Suspicion Page 9

  ‘What do you mean there aren’t any lilies?’ she was asking as I joined them. ‘The order distinctly specified lilies for the top table.’

  ‘That’s as may be, madam,’ the man replied. ‘But we can’t deliver lilies if we haven’t got any. Don’t go blaming us. It’s our supplier that let us down. We ordered lilies all right but they never sent them. So we’ve brought roses instead, and I’ve already said we’re prepared to discount the price and I can’t say fairer than that. We’ve been supplying your flowers for this event for seven years, madam, and this is the first time there’s been a problem of any sort. But it’s not our fault. We ordered lilies for you, just like you requested, but they sent us roses.’

  ‘We ordered lilies. Look!’ Julie brandished a printed document at him. ‘It says lilies.’

  ‘I know,’ he replied stoically, ‘but they sent us roses.’

  This exchange was going round in circles.

  ‘Roses are fine,’ I butted in. ‘As it happens, the headmaster is allergic to lilies. He’ll prefer roses on the top table.’

  Julie scowled but the man turned to me, all smiles now that the mishap had been smoothed over.

  ‘It’s only flowers,’ I said to Julie when he had gone. ‘I’m sure they’re lovely roses and all the flowers are going to look just fine.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right of course. I don’t know why I got in such a state over it.’ She smiled apologetically. ‘I didn’t know Nick was allergic to lilies. That’s the sort of thing Sue would have known. I don’t know who ordered lilies for the top table.’

  She broke off. Perhaps, like me, she was thinking that lilies were traditionally associated with funerals.

  ‘I’m sorry you caught me throwing a bit of a wobbly,’ she went on, sniffing back tears. ‘There’s so much to do and everything seems to be going wrong this morning. I miss Sue,’ she added, with a catch in her voice.

  ‘We all do, but we can pull this off without her. We have to.’

  ‘The show must go on and all that,’ she said, a trifle bitterly.

  I wondered if she thought we ought to have cancelled the event, given recent circumstances. It certainly felt strange, throwing a huge party so soon after Sue’s death. But it would have been impossible to pull out of the event at such short notice. Apart from the extravagant catering bill, the marquee had been booked and paid for months earlier, and dodgems were being installed while we stood there discussing flowers.

  ‘Nick would have liked to call it off,’ I said, ‘but there’s just too much going on, too many people relying on payment, and orders for food, and flowers, and wine, and chairs, and all the live music, and everything. It was too late to pull the plug.’

  She nodded, understanding if the Gala Dinner and Ball had been cancelled, we would have had to reimburse ticket holders, but would still have had to pay for all the goods and services. In addition, cancelling the event would have drawn attention to the recent tragedy which the governors were keen to play down.

  ‘It’s a horrible thing to say,’ I added, ‘but we can’t afford to cancel it. And it’s a horrible thing to have to do, but we just have to soldier on and get through it.’

  ‘I’m not staying for the evening,’ Julie said. ‘I just can’t.’

  I told her I would have liked to duck out as well, but the absence of the new headmaster’s wife would raise too many eyebrows and I couldn’t let Nick down. After a great deal of deliberation, I chose to wear a dress with a cowl neckline that seemed appropriate both for the occasion and for the recent tragedy. It was flattering, long, elegant, figure hugging, and black. Gazing around the marquee, I was glad my dress looked smart and sophisticated.

  Many of the mothers of pupils at Edleybury were women with considerable disposable funds, much of it passed on from previous generations or earned by overpaid husbands holding down jobs in the city. These women had never worked in their lives, other than on their figures and their faces. Ostentatiously wealthy, pretentious and sexy, they knew how to dress for an occasion.

  ‘What a fashion show,’ Nick muttered contemptuously, as we stood at the entrance to the marquee waiting to greet guests as they arrived.

  ‘They pay your salary,’ I replied, under my breath.

  He must have heard me, because he chortled. ‘Yes, they certainly do. And some of these frocks probably cost more than a year’s salary for a new–’

  He broke off abruptly and left my side to chat to a man I didn’t recognise, who looked like a governor.

  ‘Louise, let me introduce Simon Tiverton, the chairman of the school governors. Simon, my wife Louise.’

  I smiled. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.’

  ‘Oh, the pleasure is all mine, my dear. Allow me to introduce my wife, Evelyn.’

  ‘What a lovely evening we have for the end of year festivities,’ Evelyn said, smiling myopically in my direction.

  Banal pleasantries completed, they drifted away, and Nick watched them go with a wistful expression.

  ‘They’ve been married for forty years,’ he said. ‘Do you think we’ll make it that far?’

  ‘Of course we will,’ I assured him.

  A noisy gaggle of parents arrived, demanding our welcome, before we were swept away to the top table, and we had no more time for private conversation.

  The dinner was appropriately lavish, and the music far too loud as it usually is at these events. Nick made no mention of Sue in his after dinner remarks, having paid tribute to her service to the school in the end of year assembly and also at Speech Day, and for that one evening we behaved as though his late secretary had never existed.

  We got through the dinner, making polite conversation, and afterwards we danced with tipsy parents who were footing the bill. It would have been enjoyable enough, but for the strain of an invisible pall of death that hung over us, so that I was glad to finally get home and kick off my shoes.

  The Gala Dinner and Ball was traditionally a fairly riotous affair, with staff carousing into the small hours after the parents left. But this year, all the teachers went home after the formal festivities, and everyone was subdued throughout the event. Nick had carried the evening with his usual aplomb, and I was possibly the only person there who could tell quite what a strain he was under.

  As soon as we reached home, he collapsed on the sofa in the living room, without even stopping to remove his jacket or shoes.

  ‘Thank God that’s over,’ he said. ‘Talk about bad timing! Why the hell didn’t she wait until the term was over? It’s not been easy keeping it under wraps. You know how the staff gossip. Might as well try to stop a troupe of monkeys from chattering. By September hopefully the talk will have died down.’ He loosened his tie. ‘At least I’ve got the summer to find a replacement.’

  Pained by his lack of consideration, I wasn’t sure how to respond, and for a few moments neither of us spoke.

  ‘You look tired,’ I said at last, unable to bear the silence.

  It was true. Now that he was no longer putting on a show for the parents, he looked pale and drawn.

  ‘Not quite the end of year celebration we were expecting,’ he replied. ‘I was planning to crack open a bottle of Champagne–’

  ‘Haven’t you had enough to drink tonight?’

  ‘I thought we’d have a little celebration of our own, after surviving our first year here, but it hardly seems appropriate to celebrate after what happened with Sue. I thought we’d need a holiday to recover from our first year, but I never thought I’d be so desperate to get away from this place.’

  We went upstairs. Having returned my glittering jewellery to its case, I turned and stared at my reflection. Dressed all in black, without any adornment, I could have been going to a funeral.

  Chapter 17

  The next morning, at breakfast, I quizzed Nick about why the police were holding onto Sue’s body for so long.

  ‘What on earth are they doing? Surely the family want to start making arrangements for a f
uneral.’

  Stirring his tea, he nodded thoughtfully. ‘You know we’ll have to attend, whenever it is, and until we know when it’s going to be held, we can’t book a holiday. But yes, we must go to the funeral if we possibly can, of course we must. And perhaps we’ll invite the family to a memorial service here at school before the beginning of term. Something quite low key. It’s probably best not to involve the whole school. I don’t think we want the pupils meeting Sue’s family.’

  He pulled a face and pretended to shudder at the prospect.

  ‘But we still don’t have any idea when the funeral might be?’ I asked, after a pause.

  ‘I told you, they haven’t released the body yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘How should I know? She killed herself, so I suppose they have to look into it. Just forget about it, will you. I’m trying to put all that out of my mind until we need to deal with it, and I suggest you do the same. You’re not helping me, dwelling on it like this. You’ve no idea how tough it’s been for me, keeping the situation under control. If it had happened earlier in the term, it would have been different. As it is, we were absolutely right to keep the circumstances of her death quiet. I’ve mentioned her untimely death in assembly and in my end of year report, and I think we need to leave it at that. Let it remain as a tragic accident for as long as possible. Even if the papers get hold of it, which they will, it’s going to be old news by the time the summer’s over. What we have to do now is focus on the future, get a new secretary in place and up to speed by September. I’m thinking of asking Mandy to double up as my secretary, at least in the short term, with Julie as back up. And we’ll recruit a temp to help out with some of the routine administrative tasks. But for now, we have to try to get past all this as best we can and find our way back to where we were in our lives before Sue died.’

  He was right. Even though what had happened was terrible, guilt wouldn’t dominate my thoughts indefinitely. I knew it was a cliché, but it was true that in time the sharpest feelings would soften. I had to cling to the knowledge that I had never intended to cause so much distress. Even without knowing what I had done, Nick had been right to say that Sue must have been unhinged to take her own life.

  To be fair, I had known nothing about her mental instability, so I reasoned that if she had committed suicide it could hardly be my fault. My emails might have been one of the details that had tipped her over a personal precipice, but she must already have been fighting to escape from the darkness that had threatened to engulf her, and had finally claimed her life. If I had not been the catalyst that pushed her over the edge, someone or something else would have come along. In any case, I had merely reacted to her behaviour, without initiating anything. So I tried to exonerate myself for my role in her death by imagining that it was my misfortune that this had happened to me and that, if anything, I was the victim. I wasn’t really convinced, but it helped me to think about it like that.

  In the meantime, Sue was dead, and there was no point in dredging up what had happened between her and my husband. We both needed to forget he had been screwing her, and concentrate on getting our marriage back on track. Nick was right about that too. Convinced that Sue had never meant much to him, I had been eager to drive her from the school so that she and Nick would never see one another again.

  Without their enforced physical proximity, I had believed their relationship would quickly fizzle out. Now it had been forcibly brought to an end, in the most tragic way possible, but at least it was over. I would have preferred it to end differently. Despite what she had done, I had liked Sue, and my husband was a very persuasive man. It was an uncomfortable thought, but I doubted she had been entirely to blame for the seduction.

  ‘You’re right,’ I agreed. ‘We have to get back to normal, and carry on as though Sue never came into our lives.’

  He nodded. ‘I worked with her every day, but she hardly came into our lives. You make it sound as though she was our child. Let’s not overdramatise what happened.’

  Before I could respond, there was a ring at the doorbell. Putting down the breakfast dishes I was clearing away, I went to see who it was, and did my best to sustain an expression of calm interest when a tall man on the doorstep held up an identity card and introduced himself as Detective Inspector Steven Jarvis.

  ‘What can we do for you, Detective Inspector?’ I enquired. ‘Shall I call my husband?’

  ‘Perhaps I can come in?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. Please follow me.’

  I led the way into the living room where Nick was seated at his laptop. He looked up and rose to his feet in one lithe movement as the detective inspector entered the room and introduced himself. Nick shook his hand and invited him to sit down.

  ‘I take it this is about the recent loss of a member of my staff,’ Nick said.

  ‘We’re just making a few enquiries,’ the inspector explained, sitting down and gesturing to me to take a seat. ‘You worked closely with Susan Ross, didn’t you, sir?’

  I sat quietly while Nick dealt with the inspector in a manner both slick and overtly frank. He said nothing untoward, and I appreciated having time to plan my own responses.

  ‘And you, Mrs Kelly, how well did you know Miss Ross?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say I knew her well. We had regular discussions, of course.’

  ‘Discussions?’ the inspector echoed, a slight interrogation in his tone.

  ‘Yes, we talked about the weekly flowers in chapel, and refreshments at school events, and arrangements for the Gala Dinner at the end of the school year, which tragically Sue couldn’t attend, of course.’ I lowered my head and looked sad.

  ‘So you talked about matters relating to her work?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No, nothing else, really. She was a lovely person, but I’m sure others who knew her better than I did have told you that.’

  ‘Yes, they have. But I’m interested to hear your views, Mrs Kelly.’

  ‘I don’t have anything much to add to what I just told you. Sue was kind and helpful to both of us, and I have no doubt she was like that with everyone, and she was an excellent secretary to my husband. We had no idea she was suffering from depression and we’re all in shock over what happened.’

  The inspector did not stay long and I breathed a sigh of relief when the front door closed behind him. Suddenly, I felt the need to get out of the house. Checking that my laptop was safely hidden away, I told Nick I was going shopping. He merely grunted, without looking up from his work.

  ‘You need to take some time off,’ I told him. ‘Term’s over.’

  ‘Once I’ve sorted out a replacement secretary, I’ll relax,’ he promised me.

  Returning from the shops a couple of hours later, I found Nick sitting in the living room, absorbed in a printed document.

  ‘Did you have a successful outing?’ he asked without looking up from the paper he was studying.

  ‘I got a few things for the weekend. We were out of milk. What’s that?’

  ‘Hmm? Just reading through the job description that was written last time around. It needs a bit of updating, but it’s incredibly difficult without any input from the last incumbent.’ He sounded exasperated. ‘Julie’s made a reasonable stab at it, working from the job specification when Sue was recruited, and adding in the additional responsibilities Sue took on over the years, but there’s a lot more that needs to be included, and we’re bound to overlook a lot of what she actually did. The list of her responsibilities is monumental. I don’t know how she managed to do it all.’ He frowned, making a pencil mark on the paper. ‘There’s no way someone new to the school will be able to do all this. And we don’t want to put off any prospective candidates by making the job look impossible. Oh, and the police were here again,’ he added, still staring at his document.

  ‘What? The police? Why? What did they want?’

  He raised his head, looking surprised at th
e urgency in my tone.

  ‘What did they want?’ I repeated.

  ‘Oh, nothing. It was routine.’

  ‘What was? What did they want?’

  Afraid the police had discovered Nick had been having an affair with Sue, I wondered how he could remain so calm.

  ‘They just wanted to take a look around.’

  ‘You mean they searched our house?’

  He nodded. ‘They were simply doing their job.’ He sounded very laid-back about it. ‘They took our computers,’ he added, ‘but they said we’d have them back tomorrow at the latest. And don’t worry. They were extremely careful not to disturb anything.’

  ‘What? How could you let them take our things?’

  ‘They have to go through the motions with us as well as everyone else on site. We can’t be treated differently to everyone else.’

  ‘You mean they’re looking at all the computers in the school?’

  ‘Of course. You didn’t think they were only interested in us, did you? Yes, they’ve taken the lot. That is, they’ve taken the laptops. And they’ve got a team here checking the PCs. Thank goodness term’s over. Can you imagine the furore if they’d swooped in on us like this while all the kids were here?’ He gave a mirthless laugh.

  I thought quickly. Obviously someone had told them about the emails that had been sent round. Maybe Nick had told them himself, not knowing he might be landing me in trouble. But I knew the police had been speaking to the academic and secretarial staff as well as to Nick, and everyone knew about the attack on Sue’s reputation. Anyone could have told them. In fact, I might have been the only person who had failed to mention the emails when the police had questioned me. At least I had been prudent enough to destroy Sue’s diary.

  Without another word, I raced upstairs. Nothing appeared to have been moved in my study. It had not been ransacked, as I had feared. I ran to my bedroom and opened the top drawer of my chest. Relieved to see the underwear I had left covering my laptop had not been disturbed, I lifted it out. With a stab of terror, I saw that my laptop had gone.