of money, but from where? A vicious murder but clinical and so neatly carried out. So it doesn’t look like a burglary gone wrong. A wife who was conveniently not at home this evening, so who would have known that? And was she really that upset? And was her absence coincidence or carefully planned? There was no mess, no sign of a struggle, so did you let someone in Roger that you knew? Give me some clues tomorrow Josie Collins.”
The doorbell rang, and it really did seem that someone was deliberately leaning on it. Spence’s colleagues had mocked him when he had CCTV installed but it did give him advance warning on nights like this when some idiot was banging on his door at 11.00 at night. He looked up at the screen.
Spence smiled to himself. He let the doorbell ring again as he slowly and deliberately took another deep swig of his South Australian Shiraz. He could hear her as he approached the door.
“Let me in. It’s fuckin’ freezing out here!”
He carefully unlocked the front door and with good reason. She almost fell in as Spence pulled the door open. And then she threw up on his beige carpet, specially ordered online from the Flooring Megastore. Now Spence knew why he bought such cheap furnishings. He kicked the door shut.
It was a cliché he knew but he had often said it, “You have a choice of spending money on top quality wine or top quality carpeting? Is there really a choice to be made?”
“Come on. Let’s get you into the bathroom.”
He lifted her up and dragged her to the toilet bowl, getting her there just in time. The stench was putrid, a combination of garlic, fish and lager.
Eventually she ceased heaving and now started sobbing.
“The bastard. The fucking bastard.”
Spence lifted her up and carried her into the spare room. For all his drinking, Spence was still in reasonable shape. He placed her in the bed, pulled off her boots and removed her coat. He wiped the vomit from her face and then pulled the blankets back over. She was already asleep. He gave her a kiss on her forehead as he would have done twenty years before. He stood there smiling, shook his head, walked over, switched off the light and closed the bedroom door.
Laura Hargreaves was the real love of his life, his only daughter and the only decent thing to have come out of his disastrous marriage with the delightful Caroline. No doubt the “fucking bastard” in question was Joel McManus. Laura and Joel. Their relationship was of Shakespearean proportions as together they shared the wildest passions and the deepest hatreds, while apart they pined for each other to the point of deep melancholy. Burton and Taylor came to mind. Joel, Richard Burton? No, perhaps not. Spence stood outside Laura’s bedroom door, staring blankly at the floor as Cream played on. He realised that he could only fantasise about ever feeling such passion as theirs ever again in his life.
He decided to let her sleep it off, and it would be a full cooked English breakfast next morning. The only way to deal with a hangover following a heavy night.
Spence returned to the lounge room. Change of mood now, Santana, as he cleaned up the mess Laura had made in his hallway. As he gathered up the contents of his daughter’s evening meal, his mind returned to Merton Ave. He tried to make some sense of the murder scene that he had earlier examined.
“Was Roger Davidson having an affair? Was his murder the actions of a jealous husband? Felicity was an attractive woman, he had a second child on the way and his career was going well. Perhaps he’s playing away from home because his wife is pregnant,” Spence thought to himself, “men have done worse. Betrayed wives have done worse. Is he gay?”
Spence sculled his wine, looked at the second bottle waiting for him on the table, but thought better of it. He opened the spare room door, checked on Laura; she was fast asleep and not so quietly snoring. Spence stepped into his bedroom and straightened the bedclothes.
Oh Susannah Pearson! Spence smiled to himself, crawled under the blankets and was soon as far gone as Laura.
CHAPTER THREE
Mid-March
….She let him stand there for almost ten minutes before she came back in. He was the epitome of the perfectly dressed public school boy: striped tie, grey shirt and shorts, grey socks neatly pulled up, polished shoes. A metronome was ticking; it added to the tension. She re-entered the room and continued to ignore him. Her purple silk blouse was neatly tucked into her black skirt. When she turned her back on him he could not fail to notice her seamed stockings and heels. She turned and walked over to the metronome and ceased its motion. Silence. Finally she spoke.
“I am displeased Benjamin. When you attend detention, I expect your uniform to be perfect. It is not. I notice a scratch on your right shoe and your shirt is not totally tucked in. You know how detention begins if your uniform is not perfect. Step forward towards my desk…”
Early September
It sounded more like an unsupervised lower Year Nine class than the first staff meeting of the year. The first day of the year for Woodlands Academy had included what was called a ‘Staff Development Day’ for the past three years. Most of the teachers had resented losing the last day of their summer break, but they were used to it now, and it did mean that all the routine administration could be sorted out before the onslaught.
Woodlands contained the usual range of misfits, idealists, careerists and communicators extraordinaire that comprise most school staff rooms. It also contained the usual range of timewasters, swots, miscreants and average students that comprise most school class rooms. Woodlands was never going to win the Stirling Prize for architecture, but there were a lot worse schools in the area.
What made Woodlands work better than most schools was the way the staff interacted and the tough, but realistic regime imposed by Robert Hamsby, headmaster for the past four years. Robert Hamsby had what his teenage charges called ‘cred’. He played in the local over-50s football comp, knew the name of every manager in the Premier League, could quote Byron and brought his son Nicholas to every school event he could. Nicholas might be severely handicapped but Hamsby loved that boy. The senior girls were always willing to look after him and push him around in his wheel chair.
The Staff Development Day was one of Hamsby’s first innovations. Bob Hamsby loved his work, but it was not his entire life, and he knew that that was the case for most of his staff. He expected everyone to work hard, but he also wanted them to play hard.
“Get a life!” was his stern rebuke to any staff member hanging around school longer than him.
As the staff room filled up, stories were being exchanged about summer trips and the opening of the new football season. Young Chris Watson was being ribbed about his newest girlfriend. Chris Watson was shy beyond understanding, yet always had his students eating out of his hand.
Hamsby had told him, “Not bad for a second year out Maths teacher kidder.”
Pictures were being passed around by Mark Varos; his wife had just had triplets and he was receiving the appropriate taunts, while the female staff were being warned to steer clear of him. Such banter had long disappeared from most school staff rooms. Robert Hamsby had made it clear that he wanted respect amongst colleagues but extreme political correctness was not going to rule his school. His quick suspension of Kevin Jones earlier in the year for sexual harassment of a female colleague had earned him the respect of the women on his staff.
This was a
