A Hint of Death (A Bob Skinner Short Story) (Kindle Single) Read Online Free PDF Page A

without her being hurt any further. If our informal fine is the only weapon we have, then so be it. There’s some justice in that.’
    ‘I’ll talk to him. If he agrees to write off the money, that’ll be the end of it as far as I’m concerned … provided that you give me your word you’ll leave it at that too.’
    ‘I never want to see the man again.’
    ‘Then make sure you don’t.’
    ‘I’ll move Crawford to another school.’
    ‘There won’t be any need for that,’ Haddock told her, firmly. ‘He’ll be resigning. I couldn’t let him continue as a teacher, knowing what you’ve made me believe.’
    ‘Can you make him do that?’
    ‘On my own, probably not. But I won’t be alone when I see him; I plan to bring in the heavy team.’
    He rose and she walked him to the door. They were in the hall when the phone rang. ‘Hold on,’ she said, picking it up.
    ‘Mum,’ she exclaimed, ‘what …’ As he watched her, the detective sergeant saw her face go deathly pale, she dipped at the knees and clutched the hall table for support. ‘I have to go,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll be over when I can.’ Her hand shook as she put the phone back in its cradle.
    ‘What?’ Haddock asked, her fear infecting him.
    ‘It’s Hazel,’ Tammy Jones gasped, as the first tears coursed down her cheeks. She was trembling violently. ‘She’s dead. Mum came in and found her lying in the kitchen, with her head smashed in. The police are there now. They’ve made an arrest. It’s …’ Her eyes rolled, and she fainted.

‘I hadn’t appreciated until now how instinctive our trust in our teachers is, at every level.’
    Bob Skinner’s expression was contemplative, but his tone was loaded with menace. Haddock had heard it before, and it had never gone well for the person lined up in his old boss’s sights.
    ‘Even Sauce, here, on his way to becoming a pretty decent detective once he does a bit more work on his objectivity: he still sees me as a mentor, and he trusts me enough to have come to me with this situation, after it blew up in his face.
    ‘Yes, I’ll admit to you that I chewed his arse for having confused the roles of police officer and mediator, but in practice, he got it right … or would have, but for you, Mr Christie.’
    ‘Me?’ the man in the armchair exclaimed. ‘I couldn’t have known what …’
    ‘Stop right there!’ Skinner snapped. ‘Everything that’s happened is entirely down to you. It’s all your fault; nobody else’s. You’re a liar, you’re a phoney and you’re a fraud. You have no conscience. Your daughter is in police custody now, refusing to speak, after being found sitting beside the body of Hazel McVie, with the hockey stick she used to crush her skull lying on the floor beside her.’
    Christie buried his face in his hands. ‘Josey,’ he murmured.
    ‘You can chuck that, pal,’ the grey-headed cop told him. ‘It doesn’t fool me for a second.
    ‘Josey’s is yet another life you’ve ruined, just as you wrecked little Hazel McVie’s when you abused her, a pupil in your care.
    ‘
In loco parentis
, teachers are, in the place of the parent. On that basis, what you did to Hazel was almost incest. And she was only fourteen when it started. Man, the parent in me wants to smear you all over that wall. If DS Haddock wasn’t here I’d probably do just that.’
    ‘I’ll step outside if you like, sir,’ Haddock said, coldly.
    Skinner glanced at him. ‘No, stay here, Sauce; that would put us in the wrong … and also he’d recover too quickly. I have other plans for this one.’
    He looked down at the teacher. ‘Hazel’s sister told Sauce that she never recovered from what you did to her. You took an already introverted child, you fed her fantasies, and you used her as a sex object.
    ‘When it went wrong, you had your lady friend, your mistress, Mrs Andries, fix it for you, and afterwards you blanked the girl. The two of you filled her with the sadness that she