Кара Хантер - In the Dark

‘He obviously likes his knick-knacks,’ says Gislingham, gesturing at a cupboard on the far wall. ‘I mean, with those weird little shelves, that’s not for books, is it?’

Somer frowns slightly. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen something like that before.’ She shakes her head. Whatever it was, it’s gone.

‘Shall we try the school?’ says Gislingham. ‘I thought it was half-term, but perhaps those posh private places have different holidays to the rest of us?’

Somer shrugs. ‘You’re asking the wrong person. But yes, why not. It’s only ten minutes away.’

As they walk back towards the car a woman emerges from the house opposite, struggling with a pushchair and a toddler.

‘I’m just going to see if she knows Walsh,’ says Somer, starting towards her. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

Gislingham gets back in the car and digs his newspaper out of the side pocket. When a mobile starts ringing it takes him a moment to realize it’s not his. And when he reaches across to the glovebox and pulls out Somer’s phone the screen says ‘Gareth’. He’s grinning mischievously as he answers the call.

‘Hello? PC Somer’s phone?’

Silence. Three beats, four, five.

‘ Gislingham? ’

‘Yes, who’s that?’

‘It’s Quinn. As you know bloody well.’

‘Sorry, mate, didn’t expect it to be you.’

Another silence. A silence eloquent with ‘like hell you didn’t’.

‘I was just calling to see how it’s going,’ Quinn says eventually. ‘With Walsh I mean. I didn’t realize you’d gone up there too.’

‘We haven’t tracked him down yet. Shall I tell her you called?’

Quinn hesitates. ‘No. Don’t bother. I got what I was after.’

Yeah right, thinks Gislingham as he rings off. Like hell you did.

*

Petersham College is an Old School old school, at least from the front. Two Victorian Oxford-copy quads complete with dining hall and chapel and stained-glass windows. Gislingham parks in a bay marked ‘Visitors’, and they follow a large yellow sign to what announces itself as the ‘Porter’s Lodge’.

‘Just the one then,’ says Somer. ‘Wonder what they do when he’s off sick.’

‘Sorry, I’m not with you.’

She shakes her head. ‘Grammar nerd joke. Forget it.’ She spent two years attempting to teach English in an inner-city comprehensive before deciding that if she was going to spend her days dealing with drugs, knives and random violence she might as well get paid to do it professionally.

The porter, meanwhile, turns out to be a ‘she’ not a ‘he’. A middle-aged woman in a burgundy jacket and pleated skirt.

‘Can I help you?’ she asks, looking at them over her glasses.

They show their warrant cards. ‘Could we see Mr Walsh, please? Donald Walsh?’

She leans forward over the desk and points. ‘His room is in one of the new blocks – Coleridge House. Go through the archway on the far left. I could call him and let him know you’re coming, if you want to tell me what it’s about?’

Somer smiles at her; she’s clearly gagging for a whiff of scandal. ‘There’s really no need. Thanks anyway.’

They make their way across the quad. A couple of boys pass them, hands in pockets. Their voices are slightly too loud; rather like their blazers. There are teachers’ names listed on a board at the bottom of each staircase, and a little wooden sign that can be slid across to show ‘in’ or ‘out’. Gislingham moves a couple, just for the hell of it.

‘Blimey, they do all right for themselves here, don’t they?’ he says, glancing in as they pass at the leather armchairs, the shelves of books, the over-sized stone fireplaces. ‘Though it beats me why people pay through the nose to send their kids to places like this. Education’s education. The rest is just the bloody packaging.’

‘That’s the point though,’ says Somer. ‘It’s the packaging they want.’

But once through the archway it’s a very different story. A jumble of Portakabins encroaching on the staff car park and two heavy 1970s extension blocks named, rather incongruously, after Romantic poets. I bet they don’t bring prospective parents in here, thinks Somer, as Gislingham pushes open the door to Coleridge House. Harsh echoes and a smell of disinfectant. Walsh’s room is on the third floor and there’s no lift, so they’re both huffing a bit by the time they get to the door. The man who answers has a check shirt and a knitted tie and a pair of well-shined shoes. He looks very like the man Elspeth Gibson described.

‘Yes?’

‘DC Chris Gislingham, PC Erica Somer, Thames Valley Police. Could we have a word with you?’

He blinks, then glances back into the room. ‘Actually, I’m taking an after-school class. Can you come back later?’

‘We’ve come from Oxford,’ says Gislingham. ‘So no, we can’t “come back later”. Can we come in?’

The two men stare at each other for a few moments then Walsh steps aside. ‘Of course.’

The room inside is more a classroom than a study. No leather armchairs here, just a desk, a row of hard-backed chairs, an old-fashioned blackboard and a couple of framed posters. Madam Butterfly at the ENO; an exhibition of Japanese artefacts at the Ashmolean. And fidgeting a little at one of the desks, a red-haired boy with an exercise book on his lap. Eleven, maybe twelve years old.

‘OK, Joshua,’ says Walsh, with perhaps a little too much gusto. ‘It seems an unexpected deus ex machina has released you prematurely from the purgatory that is the repeal of the Corn Laws.’

He holds open the door and gestures to the boy. ‘Off you go. But I shall want to see that prep first thing in the morning.’

The boy pauses in the doorway and looks back at Gislingham, and then he’s gone. They can hear his feet clattering down the stairs.

‘So,’ says Walsh, moving round behind his desk in a power play that’s not lost on any of them. ‘What can I help you with?’

‘I imagine you probably know why we’re here,’ begins Gislingham.

Walsh looks at him, then at Somer. ‘To be perfectly honest, no.’

‘It’s about your uncle, or strictly speaking, your aunt’s husband. William Harper.’

‘Oh,’ says Walsh. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Though I don’t know why they felt they needed to send you.’

‘It’s a serious matter, Mr Walsh.’

‘Of course. I wasn’t meaning to imply – well, you know. Just have them get in touch with me and I’ll sort things out. I suppose there isn’t anyone else. Not now.’

Gislingham stares at him. ‘Who are you talking about, Mr Walsh?’

‘The solicitors. I assume he had some. Oxford firm, is it?’

‘I’m not following you.’

‘About the will,’ says Walsh. ‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Bill’s dead?’

Somer and Gislingham exchange a glance.

‘You haven’t seen the news? The press?’

Walsh smiles, faux-helpless. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have time to read newspapers. Have you any idea how much is involved in this job?’

Somer knows very well, in fact. But she’s not about to tell him so.

‘Look,’ she says, ‘I think you’d better sit down.’

***

‘As a colleague of mine observed only this week, sometimes we just get lucky.’

I’m at the lab, standing next to Challow, looking down at a metal table spread with sheets of paper covered with lines of handwriting. Some are intact, others streaked with damp, a few reduced to pulp and completely illegible.

‘What is it – some sort of journal?’

Challow nods. ‘Nina found it when she went through the boxes that were in the cellar. It was stuffed down the side, presumably so the old man didn’t find it. There were some old books in there and the girl’s torn out the blank pages. There were a couple of old biros in the boxes too. Those orange Bic things. Looks like Harper’s the sort who can never bear to throw anything away.’ He gestures at the sheets. ‘We’ve saved what we can but I think the bog on the floor above must have overflowed recently. In fact, I’m surprised that girl didn’t have raging pneumonia, trapped in that bloody awful place all that time.’