He told her again what he wanted.
‘I can only think of one member of staff who would have been around then,’ she said. ‘Mr Westcott. He’s head of history. I know he has a free period first thing after lunch but that’s probably not the best time to talk to him.’
‘Why not?’ he asked politely.
‘Oh well. I suppose it’ll be all right. I’ll tell him you’re calling. And I’ll check our records. If you come to the office first I’ll have everything ready for you.’
The electric bell sounding the end of lunch was ringing as he got out of his car. By the time he got to the school office the children were contained in their classrooms. No pretence was being made to teach them. He heard whoops of laughter, the blare of rock music. The secretary moved away from her computer screen when she saw him and held towards him a manila envelope. He could tell from the weight that there were only a couple of sheets of paper inside.
‘It’s not much I’m afraid. After all this time…’ He knew that she would have done all she could to help. There was no point in pushing for more. He followed her directions to the staff-room. Jack Westcott was plump and round and when Porteous pushed open the door to the cluttered room, he was asleep. Despite the heat he wore a tweed jacket with a loud check and there were beads of sweat on his forehead. Porteous leaned over him to tap him on the shoulder and smelled whisky fumes. That explained the secretary’s feeling that the first period after lunch might not be a good time to speak to him. Jack Westcott had been celebrating the end of term in the pub. He opened rheumy eyes and with an unembarrassed jolt he sat up.
‘You must be the policeman chappie.’
Porteous admitted that he was.
‘Help yourself to coffee.’ He nodded unsteadily towards a filter machine in the corner. ‘I have mine black. Two sugars if the bastards have left any.’
He pressed on the arms of his chair as if to hoist himself out of it, but the effort was too much for him. The three remaining teachers in the room picked up their bags and wandered out. Porteous carried back the polystyrene cups of coffee and sat beside him.
‘I’m here about a boy called Michael Grey. Your secretary said you might remember him. We think he could have been a bit of a troublemaker.’
‘No, no no.’ The words were thundered so loud that Porteous was startled. Jack Westcott set the cup on the table and shook his head as if to clear an alcoholic fug. ‘He was a good chap, Michael. One of the best.’
‘So you do remember him?’ Porteous felt a wonderful relief. He had begun to think that Michael Grey didn’t exist at all, that he was some figment of Carver’s imagination.
‘Of course I do. I remember all the kids. Hundreds of them. That’s what teaching’s all about. Not attainment targets. Not literacy hours. Not…’ He looked about him, saw that the bulk of his audience had disappeared and lapsed in to silence.
‘Tell me about him.’
‘I didn’t teach the boy. History wasn’t one of his subjects. Shame. He’d have been an asset to the sixth-form group. Articulate, you know.’
‘So you didn’t know him well?’ Porteous felt the image of Michael Grey fade from his grasp. A ghostly apparition disappearing through a wall before it has even taken shape.
‘I didn’t say that. He was in my tutor group for nearly two years so I probably knew him better than his subject teachers.’ Westcott sat back in his chair like an elderly Billy Bunter and shut his eyes. He continued to speak, unaware of Porteous taking notes. ‘Michael joined us at the beginning of the lower sixth, a year older than most of them. I can’t remember where he came from. Some private place, I think. I know there was a problem getting the paperwork from them. It hadn’t even arrived by the time he left. I was never told why he resat the lower sixth and I didn’t ask. Not my business. Some illness perhaps or emotional problem. It happens at that age. They’re very intense. That’s why they’re such a joy to teach. I’m an old man, can’t get up to much now. So I live through them. Voraciously but second hand. Much the safest way…’
He paused for a moment. Porteous worried that he might have fallen asleep again, but the words continued in a low-pitched growl.
‘He was an exceptional boy. There was something about him. Charm, I suppose you’d call it. He had a way of winning people over.’
‘Did he talk about his home life?’
‘He was living with the Brices.’ He lapsed again into silence. Porteous resisted the temptation to prompt him. ‘Good people, the Brices. I didn’t really know them myself. Met them occasionally. Parents’ dos. The school play. But that’s what everyone said. Of course they were religious.’ He snorted, as if religion was to be disapproved of, then began to snore. He was more drunk than Porteous had first realized.
‘Did he have friends?’
‘What? Oh, bucketsful. I could give you a list. There was a girlfriend. What was her name? Shy little thing.’
‘Did he talk about his family? I mean his real family.’
‘No, but parents are an embarrassment at that age, whatever they’re like. It doesn’t mean anything. None of the kids talk about them.’
‘Is there anything else you can tell me about him?’
‘He was an actor. Brilliant. I remember his Macbeth. The best production the school ever did.’ He lurched suddenly to his feet and began to quote hammily: ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me?’
He flung out one arm and collapsed back into the chair. Then he fell into a deep sleep and Porteous found it impossible to rouse him.
Because it was the end of term the students must have been released early; as Porteous got to his car it was surrounded by a tide of screaming and dishevelled children. He was grateful to reach the peace of the police station. It was only when Porteous was back in his office that he opened the envelope given to him by the secretary.
There was one sheet of paper and a faded photograph. The paper was a reference, handwritten by Jack Westcott, for use in the universities selection process. It described Michael Grey in the same glowing terms he had used to Porteous. The boy’s predicted A-level grades were good. It seemed that he would have had no difficulty in securing a university place. The photograph was in fact a cutting from the local paper and included a review of the production of Macbeth. A grainy figure stood centre stage. He was dressed in a costume obviously put together by the home-economics department. In his hand he brandished a wide-bladed knife.
Chapter Five
Porteous felt suddenly restless. He re-read Westcott’s reference for Michael and set it aside. Sometimes it happened. He’d happily sit for days going over a mechanical task, then all at once feel that he was caged. He needed to pace up and down, to be somewhere, anywhere different. He’d discussed the problem with his doctor, who’d agreed that it could be a side-effect of the medication he was taking. But didn’t everyone feel like that once in a while? Didn’t everyone feel the need to break free?
He wandered down the stairs to the car park and was hovering there, trying to think of a legitimate journey he could make, when Eddie Stout returned from his meeting with the solicitor who’d handled the Brices’ affairs.
‘Any joy?’ He thought he sounded businesslike. Not like someone trying to dream up an excuse not to go inside.
‘I don’t know. More complications.’
‘We’ll talk about it over a cup of tea, shall we?’ Porteous said. ‘Not here. Not the canteen. Let’s go somewhere else.’ To his own ears he sounded hysterical, but Stout seemed not to notice, even to be pleased by the suggestion.
‘There’s quite a nice place along by our church…’