The Good Teacher: A gripping thriller from the Kindle top ten bestselling author of ‘The Perfect Neighbours’

“Have you already stripped him?” Bagley asks and there’s no mistaking the accusation in her voice.

Dr Spicer peers at her above the silver frames of his spectacles, much as a kindly uncle might view a cheeky child. “If you recall, he was only wearing boxer shorts when we found him. You saw the body for yourself. If a body is clothed when found, we remove the clothes after it has been photographed. After twenty years in the profession, I have not chosen today to deviate from this practice.”

He makes his point in amiable tones but Bagley’s face takes on a darker tan below her face mask.

“Glad to hear it,” she says quietly.

I take little interest in this battle of wills; I’ve got my own struggle. I try to imagine I’m standing outside the scene. If I can escape, I might be able to keep my emotions at bay. I force myself to look at the large feet resting in a wide V at the other end of the sheet. They’re broad and strong, load-bearing. Tufts of dark hair protrude from short, thick toes. The toenails, crusty and yellowing, are long and misshapen. I think of the living man getting by in ill-fitting shoes. At least he’s now free of that irritation. I stifle a sigh.

“According to the photo driving licence found in the car in the lay-by, this is Carl Edward Brock,” Dr Spicer says, checking his clipboard. “I still require a formal ID.”

He directs this comment at DS Matthews who jots something down in the notebook that’s poised in his steady hands. I envy his professional neutrality.

“It is the body of a white male, aged between thirty and forty. The driving licence says thirty-six. He’s six feet tall, of large build, a bit overweight.”

“Can you give me a time of death?” Bagley asks.

“It was a warm night. He’d been dead at least two hours when I examined him on Martle Top. I’d say it was between midnight and seven this morning. A detailed PM should give a more precise time. Cause of death would appear to be a single stab wound to the heart.”

“Is there any sign of a struggle?” It’s Matthews who speaks.

“None whatsoever. No defensive injuries and no apparent scratches or bruising. Death seems to have occurred swiftly but I’ll need to do the PM to be sure.”

“Any sign of sexual activity?” Inspector Bagley hammers out her question.

Dr Spicer gives the inspector another avuncular gaze. “We’ve already established he’s ‘boxer short intactus’ so you’ll have to wait a little longer for that one. There is an older injury to the right knuckles. I’d say it occurred several hours before death. He banged his fist against something sharp. However, cause of death seems to be one thrusting action up through the ribcage.”

I keep looking at the doctor’s face, not at the descriptive movements he makes with his hands. My nails dig into my sticky palms. And this isn’t even the full PM. I force my eyes onto the ivory face and try to think of him as the corpse, the victim, the case, but he’s still Carl Brock, a human being. The darkly shadowed eyelids will never again open to scan the books on his bookcase. The unshaven jaw won’t need the razor from the tidy bathroom cabinet. The stiffening shoulders, fleshy and wide, will never again share the warmth of the double bed.

“It’s a boat-shaped wound, suggesting a knife with one sharp edge. And long,” Dr Spicer says.

“We found a blood-covered kitchen knife close by the body,” Bagley replies. “Could it have been suicide?”

“Not with that angle of penetration.”

“Can you tell us anything about the killer?”

“You won’t find the assailant soaked in the victim’s blood, a few spatters at most. There was little external bleeding. He haemorrhaged internally.”

I swallow hard and concentrate on the doctor’s face.

“Man or woman?” Matthews asks.

“Hard to tell. The blow was strong and quick. It’s a clean incision and it seems to have taken the victim by surprise.”

“So we are looking for someone big and powerfully built,” Bagley concludes.

“The height of the killer is difficult to gauge. The attack apparently took place on the side of a ditch. The victim may have been standing on lower ground. With a sharp knife, the attacker would have needed little force. Even a woman could have managed it if that was how they were standing. Once the knife had penetrated the skin, it would’ve been like stabbing a water melon.”

“When will you do the full PM?”

“Tomorrow at eleven but we need a formal ID before that. Even when we’ve stitched them up, the deceased never look the same after we’ve had the hacksaw to them. The bereaved don’t like to see that.”

Queasiness wraps itself around me like a tight woollen blanket.

“We’ll get the wife to do it when we know what state she’s in,” Bagley says.

“The police surgeon examined her about an hour ago,” Dr Spicer says.

“Do you mean Dr Tarnovski?”

“Of course.”

There’s a pause as Dr Spicer and DI Bagley exchange a glance.

Dr Spicer resumes his briefing. “Apparently she’s being treated for shock. Mild concussion, badly beaten up. Black eyes, cracked cheekbone. Fresh bruising to the arms and legs consistent with being chained and handcuffed.” He looks at Bagley again and adds, “No sign of sexual assault.”

“Is she fit to interview?”

“You’ll have to check with Dr Tarnovski. She’s suffered a major trauma. Her own ordeal was bad enough and now she has to cope with her husband’s murder.”

“Of course, doctor. I realize that. DC Adams and I will be back for the full PM tomorrow.”

My heart drops like a stone.

Dr Tarnovski sits at his desk and scrutinizes the lines of text. His eyes linger over every weight and schedule as he crosschecks them against the recesses of his encyclopaedic memory. He’ll find a match, an absolute, however long it takes. He just needs to locate The Evidence. He takes a sip from the plastic cup by his hand, smacking his lips together and rubbing away the taste. With The Evidence, he could make his predictions and test his hypothesis. His elbow nudges a half-eaten curry tray, relic of another late night at the office. His methodology deserves perseverance. It will reap its own rewards – soon.

What time is it now? He lifts his sleeve in an automatic gesture, forgetting that his wrist is bare. A temporary setback. He reaches across the paper-strewn desk to the old transistor radio. It crackles weakly as he turns the dial. If only he hadn’t been called out to that assault victim, Gaby somebody. At least the examination was straightforward. She’d had a good beating but not life-threatening. It’s up to her if she chooses not to take the sedatives and sleeping tablets he suggested. Another ill-informed hippy isn’t his problem. She can always try her own GP for some alternative therapy.

He ponders for the nth time why he remains a police surgeon, calculating an exponential rise in his job dissatisfaction. Of course the profession has its value. Its contribution is not without merit. Someone has to treat traumatized victims and assess prisoners keen to feign illness.

He’s a strategist, a mathematician, a man of reason – and speculation. It’s a case of horses for courses. The creases in his face deepen into a grin. He marvels at his gift for irony. Police duties take him away from his real work, although he has to admit that the income is useful. The allowance and expenses – thank the Lord for travel claims and a DCI who doesn’t probe them.

Only Mary probes. In the early years of their marriage, he tried to explain the nature of his empirical investigations. But she isn’t a scientist. He has no time to listen to her weakminded debates and to counter her abstract reasoning. He’s taken the pragmatic line and concealed his research, continuing in secret to build the necessary experience to achieve results.

He scans the page again. He must have missed it. He drains his cup. His head begins to ache but he forces the print back into focus. Suddenly, there’s The Evidence. Yes, The Evidence, but are the conditions viable? He snatches up a page of formulae and scribbles in the numerical values. The first equation balances. Now to manipulate the figures on the second one. Adrenaline starts its familiar stampede around his body. One more test needed, then it will be irrefutable. He roots through a pile of charts and diagrams and retrieves some graph paper. Hand shaking, he plots the data and joins the crosses. There it is, a straight line. Better than he’d dared hope. Perfect positive correlation. It’s incontrovertible. After so many challenges – not sacrifices, as Mary called them – here is the eureka moment.

With his eyes fixed on the newsprint, his right hand opens his top drawer and his left dials the sacred number.

It takes an age to be answered. Such impudence. He has an urgent theory to verify.

At last. “The name is Tarnovski. I have an account.” He takes the whisky bottle out of the drawer and refills the cup.

“What limit?… I can’t hold. There isn’t time.”

During the silence on the phone line, he strains to make sense of the buzzing sounds from his radio.

“I see. And you can’t override it? I’m a long-standing account holder … Well, of all the nerve. Wait a minute …” Another confounded woman who doesn’t understand the science. He slides open the top drawer again and removes a debit card from underneath a second, empty, bottle. It slips in his clammy fingers.

“It’s the eleven thirty at Lingfield. I want to place …” He hesitates as another, weaker, force tugs against his resolve: Sara’s gap-year fund. But he’ll be more than able to replenish it. And retrieve his wristwatch from the pawnbrokers. A statistician of his standing doesn’t miscalculate.

“I want to place £800 on number five, The Evidence.” He drains his cup again. It’s an absolute constant, a dead cert.

Chapter 6

Still feeling flushed after the meeting in the mortuary, I take off my jacket and clutch it to my stomach as I follow DI Bagley into the interview room. Gaby Brock sits at the table holding a plastic beaker. She looks like a battered baby. The forensic suit she’s been dressed in is way too big and she stares out of her swollen face with wide eyes. She seems unaware of our arrival and equally oblivious to the arm around her shoulder. It belongs to the large, sobbing woman beside her. The woman looks up as we sit down opposite. I drop my jacket over the chair.

“Thank you for coming in at this difficult time, Mrs Brock. We’re sorry for your loss. I’m DI Bagley. This is DC Adams.”

“I’m Linda Parry,” the large woman says, “Gaby’s sister-in-law, Carl’s sister.” She swallows hard.

Bagley ignores her. “I need to ask some questions about this morning. Are you up to it, Mrs Brock?”

Gaby Brock blinks her doe eyes.

Bagley seems to take this as a yes and presses on. “Can you tell us what happened?”

Gaby’s pale mouth remains closed for a moment, apparently still frozen by her ordeal. When she finally speaks, her voice is soft and pretty – like honey. It doesn’t seem right for a voice like that to come out of such a damaged face.

“We were asleep in bed,” she says. “Two men burst in and dragged us downstairs. One of them punched me in the face and I fell. The other grabbed my arms and pulled me up again.”

“Can you describe these men?”

She blinks again as if searching the images in her head for the faces of her attackers. “They were black,” she whispers eventually, “and big.”

“How old were they?”

This time her pause is so long that Linda Parry squeezes her shoulder and prompts, “Come on, Gaby, love. You can do it.”

I see Gaby wince. The shoulder squeeze must have hurt. It’s a stark reminder that, although the face pummelling is there for all to see, there are other injuries hidden under the forensic suit.

“Well, Mrs Brock? How old were your attackers? Teenagers? Twenties? Thirties? Older?” Impatience steals into Bagley’s voice.

Gaby’s hand tightens on the empty plastic cup. Somehow she’s managed to consume an entire outpouring from the interview suite coffee machine. The trauma must have affected her taste buds.

Gaby’s answer rolls out at the same hesitant pace as her previous ones. “They weren’t kids, but I don’t know how old.”

Bagley studies the woman’s face, weighing up her reliability as a witness. “What were they wearing?”

“I couldn’t see. It was dark.”

“You mean they didn’t turn the lights on?” she asks, more irritation creeping in.

How long ago did the DI attend the Dealing with the Traumatized Victim course, I wonder. Do they offer refreshers?

Gaby shakes her head slowly. “They shone torches in our faces. And I was too scared to look at them.”

“Did you see their hair? Was it long or short?”

“They wore hats. Woollen ones.”

“Balaclavas?”

“No, I don’t think so, but I couldn’t see. I’m not sure.”

“Did they say anything?”

Gaby Brock blinks again and her sweet voice cracks. “They told Carl to get a chair and chain me to it. One punched me on the shoulder and I fell back into the chair.”

Linda lets out a sigh and tightens her arm around Gaby. I turn away, not wanting to see Gaby Brock flinch again.

DI Bagley ignores Linda once more. “Did you notice any kind of an accent?”

There’s another pause as Gaby considers her answer. “I think one was local and one was sort of West Indian.”

“And they brought the chains with them?”

Gaby’s body tenses as if reliving the memory. “They brought metal chains and handcuffs. They made Carl tighten the chains around me and handcuff my arms to the chair. They gave him the keys and told him to put them in my pocket.” She taps her chest to indicate the spot where her pyjama pocket had been. “Then they took Carl away.” Her words are faint and slow.

Her eyes are watery, empty. Victim’s eyes. Victim … Still living, still breathing but a victim nonetheless … No one could know how that felt except another victim … The hairs on my arms bristle but I won’t go there. I concentrate on the interview.

A thought comes to me but I’m not sure of my role. Does Bagley want me to remain the silent trainee or should I take part in the interview?

“Did they say anything else?” Bagley asks.

Gaby Brock takes a deep breath. “They said to Carl, ‘You need a lesson of your own, teacher’.”

“He was an English teacher at Swan Academy and a damned good one,” Linda explains. She pats Gaby’s hand. “Everyone liked him, even the kids.”

I think of the literature textbooks on the Brocks’ bookcase.

“And the kidnappers definitely called him ‘teacher’?” Bagley asks.

Gaby lowers her head, too weary even to nod. My heart races. Dare I ask my question?

“Would you recognize the men again?” Bagley continues.

“Maybe but – I don’t know – it was dark. The torchlight in my face … I couldn’t see …”

As the woman’s voice tails off, I expect Bagley to fill the silence. When she doesn’t, my question pops out.

“How did your husband cut his hand and get the bruising? Was it during the assault?”

Bagley’s jaw tightens at my interruption but she looks at Gaby Brock, waiting for the answer.

“His hand?” Gaby’s eyes glaze over and she seems to retreat into her private thoughts. “I don’t know. I don’t think he tried to fight them off. How could he? He might have done something to his hand at school, but it hardly matters now that he’s …” Gaby shakes her head. Her right cheek is black, and a purple blotch, visible through her thin fringe, spreads from her left temple across her forehead into her hairline.

Bagley lets out a small, defeated sigh. “That’s all we’re going to ask you at the moment. I want you to look through some images later to see if we can identify your attackers but for now you can leave the station. Where can we find you?”

“She’s staying with me,” Linda says. “I’m not having her go back to that house.”

“Good. I can’t let you go home anyway, Mrs Brock. It’s a crime scene. We’ll be doing an appeal to the public, so it would help if we had a recent photo of your husband. If you tell me where to look, I’ll send an officer into your house to get one.”

“Photo,” Gaby echoes as if she’s never heard the word before. I cast my mind over the barren walls and tables of the Brocks’ lounge. Photography does seem to have been an alien concept to the couple.

Linda Parry comes to her sister-in-law’s rescue, offering to provide something from one of her own family photo albums. DI Bagley closes the interview with a cursory “thank you” and stands up.

I follow her to the door and look back at the two women. “Goodbye,” I say. “It was nice to meet … I’m sorry for … Goodbye.”

DI Bagley speeds along the corridor. “I want you to join DS Matthews in Forensics. See what they’ve got so far. Good question, by the way, well done, but no need to be overfamiliar with the witnesses. This is a murder inquiry.”

“Yes, ma’am, thank you,” I say to the back of the gingham skirt as it disappears through the door at the end of the corridor. I can’t help grinning to myself. I’ve asked my first question in CID and, despite it coming out in a gabble, the inspector was impressed. Not that the answer told us anything. The cut hand is still a mystery. Dr Spicer has already said there’s no other sign of a struggle, so Gaby’s vague suggestion of an injury at school simply confirms that it didn’t happen during the attack at the house. At least both sources are consistent, making it likely that Gaby Brock is telling the truth. I all but tap dance along the corridor. Things are looking up.

“DC Adams,” a voice booms behind me. “Hoped I’d catch up with you. Everything going well, is it?”

I spin round to see the advancing hulk of Detective Chief Inspector Hendersen, the chairman of my interview panel. So huge in his tweed jacket that I think he must have at least two more on under it. He moves at quite a speed for a man of bulk, jowls flapping. A rhino charge? Or a Saint Bernard dog?

“Very well, sir, thank you,” I manage.

The DCI catches up but doesn’t speak again. The silence unnerves me and I fill it with basic facts about the case. The longer he remains mute, the more disjointed my explanation becomes. While my mouth moves, my brain wills him to talk. His eyes are boring a hole in my middle. The dreadful realization dawns that I’ve left my jacket on the chair in the interview room. I’m standing in front of a senior officer exposed in my royal blue T-shirt.

DCI Hendersen’s gaze takes in every letter of the sparkling silver Boogie Babe motif before moving on to the Barbie girl below it. After what seems like an age, he resumes his military bellow. “Jolly good work so far, DC Adams, but remember this is a police station not a night club. CID is the plain-clothes branch. How would it be if I pitched up in my pyjamas?”

My eyes hit the ground in search of a gaping hole to swallow me up, royal blue T-shirt and all.

“Carry on, detective constable, carry on.” He strides past me, muttering to himself, “And they expect us to take them seriously.”

Chapter 7

After retrieving my jacket, I join Matthews in Forensics. Blood pounds in my cheeks. How could I have undermined my credibility with the DCI on my first morning in the job?

Matthews is sitting with a man who has the same air of scientific inquisitiveness as Dave, the forensics officer I met at the Brocks’ house.

The man grins. “I’m Steve Chisholm. You must be Agatha. I’ve been hearing all about you.”

Same appearance and same sense of humour. Thanks again, DS Matthews.

The room is a jumble of desks, each with its own spaghetti tangle of telephone and computer cables. Two or three small, heavy-duty suitcases of forensic equipment lie on the floor. I wheel a swivel chair over and sit on the edge, trying to slide my back down to their level. I daren’t touch the handle to alter its height. Landing spread-eagled on the floor is the only indignity the day has so far spared me, but I still have the afternoon to endure.

Evidence bags litter Chisholm’s desk. Matthews has his notebook open.

“Steve’s going through the forensics for both crime scenes,” he explains. “Dave’s team has scarpered back to Briggham.”

“Did you know that it’s the fifth fatal stabbing in Brigghamshire this year, but only the second kidnap?” Steve says. “Quite a puzzle for you. Good job you can call on forensic science.” He points at two large see-through bags. One contains a heavy metal chain and the other holds a set of handcuffs. “We got these from the lads at the Southside crime scene. We’ve only found one set of fingerprints.”

“Anyone we know?” Matthews asks.

“Definitely not the wife’s. So, if she did handle the chains, she would’ve been wearing gloves.” Steve grimaces. “But there were no gloves anywhere near the lounge where she was found.”

“She says the assailants got her husband to chain her up.”

“We’ll get the prints off your corpse. If they match the prints on the cuffs and chains that would fit with her account.”

Matthews holds up a bag containing two small keys.

“We got a partial on one of those,” Steve says, taking the bag. “The prints were smudged.” He shrugs. “Not unusual on something like this.”

“I take it they do fit the cuffs?”

“One key for the cuffs, one for the padlock on the chains. It was a pretty sick joke, putting the keys to unlock them in the pocket of her pyjamas – these pyjamas.” He lifts another bag. “Mrs Brock was wearing them when we found her.”

DS Matthews takes the bag, looks at it and passes it to me. The pyjamas, folded with the top pocket visible, are like something I’d buy in Marks & Spencer. Paisley pattern, lemon and white winceyette. I have a pair like them for winter.

“And that’s about it,” Steve says, retrieving the pyjamas. “We couldn’t find anything in the bedroom. There were a couple of bits of rubbish on the lounge carpet. This piece of cotton thread and a fragment of toilet tissue.” He points at the relevant bags on the desk. “The other thing of significance might be this.” He passes round a small bag containing a single black hair. “It’s hair uprooted from a human head, probably IC3. We’re working on the DNA, so if you find your suspects we may have evidence which places one of them at the house.”

“Let’s have the DNA as soon as you’ve got it,” DS Matthews says. “The chances are they’ve both got previous.”

Steve nods, closes the file on the desk, and slides it to one side. He pulls another manila folder towards him. “Moving on to the murder scene at Martle Top. The boys are taking the car apart as we speak. Lots of prints everywhere, especially on the steering wheel, which match the prints on the handcuffs. So probably the husband’s.” He flips the new file open. “Also a few of the wife’s prints, as you’d expect in the family car. But there’s at least one other set. The boys are looking for DNA.”

“What about this?” DS Matthews points at the bag containing a large knife, the blade partially obscured by dried crusts of blood.

“No prints on the handle. That would be too easy. We’ve taken a blood sample to match to the victim. A foregone conclusion, I’d say.” He lifts a bag containing a large pair of black and white trainers. “We also found these shoes in the footwell of the driver’s seat. We think they belonged to the victim. I’ll confirm this as soon as I can.”

“Brock was barefoot when we found him,” Matthews says. “If they’re his, he was probably wearing them on the way to Martle Top and took them off before he got out of the car or was dragged out. But why would two brutal killers get into his house, pull him out of bed and then let him stop to collect his trainers?” He rubs his chin and pauses. “Or did he always keep them in the car?”

“You tell me, Mike. You’re the detective. But if they wanted him to drive the car, they might have let him put something on his feet.”

Despite the run-in with Hendersen, I have a residue of confidence left over from the interview with DI Bagley. I interrupt. “Was anything else found in the ditch near the body?”