Thomma shook his head. ‘I’d like a burger,’ he announced with an enormous smile that said he was already becoming westernised. ‘With chips, please.’
44
Eddie Singleton was guiding his milk float cautiously up the drive to Bartholomew Manor. It was just getting light and the morning was faintly frosty. There was a faint red glow in the sky to his left and thin fronds of mist were hanging in the trees that bordered the drive. The red, brown and yellow fallen leaves lying on the verges sparkled in his headlights, each with its fringe of white hoar frost.
He drove carefully because of the potholes in the drive. He knew most of them of old but they were increasing – no one seemed to be doing any maintenance these days. Eddie had been delivering milk to the school for years. Four crates twice a week; that used to be the order. Now it was just one – hardly worth the effort, especially now the drive was getting into such a bad state.
He’d heard that the kids were all foreigners now – maybe that explained why they didn’t need so much milk. Lots else had changed. He used to drive right up to the kitchen door and carry the crates in for them. It would be all bright and warm and smell of bread and bacon. The cook’s assistant used always to give him a warm sausage roll or a bacon sandwich. Now the kitchen was empty when he arrived and he just dumped the crate at the door. The kids lived over at the farm and probably had their breakfast there but he didn’t deliver to the farm so he didn’t know.
He took the final turn by the big elm tree cautiously. There was a bit of a slope there and he expected it to be quite icy. A dazzling beam of light struck his eyes, blinding him. He slammed on the brakes and the milk float jolted to a stop, then began to slide slowly towards the big tree, all the crates rattling in the back.
‘Steady,’ said a deep voice. A tall figure loomed up beside Eddie, who could just make out that it was a policeman.
‘What did you do that for?’ said Eddie shakily. ‘You could’ve killed me if I’d hit that tree.’ Another policeman, this one holding a firearm, materialised beside the first and Eddie could now see that there was a group of police cars parked beside the kitchen door.
‘Is there a problem?’ Eddie asked nervously.
‘Not for you, mate,’ said the first police officer. ‘Just leave the milk right there and skedaddle.’
An hour earlier, while it was still dark, Liz had arrived at Bartholomew Manor in the third of the convoy of five black police cars. The convoy had assembled at the small police house in Southwold while Liz was snatching a few hours’ sleep on a narrow bed in the medical room.
Just before they’d left, Pearson had taken a call from the police pathologist. He’d listened intently, said a quiet thank-you and turned to Liz. ‘We’re not the only ones who’ve been up all night. I’ve been pushing for the postmortem on Miss Girling, and it’s just come in. Apparently, she was dead before she supposedly hanged herself in her kitchen.’
‘How did she die?’
‘She was strangled. Whoever killed her fractured some bones that couldn’t have been broken by hanging.’
The convoy had driven through the crisp and misty Suffolk countryside, which was just a dark blur of trees and hedges and shadows where nothing was awake except themselves. They had driven slowly up the bumpy drive and drawn up at the side of the house by the service entrance, blocking the top of the drive so no car could leave. There were eight police officers, four of them armed, and also Chief Constable Pearson and Liz. The operational command officer was Inspector Singh. He split the team up, sending two officers to the back of the house with instructions to detain anyone found in the classrooms or the grounds. ‘Have a good look round that new computer room we’ve heard about,’ he added. Two men were sent to keep an eye on the farm where the students were sleeping. ‘No one is to leave until I give the order.’ Two other men were to stay with the cars and prevent anyone coming in or going out via the drive and the final two men were to accompany Inspector Singh into the house via the front door. Liz had firmly refused the invitation to ‘stay in the car, ma’am, until we are sure it’s safe’, and followed the police to the front door of the house, walking a little way behind, with the Chief Constable. She wondered how they intended to get in as she remembered the front door of the manor was a huge old oak affair, but she didn’t think it wise to ask.
They climbed silently up the big stone steps in single file, the armed officer at the front. The steps sparkled with frost in the light of the police torches. The lead officer reached the front door and Liz held her breath, wondering what would happen next. But the door swung open to his touch and they were all able to walk in unhindered. Liz pointed to the left where she remembered the headmaster’s study and the offices were.
Inside, the rooms looked as if a hurricane had struck them. In the headmaster’s office, the drawers in the filing cabinets were pulled out and papers and files were strewn messily all over the carpet, along with half the contents of the bookcase behind Sarnat’s desk. The video camera that had caught Liz on tape had been ripped out, its brackets swinging loosely from the wall.
In the office where the secretaries had worked it was the same story – drawers pulled out, papers on the floor. It was as though a gang of hooligans had rushed through, creating as much havoc as they could as they went. Liz felt sure this wasn’t the work of the students, but why it had been done, she couldn’t guess. Maybe they had intended to burn the papers but hadn’t had time.
As they searched through the rooms on the other side of the hall they discovered a uniformed security guard, sitting in a cubicle next to the nurse’s room. He was wearing headphones plugged into a laptop and from the drowsy look on his face it was clear he had been asleep and had not heard them arrive. When he finally spotted an armed officer, he then looked very awake. Opposite where he sat there was a bank of screens; they were all blank.
‘What’s happened to the CCTV system?’ asked Liz.
‘Don’t know, miss,’ he said, confused. ‘Looks like someone’s turned it off. It was working when I came on duty.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Ten o’clock, miss.’
‘Did you go to sleep straightaway?’ asked Liz. The guard grinned weakly but said nothing.
‘Is anyone else in the building?’ demanded Pearson.
‘I don’t know,’ said the guard again. ‘I haven’t seen a soul since I came on last night. I thought I heard a car earlier on, but it was going out, not in, so I wasn’t bothered.’
‘Who’s usually here at night?’
‘Mr Sarnat and Cicero. And the new chap – Gottin-something.’
‘Where do they sleep?’
‘Upstairs. I always hear them when they go to bed, but last night there wasn’t a peep.’
‘What you mean is, you didn’t hear anything because you were asleep,’ responded Pearson.
While this conversation was going on, Inspector Singh had dispatched the police officers to the upstairs floors and now they returned. ‘Upstairs is empty, sir. No one’s there. But one room’s locked.’
‘Can I have a look?’ Liz asked, turning to Pearson.
‘Of course. I’ll come with you. Show us please, constable. You know the layout now.’
They went up the elegant curved oak staircase with its carved banisters to the floor above. The bedrooms were large but sparsely furnished. The beds had not been slept in. It wasn’t difficult to determine who slept in which room – on his chest of drawers, Sarnat had a large framed photograph of himself, standing in snow outside a ski chalet; on Gottingen’s bedside table were two postcards addressed to him, apparently from a girlfriend in Germany.