Mortal Taste (22 page)

Lambert smiled apologetically: he had been searching for a phrase which would convey how hard his team had been working on the boring necessities of elimination. ‘I'll think aloud for you, as I certainly wouldn't like to do at this stage for any media man. There are five major possibilities, in my mind. That doesn't mean our killer couldn't come from somewhere else, but I should now be surprised if he or she did.'

Gibson smiled his encouragement. The nature of his post meant that he was constantly receiving verbal reports on progress; John Lambert had a more lucid and ordered way of presenting things than most.

Lambert, for his part, was wondering how Gibson always managed to look as if his uniform had come straight from the cleaners, with the creases immaculate and the braid with a new-minted shine. The man must be the right shape, he thought without resentment; clothes never seemed to sit easily on Lambert's tall frame.

He said, ‘Let's start with the wife, Jane Logan, because we haven't been able to eliminate her. She has a serious relationship going with a man who used to be Chairman of the Governors at Greenwood School. She concealed that from us at first. She says she's planning to marry the man. She also says that Peter Logan would have opposed the relationship and refused to divorce her.'

‘Was Logan outraged by her affair?'

‘Not according to her. She doesn't think he even knew about it. According to her, he was far too busy getting
his
leg over wherever he could.'

Gibson sighed. He was far too experienced to be shocked by a worthy head teacher's private life, but sex always made for complications, threw too many people into the mix during a murder investigation. He said, ‘And what about the other party – this man who was Chairman of the Governors?'

‘Steve Fenton. Estranged from his wife; in the process of a messy divorce; anxious not to lose touch with his children. A crack shot, in the past. Didn't need to be that to kill Logan of course, because he was shot at point-blank range. But he did have a pistol, which he claims to have given up years ago, after the Hungerford killings and the tightening of the firearm laws. He certainly hasn't had a licence for the last few years, but there's no record of his pistol being handed in.'

‘So either of them could have killed Logan?'

‘Either or both. They're alibi-ing each other for the night in question. Claim they were in bed together for most of it. So naturally, no one to confirm their story. Incidentally, we had to prise all this out of them. They were keeping schtum about any liaison until they were forced to admit it.'

Gibson nodded. He was too old a hand to ask Lambert to speculate about what sort of people these two were. The CC was confining himself to the facts of motive and opportunity. ‘You said Logan had an eye for the women himself. No doubt that raises other possibilities.'

‘We've thrown up two. The latest girlfriend is a Liza Allen. Logan had taken up with her only a week before he died. She had the best opportunity of all: Logan was on his way to her house on the night he died. She knew just when he would be coming and where he would park. He'd rung her to confirm the arrangements only a few hours before he died.'

‘Motive?'

Lambert shook his head. ‘None that we've been able to establish so far. She's young, attractive and I should think completely bowled over that a man as powerful as Logan in the school should even take notice of her. She's a lab assistant, not a teacher. As I say, he'd only taken up with her a week or so before his death, so it seems unlikely that he was already planning to ditch her. And she came forward voluntarily with her evidence.'

‘She sounds like one of a string of opportunities. What about women scorned?'

‘Not women. Woman. We've unearthed a few previous conquests of Logan's, but we're satisfied that it's only the last one to be ditched who's a possibility for murder. Tamsin Phillips: thirty-three years old, single, teaches History and Business Studies at Greenwood School. She'd been conducting an intense affair with Logan over the past seven months. Found he was dumping her only days before he died. A fact that she concealed completely from us at first.'

‘And obviously she had the opportunity.'

‘Yes. And there's more. Tamsin Phillips has a history of GBH. Not a criminal record, because it never came to court. But she was jettisoned by a previous boyfriend, five years ago, and attacked him with a knife. She was rather lucky she didn't kill him, by all accounts.'

‘Then why no court case?'

‘The boyfriend in question refused to cooperate with the Thames Valley Police. No key witness, no case. Despite the fact that it was he who broke up the affair originally, he's still smitten with Ms Phillips, who I have to say remains quite a dish. He's been following her around for years. Making a nuisance of himself, she says. Which is why she threatened him with a revolver six months ago.'

Even grizzled and experienced Douglas Gibson grinned at the melodrama of it. ‘So you've relieved her of the weapon and are making plans for an arrest.' But he knew they couldn't be at that stage. Tamsin Phillips would have been under lock and key now, if it had been as straightforward as that.

Lambert gave a wry, answering smile. ‘She claims that it was a toy replica which wouldn't have hurt anyone. A claim we can't check out, since she says she threw the offending object away some time ago.'

Gibson added the name of Tamsin Phillips to those of Jane Logan and Steve Fenton on the pad in front of him. ‘That's three possibilities. Four if you include this Liza Allen, but you obviously don't rate her.'

‘Not unless we find anything else to implicate her, no. But there are two other possibilities. The first is our old bugbear, drugs. The Drugs Squad tell me there is a trade around the school, as you would expect nowadays. It's no bigger than you would anticipate in a school of that size, with a sixth form which gets bigger every year, but a source of considerable profit, nonetheless. And there are kids from the school who are dealing in the clubs in Cheltenham: one was picked up yesterday.'

‘What's the connection with Logan?'

‘There may not be one. Despite his private life, he was an energetic and conscientious headmaster. We've heard from several sources that he knew everything that went on in and around his school. No one knows everything, of course, but we have now learned enough about Logan to believe he knew more than most. I think he knew something about the drug pushers, perhaps far more than was good for him.'

‘But is there any evidence of this?'

‘Precious little, I'm afraid. But I wouldn't expect much to have been committed to paper. You know what parents think about drugs in schools, and what the press would make of any revelations. Logan was jealous of the reputation of his school; apart from any more unselfish considerations, his whole career was built on it.'

‘So you think he knew more than he was telling about drug trafficking as it affected Greenwood?'

‘I'm pretty sure he did. The question is, had he discovered enough to put his own life in danger? Not many people appreciate how dangerous a little knowledge of criminal activity can be, when it relates to drugs.'

Gibson shook his head glumly. ‘You may well be right. But if this was a drugs killing, we'll probably never pin it on anyone. It would probably be a contract killer.'

‘I know. We're following it up, with a view to getting as much evidence as we can before we make any move. There's a local businessman involved, a man using a legitimate firm to cover his drugs activity. We're liaising with the Drugs Squad so as not to put any of their undercover officers in danger.'

Gibson nodded gloomily. ‘Let's hope this killing isn't drugs-related, for the sake of our clear-up statistics. I wouldn't like you to finish on a blank, John.'

Lambert noted the first reference to his impending retirement, but thrust it from his mind. ‘There's another possibility, sir. Different, but equally unsavoury. A paedophile ring. Logan had contacted the National Paedophile Unit to arrange an interview with them because he had suspicions about a member of his staff. Possibly he was killed to prevent that meeting taking place.'

‘So he never named the man in question.'

‘No. But we're pretty certain we've found him. Martin Sheene. Teaches science at the school. Logan caught him taking children into the junior science lab during the lunch hour. He denies he's a member of a paedophile ring, but I think he's lying.'

‘So what's been done about him? We can't have him near children, if his headmaster thought he was dangerous.' For a moment, lurid headlines danced before the Chief Constable's vision.

‘He's been suspended by the school. I've put him under twenty-four hour surveillance. Expensive, but I still have a feeling that he might lead us to a ring. The National Paedophile Unit is pretty certain there is one in the Cheltenham area, but they don't know where it meets.'

‘It's a week tonight since Logan was killed, isn't it?'

Lambert gave a sour grin. They were both well aware of the statistic which shouts that if a murder isn't solved in the first week it's unlikely to be solved at all. ‘I'm still hopeful that I won't end on a blank, sir.'

Douglas Gibson sat back a little in his chair behind the desk. ‘And I'm still hopeful that this won't be your last serious case, John. I've sent off a lengthy letter to support my contention that you should be a special case when it comes to retirement cut-off dates.'

Lambert found himself for once too embarrassed to look his man straight in the face. He stared out over the bright orange of the Gloucestershire autumn leaves from Gibson's window. ‘Thank you, sir. I doubt they'll even look seriously at your letter, though. Bureaucracy can't make exceptions without bringing in a welter of other requests.'

Gibson recognized a man refusing to allow himself to hope. ‘You may be right, John. But I wanted for my own satisfaction to know that I'd done everything possible to keep you.' He grinned. ‘My letter convinced
me
, at any rate. It made you a national treasure we couldn't afford to retire.'

‘Thank you, sir. Perhaps the National Trust will adopt me. I'll soon have plenty of time to visit their houses.' He took his leave awkwardly. He had never requested favours, and he was uncertain how to respond to them when they were visited upon him like this.

When he was left alone, the Chief Constable stood looking out of the same window that John Lambert had stared through. He realized in that moment quite how much he would miss his senior CID man. Douglas Gibson hadn't many more years to do himself now. He felt himself surrounded by young, eager officers, male and female, who had been recruited into a police force very different from the one he had entered as a raw constable in the sixties. John Lambert was a link with those years, able to pit his brains and his methods against the very best of the young officers, yet instantly aware of those very different times when he and the young Gibson had set out on this odd journey through crime.

The world of autumn colour on which the CC gazed took on a sudden shaft of impending winter.

M
artin Sheene was depressed to the point of desperation. Apart from a half-hour visit to the supermarket to pick up food supplies, he had been sitting alone in his house for over two days now, ever since that grim superintendent and his sergeant had come here on Saturday.

There had been the expected phone call from Greenwood School early on this Monday morning, telling him not to come in, informing him that he was suspended on full pay until further notice. He had made a feeble attempt to contest that decision; it had come to nothing because it was just a secretary at the other end of the line, conveying the bald news of his suspension, blankly refusing to argue because she did not even know the reason for it.

Martin became increasingly restless as the day wore on, thinking of the classes he should have been teaching, of the way the children would be suffering because he was not available. They wouldn't be getting any instruction from anyone else; there were so few science teachers around that there would be no one available who felt competent to take on his classes. He was a good teacher, he thought, especially with the younger children. It would be a shame if they suffered because of his absence.

It was a great pity about his little weakness: it got in the way of all the good work he could do.

And what about the other teachers at Greenwood? What would they be thinking about him? Would they have been fobbed off with some story that he was ill, or would they know that he was suspended? He could imagine the gossip flying around the staff room at lunchtime if they knew that. He had no means of finding out just how much the other teachers had been told. Well, he hadn't many real friends among them, anyway. Just as well, really: he wouldn't be going back to Greenwood now.

He got more and more depressed as the day went on. There didn't seem to be any way out of this. Even if the police didn't pin this killing on him, he wouldn't be allowed to teach again, wouldn't be allowed to do the one thing in life he could do well. He hadn't comprehended that at first, but the knowledge surged in upon him as his lonely Monday dragged on.

It was a grey day to match his mood, with low clouds skidding across the sky on a chill autumn wind. Twilight came early, reminding Martin and the world that the rawness of winter would not be long delayed. He spent long periods watching the leaves swirling past his window; by the end of the day, the chestnut which was the only mature tree he could see had been stripped of its orange autumn cloak and stood like a gaunt skeleton against the darkening sky.

By seven o'clock in the evening, Martin had his anorak on and his gloves ready on the table beside him. There was a meeting of the group tonight. They'd told him not to come, explained that it was safer for him as well as the rest of them if he lay low, in view of the visit he had had on Saturday from the police.