Not a hint of these thoughts showed on his face as Markham congratulated her on the good fortune of working in close proximity to a library. ‘We readers are insatiable, Ms Macdonald.’
‘Pass the sick bag,’ Noakes muttered to himself. But the Markham magic was working. The old witch was totally disarmed.
‘’Ow’s little Shelly doing?’ Noakes enquired.
‘Called in sick.’ Macdonald’s sniff was eloquent testimony to her disapproval. ‘One of the other girls is helping out for now.’ She waved a hand in the direction of the back office, from where the clicking of computer keys could be heard. ‘Will you be needing to see her?’
‘Not just at the moment, Ms Macdonald.’ Keen grey eyes rested on her, causing the woman to flush unbecomingly. ‘So it was just you and Shelly on duty down here yesterday afternoon?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Did Ms Shawcross have a medical appointment?’
Again, that strange triumphant gleam.
‘No, that’s the odd part. She didn’t have an appointment at all. No reason for her to be sn—’ the office manager corrected herself, ‘I mean, wandering around the surgery.’
Pound to a penny she was going to say ‘snooping’, Noakes thought grimly.
‘I understand she was a teacher at Hope Academy.’ Markham paused delicately, weighing the reasons for Rebecca Shawcross to have been on the premises. ‘Could she have been visiting the sixth-form study annexe at some point?’
Dimples Davidson had given it as his unofficial opinion that their victim had been killed in the minor ops treatment room — where the body was found — at some point between 1 and 3 p.m. But they needed to establish Rebecca’s movements prior to that.
‘Ms Bolton — that’s Shirley Bolton, the head librarian who manages the study centre — should be able to help you. Monday afternoons, most of the students do Enrichment.’
Whatever the hell that was. From the vinegary look on Thelma’s face, ‘Enrichment’ presumably referred to the non-academic side of Hope’s sixth-form curriculum. Or ‘wasting time,’ as she no doubt thought of it.
‘So there aren’t many students working in there during Enrichment, Ms Macdonald?’
‘Not usually, no. There’s a roster of teachers for the study centre, but Shirley covers Monday afternoons.’ Her tone suggested this constituted rank exploitation.
‘So there would have been no reason for Ms Shawcross to be in the study centre?’ Markham persisted gently.
‘Shirley didn’t mention seeing her, but . . . Well, who’s to say that she mightn’t have been . . . helping a student. She was ever so popular with the sixth-form boys.’
God, subtle as a hand grenade, Noakes thought. The innuendo was larded on so thick it was almost indecent.
The DI affected not to notice. ‘Indeed.’ Another charming smile. Then he turned to Peter Elford. ‘I believe we’ve trespassed long enough on Ms Macdonald’s good nature.’
Noakes did an inward eye-roll. Good nature! That’s a joke!
Markham shot his subordinate a look. Don’t antagonize them, Noakesy.
‘Perhaps you could take us to Ms Bolton’s domain, Mr Elford. Help us get our bearings.’ A graceful bow to the office manager and their little procession wound its way towards the staircase on the right of the surgery waiting room, which was eerily quiet. No snot-nosed kids wailing and creating mayhem, for one thing.
‘What with your officers sealing off the premises, we’ve cancelled all non-urgent appointments,’ Peter Elford said smoothly. ‘The on-call service is still operating, of course, and Medway Medical Centre is offering cover as well.’
At that moment, a diminutive middle-aged man came down the stairs. Bald, except for a thin fringe of grey hair round the base of his skull, and rather vacant looking, with watery blue eyes, he blinked at the group as if wondering where they had sprung from. Wearing brown overalls like some sort of overgrown grocery boy, he cut a faintly comical figure.
‘This is Chris Burt, our caretaker,’ Peter Elford said in a tone that clearly implied: We all have our crosses to bear, and this is mine. ‘Chris is Thelma’s brother. One of our old-timers.’
Well, whoever guzzled the pies in that family, it weren’t poor old Chris, Noakes thought as he contemplated the weedy specimen in front of them. He noticed a faint sheen of sweat on the man’s upper lip as well as the furtive look about him. Mind, they were hardly meeting under ideal circumstances. Bound to have been badly shaken up, especially if he was a bit simple, or what Noakes would once have called ‘special needs’ — before Kate was around to lecture him on more modern names for it. Or could it be a case of guilty conscience?
Markham’s manner was the same with everyone. No distinction in tone, whether he was addressing the Duke of Wherever or the local dustman. Noakes had to admire the way he defused the underlying tension with some easy inconsequential chit-chat, reassuring the dazed-looking caretaker that he wasn’t about to be arrested and hauled away on the spot — though, judging from the expression on Elford’s face, that would have been a perfectly acceptable outcome.
God help the poor sod, the DS reflected, as he watched Burt shuffle away towards reception. Between big sis and Elford, his working day likely wasn’t to be a barrel of laughs. How to examine your stools was probably as good as it got.
The library and sixth-form study annexe were as quiet as the downstairs regions, police tape still partitioning off various sections where a few SOCOs toiled in their disposable white suits, pausing to acknowledge Markham and Noakes with nods and waves.
The layout was open plan, with the two facilities situated on either side of a
