“They say they do their best to keep drugs out,” Laura said, but she recognised a deaf ear turned her way as clearly as if Ted Grant had worn a Position Closed notice on the offending orifice and she shrugged again.
“I’ll do a short add on,” she said. Ted Grant beamed as kindly as his habitually belligerent countenance would allow.
“You can get back to your features then,” he said. Laura gritted her teeth although she knew that she was being told with crystal clarity that the girls should keep out of the big boys’ games. Bob Baker, she thought, would have to be seen to, and the sooner the better.
Chapter Five
DCI Michael Thackeray waited with ill-concealed impatience in the well-appointed ante-room of the headmaster’s secretary at Bradfield Grammar School. It was the first time he had ever been inside the school which stood in mock-classical splendour in leafy grounds on the outskirts of the town. From the moment he had entered by the heavy mahogany doors, obligingly held open for him by a tall Sikh boy in turban of regulation school navy blue, and found his shoes squeaking on the highly polished parquet floor of the corridors, he had recognised the smell of what money could buy. Somewhere in the distance he could hear a choir singing, the young boys’ voices pure and clear, a sound from his own past which sent a shiver of recognition down his spine.
He knew the school accepted girls these days, a sure sign of the competitive times, but the building still reeked of male exclusivity. From his own modern and slightly tatty country comprehensive school you could imagine students moving on to work in offices and factories, garages and farms. Here the atmosphere spoke of similarly panelled lawyers’ and accountants’ offices, the great wool exchange which had once been the hub of this part of Yorkshire, even the gentlemen’s clubs of London and Parliament itself. The school had narrowly missed producing a prime minister but the gold inscribed honours boards listing scholarships to Oxford and Cambridge would have easily taken that in their stride. This was solid, expensive, traditional education and if the students found it rather dull even they probably reckoned that was a fair price to pay for well-nigh guaranteed security later.
Thackeray had come alone, knowing that brow-beating the headmaster of this particular school was more than most of his detectives would be able to do. And brow-beating was certainly his intention if it came to it. The latest hospital report on the condition of Jeremy Adams was not encouraging and, in spite of his reservations about superintendent Longley’s motives, he owed it to the boy to make some gesture towards tracing the source of the drug which looked as though it might have killed him. And the best place to start, he was sure, was amongst the sixth-formers at his school.
He glanced at his watch and then at the attractive middle-aged woman who was busy at a word-processor on the other side of the room. She smiled at him sympathetically and, he thought wryly, possibly slightly hopefully. The name on the door had indicated that she was Miss Raven - there were no concessions to politically correct language here in spite of the recent influx of girls, he noticed - and Miss Raven wore no wedding ring.
“He shouldn’t be too long,” she said. “He has the chairman of governors on the phone. This business with Jeremy is not what any school wants to hear these days. It frightens the horses - or in this case the parents.”
“It was not only Jeremy who was involved,” Thackeray said without letting too much sympathy creep into his voice. A desperately sick student merited rather more than a revamp of the school’s marketing strategy in his book. Miss Raven pursed her lips, picking up his disapproval.
“His parents must be distraught,” she said. “I hear he’s on life support.”
Thackeray nodded, unwilling to get involved in a discussion of the medical details. He did not need reminding of the horrors of watching the professionals lose a battle for the life of a much-loved son. It was an experience he had relived every night for years until he had met Laura, who seemed to have the capacity most of the time to lighten the darkness.
At that moment the communicating door between Miss Raven’s office and the head’s study was flung open and a tall, broad-shouldered man with a head of gleaming silver hair and a ruddy, out-of-doors complexion hurried in, hand outstretched in Thackeray’s direction.
“Chief Inspector, I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said. “David Stewart, headmaster for my sins. And I think you’re here to discuss some of the less creditable activities of some of our sixth-formers? Do come in. Tea, Felicity, I think? Will that suit you, Chief Inspector?”
Thackeray stood up and found, unusually, that he was in the company of a man as tall as he was himself and almost as broad, and about his own age. There was something about him which was familiar and brought a half-smile to his lips. This was, he knew, a rugby school, just as his own less exalted establishment had been, and he had a faint suspicion that he had once upon a time brought David Stewart down heavily and kneed him fairly unmercifully into the mud.
Settled in the Head’s study in a comfortable chair close to the coffee table where Felicity Raven soon deposited a tray and poured them cups of tea from a silver teapot, Thackeray took a moment to look around the elegantly furnished room with its view over the extensive playing fields.
“Were you a pupil here yourself?” he asked, accepting a cup and saucer.
“I was, as it happens,” Stewart admitted. “Played rugger out there with far more enthusiasm than I had for my A Levels. But I scraped into university and teaching seemed like a good bet for someone with my sporting interests. And you? Are you an old Bradfielder too? I don’t remember …”
“Arnedale,” Thackeray said shortly. “But I played rugby here once or twice.”
“Ah yes. We did play Arnedale, even after …” Stewart hesitated. “I don’t think they compete in our league any more.”
“Not many comprehensives do, I imagine,” Thackeray said dryly. “The rugby team was a hang-over from the grammar school days when I was there. A lot of lads preferred soccer even then.”
“Pity,” Stewart said. “But I suppose I’m biased.” He gazed fondly at the playing fields. “Great days,” he said.
“Jeremy Adams,” Thackeray said, breaking into Stewart’s nostalgic moment fairly brutally. “Did you have any idea he was indulging in illegal substances?”
“I did not,” Stewart said. “And I understand Louise James was with him. I have to say I’m astonished, though perhaps that’s naive these days.”
“Have you spoken to Louise?”
“Not yet. I’m seeing her with her parents on Monday. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask her to leave.”
“That seems harsh for something which happened out of school,” Thackeray said. Stewart glanced out of the widow for a moment without speaking.
“That’s easy to say, Chief Inspector, and I know the police don’t do much about young people using drugs these days, but our parents expect the highest standards. After the publicity there’s been, my chairman has already indicated that we can’t afford to take her back. Or Jeremy, for that matter, should he recover. Our reputation depends on us taking a strong line. We’re in a cut-throat market.”
“Have you said anything to your other sixth-formers yet?” he asked.
“Not yet. Everyone is waiting to see what progress Jeremy makes.”
“You make it very difficult for them to contact the police with information if they think they’ll be expelled if you find out,” Thackeray said. “I’m pretty sure there were others out celebrating with Jeremy and Louise but no one has come forward yet. I want to ask you to urge them to contact us. We need to find the source of the Ecstasy tablets. It’s the least we can do for Jeremy’s parents. You can tell the youngsters they can talk to us in the strictest confidence.”