Dead Wrong by Helen H. Durrant

to Ruth that he’d either been in the job too long, or he wasn’t cut out for it. He had no sympathy, no compassion for the kids in his care. With a man like him at the helm she could understand only too well why this place was the pits.
    Before she left, Ruth popped her head round the staffroom door. “Detective Sergeant Bayliss,” she announced to the two or three teachers taking a quick break from the fray. “I’ve been speaking to Mr Deacon about an incident that happened here a few years ago. Before I leave I wondered if any of you could help.”
    “Cold case, is that it?” A young man looked up from his marking.
    “No, I’m actually investigating a current case.” She smiled at him as she flashed her badge. “The old incident I’m on about is more in the nature of background.”
    “That would be the Morpeth boy, then?” A voice called from the back of the room. “I always knew that would rear its ugly head again. Those bastards might have got away with it at the time but they didn’t fool me.”
    She was in luck.
    “You were here then, sir?” Ruth took out her notebook.
    “Yep, I most certainly was, and more to the point I was one of the first on the scene. I did give a statement at the time — it’s all in there.”
    “I’ve still to look at the paperwork, but I’d like to speak to you, if you don’t mind.”
    “Okay, I’ve got a little while before my next class.”
    “Why don’t you think it was an accident?”
    “Accident my . . . eye. Guilty as sin, the pair of them; but they were clever, played the innocent. You do know who I’m talking about, don’t you. Bloody Edwards and Hurst — a pair of murdering tearaways who played the system and damn well got away with it. You’ve no idea what it was like seeing that poor boy lying there, dying. He was at the foot of the staircase and from the severity of the injury to his head, it was assumed he must have gone headlong down the entire flight.”
    “And you are?”
    “Jake Ireson, Head of English.” The man extended his hand.
    He was nice; pleasant-looking with dark hair that was worn a little long. His brown eyes crinkled at the sides when he smiled and he had a slight tan. Perhaps he’d been away during half term. He looked like the type of man born to the job; safe, not too trendy. He was even wearing a tweed jacket — which almost made Ruth giggle. Ruth could imagine him teaching English and loving it, poring over Shakespeare with his class. No doubt making them all fall in love with it too.
    “I’m making coffee. Want some?”
    “That would be nice, thanks.”
    “Take a seat. Make yourself comfortable.”
    “So you still think it was deliberate, even after all this time?”
    “I certainly do. Those two were evil then and things haven’t changed since. They’ve got worse in fact. These days they are responsible for all the drug dealing we have to cope with. You should see what goes on outside the school gates over the average lunchtime — packages and cash changing hands second by second. The pair of them are rotten to the core. You’ve no idea what they put the poor Morpeth boy through, no one has. He never told anybody; he couldn’t you see. He had problems speaking. And they were persistent little devils; every day they went at him with their taunts and bullying. And I mean real bullying. I saw the bruises.”
    “They’ve both been murdered, Mr Ireson. Edwards and Hurst have both been found dead in quite dreadful circumstances. That’s what I’m investigating. I’m not here to re-examine the circumstances of David Morpeth’s death. I’m trying to build a picture of them both, of how they operated. I’m trying to understand what would motivate someone to do what they did to them.”
    “Murdered! I don’t know what to say. Probably no more than they deserve. Part of me is sorry, of course — they were both pupils of mine. I was their year group tutor and got to know them both well. But murder . . . that’s