John Eider - Not a Very Nice Woman

‘And now the Trust’s solicitors.’

‘Yes, they confirmed it when I called them — there’ll be someone at the office all afternoon.’

‘Then we must get over there.’ Grey was as usual agog at their assistant’s efficiency. ‘In the sixteen years of the Trust has their been any trouble at the Cedars? Tax evasion, dodgy accounting? Anything on our books?’

‘None I can find, sir.’

‘Then please find me some impropriety somewhere, Sarah.’

‘I’ll try my best. Oh yes, and there’s one other lead: the teaching union I spoke to had Stella listed as a Mrs S Mars for her first term at Tudor Oak.’

‘A marriage?’

‘I’ve found nothing else out yet, though this would also be about the time she appears on the electoral role as Dunbar.’

‘But her certificate read Dunbar in Sixty-three.’

‘She must have married and then reverted,’ suggested Cori.

‘I haven’t got to the records of that yet.’

‘At last we find your limit, Sarah,’ said Grey in a way he knew she’d read the humour of. He slapped his hands on his knees,

‘Then we have places to get to before they close — Cori, get to the Southney School and ask if they have the names of students seeing private tutors; otherwise ask for girls with long dark hair, initials EN or SK.’

‘Right oh.’

‘Meanwhile, Sarah, there’s something we didn’t know earlier to ask you about: one of those who found the victim, Charlie Prove, had a daughter who may have been killed, possibly around the time the Trust was formed and certainly before he moved in. I know no more than that. As soon as you know all you can about Stella, please move onto him. Oh, and get the rest of the office on Derek Waldron and Rachel Sowton, I want to trust them and I can’t until we’ve checked them out.’

‘What about you, sir?’ asked Cori.

I’m off to Rossiter’s solicitors; and if we’re all back in time, which we should be, then on to Tudor Oak School.’

‘But it’s a school, sir. They won’t be open much longer today.’

‘Well we’re not going to get there by three thirty even if we leave now, and the other sites are closer and as important. Could you call them this moment, Sarah, and have someone who remembers those days stay and wait for us. This is all too important — we have to go to the only place we knew she ever was before the Cedars.’

Two schools in one afternoon, thought Cori, who like many an adult had taken years of being a parent to approach their child’s house of learning without the ghosts of her own education being also in attendance. It was all there though as she entered the front door of the modern Combined Administration Building and followed the sign along the corridor for the office: the metal chairs, the naive art, the scuffs along the skirting boards from cleaning machines.

‘Can we help you?’

Cori thought she knew why the Inspector has assigned himself the solicitor’s office, as an unknown man would rouse even more suspicion in a school secretary than that which she was under now. The woman was maybe fifty and seemed effortlessly stern — perhaps set so, Cori imagined, from a thousand ‘ Come back here! ’s.

She had her badge ready,

‘Sergeant Smith, Southney Station. I wonder, could I have a word?’

Her identification as a police officer, while reassuring to the secretary in one way seemed alarming in another,

‘Miss Foreshore. Won’t you sit?

A part of Cori couldn’t resist the impression that she was here to be asked about her homework.

‘Please don’t tell me one of the children are in trouble. What have they done now?’

‘It’s not that. No one’s in trouble.’

‘Then it’s a parent. Oh Lord. Which child? I’ll fetch them for you.’

‘No, please don’t worry. It’s not that,’ she repeated. ‘We are investigating a serious matter, but one that I’m sure none of your children will prove to be caught up in.’ A white lie, but necessary for the lady’s nerves.

‘Oh?’ the secretary was still far from settled.

‘I wonder, do you know a Ms Stella Dunbar?’

‘She’s one of our tutors.’

‘I’m afraid she died last night.’

‘And you want to tell her students? I understand. She was English Lit., wasn’t she?’ The lady began rustling through her well-organised desk drawers.

‘She seemed like a few different subjects.’ Cori remembered the books on Stella’s dining table. ‘But what I really need are the names of those who saw her.’

‘Well that’s why I ask her subject: you see we only keep a list here of those qualified tutors we know in the area, to recommend to parents. But as for the students who were seeing them at any one time, well, that’s a private matter between the tutor and the parents.’

‘And do you remember recommending any parents?’

‘Well… there are several tutors, and so many parents; and it might not have been me here when they came in to ask… Ah, here we are.’ Miss Foreshore pulled a piece of paper from the cantilevers and dividers, ‘So what do we know about her? Oh yes, there’s almost every subject listed here, and all ages too. That will be trickier.’

‘Why so?’ asked Cori as she took the piece of paper offered.

‘Well often the student’s teacher in that subject will know if there’s a tutor, might even have recommended the parents to them. Had she taught only one subject I would have known the teacher to ask. As it is, the best bet will be for me to announce the news in the Staff Room tomorrow morning before registration — that’s the one time all the teachers are guaranteed to be there. They need to know in case they have students with appointments: we don’t want a child going around there after school and finding she’s not there. I wonder, could I ask?’

‘Of course. I’m afraid her death appears violent… though clearly not the work of a child,’ added Cori quickly to reassure the secretary.

‘And do you know who..?’

‘I’m afraid not; however a student was there that day and might have seen something.’

‘Poor dear, I do hope not.’ The secretary pondered a moment, before asking, ‘You’ll have been through Stella’s things: she didn’t leave any record of who she was tutoring?’

‘Only a diary with what we think may be initials: EN and SK; and we believe one was a girl with long dark hair, and that she had a female friend.’

‘But you don’t know which was the long-dark-haired girl? You’ll see that doesn’t give me much to go on. I can look through the registers and see if a name jumps out at me — it’s hard to think with just the initials; but otherwise we’ll have to hope a teacher knows something tomorrow.’

‘Then thank you. Can I ask, did you have any dealings with Ms Dunbar?’

‘Well only occasionally through the office. She was always very professional.’

‘And what did people think of her generally? Did you recommend her often?’

‘Oh yes, we did recommend her. Her fees were at the high end, but she earned them, Sergeant. In fact… she could rather embarrass a teacher with the effect she could have on a student: twenty, even forty percent improvements in grades when she really connected with them. There are a lot of people in this town with passes who wouldn’t have them if it hadn’t been for her. She will be missed.’

‘Here’s my number — call me any time with the slightest thing.’

Cori thanked Miss Foreshore, and skipped quickly from the low-ceilinged building, off to walk the short way back to the station and prepare for school two.

Rossiter’s Solicitors in Law had been a long-standing feature of Southney’s High Street, one of those shopfronts that remained the same decade in-decade out and which reassured in the belief that some things could be permanent and may endure. Of course Rossiter himself could not have endured for so long as the shop, and Grey, who hadn’t been in there for years nor could remember who had attended him then, assumed it would be a partner or descendant that he would need to speak to on this occasion.