Unlikely Graves (Detective Inspector Paul Amos Mystery series) (5 page)

‘It was a great relief for all of us, I can tell you, that we had got through another term. Just two more terms to go before we got rid of the eldest Vernon child. Perhaps the youngest one wouldn’t be so difficult on his own, though he was worse than his brother. He tried to live up to the family reputation.’

Elder, not eldest, Amos noted mentally. Younger, not youngest. How can they teach English when they don’t know the language themselves?

‘Mrs Vernon was there,’ Jackson went on, unaware that Amos was mentally correcting her English. ‘We had to give her eldest boy a part in the service to keep him – and his mother – quiet. Unfortunately even that backfired.

‘While the eldest was spouting on about the shepherds in the fields the youngest stood up to see him and was pointing. Joan, poor woman, had been charged with sitting with that class. The class teacher was off sick. Who could blame her after a term with a Vernon child?

‘She put her hand on the boys arm and settled him back into his seat. If it hadn’t been his brother reading the lesson I think Mrs Vernon would have got up there and then and accused Joan.

‘Anyway, she wasted no time in rushing over afterwards. The vicar had hardly closed his mouth when she was barging across, knocking other parents aside, to accuse Joan of assaulting her child. It ruined Joan’s Christmas. She was in tears. She’d given her life to this school.

‘There wasn’t much we could do, it being the last day of term, so we had to suspend Joan and look into it in January. Luckily Mrs Vernon didn’t do herself any favours. Other mothers came forward and backed Joan. They said she had restrained him gently. Mrs Vernon intimidated some of them but she couldn’t shut up the council house mothers she’d insulted earlier.

‘I think,’ Jackson added confidentially, ‘that they got together and agreed on their stories. Still, justice was done. Mrs Vernon moved her children to another school. I don’t know which and I don’t care.

‘She threatened to go to the police and accuse us of child abuse. Well, she’s certainly taken her time but here you are.’

‘Are you quite sure the Vernons had no daughters?’ Amos asked. ‘Could they have gone to another primary school? Do you know if the boys had any cousins in the area?’

Jackson was understandably baffled by this question. While Amos had the advantage of knowing that they were at cross purposes, the headmistress did not.

‘No, no daughters. Definitely not. I don’t know about cousins.’

Then suddenly guessing at the reason for the question, Jackson asked brightly: ‘Have there been complaints about another school? It certainly supports our case if the Vernons have been scattering accusations about.’

Amos ignored her eager face. Instead of replying he asked: ‘Does the name Harry Randall mean anything to you?’

Jackson was puzzled as well as deflated.

‘No,’ she replied shaking her head. ‘I don’t remember any child of that name at the school. Joan has been here longer. I’ll ask her.’

Before Amos had time to stop her, Jackson sprang from behind her desk and reached her office door with considerably more alacrity than Joan had done. Indeed, the secretary had scarcely time to step back from the other side of the door where Amos was sure she had been eavesdropping.

‘Have we had a Harry Randall?’ Jackson asked her.

‘We had no Harrys in all the time I’ve been here up to Harry Jones starting two years ago.’

Another old man’s name had been rescued from the brink of oblivion along with Joshua and Samuel. Would anyone save Amos?

‘If the Vernons have finally got round to complaining we have nothing further to say,’ Joan continued in a rehearsed vein that confirmed she had indeed been privy to the conversation, or at least Jackson’s side of it. Amos was pleased that he had spoken quietly with his back to the door.

‘There was a full inquiry and I was completely vindicated. Several parents backed me up. Even the governors’ chairman had to admit I was in the right.’

Amos regretted mentioning Harry Randall’s name. When news of his murder inevitably came out these two would quickly associate his name with child abuse if he asked them about the names in the diary. Still, it had to be done.

The inspector handed over the list of names, scrawled out in block capitals and arranged into the three academic years covered in the diaries.

‘Do these names fit into any years at your school?’ Amos inquired. When no response was forthcoming immediately he added: ‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. These children could be in danger.’

It was Joan who responded firmly: ‘These names don’t fit any year here, past or present.’

‘Are you sure? How many classes do you have each year? Can you check your records?’

‘I’m quite sure,’ came the cold reply. ‘We have just one class of 30 to 35 each year and I have no difficulty in remembering their names. These do not tally.’

Jackson was a little more curious. ‘What are these initials? Are they middle names?’

‘Possibly,’ Amos replied, ‘or they could be surnames.’

‘It seems a bit unlikely,’ Joan opined. ‘V isn’t all that common an initial.’

‘No indeed,’ Amos concurred sadly. ‘No indeed.’

Joan challenged him: ‘Are you going to tell us what this is about? And what it has to do with us?’

‘If you do not recognize this list of names, then it almost certainly has nothing to do with you whatsoever.’

‘Hmmm.’ Joan was not entirely convinced that there was no nefarious subterfuge behind Amos’s motives but at least it was clear that this was unconnected with the Vernons.

‘Could it be further back?’ she asked. ‘Karen Potts, Christine Edwards, Christine Jones could be the Christine J, Susan Emmett. The Gang of Four.’

‘How long ago would that be?’

‘About eight or nine years.’

‘Could you look in the records to check?’

‘I don’t think I should show you the records without the approval of the governors and the Lincolnshire Education Authority,’ Joan said abruptly, handing the list back to Amos and looking sharply at the headmistress. ‘In any case, the names could be from just about any school admitting girls and I don’t recognize a lot of the names.’

‘No, quite so,’ Amos responded in a conciliatory tone. ‘Just one more thing. Where do the girls go to at 11?’

Eager to deflect attention away from her own charges, Jackson replied: ‘Most go to the mixed comprehensive. Some girls go to Park Road Girls School. One or two who can’t get into Park Road go private.’

Joan shot a glare at the headmistress as Amos stood and took his leave.

Chapter 12

Park Lane Girls’ School proved more receptive to helping the police inquiry. In this case the headmistress and her assistant seemed quite excited at the prospect.

It also helped that Amos decided to send Det Sgt Swift and DC Marie Holmes, they being female, younger and of lower rank, which made the approach seem less of an issue for the school.

Moreover, Mrs Sonia Doublejoy, the headmistress, had been at the school for some time and had the confidence and charisma that her counterpart at the primary school lacked.

‘A murder inquiry?’ she said bubbling with enthusiasm. ‘We’ve never had one of those. How exciting! And you think we can help you trace people who can help with your inquiry, I suppose.’

‘We’d rather this was kept just within these four walls,’ Swift said conspiratorially. ‘It’s all rather vague and speculative so we wouldn’t want any of the girls here now getting the wrong idea.’

‘Of course,’ Doublejoy responded in like vein. ‘Quite so. We don’t want a panic in the corridors.’

‘In any case,’ Swift went on, ‘this matter does not, as far as we know, concern any of your current pupils. We think it could be girls who left in the past five years, not all at the same time.’

She produced the list that Amos had shown without success at the primary school, adding: ‘They are divided up into groups who we believe left in the same summer term, the first group to leave being at the top and working forwards.’

‘Hmm, these are all pretty usual girls’ names,’ the headmistress mused. ‘I take it the initials are surnames which helps. I think you may be in luck, except … except…’

Swift decided not to interrupt as she went into a trance.

‘… except I don’t recall ever having a girl with a surname beginning with V. Perhaps these are middle names … but then again, V isn’t all that common. Vera, Veronica … yes, we had a Veronica, Violet, we had a Vyvyan but no-one was sure how to spell it …’

Doublejoy wandered over to a filing cabinet as she pondered the rich varieties of names that children are blessed or cursed with.

She selected half a dozen files which she placed on her desk. These were marked ‘class lists’ followed by a year. She opened the one with the oldest date on and glanced at the names at the top of Swift’s list.

‘No, this doesn’t really match up,’ she said. ‘One or two names do appear but not all of them.’

Doublejoy opened the second class lists file and raised her eyebrows.

‘Aha. Lower sixth contains all the names on your list,’ she said excitedly, then stopped, puzzled. ‘Except that, as I said, the Vs don’t work. We did have a Sarah in that year but she was called Daley.

‘These girls would all be 16 or 17 at that time. They would all take their A levels the following academic year.’

Subsequent years also gave a good correlation to the list, particularly in terms of confirming that all initials except V matched to surnames on the school register. There were inevitably one or two instances where two girls in a particular year fitted the list and it was impossible to say which was the relevant one.

Having been warned by Amos that asking for photocopies of the lists might present an obstacle in the way of child protection, Swift and Holmes copied down addresses of those girls they were sure matched the names in Harry Randall’s diaries.

Finally the detectives took their leave.

‘I still can’t understand the Vs,’ Mrs Doublejoy said thoughtfully as they departed.

‘I’m sure I can,’ Swift thought to herself.

Chapter 13

‘Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,’ said Amos. ‘It’s a lottery which girls to try first. I suppose logic dictates that we should try to match up the first initials in the diary but those girls are probably older and are more likely to have left home or moved away altogether. Let’s try to do it the easy way and see how we get on.’

He selected three names and address fairly close together and another three by the same criteria.

‘Let’s start with these. Juliet, you and Michael take one batch and Marie and I will take the other. We should be able to find at least one girl at home between us. We’ll meet up at the café just down the street when we’re done and compare notes.’

Amos was out of luck at his first port of call but Emma Johnson, his second choice, was at home. So, unfortunately, was her mother.

Mrs Johnson allowed Amos and Jane over the threshold only under sufferance, and only after Amos had offered, in a loud voice, to conduct the interview on the doorstep, within hearing of the neighbours.

The detectives were shown into the front room but were not offered the two comfortable chairs. This room doubled up as sitting room and dining area and Mrs Johnson pulled forward two dining chairs in the hope of causing sufficient discomfort to shorten the proceedings.

That suited Amos, who was now wanting to be on alert for any signs of guilt.

‘I can’t think what this is all about,’ Mrs Johnson said. ‘Emma has never been in any kind of trouble. I think you must have got the wrong girl, whatever it is you’ve come about.’

Amos ignored her and turned to the daughter.

‘Emma,’ he asked politely, ‘do you know Harry Randall?’

Before Emma had chance to answer, her mother butted in indignantly.

‘Do you mean that old man who was found murdered? Why on earth would Emma know him? He’s the other side of North Hykeham. Emma would never get mixed up with someone who would get themselves murdered.’

‘Murder knows no boundaries,’ Amos replied drily. ‘Not class, not breeding, not location. However, perhaps Emma could speak for herself.’

Mrs Johnson bristled and gave Emma a look that said ‘you had better not know him’. The daughter shifted uneasily.

‘No, no, of course not,’ she said flustered and unconvincingly. ‘Of course I didn’t know him. I don’t know anything about him,’ she protested vehemently.

Amos showed her a photograph of the victim, deftly evading Mrs Johnson’s outstretched hand trying to intercept it.

‘Do you recognize this man?’

Emma glanced nervously at her mother and said ‘no’ without looking at the picture.

‘Please take a good look at it, Emma,’ Amos said gently but firmly.

‘She said no,’ her mother intervened, taking the photograph from her daughter’s hand. ‘This is him, Randall, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘I saw the picture on the local TV news. She’s already said she doesn’t know him.’

Amos doubted very much if any picture of Randall had been shown. The police had not released one. In fact, it occurred to the inspector, he could not recall seeing any photographs on display in Randall’s house. This one had been out of sight in a drawer, perhaps forgotten.

Amos retrieved the picture and to Mrs Johnson’s undisguised annoyance handed the photograph once more to the reluctant daughter.

‘Please look at it properly, Emma, and tell me if you recognize this man,’ Amos insisted.

This time Emma looked at the photograph without much enthusiasm and shook her head.

‘No,’ she said simply. ‘I don’t recognize him.’

‘I think that’s enough,’ Mrs Johnson told Amos. ‘I think we have tolerated this intrusion long enough. Emma doesn’t know him and why should she? Neither do I. So if that’s all you came to ask, I’ll show you out.’

The third house looked superficially more promising when it transpired that this time the daughter but not the mother was at home. Amos was, however, soon disabused of any optimism that he might have felt.

The girl was panic stricken. Despite pushing the issue as far as he felt he could, all Amos could elicit was a flustered, stammering denial of everything he asked.

Amos and Marie eventually abandoned the pointless interview as the girl looked wildly at the clock ticking away on the mantelpiece, no doubt counting down the minutes to the appearance of one parent or the other, Amos thought.

He and Marie made their way to the café that the team had agreed would be the meeting place at which they could compare notes. Juliet Swift was not there. After 15 minutes of waiting and stretching out the consumption of a coffee and iced bun as long as was seemly, they saw Juliet with her sidekick Detective Constable Michael Yates appear through the door.

‘Sorry, sir,’ she said as she collapsed into one of the wooden chairs with yellow plastic seats, ‘we got nowhere.’

Amos handed over a fiver to Yates.

‘Get a coffee and a bun for both of you and relax,’ he told the constable. ‘You’ve done no worse than we did.’