bbc.co.uk/news
The man found murdered in Barnes on Sunday morning has been named as twenty-six-year-old Giles Gallen. His body was discovered by a jogger in the Old Cemetery, an abandoned graveyard next to the Rocks Lane Tennis Centre.
Scenes of Crime Officers have been examining the scene since the discovery at 9.00 BST. Reports suggest the victim died as a result of stab wounds. A post-mortem is being carried out and the police have launched a murder investigation.
DCI Karen Deighton said detectives are trying to trace Gallen’s movements on Saturday night. She appealed for anyone with CCTV or dashcam footage in the Rocks Lane area to come forward and for anyone who may have seen Gallen or been with him that evening to contact the police.
Gallen, a Cambridge graduate, had been living at home with his parents while working as a private 62tutor. His father said, ‘We cannot believe this has happened. Giles was a wonderful son with the world at his feet. Our lives have been ripped apart by this senseless act of brutality. We cannot understand why anyone would want to do this to him.’
Barnes Old Cemetery was abandoned many years ago. Its graves and monuments were subjected to considerable damage and vandalism but it has in recent years been tended by a local environmental group intent on preserving its ‘Gothic charm’.
Garibaldi turned away from the screen, scrolled through his iPod, reached for the remote and pressed play. The plaintive guitar of First Aid Kit’s ‘Emmylou’ came out of the Bose speakers on the floor.
He loved the Swedish sisters’ song, their promise to be Emmylou Harris to his Gram Parsons, June Carter to his Johnny Cash. And he loved it even more when Rachel sang along to it, which is what she was doing now, sitting at the table, head down over her work.
‘Won’t be long,’ she said, breaking off from her singing. ‘Last few.’
A lot of things had improved since Rachel had moved in three months ago. They no longer had to plan nights together in advance, deciding on who would go to whose (Rachel had stopped him referring to ‘home’ and ‘away’ fixtures), there were no more decisions about at which flat you needed to leave things (more of an issue for Rachel) and there was no longer the assumption (mainly one that Garibaldi had indulged in) that each overnight stay would involve sex. Now they were together the whole time there was less pressure in that area – something that Garibaldi felt 63might have led to less frequency (a thought he had the good sense to keep very much to himself). Above all, though, and as Garibaldi reminded himself to keep telling Rachel regularly, it was great to be together so much more. Knowing Rachel was there filled out the contours of emptiness that had mapped two years of living by himself.
But, in honest moments, he recognised there were also drawbacks to cohabiting. Some of the irritations he had felt in all those years of marriage had returned. Not always being able to watch what you want on TV. Someone else choosing the music. Not being able to eat what and when you’d like to. Sharing a bathroom. And above all, despite not having enjoyed his previous state of loneliness, finding it more difficult to be by yourself, to find the private space everyone needed. Sometimes all Garibaldi wanted was to sit in the flat by himself reading, watching Italian films on Netflix and listening to music.
But he was generous enough to concede that some of what he regarded as problems could easily be seen as positives. Rachel’s viewing preferences had introduced him to The Bureau and Call My Agent and she had opened some cultural windows that he had assumed would always, for him, remain closed. Jazz, for example. He’d never got beyond a bit of Miles Davis and John Coltrane but he now found himself enjoying what Rachel was playing on her laptop and asking about it. And food. Garibaldi had become practised at polite tactful praise when faced with the meals she cooked, but, though still thankful that his unpredictable hours meant they couldn’t always eat together, there had been several occasions when his praise had been genuine.
While he waited for Rachel to finish her marking, Garibaldi googled Felicia Ireland and clicked on the first of the large number of results. 64
Daily Telegraph
Private tutoring is booming. It seems nowadays everyone wants a tutor and the very wealthy are prepared to pay the very highest money to secure the best. Long gone are the days when hiring a tutor was seen as an admission of inadequacy or failure. Now they’re status symbols. Just like you might show off a new car, now you might show off your tutor, the one you’ve brought with you on holiday this summer to keep the kids up to the mark, making sure they’re not falling behind in the academic rat race, and, when the tutoring’s over, maybe keeping the kids entertained as well. It’s a win-win. You feel you’re doing your best to give your kids a great education (topping up what’s on offer at the already-pricy private schools they go to) but you’re also getting a bit of high-class babysitting on the side.
It’s not a view shared by the woman who set up one of London’s leading tutoring agencies. I visited Felicia Ireland at her Southwest London home to talk about the tutoring boom.
‘Tutoring often gets a bad press. It’s seen as the preserve of the wealthy, but we here at Forum know it is so much more than that. The media like to latch on to stories about the super-rich. They ignore the rest because it’s not such a good story. They don’t want to know about the parents who want the best for their child and make 65sacrifices to get the extra help the school cannot provide. The child with learning difficulties who desperately needs the one-to-one attention that isn’t always available in schools. The media isn’t interested in so much of the everyday, run-of-the-mill, down-to-earth work we do. And nor are they quick to recognise our pro bono initiatives. They’re more interested in the tiny percentage at the very top – the agencies who deal with them, the tutors who they employ. They don’t realise that it’s much more than that. But here at Forum we do.’
It may be that some of Forum’s clients are of modest income but there is no doubt that the agency’s big money comes from the rich. It’s the Dubai clients who have tutors working on private jets as they ferry their children back and forth from Nice to London who pay the big money. It’s the parents who put up a tutor in a hotel five minutes’ walk from their son’s boarding school to give him easy access who pay the bills. It’s the Russian oligarchs and hedge fund billionaires who allow their business to prosper.
Garibaldi looked at the photos – Felicia Ireland at the desk, Roddy standing behind her – and skimmed through the article. Felicia’s justification was smooth and polished. Laws of supply and demand. Bespoke service. Advantages of one-to-one tuition. The need for committed professional tutors and the high standards expected from Forum.
When the article picked up on Forum’s hope that by using money from the wealthy to fund pro bono initiatives, not only the rich would benefit from what they had 66to offer, Garibaldi felt Felicia seemed less convincing. And when it asked whether such a Robin Hood idea would ever work and whether it was anything other than crumbs from the rich man’s table, he even found himself nodding in agreement – something he seldom did when reading the Telegraph.
‘Right,’ said Rachel, tidying up her papers and getting up from her desk. ‘Emmylou at your service.’
Garibaldi shrugged. ‘I think I’m more Johnny than Gram tonight. The old Johnny, that is, the grumpy one with the gravelly voice nearing his end.’
‘Bad case?’
‘If it was a black kid stabbed on an estate we’d shrug our shoulders and look for the usual. Posh white man in Barnes and everyone’s puzzled. We’ve got nothing.’
The song ended. Garibaldi fiddled with the iPod and found another. Gillian Welch. ‘And there’s more bad news.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Alfie can’t make the game.’
‘Why not?’
‘A party. No, hang on, not a party. A dinner party. In the country.’
‘Oh, well. It’s what happens when you go to uni.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Yeah,’ said Rachel. ‘All part of trying to find out who you are.’
‘How about trying to realise who you’re not?’
‘Comes to the same thing, doesn’t it?’
Garibaldi was lining the culprits up in his mind. Kay. Dom. The school they sent him to.
‘So that’s why you’re pissed off,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s not the case, is it? It’s Alfie.’
She was right. Garibaldi could endure the other 67stuff – Alfie’s decision to apply to Oxford (despite his reservations, he had been very proud when he got in), his choice of friends and changed behaviour in his first year. But giving up on QPR? Was this what his parents would have felt if they’d lived to see him ditch their Catholicism?
‘Maybe I need to grow out of it. I mean, it’s not that important, is it?’
He knew, as he said the words, that he didn’t believe them, and tried to cheer himself up with the thought that Alfie’s lapses might be only temporary. Maybe, after these moments of wobbly faith and wavering commitment, he would see the error of his ways and return to the fold.
But what if he didn’t? What if it was like him and the church? What if this was Alfie’s dark night of the soul?
He shook the thought away, reached for his glass and changed the subject. ‘Tell me, do your kids at Hillside go for much private tutoring?’
Rachel laughed. ‘Private tutoring? You’re joking. Our kids can’t afford it. No, what happens in schools like Hillside is that the private tutoring comes to us.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Some of these posh tutoring firms offer us their services for free. You know – wanting to do a bit of good for the needy.’
‘And do you use them?’
‘We do now. One of Kevin Johnson’s great initiatives. We’ve been using one firm for the last year. Sixth form stuff. University entrance, that kind of thing. So as Head of Sixth Form I’ve been pretty involved.’
‘Yeah? What firm’s that then?’
‘Forum Tutors.’