Authors: Barry Maitland
Stafford stopped them again, moving Vicky further away from the sofa, so that Edward would appear more isolated at centre stage, an almost devotional figure in the crossed arms of the strait-jacket.
“I know how that bloke feels,” Bren whispered.
“It’s not that bad, surely?” Kathy said, trying to sound as if she thought he was making a joke.
“And I’ll tell you what, I’ll bet that’s exactly the way our killer sees it too.”
Aunt Mary’s keys were lying beneath the seat she had used on the previous night, just as Kathy had predicted. Overcome with relief, Mary babbled away on the drive home about their experiences that day with Stafford.
“He’s a difficult man, Kathy. I didn’t like the way he spoke to Ruth today. Quite rude, I thought.”
“Yesterday you said he was very caring.” Kathy immediately regretted the comment, remembering the last time she’d tried to argue with her aunt after a long day.
“Well, he is that too. You’d be surprised.”
“Would I?”
“Yes, you would. He cares about you, as a matter of fact. We had a long chat about you. He wanted to know all about how we were related, and about your mum and dad. He was particularly interested in them.”
“What? Why on earth would he want to know about them?” Kathy felt a flash of resentment.
“Because he’s interested in people. He said that a theatre
producer has to study people, so he can make characters come to life on the stage. Ruth had to go out to buy some material, and Stafford and I had a good long yarn over a cup of tea. I told him all about us, and how you coped with your mum after your pa died.”
“Did you tell him how Dad died?”
“I may have mentioned something.”
“That’s none of his business, Mary!” Kathy exploded. “I don’t like you talking to him about our private lives.”
“Oh nonsense! That’s all in the past. You sound like a right southerner. There’s nothing wrong with people being interested in each other’s stories. That’s what it’s all about.”
Kathy clenched her teeth, knowing what the answer to that was, knowing she should leave it alone, but unable to stop. “And did you tell him all about you and Tom splitting up?”
Mary was shocked. “I couldn’t do that, Kathy!”
“No, well, maybe you should. Maybe it’s time you started talking about it. Maybe it’s time you started facing up to it.”
Kathy saw the look on Mary’s face, and her anger faded away.
“Anyway,” she said, wanting to move the conversation away from dangerous ground, “he must be pleased with what you’ve done with the costumes.”
“Oh yes.” Aunt Mary was tight-lipped.
“Will you finish tomorrow, as you planned?”
The old lady nodded, accepting the truce. “Ruth can’t wait to get them out of her flat. There’s no room left. Stafford’s taking everything over to his place tomorrow morning.” She sounded desperately weary, her voice dropping to a monotone. “He stores all their costumes in his attic. He’ll keep them there till next week.” She sighed, then added in a barely audible whisper, “Ruth says he’s got such a big spooky old house.”
“Why was he being rude to her today?”
“That was something to do with you too. Something that Ruth
had told you, and when she mentioned it to him he was upset with her. I don’t know what it was though, do you?”
“No,” Kathy lied, slowly. “I can’t think.”
His ancient passion for an actress who had borne his child.
She couldn’t imagine why it hadn’t struck her before.
When they got back to the flat, Kathy rang Ruth. “Sorry to bother you so late, Ruth. I was afraid you might be asleep.”
“No, no. I’m tucked up with my Horlicks, Kathy, reading the latest Mary Wesley. What can I do for you?”
“My aunt just mentioned that I got you into trouble with Stafford over that story you told me about his lost child.”
“Oh, don’t worry. He’s a bit prickly sometimes. But he’s got too much else to worry about at the moment to bother with that.”
“Did you ever meet the lady—an actress, didn’t you say?”
“That’s right. No, I never met her. It was before I knew Stafford.”
“So you don’t know what she was like? Physically, I mean?”
“No . . . What are you after, Kathy? Why are you asking?”
“Just curious. Is Stafford religious, Ruth?”
“No, not in the least.”
“He doesn’t go to church? Ever?”
“I’ve never heard of him doing so. What odd questions.”
“Sorry. One more. You said he was a schoolteacher before he retired. Which school was that?”
“Sundridge Grammar. Not far from Elmstead Woods station. He retired after his wife, Marjory, died, five or six years ago. It was understandable, of course, that he would feel depressed when she passed away, but it wasn’t just grief. He’s a perfectionist, an obsessive personality, I suppose, and he drives himself and everyone else mad with his single-mindedness. Marjory tempered that, kept him on an even keel, and when she was gone he had nothing to keep him in check. He just wound himself up until he snapped. He started having fights with the other staff at his school, bullying the
children, outraging their parents. Then he had his breakdown, and took early retirement.
“It was a shame, because he used to get wonderful results for his kids. Sundridge used to regularly top the area A-level results in English because of him. He was always immensely thorough, and inspiring too. But then it all turned bad.”
THE FOLLOWING MORNING KATHY
rang the Hannafords. Basil Hannaford answered. He seemed startled to hear from her, then reverted to monosyllables in an uncomfortable, one-sided conversation. At the end of it Kathy was struck by the fact that he hadn’t even bothered to ask her if there had been any progress. He did confirm, however, that Angela had been a pupil at Sundridge Grammar for eight years, finishing in the year following Stafford Nesbit’s departure.
She rang to make an appointment at the school, then phoned Brock in London. “He claimed he didn’t recognize her, but he’d been a teacher at her school. The point is, if he knew her, if he knew where she lived, he could have got off the train at Grove Park that night and driven straight to Petts Wood, to wait for her. I’m going to find out now if he actually taught her.”
“And if he did, you’ll bring him in?”
“Yes.”
“Give me a ring.”
Kathy put down the phone.
The other staff, the children, their parents—all my enemies.
She met the headmistress an hour later, a determined-looking
woman in a power suit, who winced at the mention of Stafford’s name.
“Yes, I remember him very well. I hadn’t been here long when he lost his wife, so that must have been, what, eighty-four or eighty-five? He had a reputation as an outstanding teacher of English literature and drama at senior levels. His A-level results were superb. Unfortunately the loss of his wife affected him very badly, to such an extent that eventually he was unable to continue here.”
“In what way did his behaviour change?”
“He had always been meticulous, set high standards, both for himself and for his pupils. But he now became unreasonably demanding, and was extremely distressed when his goals weren’t met. With his colleagues he saw any discussion of the course he taught as a personal attack upon himself. And with parents . . .” She shuddered.
“By the time I discovered how bad it had become he had alienated all of his close colleagues and driven a number of sixth-form pupils to a state of near-hysteria. I had a very painful interview with him, and we finally agreed that he should take a few weeks’ leave and seek professional help. He never returned to school. After a week I received a brief note from his doctor saying that Stafford had asked him to advise us that he had been admitted to hospital as an in-patient. After about six months he requested early retirement on medical grounds.”
“Can you give me the precise dates for all this?” Kathy asked.
“I’ll have to send for his file.”
“Thank you. And could you also get any information you might have on one of your former pupils, Angela Hannaford?”
“Angela . . . the poor girl who was murdered a few weeks ago? Oh no!”
The headmistress stared at Kathy in horror. “You don’t think . . . ?”
Kathy saw the idea form in her mind, and saw her accept it immediately as being only too possible.
“He would have known Angela, would he?”
“Yes, there’s absolutely no question of that. Angela was one of the bright girls who were very nearly knocked off the rails by Stafford’s illness. She would have been in the lower sixth during his last year here. Fortunately she recovered her stride and did really quite well in her A-levels in the following year. You’re still looking, are you? For whoever . . . ?”
“Oh yes. We’re still looking.”
KATHY DROVE BACK TO
the Orpington station and collected a young uniformed constable to go with her to pick up Stafford.
The house was the oldest and largest in its street, a late-Victorian Gothic mansion which Stafford had inherited from his father, who had acquired it when it was still surrounded by farmland and woods. Now it was an anachronism, standing back darkly in its garden from the jostle of suburban red brick which had long since overwhelmed its rural setting. Its brooding character, reinforced by the outlandish figure of a giant monkey-puzzle tree in the front lawn, gave it a certain notoriety among the local children, which their occasional sighting of the formidably gaunt and abrupt owner had done nothing to dispel.
Ruth and Mary were at the end of the gravel drive, dragging armfuls of costumes out of the open doors of a Citroën parked next to Ruth’s estate-car.
“Kathy! What a surprise,” Ruth cried. “Are you after us, or Stafford? He’s just popped round to the corner shop for a packet of tea. He told us to go on in.”
Although she had been there many times before, there was a distinct diffidence about the way Ruth opened the front door and
led them in, as if she wasn’t sure how the empty house, cool and dark, would receive them.
“Stafford said he’d left us a rack downstairs,” she whispered, and opened a door to one side of the large hall. She felt inside for the light switch, and an ancient pendant fitting came to life, throwing a dim amber glow over the interior.
“Ah!” She sounded relieved. The room was crowded with furniture, with barely enough room for the metal clothes-rack on castors jammed just inside the door. Kathy smelled the mouldering fabrics and her heart sank.
How could anyone live in this?
They pulled the rack out into the hall and began loading it up with the clothes from the cars. When the last had been brought in Ruth rubbed her hands. “There should be an ironing-board in the kitchen. Maryanne and I will give them a bit of a press, Kathy.”
“Can I do anything?”
“Well, we’re short of hangers. There’ll be some in the attic. And Stafford said we have some old army greatcoats up there. We need one or two to hang behind the door on the set. Black or grey, not khaki, if we have them.”
Kathy nodded and made for the stairs. At the first-floor landing she took her time before going on up to the attic, looking inside each of the rooms. The first, heavy with the smell of mildewed paper, was piled high with stacks of books and boxes haphazardly stuffed with newspapers. The second was a large bedroom, crammed with three differently styled wardrobes and matching dressing-tables, as well as a high, quilted bed. Then came the bathroom, ancient fittings and cracked green tiles, from which Kathy rapidly retreated.
A geriatric, balding rocking-horse stood inside an alcove, guarding a narrow stair leading up to a panelled door above. The door was locked, but the key was in place. She turned it and stepped inside.
A ghostly department store filled the gloomy space beneath the roof. Line upon line of eccentric cast-offs donated by former
members of SADOS and their deceased relatives hung from rafters and joists. Flares, plus-fours and tails were suspended alongside overblown ballroom gowns, A-line frocks, and flappers’ beads.
Over to the side, beneath the two dormer windows and extending around the narrow eaves to left and right, were trunks and chests of various types. Kathy opened them one by one, discovering hoards of shoes, hats, umbrellas, and canes.
She was kneeling over a trunk whose lid had been stained by a leak in the slate roof above when she heard a sound behind her. She stood up quickly, almost banging her head on the joists, and turned to face the ranks of clothes. Stafford Nesbit was there, staring at her, something in his hand.
“Have you found what you’re looking for?” he said, his voice harsh.
She said nothing, feeling her heart pounding from the shock of seeing him there.
“My nemesis,” he said, as if to himself.
“What?”
“You, Kathy Kolla. My nemesis. Goddess of retribution and vengeance.”
He raised the thing in his hand, and Kathy held her breath, trying to think which way to jump if he came for her, until she saw that it was only an old wooden coat hanger he was holding. He hooked it on the rack beside him.
“What are you looking for?” he demanded.
“Greatcoats.”
“Ah. I thought you might be hunting for Zoë Bagnall.”
“Is she here?” Kathy said lightly. “You seem to have almost everything else.”
“I’m a hoarder. I keep everything. It’s my way of coming to terms with the past.”
“I’m the opposite.”
“Yes, I know. You keep nothing, I understand. Not even memories. Equally pathological, I should say.”
“Memories?”
“You wiped the memory of your father from your mind. I find that extraordinary.”
“That’s not true . . .”
“Is that because you felt so much guilt? They say that the people whom a suicide leaves behind feel tremendous guilt.”
“Stafford, I’d like you to come back to Orpington police station with me now. There are things I have to ask you.”
“Ah yes.” He didn’t seem surprised. He stared at her for a moment with his big, piercing eyes, slightly watery under the light from the dormer window. Then he stepped back and made a theatrical sweep of his arm.