Late of This Parish (29 page)

‘And decided to kill him, too. That was no spur of the moment decision, you went prepared, with a baseball bat. It was too bad you didn't know that Miss Thorne knew as much as he did, otherwise he wouldn't now be in a hospital bed.'

‘He shouldn't have tried it on. I'm the wrong person to put up with that sort of blackmail!' His face had grown red and shiny, the blue eyes hot, a pulse beat in his temple, as if a violence that had been repressed and held down too long could no longer be contained but had to come boiling out, like steam under pressure. Yet the expression on his face was almost exalted. ‘What's more, I'm damned if I'll listen to any more of this!'

In a flash, he had made his move. Straight for the door in a few long strides. Out of it, slamming it behind him and over the wooden rails in one leap, never mind the steps. He could easily have broken a leg from that height but he knew what he was doing, how to land, which Kite, following after, didn't – or didn't care to test whether he knew or not. Both he and Mayo were in fair condition but they knew they hadn't a hope in hell. Reece, on top of his form, had a good lead and soon outstripped them both, making for the main school building. The west tower, with its net of scaffolding. The ladders, still in place and Reece swarming up them like a monkey.

Kite had reached the bottom of the first ladder, was about to follow him, just like in the cops and robber series so that the poor dumb cop would be in danger of being pushed off the roof by the bad guy.

But Reece had already reached the top and with scarcely a moment's pause, leaped straight off. Directly beneath him was a pile of builders' sand. Embedded upright in the sand by its spike, ready to be hauled up to the roof, was the new, replacement finial, its leafy crown of acanthus leaves now clearly defined around its central, sharply-tapering boss, pointing in all innocence to the sky.

The month of May had decided to live up to its reputation and bow itself out in a feast of blossom, blue skies and the beginning of a heatwave. Castle Wyvering, peaceful and sleepy in the sun, looked at its best, while Uplands House School on a May morning was incomparable.

‘Reece came with the highest recommendation from the Headmaster at Halsingbury,' Richard Holden was saying, ‘and I immediately felt he'd fit in here, which he always did. Never thought anything of it when he told me he preferred to be known simply as “Reece” rather than his full name. Less pretentious, he said, and I was inclined to agree.'

Mayo had come to the school to find Miriam Thorne and after speaking with her was leaving when he had encountered the Headmaster on the front lawn, watching as the scaffolding on the west tower was being dismantled, ready to be taken away. Bolts were being uncoupled and planks thrown down to the accompaniment of the sort of language which would certainly have enriched the boys' vocabulary had they been there to hear it. The work was now completed, the damaged tiles replaced and the acanthus-leaved finial upon which Jon Reece's body had been impaled cemented into place on the apex of one of the gables, looking newer than its companions but otherwise innocent of its deadly function.

Holden stood with his hands clasped behind his back, bouncing slightly on his toes, his gown billowing behind him. There was a subtly different air about him, a relaxation of tension perhaps, a renewed energy.

‘But that isn't what you mean, is it?' he went on. ‘And the answer is no, I'd no idea he was gay, though God knows that must be the last word to apply. Not at first, that is. Later, I began to suspect.'

‘Didn't it bother you at all, sir?'

‘I like to think that I'm not prejudiced, and I can assure you there was never any danger at all that any of the boys would be at risk. Had I had the slightest inkling of anything like that he would have had to go. No, I'm as certain as I ever shall be of anything that he was speaking the truth when he said he kept the two sides of his life apart.'

‘But when he was likely to be made Headmaster?'

‘Well, I didn't know for certain that what I suspected was true and short of asking him outright, which he would have denied, I don't know what I could have done. I certainly wasn't going to conduct any sort of witch hunt.' Holden watched a large lorry doing a reverse turn on the drive, keeping his eye on it to make sure it didn't clip the edges of the lawn with its wheels, then said, ‘All right, yes, it bothered me. Look, shall we go into my study? It's too noisy to talk out here and I think there'll be some tea waiting.'

Sitting in the large, comfortable room, with the windows open, tea poured and biscuits handed, Holden leaned back in his chair. ‘Sebastian, at least, I gather from Miriam Thorne, is making a good recovery. Showing a tendency to rethink his life and the way it's going too, I understand – but concerned about Philly.'

‘Well, she'll have to take the rap, you know, along with the others. With Patman and Quinn and Ruth Lampeter, though even they're small beer compared to Peter Falk. But since she was only involved with setting up the cell here and not with SARA's more militant activities, she should get off comparatively lightly. I thought I'd come along and reassure Mrs Thorne about that while I was here in Wyvering to sort out one or two other matters with PC Wainwright.'

‘It won't basically change how she feels about things, you know,' Miriam had said. ‘We've tried for years to do that. But maybe she'll cool her opinions down a bit. What happened to Seb has shaken her badly.'

And if Sebastian had the nous to take advantage of that – and Mayo was inclined to think he had his head screwed on the right way, despite appearances to the contrary in the matter of Jonathan Reece – then maybe it would turn out to be a different story. ‘She'll be all right,' he said to Holden now. ‘And so will young Oliver. Though his memory at the moment is all to pot and he doesn't remember exactly what happened just before he was attacked.'

Jon Reece – or Jonathan Talbot-Reece – hadn't been so lucky. He had died within a few seconds of reaching the hospital. His spectacular leap from the scaffolding on to the stone finial had resulted in multiple injuries, rupturing his spleen and breaking his spine among other things. He had lain a few doors along the corridor from where Sebastian

Oliver was slowly recovering, but had never regained consciousness.

‘Thank you for the tea, Mr Holden,' Mayo said, preparing to go. ‘I don't suppose we shall meet again but I'd like to wish you well and hope you and your wife will be happy in Antibes.'

The Headmaster took off his spectacles, smiled and said, ‘We shan't be going to Antibes, Mr Mayo. I've let myself be persuaded not to retire after all. Not just yet. I've spoken to my doctor and he supports the idea wholeheartedly. It wasn't a severe heart attack I had, just a warning, as they say, and my doctor says there's no reason why I shouldn't live to be ninety – though I shan't inflict myself on Uplands so long!'

‘That's a surprise! What does Mrs Holden think of the idea?' Mayo asked, though he could have bet his month's overtime on the answer.

‘It was my wife who originally felt I should retire and I went along with her wishes but in actual fact I think now she's rather relieved I've decided otherwise. She knows I shall be happier – and I'm certain
she
will be, staying here.'

‘Then Illingworth won't get the Headship?'

‘No. No, he won't. But all in all that might be no bad thing. That was partly why I changed my mind when the chairman of the governors sounded me out – before Reece died – on the idea of staying on for an interim period at least, until a more suitable person than either Reece or Illingworth could be found. Like me, one or two of the board members had apparently been having second thoughts, feeling that neither candidate was ideal. Maybe Illingworth can be groomed to take over when I do retire, though frankly, I'm not sure that teaching
per se
is entirely his metier. I can't see him finding it enough of an intellectual challenge in the long run.'

‘Never struck me as being the sort to be a schoolmaster, but then, I'm not qualified to say,' Mayo remarked.

‘No, though I was very happy to take him, of course, when he first came here. It's not every day someone with his background applies for a position at a school like Uplands. He was quite frank about his reasons for leaving Cambridge and during his time here he's performed quite adequately, but that's rather different from being Head of a school like this. Jonathan would've been the better man of the two, but ...' He shook his head.

‘It wouldn't have done, though, would it?'

‘No, I must admit it wouldn't. Easy, of course, to speak with hindsight but you know, I liked him, I liked him very much. I was aware he used his charm quite deliberately to get what he wanted but I thought it was harmless. I should have seen the aggression beneath the surface – it was there in dozens of ways. I always knew he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder but his kind often do. I'd never have thought him a potential suicide.'

Yet Doc Ison had said that suicide was a characteristic of the psychopathic personality. ‘Unable to cope with being thwarted, suicide rather than capitulation. Failure to develop a sense of moral responsibility, capable of extreme violence ... If he was a true psychopath, that is, and didn't simply have a severe personality disorder, which is more likely, though it's impossible for me to say, never having seen him.'

A bell rang somewhere in the distance and as Mayo left, a troop of small boys streamed out towards the playing fields with a young master in charge. He saw Laura Willard – Laura Illingworth – in the distance but he didn't stop. He'd said everything now that needed to be said. These people whose personal lives he had so intimately known were already passing into the limbo of investigations marked ‘Closed'. Already other cases were beginning to crowd in and push the details of this one to the back of his mind.

He glanced at his watch. Time before he went home to pick up some of that special bird seed and fresh fruit for Bert, who was proving to be a picky eater. As well as being an obstinate cuss. Mayo was trying to teach him to talk but so far his efforts had been met with nothing but derision. Never mind, he'd grown used to looking for the flash of bright colour in the corner and hearing the screech that passed for welcome when he opened the door.

He found himself smiling as he walked to where his car was parked and drove away under the magnificent line of chestnuts, leaving Wyvering without going back into Parson's Place, driving past the castle ruins and down the hill for the last time, going back the way he'd first come.