Free The School of English Murder by Ruth Dudley Edwards Page A

increased by the constraints on both of them. Amiss was as edgy about being overheard as Pooley, who had had the misfortune to have Romford arrive at his desk the moment he picked up the phone.
    ‘Thanks very much, Bob.’
    Recognising the agreed code, Amiss hung up.
    Pooley jumped up. ‘Yessir.’ He lost no opportunity to curry favour with Romford. He had let his contempt show once or twice in the early days and had a great deal of ground to make up — though not for much longer, he crowed internally.
    ‘Who’s Bob?’ asked Romford.
    ‘Er… my garage. Sorry, sir. I asked them to let me know when my car was ready.’
    Even Romford couldn’t find in this the substance for a homily on time-wasting. ‘Here’s a copy of my memo to the typing pool. You’ll see I’ve improved on what you drafted.’ Pooley skimmed the proffered document.
    ‘I think you’ll agree this shows we won’t stand for any nonsense.’
    ‘Oh, indeed it does, sir. Walk all over you if they got a chance, they would,’ observed Pooley absently.
    Romford nodded and walked away. He reflected with satisfaction on the way that young man was developing. You didn’t hear him going on with all that stuff about detective stories any more. Discipline was the thing. Nothing like keeping their noses to the grindstone to knock all that nonsense out of them.
    Luckily the table had been booked in the school’s name, so it took only a couple of minutes for the obliging receptionist to identify Amiss and bring him to the telephone. ‘Robert. Ellis. Can you talk?’
    ‘Sort of. Can you?’
    ‘Yep. Where did it happen?’
    Amiss leaned against the desk and kept his eyes on his lunch companions. ‘Hyde Park Corner.’
    ‘Time?’
    ‘Sevenish last night.’
    ‘How’s Rich taking it?’
    ‘Badly. Not in yet.’ Galina caught his eye and waved. ‘Sorry. Must go. Anything I should do?’
    ‘Nothing special. Except watch your back.’
    ‘I will. Bye.’ He smiled at the receptionist and sped back to his table. ‘Sorry, darlings. Honestly… mothers!’
    Galina smacked his wrist. ‘Ees naughty saying bad things about mothers; I am a mother.’
    ‘How am I supposed to think of you as a mother?’ And smoothly, Amiss drifted into the vein of empty gallantry that was fast becoming second nature.
    There were only four lines in the evening newspaper but they made things much easier for Pooley and his friend in Central. Having tipped him off, Pooley spent the afternoon chafing at his desk. He was immersed in routine work on an open-and-shut case: a domestic murder of such dreary brutality as to offer no stimulus of any kind.
    Mid-afternoon he decided to console himself by having a chat with Pardeep, the current object of his romantic fantasies. One of the tiny handful of Asian policewomen, she worked on Inspector Pike’s team and it was fortunate that Pike was a tolerant man, for Pooley’s visits were frequent and without professional justification . Nor was Pooley her only visitor, for even the most deep-dyed racist elements in MIR admitted that she was the best-looking WPC in the Met. Pooley, who prided himself on the purity of his love, believed himself to care more about her mind.
    ‘Tea?’
    ‘Could do.’
    They spent a companionable quarter of an hour swapping gossip, and then returned to work. Pooley went into his favourite daydream before catching sight of Romford and guiltily buckling down to his in-tray.
    By eight, when they met for a pizza, Doug Layton had a lot to tell. He had met with scepticism first when he had pointed out the news item to his sergeant, but he had been allowed to make a routine call to North-West to get details. The information that Ned Nurse was alleged to have behaved suicidally had incurred mixed reactions. The sergeant, who was determined to believe his death an accident, dismissed this. Nurse was a dozy old devil, he observed, and it would be just like him to ride under a lorry. Their inspector, on the other hand,