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 Fallowfield’s 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 didn’t 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 don’t. Was that all? Nothing more?”
There was a moment’s 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. We’re 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. It’s like in politics, or even in your line of country, Superintendent, I dare say; what really irritates the radical is not the reactionary; no, it’s the man who is still more radical and insists on treating the first radical as a conservative stickin-the-mud.”
“And that’s how Fallowfield reacted on your staff.”
To some extent. I’ve 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. We’re 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 couldn’t say.”
“He didn’t practise with any of the boys then?’ said Dalziel, still hoping to pierce the man’s liberal carapace.
“No! Of course not.’ Very emphatic.
“I see. What can you tell me about a boy called Roote?”
“Francis Roote? Of course! He’s 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 man’s song of praise.
Roote, it seemed, had risen to the dizzy heights of school-captain (this was Dalziel’s translation of Co-First man in the School Council) and had been universally loved. Except, Dalziel got a hint, by his fairly wealthy parents who kept him plentifully supplied with funds, but did not care overmuch if he spent most of the holidays elsewhere. The Head saw this as a conscious effort to let him develop his social potential.
There seemed to have been no shortage of ”. His decision to apply for admission to the Holm Coultram College had come as a slight surprise. It was of course then an all-female college for training teachers and it was for a place among the pioneer group of men to start the following autumn that Roote had applied. This, the headmaster suggested, was probably one of the place’s attractions for Francis.
Breaking new ground.
Oh yes, thought Dalziel coarsely, virgin territory.
Had Fallowfield’s application for a post there influenced him in any way? He couldn’t really say. Perhaps. He was a great admirer of Fallowfield’s, certainly, and this was one of the cases where Fallowfield’s influence had produced nothing but good. As for their travelling to Yorkshire together, he had no idea. The school term ended early in December and the interviews were well on in the vacation, weren’t they? Surely Roote himself could tell?
Curiously enough, the man concluded, the mere prospect of the new job seemed to work a change in Fallowfield. During his final two terms at Coltsfoot he had been unusually subdued, much less contentious than before, so much so that there had been some concern about his health.
Roote? Oh no, Francis had been just the same as ever. A nice boy, an interesting boy. Give him all our good wishes, won’t you?
Indeed I’ll do that, thought Dalziel after the headmaster had gone back to his bridge. But first he looked again at Roote’s file which had given him the hint of a connection in the first place. He was curious to learn why the man was still here at the end of nearly four years. It appeared that as the courses available at the college proliferated under the energetic leadership of Landor, Roote had decided that he would rather not commit himself to being a teacher and had changed horses in mid-stream, necessitating an extra year’s study.
He’s twenty-three! thought Dalziel. Christ, when I was twenty-three I had… but he didn’t have time to think of all the magnificent things he had done by this tender age as the phone had rung at that precise moment and he had concentrated his mind on shouting at Pascoe. a Clever bugger, he thought after he put the receiver down. But not so clever; why couldn’t he have thought that lot out this morning? For that matter, why couldn’t I? It’s obvious enough, if there’s anything in it. Still, it leaves a chance that no one else thought of it either. But they might have done, in which case it’ll have gone. Or whoever it was addressed to might have picked it up and be saying nowt. Or Fallowfield might have sent it via the post office in which case it’ll turn up tomorrow.
Or perhaps the stupid bastard didn’t write one at all. Unlikely, he thought scornfully. Bloody words were all these fairy intellectuals were good for. Pascoe, thank God, had learned the art of silence, sometimes the hard way. And there was nothing puffy about Pascoe, lots of lead in his pencil. Randy young bastard, thought Dalziel, surprised to find himself feeling almost affectionate. A good-looking woman, that Ellie Soper. Something there to grapple with. Not many of those in a pound.
His train of thought had carried him almost unconsciously out of the admin, block into the fresh air of another glorious evening. He glanced at his watch. Twenty past nine. The shadows were very long now. There were still no clouds in the sky but the sun had almost disappeared. The air-staining grime of the industrial North lay all to the west here and the whole horizon was breaking out in a multi-coloured rash.
Nice, thought Dalziel automatically. He had been brought up to think that sunsets, along with the Royal Family and the Liberal Party, were nice. It was difficult to lose all your conditioning.
Now for the senior common room, probably a wild goose chase. But a necessary diversion first, it being Sunday and the police being what they were about licensing hours.
The bar was packed. It was the first time he had been in here, he realized with surprise. (I’ve been working too hard, he told himself.) They did themselves well too. None of your spit and sawdust; plush, well-padded
