Fleet didn’t doubt it. He glanced again towards the woman at the front of the room. Even though she was busy at some task on her computer, Fleet had the impression she was watching his every move.

‘In the meantime,’ Harris went on, ‘I shall leave you to it.’

Fleet allowed the seconds to pass, then looked up.

The headmaster was still standing over him.

‘Is there something on your mind, Mr Harris?’

The headmaster came as close as Fleet had so far seen him to smiling. ‘There are many things on my mind, Detective Inspector. As I am sure there are on yours.’

It was an invitation for Fleet to reveal what those things might be – what he was doing here, in the library, rather than out chasing suspects or interrogating witnesses or whatever else the headmaster imagined would be more appropriate for a man of Fleet’s calling.

‘You will have to forgive me, Detective Inspector,’ Harris said, when Fleet didn’t respond. ‘But this is my first experience of being so intimate with the progression of an active police investigation. I admit I am curious as to your … methods.’

Now Fleet was the one to smile. ‘It’s just a little research, Mr Harris. I’d have thought you would approve. It’s not often you’ll find a policeman in a library, after all.’

‘No,’ said Harris, mirroring Fleet’s expression with a curl of his lips. ‘I don’t suppose it is. Perhaps that is why it strikes me as curious. Far be it for me to instruct you on how to do your job, but … Well. I would have thought that, given the circumstances, you would have more urgent lines of enquiry to pursue.’

The man was genuinely unsettled, Fleet realised. Was it just idle curiosity? Irritation, perhaps, that Fleet was poking his nose into the history of an institution Harris had come to view as his own. Or was it something more than that?

‘Thank you again for your assistance, Mr Harris. I won’t keep you. I know you must be busy. Even more so than usual, I’d imagine.’

Harris tightened his eyes.

‘Ben’s memorial service?’ Fleet clarified.

‘Ah.’ Harris’s expression seemed to cloud slightly. ‘Yes. I must admit the service is proving more time-consuming to arrange than I had foreseen.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, it … it seems to have turned into something slightly grander than I originally envisaged. There will now be several high-profile guests in attendance. Numerous trustees of the school. Various alumni. Including Callum Richardson.’

Fleet noted the headmaster’s evident distaste, and recalled what he’d learned from his conversation with Father Steiner. For a man like Harris, it must indeed have been galling to have to kowtow to a student, even one whose father was as rich as Callum Richardson’s. Twenty years on, the headmaster’s resentment clearly lingered.