Joe grew tense. “So, what are you saying?”
“That, at first look, all these disappearances are accompanied within certain loose time limits by considerable payments to the school.”
“Through the reigns of three headmasters? Can they have been aware?”
“No way they can’t have been aware, sir. They must all have thought it above board.”
“So the three heads were all happy to accept the donations-were comfortable enough with them to put them straight into the school accounts, which I see are lodged with perhaps the most prestigious bank in London. Do we interpret them as kind gestures? Some of these fathers may well have been-usually are-alumni of the school themselves. And, wealthy men that they are, they show their gratitude or assuage their embarrassment by making a hefty donation. Some schools couldn’t continue in business without such support.”
“You’re right, sir. My own father made a similar if more modest gesture when I left my prep school, and I never set anything alight.” He sighed and sat back on his heels. “Worth going on with this trawl, then, sir?”
“Oh, I think so. Check all the dates we have suspicions of. Just in case.”
Gosling continued to rustle his way halfheartedly through the sheets, collating the dates in the black book and ticking off names on a pad he kept close by him.
Narrowing his eyes, Joe went to look over his shoulder. “You’ve missed one. What’s this?” he asked, pointing. “This large sum coming in. Two thousand pounds. Can you trace it to source?”
“No. None of them. You’ll need a warrant to get a sight of the bank’s details, sir, to get hold of any names. You’ll have to go back to London for that. Um, this one did catch my eye but, look, it’s outside the dates we’ve been looking into. It’s larger than the others. The kind of sum a rich old codger might leave as a legacy. It can’t be connected.”
“Everything’s connected. What’s the date of the entry?” Joe persisted.
“It’s very recent. Just a week before Rapson died.” Gosling turned a concerned face to Joe. “Now, would someone be paying good money to have Rapson topped, I wonder?”
“Mmm. He was up to no good-I think he was paying out regular sums of his own as blackmail. Could this be linked in some way? But it’s all the wrong way round and a sum like that, it’s out of the league of bookies, local casino sharks and thugs of that nature. You can hire a top hit man from London to attend to your needs for fifty quid. What kind of service will cost you two thousand? Total massacre of the royal family? What’s he been meddling with that earned him a knife in the ribs?”
“And why pay the school? I can’t see Farman banking his cheque and rushing out with a freshly sharpened steak knife to earn his fee and then spend it on Persian carpets for the combination room.”
Gosling got up and came to look once more at the nine cutout faces. “I’m not entirely sure why Rapson got his scissors out and did this, sir. This little gallery.”
“Aide mémoire?”
“A list would have sufficed. He didn’t need to keep their poor little faces close. He was no sentimentalist. He’d caught onto something shady in the disappearances, we’re agreed on that much. Could he have been doing a little blackmailing on his own account, do you suppose?”
“Slapping these down on someone’s desk and snarling, ‘I know your secret, Mr. X!’ ”
Gosling jumped and looked up sharply. “That would work with me but, sir! I’ll tell you something that would really scare the shit out of me if I had something to hide!”
Alarmed by his lieutenant’s anxious face, Joe asked quietly, “Tell me.”
“These are cut out of large, stiff prints. Can you picture the remaining photograph after Rapson had done his bit of scissor-work? You’d have a normal-looking piece of card portraying twenty or so little boys, and then your eye would light on the gaping hole where a face should be?”
“Good Lord! Imagine getting one of those through the post! Did he post them? Where are the outside bits, Gosling?”
“Give me a minute to root about in the store. Bound to be copies in there.”
Gosling shot off, and Joe heard him moving boxes about. Finally he emerged, grinning. “Got ’em!”
They fell on the brown envelopes encasing the series of photographs.
“They seem to have kept two copies of each class each year,” Joe commented. “So, as a test year, 1921-Peterkin’s year-will contain … here we are. One copy!”
Gosling had moved on to the back of the file and pulled out a slimmer envelope. And, triumphantly: “Where do you hide a stolen sheep? In with the herd! Here they are-the doctored copies. He hadn’t got around to sending them off in the post, apparently.”
He pulled out the top one. “Oh, my!”
The sight of the photograph with its calligraphed “St. Magnus Preparatory School” followed by a helpful date was, at first glimpse, prim and ordinary. Then the eye was drawn to the gap in the middle of the second row of boys, the black hole into which a child had sunk. The effect was sinister in the extreme.
“I think I’d get the message, wouldn’t you, sir, if I opened this at the breakfast table.”
Gosling pulled out all the sheets and riffled through them. “Yes, the dates correspond with the gallery.” He began to slide them away.
“A moment! Hand them over!”
Joe took them from him and looked at them more carefully, checking the backs of each for scribbled notes or names and finding none. As he got to the end he looked up. “Gosling! Tell me again-how many faces? Nine? It’s nine, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Why?”
Joe counted the sheets. “Because there are ten sheets here. Ten.”
He came around the desk and joined Gosling on his knees, laying down the pile of stiff pieces of card between them. He turned them over until the surface of the last one showed itself. This was intact. Untouched. No gap signifying disappearance. They stared at the rows of shining faces, unable to speak.
Gosling finally broke the silence. “Sir. You recognise this class, I think?”
“It’s year 1932. The current year. Taken last September.” Joe pointed with a shaking finger to the familiar fair hair and bright expression in the centre of the back row. “And this is my nephew’s class. That’s Jack Drummond.”
CHAPTER 17
The two men got to their feet.
“Steady on, sir!”
Gosling turned to him and Joe felt his elbow gripped by a large hand.
“He’s all right! He’s with Miss Joliffe. They’re right next door in the old morning room. Remember? You were quite happy to leave him in her care.” And, feeling Joe’s muscles tense: “I say, would you like me to go and check on Drummond? Sir!”
The response came at once, fast and brutal. With a yell and a thud, Gosling crashed to the floor, knees and chin grinding into the oak floorboards under the pressure of Joe’s knee in his back. An iron grip wrenched his right arm upwards, fingers closed around his neck probing for and finding a lethal pressure point. Gasping with terror, he signalled submission, banging frantically on the floor with his free left hand. In all his bouts, this resulted in instant release from a hold, a graceful recovery and an exchange of smiling bows.
The flapping hand was instantly trapped and crushed under the assistant commissioner’s left knee, and a voice grated in his ear: “No rules here. You lose consciousness in ten seconds. Where is he?”
“Told you! Next door!”
The pressure increased, and Gosling’s forehead clunked onto the floor.
“Clown! I’m not talking about Drummond. Where’s young Spielman?”
Joe felt the resilient young muscles he was restraining turn to marshmallow at the name, but he retained his hold.
“Spielman! Oh my God! No! Under our noses! Let me up! Now! Five hours! He’s been gone five hours. He could be anywhere.” And, desperately: “Stop farting about, sir, and I’ll do whatever you want!”