The Last Detective

Chapter Three

MATTHEW STAYED AWAY FROM SCHOOL the next day, but not because of illness. I decided he should have a day's grace before he was called to his headmaster's study. It was almost the end of term, anyway. You know the Abbey Choir School, of course. There's the prep school which Mat attends, and the main school for boys of thirteen and upwards. He won't start there for another year. They take Common Entrance in the year of their thirteenth birthday, and his will be in February. The high flyers go on to some of the best public schools in the country, but the majority just move up to the senior school. The prospectus makes a big thing about traditional values. Parents have to sign a form allowing their boys to be 'chastised' for misbehaviour. It's supposed to be the right way of encouraging respect and loyalty and most parents seem to accept it. Truancy leads inevitably to a slippering.

I was educated at a comprehensive, a large one, and I must confess that I find the public school methods quite alien. I've agonized over whether I'm right to keep Matthew at the school. Yet three years ago, when he was nine, I pleaded with the head to admit him. It was at the time when my husband Sverre had just deserted me. At that low point in my life the prospect of bringing up a son unaided terrified me. I'd failed completely in all my relationships with men – my beer-swilling father whom I grew to despise, the brothers I treated as rivals and still do, and the husband who gave me up not for other women, but for chess – so what right had I to raise a son to manhood?

Well, I tell myself that the school is a male institution and Matthew is learning to live among men, supported in the complexities of growing up. That's the justification, and now he's in the choir and everything, I doubt if I'll move him. I've worked damned hard to scrape together enough to pay the fees, first as a taxi driver, and now a company chauffeur.

I'd be happier if I really believed in the system. I accept that scripture and church music must play a prominent part in the curriculum of a choir school, and that Latin has to be obligatory, but why does everything else have to be treated in an old-fashioned way? In English they spend hours on clause analysis. The reading list ends at Dickens. The maths master bans calculators from the classroom. Games seem to consist of learning to hold a cricket bat correctly. There's no joy in it. You don't have to be an educationalist to see that there is too much cramming. And the use of corporal punishment is repellent. That's my opinion, anyway.

Surprisingly, Matthew has never asked to change schools. The only thing that he takes strong objection to is singing at the occasional Saturday wedding in the Abbey, obliging him to give up part of his one free day in the week. Otherwise he hardly ever complains. This truancy (at my school it was known more uncouthly as bunking off and I did it often) was a new development, unless he had been remarkably clever in covering it up.

When I asked him about it, he dismissed it lightly. Without looking away from the television, he said, 'Mr Fortescue was away on jury service, so our form was sent to the library. Three of us decided to go for a dip. That was all.'

'You picked a dangerous place for a swim, Mat.'

'We didn't swim. We were messing about in the water.'

'Whatever it was, it was dangerous. Why did it have to be you who went along the weir? Why not one of the others?'

'They dared me.'

'Oh, Mat!'

He turned his face towards me, ran his fingers through his hair and said on a note that signalled something of significance, 'Ma.'

'Yes?' I had ceased to be 'Mum' recently. I took it as a sign of Mat's wish to appear more mature. At the hospital he'd forgotten about this, but now he was the young man again.

'I'm sorry I caused all this trouble. It won't happen again.'

I hadn't been looking for an apology. I just wanted to reach out to him. I said, 'You're not alone in doing stupid things. I've done them. Everyone has, at some stage.'

He stared at me in surprise. 'He said that.'

'Who?'

'The man who got me out. He said almost the same thing as you just said. He used the word 'daft' – 'daft things'. He said some time in our lives we all do daft things. Something like that.'

I commented that he sounded a nice man, adding that I wished we knew who he was, so that we could thank him. Apart from anything else, his clothes must have been ruined.

Matthew said, 'It's funny that you should say the same thing.'

'I suppose it is.'

'We ought to find out who he is. I think I'd like to meet him again.'

'Well, I can't think where he would have gone in a set of wet clothes,' I told him. 'Maybe he went to the taxi rank by the Abbey. Tomorrow I'll ask the fellows I used to work with.'

I turned up the sound on the television. The strain of talking about the incident was difficult for both of us.

I was greeted warmly at the Abbey rank next morning, and there was the inevitable mickey-taking from the drivers about the Mercedes and my supposedly up-market status. At the first opportunity I asked about yesterday's incident. Nobody remembered a fare in wet clothes, but several of the fellows had early copies of the evening papers. I was handed the Telegraph. Prominent on the front page was the picture of Matthew under the headline SHY HERO IN WEIR RESCUE.

I read Molly Abershaw's report and had to admit that the story was broadly correct. I didn't remember a rather pious-sounding quote attributed to me, but the gist of it was true. Mat and I did want to trace the man who had gone to the rescue, and thank him personally.

I handed back the paper and asked the drivers to let me know if they heard any thing.

My visit to the taxi rank made me nearly forty minutes late for work. When I got there, I slammed on the brakes at the sight of another black Mercedes parked in the space reserved for the chairman. The company owned two such cars, one for me to drive, the other for Mr Buckle's exclusive use. Wouldn't you know it! My boss's appearances at the Bathford site were pretty few and far between, and he was never usually in so early. In my fatalistic mood, I knew before talking to Simon, the office supervisor, that Mr Buckle had left word that he wanted to see me as soon as I reported for work.

Stanley Buckle bought a controlling interest in Realbrew in 1988, when it was on the point of collapse after years of ineffective management. He invested heavily in new plant and brought in a new team to run it, and already it looks as if the firm's decline has been halted.

Upon joining Realbrew Ales, I learned that Mr Stanley Buckle isn't everyone's idea of Santa Claus. He sacked half the existing staff when he took over, and several others have gone since for various shortcomings. Being summoned to his office isn't reckoned to be a promising way to start the day.

I tapped on the door and went in, prepared to be penitent – if necessary, to plead for mercy, offer sackcloth and ashes, anything… I needed this job. I couldn't afford to go back to taxi-driving. I'd sold my cab and the money had gone on a dozen essential things.

So it was immensely reassuring that Mr Buckle smiled as he looked at me over his half-glasses. Dressed as usual in a dark pinstripe that must have been Italian and outrageously expensive, and with the customary red rosebud in his buttonhole, he was giving out a distinctly roguish message for the time and place. He stepped around the desk and approached as if to embrace me.

The thought raced through my brain that if this was the price he wished to exact for my late arrival, I'd better settle for it. Physically, he was bald and beginning to be paunchy under the skilful tailoring, not exactly my fantasy lover, but this need not amount to any more than a token smooch. He reached out and grasped my upper arm, pulling me firmly towards him. Then, against all expectation, he pressed his hot hand against mine and shook it.

'Congratulations, my dear!'

My confusion must have been starkly obvious.

'… upon your boy's fortunate escape!' he explained. 'I read it in the paper. Miraculous! I spotted the name. Unusual name, yours. But I couldn't be certain until I saw the reference to Realbrew.'

That was what had pleased him: free publicity in the local papers. Saved by the power of the press!

He said, 'How about some coffee? What this must have done to your nerves! Is the boy really none the worse?'

'He's fine,' I assured him. 'The reason I'm late -'

'Late!' Mr Buckle cut in. 'We didn't expect to see you at all after a ghastly experience like that. Are you sure you wouldn't like the day off?'

'That's very generous,' I succeeded in saying, 'but it happened the day before yesterday.'

'Never mind. If there's anything we can do, just mention it.'

That evening I got home after Matthew. He was watching the TV and eating baked beans on toast. I didn't enquire what had happened when he'd reappeared at school; he must have had enough humiliation.

'There was a phone call,' he told me. 'That jumbo-sized reporter, Miss Abershaw.'

I sighed, partly in annoyance at Molly Abershaw and partly in her defence – against masculine insensitivity. 'Mat, she can't help her size. What did she want this time?'

'She asked if I could remember anything else about the man. She said she would call back when you got in. She could help her size if she dieted.'

'What exactly did you say to her?'

'There was nothing much I could say. I mean it isn't as if he had a safety pin through his nose. He was just an ordinary bloke with a moustache. I told her that.'

I asked him tentatively if he had any homework.

He switched off the TV. 'Plenty actually. The usual Latin vocab. And old Fortescue has given us a pig of a history project. We've each been given a street in Bath and we've got to write its history.'

'What's yours?'

'He really planned this. He said as I was given the kiss of life I should have Gay Street. It got a cheap laugh, of course.'

'Some of those masters are no better than the boys they teach. What are you supposed to do tonight?'

'Draw a large plan of it. We've got to show every building. Then tomorrow we start trying to find out when everything was built and who lived there and all that stuff.'

'It sounds more interesting than Latin verbs,' I said by way of encouragement.

The phone rang.

Molly Abershaw. She asked if I had seen the paper.

'Yes, I did,' I admitted in a tone that surrendered nothing.

'And did you like it?'

'Like it?' I said. 'I wouldn't put it as strongly as that. We're not accustomed to being in the newspaper, as I'm sure you must appreciate. But we can't complain. You kept to the facts of what happened. My boss was pleased you mentioned his company by name.'

On the other end of the line, Molly Abershaw was matching me in poise. 'Just out of interest, I was wondering whether you found out any more about the man who saved Matthew's life.'

'No,' I told her. 'Nothing else. I've been asking around, but with no result. That quote you attributed to me in your report – the one about wanting to thank him personally – I really meant it.'

Now the voice became more animated. 'That's why I wanted to talk to you, Mrs Didrikson. I've got this idea for a follow-up. I thought we might run a "Find the Hero" piece, appealing to our readers to help.'

'I see."

'You don't sound too overjoyed.'

'To tell you the truth,' I said, 'I thought there wouldn't be any more in the papers.'

'But you said you'd like to find him.'

'Well, yes.'

'But you said

'This is as good a way as any. What I would like from you is another quote to say how keen you are to find this man.'

'Obviously I am. He put his own life at risk and saved my son. We'd dearly like the opportunity to say how grateful we are, but -'

'Great. And Maxim would like to take a picture of you and Matthew together. He can do it first thing tomorrow if you like, before Matthew leaves for school.'

'That would be early. He leaves at 8.30.'

'No problem. Maxim will be with you soon after 8.00. And Mrs Didrikson…?'

'Yes.'

'Would you mind asking Matthew the names of his two friends? I'm hoping that they might remember some detail that would help us find the man.'

I was wary. 'I'm not sure about that. Couldn't we keep the boys out of it?'

'I just want a word with them. I'm wondering if between us we can get a description good enough to publish an artist's impression of the man.'

'The police do that to identify criminals,' I pointed out.

There was a moment's silence, then: 'I hadn't seen it that way, and I doubt if our readers would. Anyway, I would like to hear from those boys. They can talk to me on the phone tomorrow. Do you have our number? It's on the back page of the paper.'

I said that without making any promises, I would speak to Mat about it.

'Fair enough. And of course if Mat should remember anything else, I'll be delighted to hear from him.'

'I'll tell him.' I put down the phone. It was a strain being subject to so much interest. I had some sympathy with Matthew's rescuer if he wanted to remain unknown.