The Charming Quirks of Others (27 page)

She spoke to a boy who was standing at the edge of the group. He was a smallish boy, as they all were—it was clearly a junior team, made up of boys of ten or eleven.

“How’s the game going?”

The boy replied politely. “Very well. We’re going to win.”

“And how many runs have you made yourself?”

He looked down at the grass. “I was out for a duck. None. Bowled. Macdonald did it. He’s a fast bowler.”

“Bad luck.”

“Thanks. I’m going to bowl to Macdonald when they go in. I’m going to get him.”

She pointed to a couple of deck-chairs that were a little way away from the group. “Who’s sitting there?”

The boy shrugged. “Two of the teachers. They’ve gone back in. You can sit there if you like.”

“Would you sit there beside me and tell me what’s going on on the pitch? I don’t really understand cricket.”

He hesitated, but then agreed. “If you like.”

They moved over to the deck-chairs.

“You have to be careful with deck-chairs,” Isabel said. “They can collapse and catch your fingers.”

“That happened yesterday. A boy called Brodie. He got his fingers caught and he had to go and get plasters put on them. Served him right.”

Isabel smiled. “Oh? Did he deserve it?”

“He’s a bully,” said the boy.

“Ah. And does he bully you?”

“Yes.”

Isabel looked at the boy’s face. He had freckles and green eyes. She noticed a small scar on his chin—a recent scratch, nothing serious. Boys were always scratching and cutting themselves, breaking things too.

“Can’t you do anything about it?”

He shook his head. “You can’t clype on him. If you do that, they hit you.”

“Who?”

“Other boys.”

It was a jungle. Of course it was. A jungle for boys between eight and eighteen.

“Are you happy here?” she asked.

He thought for a moment. “Yes. A bit.”

Then she asked, “And are you going to miss Mr. Slade when he goes?”

He frowned. “He’s going to Singapore.”

“Yes. To a school a lot like this one, I believe. Lots of cricket there.”

“I like Mr. Slade. I’ll be sorry when he goes.”

She smiled. “So you will miss him then?”

“Not as much as Miss Carty will. She …”

Isabel waited for him to finish his sentence, but something had happened on the pitch and his attention was diverted. A batsman had hit a ball in the air and a fielder was running towards it. There was a groan from the field as the catch was dropped.

“A near thing,” said Isabel. “But tell me, who’s Miss Carty?”

“She’s the school secretary. We call her Tarty Carty.”

Isabel tried not to laugh. “Not very polite. And may I ask why?”

“Because she’s a tart.”

Isabel drew in her breath. He looked so innocent—and probably was. He probably had no idea what he was saying.

“That’s not very kind. Do you think you should say that?”

“She’s in love with Sladey.”

Isabel said nothing. Miss Carty was in love with Mr. Slade. Nonsense. Schoolboy fantasy. Boys made things up; shocking stories dreamed up with no regard to the truth or even to feasibility.
They made them up. But then she thought: Miss Carty, unhappy school secretary, in love with Mr. Slade, handsome headmaster. Headmaster announces his departure for Singapore; Miss Carty pleads with him not to go. He says he must. She thinks: If I stop them making an appointment, then he might stay, even for a few months longer. And anything can happen in a few months …

She watched the boy. He had taken a tube of peppermints out of his pocket and had peeled one off. “Would you like a mint?”

She shook her head. “How do you know that Miss Carty is in love with Mr. Slade?”

He answered nonchalantly. “I saw him kiss her. He didn’t know I was there. I had lost a ball under one of those bushes back there.” He gestured towards the rhododendron garden. “I was looking for it when they came along the path. They didn’t know I was there. I saw him kiss her. Tarty Carty. Yuck! Disgusting. I wanted to be sick right there. Yuck!”

ISABEL FOUND THE SCHOOL OFFICE
by asking a boy where to go. He pointed to a staircase that gave off the main entrance hall. “Up there. There’s a white door that says
Headmaster
. That’s the school office.”

She climbed the stairs and reached a broad landing. There were several chairs placed around a glass-topped coffee table, and beyond that the door marked
Headmaster
. Slightly below, there was a sign saying
Knock and enter
.

She knocked and pushed open the door to a spacious room in which there were several desks, a bank of filing cabinets, and
a pinboard covered in notices and aides-memoires. At the far end of the room, a woman sat at a desk under a window. She had streaky blonde hair and was wearing a red shift dress. Tarty Carty, Isabel thought.

The woman turned round in her seat when Isabel entered. She looked at her watch. “Miss Dalhousie?”

Isabel nodded. “Mr. Mackinlay …”

“Yes, he’s expecting you. He’s in the Governors’ Room—I’ll take you there.”

Isabel followed the secretary out of the room and along the corridor, which was lined with photographs of sports teams. Under-15s Rugby, First Tennis Team, Swimming Team. All schools were the same. This took her back to George Watson’s Ladies’ College and the headmistress in her black bombazine and the smell of chalk and …

“You have wonderful grounds here,” said Isabel. “I walked through the rhododendron garden.” What do I expect? she asked herself. Blushes at the memory?

“It’s very pretty,” said Miss Carty. “I like it a great deal.”

“Yes,” said Isabel. And then, her heart racing at her effrontery, she went on: “You’ll all miss Mr. Slade when he goes off to Singapore.”

She was ready for Miss Carty’s reaction—any reaction—but there was none. “A great loss,” the secretary said evenly. “But that happens in schools. Popular teachers move on. One gets used to it.”

“You must have worked closely with him.”

“Of course. But no doubt we’ll get a good replacement.”

Isabel nodded. “It’s a good field,” said Miss Carty. “Or so I’m told. I have nothing to do with the appointment process, of
course. But I’ve heard that we’ve got some strong candidates, whoever they are. I’ll be interested to find out when they come for interview.”

“I’M SORRY,”
said Isabel to Alex Mackinlay. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to sort out my thoughts.”

They were alone in the boardroom. Miss Carty, after having shown Isabel in, returned a few minutes later with a tray of tea, and then went back to her office.

“She’s a pillar of this place,” said Alex as the secretary closed the door behind her. “She’s been here for fifteen years or so. She’s become the institutional memory.”

“Useful,” said Isabel.

Alex began to pour the tea. “You said that you needed to order your thoughts. Do you want me to leave you for a while to do that?”

Isabel shook her head. “Do you mind if I think aloud?”

Alex handed her a cup of tea. “Not in the slightest.”

Isabel took a sip from her cup. “I’ve found out a certain amount about two of the candidates,” she began. “John Fraser and Gordon Leafers.”

“Yes?”

“John Fraser is a climber.”

“I know that.”

“And do you know that he’s lost a couple …”

Alex raised a hand. “Let me save your time. John Fraser is no longer a candidate. We don’t need to bother about him.”

It took Isabel a moment to take this in. “You’ve taken him off the shortlist?”

“No. He did it himself. He withdrew.”

She asked why, and Alex explained that he had received a letter from John Fraser only that morning. He did not wish to pursue his application for personal reasons, but felt that he owed the school an explanation, having made claims on their time. “It was a rather long and emotional letter. He said that he was being treated for depression, and he felt that he should not conceal this from us. The depression came, he said, from the fact that he felt massively guilty.”

“I was going to tell you that,” said Isabel. “I think he felt guilty about cutting a rope.”

Alex frowned. “No. Quite the opposite.
His
rope was cut.”

“I’m not …”

Alex put down his cup. “Apparently his life was saved somewhere up near Glencoe. The other climber had fallen and was tied on to him. He was beginning to drag John down into danger and realised that the only way in which he could stop this happening was to cut himself free. So he did, and fell. It was an act of self-sacrifice on the other man’s part. Remarkable, really. And John felt guilty that he was alive and the other man was killed. People can feel guilty in that way—survivor’s guilt, it’s called.”

Isabel looked out of the window. Of course.

“Anyway,” Alex went on, “he felt that he really couldn’t cope with this job in that frame of mind and he pulled out. Understandable. Poor man.”

“Yes,” said Isabel.

“But that still leaves the other two. Leafers and Simpson. What about them? Any skeletons there?”

She was still absorbing the news of John Fraser’s withdrawal. There was not much left for her to say, she thought. “I
haven’t really paid much attention to Simpson. I formed the impression that you had a lowish opinion of him.”

He nodded. “I’m afraid so. He’s not up to it, in my view. There were one or two members of the board who were keen to give him a chance, so I let his name go on the shortlist. But I’m afraid that that’s as far as he’ll get.”

“We don’t need to worry about him, then?”

He shook his head. “No, we don’t. Even if there were to be something in his past, which I rather doubt, it wouldn’t matter. He’s not going to get the job.” He looked at Isabel expectantly. “And that leaves Gordon Leafers. Enlighten me about him.”

Isabel knew what she must do. “I must declare an interest in respect of Gordon,” she said. “He’s my niece’s current boyfriend.”

Alex listened as she explained that she liked Gordon but that she understood that she had to be objective.

“And your objective assessment?” asked Alex.

“My objective assessment is that there’s probably nothing to worry about with him, other than …”

He looked interested. “Yes?”

“I wondered whether he was the writer of the letter. I think he’s ambitious and might have wanted to compromise the other two candidates. I can’t say why I feel that—I have no evidence.”

“So it’s just a feeling?”

“Yes. He knew who was on the list. So he would have both motive and ability.”

Alex thought about this. “But there were others who knew.”

“Who?” asked Isabel.

“Miss Carty. And another woman in the office. That’s where the list was typed up.”

Isabel waited a moment. “By?”

“Miss Carty, I believe. She’s the one who passed it on to me to pass on to you.”

“So she knew I was going to see it?”

He nodded. “And I think I told her about what we were asking of you. I trust her, you see. She’s in on everything here, but she’s the soul of discretion.”

And she misled me, thought Isabel. But that was not what she wanted to talk about. “May I speak to you in absolute confidence?”

“Of course.”

“Do you know of any relationship between Mr. Slade and Miss Carty?”

“Beyond an employer and employee relationship?”

“Yes. An affair.”

His eyes widened. “My goodness! Highly unlikely, I would have thought. I just can’t see him getting involved with her.” He seemed amused by the idea. “Nor she with him.”

Isabel was insistent. “Why should it be so unlikely? Mr. Slade is a good-looking, even rather charismatic man. His wife, if I may say so, is hardly exciting.”

Alex looked embarrassed. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I just don’t see it.” He paused. “Why would you even suggest it? Have you heard something?”

Isabel hesitated. She did not like to lie. But one does not have to answer every question one is asked. So she said, “One should always be prepared to consider every possibility.”

He shrugged. “Yes. But some possibilities … Still, what about Gordon Leafers? You have your suspicions about him. You think he might be capable of doing something underhand, such
as writing an anonymous letter in order to strengthen his chances. Well, maybe, maybe not. I can’t see it, frankly.”

He poured more tea. “There is, however, something I heard about Gordon that makes me think that he might not be our best bet. I heard, in fact, that he’s not a serious candidate at all—and never was.”

She waited for him to continue.

“I heard from a very reliable source, somebody at the school he’s currently teaching at, that his application is intended purely to enable him to show an offer—if he got one from us—to his existing employer and ask for promotion. Apparently he confessed to a colleague, and it got out. He doesn’t want to move at all. He’s using us, as people sometimes do in these job competitions. So we’re going to tell him that his application is no longer shortlisted. We are certainly not going to let people make use of us like that.”

Isabel hardly knew what to say. All three candidates were out of the running now, which made her wonder why Alex Mackinlay had wanted to see her. Did he think she had nothing better to do with her time than investigate a list of non-candidates?

She drew in her breath. “I’m surprised that you didn’t tell me about all this earlier,” she said. “I’ve rather wasted my time, haven’t I?”

He looked immediately apologetic. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “I would hate you to think that. In fact, I have remained very keen to hear what you have to say.”

She looked at him reproachfully. “But nothing I say has any relevance.”

“But it does, Miss Dalhousie. It’s the letter I’m really interested
in. Who wrote it? Can’t you see that this is in a way a more important issue for us? Is there somebody here who can’t be trusted? That’s a very important question for me.”

She understood. An anonymous letter was an acutely destabilising thing. It bred distrust and suspicion; it weakened the normal bonds between people.

He suddenly turned and reached for a file on the table behind him. Taking out a single sheet of paper, he held it out towards her. It was the letter. She saw the green ink and the handwriting—which had been disguised in childish capital letters.