‘Yes, of course. Like I say, maths and science. Then there was the ballroom dancing. That’s how she knew Mr Allam.’
‘Ballroom dancing?’
‘It sounds a bit daft now, I know, but we used to organise dancing lessons in the gym at Naish House. Mr Allam would bring the boys over from St Joseph’s and there’d be an hour of waltzing and what have you. It was a life skill, useful for them to learn. And the thinking at the time was that it would be good for the boys and girls to mix a bit, under supervision, you understand. These were ten- and eleven-year-olds, remember.’
‘How often was this?’
‘Weekly, I think. We’d see them at church too. Every Sunday morning we’d take the girls down to St Andrew’s and the boys from St Joseph’s would be there, sometimes with Mr Allam. You’d see them walking crocodile-fashion along Berrow Road.’
The whole of the wall behind the television was taken up with framed photographs, some black and white, but mostly colour; grainy all the same, which gave away their age. Various school photographs, the girls lined up outside the school; several of hockey matches on the beach, netball in a gym, school plays.
‘The older you get, the more time you have to spend thinking about the past,’ said Mrs Rosser, watching Dixon examining the pictures.
Time for another change of subject. ‘How well did you know Michael Allam?’
‘Not very well. He was always “Mr”, never “Michael”. It was a professional relationship. Nothing more.’
‘What about Deirdre Baxter?’
‘The same, as far as I’m aware. He was married anyway, I think, if that’s what you’re asking?’
‘And there’s no possibility that Deirdre and Michael had a relationship without you knowing?’
‘Yes, it’s possible, I suppose.’
‘Would she have told you if they were seeing each other?’
‘Possibly; possibly not. Maybe we weren’t as close as I thought? Who knows, after all this time?’
‘But you never saw anything that gave you reason to think they might have been?’
‘No. I’d have asked her outright, if I had.’ Mrs Rosser gave an embarrassed grin. ‘I could be a bit of a nosy devil, back then.’
‘Where were you living at the time?’
‘I started off in rooms in the school, but when I got married we lived in a house on the Berrow Road.’
Dixon lifted a framed picture off the wall, a black and white photograph of the cast of what looked like a pantomime, judging by the costumes. Boys and girls in it too, definitely.
‘That was a joint production of Aladdin,’ said Mrs Rosser.
He checked the picture again, noticing the lamp this time.
‘Maybe 1978, or something like that. The date will be on the back of the photograph, if it’s important,’ continued Mrs Rosser. ‘I directed it – jointly with their English teacher, Brian Laparge, from memory.’
‘Do you recall a production of Old King Cole?’
‘No.’ Mrs Rosser shook her head. ‘I started at St C’s in 1964, so it might have been before my time, I suppose.’
Dixon was hanging the picture back on the wall. ‘A girl is said to have fallen off the stage and broken her neck.’
‘That’s a myth,’ replied Mrs Rosser. ‘It was supposed to have been the stage in the old gym at St Joseph’s – it’s a care home now and the gym was knocked down to make way for more accommodation. I heard the story several times, but it wasn’t true.’
‘A ghost story?’
‘The older children used to tell it to the younger ones, just to scare them. This was St Joseph’s, you understand, not St C’s, but I heard it when we were there for Aladdin. St Joseph’s hadn’t gone co-ed by then, so if it happened it would have been one of our girls and I would certainly have heard about it, even if it was before my time. We had one girl, many years before I got there, die in a horse riding accident, and I knew about that.’
‘And there were no rumours about Deirdre and Michael Allam.’
‘There were certainly no rumours at St C’s that Deirdre was having an affair. There may have been at St Joseph’s that he was having an affair, for all I know.’
Dixon looked at Louise and nodded in the direction of the door.
‘Can I ask a question before you go?’ asked Mrs Rosser.
‘Of course.’
‘How were they killed? It didn’t say on the television news and your colleague didn’t mention it when she rang.’
‘They were both strangled, I’m sorry to say,’ replied Dixon.
‘Am I in danger?’
‘We’ve certainly got no reason to believe so, but then I would have said the same about Deirdre and Michael Allam if you’d asked me forty-eight hours ago.’
‘I’ll get my daughter to come and fetch me, in that case. She did offer.’
