V. McDermid - Report for Murder

‘If my pupils could see me now, they’d have a fit,’ laughed Paddy. ‘Teachers aren’t supposed to leap around like lunatics in public, you know! My, you look good. Frightfully smart!’ She held Lindsay at arms’ length, taking in the outfit, the brown hair and the dark blue eyes. ‘First time I’ve ever seen you fail to resemble a jumble sale in search of a venue.’

‘Lost weight. It’s living off the wits that does it. Food’s a very easy economy.’

‘No, darling, it’s definitely the clothes. Who’s the new woman, then?’

‘Cheeky sod! There’s no new woman, more’s the pity. I went out and bought this all by myself. At least six months ago, too. So there, Miss Callaghan.’

Paddy grinned. ‘All right, all right. I’ll take your word for it. Now, come along. I’m parked outside. I’ve got to pick up a couple of things from the town library then we can shoot back to the school itself and have a quick coffee to wipe away the strain of the train.’

In the station car park, they climbed into Paddy’s battered Land Rover. ‘Not exactly in its prime, but it’s practical up here,’ she apologised. ‘Highest market town in England, this is. When the snow gets bad, I’m the only member of staff who can make a bid for freedom to the local pub. You still got that flashy passion wagon of yours?’

Lindsay scowled. ‘If you mean my MG, yes I have.’

‘Dear, oh dear. Still trying to impress with that retarded status symbol?’

‘I don’t drive it to impress anyone. I know it’s the sort of car that provokes really negative reactions from the 2CV brigade, but I happen to enjoy it.’

Paddy laughed, ‘Sorry. I didn’t know it was such a sore spot.’

‘Let’s just say that I’ve been getting a bit of stick about it lately from one or two people who should know better. I’m seriously thinking about selling it just for a bit of peace and quiet from the purists who think you can only be right-on in certain cars. But I think I’d miss it too much. I can’t afford to buy a new sports car. I spend a lot of time in transit and I think I’ve got a right to be in a car that performs well, is comfortable and doesn’t get like an oven in the summer. Plus it provokes interesting reactions from people. It’s a good shorthand way of finding out about attitudes.’

‘Okay, okay. I’m on your side,’ Paddy protested.

‘I know it’s flash and pretentious,’ Lindsay persisted. ‘But then there’s a bit of that in me anyway. So you could argue that I’m doing women a favour by forewarning them.’

Paddy pulled up in a Georgian crescent of imposing buildings. ‘You are sensitive about it, aren’t you? Well, if it’s any consolation, I’ve never thought you were flash. A little over the top sometimes, perhaps …’

Lindsay changed the subject abruptly. ‘What’s this, then,’ she demanded, waving an arm at the buildings.

‘Not bad, eh? The North’s answer to Bath. Not quite on the same scale. Rather splendid but slightly seedy. And you can still drink the spa water here. Comes out of the ground warm; tastes rather like an emetic in its natural state, but terribly good for one, so they say. Come and see the library ceiling.’

‘Do what?’ demanded Lindsay as Paddy jumped down. She had to break into a trot to catch Paddy, who was walking briskly along a colonnade turned golden by the late afternoon sun. They entered the library. Paddy gestured to Lindsay to go upstairs while she collected her books. A few minutes later she joined her there.

‘Hardly over the top at all, dear,’ Lindsay mocked, pointing to the baroque splendours of the painted and moulded ceiling. ‘Worth a trip in itself. So where are all the dark satanic mills, then? I thought the North of England was full of them.’

‘I thought you’d appreciate this,’ said Paddy with a smile. ‘You’re in altogether the wrong place for dark satanics, though. Only the odd dark satanic quarry hereabouts. But before you dash off in search of the local proletarian heritage, a word about this weekend. I want to sort things out before we get caught up in the hurly-burly.’

‘Sort out the programme, or my article?’

‘Bit of both, really. Look, I know everything about the school goes right against the grain for you. Always embraced your principles so strongly, and all that. I also know that Perspective would be very happy if you wrote your piece from a fairly caustic point of view. But, as I tried to get across to you, this fund-raising project is vital to the school.

‘If we don’t raise the necessary £50,000 we’ll lose all our playing fields. That might not seem any big deal to you, but it would mean we’d lose a great deal of our prestige because we’ve always been known as a school with a good balance -you know, healthy mind in a healthy body and all that. Without our reputation for being first class for sport as well as academically we’d lose a lot of girls. I know that sounds crazy, but remember, it’s usually fathers who decree where daughters are educated and they all hark back to their own schooldays through rose-tinted specs. I doubt if we’d manage to keep going, quite honestly. Money’s become very tight and we’re getting back into the patriarchal ghetto. Where parents can only afford to educate some of their children, the boys are getting the money spent on them and the girls are being ignored.’ Paddy abruptly ran out of steam.

Lindsay took her time to answer while Paddy studied her anxiously. This was a conversation Lindsay had hoped would not have had to take place, and it was one she would rather have had over a drink after they’d both become accustomed to being with each other again. At last she said, ‘I gathered it was serious from your letter. But I can’t help feeling it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the public schools felt the pinch like everyone else. It seems somewhat unreal to be worrying about playing fields when a lot of state schools can’t even afford enough books to go round.’

‘Even if it means the school closing down?’

‘Even if it means that, yes.’

‘And put another sixty or seventy people on the dole queue? Not just teachers, but cleaning staff, groundsmen, cooks, the shopkeepers we patronise? Not to mention the fact that for quite a lot of the girls, Derbyshire House is the only stable thing in their lives. Quite a few come from broken homes. Some of their parents are living abroad where the local education isn’t suitable for one reason or another. And others need the extra attention we can give them so they can realise their full potential.’

‘Oh, Paddy, can’t you hear yourself?’ Lindsay retorted plaintively, and was rewarded by scowls and whispered ‘shushes’ from around the reading room. She dropped her voice. ‘What about all the kids in exactly the same boat who don’t have the benefit of Mummies and Daddies with enough spare cash to use Derbyshire House as a social services department? Maybe their lives would be a little bit better if the middle classes had to opt back into real life and use their influence to improve things. I can’t be anything but totally opposed to this system you cheerfully shore up. And don’t give me those spurious arguments about equal opportunities. In the context of this society, what you’re talking about isn’t an extension of equality; it’s an extension of inequality. Don’t try to quiet my conscience like that.

‘Nevertheless … I’ve had to come to the reluctant conclusion that I can’t stab you in the back having accepted your hospitality. Shades of the Glencoe massacre, eh? Don’t expect me to be uncritically sycophantic. But I won’t be doctrinaire either. Besides, I need the money!’

Paddy smiled. ‘I should have known better than to worry about you,’ she said.