This morning, Noakes was clearly thinking along similar lines.
‘It couldn’t be one of this lot, could it, guv?’ he asked jerking a thumb at the cement frontage, which Markham had once heard described as a cross between a women’s prison and a branch of B&Q.
‘They say lightning never strikes twice, Sergeant, but who knows . . .’ The DI shivered despite the warmth of the day then straightened his shoulders. ‘Apparently Rebecca Shawcross was a pupil here before going off to university and teacher training. And there’s this Leo Cartwright—’
‘The drama teacher.’
‘Yes. According to Mat Sullivan, they were friendly.’
Noakes’s shaggy brows dropped. Sullivan had at one time been a suspect in the Hope Academy murders and the revelation of his homosexuality — kept firmly under wraps for so long — had undoubtedly unsettled CID’s least politically correct policeman. Even so, the DS had gradually warmed to him and they had bonded over a love of the beautiful game. Noakes also respected the way Sullivan, in his capacity as newly appointed deputy head, had worked to restore the school’s morale and reputation after the bombshell scandals that had rocked it, allowing himself to be co-opted for five-a-side training and other extracurricular activities. The DS had even given a talk to the Year 9s, which, Sullivan told Markham, had gone down a storm. ‘He went off-message, if you get my meaning,’ he later told his friend with a sly wink. ‘And the kids loved it.’ The DI shuddered to think what Sidney would have made of Noakes’s doubtless beyond-the-pale pronouncements on twenty-first-century policing — more The Sweeney than right-on shibboleths from the DCI’s playbook — but he was nonetheless pleased. There was no denying his sergeant’s gift for connecting with the vulnerable and the disaffected. Not that Noakes was an exemplar of Mother Teresa-like compassion, but something about the man inspired trust in the least likely quarters.
Though not with Hope’s senior leadership team who had all loathed Noakes on sight, their antipathy being reciprocated in spades. With a wry grin, Markham recalled how the DS had nicknamed the previous deputy head ‘Godzilla’, and sent up a silent and doubtless unavailing prayer that his subordinate’s approach would be more diplomatic this time around.
‘I think we can pretty much rule out any connection with the teaching staff, given that Shirley Bolton was covering the study annexe on Monday afternoon while students were doing their Enrichment activities. Only a couple of students were in the annexe that day. They used their swipe cards to get in, so there’s a record.’
‘We’re here to suss out Leo Cartwright then, guv?’
‘Pretty much. If he and Ms Shawcross were friends, he can give us a sense of what she was like . . .’
‘Think they were playing hunt-the-salami?’
Markham shot him a look and Noakes hastily amended, ‘I mean, d’you think they were . . . er . . . in a relationship?’
‘Possibly. But there’s no indication of Cartwright having been anywhere near the community centre . . . if he’s alibied for the relevant time, then he’s not our man.’
Noakes squinted up at the building’s meanly proportioned windows. ‘P’raps he got someone else to do it.’
‘Suborned one of the students, you mean?’
‘Yeah . . . or,’ Noakes was building up a head of steam, ‘mebbe some kid had a crush on her an’ snuck into the surgery after she choked him off . . .’ Markham winced at the infelicitous turn of phrase.
‘Hmmm . . . I suppose anything’s possible, but no one saw any of the pupils downstairs in the surgery. Everyone’s got to sign in.’
The DS snorted. ‘Easy-peasy for someone to sneak in wi’ little Shelly on duty and that Thelma one having swanned off to see her chum upstairs. An’ as for the caretaker bloke — Chris Burt — he’s as much use as a chocolate teapot! No, depend upon it, guv, it was Skive City that afternoon.’
‘Point taken.’ Markham frowned. ‘But Peter Elford was around too.’
‘He said he was in his office next to the supplies room, working on spreadsheets an’ budgets . . . I can believe it,’ Noakes nodded grimly. ‘He looks the type to get his jollies from a pile of paperwork. Prob’ly hoping to catch one of the docs out over their expenses.’
The DI repressed a sigh. Noakes’s prejudices once formed were fiendishly hard to shift. And he had taken an instant dislike to the self-important administrator.
‘Let’s not get carried away here, Sergeant.’ Markham’s voice was firm. ‘There’s nothing to suggest Ms Shawcross was in a relationship with either Leo Cartwright or any of her students.’
‘Thelma an’ Shirley didn’t like her,’ Noakes said stubbornly.
‘True.’ The DI recalled Shirley Bolton’s defensiveness and his feeling that both she and Thelma Macdonald were withholding something. ‘But it could simply have been the fact that Rebecca was a lovely-looking young woman . . . or perhaps that she just rubbed them up the wrong way.’
‘Yeah.’ Noakes scratched his stubble ruminatively. ‘The librarian seemed to think she was hoity-toity . . . like she fancied herself a cut above or summat.’
‘Or it’s possible she had a run-in about a medical appointment.’ Markham shrugged expressively. ‘You know what surgeries are like these days.’
‘I could imagine that Thelma throwing her weight around. Literally. She’s the type knows more than the bleeding doctors. My missus—’
Markham swiftly interposed, eager to forestall a recital of Muriel Noakes’s grievances past and present. ‘It could have been Ms Shawcross who flew off the handle, Sergeant. Maybe she was anxious about a health problem and lost it for some reason.’
‘We’ll need to see her medical records, guv . . . I’ll get Burton onto it. Right up her street.’
‘Good. And in the meantime,’ Markham gestured to the Gulag, ‘let’s see what Mr Leo Cartwright has to say.’
