The School of English Murder (8 page)

It was Rich who called a halt at three. ‘Come on, darlings. Beauty sleep.’ And he overrode Davina’s objections with a hug and a private joke that had her whooping with laughter on her way to collect her furs.

‘When ees it you wish us in the school?’ asked Galina coquettishly.

‘Since the whole group is here, lunchtime will do. Tell you what, darlings. Let’s meet at twelve thirty where we started out tonight. We won’t want much more than oysters for lunch, will we? Oh, Bob, do your usual day like a love. But then let’s you and I have a little drinkie round about — when are you finished? — five or nine?’

‘Five.’

‘Well come along to the Wednesday cocktail party at five and then we’ll go on somewhere afterwards, just the two of us. For a chinwag.’

‘A chinwag would be triff.’ Their eyes met and they commenced their job of organising their group ready for the approaching taxis.

‘So he gave me the low-down on the finances. Or what he said was the low-down.’

Amiss climbed out of the cavalry twill trousers. ‘No good. You’re appreciably longer in the leg than me.’

‘They can be turned up. Here, try this.’ And Pooley tossed him a magnificent brown tweed suit.

‘For heaven’s sake, Ellis, we can’t start having your clothes altered to fit me.’

‘Why not. Might as well do this thing properly. Try it on. You might have to take a princess on a country weekend.’

‘Too true I might,’ said Amiss, clambering into a suit that Jeremy Buckland would have envied and finding to his delight that apart from the leg length, it fitted him perfectly. ‘Rich tells me that weekend escorts are in strong demand.’

‘Hat!’ And Pooley threw across a deerstalker.

‘It’s too small. My head’s bigger than yours.’

‘Quite,’ said Pooley. ‘Now why don’t we leave all this for a while, have a drink and you can finish filling me in.’

‘It’s primarily an escort agency with English lessons thrown in. He was quite open about it. It’s for people who want some fun in London but need to be able to justify the time and the expense by claiming to be learning English. So spouses lie to spouses; children lie to parents; employees lie to bosses; bosses lie to employees; training directors lie to exchange-control authorities. Rich charges in the region of two thousand quid a week and does a roaring trade. Most of the clientele hears about it by word of mouth.’

‘But don’t they get found out?’

‘There’s really nothing to give them away. It is a proper English school. They do learn English one way or the other. After all, the escorts are all English speakers and the students come from a variety of countries and hence have English as the lingua franca. And if they want to have it off with one of the escorts, well, I guess that’s been known to happen with a teacher at a normal language school.’

‘Well, surely the extra activities cause comment?’

‘Again, on the face of it they’re no different in kind from the norm. So instead of having occasional theatre trips and gatherings in the pub, they go to Le Gavroche and Annabel’s. The central difference is that these students are at the school to enjoy themselves, and Rich is a genius at making that happen. I imagine he also lays on rather more esoteric entertainments for those with unusual tastes.’

‘You’re being uncharacteristically delicate, Robert.’

‘In deference to you, Ellis.’

‘And why keep on the prefab business?’

‘It’s the bread and butter. They may be only paying a couple of quid an hour, but it mounts up. He reckons the school makes a profit of a couple of thousand a week on those poor buggers. Anyway, it’s somewhere to put Ned. He wouldn’t exactly shine as a BP escort.’

‘So what’s the escort talent like?’

‘Ah, well that’s why I came at the right time. Rich has been feeling overwhelmed at the demands on him. He says he’s OK on the distaff side. Apparently Cath is brilliant and Jenn OK. He keeps her away from the choosey ones, but she goes down particularly well with Arabs. However he’s suffering from a shortage of men, exacerbated by the preponderance of women among the students. Gavs is gay, which limits his appeal a trifle, and anyway his domestic partner is getting possessive and wants him to move to a job with less anti-social hours. Rich said he was resigned to struggling on alone until he could recruit and train someone suitable. He hadn’t spotted my potential. However, I am now officially declared a natural who can go on parade immediately.’

‘So you’re in.’

‘As of tomorrow. He’s bringing in a couple of part-timers to take on prefab duty. I’m afraid Ned’ll be disappointed. He had aspirations to make a dedicated teacher of me.’

‘Never mind Ned. Congratulations. Now did you pick up anything about Wally?’

‘Only very vaguely. Rich mentioned with a sigh that he was plagued by people who thought themselves suitable for dealing with the BPs. Said it was very hard to tell someone he lacked charm.’

‘Do I detect you’re warming to Rich?’

‘Well, I disliked him so much at the start I could scarcely cool. Let’s just say I’m developing a grudging admiration for him. I imagine he’s an amoral little shit, but he does work hard and when he drops the asshole façade, it’s possible to have sensible dealings with him.’

‘Is he a murderer?’

‘God knows,’ said Amiss. ‘Now let’s get back to raiding your wardrobe. I’ve got to get some sleep. Apparently I’m doing a full day’s conversation, punctuated by lunch at the Tate to introduce them to its marvellous wine list and then in the evening we’re off to a West End musical followed by a late supper.’

‘Salary?’

‘It’s doubled, which helps. There’s also a substantial clothes allowance, and of course all expenses are paid. And after six months I can come in on a profit sharing scheme.’

‘Robert, you haven’t forgotten why you’re at the school?’

‘No Ellis. I’m there to find out if Wally Armstrong was murdered and to help keep Ned alive. Really, how absent-minded do you think I am?’

‘Just checking. Here, try this Burberry.’

However, it was too late to save Ned, who had been knocked off his bike at Hyde Park Corner at seven thirty that evening. The driver whose lorry had killed him swore Ned had ridden into the roundabout right under his wheels. Two independent witnesses corroborated his story. Amiss heard the news with a heavy heart and an indefinable sense of guilt. But the only one to weep for Ned was Rich, who had to identify him at the morgue, where he sobbed so hysterically that they sent for a doctor to sedate him.

11

«
^
»

Pooley spent the morning at a resources allocation meeting of unbelievable tedium. What made it worse was that as senior inspector, Romford was in the chair, standing in for Milton. Pooley suffered, perforce in silence and impassively, as Romford held things up with pedantic interventions and irritating objections, looked outraged when anyone uttered the mildest expletive and when in repose exuded that moral complacency that made him so universally unpopular.

‘Now, in conclusion, I have an announcement to make. I’m being transferred to Stolen Vehicles. Next week will be my last here.’ Grunts and mutters of the ohsirwe’llmissyou variety ensued; Romford reciprocated ponderously, declared the meeting closed and led the way out of the room. Pooley and WDC Simon, left to clear up, danced a jig: it was a moment too deep for words.

His mood was shattered by Amiss’s lunchtime phone call; his distress was increased by the constraints on both of them. Amiss was as edgy about being overheard as Pooley, who had had the misfortune to have Romford arrive at his desk the moment he picked up the phone.

‘Thanks very much, Bob.’

Recognising the agreed code, Amiss hung up.

Pooley jumped up. ‘Yessir.’ He lost no opportunity to curry favour with Romford. He had let his contempt show once or twice in the early days and had a great deal of ground to make up — though not for much longer, he crowed internally.

‘Who’s Bob?’ asked Romford.

‘Er… my garage. Sorry, sir. I asked them to let me know when my car was ready.’

Even Romford couldn’t find in this the substance for a homily on time-wasting. ‘Here’s a copy of my memo to the typing pool. You’ll see I’ve improved on what you drafted.’ Pooley skimmed the proffered document.

‘I think you’ll agree this shows we won’t stand for any nonsense.’

‘Oh, indeed it does, sir. Walk all over you if they got a chance, they would,’ observed Pooley absently.

Romford nodded and walked away. He reflected with satisfaction on the way that young man was developing. You didn’t hear him going on with all that stuff about detective stories any more. Discipline was the thing. Nothing like keeping their noses to the grindstone to knock all that nonsense out of them.

Luckily the table had been booked in the school’s name, so it took only a couple of minutes for the obliging receptionist to identify Amiss and bring him to the telephone. ‘Robert. Ellis. Can you talk?’

‘Sort of. Can you?’

‘Yep. Where did it happen?’

Amiss leaned against the desk and kept his eyes on his lunch companions. ‘Hyde Park Corner.’

‘Time?’

‘Sevenish last night.’

‘How’s Rich taking it?’

‘Badly. Not in yet.’ Galina caught his eye and waved. ‘Sorry. Must go. Anything I should do?’

‘Nothing special. Except watch your back.’

‘I will. Bye.’ He smiled at the receptionist and sped back to his table. ‘Sorry, darlings. Honestly… mothers!’

Galina smacked his wrist. ‘Ees naughty saying bad things about mothers; I am a mother.’

‘How am I supposed to think of
you
as a mother?’ And smoothly, Amiss drifted into the vein of empty gallantry that was fast becoming second nature.

There were only four lines in the evening newspaper but they made things much easier for Pooley and his friend in Central. Having tipped him off, Pooley spent the afternoon chafing at his desk. He was immersed in routine work on an open-and-shut case: a domestic murder of such dreary brutality as to offer no stimulus of any kind.

Mid-afternoon he decided to console himself by having a chat with Pardeep, the current object of his romantic fantasies. One of the tiny handful of Asian policewomen, she worked on Inspector Pike’s team and it was fortunate that Pike was a tolerant man, for Pooley’s visits were frequent and without professional justification . Nor was Pooley her only visitor, for even the most deep-dyed racist elements in MIR admitted that she was the best-looking WPC in the Met. Pooley, who prided himself on the purity of his love, believed himself to care more about her mind.

‘Tea?’

‘Could do.’

They spent a companionable quarter of an hour swapping gossip, and then returned to work. Pooley went into his favourite daydream before catching sight of Romford and guiltily buckling down to his in-tray.

By eight, when they met for a pizza, Doug Layton had a lot to tell. He had met with scepticism first when he had pointed out the news item to his sergeant, but he had been allowed to make a routine call to North-West to get details. The information that Ned Nurse was alleged to have behaved suicidally had incurred mixed reactions. The sergeant, who was determined to believe his death an accident, dismissed this. Nurse was a dozy old devil, he observed, and it would be just like him to ride under a lorry. Their inspector, on the other hand, was prepared to entertain as a very long shot the possibility that Nurse really had committed suicide. Layton was trying to work out how he could have been murdered. ‘Well, of course he could have been drugged,’ said Pooley.

‘That’s what I said to the inspector. He thought it a bit farfetched.’

‘Yes. But it’s also far-fetched that an experienced cyclist should act like that at the most dangerous roundabout in London.’

‘I said that too. And also suggested he might have been drunk. Anyway the PM’ll give us some of the answers. It took a lot of arguing, but eventually they agreed they’d ask for a full one, not just the routine.’

‘Any word on relatives, friends, all that sort of thing?’

‘Only Rich Rogers. There didn’t seem to be anyone else to tell. And apparently Rogers said there were no relatives. He’s supposed to be in an awful state.’

‘No chance it’s put on?’

‘Not according to North-West.’

Pooley picked thoughtfully at his food. ‘I wanted to see you tonight anyway, Doug.’ And he gave him the gist of Amiss’s involvement to date.

‘I have to hand it to you, Ellis,’ laughed Layton. ‘It’s not many DCs have their own private dicks. Hope nothing nasty happens to him.’

Pooley winced. ‘Don’t. I had a nightmare about that the other night.’

‘Well, he’s
your
mate. Now, what exactly does he want?’

‘Some data on how and why Rich Rogers got involved. More about Wally Armstrong’s history. Any scandal about any of them. There must be some people around who were associated with the school at the time we’re interested in.’

‘See what I can do.’

There had been moments that day when Amiss heartily wished himself back in the prefabs. It had started badly; no sooner was he through the door than Jenn cornered him. ‘You goin’ to make it up to me that I’ve had to take your wogs? Jammy bastard, aren’t you? Only here a week and you’ve got Rich in your pocket.’

Amiss’s well-bred sounds of deprecation were clearly getting him nowhere, so he changed tack abruptly. ‘Hey, girl. Less of that. You and me, we’re going to have a great time on these extra activities. Unless you prefer going out with Gavs, that is.’ He contorted his face into a wink that was clearly seen by the tall fair-haired man who at that moment emerged from the lounge.

‘Oh here’s Gavs now. Bob was just talkin’ about you,‘ said Jenn, smirking broadly and leaving them to it.

‘I won’t ask what you were saying about me. It’s probably one of Jenn’s wearisome little jokes. I’m Gavin Franklyn, known in this establishment as Gavs. I presume you’re Bob.’

‘Known outside this establishment as Robert Amiss.’ They shook hands.