“She was extremely open in interview,” Ms Foster told me. “More than anyone I’d ever met. Normally, I’d find it unsettling, but she was one of those people who made you feel like they were your best friend.” She smiled, a reflex reaction that she quickly retracted. “I don’t know how to explain it. She had the same effect on everyone. Including Mary.”
I said, “Tell me about her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Family. Friends. Lovers. What she liked to do in the evening.”
“She…I mean…I know she got her degree at Glasgow College of Art. I know…I know…”
I sat back.
Figured as much. Some personality types are social magicians. They distract you with empathy, give you nothing in return and you don’t even realise. Most of these people are simply private. But some of them…
“When did you start to get suspicious?” I asked.
“I never said –”
“You didn’t have to.”
Ms Foster shifted again. Ran a hand through her hair in a gesture without confidence that made me think of a nervous teenage girl trying to hide what she felt. In this room she would normally have the balance of power on her side. Dealing with pupils. Other members of staff. People she could control. No wonder she’d been hesitant to speak to me. I was an unknown quantity.
She said, “It’s that obvious?”
I nodded.
Her head bowed a little so that her long hair fell across her face. She pushed against the desk and stood up. Walked to the large windows and looked outside.
“Did she have any friends?” I asked.
“People tried. Like I said, she was open and honest. But…”
“She didn’t socialise.”
“No.”
“Boyfriends?”
“None that I knew of. Once, we had dinner together. My attempt to get to know her better. I took her…we went to that place on Brook Street…named after the jazz player.”
I knew the place. “Beiderbeckes.”
Ms Foster nodded. “She seemed to open up a little, and I thought maybe everything would be okay, that she was just thrown by being thrust into this new environment.” Ms Foster kept her back to me as she talked. Seemed to be focussing on something in the distance, out on the horizon. “She told me about a boyfriend she had in Glasgow. How she had come here to escape him.”
“Escape?”
She spun on her heels to face me. “That’s the word she used.”
“She say why?”
“Not really. The minute she told me, she seemed to realise what she’d said and tried to switch the subject. I let her. I was her boss, you know? We weren’t that close. I guess I realised it after that lunch.”
I nodded.
Something wasn’t sitting right.
“What about her family? I mean, did she ever talk about having –”
“She said she had a sister.”
“A daughter?”
Ms Roger’s brow furrowed. She took a step towards me. “She didn’t have any children. None that she mentioned.”
“You look concerned,” I said.
“Just something someone said.” She let her face relax, and leaned back against the sill of the large window. Looking almost at ease. Her defences down, as though she’d forgotten all her initial antagonism towards me.
A good sign from my point of view.
Her head had tilted back. She wasn’t looking at me any more. “They said, seeing her and Mary together, sometimes they looked more like mother and daughter than teacher and pupil.” She smiled. “Silly, really. Or it was at the time.”
She stood up again. Looked at me strangely, her head tilted to one side. “Who did you say you were again?”
“I’m an ex-copper. Used to work alongside Detective Bright.”
She kept her back to me. “The man in charge?”
Stretching the truth? Just a little. I played it cool, said, “That’s the one.”
“And you’re working with him now? In some kind of advisory capacity?”
I nodded. Kept up the eye contact. Kept her in tune with me. No hesitation. No uncertainty. She had to believe I was telling her the truth.
One of the most powerful weapons in your arsenal – as an investigator, working for the police or for a private client – is the way you use words. Most of the time you can deal with anyone if you know the words or the tones that will persuade them to cooperate with you.
You need to be as sneaky as a con artist.
Finally, she said, “It’s not unusual for a teacher to take interest in a particularly bright or talented pupil. You think someone can do well, you want to encourage that. Rewards of the profession, you know? Christ knows there are few enough of those these days.”
I nodded. Said nothing. Silence can be as big a motivator during interview as anything else.
“It was only later…people began to talk.”
“Talk?”
“They were seen together outside school a lot. Not unusual, I guess, when the kids get older. They start to show more interest, sometimes the teacher takes on more of a mentor role.”
“But other times –”
“Other times there’s talk.”
“Not just about them looking like mother and daughter.”
Ms Foster sighed, deeply. “The tabloid press like their scandals. I’ll tell you straight up, Mr McNee, that the actual number of affairs between teachers and pupils is very small.” Was she quick on the defensive? Maybe, but I got the feeling she’d heard the insinuation more than enough times over the past couple of days. Probably the past couple of months from the way she was speaking. “Normally, as well, it happens between members of the opposite sex. Statistically, I mean.”
I didn’t bother to tell her that I wasn’t thinking that way. That I knew the truth. That it was maybe even stranger than she suspected.
She kept talking. She’d started this thing, was going to finish it. “I didn’t think the talk, the rumour mill, was founded on anything.” Another pause. Another reluctant admission: “She used to invite Mary over to her place. Never any of the other pupils. It was…unusual.”
“More than favouritism?”
That put her back on edge. “I don’t want to draw conclusions.” Aye, she could talk the talk, but she’d had doubts of her own.
“Why didn’t you tell the police about this?”
“I did…but they didn’t seem…they didn’t ask any further.”
They didn’t? Surprised me. But not if they were holding back information. Susan had been cagey when I mentioned Deborah’s name earlier.
Aye, according to our arrangement. I was an observer. But they were hiding things from me. Putting the blinkers on.
Maybe more so since my little encounter with Ernie.
“What did they ask about?”
“You’re working with them, right?”
One wrong question. I lost her.
Easy to do. Takes one wrong turn and you pull someone straight out of what they’re saying, remind them they need to keep their guard up.
I’d slipped up, indulging my personal curiosity. Trying to find out what facts had been hidden from me and why, when I should have been continuing to show concern for the girl.
Mary Furst should have been all that should have mattered.
Ms Foster said, “Maybe I should call the DCI?” Her tone was clipped. Authoritarian. She had her power back.
I nodded, said, “I’m not sure there’s anything else you can tell me for now.”
“All the same –”
“All the same, I should be going. Case like this, it’s time sensitive.”
“McNee,” she said. “That was your name, right?”
I stood up. Feeling my face burn. My heart hammer.
Fuck.
I’d told Susan I wouldn’t get too deep into this case. That I was observation only. She’d known from the start I was talking shite.
Knew me better than I knew myself, the way that old cliché goes.
I started to back away.
Ms Foster kept her gaze fixed on me.
I left the room, made a quick walk down the corridor.
Feeling like the worst kind of eejit.