3. In The Staff Room

Soill making enquiries

“So we were right,” smiled DI McFyffe to her DS, “assuming that the craftwork tool wasn’t the actual murder weapon.”

She was holding the print-out of the initial observations by the pathologist, Doctor Weasel, who had examined the body of Mr Daniels when it had arrived back in his laboratory.

Dave Wright took the single sheet from her when she offered it, and nodded. “Looks right for a bog standard kitchen knife,” he agreed. “So why on Earth did our killer shove the craft knife into the wound after he’d slaughtered him?

“That’s a question I’ll want to ask whoever did the deed when I lay my hands on him,” replied Sheila McFyffe, shaking her head.

“Or her. It could have been a woman,” pointed out DS Wright.

She nodded in agreement.

“So let’s see who the he or she might be,” she said, “and starting at the top, there’s the headmaster, dear Mr Lincoln.”

“I don’t see much of a motive for him though, Ma’am,” murmured the DS.

“True, but I’ve been in this job long enough to have discovered that not all motives are obvious from the start of an investigation,” she said quietly.

He nodded. “Too true,” he acknowledged.

“So we need to do a background check on Mr Lincoln. Is he the all-round good egg you’ve made him out to be or is there a dark side lurking just out of sight?” she said slowly.

“I hope not!” he smiled, “Joanne would be distraught if there was!”

“And in my albeit limited experience young children are unusually sensitive to dark sides,” smiled Sheila. “So who’s next?”

“The caretaker, Mr Foster. That cellar is, we were told, his domain.”

“So not the sort of place that a guilty caretaker would choose to leave a body of someone he’s just murdered lying around,” suggested his boss.

“Or he might be playing clever, hoping that’s exactly what we’d think,” he said.

“Touché” she smiled.

“Then there’s the woman who discovered the body and who still goes hysterical whenever it’s mentioned.”

“We need to speak to her. She probably knows nothing that might help, but there could be the odd snippet at the back of her mind… who knows?”

“I suppose so, guv…” muttered Dave uncertainly, “she was in the staff room. That’s where the caretaker says she was.

“Then to the staff room we must go. Cheer up, Dave. At least it’s not you with a hole in your chest!”

When they go there and knocked the door politely before walking in it was to find that the staff room was occupied by the teaching staff who were taking a break whilst a film was being shown to the children now that the school day was under way, and the cleaner had been advised to go hpme to get over the shock.

“The Headmaster is watching the angels,” explained Mrs Harding, a senior teacher judging by her apparent age.

“I’m off to relieve him in a few minutes,” contributed Miss Angela Bustard, a teacher so apparently young that Dave couldn’t believe his eyes. “He’ll be expecting me,”

“Then if I may have a few words before you go…” suggested the DI.

“Of course, though in truth I wasn’t here when the body that everyone’s talking about was found,” she said rather demurely. Dave found himself looking at her and asking himself whether any teachers bearing so generous a bosom existed in his own school days and decided he couldn’t remember one.

“What do you know about the cellar?” he asked, “I mean, do teaching staff use it at all?”

“A good question,” smiled his DI, which made him feel at least a modicum of pride.

“Not very often, though I sometimes need things that are stored down there, like art and craft materials or PE lost property like unclaimed and unnamed muddy shorts or grubby old football socks,”

“Things like that come in useful if a child’s memory has left their own stuff at home.” put in Mrs Harding, and she smiled at the much younger teacher. “Time for you to relieve Mr Lincoln, dear,” she added.

“Of course,” nodded an obviously relieved Angela Bustard, and she gathered an armful of folders and exited after asking the DI if it was all right for her to go.

“Off you toddle, dear,” smiled Sheila, “we know where you’ll be if we need to know anything else.

“Maybe I can provide you with whatever information you need to know,” suggested a stern looking middle aged woman. “I’m Elsie Needham, the deputy head and responsible for such details as who’s time-tabled to be where.”

“Then let me ask you this,” began the DI, “According to Mr Weasel, the police pathologist, who performed the post mortem immediately the late lamented victim arrived in his laboratory at what he called the crack of dawn, the late Mr Daniels breathed his last possibly an hour before or an hour after midnight last night. So would the cellar door be unlocked then because I should imagine the school was locked up, and if the cellar was locked who might have the key? Is there a key? Or are there keys? Or maybe someone was supposed to be in the room despite the hour?”

“The cellar is Mr Foster’s domain,” replied a frowning deputy head teacher, but to answer your question regarding keys, he will have one as will the Headmaster. As for the cellar door, I see no reason why it should be always locked as there is no access to the school once the cleaners have finished, and that is some time around tea time as far as I am aware.”

The DI smiled disarmingly at Mrs Needham. “I wonder, has anyone anything useful to contribute to my enquiry regarding the brutal murder of Mr Joe Daniels, and does anyone know why he might have been on the premises before he was killed?”

“You might ask Jessie Bonham, the secretary,” suggested Mrs Needham, darkly “she knows more about the Daniels bloke than is good for her.”

“That’s not fair!” protested Mrs Mary Fudge, an arty teacher who specialises in music and who looked like a refugee from the sixties, dressed in a smart dress that some may have suggested was too short for her, “just because they’re neighbours,” she added.

“They don’t need to be!” retorted Mrs Needham, “she knew who lived next door when she moved in.”

“That’ll be all,” decided the DI who much preferred interviewing witnesses singly. “Thank you for letting into your paradise,” she added.

Once outside the staff room she sighed. “Not much there. Let’s go and visit the widow,” she said, “and see what the man’s domestic bliss was like…”

© Peter Rogerson 04.01.25