‘She would have kept herself going a good few years yet.’
‘Even with Charlie Prove?’
‘Even with Charlie Prove.’
‘Then thank you, you’ve been very helpful. Oh, and tomorrow I think I’ll need the paperwork for Charlie’s flat transaction too.’
He left the paper on her desk for them to add to what they’d bring tomorrow. They shook hands; and as Grey left through the reception overheard Andrea still on the phone, though he had the impression not to Rachel Sowton.
Chapter 7 — Tudor Oak
It was getting dark by the time Sergeant Smith found herself driving to the large and somewhat historic building on the outskirts of town, her passenger the Inspector ruminating in the passenger seat,
‘The Tudor Oak Independent School? Nice name — reminds me of the Mary Rose. It can’t go all that way back though, can it?’
‘I’m not sure. The building’s old though, from what I remember driving past. The modern school’s been there well over a hundred years though; I think it used to be a convent or something before, and was used as a hospital during the First World War.’
‘The name might be a way to gain a bit of that history.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘So how much are you looking at so send a child there?’ Even as he asked he knew it was none of his business.
‘About the same as you’d pay to live at the Cedars.’
‘Free to those that can afford it…’ he couldn’t help but add. ‘And Brough’s serious, about wanting this for your kids?’
‘I don’t know, he has big ideas — you know Brough.’
At an edge of town so far out it was almost its own district and served by its own shops and set of amenities, they pulled in before an impressive building, the oldest parts of which Grey saw right away might well have been Tudor. It must have predated everything that now surrounded it, built entirely independently of the industrial development of the town and may have once had extensive gardens upon which it’s neighbours now sat.
‘A shame it’s so hemmed in,’ he said.
‘They must play sport somewhere else.’
That was a good point. The school buildings were made all the more dramatic at dusk by the placing in the ground of spotlights that shot up into the air to highlight the walls and windows with their exterior detailing.
‘Sarah told me a Miss Oven would be waiting for us in the Junior’s Hall.’
(Grey had, at the time these instruction were being relayed to Cori, being issuing some of his own, or rather asking if Inspector Glass, recently appointed head of their station’s uniformed contingent, could place a Constable as promised at the Cedars for the night.)
‘She said it was the smaller building to the left.’ The pair walked towards the only lit windows in that direction. As they did so, behind them a hundred rugby boots clattered over the road they had just pulled in off, their field of action obviously somewhere on the other side. Grey remembered how thankful every ex-schoolboy ought to be for there being no one in adult life with the power to commit you to two hours of that torture each week.
‘Here’s the Junior’s entrance,’ spotted Cori, her mind on more practical matters.
Miss Oven proved to be a genial and reliable host; not far off being Stella Dunbar’s contemporary and evidently as happy in her work as anyone had a right to be. They sat in the centre of the large lit room, its ceiling pointing steeply in the manner of a small chapel. The desks now grouped in little islands Grey guessed had once been in straight lines. At one end of the room uncurtained windows were full of night. The lady had provided tea and biscuits,
‘The school secretary asked me to stay behind for you once the after-school clubs had gone. I knew her you see, Stella. We were colleagues for many years, and I hope friends.’
‘The secretary told you why we were asking after her?’ Cori sensed the Inspector was leaving this to her.
‘Yes, yes it is very sad. But then we all have to go sometime.’
‘I’m afraid Stella’s death wasn’t a natural one.’
‘No, I don’t suppose it was if it brought you here.’
‘I’m afraid she was attacked. You’re not surprised?’
‘Not really, not when I stopped to think about it. The children went home a while ago, and I’ve been sat here with my thoughts of Stella flooding back after sixteen years.’
‘And what we’re you thinking?’
‘That she was a woman under a shadow, Sergeant, cursed with seriousness and unable to leave things alone or give others their head. She did much good, I’ll grant you, but she could be so tiring. No battle won would be enough for her, yet fail at the next task and all was lost. I expect you’re going to tell me that when it came down to it she couldn’t let a lad snatch her bag or a burglar take her precious things without fighting back… oh yes, the silver. Was that it?’’
‘We think it may have been a little more than that. When did you start at this school, Miss Oven? Was Stella already here?’
‘I don’t remember who was first or exactly when I started — I worked at several schools for a while — but we became firm friends, definitely by the time of the centenary: I remember the staff meal, and that was Nineteen Eighty-three.’
‘And what form would your friendship take?’
‘I only taught in the mornings while my own were at school, but she’d come with me when I went to the shops or we’d go and have a cup of tea before she went back at the end of her lunch hour.’
‘Did she have many other friendships here?’
‘She was respected more than loved, Sergeant. People here respected her. It all came down to how you took her, and how she took you.’
‘You must have made an impression then, to be so regarded.’
‘Well I couldn’t tell you why, I never had to make any special effort with her. She must have found something reliable in me, was my best guess.’
‘So the question had occurred to you?’
‘Oh yes — Stella did nothing by accident.’
‘Tell us about your work.’
‘Well, I was in the Juniors, she the Seniors and Sixth Form: History and English, but mostly English. She got the best results in the county, sent several down to Oxford.’
‘When she started, what was her name?’
‘Oh, you mean her surname? Always Dunbar to me; ‘though now I think of it, I’d sensed there was a marriage.’
‘Wouldn’t a good friend, as you say she was, have shared such a fact?’
‘Not with Stella, no. Odd that, isn’t it? But that was just how she was. I couldn’t tell you one think about her life before I knew her, or much that happened to her outside of school once I did. Yet she had honesty about her, if she trusted you, if she thought you were good. I remember acts of kindness: a posy on my birthday once, or speaking up for me in a staff meeting. She could leave a real sense of warmth in you; and the rest was her business.’
‘A posy. Was that from her own garden? Only we don’t know where she lived when she was first here.’
‘Oh, she lived in the Alderman’s Cottages. They’re gone now, called a health hazard sadly. They became attached to the school in its early days, and were used as accommodation for unmarried masters,’ she chuckled.
‘When were they demolished?’
‘Long after Stella lived there.’
‘She lived there all the time you knew her?’
‘Yes, until her aunt left her that lovely flat.’
‘A single person’s rooms?’
She nodded.
‘But you sensed she’d been married before?’
‘Only vaguely at certain times; such as when I spoke about my own marriage, she seemed to understand. She wasn’t like some singletons, professional women who’d treat tales of married life with shock: “Oh, you’d never catch me getting up that early to cook a husband’s breakfast.”’ Miss Oven dissolved into laughter.
‘But with Stella it was different?’
‘I would talk about Christopher and me and the kids, and she would nod and smile sagely in that way she had, instantly letting you know what she understood you and… maybe I was reading too much into it, but I always thought that she must have once known something of that life herself.’