Dead End (7 page)

‘You could have told me,’ she whispered. ‘I would have liked to have heard it from you.’ It was shattering that she would never know why her adoptive mother had hidden the truth. Trembling she felt the sharp edge of the dusty cardboard with her fingers, but it was late and she was too tired to face it now.

It took her a long time to fall asleep and, when she finally dropped off, she dreamt about a young woman with dark brown hair and black eyes.

‘You can't be my mother,’ Geraldine protested. ‘You're younger than me.’ The young woman turned away, laughing. Geraldine wanted to reach out but she couldn't move or speak.

10

Briefing

‘H
ow did Matthew Kirby take the news of his wife's death?’ Kathryn Gordon opened the meeting on Tuesday morning. The mutter of conversation died away and everyone turned to Geraldine.

She thought about her answer. ‘He didn't appear to know what had happened. He thought we'd come to speak to his wife about one of her pupils. When we told him his wife was dead, his first thought was that she'd had a car accident. He told us she was a careful driver but he didn't seem exactly surprised to hear about his wife's murder, although I suppose that could have been shock. He claimed he was with a work colleague, talking about a work project, on Saturday afternoon and evening. He was obviously lying.’

Peterson looked at his notes. ‘He said his colleague's name was Miss Jones and he had her address somewhere. It was all very vague. He claims they were working on a project from two or three in the afternoon until late, because they had a lot to discuss. He couldn't be sure what time he arrived at her home. The whole story wasn't exactly plausible even before we asked for the address and he couldn't find it.’

‘We'll check once the switchboard opens but I doubt if we'll find this mystery colleague called Jones at his firm,’ Geraldine said. ‘It was a stupid, badly thought out alibi, but I think he was caught on the hop, covering up in front of his children.’ She related what Lucy Kirby had told her. ‘Lucy's convinced her father's having an affair. According to her, Abigail knew about it and refused to give him a divorce. That could be a motive – although a fourteen-year-old complaining about her father isn't necessarily reliable. She struck me as quite immature for her age, troubled and confused.’

‘Hardly surprising, under the circumstances,’ a constable said.

‘She was probably exaggerating,’ another colleague sighed. ‘Girls that age generally feel aggrieved about something, especially if it's anything to do with their parents.’ There was a murmur of agreement from some of the older officers.

‘Maybe, but we have to follow it up,’ the DCI said, ‘and if Lucy's right then we need to talk to the woman Matthew Kirby was seeing.’ She turned to Geraldine. ‘What did Lucy tell you about her?’

‘Only that her first name's Charlotte.’

‘What else do we know about Matthew Kirby?’

Peterson slid off his perch on the edge of his desk and flipped open his notebook. ‘We know that his wife took out a life insurance policy under a year ago. Including paying off the mortgage on their house, and a death-in-service lump sum, the whole package adds up to nearly a million. It all goes to her husband.’

The DCI raised her eyebrows. ‘Let's hear more about what Lucy Kirby said.’

Geraldine checked her notes. ‘I'm not sure if Matthew realises quite how much Lucy knows about his affair – if he's having one, although it looks pretty certain he is. Lucy told me she overheard her parents arguing, and asked her mother about it. I don't think she talks to her father any more than she has to. According to her, Ben doesn't know about his father's mistress. Lucy asked us not to say anything to her brother, who's close to his father.’

‘And he's just lost his mother,’ someone added. ‘A twelve-year-old boy.’

‘We need to speak to the man who found Abigail Kirby's body,’ the DCI said. ‘Although he's unlikely to have anything useful to tell us. And we need to check Matthew Kirby's alibi for Saturday afternoon, and see if Abigail Kirby's colleagues at work can tell us anything relevant.’

They speculated about Matthew Kirby for a few minutes. As the victim's husband he was automatically under scrutiny if not yet a suspect. ‘It sounds as though he was lying to conceal his affair from his children, but that doesn't mean he killed his wife,’ Geraldine pointed out. ‘He seemed genuinely shocked at seeing her body. According to Paul, her injuries were appalling.’

‘Paul?’

‘Paul Hilliard, the pathologist.’

‘Yes, of course. Well in that case could we be looking at a crime of passion? If Matthew Kirby attacked his wife in some sort of frenzy he might well be shocked afterwards at the extent of the injuries he inflicted.’

‘I think Matthew Kirby was angry with his wife for refusing to divorce him,’ Geraldine conceded, ‘but this doesn't look like a crime of passion. Matthew Kirby wanted to end the marriage. He didn't care about his wife any more but he didn't have to kill her, he could have just walked away. If he stayed because he loves his children then it hardly makes sense for him to go and kill their mother, and in so brutal a fashion too. At the very least he might have quietly poisoned her so she died in her sleep or something else relatively dull for the children's sake, not this vicious mutilation which is bound to be all over the papers. It's just the sort of thing they love, isn't it? And in any case, Abigail had been cleaned up by the time he saw her. I'm not sure it was the extent of her injuries that shocked him so much as the confirmation she was dead. I don't think he really believed it until he saw her.’

‘Well, we've got no way of knowing what he did or didn't believe, or whether he killed her, so we'll start by checking

Matthew Kirby's movements closely. He might have been caught somewhere on CCTV on his way to see Charlotte, or maybe his car was parked on his drive all the time.’ Kathryn Gordon tapped the picture of Matthew Kirby on the Incident Board. ‘We know the victim's husband has two possible motives for wanting to be rid of his wife, money and her refusal to give him a divorce. We have to know if he also had the opportunity to kill her.’

‘And mutilate her corpse,’ Peterson added. There was silence for a few seconds as all eyes turned to the photograph of Abigail Kirby, gazing back at them from the Incident Board. Immaculate, commanding, she looked like a woman in control of her own destiny.

11

Interviews

G
eraldine and Peterson's first task was to visit Harchester School. The gates were closed so they phoned the caretaker who glowered at them as he unlocked the gate. Despite his white hair and stooping shoulders, he gave the impression of physical power. ‘You know we're on half term here. I hope this is important.’

The sergeant was blunt. ‘We're investigating the suspicious death of Mrs Abigail Kirby.’

‘Mrs Kirby?’ The caretaker's demeanour changed at once. His jaw dropped and he fumbled with his keys. ‘Mrs Kirby? The head? Dead? I saw her on Friday.’

He led them to a cramped hut stuffed with filing cabinets and cardboard boxes. One wall was covered with a board holding rows of keys, each on its own labelled key ring. Beside it, an electric kettle and a dirty mug stood on a metal tray on top of an old desk.

‘Mrs Kirby's dead, you say?’ he repeated, as though he couldn't believe he had heard right.

Briefly Geraldine told him that the headmistress's body had been discovered on Sunday morning in the woods beside the recreation ground, the victim of a fatal assault.

‘So she's dead?’ he repeated. ‘But it's half term.’ As though that made any difference. ‘What happened?’

‘That's what we're investigating.’

‘She's got children of her own, you know. Who would do such a terrible thing?’

‘We intend to find out.’

‘When did it happen?’

‘Sometime on Saturday.’ Geraldine deliberately kept her responses vague. ‘It would help our enquiries if you would answer a few questions.’

The caretaker nodded. ‘You read about these things in the papers and see it on the telly. But you never think it will happen to someone you know.’

‘How well did you know Abigail Kirby?’ Peterson asked.

The caretaker considered. ‘I knew her to speak to. She called me George. Everyone calls me George.’ Geraldine and the sergeant exchanged a glance and waited. ‘I wouldn't say I knew her personally. Although she's been here a year last September.’ He sighed and rubbed his stubbly chin with one hand.

‘Was she popular here?’ Geraldine asked.

George hesitated before answering. ‘Mr Hollins, the old head, he was here a long time. Everyone liked Mr Hollins. He was a hard act to follow, if you get my meaning. A real schoolmaster.’ He paused. ‘I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but it was a different story with Mrs Kirby.’

‘You didn't like Mrs Kirby?’

‘I'm not talking about myself, as such. I'm only the caretaker. I didn't have much to do with her, not really. She wanted lots of changes, and I had to shift a lot of furniture around – quite unnecessarily – a new broom sweeps clean and all that.’

Geraldine looked up at Peterson who was making notes. ‘Did you have any disagreements with her about all the changes?’

The caretaker shook his head. ‘She didn't discuss anything with me. She gave her orders through Mr Maloney, the deputy. He was the one who ran around making sure everything got done. Mrs Kirby didn't have time to talk to me, not like old Mr Hollins. She was busy meeting parents and governors, sitting in her smart office, issuing her orders for the rest of us.’ He gave an apologetic shrug. ‘It's not a bad job here but there's always plenty to do when a new head comes in. Now would you like a cup of tea?’

They sat patiently watching while the old man fussed around, going off to fetch a bottle of milk and clattering mugs onto a tray while the kettle came to the boil. Geraldine had the impression George was quietly very upset by Abigail Kirby's sudden death.

‘Would you say Mrs Kirby had any enemies, Mr Ramsey?’

‘Call me George. Everyone else does.’

‘George, can you think of anyone who might have had a grudge against Mrs Kirby? Anyone who might have wanted her out of the way?’ She paused. ‘Perhaps someone with a temper?’

‘Well, this is in confidence, isn't it? I mean, you won't go telling anyone you heard this from me, will you? Although I daresay you'll hear the same from anyone you speak to.’ He leaned forward and Geraldine put her mug down on the table. ‘Mrs Kirby wasn't popular with the staff. She's only been here since last September, just over a year, and there have already been a few – incidents. She's put a lot of people out. It's not so much the changes, which have meant more pressure for all the staff here, it's her manner that upsets people.’ He hesitated. ‘There's been talk. Some of the staff have been going around criticising her behind her back.’

‘What sort of talk?’

‘Some of them accused her of being incompetent – not to her face, of course – and they've all complained about extra duties they've been having to do since she came, that sort of thing. They called a meeting to discuss their grievances but nothing ever came of it. They won't do anything, that lot, they just sit around and whinge. I've never known people grumble as much as teachers. You wouldn't think it, would you?’

They thanked George Ramsey for the tea and asked who else was in school over half term. The secretaries, IT support and maintenance staff would be working, he told them, and the deputy head was due in shortly, but the rest of the teaching staff were unlikely to appear on site during the half-term break.

Geraldine wanted to see the headmistress's study. ‘Please make sure no one enters the room. We'll put a constable on the door until a team has been in to make a thorough search, but I'd like to have a quick look round now, while I'm here.’

The caretaker led them across a concrete yard to the administrative building. They passed an unmanned reception desk, their footsteps echoing as they followed him down a corridor to a locked door. Once they were inside Abigail Kirby's carpeted office, they found everything easily accessible. Desk drawers were unlocked, unbolted filing cabinets held neatly labelled folders, the empty rubbish bin had a new plastic lining in place, waiting for the next day's detritus; everything in the room combined to give an impression of quiet efficiency.

Abigail Kirby had clearly been single-minded in her focus on work. There was nothing in the office that didn't relate directly to her professional life, no personal diary or notes, not even any photos of her family. They had almost finished flicking through the drawers and files when a man's head appeared round the door.

‘Hello?’ He strode into the room with an unmistakable air of authority. His lips pursed when Geraldine held out her warrant card but he introduced himself courteously enough as Derek Maloney, deputy head. ‘How can I help, Inspector? What are you looking for? And shouldn't we wait for Abigail? This is her office.’ He managed to look well turned out, even in casual clothes. Geraldine suspected his jeans had been ironed. Thinning hair slicked back across the top of his head failed to conceal the shiny bald pate beneath. The lenses of his glasses gleamed, masking his expression. ‘What seems to be the problem, Inspector? I'm not sure where Abigail is, but we're on half term. If this can possibly wait until next week –’

‘It can't.’ Briefly, Geraldine outlined the reason for their visit.

Derek Maloney was visibly shaken. He sat on the headmistress's sofa and gazed helplessly round the room. ‘She's dead? But – how? She was such a strong woman.’

Peterson described how Abigail Kirby's body had been discovered the previous afternoon.

‘And you're certain this was murder? She couldn't have fallen and hit her head against something?’

‘I'm afraid there can be no doubt she was killed, and the evidence suggests it wasn't accidental.’

‘This is terrible.’

‘Mr Maloney, it would assist our enquiries if you could tell us what you know about Abigail Kirby. Was she a popular head?’

‘Well, how can I put this? I can't say she won't be a loss to the school, Inspector, but –’