Ben watches the interview from the surveillance room, DCI Khan leading the questions, Malcolm Crowe sitting thin-lipped and ramrod-straight in the chair opposite him. Rachel hasn’t responded to his last text message. He has no idea what she meant, ‘ask him about the painting’, but he keeps his phone nearby and on silent, just in case she does reply to shed some light.
‘What took you into the woods on Saturday night, Mr Crowe?’ Khan asks, tapping his pen impatiently on a pad of paper.
Ben watches Malcolm Crowe’s face. He doesn’t react, just stares calmly back at Khan, his watery eyes as unreadable as deep, still water.
‘Were you watching the kids? Keeping a close eye? Maybe a closer eye on one of them in particular?’ Khan adds, attempting to provoke a reaction.
A flicker passes over the man’s otherwise impassive face. ‘As I told your lot a few days ago,’ he says, his voice gruff, ‘I stayed in with Margaret on Saturday night.’
Ben leans into the screen, trying to read Crowe’s expression. Connor had been adamant that it was Malcolm Crowe he’d seen watching the party in the woods. Ben had put his trust in the young man’s account. There hadn’t seemed any reason for him to lie, but the elderly man’s unwavering denial brings a moment’s doubt. The old man was good. He’d give him that.
Ben had called Maxwell from outside the taxi driver’s house, almost immediately after he’d spoken to Khan. ‘Who ran the background checks on the school staff?’ he’d asked her, no polite preamble.
‘Crawford.’
Ben had groaned. ‘Do me a favour. Go back into Malcolm Crowe’s records. Check for anything he might’ve missed.’
‘I’m on it,’ she’d said, simply, easily.
DCI Khan pushes a little harder. ‘We’ve had an eyewitness come forward to say they saw you in the woods on Saturday night. Most insistent.’
Ben sees the discomfort in the man’s body language as Crowe squirms on the chair. He knows Khan sees it, too, knows he’ll go in hard with Maxwell’s ammunition.
‘One of my officers has done a little digging. It seems a complaint was raised against you at your previous school, just a month or so before you took early retirement.’
Ben breathes his silent gratitude once more for Maxwell’s calm, can-do efficiency. That detective deserved a promotion.
‘The girl was lying,’ says Malcolm, his voice gruff. ‘Goodness only knows why she’d make something like that up, but she did.’ Malcolm is a picture of defiance. ‘As good as ruined my reputation, mind.’
‘What was it the girl accused you of?’ Khan asks lightly, flicking through his papers. ‘Spying on students. Being a peeping Tom.’
‘I like to watch the school sports fixtures. That’s not a crime, is it? The stuff she said, about me wandering through the girls’ changing room, peering through windows. It was nonsense. All made up.’
‘And yet you decided to leave your teaching post? To take early retirement?’
Malcolm hangs his head. ‘Something like that shakes you. I’d given my all to that school. Twenty years as Head of Science. The girl admitted to the police that she’d made it all up with her friends, a nasty little joke, but it was too late for me. My reputation was in tatters. To hear the laughter as I walked the corridors. To see the suspicion in my colleagues’ eyes. A single lie, and my career was extinguished overnight.’ He closes his eyes and lets out a deep sigh.
‘It was agreed that I would take early retirement. The head teacher there thought it for the best. Margaret and I talked and we decided on a fresh start. She’d look for a new role, in a new county, away from all the furore. So that’s what we did, here at Folly View. It seemed the right time for me to step back. To focus on my hobbies.’
‘Hobbies such as walking through the woods at night? Spying on the students?’ Khan eyes him keenly. ‘Unless you have a habit of sleepwalking you haven’t disclosed, I think you still have some explaining to do.’
Malcolm glances round at the blank walls of the interview room, as if looking for something to rest his eyes on. His gaze lifts to the camera mounted high in the corner. With his wide staring eyes, round wire spectacles and broad forehead, made all the more prominent by his receding hairline, he reminds Ben of the old po-faced farmer from the famous American Gothic painting. All he needs is a pitchfork and he’d be a dead ringer.
In the face of his silence, Khan launches his attack from a different angle. ‘I believe it was Mrs Crowe who provided you with an alibi for Saturday night?’ He makes a show of flicking back through the pages of his notebook. ‘If you’re struggling to remember, it would be easy enough for us to escort your wife to the station and question her here?’
Malcolm shifts again in his seat. ‘Margaret’s got nothing to do with this.’
‘With what, Mr Crowe? How do you spend your time these days?’
‘I suppose some might call me a caretaker,’ Malcolm says flatly. ‘I take care of things.’
‘As far as I understand, you’re not a caretaker in any official capacity.’
He tuts. ‘That’s as maybe, but I like to help out around the place. I like to keep busy. I keep things on track, for Margaret. It’s not an easy job my wife has, running an institution like Folly View. We take the school motto very seriously. We go above and beyond.’
‘Is that what you were doing in the woods on Saturday night? Going above and beyond? Taking care of things?’
‘In a sense.’ Malcolm folds his arms across his chest.
Khan, clearly tiring of Malcolm Crowe’s evasive answers, goes in. ‘Were you “taking care” of Sarah Lawson on Saturday night?’
The suggestion hangs in the air. Ben sees the distaste on the older man’s face and wills Khan to press harder.
‘What’s especially troubling to me is the conflicting alibi provided by your wife.’ Khan lets the point hang. ‘If our witness is correct, Mrs Crowe could be found guilty of making a false statement and obstructing the course of justice.’
Malcolm Crowe lets out a small harrumph, but his stubborn expression has switched to alarm.
‘Accusations of a cover-up could be awkward to explain to the school’s board of directors. Your wife’s illustrious career could be at stake. And I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that if found guilty of perjury in a court of law, you and your wife could be looking at jail time.’ He pauses, allowing his words to sink in. ‘There’s a far easier way to proceed here, Mr Crowe, but we do need you to cooperate.’ Khan leans into the table. ‘I think it’s time you stopped messing about and told me the truth.’
Malcolm closes his eyes and when he opens them, he wears a new expression, one Ben recognises as resignation. ‘It was Margaret who heard the kerfuffle. A little before nine. We were watching that silly dancing programme she likes, and she turned the volume down and asked if I could hear a noise outside.’
Khan nods encouragingly. ‘Go on.’
‘I said it was probably the foxes trying to get at the rubbish bins, but I went out to check, just in case.’
‘What did you find?’
Malcolm tuts. ‘A god-awful mess, that’s what. Eggs thrown all over the front porch and windows, pumpkins smashed to bits outside the lodge. A terrible waste and a horrid mess to clear up.’
‘That must’ve been upsetting,’ says Khan, careful to keep his tone neutral.
‘I’m sure they thought it was a great Halloween trick, but Margaret gives her all to that school. It was disrespectful beyond belief.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I could hear the kids moving off into the woods, so I followed them.’ He refolds his arms across his chest. ‘Thought I’d give them a piece of my mind.’
‘Could you identify the students who made the mess?’
Malcolm shakes his head. ‘No, but it was two lads. I saw that much. Not Sarah. Not the girl who died, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
‘So, you followed the boys?’
‘I did. I went into the woods, but I lost sight of them. I thought they’d given me the slip, but as I neared the quarry, I saw a whole pack of them there, larking about. Up to no good. I wanted to give those boys a piece of my mind, but I wasn’t going to take on the whole group. Not when things looked like they were getting a little wild.’
‘Wild in what way?’
He tuts. ‘Certainly no behaviour that befitted the children of an institution such as Folly View. They were playing games. Drinking and smoking. Acting in a lewd, indecent way. There was some wanton destruction. I saw that young red-headed girl, daughter of the nice counsellor lady at school. She was there, spraying her ugly graffiti. Naughty girls should be punished. As far as I was concerned, she’d got off far too lightly the last time she was caught scrawling her mess around town.’ He folds his arms across his chest. ‘Told her mother as such the other night, as it happens.’
Ben thinks of Rachel’s earlier message. Ask him about the painting. Was that what she’d meant? He frowns. It still didn’t make sense to him.
‘So, the kids were running wild in the woods. What did you do?’
Malcolm shrugs. ‘I stayed. I headed to the rise above the quarry and watched them from there.’
‘Why?’
Malcolm rubs his chin. ‘I suppose I didn’t like what I was seeing. Some older boys had turned up. I thought things might get out of hand. Someone might get hurt.’
‘So, you stayed to watch? Just in case?’ Khan can’t hide his scepticism.
‘Well, there were the bats, too, of course.’
‘The bats?’
‘Yes, the bat roosts in the caves. Horseshoe bats. They’re an endangered species, you know. I’ve been studying them for a while. Tracing their roosts. Just a little hobby of mine. Fascinating creatures. I didn’t like the thought of the children disturbing them. If I’d had to intervene, I would’ve.’
‘Intervene?’
‘They’re protected under UK law.’
‘So, did you… intervene?’
‘No. I stayed put until one of the girls caught sight of me. I heard some of the boys say they’d investigate, and I slipped away. I didn’t want them to come upon me. I knew how it might look, given the incident at my previous school.’
Khan raises an eyebrow. ‘Like you were spying on them?’
‘As I said’ – Malcolm folds his arms – ‘I was worried.’
‘So, you went straight home? Without incident?’
‘Not exactly, no. I took a little tumble down the trail. Turned my ankle. I had to limp home. It’s been causing me trouble all week.’
Khan leans back in his chair, tapping his pencil on his notepad. ‘Why lie, Mr Crowe? Why not tell us all this at the beginning of the week?’
Malcolm sighs. ‘I talked it through with Margaret. We thought it for the best that I stay out of it, given the past unfounded complaint. We didn’t want to complicate your investigation, and Margaret was worried for the school. She was worried how it might look. She thought we should distance ourselves. Can you blame us, given our previous experience with you lot? Innocent until proven guilty. What rot!’
The door to the surveillance room opens and DC Maxwell steps inside, sheets of printed paper clutched in her hands. ‘Is the Chief still grilling Crowe?’
Ben nods.
‘There’s something—’
‘Hang on,’ Ben says, his ears pricking up at the interview room audio. Malcolm is leaning back in his chair, looking more comfortable. ‘…really thought you’d have questioned that other teacher by now.’
‘Teacher?’ Khan asks, eyes narrowed as he leans forward over the table. ‘Which other teacher?’
‘The art teacher. Morgan.’
‘Chase,’ interrupts Maxwell. ‘I think you—’
‘Sorry, Maxwell. Hold on.’
‘…saw them, bold as brass, riding through Thorncombe,’ Malcolm continues. ‘The girl was on the back of his motor-bike, clinging to him like a little leaf, her blonde hair fluttering beneath the helmet. In retrospect, it all seems rather suspicious.’
‘You saw Sarah Lawson with the art teacher from Folly View?’ Khan asks, leaning forward. ‘They were riding on his motorbike together?’
‘It looked just like her, yes. And now I see him sniffing around our school counsellor, with his fancy flowers and cosy chats.’
‘Why didn’t you come forward with this information earlier?’ Khan is half disbelief, half flabbergasted.
‘Like I said, given my previous experience with the police, I didn’t particularly want to be drawn into anything. Besides, my eyesight isn’t the best. I couldn’t be certain it was the girl. I did a little caretaking of my own, of course. I examined Sarah’s student file, to see if she was taking his art classes, or if she’d mentioned anything in confidence to the counsellor about him, but it turned out that she wasn’t, and she hadn’t. I figured, perhaps, that I’d got it wrong. I didn’t think I had enough to bring it to your—’
‘Chase! Please.’ Maxwell’s tone is insistent, cutting through Malcolm’s indignant monologue.
Ben spins in his chair. ‘Sorry. What’ve you got there?’
‘Tech have pulled the data from Sarah’s phone.’
Ben is instantly alert. ‘And?’
‘We got lucky. McIvor destroyed the handset, but the SIM card was relatively easy to repair. You’re going to want to see this.’
She offers him the printouts and Ben takes them, shuffling through the pages, scanning their content. ‘Facebook messages?’ he asks, turning back to Maxwell for clarification.
‘Yes.’
Ben scans the rows and rows of text and feels his eyebrows lifting. ‘What the hell? They’re all from the art teacher. Edward Morgan.’
Maxwell nods, staying silent, letting the pieces slide into place. Chase lets out a low whistle. ‘Malcolm Crowe was just talking about him.’
Maxwell nods. ‘I know.’
‘Someone’s been telling us some whoppers.’
‘It’s a motive, right? A reason to want to hurt Sarah?’
Ben flicks through the pages and finds another stream of messages. He reads them quickly, pieces of a baffling puzzle slotting together neatly at last. John Slater’s statement from the night of the murder. Everything suddenly makes sense. He lifts his head. ‘It’s all here.’
Fiona Maxwell nods at the camera. ‘We need to stop that interview.’
‘Too right,’ says Ben. ‘We’ve got the wrong suspect.’