushed for space,’ Denise scowled.

‘Look, Chief Inspector,’ Sheffield closed to the larger man. ‘Would you mind if my secretary stayed with you? There are private records, student files and staff information here. You’ve read those on Bill, Tim and Jeremy Tubbs already, I know. I’d just like her to put things back, otherwise it’s hours of paperwork.’

‘Where will you be, sir?’ Hall asked.

‘Well,’ Sheffield said. ‘I wonder if I might crave your indulgence here? I understand the compulsion of your search warrant, but this won’t go well with some of my staff. May I tell them in person, the House staff at the very least?’

‘Be my guest,’ Hall nodded.

‘Thank you.’ Sheffield flicked the intercom on his desk. ‘Millie, come in here a moment, will you?’

In the adjoining office, the Head explained the situation to an appalled-looking Millie Taylor.

‘What did I tell you?’ Denise hissed to Hall out of the corner of her mouth. ‘It’s ruffling feathers already.’

‘Not half as many as were ruffled on the magistrate whose door bell I leaned on at half past one this morning,’ Hall hissed back. ‘Next time that’s
your
job.’

While the DCI and his loaned DS began the mind-numbing process of ransacking Sheffield’s study and private rooms, the great man himself hauled on his gown and strode across the quad. It had all the makings of a marvellous spring day, the cloud clearing and the sun sparkling on the day boys’ bikes in their shed. The light was flooding in through the golden stained-glass of the chapel, and Sheffield found himself wondering whether God was really in His Heaven when all was clearly not all right with the world.

‘Michael, could I have a word?’

‘Headmaster?’ Michael Helmesley was about to leave his study for the next lesson. They nearly collided in the doorway.

‘DCI Hall,’ Sheffield said, grim-faced, ‘and that unspeakable siren he’s got in tow are searching the premises.’

‘Good Lord!’ the Head of Classics was suitably horrified. He hadn’t known anyone behave like this since Nero and even that man’s excesses had been greatly exaggerated by legend.

‘I know,’ Sheffield nodded, his fingers drumming on the jamb of Helmesley’s open door, ‘but unfortunately they have a search warrant. They’re … what’s the colloquialism … turning over my place as we speak.’

‘Outrageous!’ Helmesley snorted. ‘Well, thank you for the warning, Headmaster. Better lock up my Scotch, d’you think?’

‘Not a bad idea,’ Sheffield said. ‘Oh, Michael, need your coat?’ He handed it down from the peg behind the door.

‘No thanks, Headmaster. Quite mild, I fancy, for a stroll over to Tennyson.’ And George Sheffield hung it back up.

As Henry Hall expected, there was nothing in Sheffield’s suite at all. And at that point, as agreed, the detectives went their separate ways. Hall took Tennyson; Denise, Kipling.

‘Is this strictly in order?’ Tony Graham felt obliged to ask. ‘I’ve got a sick Captain of House this morning. Don’t really want great plates of meat – no offence, Chief Inspector – traipsing all over the place.’

‘None taken, Mr Graham,’ Hall said. ‘If you tell me which room the lad is in, I’ll traipse in the opposite direction. It’s not a problem.’

‘Up the stairs,’ Graham told him. ‘Along the corridor and then up again.’

‘Your Captain of House – that would be … John Selwyn?’

‘That’s right.’ Graham was impressed. ‘How clever of you to remember the name.’

‘Goes with the territory,’ Hall nodded. ‘And,’ he was standing in the corridor on the first floor trying to get his bearings, ‘that would be above Bill Pardoe’s rooms, wouldn’t it? Your study as is?’

‘That’s right too.’ Graham grinned. ‘Do you want to start there, by the way? My study?’

‘No, I think I’ll take the dormitories first. Do you have a master key to the lockers?’

‘Sure,’ and the Housemaster handed it over. ‘Look, would you like someone to show you around? One of my Prefects …’

‘No, thanks,’ Hall said. ‘I’m fine,’ and he made for the stairs.

One thing that Peter Maxwell always said about Henry Hall. Tell him what not to do and he’d do it; tell him where not to go and he’s there. And so it was that the DCI ignored the Tennyson dorms and made for the tight spiral of the stairs above Bill Pardoe’s rooms, to the little room under the eaves that had housed Peter Maxwell briefly and now housed an ailing John Selwyn. He rapped on the door. No response. He tried again. Nothing. He briefly toyed with using his credit card on the lock, but this was a Victorian door and that would be a waste of time. So he put his shoulder to it and the thing burst open with a crash.

A figure crouched half in, half out of the window opposite him, caught like a mongoose facing a cobra. And if it was John Selwyn, whatever he’d got had aged him fifteen years and changed his hair colour.

‘Hello, Mr Tubbs,’ the DCI said, holding up his warrant card. ‘I’ve been trying to interview you for quite a while. Do you have a moment now?’

‘I … er … I’ve never been interviewed by the police before.’ Jeremy Tubbs was sitting opposite Henry Hall in George Sheffield’s outer office. The tape was running, although Hall was aware that he had no second officer, neither had he cautioned his man. This was, for now, in the nature of a friendly chat.

‘That’s not quite true, is it, Mr Tubbs?’ Hall was at his blandest, hiding behind those blank lenses that were his stock-in-trade in interviews. ‘A little matter of under-age parties involving schoolgirls … I don’t have to cross too many t’s do I?’

‘They were not under-age,’ Tubbs protested. ‘And that was a long time ago.’

‘Indeed it was.’ Hall took in his man. Jeremy Tubbs was heavier in the flesh than he appeared from his school mugshots and he was sweating profusely. Hall didn’t need the spotlights and rubber hoses on this one. ‘All right,’ the DCI leaned back in his chair. ‘Let’s bring all this up to date, shall we? Where have you been for the last eight days, Mr Tubbs?’

‘Been?’

Hall looked bored. ‘It’s a perfectly standard past tense, Mr Tubbs,’ he said, aware that Peter Maxwell would probably be able to codify it further.

‘Well, all this,’ Tubbs whirled his arms in all directions. ‘Call me a coward if you like, but I suddenly couldn’t stand it. I felt … well, threatened …’

‘By whom, Mr Tubbs?’

‘Well, no one in particular. I mean, unless you people have caught the bastard.’

‘No, no,’ Hall shook his head. ‘No, we haven’t caught anyone yet. But I’ve been in this game a long time; You get a nose for when things are about to happen. I somehow think we’re pretty close, now.’

‘Urn … good,’ Tubbs grinned inanely. ‘That’s good.’

Hall flicked open a file on his desk. ‘Your vehicle was found at Portchester Castle last Friday. And when I go looking for a sick sixth former, I found you, hiding in a room which is not yours and, if my memory serves, attempting with some futility to escape through a window which is three storeys up.’ He leaned across the desk. ‘Bill Pardoe fell from only a few feet above that,’ he said. ‘Did you happen to see his body at all?’

‘Look, Inspector …’ Tubbs had resorted to mopping his forehead with his handkerchief.

‘That’s
Chief
Inspector, sir,’ Hall knew when it was time to tighten the screws. ‘Can you, above all, tell me why it is that, having felt threatened at Grimond’s, you should return here, I assume voluntarily? Or were you being kept in that room against your will, like something in Glamis castle?’

‘No, no, it was nothing like that …’

‘But of course,’ Hall interrupted, ‘what I really want to know is your relationship with the dead men, Pardoe and Robinson.’

Jeremy Tubbs had gone a very strange colour. ‘I want my solicitor present,’ he said, wiping the spittle from his lips.

‘That is your right, sir,’ Hall leaned back. ‘And don’t let it bother you that statistically, eight out of ten people who make that request have something to hide.’

It was then that the planning office door burst open and Denise McGovern stood there. She had a tape in her hand. ‘Jesus!’ she said.

‘Not exactly,’ Hall corrected her. ‘For the benefit of the tape, DS McGovern entering the room at ten-thirty-four. Meet Jeremy Tubbs,’ and he switched the tape off.

‘And where do you think you’ve been?’ Denise snarled at the man, suddenly smaller than he had been and almost cowering in his chair.

‘You can do the rolling pin bit later, Denise,’ Hall said. ‘Right now, Mr Tubbs would like to see his solicitor. Could you arrange that on your way to Selborne, please? See if DCI West wants a word with Mr Tubbs. And Denise,’ he stood up and looked the woman squarely in the face. ‘Make sure that DS Carpenter attends the interview too, would you?’

‘Of course, sir.’ She stared defiantly back.

‘What’s that?’ Hall was pointing to what was carried triumphantly in the Sergeant’s hand.

She motioned him outside. ‘Could you give us a moment, Mr Tubbs?’ he said as he closed the door.

‘Where the fuck’s he been?’ Denise hissed as Millie Taylor looked up from her typing.

‘Here, most of the time would be my guess.’

‘But why …’

‘It was inspired, really. We’ve got blokes out combing the county for him and he was right here under our noses all the time. Pretty clever. What’s that?’ he asked again.

Denise positioned herself so that she had her back to the secretary. ‘I found it in the coat pocket of Michael Helmseley, Head of Classics. I don’t know what it is yet. Some harmless languages tape. Maybe. But if that’s the case, what was it doing in his coat pocket?’

‘
You
found it in his study?’

‘Behind the door,’ Denise nodded.

Hall took it. ‘Okay, I’ll play it. Get Tubbs across to Selborne, Denise. Tell West … ask your DCI to play him along. Mr Tubbs has got some talking to do.’

Jeremy Tubbs’ solicitor was actually one his mummy had retained aeons before and he’d known the lad for years. He was no longer a lad of course, but a rather repellent geography teacher and he was in trouble. Over the years, the solicitor had rather come to Tubbs père’s view of his son, that he was a degenerate who deserved, in police parlance, a good smacking. He was not inclined to be too officious on his client’s behalf as he sat in the makeshift interview room at Selborne, facing DCI West and DS McGovern.

‘So … Jeremy …’ West was rolling a piece of Nicorette gum around his molars in a sporadic and vain attempt to give up smoking. ‘Where’ve you been, old lad?’ The ‘nice’ policeman bit didn’t come easy to Mark West, but looking at Denise McGovern across the table from him, Tubbs was ready to clutch at any straw.

‘Around,’ he said, glancing across at his solicitor and seeing no help there. ‘Just driving around, you know.’

‘No,’ Denise said flatly. ‘We don’t know. Suppose you tell us.’

‘Tell you what?’

‘Precisely where you’ve been,’ West said.

‘Well, now you’ve asked me …’

‘Yes,’ West nodded. ‘We have. And we’ve asked you now four times one way and another.’

‘Well, I went to Portchester, obviously …’

He’d dried up already and it wasn’t even mid-afternoon.

‘All right,’ West raised both hands and placed them behind his head. ‘We’ll get back to that. Why Grimond’s, Jeremy? Why did you come back?’

‘I was going to resign,’ Tubbs told him. ‘I’d come to pick some things up.’

‘From an empty room?’ Denise chased him. ‘A room used only by guests? That’s where DCI Hall found you, wasn’t it?’

‘Well, I …’

‘Come on, Tubbs!’ West had stopped playing nice policeman. Nicorette wasn’t doing it for him this afternoon and his was a short fuse indeed. ‘You’re giving us zip here, mate, whammo. What I want is answers.’

‘He can’t talk to me like that … can he, Gerald? Tell him.’

The solicitor rolled an eye in his client’s direction. ‘You tell him, Jeremy.’

‘All right … all right, I will. They call me
Mr
Tubbs,’ he said, his face scarlet, his cheeks wobbling, ‘for a start.’

Peter Maxwell would have appreciated the filmic irony; Mark West didn’t. ‘Jeremy Tubbs, I am arresting you on a charge of wilful murder …’

Gerald looked vaguely interested for the first time.

‘All right!’ Tubbs almost shrieked. ‘All right, I’ll tell you. It was never supposed to happen the way it did. Never.’

‘Would you like to caution your client, sir?’ West asked the solicitor.

Gerald leaned towards him, beaming. ‘Would you?’

‘I
do
have another class in a few minutes, Chief Inspector.’ Michael Helmesley was checking the cut of his bow tie in the mirror. ‘Can it wait?’