The Teacher: A shocking and compelling new crime thriller – NOT for the faint-hearted! (20 page)

‘Sir, I’m afraid these positions are only available to people in the eighteen to twenty-four age bracket.’

‘And why is that?’

‘To keep youth unemployment down.’

‘And what about those of us with families to support?’

‘Come and see us again on Friday, that’s when the majority of new opportunities come in.’

‘When do I get my first cheque?’

‘I should be able to tell you that on Friday, too.’ The boy smiled but John just wanted to smack him in his smug little face.

John smiled and stood up. The advisor shoved his papers into a large folder and then turned to his computer, indicating he was done talking to John.

John didn’t have the energy to feel humiliated; as usual the only emotion that consumed him was anger. He again found himself heading in the direction of the University halls of residence where Abbey had been living. Since Abbey had started work he found himself venturing up here time and time again. He stood outside the halls and waited, he didn’t even know what he was waiting for. Within the hour he saw Danielle emerge from the building. She walked over to a red convertible Porsche Boxster and kissed the boy in the driving seat. John suddenly knew who the occupants of the car were. It hadn’t clicked with him immediately but they were the boys he had seen outside the dean’s office at the University. As soon as the lift doors had closed that day he had realised who they were; as soon as Abbey had started breathing again. This time he could only see the back of their heads and for that he was grateful. He wanted to go over, he wanted to cause a scene. Instead he walked away. He needed to go home, he needed to sleep off some of this anger. He needed to think.

The next day John woke up and he knew what he had to do. He waited for Abbey to catch her morning train and he drove back to the city, to the University. If she was going to be there he would make sure she was safe. This time he went to each campus and looked for the red car, eventually finding it parked outside one of the University bars.

Abbey returned home from yet another day at the museum to find her father sitting and watching the local news. He still had not found a job and he barely ever looked her in the face, maybe it was time to find a place of her own. Her wage at the museum would afford her a small flat somewhere in the city. She sat next to her father on the sofa and put her hand on his, he pulled away immediately and she heard him trying not to breathe, splintered intakes of breath as though he were holding back tears. He wiped his eyes and sniffed, she didn’t want to look at his face, didn’t want to see him cry. She couldn’t bear that. Instead she looked at the screen, it was the news. For a moment there was a picture of a mangled car and then the screen switched back to the newsreader. In the corner of the screen under the headlines she saw the familiar faces of Danielle and Jamie.

They were dead, killed in a car crash.

‘Oh my God, Danielle.’ Her hand involuntarily sprang to cover her mouth. A closer look at her father’s face and she saw the tears.

‘Dad, what’s the matter?’

‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s OK, Dad, it’s not like we were friends any more; it’s horrible but …’

‘No, it wasn’t meant to be her, it was supposed to be them!’

Abbey felt a chill up her spine as she looked harder at her father’s face. She saw behind the tears; she saw his guilt.

‘Dad, what are you talking about?’ A thought, the whisper of a revelation, came into her mind, she tried to shoo the idea away before it took hold, not wanting to listen to what her instinct was trying to tell her.

‘I tried to fix it, I’m sorry. It was supposed to be them, the ones who hurt you.’

‘What did you do?’ She could feel the thought clutching at her, holding on; not letting her dismiss it.

‘I just wanted to make things right. I couldn’t stand the thought of them walking around like nothing had happened.’

‘Jesus Christ! Please tell me you didn’t!’ She felt the tears rising in her own throat, the enormity of what her father had done finally taking hold. ‘What if they catch you? You can’t go to prison, Dad!’

‘You think I don’t know how to make it look like an accident?’

Christian’s face appeared on the screen, he seemed to be distraught. Abbey picked up the remote to turn the TV off; she couldn’t bear to look at his face. She knew he didn’t give a crap about Dani or Jamie, it was just an excuse for him to get on camera. Then it occurred to her that he was being put into a police car, so she turned the volume up instead. He was being arrested. It was his car which he never let anyone drive except for that afternoon when he let Jamie drive Dani back to the halls of residence. He and Dani had fought publicly in the uni bar, everyone had seen them threaten each other, and apparently Christian didn’t come off looking like the good guy for once. He had met his match in Dani for crowd-manipulation. The police believed he had tampered with the steering on his car before going home with another girl from his course. An alibi, they supposed.

She clicked the TV off and looked at her father. Was he really capable of this? Yes, she supposed he was, if anyone hurt him she would do anything, she guessed it was only fair to expect he would do the same.

‘Did anyone see you?’

‘I don’t know, I don’t think so.’ He reached for her hand but she stepped away and folded her arms.

‘Why, Dad? Why did you do it? We were all right, weren’t we?’ She tried not to sound angry, part of her was touched, but the other part of her was scared of losing him, of him being caught.

‘We’re not all right, Abbey. I’m not all right! I can’t sleep at night thinking about what happened, what they did. I couldn’t stand the idea of you running into them again, of them being on the same planet as you.’

‘What if you get caught?’

‘Why would I? There is no record anywhere of what happened to you, they all saw to that. The police won’t make the connection, why would they? Those bastards made sure there were no connections!’

Abbey walked out of the lounge and took her bag before heading out on to the street. She couldn’t believe this. Her father was the kindest man she had ever known, it broke her heart to think of him like this, driven to taking a life, two lives. She knew that even though he probably had no regrets about what happened to Jamie, eventually the weight of Danielle’s death would catch up to him, and would probably destroy him.

After an hour of roaming the streets, Abbey returned home and John was in bed, she looked into his room and he was sleeping on top of the sheets, fully clothed, a bottle at his bedside. If he were caught she would be an accessory. She contemplated phoning the police and handing him in herself, for his sake as much as hers, but the thought was fleeting. All things considered she was a little proud of him for taking a stand, for taking the power back. She knew what it was to be helpless and she admired him for having the courage to do something about it.

The next day in the museum she went to her corner and buried herself in the work. Mr Lowestoft had entrusted the keys to her and asked her to lock up when she left, her current task was to restore artefacts for the Asia Room. The best ones would be displayed inside the modest museum as there wasn’t room for all of it. The day drew to an end and she stopped working the leather on the samurai warrior’s armour. Each piece was laid out ready for the next day when she would reassemble the complicated leather piece mail and encase the wire-structured dummy. She had her own work room now, it was a small nook that she had been allowed to set up her tools and workstation in.

She stepped outside the museum, the dusky sky turning cobalt blue, ready for the night ahead. She inserted the key in the lock and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, she turned her head slightly and saw a figure standing behind her. She didn’t need to look; she recognised his aftershave. She quickly pushed the door open and dashed back inside, trying to slam it in Christian’s face. He put his boot in the way and with one swift movement knocked her on her backside. He came in and locked the door behind him, putting the key in his pocket.

‘We need to talk!’ He stared down at her.

She looked around the lobby helplessly, there was nowhere to go. She was trapped.

The Director

Ted lowered his feet from the bed on to the floor, searching for his slippers with them. He reached over to the bedside table and felt for his glasses. He could smell the warm, sweet smell of waffles in the air. He walked slowly out of the bedroom, his slippers shuffling across the luxurious pile.

The bathroom always seemed too white at the start of the day. The sun rose behind the house and the light would flood in the most the first thing in the morning. He felt the burning in his groin as he expelled the toxins from his bladder. All the pills he had taken before bed had worked their way through his system. His urine was a deep yellow, and against the fine white ceramic bowl it looked every bit as dirty as it was. Back at the sink he washed his hands and then looked at himself in the mirror. He was old. He was always surprised at how old he looked, inside he felt twenty-five.

Downstairs now, sitting in the day room, his plate ready for the delicious treat his wife had specially prepared for this special day. Today Ted was sixty-five years and four months old, not a birthday but an age worth noting. Tomorrow though, tomorrow night at the museum he would feel young again, before he formally announced his retirement, before he and his wife left for warmer climes.

He put on his favourite suit, it was blue wool, warm with a herringbone weave, it had been tailor-made just for him several years ago. This suit hadn’t fitted him for a long time but since he received the cancer diagnosis he had lost weight. He was unsure whether it was psychosomatic or a result of the disease gradually working its way through his body. Either way he was grateful for a chance to wear this suit again.

Ted brushed what was left of his hair in the usual side parting, aware that he wasn’t fooling anyone but he didn’t care. He was going to enjoy this day. Since he had heard about the deaths of the others he didn’t care much to listen to the radio in the car; scared of what he might hear next. The first of the disconnected reports came when he heard Jeff Stone had killed himself. He assumed that he just couldn’t live with himself any more; it was not as though the thought hadn’t crossed Ted’s mind once or twice over the years. Then came a small report in the newspaper about the disappearance of his friend Ian Markham, which drew his attention. He had contacted Harry immediately after that, who had then informed him that Stephen Collins had passed in Paris. That’s when it clicked into place. It was too much to be a coincidence, despite Harry’s assurances. Then came the huge news of David Caruthers’ demise. As yet no one had connected them together. Ted knew he was one of the few who were left. He hoped he would be dead before the truth came out. One way or another, his time was coming.

He had almost laughed when the specialist had told him the news. He had been waiting for a sign that maybe there was a God. How was he allowed to live this life unpunished for what he had done? For years he had been happy, his life was good, his kids loved him and he had never especially wanted for anything. It just didn’t seem right.

It’s true that once you have tasted the darkness it is hard to turn away and make a normal life for yourself, but he had managed to do just that. He missed the time he had spent with his brothers-in-arms but he did not miss the fear of discovery. Just as he had been told of his illness, more good news had befallen – his predecessor, the director Giles Epler, had passed away and left a great deal of his considerable fortune in trust to the museum. The money was to conclude the restorations and renovations that were taking an eternity; at least the entirety of Ted’s time there. He could not believe it had been eighteen years since the fire. Painstakingly they returned each room to its former glory. Well, almost every room.

At the museum, Gemma informed him that the police had been to visit, wanted to know the names of all the employees at the museum. She had given them. He was slightly disappointed that they had never arrested him; he waited for it almost daily.

Ted ran his fingers along the familiar grain of his mahogany desk. He would miss the old girl. She had been with him through thick and thin. She was well over a hundred years old and had been the stalwart of eight curators. Bespoke, commissioned for this very museum, this very room. She had survived countless atrocities, including the fire that would have ravaged her given half the chance. Nothing burns like old wood. She was accompanied by the tall-backed green leather chair, they stood together, majestic against the Georgian grey backdrop. He looked around at the bookshelves full of priceless books, the walls covered in framed awards and certificates of excellence. He wondered if he would have been allowed this life if anyone had known. That’s the thing though, people did know. He had waited all this time for someone to go to the police and take the life that he didn’t feel he deserved away from him. It didn’t even occur to him to go to the police himself; that he could be the whistle blower, that he could put an end to this feeling, the endless feeling that something terrible was coming.

Walking through the rooms he smiled at the patrons, all marvelling at the improvements that had been made. It had been a long time since he had made the rounds like this. He remembered a time when he had walked the corridors with the same wonder and amazement as the children he could see today. It was a lifetime ago.

Ted’s father was a Nazi sympathiser and had told Ted many stories of how they were just misunderstood and misinterpreted by the closed-minded ‘bloody do-good liberals’, how the world would be a better place if they had been successful in cleansing the gene pool of impurity and imperfection. After the war, Ted’s father had become director of this very museum and shown Ted all of its secrets before introducing him to Giles Epler, the man who would succeed him and precede Ted. Ted’s part in this had been inevitable. Lowestoft’s father and Epler had both been students at Churchill School for Boys themselves, in fact, they all had. When the boy had escaped Jeff Stone had gone through the records and altered them. There was nothing like a boys’ school for identifying who the sadists were, the bullies and the brutes; you just had to know what you were looking for. For eighteen years they had been anticipating some kind of retribution, they just hadn’t imagined it would be so brutal and completely inhuman.

Ted walked towards the Aviary and waited for the people to leave. He turned the hook and released the door that led to the secret chamber.

Inside the room was lifeless now, but he remembered it how it had been when he and his brothers had restarted the old traditions of directors past, under the tutelage of Giles Epler, the overseer of the whole operation. Ted instinctively went to his own seat and looked around the room, the perspective increasing the unwanted feeling of nostalgia. He remembered the boy, he remembered telling him just to cooperate and everything would be OK, just to do what they wanted and he could go. The boy had been different from the start. Epler had recruited him even though he clearly had no inclination to cause harm. It was the first mistake of many from the old man.

Ted knew the room had been disturbed and he knew by whom, he wondered what the boy looked like now, he wondered if he would recognise him. The fire and water damage had destroyed their sanctum sanctorum and they had been forced to give up the room. In the beginning it had all started as a harmless supper conversation up at the school, jokes about the way things were dealt with in the past. Epler had told them about the local history regarding the treatment of homosexuality. It was easy to discern which men were responsive to the notion; they were the ones who didn’t raise protest at the barbarian nature of the practice, the ones who looked almost excited at the prospect. Then he had told the selected few of a darker secret history, one hidden from the mainstay of record, passed down to true believers only, people who believed in a cure. In the past where no cure could be administered, the boys were afforded the mercy of death, but they were not operating in the past, things had changed. He wondered, if the boy had never escaped would they still be doing their duty today? Would they have succeeded? He rather imagined they would be in prison. Already the power trip had pushed things too far, mistakes were being made, starting with the homeless boy. He was not supposed to die, it had not been agreed. Egos were taking over and the cause was lost. Peter, Kevin, Harry and Jeff had taken it upon themselves to take action alone. The boy’s disappearance appeared in the news and then the eventual discovery of his body on the floor of a derelict building, discovered by some solvent abusers. The only loose end after the boy died was Sebastian Epler, Giles’ grandson. Epler had gone soft at the last moment and helped his grandson to escape.

Ted wandered back to the lobby. Gemma chirped away at Shane, flirtatiously ordering him around.

‘Mr Lowestoft!’ She composed herself and stood to attention. He half expected her to salute.

‘Sir.’ Shane nodded, a smirk on his face, and he turned and winked at Gemma.

‘Carry on, I’m just going to go look at our lovely ballroom again.’ He plodded past them, his legs hurting with every step. Part of him wondered when he would be relieved of this burden, when his time would come, he knew it must be soon, there weren’t many of them left.

‘Oh, the police are in your office, sir,’ Gemma offered. ‘I tried to tell them you were busy with the preparations for tomorrow but they wouldn’t listen.’

‘Thank you, Gemma.’ Ted smiled, they could wait for him. It didn’t make any difference now.

The ballroom was looking grand again, back to how it was before the fire, back in the glory days. He hated himself for looking back on those days with fondness but the truth was if he could go back, he would. He knew when he received the call about Giles Epler’s death that there would be a reckoning. He assumed the old man was the only reason the boy had not come back sooner to exact his revenge. Part of him wondered if Epler hadn’t left them the money to enable them to start again. To reignite the flame that had once burned so brightly in all of them.

‘Officers,’ Ted said as he opened the door. The female was looking through the books on his shelf, he cringed as she thumbed through the first editions with much less care than they deserved.

‘Hello, sir.’ The male detective stood up and offered his hand, Ted took it. ‘I’m DS Miles, and this is DS Grey.’

‘How can I help you? I’m a little busy today, as you can see. We have a big do tomorrow.’

‘Yes, it’s the fundraiser we wanted to talk to you about.’

‘Fire away.’ He smiled and smoothed his suit before sitting in the trusty green leather chair.

‘Three victims from recent murders have all had private invitations to your party tomorrow. We need to know what your connection to these victims is.’

‘Over a hundred of those invitations were sent out to various important people in the community, it’s a fundraiser.’

Three? So they didn’t know about David Caruthers or Stephen. David’s murder had been all over the news, mainly because he
was
the news, but it was almost two hundred miles away. It didn’t seem like they had put anything together yet. Ted hoped he was gone before they did, before they looked into the most sordid corners of his past. The truth never stays buried, Ted had learned that over the years, and the longer it takes to come out the more vile and foetid when it eventually does, and God knows he didn’t want to be here when it did. If it came to it he would follow Jeffrey’s lead and do the Spandau ballet. Part of him was curious as to how the public outcry would go down. He wondered if there would be people out there who understood. After all, he had been brought together with a handful of like-minded people by the former director Giles Epler all those years ago.

‘Are you personally acquainted with Mr Markham?’ DS Grey asked.

‘Yes,’ Ted replied.

‘How do you know Ian Markham, sir?’

‘His company has been very generous to the museum over the years.’

‘What are the names of the other people who received private invitations for tonight?’

Ted tried to think of a way to stall the inevitable, he had lied about the private invitations, they had been for his comrades alone, they would take one look at the list and everything would fall into place. Ted cursed the risk he had taken in inviting them this way, but it had been almost twenty years, no one remembered the boy who had died. No one except the one that got away. It wasn’t until Ted heard about the other deaths that he realised the invitations were a stupid idea. Eighteen years is a long enough time to convince yourself that you are home free, safe. It seemed inevitable now that the blinkers would be removed and the connections would be made.

‘I’m afraid I don’t have that to hand. I sent that information over to the printers. If you have a warrant you can look through my emails.’

The female looked up and straight at Ted, he had obviously said the magic word, her indifference turned into mistrust.

‘We can get a warrant if you like, Mr Lowestoft.’ She smiled and sat in the chair opposite him. He could tell he had said the wrong thing, suspicion was all over her face where it hadn’t been before. ‘Do we need one?’

‘I’d like to protect the information on our contributors as much as possible. You understand that, don’t you, Officer?’

‘We could always just come to the party tomorrow.’ She smiled. ‘I could do with a good night out.’

DS Miles smiled at him.

‘Please do what you have to do, Officers, and I will do what I have to do.’ He smiled but Ted never had a very good poker face. DS Grey was walking out the door, almost halfway down the corridor, when DS Miles finally broke his gaze and followed her, closing the door behind him. Ted picked up the phone and dialled a well-rehearsed number, he didn’t even have to look it up.

‘Harry! You need to do something and do it now! I just had two police officers in here asking questions about Ian. They are going to get a warrant and find out about the others, about you!’

‘I’ll fix it,’ Harry said. ‘Stop panicking.’