Too Good to Be True Page 3

  Perez left the hotel and made his way to the school. He found the main door still open. Some older children were practising Christmas carols in the school hall. A woman in reception took his name and showed him to the head teacher’s office.

  Maggie Redhead was in her fifties, with fine grey hair pulled into a comb at the back of her head and bright brown eyes.

  ‘I thought this matter with Anna Blackwell was over and we’d be allowed to get back to normal,’ she said. ‘It was distressing enough for the kids when she died.’

  Her office was cluttered, with children’s books on the shelves and brightly coloured paintings covering one of the walls. Perez decided she looked like an energetic granny.

  ‘There seems to be some question about the cause of death.’ That wasn’t quite a lie, Perez thought. He wondered what Robert Anderson would make of his meddling. ‘I’m just taking another look at the case with a fresh pair of eyes. You know how it is.’

  ‘Not really,’ Maggie snapped. ‘I don’t usually lose my staff like this. They don’t die suddenly, and if they do, the deaths aren’t followed by gossip and bad feeling. Usually my teachers retire. The children present them with a gift on their last day and we have a party in the staff room.’

  Perez smiled. ‘Did you throw a party when Freda retired?’

  Maggie narrowed her eyes. ‘You have been poking around.’

  ‘Is Freda glad to be back as a supply teacher?’

  Maggie sat back in her chair. ‘Freda has never married and the school was her life. But she’s got health problems now she’s getting older. She really wasn’t up to coping with a class of four- and five-year-olds. The only way she could keep order was by scaring the life out of them. I was pleased when she agreed to retire. So yes, we did throw a party for her.’

  ‘But she’s back now?’

  ‘On a very short-term basis while we appoint another reception teacher.’

  ‘Did Freda resent Anna Blackwell?’ Perez asked. ‘If the school was her life, it must have been hard for her to see another, younger teacher take her place. Especially if Anna’s teaching style was so different.’

  Maggie gave a little laugh. ‘Freda might have resented the teacher who replaced her, but if you’re saying that she killed Anna to get her job back, then that’s quite mad. As I explained, she’ll only be here for a few weeks anyway.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m suggesting,’ Perez said. ‘I’m trying to find out where the rumours about Anna and Tom King started, and I’m wondering if Freda might be behind the gossip.’

  Maggie took a little while to think about this. In the background, Perez could hear the children singing ‘Silent Night’.

  ‘That might be more Freda’s style,’ Maggie said at last. ‘She was very hurt when I told her it might be time for her to consider leaving. She was going to hate anyone who took her place. And she could be bitchy if the mood took her. I can see her starting the gossip as a kind of revenge.’

  Perez nodded. ‘Do you know why Sarah King took against Anna Blackwell so strongly?’

  ‘No,’ Maggie said. ‘That was a complete mystery. Sarah is a parent governor and she’s always worked hard for the school. She helped me interview for the new teacher’s post and Anna Blackwell was her choice as well as mine. We knew that Anna was new to the career, but we decided her great ideas made up for that. We thought she’d bring something fresh to the school.’

  ‘It must have been rather a shock, then, when Mrs King turned up with a petition demanding that Anna should leave.’

  ‘It was a nightmare! And honestly I couldn’t see what the parents had to complain about. Anna was a good young teacher. But she took it to heart. All the bitching started making her ill. In the end I could see she was stressed and suggested she went to the doctor. That was when she started taking the antidepressants.’

  ‘Was she still working in the school when she died, or had she taken time off sick?’ Perez asked.

  ‘She’d had nearly two months off, but she was back at the time she died. She seemed better, still a bit frail but almost happy.’

  Perez thought this tied in with the flowers in the living room and the hopeful tone of the note he’d found on the dressing table. He stood up to leave. ‘Do you think Anna Blackwell committed suicide?’

  Maggie answered straightaway. ‘Not in a thousand years. She adored her daughter. There was no way she would have killed herself and left Lucy without a mother.’

  ‘Did she ever tell you who the father was?’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘I never asked and she never told me. It was Anna’s big secret. I’ve never felt the need to pry into the affairs of my staff.’

  When Perez walked out into the playground, it was almost dark and the children had stopped singing. He turned to look back at the school and saw the head teacher staring out at him.

  8

  The Colleague

  Jimmy Perez was hungry. It seemed a long time since he’d eaten the soup in Gail’s farmhouse and he decided to have an early dinner. He made his way back to the hotel along the silent village streets. It was impossible to believe that anything sinister could happen in a place that was as quiet and ordinary as Stonebridge.

  As he walked into the hotel, Perez saw three people – two men and a woman – sitting around a table in a corner of the lounge bar. He recognised one of the men as his ex-wife’s husband, Doctor Tom King. The rest of the bar was empty, but Perez couldn’t be seen where he stood in the lobby. He was hidden by a large plant in a copper pot, and he had a good view through a glass door. He stood there, feeling a bit silly. Like a kid playing hide-and-seek. He strained to make out what the people in the lounge were saying.

  ‘This can’t go on, Tom. Two patients refused to see you today, even though it meant waiting nearly a week to get an appointment with another doctor.’ That was the woman. Her voice was clear, rather shrill, and easy to hear.

  Perez thought she was most likely a doctor too. She had the confidence that doctors seem to carry round with them. He assumed that both the strangers were Tom King’s colleagues. They must have come to the hotel to discuss the aftermath of Anna’s death.

  ‘I’m not sure what you expect me to do.’ Tom King sounded drained, almost desperate. ‘The police have closed the case. I’ve been cleared of any misconduct.’

  ‘You must put all these rumours to rest, Tom.’ It was the woman again. She sounded like a parent telling off a naughty boy. ‘I don’t care how you do it. Can’t you get Sarah to help? I’ve always seen her as a pillar of the village. Surely she can persuade these gossips to stop?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do,’ Tom said. ‘We just have to hope that it all blows over and the village finds another target for its malice.’

  Tom stood up, said a sharp goodbye to his colleagues and walked out of the lounge. He passed so close to Perez that the inspector was sure the doctor would see him. But Tom was so upset that he seemed not to notice that Perez was there.

  Back in the lounge, the two other doctors continued talking.

  ‘I think he’s hiding something,’ the woman said.

  ‘Not murder!’ The man was shocked. He was older, grey-haired. ‘Not Tom! I’ve known him for years.’

  ‘Perhaps not murder, but there’s something he’s not telling us. You’ll have to sort it out, James. You’re the senior partner. We can’t go on like this.’

  The woman got to her feet, grabbed her bag and swept past Perez into the darkness outside. The older man stayed where he was, apparently lost in thought. Perez left his hiding place and took the seat beside him. The chair was old and very comfortable. It was a chair for relaxing in.

  ‘I was going to order some coffee,’ Perez said. ‘Will you join me?’

  The older doctor looked surprised. ‘I’m sorry, but do I know you? You don’t sound as if you come from round here.’

  ‘I’m a detective based in Shetland. I’ve been asked to look again at the Anna Blackwell case
. I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.’

  They were still the only people in the lounge, which was dimly lit and very warm.

  ‘Ah,’ the doctor said. ‘We’d hoped that was all over. It seems rather a shame to rake over the case again, but I suppose you have your work to do.’ He paused. ‘Yes, if we have to talk, coffee would be splendid, thank you.’

  Perez went to the bar to order the drinks. When he came back, balancing cups on a tray, the doctor was almost asleep. Perez set the tray on a low table and the man roused himself and held out his hand.

  ‘James Given,’ he said. ‘I retire from the surgery next year. I’d rather be leaving without all this scandal.’

  ‘Did you know the dead woman?’ Perez asked.

  ‘I only saw her once when she brought her daughter into the health centre with an ear infection.’ He paused. ‘She seemed a kind woman. She cared a lot for the child. That’s why . . .’ James Given paused mid-sentence.

  Perez completed it. ‘That’s why it seems unlikely that Miss Blackwell committed suicide?’

  James nodded.

  ‘Gossip has it that Anna and Tom were having an affair,’ Perez said.

  ‘I don’t believe that for a second!’ the doctor said. ‘Really, Tom adores Sarah. They’re a perfect couple.’

  Perez remembered that he didn’t believe in perfect any more. ‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’ he asked. ‘Anything I should know?’

  There was a moment of hesitation.

  ‘I think Tom might have known Anna before she moved here,’ the doctor said at last. ‘I don’t mean that they were lovers. No, there was nothing like that going on, whatever the gossips might be saying. I think perhaps Tom was a friend of her parents. It was just a sense I had when Anna brought her little girl to the surgery. She’d asked to see Tom but he wasn’t free, and she explained that she’d chosen him first because he was almost like family.’

  Perez thought that made sense. It might explain why Anna had moved into the rented house in Stonebridge without having to provide a deposit. He was starting to think that he should drive to Berwick the following day to talk to Anna’s parents.

  James Given stood up. ‘The most important thing to tell you is that Tom King is a good man. All this gossip is nonsense, and I hope you can put a stop to it. If it goes on, I’m worried that we’ll drive Tom away from the village, and then Stonebridge will have lost a very fine GP.’

  Perez watched Doctor Given walk out of the hotel to his car. It had started to snow again, with large soft flakes that melted as soon as they hit the ground. In the distance a dark figure stood under a street light. He seemed to be staring at the hotel as if he was making up his mind whether or not to come in. Perez didn’t recognise the watcher, though something about him seemed familiar.

  When the man saw Perez looking his way from the hotel doorway, he seemed to lose his nerve. He turned abruptly and hurried away.

  9

  The Hotel

  Robert Anderson, the local detective in charge of the case, phoned back just as Perez was finishing dinner. Perez kept him on the line until he’d climbed the stairs to his room. He didn’t want anyone listening in to their conversation.

  ‘How’s it going, Jimmy?’

  Perez took a chair by his bedroom window. ‘I had a wee look round Anna’s house.’

  ‘Did you now?’ Anderson seemed annoyed by his interference. ‘And what did you find?’

  ‘I think Anna had a visitor the evening she died.’

  There was a moment of silence at the end of the line. ‘And what makes you think that?’

  Perez explained about the note he’d found in Anna’s bedroom and the freshly cleaned glass in the kitchen cupboard. ‘That changes things, don’t you think?’

  Another silence. ‘Perhaps,’ Anderson said at last. ‘Are you sure the note was in Anna’s handwriting?’

  ‘Certain.’ Perez remembered looking through the file in Anna’s living room. ‘I checked it against some lesson plans she’d written that were in the house.’

  ‘All the same,’ Anderson said, ‘we’ll need more than that to reopen the case. What do you plan to do tomorrow?’

  ‘I thought I’d go to Berwick to chat to Anna’s family. It seems that she knew Tom King before she moved to Stonebridge. They might be able to tell me more about the relationship.’ Perez moved to the window, but there was no sign of the man who’d been standing under the street light. ‘I’m wondering why they didn’t offer to take on Anna’s daughter.’

  ‘They have problems of their own,’ Anderson said. ‘Joan Blackwell has early onset dementia, and George, Anna’s father, is her full-time carer. They couldn’t cope with a growing child.’

  Perez thought how unfair that was. The couple had problems of their own, and now they’d lost the daughter who might have supported them. He wondered what effect their troubles might have had on Anna. Could they have caused the young teacher more stress? Might they even have driven her to suicide? Then he thought how everyone had described Anna as a kind woman. If she knew that her parents had problems and might need her help in the future, wouldn’t that have given her a reason for staying alive?

  ‘I might go to Berwick all the same,’ Perez said, ‘just to find out more about her. Anna wasn’t in Stonebridge for long, and I don’t feel that anyone here really knew her.’

  Except Tom King, he thought, and Sarah doesn’t want me talking to him.

  He ended his call to Anderson, and on impulse phoned his ex-wife, Sarah. She answered softly, almost in a whisper. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t come here because Tom’s home.’ She spoke normally now. She must have moved to a different room where she could talk in private.

  ‘Can you come to me? I’m staying in the hotel.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘If we meet in the bar, someone might see us. This place is nothing but gossip.’

  ‘I’m starting to realise that,’ Perez said. He gave her his room number, and it occurred to him that anyone listening in would assume they were having an affair. It was easy to jump to the wrong conclusions, and perhaps that was what everyone involved in this case was doing.

  Half an hour later Sarah tapped on the door and he let her in. There were melting snowflakes in her hair and she was shivering, though the hotel room was very warm. He made her tea, struggling to open the tiny plastic pot of UHT milk, and gave her his chair. The only place for him to sit was the bed, so he perched there.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you tried to get rid of Anna from the school, even though you were in favour of her getting the job at the start?’

  Sarah blushed but she didn’t speak.

  ‘I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me,’ Perez said.

  ‘It was a mistake to give her the post,’ Sarah said at last. ‘She was too young and too inexperienced. She let the children get away with murder.’ She realised what she’d said and blushed again.

  ‘Did Tom know Anna before she moved here?’ Perez felt so frustrated that he wanted to shake the truth out of Sarah. He wondered how he could have loved her so deeply, how he could have spent all those nights dreaming about her after she’d left him.

  I felt sorry for her, he thought. Because she was desperate for a child and suffered one miscarriage after another. I blamed myself. It wasn’t a good basis for a marriage.

  Sarah looked up at Perez over her mug of tea. ‘I thought Tom might already know her. I couldn’t be certain.’

  ‘What gave you that idea?’

  ‘I saw them together once in the health centre just after Anna moved here,’ she said. ‘Tom’s car was in for a service, and I’d called in to give him a lift home. Anna was in the waiting area when I got there. She didn’t have an appointment – she wasn’t there because she was ill. I think she was just hanging on until he’d finished work. It looked as if she was hoping to surprise him. Anna didn’t know who I was – she must hav
e thought I was just a patient – and when he appeared she called out to him: “Tom! Look who it is!” It was as if she thought he’d be pleased to see her.’

  ‘Was he pleased?’

  ‘Well, I was there, so he just seemed awkward. But I could tell that he knew her.’ Sarah paused. ‘He lied to me. He said he’d never met her and that she must have mistaken him for someone else.’

  ‘And that was why you set up the petition to get Anna out of the school?’ Perez thought how childish Sarah was. She’d been hurt, so she’d wanted to lash out. She’d wanted to make the young woman pay. Again he thought how unfair life had been to Anna.

  ‘I looked at her daughter in that waiting room and it was like looking at one of my own children,’ Sarah cried suddenly. ‘Lucy had the same dark hair. The same smile. She looked so like Tom that I thought everyone in the village would see the likeness.’

  ‘You think Tom was Lucy’s father?’ Now Perez understood Sarah’s anger towards the young teacher. Perhaps anyone would have responded in the same way.

  ‘I can’t see that there’s any other explanation,’ she said.

  ‘And what did Tom say?’

  Sarah set her mug carefully on the windowsill. ‘I’ve never talked to him about it. I was scared that he might tell me the truth.’ She looked up. ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘What you asked me to do,’ Perez said. ‘I’ll try to find out if Anna Blackwell committed suicide or if someone killed her.’ He met her eyes. ‘Do you think that Tom could have murdered her? Is that why you’re so frightened?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Where was he the night Anna died?’ Perez asked.

  ‘He was out on a call. He didn’t get back until late.’ Her voice was quiet. ‘But Tom’s a doctor. He wouldn’t kill anyone. And he often has emergency calls at night.’ She paused again. ‘I wondered if Anna was blackmailing him. I thought she might have asked him to help her keep her job at the school.’

  ‘And threatened to make their affair public if he didn’t?’