‘Not at present, thank you, Mr Jones.’ Jazz stood up. ‘You’ve been most helpful.’

Miles was in the small classroom they’d been assigned, typing his notes up on his laptop.

‘Hello there, how are you getting on?’ he asked as he lifted his head from the screen.

‘Just come and look at these, will you?’ Jazz placed four small, round, white pills on the desk in front of her. ‘Don’t look too closely. From where you’re standing, do they all look the same?’

Miles nodded. ‘Absolutely.’

‘Now look closer and you’ll see that two of the pills are plain and two of them have numbers on them.’

‘Zero seven two,’ Miles read as he squinted at the tablets.

‘Adele Cavendish, Charlie’s mother, told me Charlie took two Epilim tablets each night just before he went to sleep. She was always worried Charlie would forget, so either Matron or the housemaster would come in every evening with the tablets and place them by his bed with a glass of water.’

‘Yes?’ questioned Miles.

‘Now, I’ve just been on to the pathologist who did the PM and he’s sure Charlie hadn’t taken his two Epilim tablets just before he died. There wasn’t enough of the substance in his bloodstream. The point is, if you had just arrived home from the pub and were getting ready for bed, would you notice that the two white pills you took every night of your life had a number on them? Or would you just grab them and swallow them back?’

‘So you’re saying that there’s a possibility Charlie’s epilepsy tablets were substituted?’

‘Yes.’ Jazz pointed to the two pills with the numbers on them. ‘They are aspirin, and those’ – she picked up a plain pill, then studied it – ‘are Epilim.’

They stared at the tablets in silence. Finally, Miles volunteered, ‘I think it’s almost certain he wouldn’t have noticed the difference.’

‘Plus, it would explain why, even though he knew they were deadly to him, Charlie took them. The pathologist estimated time of death as eleven thirty, only half an hour after Charlie signed back into Fleat House. The reaction to the aspirin would have taken effect almost immediately. And if I’m right,’ Jazz added ominously, ‘I’m afraid we’re looking at a murder investigation.’

Sebastian Frederiks, housemaster of Fleat House, had his living quarters just off the main lobby of the building. He used his sitting room to interview and entertain parents and children, and to host a variety of social evenings with the boys in his care.

To that end, it felt like a doctor’s waiting room: functional, with a couple of dralon sofas, a few ancient chairs whose cushions needed restuffing, and a desk facing out onto the quad in front. But, as Jazz thought when she walked in, there was nothing to give an idea of Sebastian Frederiks’s personal taste.

‘How do you do, Inspector Hunter?’ He offered his hand and gave hers a firm shake.

In his early forties, the housemaster had the body of a rugby player – Jazz knew from the list of teachers she had been given he was the head coach of the 1st XV – but he had the height to prevent his broadness from making him seem squat. He had blond hair, slowly greying at the temples, striking brown eyes and a set of slightly protruding white teeth.