colour.
'What? Oh, last night, here.'
'What time was this?'
Edney stared at him dazed but answered, 'I left school just before seven. Ms Langley was still here.'
'Did she have any appointments last night, either here or away from the school?'
'I don't know. She didn't say. My God! This is dreadful.' Edney propelled himself from his chair and glared at Horton as if he were personally responsible for the death. 'Are you sure about this? Couldn't you be mistaken?'
Horton rose slowly. He was used to this reaction. 'I need her address and next of kin, Mr Edney.'
But it was as if Edney hadn't heard him. His hands were flapping and his eye contact darting all over the place as he said, 'I must notify the governors at once. Then there's the press. I take it they'll hear of it?' You bet they will, Horton thought, as Edney went on, 'And the children and parents… this is awful, the most dreadful thing to happen to the school.'
'It's not the best thing that could have happened to Ms Langley,' Horton replied quietly.
'No. Of course. It's the shock.' Edney made some attempt to pull himself together.
Horton saw that it was an effort.
'How did she die, Inspector?'
'It's too early to say.' Horton gave his stock answer. 'Her next of kin?' he prompted, eager to get moving on the investigation.
'Mrs Downton, her secretary, keeps the personnel files.'
Horton made for the door while Edney remained standing. 'Shall we go?'
'Yes, of course.'
Horton noted that it was said automatically. Edney was in a state of shock, which appeared genuine, and Horton wasn't without sympathy for him. But as Edney locked his office door behind him and led Horton back down the corridor towards reception, Horton noted that Edney hadn't expressed any sorrow at his head teacher's demise, or sadness. Perhaps that would come later after the shock had worn off. Sometimes it happened that way.
The unmistakable smell of school rose in Horton's nostrils: a clawing damp from the wet coats and shoes, an accumulation of stale school dinners and sweaty PE kits. He could hear the children in their classrooms and every now and then some would emerge, glance at them, giggle and dart back inside whilst others completely ignored them. Despite his shock and distress at the news of his head teacher's death, Edney still managed to scold three children: one for running and the other two for fighting.
Edney pushed through two sets of double glass fire doors into another corridor and along to an office on their right where Horton found himself facing a statuesque woman in her late fifties with straight black hair in a pudding-basin hair cut. She peered at him through large red-rimmed spectacles as if he were something rather nasty Edney had brought in from the bike sheds.
'Janet, I'm afraid I have some terrible news,' Edney began, then looked to Horton for help.
Horton obliged. 'We believe that the body of a woman found this morning is that of Jessica Langley. She is yet to be formally identified, but there are strong indications that it is her.'
Janet Downton blinked behind her huge glasses. Then she scowled at Horton. 'It's that car, isn't it? I don't know what a woman in her position was thinking about driving a car like that.'
The secretary had clearly leapt to the conclusion of an accident. 'What type of car did Ms Langley own?' asked Horton.
'A red sports thing-'
'A TVR,' Edney interjected.
'Do you have the registration number?'
'It's on her file,' Mrs Downton said. 'Why do you want it?'
'It wasn't an accident,' Edney broke in. 'It appears she has been murdered.'
'At this school! How could she?' The secretary's fleshy face flushed with indignation.
Horton felt a flash of anger. 'I don't think she had much choice in the matter.'
The look the secretary gave him made him feel like the twelve-year-old boy back here being reprimanded. His muscles tensed. He said tersely, 'I need to see her office and her file.'
She rose from her desk and crossed to the cabinet which she wrenched open with such vigour that it almost made Horton's eyes water. He practically snatched the file from her.
Edney said, 'Janet, get me the chairman of the board of governors. Make sure the staff assemble in the staff room at the next break, which will be extended if necessary-'
'I think it would be best if you keep it from them for now,' Horton interjected.
'Why?' Edney looked affronted, as if his professional status were under question.
'I'd rather you wait until we have a formal identification, and I don't think telling them would help the standards of teaching for the rest of the day.'
After a moment, Edney's belligerent look softened. 'You're right, of course, Inspector. Thank God it's half term next week. Can I inform Mr Forrest, the chairman of the board of governors?'
'Ask him to keep it confidential until we are ready to give a statement to the media. I will appoint an officer to liaise with you, the media and the local education authority.'
He concluded that would be a good job for DC Jake Marsden, their graduate entrant. He quickly scanned the top form in the buff-coloured folder, while Janet Downton called Mr Forrest. What he saw didn't please him at all. His heart sank. The fickle finger of fate was laughing at his expense all right. Jessica Langley lived in an apartment overlooking the Town Camber in Old Portsmouth, where he had been crouched in that blessed fishing boat with only Mickey Johnson and his holdall of stolen goods to show for it. Shit! Uckfield was going to crucify him if it proved that Langley had been killed in her apartment and taken from there to a boat in the Town Camber. Horton could swear that no boat had been moved whilst he had been there between midnight and one thirty-five a.m., but then, according to Dr Clayton, Langley had been killed sometime between nine and eleven p.m., which was before they had arrived. And she might have met her killer elsewhere, for example here.
He flicked through the rest of the file. There was no next of kin mentioned, just the name of Langley's solicitors, who Horton guessed must be the executors of her will, otherwise why name them.
'Did Ms Langley have any relatives?'
'No.' It was Mrs Downton who answered him. 'She told me so herself. No family.'
'Friends then?'
'I wouldn't know about that,' she replied crisply and with disdain, as if he'd asked her where the local brothel was. 'Mr Forrest, I have Mr Edney for you,' she barked into the telephone.
Taking the file, Horton pushed open the interconnecting door into the head's office. He wasn't sure what he'd find; perhaps a repeat version of Edney's office, but the only similarity was the furniture and the shabbiness. Where Edney's office had been neat almost to the extremes of clinical obsession, Langley's looked as though a tornado had hit it.
He picked his way through the books, files and DVDs stacked on the floor, taking half a glance at them — they all related to educational matters — and headed for a large notice board on the left-hand wall. Alongside a huge timetable was a smattering of photographs. There were several taken with students who were wearing casual clothes rather than school uniform.
He studied Langley, trying to gauge her personality. Although the portrait on the organizational chart had shown her smiling, it had been a formal head-and-shoulders shot; here though, perhaps the real Langley shone through.
Most of the snapshots appeared to have been taken on school trips to Europe. Langley was always in the middle of a group of fifteen and sixteen-year-olds; her dark unkempt hair was pushed off her forehead and she was smiling broadly into camera. She was dressed casually, but in each picture she favoured a tight, low-necked T-shirt underneath a jacket or cardigan, straining against well-developed breasts, and clearly she wasn't afraid to show cleavage. Bet the boys loved that, he thought, though on reflection maybe they didn't. To a young man Langley would probably have appeared ancient and maybe the sight of her tits was a turn-off. Their dads, though, would have appreciated it. Cantelli hadn't mentioned this aspect of Langley, which was surprising, but then on prospective parent night perhaps Langley had dressed more soberly, not wanting to frighten them off.
Her make-up was rather on the heavy side and in each photograph, save one, lots of gold jewellery adorned her neck and wrists just as he'd seen on her body. The only photograph where these were missing, along with the
