The Heart of the Dales (15 page)

‘And what were these words that Mr Hornchurch has supposedly used?' I asked.

‘I don't know,' replied Miss de la Mare, ‘but I am led to believe that they were extremely vulgar and offensive. Of course, Councillor Peterson hurried down the top corridor of County Hall to see Dr Gore, demanding action.'

‘As one might expect,' I observed.

‘Have you ever heard this teacher use any bad language or say anything inappropriate in front of his class?' asked Miss de la Mare.

‘No, I haven't,' I replied, ‘and it seems to me that it would be so out of character for him to do so. He has a very gentle, positive and encouraging manner with the children. It's certainly not like him to swear in front of them. He might look a bit of an odd-ball but he's extremely professional.'

‘Very well,' said Miss de la Mare. ‘I would like you to
telephone Tarncliffe's headteacher, and arrange to go into the school this afternoon. Report back to me first thing on Monday morning. I don't want anything heavy-handed, you understand. I suggest a quiet word with both the headteacher and Mr Hornchurch would be in order. Then we shall have to report back to Dr Gore and prepare a carefully-worded statement for the newspaper. Hopefully, the matter will be sorted out before it goes to press next week.'

‘Right,' I said, getting up from my chair, ‘I had better cancel this afternoon's appointments and get straight on to it.'

‘Before you go, wasn't there something you wished to discuss with me?' asked the Chief Inspector.

‘Oh that,' I said. ‘That can wait.'

As soon as I got back to the office, I telephoned Miss Drayton, the headteacher of Tarncliffe Primary School, to arrange the visit for the afternoon. I then called Maurice Hinderwell.

‘A squirrel, eh?' he said in that familiar thin nasal voice of his. ‘Oh dear.'

‘I'd like to get rid of it,' I told him. ‘

Of course you would,' he replied. ‘It'll be a grey squirrel, of course,
Sciurus carolinensis,
brown tinge along the centre of his back, white belly and grey bushy tail.'

‘Well, I didn't get that good a look as it was dark in the loft,' I told him.

‘Oh dear, oh dear,' he sighed, in a prophet of doom voice. ‘It was in your loft, was it?'

‘I caught sight of it in the torch's beam.'

‘Sure it wasn't a rat? They are far more active than squirrels at night. Clever devils are rats.'

‘No, no, it was definitely a squirrel.'

‘You see, Mr Phinn, your grey squirrel is most lively at dawn and dusk, not in the middle of the night,' said Mr Hinderwell. ‘That's when they forage for food. He's a cheeky little devil, is this one.'

‘Well, I want to get rid of it,' I said. ‘It's disturbing our sleep, and my wife's getting into a bit of a state about it.'

He gave a hollow little laugh. ‘I can understand that. Disturbing your sleep is not all it'll be doing. It'll be chewing and gnawing with its incisors, and scratching and scraping away with its sharp claws, if I know squirrels. They can cause untold damage can squirrels, stripping your trees, biting through your electric cables, nibbling your woodwork, defecating all over the place. They might look pretty and appealing but they can
be bloody pests, can grey squirrels. They take food from bird tables, raid birds' nests and eat the eggs and even the very young chicks. And, of course, they are responsible for the decline of
Sciurus vulgaris.
'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘The red squirrel,' he told me. ‘The indigenous species. All but wiped them out.'

‘So, can you help me?' I asked.

‘That is what I do, Mr Phinn, help people with a pest problem. I'm the County Pest Control Officer, known affectionately as the Verminator. If there's a pest, Maurice Hinderwell is the man to contact. Now, your squirrel is a rodent like the rat but not quite as elusive and as clever as your average Samuel Whiskers. He's a wily and very agile little rascal, but have no fear, I'll tell you how to get him.'

‘I should be very much obliged,' I said, greatly relieved.

‘It's not a good idea to try and poison him.'

‘No, I wouldn't want to do that,' I said.

‘If you put poisoned nuts out, the birds will eat them and you don't want a garden full of dead bluetits, now, do you?'

‘Not at all.'

‘Do you know anyone who has a gun?'

‘Mr Hinderwell, I really would rather not kill him.'

‘Not kill him!' exclaimed Mr Hinderwell. ‘It's no use being sentimental about squirrels, Mr Phinn, leastwise your grey variety. They're as verminous and destructive as your common or garden rat.'

‘All the same, Mr Hinderwell,' I said, ‘is there some other way? I just want to catch him.'

‘Well, you could use a trap, I suppose,' he said. ‘I could drop one off at the Education Office next week. I used it recently in a school where squirrels had chewed through a window frame and caused a great deal of damage. I caught three of them. Told the kiddies they were going to a squirrel refuge since I didn't want to upset them. Course, when I got hold of them, I –'

‘I'm very grateful, Mr Hinderwell,' I interrupted, not wishing to know the fate of the little creatures.

‘Just put some peanuts in the trap and place it in a secluded spot in the garden, and you'll have your squirrel,' he told me. ‘Then you can do what you want with it – or them.'

I arrived at Tarncliffe at the very end of the lunch hour, having negotiated an empty grey ribbon of a road, which seemed to twist and turn interminably across an immense landscape of dark fields, where sheep and cattle sheltered in the lee of the old limestone walls. There was a squally wind and the noisy rooks circled and flapped high above the blustery trees like scraps of black paper.

The small primary school, which faced the village green, was a typical Dales stone building, with porch and mullioned windows. I noticed that the impressive solid black door sported a highly-polished brass plate bearing the words: ‘WELCOME TO OUR SCHOOL'. This was new from my last visit and I suspected it had been added because, for all the world, the school looked like a private dwelling at first glance. On one side was the village shop, on the other the grey brick Primitive Methodist Chapel.

The headteacher, Miss Drayton, was an optimistic and cheerful person whom nothing and no one seemed to dishearten or discourage, but when I informed her of the reason for my impromptu visit her face fell.

‘Bad language!' she exclaimed. ‘Mr Hornchurch? That's ridiculous! There must be some mistake. As you know, the school comprises one large room divided by a partition between the infants and the juniors. I can hear virtually everything that is said next door to me and I would know if he had used any offensive words.' Then she thought for a moment. ‘Mind you, I've had a supply teacher in for the odd day or two over the past few weeks when I have had to attend regional headteachers' meetings, but she didn't mention she'd heard anything untoward. No, I'm certain Mr Hornchurch would never use any kind of inappropriate language with his class. He's very professional, if a little unorthodox, and extremely well liked by the children and the parents. Who made the complaint?'

‘A Mr Gaskell,' I told her.

‘Oh well, that explains a great deal!' The headteacher blew out noisily through pursed lips. ‘I hate to say it, but Mr Gaskell is a most disagreeable man. He bought the old manor house next to the church last March, and he thinks he owns the village already. The first thing he did was try and stop the church clock chiming during the night because it disturbed his sleep. Then he tried to get planning permission for the manor's old orchard, so his building company could erect some un-sightly executive houses there. He's a man with more money than sense. His daughter only started school last term and already he's been in complaining about this, that and the other – that we don't give his Miranda hard enough books to read at home and that we spend too much time on art, poetry and music, which he considers largely a waste of time. And he is always at great pains to tell me how one of the directors of his company is a councillor on the Education Committee and that he agrees with his views.'

‘That would be Councillor Peterson, would it not?' I asked.

‘It would indeed,' replied Miss Drayton.

‘It was Councillor Peterson who brought the matter to the attention of the Chief Education Officer.'

‘Was it indeed?' said Miss Drayton, bristling. ‘And isn't Councillor Peterson's wife a teacher?'

‘Yes, she's the headteacher at Highcopse County Primary School,' I said.

‘Well, Councillor Peterson ought to know better then, agreeing with this man,' said Miss Drayton angrily. ‘Mr Gaskell's daughter, when she started, was a frightened little thing and hardly said a word – and stuttered when she did. Mr Hornchurch brought her out of her shell. He's amusing, mild-mannered and, as I have said before, highly professional. The very idea of him using bad language is inconceivable. I suspect that Mr Gaskell took against him from the start when he tried to get the parents to agree for Miranda to see a speech therapist about her impediment. Mrs Gaskell had no objection but her husband resolutely resisted, saying that the child would grow out of it.
His discussion with Mr Hornchurch, I'm afraid, got a bit heated.' Miss Drayton paused for breath and sighed again. ‘Anyway, Mr Phinn, I suppose you had better have a word with Mr Hornchurch and sort this out. Since it is Friday, we don't have an afternoon break but go straight through until three thirty so I suggest I take both the infants and the juniors while you speak to him.'

‘I would prefer it, Miss Drayton,' I said, ‘if you were present. I really feel you need to be there when this interview takes place.'

‘As a witness to what is said?' she asked.

‘I think it would be wise. Obviously, I don't wish to spend the whole of the afternoon in Mr Hornchurch's class. Perhaps I could join you and the infants for the first part of the afternoon, observe Mr Hornchurch for the remainder and then speak to you both after school.'

‘Very well,' she agreed. ‘Perhaps it would be better if I were present.' She looked extremely angry. ‘I should have thought, Mr Phinn, that you have far more important things to do than waste your time looking into some ridiculous allegation.'

‘I am certain it's a storm in a teacup,' I reassured her, ‘but I am sure that you understand that I do have to investigate it.'

‘Very well then,' she said, ‘we will leave it until after school when we will get to the bottom of this. In fact, Mr Gaskell usually collects Miranda on Fridays so we can hear about this complaint straight from the horse's mouth. I cannot for the life of me understand why he never mentioned the matter to me, going to County Hall instead.'

Miss Drayton was clearly furious and I could just imagine what her reaction would be when she learned from me later that Tarncliffe School might very well be on the front page in the
Fettlesham Gazette
the following week.

When I entered the infants' class, my mind was on the forthcoming – and what I guessed would prove to be contentious – meeting that would take place at the end of the school day. While Miss Drayton settled the children down, I wandered
around the room looking at the colourful displays on the walls and the range of books in the small bookcase. I could hear Mr Hornchurch quite clearly behind the partition dividing the room, explaining to his class what they were to do that afternoon. The headteacher's claim that she could hear virtually everything that was said next door was absolutely right.

Miss Drayton approached and gave me a selection of the children's workbooks to look at while she marked the register.

‘You might care to browse through these, Mr Phinn,' she said. ‘As you will see, children do very well in this school.' I could tell she was making a point.

I sat in the corner of the classroom in the small carpeted reading area adjacent to the partition to examine them, but placed them on the nearest chair and strained my ears to eavesdrop on the lesson going on next door. Mr Hornchurch was telling the children about the effects of pollution on the environment in a clear and interesting manner.

I was so engrossed in his account that I didn't see the girl who had appeared at my side. She tugged at my sleeve.

‘Hello,' she said.

‘Hello,' I replied.

She was a small child with sparkling intelligent eyes and corkscrew curls, and was dressed in a blue-and-yellow gingham skirt and a white shirt as crisp as a wafer. She stared at me intently. I smiled.

‘You were daydreaming,' she told me with all the precocious confidence of a six-year-old.

‘I suppose I was,' I said.

‘Who are you?' she asked.

‘Mr Phinn,' I answered.

‘I'm Rhiannon.'

‘Are you?'

‘It's a Welsh name.'

‘Yes, I know.'

‘Can you speak Welsh?'

‘No, I can't.'

‘My mummy and daddy can and I know some words.'

‘Really.'

‘Yes, big words. I know a lot of four-letter words.'

‘Do you really?' I must have sounded very impressed.

‘And some five-letter ones too.
Cwtch
– that means cuddle,' explained the child. ‘I have a
cwtch
every night when I have my story. We'll be having a story this afternoon, after we've finished our poems.'

‘And what are your poems about?' I asked.

‘We're writing poems about excuses.'

‘Are you?' My mind immediately thought of the excuses I might give to Miss de la Mare about my mishandling of the situation at Ugglemattersby and what Mr Hornchurch might proper if, indeed, he had used some inappropriate language.

‘Yes,' said the child.