An Advancement of Learning - Reginald Hill 35 стр.

Perhaps when Ive cleared away all these impossible possibilities

And Ill check with the ambulance men just in case.

You think this notes important.

Pascoe stared at his superior.

You said he seemed the kind of man who would want to explain himself.

Did I? Then it must be true.

After Pascoe had left, the fat man hefted thoughtfully in his hand the set of master keys he had taken from Sandra Firth.

The, he murmured to himself, Ill just have my dinner and do a bit of pedigree checking.

Dinner was particularly good and he washed it down with the rest of his Glen Grant, which in its turn brought on the need to rest. It was almost nine oclock when he finally let himself stealthily into the admin, block.

After all, he told himself, as he gently eased open a filing cabinet drawer in the registrars office, half the bloody students in the place have seen them, so why not me?

Them were the staffs confidential files. He skipped lightly through them, pausing here and there, till he came to Fallowfields. Now he lit a cigarette, sat back at his ease and began to read slowly and thoroughly.

His academic qualifications he had already seen on the curriculum vitae.

They were excellent, a very good first degree and a couple of high post-graduate qualifications. But it was in the comments made by those who taught and employed him that Dalziel was most interested. He read the letter from the headmaster of Coltsfoot College twice. It was couched in terms of high praise. Great stress was laid on Fallowfields ability to influence thought, his progressive thinking and his pre-eminent suitability to work with older students. Almost too much stress, thought Dalziel. He had many years experience of reading and hearing between the lines.

On an impulse he picked up the phone and when he got the operator, gave her the number of Coltsfoot College. You never knew your luck.

While she was trying to establish a connection, he helped himself to a few select student files and began to read them. He didnt know his luck.

Pascoe knew his luck. It was rotten. The clothes had contained nothing helpful, the doctor who had examined Fallowfield could offer no useful contribution other than reiterating the cause and probable time of death; and the ambulance men, who were off-duty and had to be tracked to their homes, were no help either and in fact took umbrage at the suggestion that something other than the body might have been removed from the lab.

Pascoe realized he had not been as diplomatic as was his wont and after looking in at Headquarters where the heavy ironies of his mock-envious colleagues did not help, he went round to his flat for a change of clothing and a bite to eat. There was a stack of mail, mostly circulars, and he tossed them on the table beside the telephone. He made himself a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich and sat down in the ancient but extremely comfortable armchair which stood beneath the open window.

An hour later he woke with the cup of cold tea miraculously unspilt on the arm of the chair and the sandwich, one bite missing, still clutched in his right hand. He saw the time, groaned and pushed himself unsteadily out of the chair, knocking the teacup on to the floor.

Cursing now he mopped up the mess with an antimacassar and pulled the phone towards him. This time it was his mail which fell to the carpet.

He swore again, looking down at the colourful display.

Threepence off this; half-price subscription to that; win half a million for a farthing. (Could you legally wager a non-legal coin?) It wouldnt be so bad if he ever got any of the sexy stuff people were always complaining about. Still, he supposed it all brought revenue to the Post Office.

It was time he reported in. Not that he had anything to report. He might as well send a letter.

It came to him as he lifted the phone. He had known the answer all along. The mail! Fallowfield had gone to the college to post his note.

Not for him the last letter confiscated by the police and read by the coroner. No, this was one note which was going to reach the addressee.

And with the thought came another, almost instantaneously. Someone else had been a lot cleverer than he was. A lot cleverer and a lot quicker.

Someone had broken into the college posting boxes last night. But whoever it was wasnt just quick. Breaking into the boxes, looking for a letter in Fallowfields hand (hed bet that all the letters opened had typed envelopes), this meant, could mean, probably meant, he knew that there was no letter in the cottage and no letter in the lab. How? The first was easy; the person who wrecked the house before Disney would have known, been fairly sure. But the lab? Sandra it had to be Sandra.

She must have gone through the sequence of events with any number of people, students and staff, before going to bed. Damn!

So much for the letter then. If it had been in one of the boxes, then it was gone for ever. Anyone who was so keen to get it would surely have destroyed it instantly.

But was it in one of the boxes? asked Pascoe aloud. Three had been opened. Fallowfield would certainly have used the one nearest the lab block which was the one outside the bar. Or if not wishing to be seen, and it must have been after opening hours when he arrived at college, he would use the one by the side of the Old House. But he would never have bothered to walk over to the Students Union. So why all three? A blind perhaps. Or perhaps desperation; it wasnt in the first, or the second; could it be in the third? And if it wasnt, then perhaps there was no need to wish it goodbye. Perhaps it still did lie somewhere, waiting to be picked up waiting It might just be! said Pascoe and dialled the telephone so rapidly he made a mistake and had to do it again.

If he wanted Superintendent Dalziel, the college switchboard girl told him, he wasnt in the study, he was in the registrars office (though what he was doing there, she didnt know, the voice implied) and she would put him through there.

Where the hell have you been? snarled Dalziel.

Pascoe didnt waste time on apologies but tumbled out his theory as rapidly as he could.

And, he concluded, reckon it might still be there somewhere. Its so obvious, perhaps he missed it. The staff must have somewhere they collect mail, pigeonholes or something.

Yes, they do. In the Senior Common Room. I remember seeing them.

Well, perhaps thats what Fallowfield did. Put it straight into someones pigeonhole. It could still be there.

Right. Ill look. You get yourself back over here as quickly as possible. And heres something to chew on while youre coming.

Sir?

Franny Roote is an old boy of guess where? Coltsfoot College. And he was interviewed for entry to this college on the Friday before the Monday when Girling died.

The phone went dead. It was nearly thirty miles to the college but Pascoe did it in just over twenty minutes. Even then he was nearly too late.

Chapter 16

The headmaster of Coltsfoot College had been most helpful once he had made clear his displeasure at being removed from a bid of seven diamonds at the bridge table.

He had been very cautious at first until Dalziel had told him of Fallowfields death.

The poor man! Why did he ? I never thought he seemed stable enough, very much so, but in that kind of person

What kind of person? Dalziel had asked.

He was a giver, involved, you know. Dedicated to teaching and to learning. And not just his subject. No, said Dalziel drily. seems to have had very wide interests. We found books on witchcraft, magic

Oh yes. Of course, he didnt believe, you understand. But he saw all these things as explorations of the human spirit, its heights, its depths, its potentials. Anything which extended the boundaries of our self-knowledge caught his interest.

Like taking drugs?

I have often heard him put a case for the licit use of certain drugs, said the headmaster cautiously. as for taking them himself, I have no reason to suspect

No, said Dalziel. did he leave you?

For a new post. Career advancement. You know.

No, I dont. Was that all? Nothing more?

There was a moments pause as though the man at the other end of the line was balancing conflicting ideas in his mind.

This is a serious matter, reminded Dalziel in his best conscientious official voice.

Of course. There was no real reason for Fallowfield to leave us. No quarrel or anything like that. Were a progressive school and the freedom we try to give the boys extends as far as the staff-room. Which is not always the case in modern education. But the situation did have its tensions. Its like in politics, or even in your line of country, Superintendent, I dare say; what really irritates the radical is not the reactionary; no, its the man who is still more radical and insists on treating the first radical as a conservative stickin-the-mud.

And thats how Fallowfield reacted on your staff.

To some extent. Ive oversimplified, of course. A school like mine requires a unified team to run it, with no sacrifice of individuality, of course. But Fallowfield was a loner. And

Yes?

I felt that many of our boys, even the eldest, were still too young, too naive if you like, properly to assimilate all the ideas that Fallowfield loved to play with. He was a stimulating man, a man gifted in dealing with the young., But I did begin to feel that the young had to be specially gifted to deal with him. I felt that the older young, if you take my meaning, students rather than pupils, would provide him with something more er suitable to get his teeth into.

I see, said Dalziel, noting the turn of phrase. he homosexual?

The progressive headmaster answered very quickly so that there would be no pause to be mistaken for shocked silence. At least, so Dalziel read the situation.

No more so than the rest of us in the profession. Were all a bit queer I suppose, he said with an arch chuckle as though to prove the point. suppose all policemen in the same way are just a bit criminal.

But whether he was a practising homosexual, I really couldnt say.

He didnt practise with any of the boys then? said Dalziel, still hoping to pierce the mans liberal carapace.

No! Of course not. Very emphatic.

I see. What can you tell me about a boy called Roote?

Francis Roote? Of course! Hes up there as well. A charming boy, but a real individual, an all-rounder. I think we achieved our aim of educating the whole man there.

The headmaster went on enthusiastically. Dalziel was interested to note how the old phrases like -rounder managed to survive in the ranks of the new vocabulary. But at the same time he extracted all that was relevant and useful from the mans song of praise.